Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Bell's Power Project EP 204 - Rich Froning

Episode Date: April 24, 2019

Rich Froning Jr. is an American professional CrossFit athlete known for his achievements in the 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 CrossFit Games and became the first person to win the title of "Fittest Man on Earth" four times with his first-place finish in the 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 CrossFit Games. Froning owns and operates the affiliate gym CrossFit Mayhem, located in Cookeville, Tennessee, and is a member of the CrossFit Level 1 Seminar Staff. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Exercise Science with a concentration in Fitness and Wellness from Tennessee Tech University, and is currently working on his Master’s degree. Rich is also a husband to Hilary Froning and is a father of 3 children. ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Find the Podcast on all platforms: ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YQE02jPOboQrltVoAD8bp ➢Listen on Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

What's going down today, Mark? Today we got four-time CrossFit Games champ Rich Froning, who's also not only won as an individual, but also has won as a team member. And he's out there in Cooksville, Tennessee. Super excited to talk to him today. Rich is somebody that has not been known for being real dedicated to like a diet. He hasn't had a strict diet per se, and there's a lot of videos of him eating Oreos and different things. But I think more recently he's changed his tune. He's getting a little older, and so maybe he needs that. I'm not sure.

He was dominating the CrossFit Games at a very young age, mid to early 20s. I'm not sure how old he is at the moment but i know that he was uh very dominant kind of right off the bat i'm excited to kind of dive in and see uh what drove him to want to win so many titles so many championships like did he did he lose somewhere along the line or does he hate himself or does he hate other people or where does it come from? Does he want to be competitive, you know? Yeah, I just, it's so crazy when you look at the, like we were just talking about it, how like the capacity of like these guys, the volume, the training, like everything. Like when you were in Ohio, you were talking about how you were watching him and Matt Frazier train and you're just like, what the heck is going on?

Yeah, it was wild. Yeah. And Seema, you said you tried crossfit for a little bit or you wanted to i wanted to how did that go i know i i had a trainer at 24 hour fitness that he took me through like a crossfit type workout and it was like so vanilla it was so just like not comparable to what these guys were doing and i was dead i I was like, maybe not. So I ended that dream quite early. Yeah. But I think it's going to be really cool to talk to like a young goat. Cause you know,

you don't really get to, like when, when you usually talk to the guys that are the greatest of all time, you don't really talk to them while they're still close to 50. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So we got 32 or whatever it is.

Exactly. Yeah. Like if he were to, I mean, we'll ask him, but like if that, yeah, right? So we can say. Not 32 or whatever he is. Exactly. Yeah, like if he were to, I mean, we'll ask him, but like if that him kind of coming out saying that he will compete again, like if that does come out to be true and he wins, is anybody surprised? Yeah. And I wouldn't be. Yeah.

And Frazier's close. He's won three. He's going to compete again this year. So if he wins four, what happens? Yeah, and Matt Frazier is very dominant, and he's dominant with the pool being a little bit bigger as well like there's more people that have kind of thrown their hat into this um one thing i find interesting about this and it reminds me of um reminds me of a lot of different things actually reminds me of mma reminds me of strongman um

people look at big guys like like me and sema or or look at, you know, big guys at a gym and be like, dude, you'd be great at strong man. It's like, no, not, not out of nowhere. We wouldn't be. And, and, uh, you know, one person might be better than the next, uh, but you're not going to be great at it out of nowhere. It's going to take a lot of practice. I've had people, you know, I've gone to a lot of MMA fights and things like that. And people are like, dude, you should get in the ring. It's like that has really not, you know, the way that I'm built has actually nothing to do with the execution that those guys have in the ring. And CrossFit's like that. You know, CrossFit, if you're not CrossFitting, then you're going to have a really hard time with it. Yeah. you're going to have a really hard time with it. If you haven't tried something before, like if you're in really good condition and you run a lot,

yeah, you'll be okay when you hit a heavy bag, but you're still going to be way out of breath. You're still going to lose your legs if you're doing some Muay Thai on a bag and you're kicking and punching and your intensity is real high. Even if you're used to like doing it in some other capacity, if it's not the same, uh, and that's what makes CrossFit so different. It's like, we're going to test you out and all this weird, different stuff that you may not have

ever been exposed to before. They've, uh, they rode bikes on bike trails. They've, uh, they did trail runs. And then when they were done with a 4K trail run through rigorous terrain, then they did like a deadlift ladder. And some of the girls went up to 400 pounds. Some of the guys went up to 600 pounds. I mean, it's just you can look at it as like a power lifter and say, oh, man, these guys are weak. But take it into the context of what they're doing, and you realize how strong they are. And then on top of that, most of these guys don't really weigh more than 200 pounds so they're i mean a three times body weight deadlift after you ran a 4k and you're not just running you're

competing so it's i have a lot of admiration for these guys and so excited to talk to rich today i'm gonna try to connect with them now yeah well we'll get him on the horn i also am interested to see like how he's monetized stuff you know that that's a really interesting part of the game too because crossfit a few years ago i'm sure it was a lot harder but you know he's won multiple championships with that that gives him a paycheck they actually pay you when you win i think it's you know, he's won multiple championships with that. That gives him a paycheck. They actually pay you when you win. And I think it's, you know, a few hundred thousand dollars, which is great. But it's not something you can just automatically live the rest of your life off of without working. And but he's got, you know, contracts with Rogue and with Reebok.

And I think he's made a great life for himself off of that, which is awesome. Yeah, do you know if it's like kind of like in the UFC, you have to have certain sponsors, or you can only have like Reebok kits or whatever. Do they have like a stronghold on the athletes the way the UFC does right now? Reebok, you know, I don't know the current status of all that, but Reebok used to basically, Reebok and CrossFit kind of own the CrossFit games together um Reebok didn't really have a say with anything else and so like with our products the slingshot products could appear in everything and then once the games came along and the games got bigger and bigger then people had to you to turn the knee sleeves inside out and things like that.

So it's a little bit like the UFC where, you know, they they're trying to promote what they got rather than, you know, promote people that aren't necessarily a fit in the bill, you know? Yeah. I see a lot of guys wearing like Nike's Nike Metcons and stuff. I wonder if they really care about that or or not. You know, like for certain competitions, you're only allowed to wear certain type of knee sleeves and power lifting or yeah i think i think um in in the crossfit games i think that uh more recently that has changed i i don't think i think they give you shoes you know i think they give you all that stuff so um yeah you get you get like quite a bit of like free stuff. You get outfitted pretty good head to toe. Um, and then you're also doing so many different things. So it's like you're swimming, you're biking and they,

you know, they give you shorts for this workout and, um, a bathing suit for that workout. And they, they, they provide you with everything. So I don't remember where they left off. I, I do know what you're talking about because there was a few years where there was uh nike kind of appearing yeah and i actually uh at one of the crossfit games i ended up talking to uh some people uh that were with nike and uh they were kind of bragging they're like we're just we just do what nike always does we just sit back wait, let everybody else spend their money, and we'll just let CrossFit come to us eventually.

And who knows? I mean, it might be the Nike-CrossFit Games at some point. I don't know. Shoot, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, I love the Metcons. Yeah. I love those shoes. They're my favorite absolute training shoe at this point.

Nike does a great job. I mean, there's just no other way to put it. They've been a fortune 500 company for the last 20 something years and yeah and they do they do a great job and and they have also you know they've done a great job infiltrating crossfit and they do a great job with you know all the different sports they get involved in boom that sounded like success rich rich uh rich froning actually uh bench presses more often than most crossfitters too it's actually pretty strong i think i want to say i've seen him do i've seen him do multiple sets and multiple reps with 315 on like a floor press like look at his chest like we were just talking about how big his chest is i'm not surprised at all that he can actually do that and they're like it's just so crazy you know the amount that they do i wonder what their pain

threshold is you know what i mean like when you look at what they do versus other sports that's painful yeah it's brutal oh here we go hey what's up mr froning hey what's up handsome here we go it's going great you know how this technology works over there buddy they have this kind of stuff in tennessee no it's kind of slow slow with the times here but yeah we'll get it i don't know i don't ever use skype so well look at you're doing it now, buddy. There's nothing you can't do.

I'm here joined today by Nsema Iyang and also my co-host over there, Andrew Zaragoza. Awesome to have you on the show, man. Super, super excited. So let's kind of dive right in. I know some people have seen you on some videos in the past eating like Oreo cookies and eating a little bit of what you want. And has has any of that stuff changed? And additionally, do you kind of eat recklessly or did you used to eat recklessly? Or is that just like kind of them just capturing you eating Oreos? Is that just like kind of them just capturing you eating Oreos?

No, I mean, I, you know, up until probably the last two or three years, yeah, I really didn't pay attention quite as much to my diet. Now, obviously, they took snapshots of like competition weekends where, you know, I'm calories. You know, I was a little bit more cautious, I guess, than that. But yeah, in the last two or three years, I've been a lot more cautious. Since I turned 30, it turns out you can't just eat what you want and recover like you want doing that type of stuff. So actually, in August, I started doing intermittent fasting. I started doing the 16 and 8, and I really, really like it.

So I honestly was going to do it for a little while while we were in kind of off season and with CrossFit, they changed everything up. So we haven't really had an off season. Uh, but once I got back into training, I was like, I'll see how it goes and see if I still like it. And man, I still like it and really, as long as I get enough calories the day before, uh, I feel good to go the next day. And so I can do usually two or three training sessions before I eat again. So I'll go 1 to 9, so 1 p.m. to 9 p.m., and I really like it. That is really fascinating because you're known, even in CrossFit, where a lot of you guys and girls are working out a lot,

you're known for working out a ton. And I've even heard people say like they've been on vacation with you and they've been to these different events and they're like, dude, Rich is like over there doing cleans and doing floor presses. And they just said you are constantly working out. So the fasting has been working okay for you, even with the amount of workouts that you do? Yeah, yeah. So, man, I really love it. And kind of my problem was I would eat in the morning

anyway and eat breakfast, and then I'd kind of forget to eat the way we would train all day. And if I get busy and I'm not thinking about food, I don't get hungry. Obviously, if I'm just hanging out, it gets really hard to do the fasting thing because at like 12 o'clock, I'm like, okay, I'm starving now. But as long as I stay busy, I'm good to go. So I used to eat in the morning, wouldn't eat all day or maybe take a shake or something and then eat again at night. And so I was kind of doing it but not super strict with it. What I really like about this, though, is it makes me eat in the middle of the day.

