Barbell Shrugged - The New Sportscenter of Crossfit w/ Armen Hammer — Real Chalk #60

Episode Date: January 29, 2019

Armen Hammer and I go way back to the early days of throwing barbells around. We've both been through some major transitions and seen a ton of changes happen in the CrossFit space. It's been a couple years, so we had a lot of catching up to do when we met up in Florida during Wodapalooza weekend.   After leaving the Wodcast Podcast, Armen worked for FloElite until they downsized. He saw an opportunity and set out to become the SportsCenter of CrossFit. You need the new format explained in layman's terms? Armen's your guy (there's another Waterworld reference here, so it's obviously important and if you haven't watched it by now, stop what you're doing and MAKE IT HAPPEN). And because he's not affiliated with CrossFit, he can curate his content however he likes, with complete unfiltered creative freedom. There's at least one perk of landing yourself on HQ's bad side.   We talk about social media, what the different platforms are ideal for, how Twitter should just die already, and what my MySpace looked like back in the day. Armen gives an update on what his fellow former Wodcast hosts are up to these days, and we take a trip down memory lane to the good old days with Ronnie Teasdale (he's selling sex cult memberships now). It gets a little weird from there, but what did you expect? This is a Real CHALK episode. 😜   -Ryan 0:00 🌴 Miami Beach is a real-life LMFAO music video, and the Ubers are garbage 3:45 🌴 Armen's Wodcast Podcast origins, how originality doesn't always translate into staying power 8:00 🌴 FloElite went sour, and now he does his own thing: YouTube, podcasts 9:00 🌴 Let's break it down: good content helps, but what drives traffic is tags (but you better already have an audience) 11:00 🌴 Armen is the middleman: he knows what's up with CrossFit and how to explain it to the layperson 21:00 🌴 The shelf life of great content: Instagram isn't google-able, YouTube is an index, and you should invest in a high-quality potato 30:00 🌴 How many subscribers is a lot? 33:00 🌴 The ad-pocalypse: you can see exactly how much money videos make you, and the big names have production teams 41:00 🌴 The early days of CrossFit (Ronnie Teasdale is selling sex cult memberships now, and Fisch doesn't hand out death threats so readily) 49:30 🌴 Don't call Fisch the CrossFit guy: how not to get pigeonholed 53:00 🌴 This is Armen's thing: YouTube lets you get paid to do ANYTHING 54:45 🌴 Weirdest thing you've ever searched on a porn site? And no, aliens didn't actually land in Ryan's childhood bedroom 1:01:30 🌴 What's Armen doing at Wodapalooza anyway, and how do you figure out who's up and coming these days? 1:06:30 🌴 What's up with the Wodcast guys? Scott hosts the Sisu Way, and Eddie's doing comedy and recording out of a bus 1:14:00 🌴 Let's talk about the reformatting: what's the "right" direction? Sports built from the ground up can't be controlled by a single entity—one-facet coverage is propaganda 1:18:30 🌴 Armen got kicked out of the Games—why keep being in a space where people don't like you? 1:21:00 🌴 It's just @ArmenHammerTV everywhere, but not really Twitter even though Donald Trump revived it. And armenhammer.tv on the internets. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc-hammer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please Support Our Sponsor: @bioptimizers: www.BiOptimizers.com/realchalk  “realchalk” to save 37%   ► 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

Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially back from Wadapalooza, Wad on the Waves, all these different places I was just at for the last like month pretty much, so it feels good to be home, feels good to be on the podcast with you guys right now. I'm excited to drop a few of these episodes that I got on my travels. So yes, I have a raspy little voice because I got sick, probably kissed too many ladies on the cruise, I'm not really sure. I'm not going to disclose that information, but you can imagine, right? Go ahead and imagine whatever you want. No, I'm just kidding. Anyway, I'm so ridiculous. I need to tell you right now that this episode is so rad because Armin not only hosted one of the first CrossFit podcasts

of all time called the WODcast podcast, but now he's like the new sports center for CrossFit. So he basically is giving you all the gossip. He's giving you all the new standards for how to get to the games, like what's going on with the open, is so-and-so moving regions. He's like the new CrossFit rulebook. And he gets things faster than anybody else. He's got all the connections. So if you want to know anything that's going on in CrossFit, he is the man that shows you all those things. And basically, he's turned his entire business into a YouTube channel. So by the time you get done listening to this episode, you'll know where to find him and you can watch him on YouTube and see all his cool stuff. He's super funny too. And you'll tell from being on the show that he's a genuine dude and he's super cool. And he flows even with the ridiculous things that I

say during this show, which are absolutely insane. You guys are going to die. I'm so excited to see what I get tagged in on Instagram. Anyway, before we get into the show, I'm going to go into our sponsors. They're the ones that make everything so pretty. Anyway, bio-optimizers, you guys know the deal. I post about them all the time. They're the ones that are giving you the enzymes to absorb more of your protein. It's so necessary because a lot of us just eat gratuitous amounts of protein, myself included. So a lot of us are just sitting down and just chowing on meat. And we have high fat diets, high protein diets. A lot of us are eating low carb. So you need these certain enzymes. The mass times ones are preferably my favorite one. and they're the ones that really make me feel a lot better than if I don't take them.

So I can tell you that the actual difference that I feel by taking them is drastically noticeable. I don't have the bloat in my stomach. I don't really feel overfull. I feel like it just breaks everything down. It makes me feel way, way better. The reason that their product is the way that it is, because they've been doing research on this for like probably longer than anybody else out there. And the research is showing that like more than 80% of the companies out there are giving you probiotics that are actually dead and they don't work at all. So with their company, they have studies online.

You guys can see and see that they're super legit. And you know me. I barely have sponsors on my show. So if I have them on here, you guys can trust me. One more product that they have in their quiver of things is called Gluten Guardian. And it's basically for those of you out there who love your cheat days. I know once a week, I love to go to the donut shop here and crush. So when I do, I take these Gluten Guardian pills and I feel way better. They're super legit. It's the same deal. I have the anti-guilt feeling in my stomach. It breaks things down. It makes me feel way better. And even the next morning, I feel like ready to crush.

You know what I mean? Ready to slay. So yeah, even if you get a product that you think is supposed to do something and it doesn't do that, they have a 365-day money-back guarantee and they'll swap out the product for you for free. Pretty sweet. Rogue Fitness has something similar to that with their equipment. So they're like the Rogue Fitness of supplements, I feel like. They're really, really good. You guys can get their stuff by going to biooptimizers.com. It's B-I-O, biooptimizers.com. So B-I-O-P-T-I-M-I-Z-E-R-S.com.

And you're going to use code CHALK, C-H-A-L-K, all caps, 20. CHALK20 will get you 20% off those mass times, the Gluten Guardian, and anything else on their website. I really hope you guys dig it. And if you do, let me know. Send me a little DM on there. And our second supplement sponsor that we have right now for myself is the 7 Point CBD. You guys have seen me post about them. CBD is something I've been like really kind of trying to test the waters with and see

which product is better because there's so many right now. It's like personal trainers. There's like, I'm a personal trainer. I'm a personal trainer. So everyone's got a CBD company. Anyway, with seven points CBD, S-E-V-E-N-P-O-I-N-T-S, CBD.com. With seven points CBD, I talked to the owner. They've been on the show. You guys have heard him. He has an amazing story. He will not settle for less than a quality product. And he also works out of my gym, which I give him full credit for because it's hard as fuck here.

And you got to want to be here. If you want to be here, then I will take your product. So not only that, but I have talked to him about him, where he sources it, and how much he cares about certain purities. And then with other people that I've talked to, they're just out there to make money. So if you guys go to 7pointcbd.com slash Real Chalk, you can automatically get a discount, or you can type in Real Chalk, all capital letters, Real Chalk, and get 20% off of your CBD products, which is insane because no one's even offering CBD discount codes these days.

Another thing that Real Chalk works for is if you guys go to crossfitchalk.com, click shop, all my eBooks, if you type in Real Chalk, you actually get 25% off all my eBooks. So the high intensity interval bodybuilding is crushing right now. The new dumbbell, 30 days of dumbbell book is, I cannot believe how good that's doing. It's like, it crushed my kettlebell book. So very interesting. A lot of people like dumbbells more than kettlebells, I guess. So if you guys go there, you can go ahead and download any of those books and you get 25% off just for being a listener of my show. So we're going to get into this podcast. I hope you freaking laugh so hard and I hope you learn so many things. Get ready to listen to me and Armin in the

Intercontinental hotel in miami florida it is going to be a blast all right chalk nation i am back this time i'm in a fancy hotel called the intercontinental and i'm in miami beach very very close to south beach and it's exactly i think what you imagine it would be it's hot as fuck um lots of cocaine lots of cocaine just just mountains of cocaine everywhere humongous booty cheeks that just just vibrate the ground as they walk correct it's very mesmerizing i would imagine the amount of car accidents in miami is much more than of other states i mean have you been in an uber the drivers are garbage out here.

Actually, my Uber from the airport, it said seven minutes away, and like 21 minutes later, it was still seven minutes away. Yeah. And I texted the guy, and I was like, cancel. I'm like, please cancel me.

I want someone else. And he's like, I know cancel. And I was like... I almost missed a flight here, leaving here because the guy who picked us up didn't listen to his GPS and tried to take us on a back route that he only knew and dropped us off within like 40 minutes of our flight taking off. And then they're upset that you don't speak Spanish. This guy was like mad. He's like, what?

I'm like, have you seen my skin my middle name is patrick does it look like i know any spanish at all i'm the whitest of whites like yeah i've seen so many black people in the next in the last like four hours that like it's it's been like more than four years of black people in california yeah well you also live in one of the whitest cities. I actually just realized that my life is so fucking white. Yeah. You're like a vanilla sundae. Yeah, it's like... You're like a pop.

That's how white you are. You're not a Coke. You're not like a soda. You're a pop. That's how white your life is. It's just pop. Very, very white. I didn't realize until I got here.

I was like damn like i have i see a black person like it's like it's like finding waldo in a book especially since you spend all i mean i'm not gonna say you spend all your time in a gym but you own a gym i do you cross the gym that you already have like cut that slice of the pie very fucking so we have 350 members i've had 400 at one point before, and we have two. Let me guess. I was going to say less than 1%. Two black people. Of course. There's your

demographic right there. Why does City of the World, why does Sport of the World? Please try to guess their names. I'm going to give you three shots. No way. I can't play this game. Yeah, we're going to get in trouble. I don't know. I'm just going to... Well, the one guy's name is Jerome. I was going to say Jerome.

