Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 640: Beyond the Barbell

Episode Date: November 16, 2017

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin speak with Ben Alderman & Blair Morrison of the Beyond the Barbell podcast about the evolution of CrossFit, leadership, starting a gym, training, the future of fitness and more. You can find Ben and Blair at www.btbpodcast.com and @btbpodcast on Instagram. What got them into the fitness industry? (3:37) Where did the transition to CrossFit happen? (10:26) What do they think of the volume of CrossFit boxes? What makes them fail? (21:16) What has made them successful? How did you separate yourself from the rest? (26:00) Culture makes a gym Where did their leadership skills come from? Train their trainers? (30:12) Adjust your personality to fit the customer What is the average cost to open box/gross revenue for a year? (50:11) Anywhere Fit Travel / How do you diversify your business? (59:10) Do what I say, not what I do What did you do for work before becoming CrossFit box owner? (1:12:05) Where do they see the future of CrossFit? See more specialized facilities? (1:15:15) Do they feel their business would thrive off one great location, rather than spreading out into multiple locations? (1:23:55) Providing what the demographic needs/Different heartbeats at each location Do what you can Related Links/Products Mentioned: How Curves Fitness Centers Became one of the Fastest Growing Franchises Ever (article) Grizzly Bear Attack - Todd Orr – (YouTube) Anywhere Trips | Anywhere Fit (website) Dad Bod Athletics (website) Featured Guest & People Mentioned: Beyond the Barbell (podcast) (@btbpodcast)  Instagram Ben Alderman | Crossfit Iron Mile (@ironmile_ben)  Instagram Blair Morrison | Anywhere Fit  (@morrison_blair)  Instagram Ronnie Coleman (@BigRonColeman)  Twitter Mikko Salo (@mikkosalo63)  Instagram Neal Maddox (@nealmaddox ) Instagram Robb Wolf (@dasrobbwolf)  Instagram Greg Glassman (@CrossFitCEO)  Twitter Jason Khalipa (@jasonkhalipa)  Instagram Nick Saban Todd Orr Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA)  Twitter Would you like to be coached by Sal, Adam & Justin? You can get 30 days of virtual coaching from them for FREE at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Get our newest program, MAPS Prime Pro, which shows you how to self assess and correct muscle recruitment patterns that cause pain and impede performance and gains. Get it at www.mindpumpmedia.com! Get MAPS Prime, MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint, the Sexy Athlete Mod AND KB4A (The MAPS Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Make EVERY workout better with MAPS Prime, the only pre-workout you need… it is now available at mindpumpmedia.com Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you via video instruction on our YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. Also check out Thrive Market! Thrive Market makes purchasing organic, non-GMO affordable. With prices up to 50% off retail, Thrive Market blows away most conventional, non-organic foods. PLUS, they offer a NO RISK way to get started which includes: 1. One FREE month’s membership 2. $20 Off your first three purchases of $49 or more (That’s $60 off total!) 3. Free shipping on orders of $49 or more Get your Kimera Koffee at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Get Organifi, certified organic greens, protein, probiotics, etc at www.organifi.com Use the code “mindpump” for 20% off. Go to foursigmatic.com/mindpump and use the discount code “mindpump” for 15% off of your first order of health & energy boosting mushroom products. Add to the incredible brain enhancing effect of Kimera Koffee with www.brain.fm/mindpump 10 Free sessions! Music for the brain for incredible focus, sleep and naps! Also includes 20% if you purchase! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts! Have questions for Mind Pump? Each Monday on Instagram (@mindpumpmedia) look for the QUAH post and input your question there. (Sal, Adam & Justin will answer as many questions as they can)

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump. Oh man, I like these guys. We got the opportunity to interview two of our favorite podcasters, Blair Morrison and Ben Alderman. I'll go ahead and say my favorite crossfitters.

They're pretty awesome. I'm gonna say that. Yeah, they're up there with Jason Kalip, another great guy right? With these two guys. These two guys, very smart, very smart trainers, smart coaches, smart businessmen, and great podcasters. We meet a lot of podcasters.

You guys are very natural at what they do. They present great information. They've got good interviews. You should check out their podcast beyond the barbell. But this conversation was great. We talked about training. We talked about the business of CrossFit. We talked about personal development. Very intelligent guys, we hit it off right away when we met these guys. Actually, we met them first up at the Spartan races. We were super busy. Didn't think we had time to meet with them. We finally were able to squeeze in an interview and right away, like we met them.