So by the time I train again in the afternoon, I feel, feel good where I used to, by the, by the end of the day, I was pretty much shot. Those last, probably last training session was, um, a lot less productive. We won't say garbage, but it was pretty close to garbage at that point. And so, um, I, I really like doing the fasting thing now. So do you notice like a benefit as far as your training is concerned? Or do you notice like, does, are you, do do you not as have much energy or you just feeling really good uh mix of both man I feel I feel good feel clear-headed but I also I mean I

don't I'm not sluggish or anything like that like I said it really helps that afternoon training session and like I said as long as I'm getting enough calories in the morning and I have been working with our P strength and so I was doing their templates last year and so I've kind of in the morning and I have been working with RP Strength. And so I was doing their templates last year. And so I've kind of taken the template that I was using and moved it into that nine hour, the eight hour period. And so I'm trying to get the same amount of calories. Like I'm not restricting my calories by any means. I'm still getting the same amount of calories.

I'm just doing it within eight hours. And so honestly, as long as I, like I said, as long as I get enough calories the day before that next day, I feel good to go. Nope. My training doesn't suffer. Uh, I mean, I, we swam this morning. I could train again and we're leaving for China tomorrow. So today's kind of a, a goofy day training wise and trying to get everything ready and good to go. We compete on Saturday, which is technically Friday here. Yeah. So it's going to be a little bit chaotic. And what I really like about the fasting thing is I get up in the morning and I don't have to worry about, you know, getting food ready and getting out of the house. Like I can

just go. The hardest part is, you know, like pouring my kids a bowl of cereal and not stealing a bite or two and trying to teach them about taxes. But it's hard. That's the hardest part. How do you manage your day? You know, you must be very busy with all these workouts that you have to do to be a high level CrossFitter. On top of that, your business has grown. You've been able to monetize exercise, let's just say, and you've, you had your own, you have your own gym and stuff like that. So how do you kind of organize your day with the mix of family, business, and CrossFit? Yeah, it's hard, man. There's days that I do it better than others.

I try to, when I look at right now, I'm only going to be able to compete for the next probably couple of years as long as I feel like I'm still productive and I don't compete just to have fun I compete to win and so as long as I feel like I can still do that I'll still compete but you know my number one goal is my family every day that's the number one goal and then from there training because obviously competing is is kind of what you know time wins in the long run and so I know that I've got a closed window for that or a small window for that. So that's the big thing I do. And then luckily I have a great group of people that run the gym for me

and help me out with the different stuff. And I've put different people in charge of different things that we do here in the gym. And they pretty much run it like they think it should be ran. And any major decisions, we come back and forth and talk about stuff. But I've got a great group of people and a great team around me. And the cool thing about it is the kids are getting old enough to where, you know, they come out to the barn with me. I train a lot at the house. If I do come to the gym, they can come to the gym and hang out. And, you know, my daughter now, you know, she's swinging around barsup bars and you know jumping on things and swinging on rings and my son is a mass chaos just throwing everything out of bins and running

around so as long as they're busy and having fun that's that's what i want what i want as close as they can be as long as they're not in any type of real danger um with us at the gym so it's it's pretty cool to see just the little things that they pick up on. You know, my daughter should be five in July and she was so pissed the other day that she couldn't jump. Like, like through the jump rope. And I was like, like,

we got to like chill out for a second, back up. Like you're going to practice. I am practicing. And she just could not fix this. And then a handstand walk. She can almost, she can get like two or three hands,

a handstand walk. And it's pretty. See, and I've never once been like, let hands handstand walking. It's pretty easy. I've never once been like, Lake, let's do a workout. She just watches and she just wants to be a part of and wants to do the things that dad does. It's awesome and kind of scary to see the things that they pick up on where I've never once told her, hey, let's do this. It's just, that's what she wants to do. I saw, uh, one year you were going out to the CrossFit games and you were competing as an individual and, uh, you had your whole tribe with you. You had the wife,

you had the kids with you. And I think you had an infant with you, I believe. And a lot of people were like, Oh, you know, he's done. Like he's not going to be able to win. Like, yeah, he's got a kid, but now he's got another kid. And like, I don't see this happening and you're still able to pull it off. Um, how, how have you been able to block out the noise to become a four time world champion?

Uh, I think you just use some of that, you know, when any, anytime anybody tells you can't, um, you guys know any, any competitor knows that's when that's kind of,

that's all the motivation you really need is to, uh somebody tell you that's not you know either nobody's done it before or it's not possible that's that's the deal and um i just it's every year is something i get too old or too many kids now you have three kids granted the kids thing that's the hardest part the uh age thing you know you know doing all right with that right now i actually feel better than i have probably the last three or four years but kids you know it's just you don't want to take too much time away from them and the the biggest thing for me and that's the reason i stepped away as an individual was um when i wasn't training i was still thinking about training when i was an individual i was obsessed with it i woke up every morning my goal was to be the fittest on earth it was to win the CrossFit game every single day and you have to have that you have to do that if you want to be a world champion or you want to

you know excel at what you're doing and I knew that I didn't want to sacrifice being a dad to have that you know so like I can still on the team i still compete still train really hard but when i'm done training i'm done training like i'm not thinking about what i need to do next and um you know obviously there's some days where i'm like oh i need you know i need to get something else in but it's not as uh as big of a stress as it was when i was an individual i was a real jerk you know like there's a lot of things that uh a lot of family things a lot of relationship things that kind of got put on the back burner you know and and i've some of it you you obviously regret but i mean that's what you have to do to be in that situation i think are you competing as an

individual this year or is that just an april fool's joke that was an april Fool's joke. Yeah, no, I mean, like I said, being on a team, I can still push and I still have that drive as an individual. You know, after a couple of years of being individual, you just kind of, I feel like I'm still probably close to that fitness level. You know, there's obviously days where I feel like I'm above that fitness level and there's days where I'm below that fitness level. like I'm above that fitness level and there's days where I'm below that fitness level. But to be an individual, you have to have that switch of just like, you know, I'm ready to, you know, I feel like you have to have something to prove. You feel like you have a chip on your shoulder, whatever it is. And you need that. Like if there's, you have five guys and they're all the same physical capabilities, but one person has that mental edge, that's how you win. And I just, as an individual, I don't really have that anymore.

You know, I'll give anything for my teams and I'll push as hard as I can for the guys and girls next to me. But as an individual, I just, like I said, I don't go to get second or third or for a participation medal. I go to win and I just don't, that's not where my head's at, if that makes sense. What if Frazier won a fourth championship that's that's the the golden question but it's just different times you know like he's super fit obviously uh great athlete and so it's just we're we're different different points in our careers and different points in our lives for

sure i just picture uh like some tumbleweed going in front of you two guys and you guys having an old fashioned Western. What have you noticed? Because you mentioned earlier that like, you started taking a little bit more better care of your health as you started getting a little bit older. So what type of decline have you noticed? Because yeah, you're an athlete and you know your body. So you definitely can feel certain things. What have you felt? Cause it's not like you're, you're not old, right? But you said you felt a decline. There's a lot of bile, you know, in this body for a 32 year or I'll be 32 in July. It's funny how you like up until 30, you're like, I'm 29 and 10 months. I'm 29, 11 months and three

days. And now it's like, I don't turn 32 till July. But if anybody asks, I'm always like like I'm 29 in 10 months I'm 29 11 months in three days now it's like I don't turn 32 till July but if anybody asks I'm always like I'm 32 as I give up you know like it's there's no point in delaying the inevitable one honestly the biggest thing for me has been in 17 the week before regionals I tore my meniscus and man it just you know I had the cortisone shot so i could compete that next weekend and then had the cortisone shot about four weeks out from the games just so i could compete at the games you know thought you know after cortisone shot you're good to go um and was thinking i don't need any surgery well then after the games i had to have go in have it cleaned up um just you know some some there was a small tear on the medial side,

and then I had a chronic tear on my lateral side that I never really even knew about. But, man, the recovery after that was a nightmare. You know, everybody's like, ah, it's six weeks and you're good to go. And, dude, it was, you know, six months and I still couldn't squat below parallel without feeling like there was a golf ball on the backside of my knee. So, you know, the did stem cell i did a couple rounds of stem cell three different treatments of stem cell um hyaluronic acid i tried the five part series i tried the three part series i tried the one part series and nothing really touched you know

the biggest thing is like pain i can deal with the pain it's the inflammation where i can't you know it's limiting my range of motion and so i actually went back to the doc this was a full year later with the doc after the crossfit games because it swelled up again um during the games and he was like ah you know i've seen you do tear he said we can go in there and just kind of flush it out and he's the old ex you know nfl doctor where he's just like yeah yeah let's go in and clean you up and you'll be good to go i was like ah let me let me do some some research and you know try to figure out what my other options are and uh so i took about six or eight weeks where i limited just range of motion uh try to do a lot of single leg stuff and stuff like that well then i found this do in town and he does just just a ton of different like manipulation and it's strain counter strain therapy is what it's

called similar to art but it's along the joint and then some acupuncture and man it was back in uh december of this year uh beginning of january right before we went to Waterpalooza. And he basically, I can squat. I can do most things. Obviously, I've got to be pretty smart. Like there's days where if it's a little bit swollen or, you know, if I can only run about once a week, twice a week really blows it up. Or I'll do like biker workouts where I'm standing, alternating between standing and sitting. With the standing, at least I'm getting some, between standing and sitting. With the standing,

at least I'm getting some, you know, pounding, you know, like body weight, you know, holding my weight on my feet. But then seated, I can actually get the turnover rate that I would actually do when I'm running. So a little bit of crossover there. And I can, I mean, I'm back to where I can squat, you know, nothing probably close to what you guys squat. But I mean, I did 345 for five in a front squat the other day. And so, you know, I'm getting back to where I'm close to what you guys squat, but I did 345 for five in a front squat the other day. I'm getting back to where I'm close to the numbers that I was doing. I just have to be smart. Very pleased. Like I said, the best I felt in a couple of years. I saw you one year, you were running from one event to another, and I swear you were running

in slow motion, and your supple breasts were bouncing up and down and every woman in the crowd was just drooling and watching you run by. How have you been able to kind of keep your cool and how have you been able, you're considered the greatest of all time and you're so young. How have you been able to keep, you know, level-headed? Has your faith in God or anything like that been something that's helped or, or maybe a relationship with your parents or something like that? Yeah, I think, you know, obviously my faith is a huge part of what I do and my, my tattoo is a Galatians 614 and it's,

that's basically all about being humble. You know, it's man never boasts of anything except for the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ who's been crucified to be a knight of the world. And so obviously that's a huge, you know, Hey, it's not about me. It's about, you know, God. And those are the talents that I've been given. I don't necessarily, you know, think that, Hey, God's going to help me win this event, but it's more of like, Hey, what can I do for you?