I was going to say Jerome. Jerome is a good name. Which is really good. That's exactly it. I wanted to say Jerome. You're not ready for the second one. This guy's name is Parfait. No way.

Like the fucking yogurt. P-A-R-F-A-I-T. Yep, exactly the same spelling. Amazing. I was going to say Jerome because I was listening to this. I was listening to, I think it was Your Mom's House or maybe another podcast, whatever. But Tom Segura was on there. And he was talking about how he booked the Subway commercial that he was supposed to work with Jared.

He was supposed to be Jared's bad boy brother. But they gave him the name Jerome. And he's like, hey, I'm a white guy. That's a very black guy name. That's not going to work. And they're like, okay, you're right. How about Jermaine? He's like, this is not better. I have a white guy in my gym named Jerome as well. That's amazing. And he's super Jewish. What? Is that a Jewish name? Apparently. I mean, I don't know. Well, his last name is Schneider, which is super Jewish. Yeah, that is pretty Jewish. But his first name. All right. Well, besides race and being in Miami

and being very white in Miami, actually everything outside is white. It's very weird. It's a black place, but everything's white. Everyone's wearing white. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. So Armin is here on the show because I met Armin back in the day when i used to be really good at crossfit and i was on his show that he was part of called the wildcast podcast that's right which was uh debatably the first crossfit like it was definitely one of one of the first yeah it was basically barbell shrugged and us we launched within a month or so of each other and i remember listening to your guys's stuff all the time. It was like before podcasts, I think, were even really big. Yeah.

Like they were like there. Yeah, we were just a bunch of like weirdos sitting around talking into microphones and hoping other people would listen. I think it's so interesting how all – I'm just going to throw podcasts and YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and Twitter, I guess. I've never tweeted in my whole life. I've never looked at a tweet. I don't know what the fuck a tweet is. I don't want to know. It's another thing that I just don't want to spend time with.

But I'm going to throw all those under the social media umbrella, and I just think it's very interesting how one could be out longer than the other, and it doesn't necessarily mean that the other one is not going to come out on top at the end. Right. I mean, look at MySpace. MySpace was the original social network. Yeah, that was a terrible example it's like they're dead yeah it's dead it's absolutely yeah it's been around longest but it's so dead but i had a dope background song did you really what was it i had it changed with my mood okay fair and i had quotes like a bunch of different like very sexual quotes yeah as a

young kid. Well, of course it would be like, are those real? I want to ride my pony. Like things like that. Just lyrics. Like any genuine song that I thought were funny. Back that ass up.

Yeah. I mean, anything that had to do with R Kelly peeing on girls. Yeah. That's hilarious. Yeah. That was funny at the time. Now it's,

I mean, it's still funny, but now it's not as funny because it's – It's probably funnier in Miami. Pretty fucking predatory. It is probably funnier in Miami. So anyway, you went from that podcast and then what happened after that? So I – my brother and I owned a gym at that time. Yes, a gym.

We ran a gym for a while and then uh this company called flow elite flow i found me and they were like hey we need someone to be the editor for our site we stream crossfit events and a bunch of other stuff like just one channel on like a much larger network and uh they're like you're gonna have to move to austin texas though and as you know an armenian guy who was living with his parents at the time and had only ever really lived outside of the house for a few years during college, I was like, Austin, Texas, huh? Okay, I guess fine. And then like just kind of pulled the trigger and it was really cool. I worked for flow for three years and learned a whole lot about like video production

and what goes on in making all these different events actually happen and what goes on into making good content. And then early last year, so like mid-2018, it's now 2019, mid-2018, they downsized and got rid of like 55 people and I was one of those people. Oh, I didn't even know that. Yeah, yeah. And so it was pretty fucked, actually. I mean, like nobody – the people – I mean, listen, getting a company that lets go, like has to let go of a lot of people like that, the just bad decisions on the executive parts that just led them to, you know, this is our last ditch.

Like we have to basically do this. Were they mainly a CrossFit-based company? They weren't, actually. They still aren't. You know, CrossFit was just one of the sports they're involved in. They first started with wrestling. A lot of people who do any sort of like high school or college wrestling probably know them really well for flow wrestling but they also do you know softball gymnastics track and field cross country you know jiu-jitsu like you name it they're they're involved in it

um but they just you know they just spread themselves way too thin and even though everyone that got laid off was basically doing what they were supposed to be doing just wasn't the right bet for them at that moment. So it was good for me. I saw the writing on the wall a little bit before that. I was like, you know what? I think I can use this as a chance to just fucking roll the dice and make some content myself and see what happens.

And that's what I'm doing now. So now you're doing, you're strictly YouTube now. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't. Instagram too. Yeah, it's, I wouldn't. Instagram too. Yeah, it's YouTube and Instagram, my biggest platforms. I put out a lot of audio content as well. You know, the WODcast was my first podcast, but it was not my last podcast. Since then, I've probably had like five different podcasts.

Right now, I have like, I would say, two active podcasts that are like truly their own things. And then, um, a lot of the content I actually put on YouTube, uh, I, I cut it into audio only and I uploaded it as podcast episodes as well. And there's no video.

It's just like a, like a thumbnail and then it just plays, um, on, I mean on any sort of like, those are, those are just the podcast versions. Yeah.

But the, on, on YouTube, I, everything, everything has like a curated thumbnail and titles and tags and all this crazy stuff involved with it yeah how does that work so like coming from someone who just got into youtube like i'm just getting into it now and i don't even know because i hired someone to upload the videos and i don't even know what he puts into all those things yeah but like how important is that

for youtube like it's the thing it's the only thing that matters right it's like how you i would argue that the the at right now the actual content of your videos probably doesn't matter at all wow like that just starting to get like that helps don't get me wrong if someone sees something and they're like someone's gonna like word of mouth yeah that helps a ton but in order to get it to the right places, I mean, you're doing it in a coming from a good spot because you already have this big audience, right? Like you're not just some Joe Schmo starting a YouTube channel.

And if you're listening to this and you are just some Joe Schmo starting a YouTube channel, you're fucked. It's over. Like you're not, it's not going to happen. Like you just, you don't have the, you don't have the leg up. You don't have the right momentum. You don't have the right connections. You need those things in order to make it happen. It's like, you know, Ryan, you're coming from a place where you

have a couple hundred thousand followers on, on Instagram. You're pretty well known in the CrossFit space. And now generally in the fitness space, you know, as, as small as you look at like, okay, wow, like a couple hundred thousand people isn't really a gigantic amount of people. But when you look at the audience, that's a decent slice. It's enough to make a living off of just that Instagram, right? And on top of that, you have a successful gym. You know, you have the podcast. So you have an audience.

For you, YouTube is just another expression of the content that you're making. For someone starting off that doesn't have those things, it's going to be a lot harder for them to be successful. You know, for me, I started off and I had a small amount of followers on Instagram, maybe like 5,000 followers or 6,000 followers on Instagram. But I've been in the space for a long time. And the people who knew me knew me really well because they've been listening to me talk about CrossFit for like seven years at this point. this point so you know it's really easy for me to parlay that into like word of mouth like you know i just happened to get into this at the right time crossfit just fucking flushed the toilet on the regionals and games format and uh i was there to to you know pick up the pieces and just and start talking about that start talking about that i remember because like if you wanted to know what was going on with crossfit you were really the only one who

kind of knew oh yeah so like you were like kind of the person so like for those of you out there who may or may not know who armin is like you're kind of he kind of was like for the longest time like the middleman if you wanted to get dope information on crossfit and i think you still are i i would argue more than ever yeah that you are like the man for that right yeah because that what most of your videos are about yeah for sure and you know the the content that i put out do you try to get your information like first from people uh you know i i guess in a way kind of it's different because what i do is uh uh what i do is take the gigantic mass of shit, right? And I sift through that. You purify it so you can drink it.

Exactly. I turn it into like a three-minute video with just the information that you need. It's like the movie Waterworld. Yes, exactly. It's just like the movie Waterworld. It's like I'm using my weird mutant gills in the backs of my ears. I'm going to swim down to the bottom of the ocean and get dirt. And start purifying.

Exactly. I'm going to purify my own urine and drink it. If you guys haven't seen Waterworld with Kevin Costner, you need to get on that. It's like watching Dumb and Dumber or Tommy Boy. It's something that you just need to see. Except it takes itself very fucking seriously. It's an American classic. Yeah. It was so classic that it had a live show at Universal seriously. It's an American classic. Yeah.

It was so classic that it had a live show at Universal Studios. It's insane. It was crazy. Oh, man. Anyway, so that's what I do. I basically distill this mountain of information into need to know. And for me, that's super valuable because that helps me in what I like to do which is talk about this humongous crossfit audience still bingo there's a there's millions of people who give a shit about this who don't know i get so impressed like when i see someone on instagram like damn they have like

four million followers and i'm like well there is like four billion people out there that are interested in fitness yeah but then i'm like well there's not that are interested in fitness. Yeah. But then I'm like, well, there's not that many interested in CrossFit. And then I'm like, all right, well, nevermind because Katrin and Brooke and Sarah Sigmundsdottir all have a million followers. So like they don't have 4 million, like the regular fitness people, but they still hit a million, which means that there's at least a million people out there that would like to hear what you have to say. Sure.

And then now it's just finding them. Yeah, I think what's fascinating about that is the scale dilutes the brand in a positive way, maybe sometimes a negative way. But, you know, Tia, Katrin, Sarah, they can't just be CrossFit faces when they have a million followers because there aren't enough CrossFitters who give a shit to follow them for it to be be CrossFit faces when they have a million followers because there aren't enough CrossFitters who give a shit to follow them for it to be just CrossFit stuff. It's mostly CrossFit stuff, but they have to have a well-rounded brand to present to that many people.