It was great. We didn't shy away from like our how we came out about CrossFit and everything else and they just are very growth-minded. They have lots of integrity and I just enjoyed you know talking with them all about it. Well this is something that we keep what keeps happening to us as we continue to meet some of the The upper echelon of the the CrossFit world. You're just impressive. Right. You start meeting these guys that have been around since the beginning They have a incredible pedigree And when you meet them there are the things that we've been saying about CrossFit. They 100% agree I mean that was the difference between the two of us as we just chose a different path

where they chose to dive into the field and try and make it for the better, which is what I love talking to guys like this, like the Rob Wolves, like the Jason Calipa's. They saw, they see the problems with it and they're trying to address it because they love the sport. Now, was it Ben that shared Maps Prime on his Insta story? Was it, I think it was Ben. Yeah. So we also had a great conversation afterwards about Maps Programming.

And of course, the Maps Program is very different from CrossFit type programming, but then we talked about Maps Prime and Prime Pro, and they both were quite impressed. Now if you're a CrossFitter or if you train in that style of training, Prime and Prime Pro can definitely benefit you. They both come with self-assessment tools that both correctional and nature. They can teach you how to individualize what you do before you work out. Such your body fires better, but they also can help you address potential issues

and your shoulders, your shoulder blades, your neck, your spine, your hips, your ankles, your feet, and with correctional exercises, get your body to move better. Now we've combined maps prime and maps prime pro into a bundle, so it discounts the programs, and they work with any training program, whether you follow maps or your body build or you do CrossFit or you run or do sports or whatever, the Maps Prime bundle will help you regardless. Now you can find that at mindpumpmedia.com. If you want more information on the gentleman you're about to listen to us interview,

their podcast is called Beyond the Barbell, great podcast. Their website is btbpodcast.com and their Instagram page is at btbpodcast.com and their Instagram pages at btbpodcast. So without any further ado, here we are interviewing the hosts of Beyond the Barbell, Blair Morrison and Ben Alderman. What got you guys into the fitness industry as a whole? Was it CrossFit? Is that how you guys got introduced into this industry

or was it something else? Not me, not me, you me, I was doing weightlifting and all kinds of stuff way before CrossFit. Like Olympic weightlifting? Well, no, I always call weightlifting. I always grown up like lifting, you know, come on, little girls. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, exactly, just moving weight. I mean, I was 12 or 13 years old and a contractor was staying at my house because we had a big involved project pretty far from his house. And he also was a family friend. He came through and he was like, hey, I brought some weights too if you want to work out.

And he kind of showed me how to work out. And I just gravitated towards it. Of course, I played sports growing up in high school, you know, played soccer. Some people make fun of me, says, no real sport, but, you know, most of them were sport in the world. I played too, and I make fun of it. Yeah, exactly, right?

And then when I went to college, I wasn't good in flight college, so I just went back into the weight room and just started lifting weights, you know, bodybuilding, reading flex magazine, paid for my own trip to go to the mystery Olympia and watch it. Oh, how old were you? All right. 20? Okay.

Yeah. 20 years old. Who was up at that? Ronnie Coleman. Ronnie Coleman. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Ronny Coleman. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Did you, when you first saw your first, I remember the first time I saw a pro body builder

in person, it was surreal. Not because I was this huge like fanboy, although I was, it was, I was definitely a fan. But to see someone that distorted in person. Well, I'll describe it a different way. I used to watch Bruce Lee movies too. And I would think like after watching one or two Bruce Lee movies, I was like, oh, I got this.

You know what I mean? I mean, you used to have thrown a kid. Yeah, exactly. So I was like reading a Flex Magazine muscle and fitness, you know, whatever muscle development. And like, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go there, we're like in a Titus T-shirt, and whatever. Dude, that's so that, that's so the 20 years.

That's so the 20 years. It's probably all of us, right? Yeah, and I mean, isn't that funny how inflated? I don't think I was even 200 pounds yet. And I was still 5'10, it was not big, you know, but I thought I was, and I got to make sure that. And it wasn't the show, it was the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the Can we talk about what is that? What is that about us as boys? I think probably all of us in this room can agree to this.

I went through a wife, beater face. Like that's where I was. I just wore them. Yeah, I wore, yeah, not literally a beating one. That would mean the shirt. It's a rib tank top. Yeah, a rib tank top. That's all I wore.