The talents that you've given me and the health that I have and all the blessings that I have, that's my gift back. But also, yeah, I mean, having my parents around that have always been, Hey, we're not going to, we're not really going to do much trash talk and you're going to keep your head down. You're going to work and you're going to outwork the person next to you. My wife definitely keeps me humble because she could care less anything about CrossFit. You know, the first time I snatched over 300, we did this like little charity kind of competition and we get back and you know everybody's pumping me up and talking about oh you know rich snatch 300 well i'm hillary's like i just i don't see the point you know like why would you need to do that and so that's a constant

reminder of hey she could care less about anything uh which is good you know like i that's i don't want somebody that loves me only because of my fitness level and I think honestly CrossFit too as a as a program or as that's my sport keeps you humble because you may win an event but you're going to get your ass kicked in another event you know so um you you may be the fittest but you still get beat a lot throughout the weekend and so I think um for me, that keeps me humble knowing, Hey, I might be pretty good at something, but I'm probably going to get beat, you know, if he's running or something like that. So, um, that's, that's

one way it keeps me humble for sure. So in regards to, uh, your wife, not really caring about your awesome, uh, you know, accomplishments and whatnot. Um, when you were in the thick of everything, what was the dynamic like when, you know, you're, you're spending so much time competing, so much time getting better. And yet you have a wife at home that's maybe not, not super pumped about, you know, everything you're, you're actually able to do. So what was that like when you were kind of in the middle of all that? Yeah, there was some, uh, there's some head-butting going on, you know, she just didn't realize, you know, why we couldn't take vacation, you know, beginning of June when everybody else does, when we compete at the end of July.

And it's kind of funny, you know, and it took a couple of years for her to kind of realize, Hey, this is, this is who you married and that's, you know, I'm not going to change you and she's not going to change me. And, uh, like I said, in the beginning, we, this is who you married, and that's, you know, I'm not going to change you, and she's not going to change me, and like I said in the beginning, we had some, because we actually started dating before I ever started doing CrossFit, and she actually, you know, we kind of grew into it together, and that was kind of the beauty of it was, you know, everything kind of was the progressive, you know, ramp up to where we are now. It wasn't an overnight, you know, ramp up to the, to where we are now. It wasn't an overnight, you know, just kind of everything changed. So, um, we were able to grow into it. She's been nothing but

supportive and, and, uh, throughout everything, but yeah, we definitely, uh, and still do, you know, there's some times where I'm like, Hey, I need to go downstairs for 30 minutes. Let me go get something in. And she's finally realized that it's that it's better just to let me move and not be an asshole than if I'm, you know, so just stressed out and wanting to do something that it's just bad for everybody. What's something else that's helped in that area? Because the women in CrossFit are beautiful and they got these tiny little shorts on. Does including your wife in like the gym atmosphere the gym atmosphere and, and, uh, maybe traveling with her. Has anything like that, uh, addition has helped in addition.

Yeah, for sure. You know, like, um, she's, she's really good friends with all the girls that, you know, train and compete with us. Um, so, you know, some of those girls are her best friends. Uh, she's, you know, obviously we're, we're at the house 99% of the time training. And then, you know, it's got to be smart. Like, it is hard. Like, there's so much, you know, stuff out there that could pull you another way.

And the big thing is, like, making sure you're never alone, ever alone with another person. Like, you know, obviously that goes without saying, but just be smart. Don't be an idiot. She's just super supportive, like I said, and she does travel with me. It's funny, though. She cherry-picks where she wants to go. She's going to go to China with us tomorrow, but

she didn't go to Amarillo, Texas with me two weeks ago. It is what it is. She doesn't necessarily admire your CrossFit capabilities, two weeks ago so it is what it is so she doesn't necessarily uh she doesn't necessarily admire your uh crossfit capabilities but she doesn't mind the money that rolled in doesn't mind the story she's probably gonna kill me but she probably never listened to this because she never listens to our podcast either um so she loves girls clothes and with my daughter

she was upset like first daughter was obsessed with with clothes and like the most expensive and all these frills and all this junk and so one night I'm helping her fold some clothes and I take some stuff up to her closet and I open the door and I'm like holy like how much I'm just thinking in my head dollar signs and I walk back downstairs and I'm like all right I'm not trying to be a dick or anything how how much money do you think you've spent on Lakeland's clothes and she goes it's a hobby and I was like it's expensive ass hobby she looks at me dead serious and she goes well CrossFit's an expensive hobby and I was like what said, I was like, that's what paid for all

this. She's like, well, you know what I mean? Like if you weren't so good at it, it would be an expense. I was like, your argument doesn't make any sense whatsoever. So yeah, that's, that's basically my relationship. You know what, I'm curious, what is it that built you to get into CrossFit? Cause you said you started like a little bit after you guys were together, but CrossFit is painful. You know, I did a vanilla CrossFit type workout and I was dead. It was nothing compared to what you do, but what prepared you to be able to handle those types of workouts and deal with that pain day after day? Yeah, we, I was actually talking to somebody about this the other day. I think it's just kind of a perfect mix of everything.

My parents, growing up, my mom, her parents were farmers. My dad didn't live on a farm, but it was always doing something, always working. My parents are, in any room, are two of the hardest workers in the room um they weren't you know we did we had a lot of chores to do but they weren't making us do stuff while they were sitting around like they were either doing something else or we were all doing the work together so having them uh playing sports growing up you know high school baseball college a little bit of college baseball my high school baseball coach was one of my biggest mentors, especially in hard work. And that was just the thing. We ran more than the track team. I felt like, which was completely

worthless. We'd go to the weight room. We do these like ridiculous circuits that had, you know, talking to him now, he's like, yeah, dude, I had no idea what I was doing. You guys hurt. And so just the mental side of that, the, you know, the, you know, physical, you know, growing up playing football, being outside. I was a firefighter for four years. That's actually how I found CrossFit. I was getting my degree in exercise science when my professors was like, hey, you should check out CrossFit. You know, a lot of military police fire guys do CrossFit. And, you know, when I was at the fire station, if we were just sitting around by about five o'clock, you had your free time, you know, it was 24 on 48 off. But after five o'clock, you know, traditional work day, you could, you know, go work out, you could watch TV, hang out, you could actually recline the recliners, we couldn't recline before five o'clock.

the guys would just hang out i'd go back to the gym because i had nothing to do and just go work out for a couple hours and they'd give me so much crap because i was always back there but i couldn't sit still that long so i think it was just a mix of all of those things um and found crossfit and um i actually did my first competition and we were on our way to spring break and it was like ah you know there's a lot of fit guys i don't think i'm going to be in the top 20 you know i had to be in the top 15 to transfer. So I was thinking, well, if I'm not top 20, we'll go ahead and get an early jump on spring break. We'll end up winning my sectional and the rest of it. So, yeah, I think, like I said, it's just a mix of everything.

Not one thing that I can really pinpoint that is the answer, but all of that. How many people are in Cooksville, Tennessee? but all of that. How many people are in Cooksville, Tennessee? Cooksville, Tennessee is technically, I guess, 40,000 people live in the city limits. There's about four or five small towns that are around Cooksville, and everybody kind of works in Cooksville. So they say, I think, during the day, there's probably 80,000 to 100,000 people in Cooksville.

So it's not – there's more than one stoplight. You know, we have – we've got Chipotle now. We've got Chick-fil-A, you know, all the good things, everything you need. How did, how was the fittest man on earth found in Cooksville, Tennessee? Can you explain to people a little bit on how CrossFit maybe used to work? Okay. Yeah. So honestly, I was born in Michigan when I was four years old when we moved to Tennessee. And so we've lived here since I was four years old, so going on 28 years. Yeah, I mean, it used to be we had, you know, we started training at, I got out of college. We opened a gym, couldn't afford to call ourselves CrossFit.

I won regionals. Dave was like, hey, we'll waive that fee for you if you call yourself CrossFit. So we opened CrossFit Mayhem. And then, you know, you win the games a couple of times and everybody wants to come to Cookville. So now, you know, we have Fraser lives here part of the part of the year. Tia Toomey lives here. Who else? Hinshaw, Chris Hinshaw, who's an endurance coach specialist, lives here. Rory McKernan, who's one of the hosts of the games. He's moving to Cookville as well. And we've got a couple of individual, ex-individual athletes that are on our team as well. So, I mean, Cookville's kind of becoming one of the hubs of CrossFit. I guess you still have the Out West stuff, but we're making a push now.