Dude, once I started high-intensity interval bodybuilding, like once I started that, that's when my following grew exponentially. Of course. You get the regular joes who are like fuck crossfit and then you you basically fooled them into doing crossfit yeah and they're like oh that looked better than i've ever looked and you're like yeah gotcha bitch i basically do crossfit well sort of it's like it's interval weight training so there's like big cardio pieces and then the movements instead of a lot of snatches like in high impact stuff

it's just like deadlifts and bench and squats and like basic bodybuilding movements yeah but uh it's something i basically stumbled upon because my knees fucked up and i was like all right i just need to do like a smarter approach to this and i was like well i'm kind of still crossfitting and i'm kind of still doing this so i'm just gonna try to think of a name that i think is catchy hib and i was like hit is killing it even though hit doesn't sound good it's just like high intensity interval training, but everybody knows what it is. Sure. So now you'll see Hib and you'll be like, oh, that's Ryan's thing. And once that happened, I went from like 80,000 to 130,000 followers in like two months. Oh yeah. Just by focusing on that. I was like, damn. Well, you get, you get in front of the right people. Right. And that's what we were talking

about right before we started recording is like you know you know the buttons to push and you know the content to put out on instagram that is moving the needle for you and the hardest thing that you're gonna have to deal with is not getting distracted from that you fucking you know yeah so just keep doing that thing it does piss me off like when i'm in like because i think i don't know how many people out there know i mean i think most of them do like i'm not just like just a little meathead guy it's like i'm really into like mountain biking and hiking and surfing and like doing crazy shit all the time like i do everything and i'll post a photo of me like hiking a mountain that took me all day in switzerland and it's like the most

beautiful view in the whole world and i'll get like 1500 likes. Yeah. I could post like a selfie and it's 10,000. Right. As long as your abs are in it. Yeah. If the abs are in it, it's definitely way up there. I don't think I've ever done just a straight selfie. You know why that is?

So that happens because people see it, they interact with it and then it pops up on the feed. Yeah. Like not people following you. Like it comes up on like the trending feed or whatever. Because there's so many likes. Because there's so many people you're quickly engaging with it. Yeah, that's exactly it.

Even I get sucked into that shit. If I'm searching for someone particularly, like I want to go to this exact account, and I hit the search button, and it brings me up to that little feed of people I don't follow but things that Instagram somehow knows that I'm going to be interested in. There's always some sort of like super jacked dude. And I'm like, all right, fine. Fuck it. Let's see what this guy's all about.

Let's see what he's doing. And there it is. That's exactly what it is. And so. It is very interesting because I'm always like, I'm always thinking, I'm like, there's literally a dude that looks better than every dude out there. So there should just be like one dude that just has like a gazillion followers. But it's like, maybe he sucks. Maybe he he maybe his content's like maybe like you you watch

his like actual feed like his story and he's not cool he looks cool in all of his photos yeah it looks cool in all of his videos and i think that's the big thing that i try to tell people too is i'm like well it's not that like because a lot of people are like i don't think i could do this or whatever i have friends that have lot of people are like, I don't think I could do this or whatever. I got, I have friends that have a couple hundred thousand followers and they don't capitalize on it in any way, shape or form.

And I'm just like, and cause they don't think that they can. And I'm like, dude, people follow you for you. Like almost all the time. Yeah. That's the most valuable thing is you.

You know what I mean? So like, there's definitely people that look better than me with the shirt off, but they like something about the way that I talk and the way that I do my life that really brings them in. I think that a lot of people out there – You have small nipples. My nipples point down.

Very interesting. A lot of people always ask me, like, why do your nipples point down? I was like, I don't fucking know. You're like, get this jacked, bro. Get this jacked and your nipples will point down too. I'm just white from Newport. With my bicycle socks on right now. Hell yeah.

That are rainbow colored for all my gay followers out there. The whitest shit on the planet. I do have a lot of gay followers. I'm not surprised. You live in Newport. Yeah. And I don't know if localization... There's not a lot of gay people publicly there.

Not publicly gay. Not publicly gay. Not publicly, but privately. Orange County is, like, the gayest place on the planet. Really? Oh, it has to be, dude. Laguna Beach, I know, is for sure. Yeah, yeah. Laguna Beach is huge and gay.

So I graduated from UC Irvine, so I'm very familiar with that area. Are the Asian people gay? Probably not. Because Irvine is, like, 90% Asian. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it really is. I like Asian girls. Then you're in the right place.

I like all girls. So you guys can DM me anytime. Moving on. So when it comes to tagging everything on YouTube, is there like an unlimited amount of tags that you can do? And the tags aren't visible, correct?

The tags are not visible. Yeah. The tags are entirely for sort of like the indexing that happens in the background and i'm still playing around with this you know there's there's a lot of little tricks uh that i think people use that may or may not work and i'm i'm experimenting with it myself right one of the things that i've heard recently is on youtube what you want to do is tag all your videos with the name of somebody bigger than you much much bigger than you on youtube because then eventually somehow those things get like connected to one

another whether or not your content has anything to do with them um so that's i don't i haven't really seen that move the needle for me like that hasn't that has i haven't gotten like one video that i've tagged like someone else's name that get a million views or some shit but fuck dude i mean at this point it's the wild wild west for me at least maybe there's a lot of other people that have figured it out but i'm still trying to learn it and trying to figure it out. And I think the thing about YouTube is it's a completely different model, right? Where you understand Instagram, it may not succeed on YouTube. And so it's really important to know that you're coming into like a different space. You know, it's the same thing. Like how big is your Facebook?

Ah, fuck. Well, my actual Facebook, you can only have have 5 000 friends and i've been maxed on that for a while right and then there's my athlete page i want to say it's 15 000 right i think who cares is the real answer yeah because our audience is not on facebook yeah right well for my ads for my books and stuff i crush on facebook and i hate it i don't even want to be part of it. But you still have to like you still that still has to be part of your marketing game. Yes, it should. And that that is true. That is definitely true. But at the end of the day, your audience, I think the reason why it crushes on Facebook is because it has so much data on people who have you on Instagram. That's probably why and the audience that you're going after because the main content that you're putting out

is visual. I mean, people are interested in seeing and experiencing what you're going after, because the main content that you're putting out is visual. I mean, people are interested in seeing and experiencing what you're dealing with, right? And what you're doing. And the best way to do that is Instagram. YouTube has a different vibe to it, but it's still visual content. And I think that is an important distinction. Like, Facebook is not a great visual platform. Well, I was talking to somebody on one of my podcasts recently, and we were talking

about how YouTube just kind of like, it just has a longer shelf life. So like, if I post something super cool on my Instagram that I'm really impressed with, like it's like I made like this cool booty movement or like this thing that's going to get like these three things that are going to get you jacked or whatever, it's kind of like over and done with in like 24 hours. Maybe a couple days later you'll see it on your feed or whatever. But if you were to Google like Ryan Fisher this or that, that movement's not going to pop up on Google.

It's not going to bring you to that photo on my Instagram. Right. But it would if it was on YouTube. Yes. It would pop right up and it would kind of be there technically forever. Yeah. So individual posts on Instagram are not worth YouTube. Yes. It would pop right up. And it would kind of be there technically forever. Yeah. So individual posts on Instagram are not worth anything. Yeah.

They're not indexed like that on Google. Which is really sad. And I feel like if everybody who's big on Instagram right now realized that. YouTube would get flooded. Because everybody would be like fuck. That's right. And why isn't everybody on YouTube? Maybe.

But I think the difference is that youtube is meant to be a catalog right the the kind of way that tv is like you know before and we're not talking like old school tv because no one fucking knew what that was anyway but like you know nowadays the idea of tv is that you can watch it when it's airing, you can watch it when it first comes out, or you can pause it, you can watch it when it's released later. It doesn't fucking matter. You can watch content from just that one person. Exactly. I think that's what the value is for YouTube.

You can watch a movie and be like, I love that one actor and just watch movies on just him. Bingo. That's what it is. With Instagram, the transient nature of Instagram also means that you can put out so much quantity so much i mean you could post like six fucking times a day and there probably won't be diminishing returns until like way overdoing it whereas you know on youtube is like posting six times a day like who the fuck has the time to do that there There's no way. Six times a week is already nearly impossible for anybody. But, you know, like...

I think good videos on YouTube, they have to have some cool editing and music and all this shit. I feel like that takes time. Yeah. Yeah, it does. It's tough. It is time consuming. I mean, I don't have the... I'm not the most talented editor or shooter in the world.

I don't have all the technical skills i have a very solid basic know-how and i enjoy what i do but it still takes me fucking forever to cut and post and make all this content yeah i'm still learning like you know there's i'm learning tricks left and right about how to make that thing faster so and that's what i feel like makes instagram what it is is it's it's a faster version of YouTube you're getting content quick yes and I feel like that's like the one thing that I feel like is what keeps Instagram alive yeah as people are quick right they want to look at their feed fast and be done they want to take a shit and watch it look at three videos and be done yeah you know what's interesting about Instagram versus

YouTube is that those types of content that that really well on YouTube, like high quality, sexy editing, they crash and burn on Instagram. Bad. Badly. I mean, you've probably fucking experimented and seen this. Like, the videos that do best of you are probably shit that you've shot on, like, a shitty little handheld movie or something. Every single fucking time. Yeah. every single fucking time yeah because they don't the there's like instagram photos need to be like pristine you're fucking leibowitz out there right you're fine with that if you're looking at a video

you want it to be like you want to have the guard down or at least pretend like the guard is down because that's never what it is you want to have something that seems raw but has a little bit of polish yeah i wonder why that is i have videos that are literally so sick that it doesn't even make sense i don't know if it has like some sort of pixel attached to it that like instagram is like nope this is too good or like what the deal is i can't figure it out either i think i think it has to do with how people interact with it and how they've been trained to interact with Instagram videos. I have this one video.

I'm like, I swear. I post it like three times now because I refuse to believe that it gets the views that it gets. Because, I mean, I can like pretty average like 50,000, 60,000 views on a video. My good ones will have like 100,000, 150,000 like just randomly. And I'll post this one and I'm'm like this is by far my favorite video of all time it is fucking insane the quality is on a it's on one of those red cameras it's like a sixty thousand dollar camera it's insane it literally cannot break like three thousand views yeah i mean we're talking like a hundredth of what i normally get not gonna happen yeah it's like

i'm like why you're gonna have to give it. I even cut it and made it like shorter. And I was like, maybe what if I just cut it? Nope. Doesn't matter. Something happens. The flashiness, the sexiness, it takes away from people being interested in it. So weird. It needs like Instagram needs like.