And I actually, because I had been lifting weights for a couple of years, because I had never seen my body like that. So you think that you're way more jack than what you really are. And then you look back. It's embarrassing. It isn't there. I think back, because I remember the mindset I had putting it on and walking around.

Oh, I thought I had awesome guns. Yes. Like everywhere. So I had the shoulder. What is it that distorts us for it like that? You know, I don't know. I thought you go maybe. I was.

But you're building an ego. Then you get an ego. Did everybody do it? I'm not alone on that, right? Yeah, you go maybe. I have a idea. But you're only gonna go. Then you're gonna need to do it. Did everybody do it? I'm not alone on that, right? I totally did. I mean, I just admitted it. I can't hide from that one. I'm in the middle of Las Vegas trying to pull off this look.

I think I walked half a mile from my hotel down to wherever it was at. I can't remember Mandalay Bay at the time. I'm just like, okay, you're giving up free t-shirts. I'll take a double XL, right? And just pretending it's all I have, I guess. Tell me everything, because I really don't have anything to show off. For me, I never went through that because I was always small. Like, I didn't knew I was small.

I was like this, I was five foot five, 105 pounds in my freshman year at high school. And all I wanted to do was play football and baseball. And so like, for me, working out was about like getting on the field and like trying to get bigger. But I never, I didn't feel like good about like the way I was put together until I was playing college football, like my junior senior year, like it took me until I was 21, 22 years. So wait a second, you were that small of a guy, you made it all the way to college football. Yeah. Oh shit. Yeah. So you had some work ethic. But I was receiving it or what?

Yeah, I was a receiver. I was, and I went, I played football at Princeton, so it wasn't like going to Florida State. I couldn't have gone to like a, a 1A school like that, but it like, I never felt like I was huge in jacked. I always felt like I was skinny. Always felt like I was skinny. Until I was like 21 or 22 and I was weighing, you know.

So you don't put your skinny anymore? Yeah. Well, it depends who I'm standing next to. Well, we to answer your question, I probably wouldn't walk outside and a wife beat it right now. Yeah, okay. Well, we talk about this on the show a lot

because a lot of what motivated all of us when we were young were insecurities. In fact, in my experience, the more people that I find in this profession, the more insecurities I see. Like I feel we have, it's fascinating that we are the health and fitness leaders and we're the ones motivating all these other people

that are inspired to get in shape and better themselves. Meanwhile, I continue to meet a lot of people in those leadership roles that still struggle with a lot of those insecurities themselves. Because a lot of people in those leadership roles that still struggle with a lot of those insecurities themselves because a lot of us were so heavily motivated by that when we're young. That's what got us to this level, right? Because as a kid, keep trying to figure it out. Most of us didn't quit like a lot of other people did when they were going to the goals

because those insecurities were so strong in us. Like I remember being such a skinny kid and being made fun of it and not liking it in the way I felt, and then working out and then starting to see my body change. And that was a motivator for shit 10 plus years for a long time. In fact, it wasn't until my 30s, did I really start to connect those dots

and started to have a different relationship with exercise and myself and self-image. Like it took a long time to. And just a lot of the shit that you did back then because of that was just bad or wrong. I used to, I would make these shakes. I would buy, we're talking years ago now, so over 20 years ago, I'd buy the mega mass 4,000

or whatever the shakes. The ones that came in, you guys remember this? They'd come in the big bucket, so it looks like a paint, a pale of paint, but it's not, it's a powder. It's like sand shovels. And then you'd paint, a pale of paint, but it's not. It's a powder. It's like sand shovels. And then you'd look at it and it'd be 4,000 calories per serving.

I'd be like, fuck yeah, dude, I'm gonna get huge. If I take one of these every day, I'm gonna get massive. And I'd buy this big thing thinking, like this gonna last me at least like a month, but you realize there's like four servings in there. That's how they give you 4,000 calories. And there would be this huge scoop, and I'd put it in my, I must have broke two blenders

with these things, say, put it in there, and add peanut butter, and add huge scoop and I'd put it in my, I must have broke two blenders with these things, say put it in there and add peanut butter and add eggs and then it's concrete. It'd be like cake batter like booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo my nose, cut it on breathing, like, yeah. Gotta get it down, man. And trying not to get my mom see what's going on, cause when she sees it, she's like, what are you doing over there? You're gonna hurt yourself. I'm like, no, no, I'm fine. Puking just to try and get bigger.