But how was it that you were found? Can you explain a little bit how CrossFit works or at least worked at that time? So it used to be you basically just signed up for a sectional. And you competed at a sectional. And the top 15 from each sectional went to regionals. The top five from each region went to the games. And so that was what happened to me for the first year in 2010. Well, then I got second that next year and they kind of completely changed everything up.

And they used to have well, they still have the open. And from the open, you took the top. Well, you go way back. You went there were 16 regions, top 40 from each region in the open went to regionals, top three from each region went to the games. Well, then they changed it again and you went down to eight regionals and the top 20 from each sub-regional or whatever you want to call it went to the regionals, top five went to the games.

Well, then now your guess is as good as mine is how it works. But for the individuals, if you are the top 20 in the Open, or if you are a national champion, or if you win one of these now sanctionals, you now go to the CrossFit Games. For the teams, for us, the four-person teams, you now have to just win a sectional. So the Open doesn't matter.

You just have to go to the already sectionals, which we're going to tomorrow in Shanghai. You win one of those, you win the CrossFit Games. So the CrossFit Open was really what blew CrossFit wide open, so to speak, because it was an Internet competition. And when I think about competitions and I think about, you know, maybe some of the biggest competitions in the world, the only thing I can think of that might surpass it would be like American Idol. But never in the history of fitness has there ever been anything

remotely close to this. And in CrossFit, I find it amazing that you can compare yourself to somebody in your age category. You can compare yourself to somebody in your area, your state, in the country, in the world, right? It's unbelievable the way that that has been set up. Have you found that to be like a real big motivating factor for a lot of the people that you've worked with in your gym, this kind of like ranking system of over 250,000 people? gym this kind of like ranking system of over 250,000 people yeah yeah I think it's definitely a motivator you have a lot of people that you know it's it's more accessible because they can just do it here at the gym and so for us what we will do is on Friday nights we'll have what we call Friday night lights and so it gives people you know what's really cool is in NFL or pro baseball, you can't go actually get on the field with Tom Brady or, you know, any of those type of people or play baseball and, you know, go against Justin Berland or somebody like that.

But in CrossFit, you can go against Matt Fraser. You can go against Tia Toomey because they're doing the exact same workouts. Granted, you have to have the, obviously, you have to have the capacity to do those workouts, but you can still do a workout, the same workout or a very similar workout and compare exactly where you're at against them, which makes it kind of cool for people, I think. And this is a different dimension to any other sport, I feel like. And this is a different dimension to any other sport, I feel like. Do you think that there's anything right now that could get you back to doing an individual?

Because I know you said how much of a strain it has on your family, how much you have to focus on it. But is there anything that could drive you in that direction? Or do you at this moment feel that there's no way you're gonna have to make that sacrifice to do that again i just like i said i've kind of you know obviously i it does creep in your mind some days you're like man i've still got it and then other days you're like man i'm glad i'm not doing this anymore um you know it's it there's it would take a miracle honestly for it for it to happen. It's just not there right now. I can't say that that won't change over time. And who knows?

Matt's going to win four. That obviously is going to happen. He might probably win five. And I try to say that that wouldn't creep into my head whatsoever, but who knows? We're all competitive. Most of us that do crossfit are competitive and who knows if that something creeps into my head but i you know it's just it's it's comparing apples to oranges and all that stuff so it's just

different and you get a chance to go head to head with him when he's at your gym sometimes uh we did in the beginning and we kind of realized quick that it's not good for either one of our uh you know he'd beat me i'd beat him and it was just like somebody's gonna die and there's really we don't we don't train a ton together um and you know he travels our travel schedules are a little bit different and in just there's a lot going on and we just realized in the beginning hey we can do some stuff similar together but we don't need to go head to head it's just not not healthy for either one of us because i didn't really not be healthy for a friendship how about the team since it's so new like your team has won the most team competition so far right yeah well tied technically but yeah

okay do you have any uh long-term goals as far as that type of competition is concerned since it's less of a strain? Yeah, no, I'm not a huge, and as weird as it sounds, you know, people think that all people that are successful have to have goals. I'm not a huge goals guy other than when I wake up, you know, we're going to, our goal is to win. You know, like that's my goal. I don't really have like short-term goals or anything like that. I have a goal that usually starts the day after the CrossFit Games every year, and that's to win the CrossFit Games the next year. And that's, you know, I want to win as many times as we can win and keep doing that. And, you know, they've kind of changed it up this year where you can basically make super teams and people don't have to train together to be on the same team.

And so that's, you know, we're going to have to kind of evolve into that and figure that out too. So we've already had to do that a little bit. You know, growing up where you grew up, you know, I see some videos of you guys shooting some stuff and you guys catching footballs while you're going down a wet ramp into a pond and just looking like you're having a lot of fun. Do you think being free like that and being able to run out in the woods and do some things that maybe other kids didn't have access to,

do you think some of that was something that allowed you to end up becoming so good in CrossFit just because maybe as a kid you were just constantly either working and doing a chore or like playing? For sure. Yeah, no, I mean, I, I, that's one of the biggest things is I, we grew up in a place where I could literally go outside, get lost, climb trees. We repelled off of a little, little bluff with a garden hose when I was a kid, which wasn't bright. I mean, and my parents were super supportive. Like I said, as long as most of the time, as long as we found something to do outside or or something productive, you know, they were going to let us do it and weren't going to make us do any chores.

So most of the time we would go find our own own stuff to do. Obviously, there were still some chores that had to be done and we did a lot of that stuff. But yeah, being able to, I mean, my parents never really, my dad never told me no about, you know, stuff like that. It was more be careful. And so I try to do that with, you know, he was there if I was going to fall in when I was super young, but man, I climbed trees, we jumped off stuff um it was just you know we had a and this is the the kind of the the story behind the rope climb where I didn't make the rope

climb in 2010 was we had a rope in the barn that you know was to climb and so one time I'm trying to use my feet when I'm younger and he's like don't use your feet that's for pussies and so um thanks dad I never learned how to use my feet on a rope climb before the games in 2010. That's that. That's the story on that. But yeah, no, my parents were great on that type of stuff. We were always outside and I was a little bit of an adrenaline junkie. And I think that for sure helped. When you. Oh, good. Oh, I know that you said you don't ever force your kids to like, you know, do CrossFit workouts or anything like that. But obviously you grew up being super active running around outside. Do you, are there any things in your house where like you don't have as much electronics or do you have them do things like that?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we obviously every, you know know i was one of those parents that was people that was like i'll never give my kid any type of electronics because they just you know it's rots their brain but sometimes you need 10 minutes to yourself you know you're like take this and we'll be but i it's it's amazing and it actually really stresses me out to watch just how engulfed my two younger a little bit too young to they trice my son pays zero attention to anything other than what he can

destroy or you know what the thing is that he can throw on the ground but my daughter oldest daughter you know if you give her a phone it's like you can't talk to her she's just completely engulfed and that scares me like you're just all right, if I walk in the house and you know, she's with a babysitter and she's on the phone, I'm like, all right, let's go. We're going outside. Like I try to limit that as much as I can. But at times you're like, Hey, I need 10 minutes to myself. I need to get something done. Whatever it is here. Watch, you can watch. She calls a, she calls an Elsa on the phone, but it's just basically you two kids, but man, yeah, it is stressful. And so we have 90 acres now and we're about to get some bison and do a little bit of farming. And so basically nothing crazy, not a huge deal.

But I want my kids to have some type of chores and some responsibility. Like they have the ability to grow up to be stuck up rats. And I want to make sure that that doesn't happen. Yeah. You know, I like what you said about you, you talked about your daughter, like having her phone and then you suggesting, Hey, let's go outside, which is way different than, Hey, I told you to put that phone away. You know, it's a way different thing. You're not telling her what she can't do, but you're giving another option towards what you can do. I really like that a lot. not telling her what she can't do, but she's giving another option towards what you can do.

I really like that a lot. Yeah. Yeah. You know, she, she's, it's, it's really cool to see that, you know, obviously she's a kid and electronics are big, but she's really big into Legos. And that's kind of the funny thing. And she's like, Hey, you want to go upstairs and play Legos? And I'm like, heck yeah, let's go play some Legos. Like, you know, if I'm, instead of just sitting around doing nothing, she wants to go play Legos and she's four and a half. So it's pretty awesome. In 2010, when you did struggle with that rope climb, was that something that kind of set forth the rest of your career? Do you think that was a moment that kind of needed to happen to get you fired up to start destroying everybody, basically? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. You know, I before that, you know, I'd let CrossFit kind of become in the previous months, let CrossFit kind of define who I was as a human being.