Everything is beyond welfare. Everything needs to be shot on a very expensive potato. Yeah. A potato. very expensive potato. Yeah. Very expensive to like, we're talking like 2017 most expensive potato phone you can get. Wow. A razor, a flip phone. There you go. That's what, that's what you need to be filming. That was my first phone. A next tell humongous brick. Oh yeah. The brick. Yeah. I got you. I got you. How old are you? I'm 29. I turned 30 in like three months. I'm 32.

Yeah, nice. My first phone was the Nokia 5160 or whatever. It was like unbreakable. That's the Razer Edition kind of. Playing Snake on that shit. I love that thing. And then I had the Sprint. I had the button.

You had to press the button and it flips open. I'd been watching The Matrix and I was like, hey, do you guys have the phone for The Matrix where you push the button and they're like, man that's a movie prop it's like oh fuck you guys then like what why would you do that yeah why would you do that it's super fucked up i want that phone make that phone that was like my one wheel skateboard that i ride around on yeah like that that was back to the future like in 1980s 100 and i'm like now this thing exists fucking 30 years later you guys suck why didn't you make it when I was a child? Makes no

sense. I actually love that board more than anything. Dude, they look so fun, but I have no coordination. Have you seen my crashes? Yeah. You're like fucking bleeding. Everywhere. It was really bad. I can't do it. And I got back on. I don't know why. That's actually one

thing that was very interesting to me. I got this new follower and it was a girl and she DM to me. I mean, obviously there's some sparks there inside, but, um, she was like, Hey, and I was like, Hey, so then I'm like, how did you find me? You know, I'm just like very interested. And, uh, I've only been on YouTube for a week and she's like, Oh, I watched Josh Bridges video. Then you were on this, another video off to the side that I interested and uh i've only been on youtube for a week and she's like oh i watched josh bridges video then you were on this another video off to the side that i might like and when i hovered over it it had you like flying by on this like hoverboard and i was like oh this looks this guy

looks cool and then clicked on it and i and i only have like 2500 subscribers right now maybe like closer to 3000 and i was like kind of bummed because YouTube is like, I don't want to start from the bottom on anything and try to build it back up. And I've just been like, fuck, is this going to be worth it? And I was like, dude, that totally is worth it. I don't have a huge following on there, but I just got a new follower from another source who I would have never gotten if i didn't branch out into the youtube so there is this just like non-stop like when i think that i can't put anything more on my plate

just i add something else and i'm like all right let's just fucking do it and then it's another person you wind up paying to do something basically but it does help grow the brand like i don't think i've ever been to a competition like waterpalooza right now where I literally cannot make it more than 25 feet without seeing somebody. And they're like, oh, can I take a picture? And I absolutely love every fucking second of it. But I'm like, wow, my name is bigger now than when I used to compete and I was like really fucking good. Yeah, it was. Yeah, 100%.

I was really cool then and it was awesome. That's how it should be. But now I'm even bigger now. I'm like, what? How is this possible awesome. That's how it should be. But now I'm even bigger now. I'm like, what? How is this possible? That's absolutely how it should be. There's probably games people walking around that have had less photos than I have. Yeah.

I saw a games athlete walking around. It was her first year at the games last year, so she's not super popular. She's not stateside. And she's just walking by people who should be her biggest fans. Yeah. Because she's cute. She's bubbly. She's fun.

She has a good personality. She's Asian. Single or no? I don't know. There was a guy with her, but I don't know if they're together or whatever. No, that's fine. Right? It's like, you know, I guarantee you, you have more followers than most of these games

athletes do. Yeah. Why the fuck wouldn't you? Have you messed around with any sort of marketing? Not marketing. Should I say marketing? Like to help you on YouTube? Like you pay someone to run some ads or anything like that?

I do everything on my own. Okay. Yeah, I do it all on my own. I don't have – yeah, I don't do any of that. Not necessarily because I'm against it, but because I don't have the capital to put into it, right? This is like 100% bootstrapped out of basically my savings and shit. You know what I mean? So I'm doing everything I can to just learn it and figure it out.

When I started running ads, it made a humongous difference. I'm sure. What I've heard so i have some friends like you know natalie eve marie yes she was wwe wrestler she has like four and a half million followers she had all these people running ads for her and doing and she's paying thousands of dollars but not really getting the right return she's getting exposure but not really getting like the return like this lady that i have is like a five to one ratio that's awesome like whatever i give her is five times back that's great and she doesn't like to go over like a certain amount it's like

well if we go over this amount i feel like i'm not going to get five times and i'm like fucking i don't care like let's just go and just drop this huge nugget and get it and get a two for one you know what i mean like i'll go two to one ratio and i don't care because it's a humongous nugget yeah I think the I think there's but she's terrified there's a really interesting I have a buddy

who's like a fucking guru when it comes to that type of thing Instagram advertising Facebook advertising you should have him help you with YouTube he's a goddamn guru he told me

he's like hey man when you get 10,000 followers let's go get some coffee or something I was like alright fine fuck

let's get the 10,000 followers do you think 10,000 is a good number for YouTube? Yeah, I think that's a good start. I think it's a good start. I think really what you're looking at, if you want to make YouTube, so the equivalencies aren't quite there, right?

10,000 followers on YouTube is much more than 10,000 followers on Instagram. But like the equivalent of you making a living off of your 130,000 followers on YouTube, you'd need like half a million followers. Fuck. So it, the scale is very different, right?

Early on, it's, it's way fucking harder. But once you get to 10 K, you basically have proven your point. You're like, all right, this is a thing.

It's much harder to get this many subscriptions early on on youtube but once you grow the scale requires you to have a lot more subscribers to really be able to monetize them to the point where you'd make a living off of it um and that's not to say that someone with a hundred thousand or how much do people make that have like a million a lot is. Is it like hundreds of thousands or are they making like a million dollars a year? No, they're not quite making that much. I think it's a lot less now than it was before. Earlier in 2018, YouTube completely changed their ad structure and cut down a lot of the money that people were making.

So I heard what happened there is it went from like doing one to two videos a week is like now you have to do it every day because of that. Maybe. I mean it's not – To make the same amount of money. Yeah. It might be that dramatic for some people for sure. Like I didn't even have my YouTube channel back then so I don't really know. But what I do know is they made it much harder to monetize your account to begin with.

You have to have a certain number of hours. I think it's like 4,000 hours of view time and a certain number of subscribers. And the account needs to have been around for a certain period of time, like three weeks, four weeks maybe. Oh, I've had my account since I was like – Since you were like in high school? Yeah. Dude, I have Ryan Fisher. That's amazing.

That's amazing. Yeah, that's absolutely amazing. So you're – What is yours? Arm & Hammer TV. Arm & Hammer TV. So you's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah, that's absolutely amazing. So, you know, you... What is yours? Arm & Hammer TV. Arm & Hammer TV. So you had the ad TV too. Yeah.

So I basically, you know, started on after this whole, like, they call it the adpocalypse. I started on after the whole adpocalypse happened. So for me, I'm seeing, you know, I'm seeing money coming in from work that I'm doing. And I can look at exactly the video and say, like, all right me a hundred bucks this video made me 50 bucks this video made me 18 cents like great no no more of the 18 cent videos way more of the hundred dollars like because because of the amount of ad ad revenue coming in from those okay so you can look at and see how much is coming exactly yeah so they have they have a pretty decent analytics structure on the back side but there's people like casey nestad that have like casey nice says is making a pretty decent analytics structure on the backside. So there's people like Casey Neistat that have like... Casey Neistat is making a pretty penny.

Yeah. Every video has 5 million views. He's not nowhere near like the biggest... Really? On YouTube. Oh, wow. You know, the biggest amount of subscribers on YouTube is PewDiePie. And he has like almost 50 million subscribers.

Who? PewDiePie. The fuck is that? Dude, you'd love him. He's great. Really? He's a Swedish guy. he's a swedish guy he's like a video game player oh god but like his main thing is he like memes shit like he makes fun

of memes and he does memes and he like rates shit i don't know i've never watched a single one of his videos it sounds like if someone's someone listening to this is like watch his videos and they're like that's not at all what he fucking does yeah i don't fucking carry nerds that's what he does to me so that's what matters but. But there's guys like you've heard of the Paul brothers, Logan and Jake Paul. No. Get out of here. What are you doing? Dude.

All right. So Logan Paul is – he has like maybe 18 or 19 million subscribers on YouTube. But like here's the thing. What you do and what they do is like night and day fucking different that guy he's like uh he's like tall good looking white moron from you know california probably he's like decent shit and he uh his main audience is like 11 and 12 year old girls so his main his main audience is like prepubescent chicks so what he does is he has these videos that's like i'm trying to figure out what he does right now because i'm like all right older guy going for 11 or 12 year old he's like he's

like in his early 20s mid-20s maybe but what he does is like pranks and he does like vlogs and he makes music videos he's like he's just and he like he pretends like his audience is dudes his age or chicks his age but his audience is 11 12 year old girls and and that's not like uh it's not anything against him he fucking knows that audience really well and he makes a goddamn killing off of it like he has uh almost 20 million subscribers i think maybe i don't know but he has like a clothing line that they all buy like his fucking shirts and and shit like that he has like a he has like a an album that like album of shitty music that they all listen to. It's crazy,

but that's exactly what it is. Imagine if maybe the boy bands, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys and shit, imagine if they came out and had the same, maybe toned down a little bit, but the same machine

behind them. People are scripting all their shit they're writing all their shit for them they're shooting it all they're editing it all they're making a polish they're giving them all their little personality cues to make them interesting they're like you know making them seem funny and like they know exactly the demographic they need to target to make it you know sink into their medulla oblongata and grab hold of their brain and never let go imagine Imagine that. But it's just the one guy is the face of it and it's on YouTube. That's basically what it is. The guy has a huge

team and he features a bunch of the people around him. But it's not just one guy with a videographer who shoots, edits, and posts it. It's not just me, one guy with a camera who shoots, edits, and posts it. Yeah, it's a fucking legit, legit real it's an entire fucking team it's a company he has like an entire team that makes

this shit for him and he's just the star of it yeah he's basically turned himself into a movie star basically like except he's a weird 11 12 year old he's a complete fucking moron he's like a douchebag loser. He's terrible. Well I mean you remember that guy hide your wife hide your kids. Oh yeah.