Just horrible. And of course, a lot of the information that we got back then was just, it's still. Right. Still so much of it is garbage. So, how did you make the transition then to CrossFit? Cause you were doing the traditional bodybuilding type workouts you were in college sports.

How did you go? For me, I would come back. One of the first CrossFit affiliates up in our part of the country in Northern California was the place that I trained in the off season for football. And it was actually my high school football coach. He opened this business called Sports Specific Training. And he was trying to target young athletes. And he had his whole model, right, which was not just CrossFit. CrossFit was the conditioning piece, but then he did Olympic latelifting, and we did plyometrics and speed and agility.

And it was this hour and a half long program. And then at the end of it, we would do a workout like Fikonbad or Cindy or these CrossFit benchmarks that all had names and he thought that was really cool. So I had exposure to it back like in 2002. Oh wow, really, really on. Yeah, really, really on. That's when the competitions were like a part of the show.

Yeah, I got exposed to it a lot. They didn't have deep down. It was just meetups, man. Yeah, guys would meet up and then they would work out in the parking lot show. It was really, really not what it is now. So then I went through, and I would just do them, and I was like, oh, that was cool. And when I became a personal trainer after I graduated college in around 2000, and so I

started personal training in 2006 in Washington, DC, I was, I was using these old, I just laminated 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper that all all these names like Angie Barbara, Cindy, Grace, all these old CrossFit benchmark workouts. They're not girls. Yeah, they're not girls. This girl from finder, who are these? And I was, I mean, that's a wad. What do you mean you wad?

You wadded on them? You wadded the fuck? And I was using them for my clients because they mean these workouts, I'll take 30 minutes or less and people are just really, they have to work hard. You can't avoid intense. You're wrecked afterwards. And so, and that's like, you know, you guys know as personal trainers, like it's hard to

get clients to work hard. You kind of have to trick them into it sometimes. And like this was, it was working for me. So I was using them and I was, I was doing the workouts sporadically. I was like periodizing my, my training. I would go through like a six week, six week power cycle, 12 week body hypertrophy cycle, and then I'd go like six weeks across fit. And I just kind of, I was geeking out on all like the programming angles of it. And then at some point, I found competitions. There's like 2007, 2008. I went to a regional

competition in the mid-Atlantic region where I was. I was like wow, I'm really good at this compared to these other people, right? This is like before People were doing this all day long He was like right then. I was like CrossFit Games Awesome. Let's let's go give it a try and it just suited my Like my natural genetic predisposition for for fitness is like great engine predisposition for fitness is like great engine. Robocross. I was gonna say, do you have just a big motor

in comparison there, but I'll say that your motor capacity is like 2009, right, Blair? Yeah, it's like that. It's 2008, 2009 game season. So I was, I had a big engine. I could always run, I was a receiver in college. So like all the running stuff came easy for me. I had Olympic lifting background from my high school

football coach and like it was a great strength in the district coach. I knew how to snatch clean jerk. So like all the skills that really, all the only thing I didn't have was the gymnastics. I didn't know how to do muscle ups and stuff like that, but nobody else did either. So I went and did this competition that year. I did really well.

I took seventh in the world and I'm like, this is awesome. You know, who won that year? Nico Salo, the guy from Finland. Just cyborg, unbelievable. So after that, I just started doing CrossFit. I was like, okay, I don't really want to get any bigger. You know, I felt good about where I was,

like, stature-wise. Like, I kind of come into my own, like I was telling you guys before. And this is just more fun. Like, it was way more creative. I didn't have to adhere to the, you know, the back and bias, chest and tries. That whole, it's just so monotonous.

I was just kind of done with it. For me, attacking the whole body every other day was a better plan for me to stay motivated to work out. Then, I'll talk to you guys about this later, but I was doing them outside. I was working out without a gym, so so that was like really motivating to me too. So that's really where I transitioned to full-time CrossFit. It was the competitive angle that got me kind of into the Kool-Aid community.