And, you know, like I said, my faith is a huge part of who I am. And that failure made me realize, hey, that, you know, earthly things aren't aren't what defined me as a human being. And it really helped me to kind of disconnect from you know for a couple uh months after cross after the games that year i didn't want to do any crossfit i was just like man i've gotta i gotta get on this i didn't want to work out and so it really helped me kind of back up too and i was like hey why don't you start figuring out how to move better and not necessarily worry about how much weight but actually doing stuff correctly you know because a lot of crossfitters uh maybe not now as as much but when we were back then it was like hey who cares what it looks like as long as i'm getting it done fast you know and and um and and

now it's like all right let's let's pump the brakes a little bit and you know take the barbell down to 195 or 135 and let's move a bar while doing Olympic lifts before we start to, you know, load our spine and, and, you know, do all that type of stuff. And, and it really helped me, uh, overall doing that for sure. Was that something that did help you to get away from, uh, allowing it to define you? Because I've seen, I've seen it kind of burn a lot of other CrossFitters and I've,

I see it in our sport too, and powerlifting and stuff like that, where the numbers really define you. But how does, how does somebody get away from that? Man, it's hard. And that was the biggest thing where I think,

like I said, with my faith, it was, that's what defines who I am. And, and, you know, people,

anything with CrossFit can be taken away from me, but that, that can't defines who I am. And, and, you know, people, anything with CrossFit can be taken away from me, but, um, that, that can't really be taken away. And, and I, you know, for somebody who, you know, faith isn't their thing. Um, I think it's, it's, you know, getting outside of yourself and, and not letting, you know, um, it gets so, you know, one thing be who defines you as a human being. Like now my kids, you know, I know that, you know, I'm a dad first now. And there's, you know, and there's still our days where I let, you know, what happens in the gym or what happens with numbers and all that stuff define me. Like I'm not saying that that doesn't happen, but, um, every day is a new day. And I try to figure out at the end of the day, kind of take a,

take a recap and say, all right, I did this well, I did not do this well. What can I do different tomorrow? And, uh, you know, it's tough. You know, there are days where I'm like, man, I was, I was a good dad today. And then there's days where I'm like, wow, I was a piece of shit. So it's, uh, it's tough. And then that's life, I think. And it's as long as you're moving forward and are able to be held accountable and can hold yourself accountable and doing those things that aren't necessarily the easy things to do, that's good. What about maybe tricking yourself a little bit with your training maybe uh utilizing like the conjugate system doing something that's uh different um let's say

particular crossfit workout calls for some deadlifts and uh some pull-ups or something like that back and forth but rather than doing uh the actual protocol maybe you deadlift and you have some chains on the bar. And maybe when you go to do your pull-ups, you're, you're doing a pull-up on a fatter bar or something like that. You know, have you done things like that, throwing yourself kind of a curve ball so that you're not getting too attached to the actual numbers and the actual score, maybe potentially making the workout a little bit harder or maybe making the workout even a little bit easier? Yeah. Yeah. I rarely do, um, benchmark workouts. Honestly. Um, I do a lot of variations of benchmark workouts, like, um, just an example

the other day, you know, one of the workouts, one of the first workouts I competed in was called Amanda and it's just nine, seven, five muscle ups and squat snatch at one 35. Well, a couple of weeks ago, uh, we did, it was, uh, we have three, two, one legless rope climbs with nine, seven, five squat snatch. So we'll do a lot of stuff like that where it's similar time domain, um, similar, you know, stimulus, but it's a completely different movement. Uh, but yeah, that's, it's kind of the beauty of what we do is you can kind of change that stuff as much as you want. But like I said, I really don't do a ton of the benchmark strict straight CrossFit.com benchmark workouts.

We, we use those as kind of a template. And then another thing that we've actually started doing is it's tough, you know, because intensity is a huge, huge key in what we do and CrossFit, you know, preaches intensity and all that stuff.

One thing that I've started doing is, is adding some actual like interval Metcons into, so like we'll do that nine, seven, five with three, two, one legless, but we'll do it. We've got, we did it three times. And so you rested till 10, almost complete rest and go again. So, you know, cause that's one of the things with CrossFit, a lot of people are like, you only did a two minute workout today. And so, you know, that's one of the things with CrossFit. A lot of people are like, you only did a two minute workout today. And so, you know, we are you going to get better in a mile? You're not going to just run a mile. You're going to do it, you know, in different variations and a couple of different times.

So that's that's kind of something that I've learned over my it's kind of crazy to think back. I've been doing CrossFit going on 10 years. to think back, I've been doing CrossFit going on 10 years. That's something that's helped me a lot too, just with my training is like, I don't do the exact thing that I'm called to do in competition. And when I do, it's still usually like a small variation. And that just helps me from a mental perspective. I don't want to be, I do need to know where I'm at sometimes, but I also don't want to be discouraged if I'm not exactly where I want to be.

And I think for someone like yourself, you probably already kind of know, like, you know, whether you're 5% off or 2% off or whether you're right on point. Right. Yeah. But I mean, it's still tough. I mean, there's days where you don't realize how much stuff affects, you know, like the other day yesterday man i was feeling great i did a biker workout and actually like pr'd my 20 minute uh watt test by like 10 watts which is pretty big actually and you know and so it's you know when those those days are good i try to strike while the iron's hot and then there's going to be days where you're like man i feel like garbage and you just try to just get through it you know and and um that's one of the big things is you know people talk about plateaus and and overtraining and all that stuff and as long as i try to keep it fun you know like there are times where i felt like i was not necessarily physically overtrained but mentally

i think it's more of a mental thing than anything as long i mean obviously there there is science behind physical overtraining like if you're you know being ridiculous but i think it's more mental for me personally as long as i'm having fun and enjoying what i'm doing it's hard for me to be overtrained you know cross it's really interesting at this point because nowadays like with a lot of other established sports, you're seeing young kids starting, right? And they look like they're phenoms and they're doing some crazy stuff and they're just starting really early. So for a 16 or 17-year-old kid that might be listening and let's say maybe they have a little bit of experience with the barbell,

what would you tell them to do to get started if they're like, I want to be a competitive CrossFitter when I'm in my 20s? Would you say start and find yourself a CrossFit box would you tell them to start with olympic lifting what should they do play as many sports as they can physically possibly play uh i get this is this is actually this is my one soapbox that i get so there's a couple soapboxes this is one of my main ones i can't stand when kids come up to me i'm like hey i quit playing football or i quit playing baseball to concentrate on being a professional CrossFitter. That drives me insane. If I could go back today at my age, I would have, I would have used CrossFit or use some type,

like I would have gotten in the way. I would have squatted more. I never squatted growing up because I didn't really know how to do it. And our coach didn't teach us a ton about it. I did a bunch of bench press, a bunch of pull-ups. You know, baseball players do forearm stuff. We did a ton of that. I would go back and squat, power clean, power snatch, all that stuff. However, I would play sports. I would have played more sports.

I played baseball. That was my concentration. You know, I thought, you know, I wanted to be a professional baseball player. If I could go back, I would have played more football. I would have tried other things. I think you need, you know know if you can play more sports you're going to have a larger base you've got the rest of your life to do CrossFit or be a professional fitness whatever it is but you can't go back to high school or college and play sports like yeah you can play softball men's

league softball beer league softball whatever but you can't go back and you can't replace the memories that I have in the locker room, the competition that I had growing up playing baseball. You know, I can't, some of my best friends that I still talk to are from there and you can't replace that. And so for me, it rips, it kills me when I hear kids saying, Oh, I quit. Just to concentrate on CrossFit. Use CrossFit for your sport.

Obviously, I think, yeah, find a good affiliate. Make sure you're doing the movements correctly. Don't necessarily worry so much about weight, more about how well you move and move in the bar well or doing pull-ups correctly and all that type of stuff. But man, play as many, man,, woman plays as many sports as you can. How advanced has your training got? Um, you seem like, uh, you're pretty bare bones, like I'm just going to like run or I'm going to sprint or I'm going to do CrossFit workout. But as you, have you done like CO2 maxes? Have you had, you know, anyone come in and done scientific research? Do you have like a running coach and a lifting coach and a coach for each different thing? Or how do you do it?

Yeah, so I've done my VO2 a couple times. I did kind of a case study with one of my ex-professors where post-games I did a VO2. Leading up to the Open, I did a VO2. Post-regionals, VO2. Games, VO2. Just kind of cataloged my training throughout the year nothing like super crazy we did you know some hand diet uh what is it dynamometer dynamometer whatever it is uh testing did a vertical leap um that type of stuff and then

um there was a couple like one rep max stuff so i did that um what was that three or four years ago uh but as far as coaches you know i've worked with Hinshaw some. He gives us some running stuff. We bounce some ideas off of each other. I've never really had a lifting coach. I've worked with Coach B some. You know, when he's in town, always great to work with him. But then I've just kind of learned either what not.

Most of the time I've learned what not to do. But then I've just kind of learned either what not. Most of the time I've learned what not to do. And then as far as the prospect goes, I feel like, you know, with the team, you know, we'll kind of sit up. We'll write stuff on the board. Hey, what have we done? What have we not done recently? What time domains have we hit? You know, what lifts have we not done?

How's everybody feeling? We'll kind of make workouts like that. I did have a swim coach a couple years ago, now um we kind of do that on our own but uh yeah i think i think it's very beneficial to have specialty coaches for certain things um as far as crossfit coaches go i don't really think anybody has it figured out as much as they think they do I think training partners is huge or you know somebody that's that the problem and the problem with a lot of probably get over this but probably across the coaches is they have a bending you know like it's hard to part to say hey well you know I know exactly what what's gonna go on and what you need to do but

you don't because you haven't competed you haven't been in that moment and actually been a part of that so um training partners for me is a big thing i like having a lot of people around and people that are going to push you yeah just mainly working your ass off right pretty much there's that's the that's the thing is everybody thinks there's some some short short road or some you know easy way to get there but it's it's it's hard work it always comes back to that you know on that note you mentioned that they haven't been there and you own a like you obviously you own your own big crossfit gym post-competing or i don't know when that's going to be for you do you see yourself like working with a lot of people in that way? Like what is it that you want to do outside of competition?

Yeah, man, I'm still trying to figure that out. Obviously, you know, I always just kind of am, you know, what's the next opportunity that presents itself? I would, I think I could help maybe do some coaching i just you know it's hard for me to i'm usually the the lead by example type of person versus rah rah get in your face give you some bs and pat you on the ass and tell you to good to go like um i'm more like hey let's let's go do this i'm right there with you and i think honestly that comes from my parents like i said it was they were never going to ask me to do something that they weren't going to do um and you know i never got some big speech from my dad about you know if i

missed you know played bad in baseball he's like well do better next time you know it was it was just kind of an expectation and so that's i'm not really sure to be honest uh i feel like that probably will be where i end up and i want to be involved in the sport in some way um i just i'm not sure how how that you know i'm a team that's not my uh i'm not the comforter or the uh the the nurturer on the team i'm more of the hey why why are you crying I've got to go over here. I can't handle this. And it's like, I just, it's just my personality, you know, and obviously I'll, I'll do anything and help them out any way I can. As long as we stay under control and emotionally, we're all right. You know, there's, um, um, it's just not my, my forte. I think it'd be very beneficial for a lot of people just to hear your story.