Like that guy wound up they said that he made like over a million dollars off of YouTube video. That's awesome. And he bought

his mom a house. Good for him. Or she or whatever he whatever that thing was. I think it was a he. I think it was a he. Dude he sold

like a million dollars worth of Halloween costumes of himself. Good. Actually. That's amazing. There's so many things that came from it. I'm so happy for that guy.

Just because he went on the news and made a fool of himself. And he's like less – he's more than full retard. He's one and a half. Yeah. He went beyond Tropic Thunder's guidelines of full retard. Well, that's good. He might be dead right now just from falling off a curb. Something very simple.

He must have eaten the wrapper on an Oreo. The thing is, I used to be very much of the, fuck that guy, I can't believe that guy is me. But now... You have to be happy for them it makes your life better yeah it doesn't take anything away from me no it doesn't they were able to capitalize on like a spark of a fucking fart in the wind and turn it into a house for their parents that's insane that's beautiful i even get like sometimes i'm like should i have

this person on my show like we kind of sell similar products this that blah blah blah like the the reality is it doesn't matter it does not matter people won't even someone could come on and say you know i do the same thing as you and it's cheaper and then someone would be like fuck that guy i like fish way better than they have you know what i mean like it doesn't even matter it's just like there is that emotional connection i think that's i've had to i've had to remind myself of that constantly like taking the ego out of it almost it's inspiration for anybody who's trying to be up and coming. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like if you don't think you're worthy enough, it's like, no, you are. You just have to have your own personal thing that you really want to sell. 100%. And anytime anyone asks me, I encourage them, like start a YouTube channel. Start a podcast. Yeah. See it. Do it.

Right? Because – And learn from it. Learn from it. It's so much more work than people see it as. The end product. The podcast is one of the hardest things I do. Yeah.

Making money on my books and my gym, my online program, all that stuff. It kind of like runs itself at this point. But like every Tuesday rolls around and I have to have a show and a thumbnail and a summary. Yeah. And all these things. And I'm like, fuck. It's rough. It's a lot of work.

Yeah. It's a lot of work. Yeah. It's a lot of work. So when I had my own podcast, just Real Chalk on its own, before I merged with Barbell Strugged, I would come out with an episode like once a month. I didn't care. Of course. Now they're like, all right, Ryan, you need to be on every Tuesday. And I'm like, yeah, that shouldn't be a problem.

Every like Friday rolls around. Every third Tuesday, right? I'm like, oh, man. Like, I don't have a show. I'm like, I don't even know who I want to talk to or what I want to talk about. And I just like somehow, some way someone gets in there that I am excited to talk to. Like I've been excited to talk to you. I haven't seen you in forever.

Yeah, it's been a long time. So I'm like, this is so cool. And like, I think what's really cool is we were even around in the beginning of like CrossFit actually was the fucking coolest thing ever. It was the coolest thing ever. When I was working out in downtown LA with Ronnie and Andrea and Basil and Arise. I have this photo. It's black and white. It's me, Basil, Andrea, and Ronnie.

We're just on the sidewalk. I don't know if you've seen it or if you remember it. It's just the best photo ever. I think if you've seen it or if you remember it. It's just like the best photo ever. I think I've talked about it on so many podcasts already, but I'm just like, man, that was such a cool time. And just fucking, it didn't matter. Your maxes didn't really matter. What really mattered was how you...

Can you go ham? Yeah. Can you do Frank? Can you do Helen? And Grace and stuff, fast as fuck. And then, yeah, Nike wasn't in it. Reebok really wasn't in it. There was no big sponsors.

You wore whatever you wore. Yeah. Even Lululemon wasn't even cool enough yet. People were working on the fucking Vibrams and shit. Yeah, whatever. Ronnie was working on hiking boots. He was so interesting. And he's getting more interesting by the day.

He's getting more interesting by the day. He is getting more interesting by the day. He started a sex cult, 100%. I don't know what he's doing. The thing that he's doing is definitely a sex cult. I think he's trying to sell sex. Sex cult memberships. It's sex cult memberships, dude. I'm telling you right now, I've seen so many documentaries on this shit, he's starting a sex cult.

When you see him in person, too, you want to be like, this guy's going to be fucking weird. I'm not going to like him anymore. And you see him and you're like, I love him. I love him. He's the best. You know, I remember. Do you remember the first time we met? Have you seen the videos he's been trying to post?

He's trying to breathe and stuff. And he's like. Yeah. Who can watch this after like 10 seconds? He does that shit in public. I know. He films it like on the beach with strangers around. I don't understand why he –

He gives no fucks. No fucks because he probably crushes thanks to his sex cult. It doesn't matter. And somehow things work out for him all the time. Yeah. I'll be like, dude, are you making money? Like when we go out to like Air One and like a lunch is like $100. Yeah.

Which for those of you out there who don't have an Air One, it's basically Whole Foods. But like if you think Whole Foods is whole paycheck, like this is like whole mortgage. Like every time that you fucking go there, you're like, holy fuck. I mean they have coffees in there for $40. Yeah. A coffee. Fuck Air One. Ladies and gentlemen.

I'm not in. But anyway, I'll go there and I'll be like, hey, you want me to buy? I'll get it for you. He's like, no gentlemen I'm not in but anyway I'll go there and I'm a hey everybody you want me to buy I'll get it for you whatever he's like no I'm good cool man and I'm like how are you making money

and he'll just be like oh dude I live in I live in the Hollywood Hills and yes he does 12 12 million dollar mansion I'm like what because he's the head of a sex cult I don't understand I'm telling you

you're not you listen I hope he is I understand it's hard to believe he would have invited me into the cult. I don't understand. I'm telling you. You're not. I hope he is. I understand it's hard to believe. I feel like he would have invited me into the cult at some point, which is why I'm thinking no. I know it's hard to believe, but I guarantee it. My penis isn't big enough, maybe. I don't know.

We were in the bathroom together at one point. He wasn't impressed. Dude, the Ronnie of today, even the fish of today versus like 2012 2011 when we were when we first met i used to be a maniac uh so much more laid back yeah yeah yeah you did i mean i still have my i still have my my times where i freaked the fuck out but for the most part i'm not like killing anybody anymore good which is good that's really good yeah i think there was a long time there were people were like really big fans they're like i don't know should i talk to him like he's gnarly yeah yeah i mean listen dude i i remember the first time we met was was it the first time

it was one of the first times we met was at johnny de gregorio's gym at crossfit pasadena yep and i had been calling out jp i was like fuck you there's no goddamn way you're putting up the weights you're putting up like you're cheating in the open this is fucking bullshit which was hilarious which was hilarious and true and true that's that's not how i was gonna end that sentence but okay and i was like i was like i was like you know what fucking prove it like let's let's go work out like let's just meet in person let's try and squash this and work out i brought no one it was just me at johnny's gym jp we have a photo all of us together brought everybody he brought you he brought ronnie he brought aries at least i knew aries i was like you just wanted to see him throw down i just wanted to go like i just

wanted to work out with jp just be like all right is this the real fucking deal we did work out did he prove you wrong no he missed like 165 pound snatches constantly i was like what are you doing dude what's going on here but i i mean i love jp now it's really funny it's no i like i was actually saw him a couple days ago i saw him here in miami where he first got in and he was like you know we're too cool now i feel he's like i think we're coming full circle at some point we're just to hate each other again and then restart this entire thing. I was like, I hope not. I like him too much. But at that point, here was my impression of you. We had a

workout that we were going to do. And I changed it. And you were like, no. You refused. You refused to participate. You were like, I'm going to do my own shit. This sucks. I was like, okay. And here's what you did, basically. Here's what you did did you did unbroken Karen and then a hundred jhd sit-ups in one set and I was like who the fuck is this guy

what is this guy doing here like what is going on right now dude I was so fucking good like the year that I told the judge I was going to kill him. You were going to qualify for the CrossFit Games. I mean, you were basically going to qualify for the Games. I got dead last in that event, and I still got fourth. I think we worked it out where, like, had I gotten 22nd place, I would have gone to the Games, and I would have won the workout. Let's be honest.

I think that year, though, I'm telling you, like, dude, I would have been podium i was a fucking savage like it's probably partially why i'm so fucked up right now it's because like i was doing everything all the time like nothing made me fucking tired dude like i remember doing i did murph in like 26 40 with a vest jesus christ i ran my first mile in like 2640 with a vest. Jesus Christ. I ran my first mile in like six minutes with a vest, and then my second one was like 630, like even after all the pull-ups, push-ups, air squats, all that shit. I did 39 rounds of Cindy in 20 minutes.

That's crazy. Yeah. I remember talking to Anders. I was like, Anders, what the fuck is going on with Fish? He's like, I don't know, man. He just moved. He lives on the couch now and i was like he's really he's like working out like crazy like we had to stop giving him amraps i was like what do you mean you had to stop programming amraps he's like he'll kill himself it's like just like the look of like disability

is like he'll fucking kill himself he'll do too many reps we have to give everything we have to program everything for him for time i I was like, is he even listening to you? He's like, God, I hope so. We're already giving him so much. I would just do everything. There's this online qualifier you should do. I'm like, alright, let's just add it in. Let's do it. The year we

met was the year... The OC Throwdown year. Yeah, that was 2012. And that was when I was legit homeless. I went to that event and that is what changed my life forever. Yeah, that's crazy. Because I was the fucking kid that nobody knew, and I came out and beat Blair Morrison. Yeah, you beat everybody. I beat fucking everybody.

I mean, you didn't win, but you beat everybody. I got second. Yeah. The only person that beat me was Tommy. And that's almost not fair. Tommy's like a freak of a human. Which is fine at the time. Yeah.

And he was the first gym I ever went to. Hell yeah. That's legit. Oh, that's right, first gym I ever went to. Hell yeah. That's legit. Oh, that's right, because you were up in Utah. So it was very interesting that we had that dynamic at the end. That's really interesting. But yeah, fuck. I mean, if it wasn't for that event,

I wouldn't even be who I am today, I don't think, debatably. That's amazing. That was an amazing time. I just came out full out-of-body experience for that event. I remember also throwing it to the Wayback Machine. You came on to the WODcast and we finished recording or whatever and afterwards we were hanging out at Scott's and you're like,

we were starting to leave, but you're tying, you're like, you know, I'm opening a gym. And I was like, oh fuck, Fish is opening a gym. And it's going to be fucking rad. I was like, oh, where? And then you told me you're like, yeah, we're going to be in Orange County, right on the coast of Mesa. Which was insane at the time. Which was insane. I was like, oh, where? And then you told me, you're like, yeah, we're going to be in Orange County, right on the coast of Mesa.