When I first went out there, I was like, oh, these guys are a bunch of D-bags. Like trying to look tough or in school. I've ever had a Flickshan T-shirts on. Like, it was just like, it's not, I was like, I guess they're exercising. Like, what's the big deal? No, at this point, yeah, exactly. No, at this point, because you're both successful,

entrepreneurs, you both own boxes. And at this point, are you looking at it? And is any of this entrepreneurial mind coming out and looking at this and going, holy shit, this is like a culture that's developing here, or are you totally oblivious at this point to that? To the culture that's developing around you. No, meaning are you looking at going like,

we should start a CrossFit Boxing. Oh, at that time. Are you only thinking like an athlete right now? No, I was only thinking like an athlete. Yeah. Because hindsight's 2020, right? Looking back and like, oh shit, everybody's dressing the same.

Everybody's using the same language. This could be massive. Yeah, no, I was not thinking about it at that point. There were more gyms at that point. I mean, there were more gyms at that point. There was, people were representing boxes and things like that, but it was still, it was very renegade. We were out in a room, like in the dirt, and there was people out there with their campers.

Like I said, it was very tattoo heavy, very affliction t-shirt heavy. Everybody was trying to look hard. Every word shirts they had, just full f-bombs on them and everything. You do heavy, very affliction t-shirt heavy. Everybody's trying to look hard. You know? Every word shirts they had like, just full f-bombs on them and everything. You know, you're just like, man, my kids are here, right? And they're just learning to read.

Like, what is that? It did not. At that point, it did not appear sustainable for growth. It just appeared like, okay, this is like the fringe community that it's cool to be a part of. Yeah, that's what I thought. And this is very important to know

because at this time, this is when I have a personal training studio at this time when this was happening. I had left corporate fitness where I managed gyms and I'm familiar with CrossFit, it's close by, Santa Cruz I think was the birthplace of it. But it was that fringe community that represented it at the time. So I'd see this clown throwing up, you know, like this unofficial mascot. And, you know, you know, I looked at all this and I'm like,

this is crazy, like this is insane, but it makes sense. That's how a lot of movement start. They start with that fringe and then it goes a little more mainstream. Yeah, what made me basically kind of commit to it or transition into kind of believing in it as a culture was when I went to that competition in 2009 at the CrossFit Games,

and I'm in the barn with the other athletes and the dudes are not like that. The guys that were the best at it, the girls that were the best at it were not like that. They were real athletes. They were real athletes, you know, and they were like smart. And like, you know, you could see all the seeds of what CrossFit is now

were there, but the fans and the people that were around it, it just wasn't fully permeated yet, but the people that were the best, they were the best minds, like the James Fitzgeralds, the Rob Wolves, they were all there. Like they were there that weekend, Chris Beeler, Matt Chan, they were all there.

These guys are really smart, intelligent. They know about nutrition. They know about periodization. They know about, you know, recovery. All these things, it was there. And so when I got to see that face to face, I'm like, oh, this isn't just like the group of people ripping off their shirt and the gym,

trying to be noticed for working hard. Like these guys are actually the legit athletes and they know their stuff. So at that point, when I met them, met the people there at Aromas that year, I was like, okay, I can get with this. I can get with this, because these people are about more than just the show.

That's a really interesting perspective and you're somebody who stayed all the way through, because I was around it around the same time, a good buddy of mine. I think I mentioned to you guys before with Austin Begeving. So he's a good buddy of mine. Jason Calipa, I watched him in the parking lots at Milpitas CrossFit back in the days when Austin was running that. And my other buddy, Neil Maddox, him and I worked at 24 together for a long time. So I was watching these guys. I had tried it myself. And I was just like, at that

time, it was just too crazy. I was like, man, this is too much. I can't do what I'm doing the rest of the day and try and work out. It was way too intense. And I was turned off by it, and it was growing, and I remember Austin always coming to me and trying to convince me on the methodology behind it.

And I'm just like, nah, you're not gonna convince me that this is ideal for either myself or whatever. And I'm not interested in training to be an athlete at this time. And I ride away, made the separation of it being a sport. I saw it and it still impresses me. And when I see it, I mean, these guys are athletes. They 100% are athletes. The ones especially when you watch the games, I mean, it might be one thing you walk into

your average CrossFit box, you don't see that. but when you watch the games, you see fucking athletes. It takes an athlete to be at that level. And that's kind of how I've always explained it to people as, you know, it's this, it's like a sport. And you absolutely, if you're passionate about you, love doing it, like it's incredible. But, you know, with that comes with that, just like in other sport, like there's a lot of pitfalls that you could have from playing a sport for years and years and years, and if you don't really understand programming and recovery and taking care of your body and periodization, all those things like, boy, real quick, you'll find. I will say this, it seems to me, and you guys can correct me because this is obviously

your world, but it seems to me like they're approach, the crossfit approach, or what I mean by that is the people that follow it. There are a lot of intelligent people. Like, more so than you would see in other, you know, factions of fitness. And what I mean by that is when I talk to people who are really engulfed in the community, they tend to be more knowledgeable about things like nutrition, recovery. They tend to be more into the cutting edge type of stuff. It's almost like it's bred into that culture, because that's kind of how it started.