You know, that would, that would be a great place to start. So as many people as you can share your story with, uh, you know, just how everything unfolded and how everything went for you, uh, where you, uh, messed up and where you succeeded. People love hearing stories like that. And that'll be motivational without being like a speech, you know, it'd be motivational just in and of itself. It's just your body of work. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, um, that's kind of what I'm,

I'm realizing is, you know, back when I first started doing CrossFit or, you know, won the games once or twice, people would ask me to come speak. And I'm like, uh, my biggest fear, honestly, from like college, it was public speaking class, you know, like, uh, my biggest fear, honestly, from like college was public speaking class, you know, like, um, it's, it's just, was not where I wanted to be. And now I guess back then you feel like I didn't really do anything. Why do you want to listen to me speak? And so now it's kind of like, all right, let me tell you all the things I screwed up first. And then we'll tell you.

Yeah. The, uh, your willpower can be built, you know, whether it's, uh, you know, for, you know, CrossFit or whether it's uh you know for you know crossfit or whether it's uh for like public speaking you can kind of build up the nerve to to do anything yeah yeah it just takes some time you got a question andrew yeah is it um is it weird being you uh meaning like uh are you surprised at all that, you know, you go to a CrossFit event and, you know, fans are freaking out and you're just like, I've just been working my ass off my whole life. But yet now, you know, the name Rich Froning is something. It means something. It's, as of right now, you know, the greatest of all time when it comes to CrossFit.

Does any of that, like, weird you out at all? Yeah, a lot. You know, like when people, you know, try to take a picture and they're shaking or something like, or we had a guy cry the other day. I was just like, man, I just work out. Like it's, I work out a lot. And it just happens to be that some people like to watch that, you know, and it's hard for me.

I'm like, or I try to tell them, hey, no big deal. Like we're normal people. Luckily, like I said, I kind of grew into that. If it would have been an overnight thing, I would have been really freaked out. And now it's kind of like as the sport grew, I kind of grew with it. And so that helped a ton because, like I said, back years ago, I was – and I'm still a little bit of a – I'm not, I'm not an introvert by any means, but I'm not a, I don't like crowds. I'm not a huge, like, you know,

outgoing person. And so that's something that I've kind of had to learn as we've gone. And if I had to do that overnight, I think it would have been even more awkward. Like if you go back and watch some old videos of interviews and stuff, you can tell you're like, well, that guy definitely needed some type of media training it's it's helped that i've kind of grown grown into it it wasn't an overnight thing you know uh you actually touched on it a little

bit i'm like i'm curious exactly what these pitfalls were that you mentioned because you said there were a lot of things that you wish you didn't do um what are those things that maybe you wish you didn't do that you might see other athletes doing and uh the second part that i want to know is because since everything you do is so intense even to this day what are your best recovery methods and things that you think others should be doing yeah as far as things that uh i did wrong, I didn't take care of my body when I was younger. I didn't get body work done. I didn't do those type of things. There's a lot of dumb workouts where you're just like, why did I do that?

As far as volume-wise, rep-wise, stuff like that. I did this thing for almost a year and a half, two years, where I would do 300 calories on an airdyne every single day. Looking back, it probably could have been a little bit more productive, you know, like just stupid things where you're, you know, not necessarily, I don't, I don't think it was a detriment to my fitness, but I could have been a lot more smart with my time. And even like, you know, now that I've over the years, I've realized, Hey, this, these things, uh uh work or like maybe i don't need to do as much volume as i thought i needed to do on certain things and

all that type of stuff it's just you know there's probably too many to really list but those are the main things volume wise just being smarter about how you're training, taking the necessary recovery needs and stuff like that. I still, honestly, you know, people ask how many rest days I take. I feel better when I move every day. You know, some days may not be as high intensity or as, you know, as stressful, but I still move every single day. And one of the big things, too, is like Thursdays now, I just usually just swim and bike. So it's a little bit easier on my joints.

Someday I usually just bike so I can hang out with the family a little bit more. But, you know, and then as far as those, I guess that kind of leads into the next question. As far as recovery goes, swimming is a huge one for me. I really like to swim. I use it as a hard training session but it doesn't beat me up as bad and so i do that usually twice a week around 2500 meters each time i'm in the pool um like i said with the bike erg i do that twice a week it doesn't beat me up like running does but i can still get pretty decent workouts and i actually last year also

bought a cold tub but not like a nice fancy cold tub. I went to Walmart or to Lowe's and bought a deep freezer and put an aquarium thermostat in there and keep it at about 50 degrees. I sit in that. I haven't been doing it as much because it's been so cold outside, but now that it's warmed up, I'll start doing that again every day, about 10 to 15 minutes. That really helped. I have infrared sauna that I use. Not as much as I'd like to because I have three kids. And so if I'm in there, the kids are in and out and losing all the heat.

It's ridiculous. But that was a big thing for me that I really like to do when I have the time. A regular sauna too as well. Whenever I get done swimming, I usually sit in a regular sauna. Um, recovery wise I've used, uh, I really liked that hyper bulb gun, um, or the Thera gun, man, that thing, magic, um, and like I said, the biggest thing is now I've been going to this doctor, this DO once a week and do it. Uh, he'll just put me back in the line. He'll do some of this, uh,

you know, joint therapy stuff and then some acupuncture, honestly. And as weird as that sounds years ago, I was like acupuncture, uh, but it's helped move some inflammation and make me feel better. We have a lady that comes every two weeks and does a dry needling.

Um, that's another one that we do. Uh, that's pretty much it as far as recovery. Like I said, it's the hardest part. And that's the one thing that still gets a little bit neglected is recovery. Just with having three kids. Like if I'm trying to recover for an hour, my wife sees me sitting around for an hour. How's that going to go? Usually not very, Oh, that's usually the biggest thing. Like I said, it's making a point to not letting myself get to the point where it'd be I'm falling apart.

So I'll go see somebody. It's hey, once a week, take the hour and a half. Go see somebody. Stay in line. Make sure you're recovering versus let the wheels fall off. Try to put everything back together. That's, that's been the big thing. Does your training at least adhere to something along the lines of you are maybe concerned about recovery. So just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. So in a given workout, you can go full blast and you can really blast yourself out.

You have a tremendous work capacity. So that's gotta be a little bit in the back of my back of the mind you want to be intense and you want to go hard but you probably just pull back a little bit on something or say that's not smart to do that today yeah yeah usually it's just go as fast as the one rep faster than the person who i'm training with it's usually that yeah i mean because you only have so many days where you can actually full on, you know, put the pedal to the metal because it takes so much out of you. But yeah, I mean, obviously, we're training hard, but probably, you know, we say go as hard as you can, but it's probably around 85, 90% if you had to really look at it. you know, a little bit swollen today. My hip's not feeling great on that side. Let's not, uh, let's not go for a five rep max, you know, front squat or something like that. And just trying to be smart about that type of stuff is like, Hey, the benefit I might get, or the strength I might

get actually might not help because I can't walk tomorrow. So that's, that's as hard as it is to be smart. Sometimes you got to do that. Yeah. Is it yeah is it uh is it is it tough when you're in your gym and you have your guys around you and you know maybe someone's trying to compete with you or you have a guest and they walk in and you're like you know i'm gonna take it easy today and they're like well wait but you're you're the crossfit champ i'm gonna i'm gonna see what you got is it hard to kind of step back from that uh it used to be now I'm like, I'm all right. You know, I, I don't have to prove to you anything, uh, for, for the first couple of years. It was like, Oh yeah, I just did that. But you know what? I'll do it again because you're doing it. And then somebody new would come in. Cause

you know, back then I, you know, I have a group that would come train in the morning. I'd have a group that came and trained in midday and a group that would come train in afternoon. And so I'm like, Oh yeah, well, I'm'm gonna do what i did already again because i'm moved to you i'm fitter than you and then the afternoon same thing and now luckily we all kind of all trains together and so it's not that big a deal um so we all kind of hold each other accountable um but yeah it was for years it was just like oh yeah i have repowered clean this morning let's do it again just because so I was like yeah maybe Dave might make us do that at the game so it might have to be ready for that and then I was like this is dumb I'm an idiot those are some of the things

like you said uh things that I learned was hey you don't have to there's still some days that I feel like I want to like show how fit I am to new people or to the group that I'm with. But there's most days I'm like, I'm good. I'm all right. I'm going to be smart here. What do you think of the current state of CrossFit? Oh, man. It's confused, honestly.

You know, you can't. I don't really know how to feel about some of this stuff like obviously Greg has big picture ideas that he's wanting to do and it's his baby and if he wants to burn it to the ground he can do that you know like it's his it's his to do and you know as an athlete it's hey we just got to roll with the punches and have to adapt it at what the, the new standard is going to be or what the new, um, new norm is going to be. And there's not much we can do and just,

just do what we can control. We can control that strain hard and work hard and try to put the best team out there, best individual, whoever you are, um, out there. I think,

uh, like I said, it's, it's, it's Greg's, it's Greg's baby to burn or do whatever he wants with, and we can't really do anything

about it. I'm interested to see what's going to happen at the games this year. There's a couple things that I think could be run a little bit different. I think the open is a little bit hard to let people qualify to the games out of the open.

As much as we want to say crossfitters are all you know holier than thou and nobody's going to cheat i'm i feel like there's might be some cheaters out there and and um you know it is what it is um do you think maybe crossfit should have like a board of maybe some uh former champions like yourself maybe get a couple people together to maybe, you know, make some decisions on CrossFit games or things of that matter maybe? I think it might be beneficial, but like I said, it's Greg's to do with what he does. I mean, if he asked me to help out or asked a bunch of us ex-athletes or ex-champions to sit down and kind of go through some stuff, I'd be happy to help, but I don't think he has to do that.