Which was insane at the time. Which was insane. I was like, what are you doing? Oh, you're opening one in the worst area ever because there's a thousand gyms. You're going to go out of business in like a month. Yeah. And here we are, like fucking six years later. Now I'm like one of five of the top gyms in the whole world.

Yeah. You have like, what, like 1,500 people on your programming? A little over 1,500 people online. That's amazing. I sell like 1,000. I don't know. At least 1,000 books a month. That's great.

Which is insane. I have like high intensity interval bodybuilding books or kettlebell books or dumbbell books. I want people to know me for pretty much anything fitness related i don't want to be known as like the crossfit guy like you said like i don't want to be known as like the strong guy like the guy that had really good cardio like i'd like to be known as like that guy looks really good his life is cool like he doesn't just like live in the gym i think it's very important for people to know that like a lot of these bodies that you're following that's all they do all day.

They probably go to the gym in the morning and do like two hours of cardio. They probably come back later. They lift for like an hour and a half, two hours, maybe more. And that goes on all day, every day, forever. And it's like who has four hours to work out? If you want one of these crazy bodybuilder physiques, like it's absolutely necessary. You know, like we haven't really figured out a way for you to look like that not on steroids like and not put that amount of time in right like you could probably do steroids and do like some high intensity interval training like super hardcore

and get like pretty close but it's not the same like if you want that legit gnarly bodybuilder physique you're gonna have to do all the like classic time bodybuilding protocols and be on steroids. But I think people are like very, they're short sold, like on the fact that like, they think that person has the program that's going to get them there. Yeah. And I like to be the person who's like, Hey,

like I look like this and I only work out for like an hour a day and like I'm healthier now than ever. And I travel. And when I travel travel i do these dumbbell workouts and i do you know stuff that i don't get to use a barbell and i actually really like it and i want to be known for like all that stuff and i also like i want to have the body that people can absolutely attain if you just put enough time into it yeah so i'm trying to get more into like the nutrition side of things and stuff too this is the first year where like my stuff is i'm 32 years old for those of you who don't know and i like never made enough money to like ever even be excited to tell anybody how much like my

yearly income was until this year so like anybody who's like damn well he's got all this going on or this person's got all that going on it's's like, well, I don't know if you know their whole full story. I really hope that this story of us right now is Armin with 8,500 YouTube followers and then a year or two from now you have a million. And it's like, no, you don't understand. I talked to Armin when he was like, dude, I'm putting out four or five videos a week, and it fucking sucks, and it's taking up all my savings. I don't think people understand the grind most of the time. A lot of times, I think things are too easy for some people. I'm like, that can't be that hard for that person.

It's like, dude, you don't know what his day is like. Even right now, I'm sitting here right now, and I have not slept in four days. Yeah, there it is. The energy is still here for this podcast for you guys. I'm inside of your brains and most of your buttholes since I'm 80% man. I would have loved for that comment to be vaginas, but I'll find one later. It's Miami, man. To make up for being gay and just white.

It's Miami. You're not going to have any trouble. This podcast is going to be called The White Life. It is The White Life. We talked about mainly CrossFit. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah, there's only like seven black people competing right now.

Yeah. One of them's here. Yeah, that's what I mean. Mark Juan. Have you met him? Mark Juan Jones from the Northeast. Kwani Kwan. I just met a bunch of like average CrossFitters that are black here, but there's like seven.

A lot of them come from the islands because it's Miami, right? We're in Florida. I immediately wanted to go to a joke there. I'm going to get thrashed off this episode for being prejudiced. It's not prejudice. We're just pointing out some obvious things that are happening outside,

which one is hot as fuck outside. If you come from California, you come to Miami, it's very, very hot. I'm really glad that we're in the air conditioning right now because I was getting really fucking tired lugging my backpack around. I'm actually going on a cruise ship, the Wad on the Waves, after this. You're crazy. Which is going to be super hot.

Yeah. And we're going to the islands. I'm going to meet more black people to cross off my list of how many black people I've seen on this trip. So now that YouTube is up and going, so that is the goal for you as of right now. So everybody who knows Armin from Wodcast, from Flow, from all these different things that you've been part of for so long, this is going to be the thing that you want to do more than anything. This is it. Cool.

Yeah, man. I'm living the dream. I mean, day in and day out. I think the pot, I think YouTube, if you can make it a lucrative thing for yourself, it's got to be the coolest thing to do. Yeah. You could be videoing this right now and get paid. You could be videoing you go to the grocery store

and get paid. You could be videoing you like petting pink puppies at a pink puppy fucking clinic, right? You could do anything what's it like buying a new pair of mechons and trying them on like it could be fucking anything you know i could ride my one wheel skateboard and do a review and it's like you're making money but once you're that person you have this many followers they're interested in what you have to

say they want to see everything it's very interesting yeah it also has the fakest sounding name of like what your career is like yeah i'm a youtuber i do youtube it's like yeah the word tube gets me tough one it's it's interesting like once the tube gets in there i get like these weird like feelings of like the end of a popsicle moist tube you know what i mean you get like the moist tube that's for sure a porn division. I've been to RedTube several times with great results. Once or twice.

Yeah, once or twice. I've never seen that. Yeah, once you're like, yeah. I'm not going to go into it. Worst thing you ever Googled. Not Googled. Worst thing you ever typed in on a porn website. Who types on porn websites, bro?

Well, no. You have to search. Like, double penetration. No, man. You just take whatever comes up. I'm not picky. Really? Yeah, man.

You've never done any interesting searches? I don't know. Oh. Yeah. There's one. Because mine's going to drop you. Oh, shit. I don't know if this is weird or not, but I stumbled upon this and I was like, this sounds really interesting.

I want to see more of this. Have you heard of milking? No. Dude, this is – I mean, listen. This is absolutely not the type of shit that I talk about on my content. So if you're looking for more of this, don't go home. You guys knew what was going to happen. You're on here with Ryan Fisher right now.

Yeah, man. Listen, Fish, you might want to check out Milking. It's like a massage table with a hole for your dick. Your face down. And then there's like a chick under the table. Just rubbing on it.

Yeah. It's a glory hole. It's like a glory hole, but you're laying down on a massage table. Wow. Yeah. I had no idea that I'd be into that. And then it just stumbled onto me, and I was like, oh, this is interesting.

Oh, my God. Did I get you? No. I mean, I'm totally in. I want to know where the next milking place I can go to is and how much it is and if we can YouTube it. I don't think it's real. I don't know if you could YouTube it, but you could probably put it on what's the other big podcast yeah i'll just be like here lady can you just put this mic near my face as you do that yeah so hold on what's yours to the howard stern so i think probably the

most offensive thing i've ever because i just jerked off to everything you know i went of course there was big black breasted women and then probably like my all-time low as i would type in pregnant porn is that an all-time low was I would type in pregnant porn. Is that an all-time low? I think that's pretty low. That's a pretty popular thing, though, isn't it? Like double penetration pregnant porn. That's a little bit crazy.

You're pushing some boundaries there, I think. I've done some fucked up searches. But when you're like 15 and you've figured out what jerking off is or 13 or whatever. It doesn't matter what you're jerking off to. Nope. Doesn't matter. No. Real story. Fuck, I whatever. It doesn't matter what you're jerking off to. Nope. Doesn't matter. No.

Real story. Fuck, I hope my mom doesn't listen to this. I've told this a few times to like different friends like when I'm drinking. But basically in my room, in my house, I have this bed, right? Obviously that was my room when I was growing up. And I figured out one day, I was like watching this movie and I just kept like fucking touching it. And I'm just like, this chick's hot, you know?

And I just like, I like the way this feels. And I just figured it out and I had like an orgasm. And honestly, my first thought was I had stage one fucking cancer. I didn't know what an orgasm felt like.

And I didn't, I wasn't old enough to come yet. So like nothing happened. Nothing came out. And I was like, oh my God. I just like nothing happened. Nothing came out. And I was like, oh! And I was like, oh my god. I just like broke my bottom ab or something. Like something inside of me is not okay.

And I didn't know what that feeling was going to be like. I had watched porn and saw a guy like, oh! But I was like, is that what just happened to me? No cum came out. I'm pretty sure I need to tell my mom that like something, I need to go to the hospital. And then I was like, I don't know. It felt really good. I don't know if it's a bad thing and then this went on for like a few weeks months year i don't know i kept chasing it chasing the ultimate dream and then one day it came out

and i'm like fuck this is inconvenient like what do i do with all this what do i do with this now so i just started like putting it under the same spot under my bed every day oh no and it was carpet back then like oh no in like the 90s so like i'd put it in my i would just go on my hand and i just wipe it on the carpet under my bed and then this was this went on for like three years four years five years fuck i don't know like years and we move out of the house one day and they're moving everything out of the room dude there is a giant white spot that looks like aliens landed and fucking my mom's like what the fuck is this and she's like kicking it with her foot and it's like cement like crusted over it's so crusted dude it's like the holocaust of people

died there like babies i'm thinking so i'm like mom i don't know i think that was like orange juice or something it was like she's like and she put her hand she's like this is so hard and i'm like yeah don't touch it definitely don't do that you never you don't know what's going to be there that looks old like i could be there for a long time that's but that's my that's savage yeah i was looking up really aggressive things on dial-up internet by the way yeah so it's like just downloading it off of off of kazaa hoping that you're getting the right one-minute clip. Dude, you would lube up, be all ready to go, and not a thing would happen for 30 minutes.

You'd just be sitting there, just like, okay. You're ready to go. Then it would freeze, and you'd be like, okay. You're just like, all right, we just talked about jerking off for 15 minutes. It happens. Welcome to your podcast. It happens. Real talk podcast. I'm trying to be like the Howard Stern of CrossFit.