Am I am I wrong or is that? No, that's not accurate. Yeah, I think that there's also because there's a lot of authorities from other fields kind of jumping into CrossFit and helping out because there's a lot of authorities from other fields kind of jumping into CrossFit and helping out because there's a lot of people doing it, right? So an endurance coach has a lot of financial reasons to get in and become a voice, right? A nutritionist has a lot of reason to come in there

and be a voice. And so with Crosswaters, we love to consume content. Specifically, we like to talk about CrossFit. And so we end up hearing all these different things all the time. On top of that, our certification or certificate we hold includes sections on nutrition, holds mobility, and we have all those different things

and proper movement patterns and all that. So I think there's a lot of the structure behind it. There's an intelligent design behind the entire movement. Now, what are you guys seeing now as box owners with so many that open up and competitors nearby and so like that, what are the good, the bad, and what are you guys seeing happening?

Yeah, it feels like watching it, like a lot of people jumped in when it started to really grow fast, but a lot of those people now are failing. And the proximity of the gyms, so close by to each other, do you feel like maybe that helped or hindered a bit? Well, Blair and I, we talk about this a lot

because the fact that we both own multiple locations and because there's in our area, probably similar to this area, there's a lot of gyms, but that number is slowly going down. It really is, at least in this area, there's a lot of gyms. But that number is slowly going down. It is. It really is, at least in our area. We're seeing opportunities to buy other gyms, pop up,

and then even opportunities just to not buy them and let those gyms kind of fall by the wayside, also pop up. And I think that's actually natural with as many people as are jumping in early on. What is making them fail? A bunch of stuff. Like a business sense, lack of coaching. What's most common?

Like what do you guys see the most of? Lack of members is the main reason. So it was not enough people do that, want to do CrossFit for the number of gyms that are there. I think there's a big complaint from the very beginning that CrossFit headquarters, like the certifying body, the main brain of it all, didn't provide any quality control, right?

They didn't restrict the radius that each gym controlled, like you could open up a gym right next door to another CrossFit affiliate. You didn't have to do any specified programming. The only thing that you needed was the certificate, the level one seminar, and then you were qualified to open and run a gym. So on the certificate, the level one seminar, and then you were qualified to open and run a gym.

So on the one hand, I was like, well, dude, you're not protecting your product at all, but Glassman said, hey, man, the cream arrives to the top. And that's what's happening now, is that you have people that, it's a very low barrier to entry to open a cross-fit gym, right? You don't need much. And it's a little more expensive now, but for a lot of people, you could open a gym forfit gym, right? You don't need much. And it's a little more expensive now,

but for a lot of people, you could open a gym for like 15, 20 grand, like, because the space doesn't have to be our condition. Like there's a lot of things that are easy about opening a gym. And so, Glassman, if I'm not mistaken, he's a libertarian, right, or anarchrocapitalist, or something like that, or he believes in the free-marked

so it makes sense that he's like, no, you go in, if you want to open one next door to another guy, you have to be better to win, to succeed, and if you're not, you're just failed. It's the same thing as a sport, right? If you have to go in there and you have to do the same exact workout and whoever's better is gonna win.

Are you else well? Now, the plus side of that, and just from the outside, the plus side of that is you're gonna get a very quickly evolving culture and brand, which we've seen. We've seen it evolve very, very, very quickly and grow very a very quickly evolving culture and brand, which we've seen, we've seen it evolve very, very, very quickly and grow very quickly. The bad side of that is because it's under the umbrella

of the name CrossFit, when you have for every 10 successful boxes with good coaches and good business sense, you have, let's say another 10 that are shit with shit coaches and shit business sense, because we're all under that. But in a probably actually, it'll probably actually fall more the 80-20 rule. Yeah, exactly. It's not 10 and 10, it's probably more than 10 and 50.