I think it might be beneficial, but if that's not what he wants to do and he wants to run it however he wants to run it, go for it, man. You mentioned cheating. Have you seen or how do you feel about the testing? Have you been tested for PEDs yourself? And what have you kind of seen in the CrossFit game? Because a lot of people will say, look how jacked these guys are. Look how ripped these guys are.

Look at their performances of the men and the women. And they think that people are on anabolic steroids or PEDs. What are your thoughts on that? I'm 192 pounds and 5'9". Steroids. I would like to find some better steroids you know I all for testing and all for doing as much testing as possible I've been tested a couple times on a season urine and blood everybody talks about how easy it is to cheat I guess I'm just too stupid to

even look up how to cheat or don't even I you know i feel like they'd somehow find that on my phone um i've never done any of that stuff somehow last year when we showed up to register um i got randomly or my team got randomly selected and i got randomly selected to drug test at registration um and then post um gamesames, they test all the individuals and teams at podium. And somehow I got randomly selected to give blood after the games too. So, you know, I'm all for – you probably couldn't give blood every single day. But if I could go back and give all the blood i had and and as many urine samples as i could just to shut people up i would do it um you know i think people are going to cheat and and you know it's naive to say well crossfitters they would never cheat and you know as soon as you

start throwing money in there or fame or any of that type of stuff people are going to cheat and so uh yeah there might be some cheaters out there. They did catch some people last year at regionals and all that type of stuff. So I feel like they kind of stepped up their game. But I don't know. We'll see. Has CrossFit ever broken you? You mentioned losing the 2010 games, and I'm sure you've had – I know me personally, I've had workouts where I've driven home from

the gym and I've been super frustrated, mad, sad. I've even cried after workouts and stuff like that before. Has CrossFit ever broken you down? Oh yeah, for sure. After 2010, like I said, there was, you know, I was, I was in a dark place. Didn't like where I was at. Um, didn't enjoy doing any of that stuff. And then really this man, this knee stuff was hard. It was, you know, I couldn't do the things I wanted to do. Couldn't train the way I wanted to train. It's really kind of an emotional thing when you can't squat, you know, as bad as it sounds, you're like squats are terrible, but it takes out so much, so much more than you'd think. And man, there would be days where I would just like be mad,

to be mad at my kids. And I'm like, what, what am I doing? Like, you know, and so that injuries are, have just been really hard. And that was the, it's, it's not fun. And like I said, it's, yeah, there's been days where, you know, have a bad workout or things happen. And you're just like, why am I, why am i letting this you know really mess with me this bad like tomorrow's a new day and that's and that's something that i've had to kind of learn is like hey there's going to be days that um you're not going to feel um as fit or as strong or as healthy as you think you are and then there's going to be days where you feel great and so it's it's like i talked about earlier kind of of with every day is a new day. You know, everybody that does a big sport wants to be the best at it.

No matter when they start, they want to try and be the best. If you can go back to like, you know, 11 to 14, I know you said that there's something you need to have internally to be able to do something like that, to be able to achieve that. Mentally, what does that look like on a day-to-day basis? Like, yeah, you're training hard, but what's going on in your head? Oh, man. Like I said, it was waking up every single morning was my goal was to win the CrossFit games. And I would sacrifice any and everything. Like, that's what I wanted to do.

And I don't know, honestly, we were talking earlier where that really came from. I think it was a mix of everything um I'm one of 32 first cousins on my mom's side 25 of us are boys and so any get together any family get together uh was always some type of competition and I hated losing I hated the embarrassment like even if it was just me and somebody else, I felt embarrassed losing. And I still feel that, you know, it's like, you know, the saying, you know, I like to I don't like to win as much as I hate losing. That is 1000 percent true. Like I I feel embarrassed losing in anything. It's so stupid, but it's just the way I get. stupid but it's just the way wired again um you mentioned earlier about goals and you kind of said uh that you don't really set a lot of goals um are you the kind of person that like writes things down sometimes like in terms of maybe something that you want to do business wise or uh if a

certain idea comes uh to your mind um for something that you may want to do with one of your sponsors like Rogue Fitness or something you want to do with the gym? Do you journal things? Do you write things down? How do you stay on track with that kind of stuff? Yeah, I'm not a huge write down, you know, write down a ton of things. If I do have some type of idea, I will either notepad it or I usually just go immediately to the source of whoever I think can get that done.

If it's something for the gym, you know, I have a couple of different directors who are in charge of different things. I'll be like, hey, what do you think of this? And we kind of bounce some ideas back and forth. You know, I'm I'm not a huge like I like other people's input. So I like to say, hey, what do you think of this versus, oh, I know that's a good idea. I want to hear somebody else and, you know, they may have a better, you know, just maybe needed to push and they can run with the idea. Um, yeah, I'm not a huge, like, like I said, my huge journal, I don't keep a journal or anything like that, but I do have a notepad on my phone, you know, write down all my workouts and all that type of stuff. Um, but as far as like, you know,

writing stuff down, not a huge, huge person in that. What's something that you enjoyed doing that maybe most people wouldn't think of? Like, are you at home watching some crappy reality TV or, you know, you have anything like that in your back pocket? Huge TV fan. I mean, I like movies. I'm ready for the Marvel, the new Endgame to come out. We are going to China and it is coming out earlier there. Um, and it is in English.

I found that out too. Um, yeah, no, I love all those movies. Um, I was never a huge comic book person though, but I love the movies. What else?

Um, I like the office. I just now started watching the office. It's surprising as that is. It's definitely, I can't believe it took me so long to watch it. But man, I don't really have a ton of time for TV. If I do watch TV, it's mostly Disney Junior. So talk about there. I'm a huge sports fan. Love watching Notre Dame football as bad as it was to watch the cotton bowl. And then I like to just,

man, I like to be outside. I like to hunt, play any type of sport I can, as long as, you know, I can still move around and do stuff. Picked up hockey the last five or six years ago.

Like to go, we have lakes around here. So do some, uh, like wake surfing. Uh, I used to wakeboard a lot until I, um, I don't have that switch. It's like, Hey, you shouldn't do that. Um, and now I'm too old for that. So yeah, I just like, like being outside, like doing stuff like that. Into any books? Um, yeah. So I do have a goal to read a biography about every U.S. president. I read all of Bill O'Reilly's killing books. I read all of those. And then I read Reagan's biography, read and almost finished with George Washington. So I kind of backtracked and then I'm going back

to the beginning, read George washington's biography uh i met president w george w bush and then he gave me a signed copy of his book so that's pretty cool um you would enjoy um it's on the history channel it's called the men who built america and it's uh the frontier it's got like you know daniel boone and all those people on it pretty pretty cool that kind of kind of reminds me of you i can picture you uh in one of those funny little hats you know, Daniel Boone and all those people on it. Pretty, pretty cool. That kind of reminds me of you. I can picture you in one of those funny little hats, you know, with the raccoon on it or whatever. Hunting down some deer. I had one of my lieutenants at the fire department.

We couldn't watch anything but the History Channel. So for years, I actually really enjoy history. So it's pretty cool. But yeah, that sounds like something I'd really like. What's your favorite thing to do with your family? Oh, man. My kids right now love riding around in a Razor, like a side-by-side. Oh, cool.

You know, just having them outside and like Lakeland has this little, it's called a stay site. So a stability bike that is a motorcycle. It's an electric engine, little motor on it. It's pretty awesome to have her just ripping around on that thing and, you know, just being out there and doing things with them and having some fun. And like I said, my son right now is just, he's a tornado. We call him Trismanian Devil or Trisaster or Trisnado.

He literally just destroys everything so they're fun and then my youngest she's just the sweetest thing and she's only she's only a year old though but um she's starting to get some you know starting to try to walk and do that stuff so it's fun and am i tripping or did i just did i just see you recently break a 16.2 record or was that a while ago yeah no that was 16.2 it was actually after uh i saw mark up in uh in columbus you know all the other guys were doing it and you know i was traveling a lot so i couldn't do it that morning and so uh monday i was like let's do this and and i honestly going into it and as lame as this sounds i was like just don't hurt yourself um you know i hadn't cleaned anything over 275 in months. And so, uh, hitting three, seven, three 15 for seven reps was,

was going to be a little shaky and, uh, we came out the other side. All right. So it was good. Yeah. Watching you guys work out that day was insane. There was like 12 or 13 championships between everybody that was, uh, at rogue that day. There's a lot of people in there that are pretty fit. I was like, man, I'm way too fat for this room. I need to get out of here. Hey, man, thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it.

Where can people find you? And if you have anything coming up that you'd like to promote, go ahead and fire it out. Oh, yeah. No, I appreciate you guys having me. Sorry I couldn't make it out there to you. So I'm going to do it Skype wise. But, you know, Rich Froning on Instagram, just at Rich Froning, Instagram, Twitter. I really do a ton of tweeting.