When I get on this WOD on the Waves boat, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to try to get like Brooke Wells, some of these real big CrossFitters on there, and I'm just going to ask them really fucked up things. I want to know how that goes. I want to know how it goes too. I wonder if they're just going to come. I mean, they'd be great if they came, but I wonder if they're just going to

be like, I'm done. I can't do this. And then hate you forever. I think you're going to get some very fucking awkward looks. Some weird laughs. What the most offensive thing they've typed in on RedTube would be. I think you'd have to explain what RedTube is to some people. Well played you have to be like listen they don't even understand

i remember on my i actually did a podcast with my mom it was really good amazing and she's an amazing human in general yeah and i was talking about i was like dude kids don't even know what it's like to call a house no and ask for the daughter yeah you just text each other now yeah but i remember how terrified i'd be i would call the house like 15 times if i didn't get the girl i just would hang up you know i'd be like nope nope not talking about definitely not asking her dad who's the mom it would be like okay but the dad be like hello and i'd be like um like i already have like a bon boner waiting to talk to her. And then Mr. Man-Bear-Pig, like bear porn, comes on.

He's like, oh, my God. No, no. Too soon. Yeah, way too soon. You just come anyway out of being terrified. That's a new search on RedTube. You discover some shit, man. Yeah, you discover some stuff for sure.

So what brings you out here to Wadapalooza at the time? So are we just trying to YouTube and get great CrossFit content? 100%. To give out to the world. Someone's got to cover this thing. So how would you define exactly what you're going to give out? You're just going to give out the latest, hottest news? Kind of.

Yeah, it's like a mix. You know, the type of content that I put out is similar to what you would see around a lot of other big sports, right? So what I cover is – Like the SportsCenter of CrossFit. The SportsCenter of CrossFit, kind of, right? So I have like a show that's kind of like part of the interruption that goes on with uh justin with the morning chalk up and we do that once a week over the course of this weekend we'll do a couple more episodes so we'll do kind of like not daily but you know just updates across the the couple days

of competition um i'm gonna put out some videos about like you know underdogs or dark horses to watch out how do you find those people man like it's harder to find people who are up and coming yeah it is like when i was up and coming i was on the crossfit journal i was on the website yeah there wasn't an enormous amount of people doing the cross doing crossfit yeah crossfit oh my god sounded like fop doing the crossfit that was super asian and then um yeah i just felt like it was easier to find me. Yeah, maybe. It was also smaller back then.

Now it's like there's a lot of CrossFitters out there who are competing at events like this that I've never heard of. Yeah. So I do a little bit of research. That's a big part of my time, right? It's trying to stay up to date with who's who and what they're doing. But I also don't really stress over it. What I'm more interested in is being able to point out things that the general person is not going to know, not necessarily call who the next Rich Froning is going to be.

That would be great. And I think there's only a handful of people who know enough about CrossFit to be able to do that. Yeah, that's very interesting. You knew what it was going to be like when Matt Fraser stepped up, when Rich Froning stepped up. Yeah, man. But there is nobody else right now. I mean, I know Patrick Vellner is like a solid podium finisher every time,

but I can't say for sure he would be first like forever. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, you know, there's a few examples. The first time you see Sarah Sigman-Zotter at the Games, the first first time you see Sarah Sigma Zadar at the Games, the first time you see Tia Claire Toomey at the Games, you knew, like, these are future champions. Whether they ever make it happen or not is up to them. Yeah, they just win by such a huge margin.

Yeah. And the way that they're doing it, the way they compose themselves, you're like, all right. There's actually a couple. That's next level. There's a couple teen athletes who I've seen who I'm convinced will be games athletes sooner rather than later.

And it's just based off of their movement, their composure, their ability to compete. And here though, my content is like, it's experiential. I'm not doing vlogs. Craig Ritchie, for example, he's a big YouTuber. He does vlogs. That's his thing.

Every day he puts out a vlog. It's about his life. It's about what he does, his training, and his thoughts, and what's going on and stuff. But he doesn't segment it. He does one every day, huh? Basically, yeah. But if he talks about breaking news,

it's like at the middle of a 12-minute vlog and it's only like a two-minute segment. It's just part of what he does, right? Whereas I split it off. If I'm doing a news thing, it's just a news video. If I'm doing a vlog thing, it's just a vlog. If I'm doing an interview, it's just an interview. And I mix it up a little bit here and there. But what I like to provide people is just like a glimpse, a look. Here's the distilled information that you need to know what's going on right now and if you want more, here's a 40-minute interview with Rich Froning. If you want more, here's a vlog of what my experience was like at Wadapalooza.

If you want more, here's a music video to Will Smith's Miami that I made while I was in Miami. That's the type of content that I'm interested in making. And so I consider myself just the prototype for the people who are interested in what I do. Yeah, I mean, you're really the only person doing it like that. Yeah. So I would think that your following

would grow pretty strong sitting here. It's been moving. It's been booking it, which is good. You know, the original goal that I set for myself was to get 10K before the Open. I think that's pretty doable. We're six weeks out right now. There's three events between now and the beginning of February.

And then there's another three weeks in February before the Open starts. I think if I can keep doing what is moving the needle and I've started to get a really good sense of what is moving the needle, I can do it. That's what I'm interested in. I make content that I like to see because no one else is making it and I happen to also be uniquely qualified in my knowledge and skill set and it's

just like why wouldn't I try and take advantage of this yeah it's really cool do you still keep in touch with everybody from WODcast and? yeah I talk to Scott and Eddie constantly you know we're always talking back and forth Scott's podcast is really good yeah the CC way it's very intense super intense yeah it's very very fucking intense sometimes I'm like this is too intense I asked and I was like I was like would you ever

do an episode with me and he was like yeah but we'd have to like prep for it I was like fuck dude I was on his episode and I like first, I cried on the episode. Everyone cries, dude. Really? Everyone cries. You're not the only one.

It's fucking gnarly. Yeah. But he was asking me questions. I was like, there's no way that you would know this. It makes no sense. He does so much research, dude. He called my mom. That's amazing.

Actually. That's classic. That's classic Scott. And he's like, your mom's a great woman. And I was like, why is this happening right now? I's like your mom's a great woman and i was like why immediately start crying right now i was like what's going on and then like no well we were talking about my my my dad because i a lot of people don't know that i didn't meet my dad until i was 24 i didn't know who he was until i was 18 i thought this other guy was my dad my whole life

and then this story happened and it was something that like I kind of put to the wayside for a long time. And then all of a sudden I'm 32 and it kind of bothered me. Oddly. Just like, I don't know. Maybe people were asking me questions about dad stuff. Or I don't know what happened. And he's like, I want to talk about this. And I was like, oh, okay.

We can talk about it or whatever. But then I didn't know how deep it was going to go. Like, dude, I was talking to him on the show and he would ask me a question where i was like damn like i don't know how to answer this right now and then but also they would make me think like so much about my life and like the question was so fucking out of control sometimes that i literally was like, wow, let me see how I can answer that. And then I was fine. I got off the show and I was like, damn, that felt really, really good.

And I was like, I feel like I had like a therapy session where I like feel amazing. And I've never even talked about that with anyone ever. Even my closest girlfriends, I would brush on it and it'd be done. And I'm like one of those guys, I just don don't want to talk about because it makes me emotional dude and then like a week later i was working out in the gym and just like started crying out of nowhere thank thank god i was like by myself and then like this went on for like three days and i was like fuck i need to like go to a shrink or something like what is happening to me i'm like he, he fucked me up, like, really bad. Like, for, like, two weeks, I was super fucked up. That's amazing.

Like, four days went by, and I was happy. And then I was like, no, I didn't answer those questions right. And I was like, I don't know what's happening right now. Maybe he's on to something. Like, he asked me some questions that, like, brought up, like, my present day values and stuff. And if I think it was coming from that, and if I had always known that someone was in my life that wasn't actually in it,

and am I trying to prove... Holy shit. Because my real dad is super crazy successful. And we wound up having the same life. I have seven brothers and sisters. We all grew up different. So much different well actually most of them are relatively similar and then I'm just like way different than everybody

else I played sports I wanted to leave New Jersey that's where I'm from like I was the only person who left I was the only person who was super into sports I was the only person who like went out and like made everything from the ground up with his own business and my dad did the same thing at the same time we even played the same fucking sports growing up it was insane and then i met him when i was 24 and then he gets into crossfit and he's like a really good master's athlete now it's insane and like the whole thing is just so crazy and even when i like met him i was like what is he gonna look like because my mom. I'm like, what does he look like? She's like, I don't fucking know anymore.

And I don't have any photos. She's like, you'll know when you see him. I promise you. He looks just like you. And I'm like, fuck. So now I'm going to go to this hotel. There's a bunch of people in the lobby. And I'm going to be like, are you my dad?

You know? And it's like. So I go to the lobby. And like this guy starts walking over. And I'm like, that's him for sure. The short stocky, blah, blah, blah. But he has a dope mustache. And I walking over and i'm like that's him for sure the short stocky blah blah blah but he has a dope mustache and i was like right on this is him for sure and it was that's awesome yeah it's it was amazing and then um so with that podcast like he asked me some questions about that and like i just remember like breaking down he's just like that

gnarly i like interrogating he's a cop he is. He's a damn good one too. He just takes you down. Yeah. He's very intense. CC Way is really, really intense. Yeah. It's really intense. So I see the other podcast now and I can't even listen to them. I'm like, I don't even want to know.

Yeah. I've only listened to like three episodes. Yeah. I can't. A few of them were like with really good friends of mine. Yeah. I was like, whoa. That would be good if I knew somebody like really well that went on that listened to

it. Yeah. So the other what's the it's the comedy guy eddie eddie what is he just doing still comedy yeah yeah so he's uh he's a professional comedian so he travels around he does stand-up professionally and that's how he's been um you know feeding his family for 20 years or something so he's pretty successful um he has a show called the bingle show so he has like a bus that he records out of that travels around to like different comedy clubs and that's where he you know gets a bunch of different

comedians and stuff to participate and then he also is doing the wide cast now basically on his own um which works well for him because it gives him a lot more freedom to kind of actually do the types of things that he wanted to do um while all three of us were on there but you know we none of us ever really lived in the same place so it was really tough to coordinate and do stuff yeah you guys were like you were like always on a tablet and stuff and now he's now he just gets to unilaterally make those types of like creative calls and he really enjoys that which is good it's That is cool. Yeah, it's very cool. So, future for you? Mainly the YouTube life for now?

Yeah. You know, I think... Traveling around a lot? Hoping to. You know, I am not sure I'll make every sanctional, right? It's really expensive to travel. I have some potential deals in place with some of the sanctioned events.