10 and 50. So, but because they're all under that name, it can do that definitely. And we saw that not that long ago, right? We have these videos posted of people doing just horrible exercises and all this other stuff. And it gets lumped all into that same category. And my experience with some of the boxes around my facility at the time was just that, as I couldn't believe some of the stuff they were doing and I did not know how it worked, how it was an affiliate and that wasn't necessarily a franchise or anything else. But now that I know

this or as I learn this and I can see what's going on, you can definitely see the evolution. Well, the delineation that Adam made early on between it being a sport and like a fitness program, a lot of people didn't get that. Even affiliate owners didn't get that. Oh, they didn't get that. They thought that they were actually creating

CrossFit Games athletes. And in reality, what they didn't realize was they're just helping people get more fit or they're hurting them, right? And so the competitors need to do something different. And so when you see somebody's form break down out on the workout floor, like on the competition floor, they're making a conscious choice to do that not because they're trying to get more fit, but because they're trying to win.

They're trying to win. Like Michael Jordan playing with the flu. He didn't do that because it's healthy. He did that because he's trying to win. So when you're in the gym or you're like Blair and I and you're a coach, and you have some of these forms, start to break down,

that's our opportunity to go over there, prove that we know what we're talking about, make the hard call and go, hey, you know what, you might need to take a break or you might need to switch exercises, or maybe that's too heavy for you, or all the other different things you can do, or do you just not understand the movement, right?

And that's why you guys are successful. Well, we used to say, you know, in the gym business, we just say there's no such thing as bad clubs, only bad leaders. And, you know, I think that's what you guys are probably going through and seeing right now. What are some of the things, that's a great point, I think, that's obviously a strength

of a good leader in the facility. What are the things that you guys that have made you successful and that you think is important to have in the facility and where a lot of people missing? That's a great question because I think different people do it different ways my experience So I had a lot of experience visiting CrossFit gyms before I opened mine. I was over I was in Europe for a year doing a Masters program and I basically was just a guest at all these different locations I did I lived on these coasts so doing a master's program and I basically was just a guest at all these different locations.

I lived on these coasts so my experience was, I knew exactly what I wanted my gym to be and what I wanted it not to be. Like I did not want it to be just a warehouse for walls, the standard box. So I wanted to separate myself on facilities. I wanted to separate myself on programming and I wanted to separate myself on programming, and I wanted to separate myself on coaching. So those were the three pillars that I thought were gonna be important. Now was that because you saw that opportunity, a lot of people were missing in those areas.

Yeah, well the one thing that every CrossFit gym has is community, CrossFit nails community. Better than anybody I've ever seen in business. They know. It's made reason why they won. Right, exactly. So I was like, okay, the community, it's gonna be there because of this shared suffering

that the workout creates. What are the, that's gonna be there. So what are the other controlables that I can use to separate myself? So facilities, I try to open my gym in retail locations with windows that have light. So it's a little different, right? Looks a little nicer.

There's insulation in the walls. So when we don't have air conditioning, it's not gonna be hotter than outside. It's gonna be 10 degrees cooler than outside. Programming, that's like a passion for me personally. Like I like the outdoors, different type of creative programming. I like to think that I have a skill for that,

but every gym has its own identity based on the programming of the head coach or the owner. So you're gonna have your individuality, whichever direction you go. I don't think there's a right or a wrong way to skew that. You just got to kind of know what your niche is going to be within CrossFit. The last one, the coaching, this says born out as being by far, in my opinion, the most important separator, which is successful, Jim's and fail, Jim's. Not only do you need to know what you're,

and you guys know this from being personal trainers, like, yeah, you need to know the information. That's important. Product knowledge is important, right? Relaying that information to someone is equally important. If you have it all in there and you can't get it across to them, like, what good is it, right? But the third piece, I think, is like a,

an ability to make that person feel that you care about them, about their interests, their well-being. So you have the knowledge, you can get it across, but you also get it across in a way that they feel cared for. All the gyms that are successful that I know of have that in their coaches. That's the biggest thing. This is something that is relatively unique to fitness in the sense that we ran these big boxes for 24-hour fitness for a while and I grand open some clubs.

I remember when they started making a shift from understanding that to starting to just look at sheer numbers. It's like, okay, if we sell our memberships for this cost, this many people will join. We don't need to do a tour. We don't need to invest in personal training like we have been. It's just, we have the clubs, we have the equipment, people will come, people will buy.