We have a YouTube channel, just CrossFit Mayhem and then CrossFitMayhem.com. Pretty much all that. And then we do have Froning Farms coming out. So we'll see what that turns into. Really, really not sure what that's going to be, but we'll have some bison. Oh, awesome. Yeah. And then you've created some products with Rogue Fitness and you have some different barbells. And then even with Reebok, you guys created a shoe together, I think, right? yeah yeah so rogue i've got a barbell uh squat stand at the end for you know home gym type squat stand uh jump rope and then with reebok we have uh apparel we got uh shoes shorts shirt really enjoy that it was pretty cool to to work with them on that type of stuff so yeah what's it been like

being part of that process where they you, this huge company shows you like these different colored shoes and these different styles and then they show you different equipment from Rogue and they say, you know, pick out what you'd like or tweak it. What's that experience been like? Bill with Rogue is awesome. You know, Bill and Katie are the best. They're super supportive and they're just, they get it. You know, they're like, hey, we're going to make this black barbell, put an R star on it. What else do you want to do? And do and so you know we kind of changed the knurling up and did a couple different things that's awesome and then hey if you were gonna

have a squat stand in your basement what would you do so i have that and then with reebok you know building the shoe towel short um with reebok is awesome and he you know at first you're kind of like i i really don't know and he's like all right do this you know what what things do you like about a shoe what do you not like about a shoe and uh man we he did a great job with that so it's it was a cool process uh it was a long process took us a couple two years basically to get it done but um was really happy with the way it came out on the other side yeah to see how much uh rogue has grown from the beginning is insane because i you said uh you probably started with them around 2010 or so, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, 2011, but yeah, it was, man, they're just awesome people and they just work hard and literally that's, that's, you know, a true Testament to, uh, just, just work and they've done it. Thanks again, man. Really appreciate you coming on the show. Awesome guys. You want to visit Cookville coming out on out i definitely do i definitely do for sure open invitation have a great day see you guys thanks we got to start working out i think yeah yeah we do hey you've been really slacking off in sema

i know man it's it's pretty rough i out of shape. I'm getting out of shape. It's showing. I love that he's just so physical. He's just like a doer. He doesn't have time to really stop and even think, I don't think. He's just constantly doing shit. he's just like constantly doing shit it's ingrained in him you can tell like even always running around as a kid always doing stuff he's just used to that he doesn't get up in the morning and meditate in journal he just does things yeah yeah he's just a savage or it just seems like you know he doesn't need to write stuff down because he's like probably just a genius right he just like no why would i write that down i know exactly what my day's gonna look like or you know what have you i I think he's just living in the moment too.

You know, he's just going, going, going. And then something probably pops up in his head or whatever, like he said, he just contacts whoever. Yeah. Whoever to help him out with it, you know. Yeah. It's almost like scary, right? Like his attitude towards like, I'm going to win because I hate losing. It worked out fantastic for him, but like, you know know that could almost become toxic in someone else who

might not have this the work capacity that he has but i mean shit he obviously he he got a good grasp on it yeah i think you can only be that way if you're coming out on top more often you know because otherwise you really are i've seen a lot of crossfitters really crash and burn and just be super upset with themselves and be really frustrated with where they're at and then they they try some of these workouts and they they do the same weights as everybody else and they're injured and it's like well that this isn't gonna this isn't gonna help your injury this is gonna make it way worse you know yeah i wonder how many big losses he has to deal with because his first games he got second literally the first time he

competes in crossfit he gets second yeah Literally the first time he competes in CrossFit, he gets second, right? And then he gets first, first, first, first piece. That's crazy. I wonder if there were any big losses he had as a teenager or if he's always just been kind of close to the top and being close to winning at things. Because to come out and get second to winning at things because i mean

to come out and get second in your first games that's not normal yeah i think most crossfitters that are at a high level they were at least pretty good at something previously and um he was a good baseball player good enough to play in college and uh with uh matt frazier matt frazier was a good olympic lifter um Not great, not the best, but very, very good. And that makes a huge difference. And then they get into the sport that maybe plays into their height, their body weight, and it just ends up being kind of a perfect recipe. And as he mentioned, he just was out playing all the time as a kid so it's like where's that work capacity come from to compete in something like the crossfit games is like a five-day event and i think it's it's i think four out of the five days are brutal and

there's like one day where there's like a little less stuff i guess or something like that it's at least four days in a row or something and you, how do you have a work capacity for that? Well, maybe the work where you have work capacity for that is to, uh, be a wild man when you're a kid. You know, I think, uh, Matt Frazier's life was similar. I think he, uh, grew up doing a lot of stuff outside something like hunting is like long duration. Like is hunting really that exhausting? I mean, it depends on what you're hunting and how you're doing it. Um, but it's, but it's like long and it's like a long, slow process. And I would imagine that if you traveled somewhere to hunt, you know, you might hunt for a few days in a row and you kind of think about like, okay,

well that kind of matches up with what you're doing in CrossFit. And then when you kill something, what are you going to do? You're going to drag it, you know, it's heavy. There's a lot of, you know, a lot of good physical activity that I think was embedded into Rich Froning's life at a young age, which helped build him. Yeah. And being uncomfortable for long periods of time is the big thing because when you get to that exhaustion point during one of those workouts, and it's not like it's towards the end, it's like halfway through through you're feeling dead and you have another half of a workout to finish off.

That takes a lot of just a lot of grit. Yeah. You must have to pretty much always stay in shape. Otherwise that restart would be so hard. You know, if you went out and you were supposed to do a, uh, you know,

a five mile run and you went out and you're two miles in you're like half dead yeah that wouldn't be that would be a shitty feeling or you're midway through a workout that takes 20 minutes uh watching you know watching these guys work out and girls it was man it it blew my mind watching matt frazier uh do that workout that he was talking about was the 16.2 you said right or 19.2 uh watching him do that workout was wild they're just he did clean after clean with like 315 i think it was and him and frazier were in the gym at the same time yeah him and froning were in the gym at the same time yeah yeah they were in the gym at the same time. They were doing different workouts. But like Camille LeBlanc was in there. She's won the CrossFit Games.

Sarah Sigmund's daughter was in there. She's won the CrossFit. I mean, there's just a bunch of CrossFit Games champions. It was just crazy to watch them work out. But to watch him continually manage this 315 on the bar for clean after clean, he would do like three reps in a row and then he'd take a little break and he'd do two reps in a row and then he'd take a break but he was just just destroying it i was like this is insane and rich froning's doing like a workout that he's considered to be like easy and he's doing single leg squats, GHR, and maybe some double unders.

He was going back and forth between all three of these things. And he's talking to me as he's like doing, you know, and he's just just cranking right through it. But I think that's a great thing about CrossFit. And it's something that I've tried to share with people many times. It's like your workout doesn't need to take an hour. people many times it's like your workout doesn't need to take an hour you know your workout doesn't there's not a there's not like a prescribed time associated with having a good workout you can go in the gym for 15 minutes um i mean we could go in the gym right now and and do some uh shoulders and have a good shoulder workout and it could take 12 15 minutes if we really wanted it to right

we could still be very very productive use uh drop sets or super sets or something like that and dog crap training yeah the dog crap training it's like you do basically five sets in a row uh broken up with 10 second increments in between and you drop the weight a little bit um but you know crossfit's kind of the same thing it's like if you're gonna do three things at one time, which is like a triplet, they call it. Yeah. Or you're going to go back and forth between two exercises. I mean, what if you're doing burpees and pull-ups? Mm-hmm.

It's like, first of all, how long are you going to be able to do that for? And then secondly, how much more training do you need for the day? You know, you can be done with it quickly and you can get in and out of it. That's exactly why I wanted to start CrossFit though. Back in the day, it's because I saw all these super Jack people lifting. I loved lifting, but I also like wanted to be super Jacked at the same time. It was inspiring to see that. But, uh, but like, I think that's kind of like what I, I don't do CrossFit now, but

you know, I do something that's high with cardiovascular work, and then I still get to lift. I have the best of both worlds. This is kind of what I was aiming for in terms of the athlete I wanted to be. So it's not CrossFit, but it's CrossFit. That's cool that you found it, though, because I think a lot of people don't. A lot of people don't find it because they're told, like, no, this is the way you have to do this. And it's like, yeah, I'm sure you want to deadlift 800 pounds like or 775 or get a pr on or something but you're also like well no my priority right now is jiu-jitsu

and so i'm not really leaning towards that you know bigger deadlift or that pr just yet but you're maintaining your strength you're keeping up, maybe even getting a little bit stronger and it's able to show up on the map where that's the priority, you know, but I think a lot of people, they don't really ever find it because now, you know, you can't do bodybuilding and powerlifting at the same time. And, you know, you shouldn't really be doing all that cardio because that's going to break down your muscles. And, um, that's the stuff I try to share with people every day. Some people get pissed about it when I talk about it, but look, if you like walking and you like running or you like, and you like lifting or whatever, whatever the thing is, things are that you like, you can figure out ways to get them all done and still be,

uh, very productive. And it's not about PEDs all the time. Um, you can still figure it all out. You can figure out a way to implement fasting. You can figure out a way to implement running into your workouts. I'm running about two or three days a week. That's not excessive. That's not a lot. Like if that does pull away from my lifting, then it should only pull away from my lifting for a real short period of time. You know, it shouldn't, and I'm not killing myself. I'm not running miles and miles and miles, but, uh, just something I wanted to do. I wanted

to increase my cardiovascular training and, um, I didn't really necessarily do it for body comp, but I, you know, it certainly helps. And, uh, you know, I just think it's cool to find, like find your thing, find what feels good. It makes you feel awesome. Got to experiment more. And I do think it's super cool that your thing. Find what feels good. It makes you feel awesome. Got to experiment more. And I do think it's super cool that he picked up fasting. I wasn't expecting that. Especially with the kind of workouts he does. He's still performing at a high level.

And you know that his high level is extremely high. Even though he's not like a 14 shape, he's still in disgustingly good shape. He's a meathead through and through and that's what i've always admired about him he really is a meathead jason kalipa tries to cover up the fact that he's a meathead but jason kalipa is a knucklehead and he's a meathead 100 both those guys they love to train they love it they love the barbell and i'm not saying it and trying to say derogatory things about them they're both very very smart people and there's a ton of things to learn from both of them but you even saw with rich he's not like this super deep guy he just goes and does it which i i admire that i think

that's cool like he doesn't need he doesn't need like a motivational speech he doesn't need a a bunch of hype he doesn't need a bunch of caffeine and stuff to get himself fired up for a workout it's just it's just in there he just goes and he just does it and he kicks everybody's ass. Yeah. His gym setting is interesting too. He has a gospel songs playing throughout the, uh, throughout every workout. It's pretty dope. Yeah. Hey, whatever, whatever works for you. And then he's got a bunch of world champions there too. I, that was amazing. He got everybody to move to Tennessee. Some of these highlevel coaches and athletes and stuff. Super cool. Anyway, we're going to get out of here. Strength is never weak. This week, this is never strength. Catch you guys later.