I feel like CrossFit would pay for you to... No, CrossFit doesn't give a shit. They'll never pay me. They're saving so much money on not having regionals. Yeah, they're making a bunch of money off of the sanctioning fees I think, but they'll never... I'm not going to see a dime of that. Not directly. And I'm okay with that. That's fine. I don't need

to be... I like being independent. In fact, the events that are offering to fly me out and stuff um i'm basically just asking for free room and board and travel that's it like if you can get me there i'll cover your event you know i but i want complete creative control over what i talk about how i talk about it and where it goes like this is my content and basically what you're paying for is to have me there so i can talk about it from an honest perspective.

And I think a lot of the events that I've talked to so far have been super fucking cool with that. Oh, I would imagine. I would definitely want you at mine. And that's it, right? That's what I'm trying to capitalize on. Like down the line, maybe I can charge for being there as well.

Plus you're a straight shooter. It's not like you're going to do something weird. Yeah. Or like it's going to be done right. Yeah. Which is cool. I think I have a proven track record's that's hard to come by in this space because it's so new but i've been doing this for years forever yeah you're like the first

person i even knew like from podcasting standpoint so there it is like you know people don't need to worry about what i'm gonna what i'm gonna do or how it's going to come out or if I'm going to even deliver, like I'm going to fucking deliver. So, you know. So what do you think about the new style? I know that you've probably been asked that a bunch of different times, but like in short, do you think this new style is going to help promote CrossFit in the right direction or is it taking it down? It depends on how you define the right direction. I think it is a really good thing for the sport in general i think maybe the first year or two

are going to be kind of strange and it's going to be a bit of growing pain but i think already the community is adapting to this a lot faster than i thought they would and the reason why i think it's generally a positive thing is because because there has never been a sport built from the ground up that was controlled by one entity or person its entire life. And there never will be. It just doesn't. It cannot happen. and the way that CrossFit was building the sport of CrossFit was Dave Castro was an absolute tyrant, had 100% control over the entire thing. CrossFit media was an absolute tyrant

and had 100% say over how it was talked about and who talked about it. I can attest to that. Yeah, we all have that story of like, you know, they get thrashed by them. Yeah, man, you know what it's like. If you weren't in line, then you were not involved. And HQ, their media at that point controlling it was necessary when they first started

because no one fucking knew anything about this. You can't trust people who don't know about your sport to talk about it. But we caught up real fucking fast. And they did not and so over the past five years they've been stifling the growth of their sport and they've been forcing it to grow by doing the right things but when you have the only media about your sport is the people who are running it that's propaganda that's not media and that's exactly what it was turning into the crossfit games were turning to propaganda and it was turning to a cult of personality around dave castro and right now the potential is that that won't be the case yeah the only problem is it might be too late all these events that would have been great

sanctioned events the ecc the oc throwdown before they fucking paralyzed kevin ogar right like yeah all these events that were awesome they're gone and a lot of the events they're popping up are newish because they have they're like oh fuck well let's we should try the sanctional thing out and then the i like it i think it's great i think i think it needs to happen yeah it needed to happen and the media side of things like it's way. I think it's cool. I think it needs to happen. Yeah, it needed to happen. And the media side of things, like... It's way harder to qualify for the games, though, now. Yes. Well, for some people.

You have to be number one in the United States, right? Yeah, in the U.S., it's, like, really fucking hard to qualify. Yeah, you have to be number one in the Open. If you're, like, hungry, it's probably really fucking easy. It's number one in the Open, or you win an event, right? There's a third one. If you're top 20 in the World Wide Open. Okay, top 20 in the World or you win an event, right? You win a sanctioned event. There's a third one. If you're top 20 in the worldwide open. Okay.

Top 20 in the worldwide. Yeah. Okay. And then also first in your country. Yes. Or win. Or win a sanctioned event. Wow.

Yeah. It's tough. That's tough. It's tough. And I think the thing is like. I hope the video standards get better though. You know, it's like. Yeah.

The open has always been a shit show. A hundred percent. I've won first place in the world to open events in my lifetime. Both of them got taken down. And the ones that went up underneath mine were worse reps than mine. And I was like, you fucking pieces of shit. Yeah. I'll fucking kill you. Yeah. I really wish that after the I fucking kill you fucking pieces of shit yeah i'll fucking kill you yeah i really

wish that after the i fucking kill you because i was actually really nervous i was gonna get sued by crossfit because it was pretty vulgar because i really wanted to make shirts that said i'll fucking kill you and capitalize on that shit like right away and i probably would have crushed but then they would have been like you know what fuck you we're gonna see you now because you're an idiot so i just didn't do anything but I think the ultimate go fuck yourself is becoming really successful in the space and being a huge known name now. And like, I mean, everybody downstairs when we go down and walk around, like, dude, I follow your programming and blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's fucking like the coolest. 100%. In fact, you know, there's been a couple of surreal moments. Like, I had a phone call with Greg Glassman and he was like, hey, man, I like your content. Dope. I was like, whoa, fuck. And I was talking to the CEO. And he's really smart.

Yeah, he's not going to bullshit. I like him, yeah. I was talking to the CEO of CrossFit, and he was like, you know, I learned a little bit about your story. Because I was kicked out of the games in 2012. I was like, persona non grata. They didn't want anything to do with me. And I still kept fucking having a podcast. I still kept doing videos and shit.

I just didn't stop. I was like, fine. You were the naked CrossFitter then, right? I was the naked CrossFitter then. That's right. And so the CEO of CrossFit, Jeff Kane, he's like, why did you keep doing this? Like, we treated you so badly.

Like, up until literally now, basically, we haven't treated you well at all. Like, you haven't gotten anything from us positive. Like, why do you keep doing this? I don't know, man. I just fucking don't know anything else. Like, this makes me happy. I like talking about this shit. That's like every podcast I've ever been on too.

Why do you keep trying? Why did you keep going? Now it's all successful now. Right. But I was like – In hindsight, it makes sense. Yeah. Right?

It's like, well, I love doing this. Fuck them. I really – I loved CrossFit. CrossFit didn't love me. 100%. But I loved it. And then I created a gym that literally just fucking publicizes how great CrossFit is and how much I love it. I mean that's pretty hard to do.

That's like your wife cheating on you and you're just like praising your wife. Kind of. I mean maybe not the same. It's not quite the same because it's not the same because HQ is not the same thing as like CrossFit itself. And back then we all equated it as the same thing as crossfit itself and now it has to separate itself and i think that's what's happening it's you know the the headquarters the people involved with making the decisions of like what color the fucking crossfit.com is and you know where the crossfit games are going to be those people are not the

heart and soul of crossfit they never never will be. They're like stewards of this thing. I have noticed that shift. I used to remember it being like CrossFit HQ this, CrossFit HQ that. Yeah, you don't hear that anymore. No. And that's purposeful. They're purposefully trying to step back a little bit. Like I was saying, I think one of the biggest problems

in the media side, it might be a little late. They downsized a lot of their media. They completely removed the CrossFit Games media team. And actually they took they downsized a lot of their media. They completely removed the CrossFit Games media team. Yeah. Completely. Which is nuts, yeah.

Like down to the last person. Yeah. And now the only people left really covering this sport in any meaningful way are myself and the Morning Chalk Up.

So, I don't know. I mean, someone else will step up eventually. They'll think they can do it better. They'll think

they can do it easier. They'll think they can do it cheaper. And maybe think they can do it easier. They think they can do it cheaper. And maybe they can. That's fine. Yeah. I'm pretty confident that my unique set of circumstances is not something you could fake or recreate very easily. So I know that I don't have to worry about that part. I can just keep doing what I'm doing.

And it'll be. And it'll work. Yeah. It'll work. It's just part of the process of actually grinding it out every day. So where is this fabulous YouTube channel? Arm & Hammer TV? Arm & Hammer TV.

Yeah. Spell it out for me. A-R-M-E-N Hammer TV. Right on. Yeah. Super easy. On YouTube. And then.

It's the same thing on Instagram, Twitter, everything. Arm & Hammer TV. Yeah. And Twitter. And Twitter. I have a Twitter, but I don't really tweet that much. I was going to say, it's the same thing on Instagram, Twitter, everything. Arm & Hammer TV. Yeah. And Twitter. And Twitter. I have a Twitter, but I don't really tweet that much. I was going to say, it's got to be annoying. Usually if I tweet, I'm complaining about something.

And it's usually something really fucking stupid. And do people... Yeah, yeah. Twitter's a whole different thing. Like, listen, again, like I said, you know how Instagram works, right? You're going to have to learn how YouTube works eventually. Twitter has its own fucking thing. It's like the way that it's like it the the way

that conversations happen on twitter and the way that things occur on twitter and are talked about on twitter it's like its own entire ecosystem that has its own language almost i hate it yeah too much yeah it is too much is it actually growing though twitter yeah no okay it's dying right maybe i don't know i hope i don't i would have said it's dying, and then Donald Trump was elected president, and now it's like the hot shit to be on Twitter. Fuck. Yeah. I'm over it.

Now it's like you got to have a hot take on Twitter, or you're not famous or something. I don't fucking know. I hate it. You're fine, dude. Ladies and gentlemen, this show is over. Deal. ArmandHammerTV on YouTube. He's going to give you guys all of the CrossFit news.

Yeah, he's the sports center of CrossFit. It's like you now have an insider buddy who knows everything and is going to tell you what the important stuff is. Which is really rad. So if you guys want to go and follow him on YouTube and subscribe to his channel, that would be great. Got to get him to 10K before the open starts. Hell yeah. And then on Instagram as well.

And then is there a website or anything? Yeah, there's a website, armandhammer.tv. Perfect. Super easy. Awesome. So armandhammer.tv is like the way to go. Yeah. Thanks, Fish. I really appreciate it, man. Yeah. It armandhammer.tv is like the way to go. Yeah. Thanks, Fish.

I really appreciate it, man. Yeah. It's good catching up. I'm so happy to see you on here. I'm glad to see how successful you've become. I know how hard you work, man. Everything is going well now.

I'm very excited. But I'm also really excited to be at Waterpalooza and go say hi to everybody and go mess around and keep on keeping on. Let's do it. So those of you out there,

I hope that you guys love the show and if you guys want to hear more from me or see more of the things I have going on, you check me out, Ryan Fish, R-Y-A-N-F-I-S-C-H on Instagram. If you don't follow me on Instagram, you've officially broken my heart. And I don't think I like you anymore. Well, maybe just a little. All right.

Over and out.