Fitness doesn't work that way. It never has. And you see this with so many trends. I remember when curves exploded. Curves exploded because it was reaching a demographic that no gyms were able to penetrate. These insecure women who may be overweight or whatever worked out in a gym,

they started succeeding. You had a bunch of people jump into it thinking, oh, it's a turnkey business. I go in there, it's gonna succeed because it doesn't work that way. The culture makes the gym. Cultures everything. It is everything.

It's the reason why I could, when I run gyms, I'd walk in and within a week, I'd hit, you know, 50% more revenue. Within a week, same staff and everything, just change the culture of the gym. And when people don't understand that and think that they're gonna go in open, especially a physical brick and mortar facility

and succeed, you got another thing coming, man. You can have the best brand in the world, you walk in and then you don't have the culture, it ain't gonna happen. Where does your guys' leadership skills come from are you guys self-taught? Did you read did you guys just do a lot of different businesses where you had to lead like that? Where does that come from? Ben's a born leader He's like yeah

He answered the question for me You know, what's really funny is there are certain things where you type out those insecurities that people have yeah You know one thing that my parents told me for a long time was that I was a born leader. And I didn't know what that meant when I was 8, 10, 12, 14, and they just kept telling me. And so what I did is I kind of worked to develop that because I didn't think I really lived up to it because I didn't really know what it meant. You know, so whether it be books or taking leadership roles and projects or business, just on a regular basis, like I always try to take the lead,

even though I've maybe the most ill-equipped person in the room, I'm cool with that. For me, I feel like a lot of my, the qualities that I try to exude came from being a personal trainer, at least in the fitness industry. I knew that everybody that I was coming in contact to was not an athlete, right?

For the most part, most of my clients were average, Jain or Joe. Average Jain or Joe, exactly. So you had to adjust your personality to them, to provide what they need, right? So that lesson gets taught to anybody who's a successful personal trainer, because in order for you to have a good business, you can't be just you. You have to be who they need you to be, right?

So with that comes a lot of humility and open mindedness and like, you just acceptance. So when I opened my gym, that's what I wanted to have. Like, you don't have to adjust to me. I'm going to adjust to you. You can be who you need to be. And then I'm going to bring out the best version of that, right? And that creates trust. So for me, I think my leadership style, at least in this arena, that's where that comes from. And it's a constant like ego check.

Like I want, like Ben and Howard talking earlier, you want your athletes of the people that are competing or like trying to get through a workout, you want this toughness from them, you want them to be able to push through, but sometimes they just don't have it. And like, I got to swallow that and give them what they need for that day, you know. And I think that goes a long way. I think keeping that in mind helps you be the right kind of leader. Yeah, I mean, like there's this, uh, uh, I mean, the possible Paul said it. It's in the Bible. And it says, I've been all things to all men, you know, and at some

point, you have to be willing to fill in those things and see what people need you to be. And then you'd be that right. And in fitness, like you said, we're surrounded by people have all these insecurities. There's a lot of opportunity for that and to create culture and a connection with people and then you connect with the right people. Your gym just kind of can you guys remember when you really made that connection or a time when you didn't do that,

you were the opposite way, that kind of taught you that lesson? I'm sure I could remember a few times. I mean, I know, I can tell you one example of when it, you have to be that way, you don't even have a choice, it's with your kids, right? Because as soon as you're a parent, you understand that it's not your parenting

that is, you're like your parenting style that is creating this person, right? You have to be a different type of parent based on how type of kid they are. Otherwise, they're just gonna, you just don't have as much control as you think you do. So I think that there's a couple of times for me where it didn't work,

why I tried to be too firm with athletes, right? And you know, we have to remember in CrossFit, it's not like a college football team or a pro basketball team where you're paying these people to be there. Like that's not the case, they're paying you so that they can be part of this program. So you can't really be like the Nick Saban iron fist, you know, like my way or the highway. Like you're gonna get, you're gonna lose members. Not only that, but there's this self-selection process when you have a athletic team that has all,

you know, been playing for years and now they're here and they're gonna play the sport. And the type of mindset is they're all pretty hardcore. And they're all going to work And they're all going to war. They're all going to war. They probably respond to tough love. They probably respond to telling them, get off the floor, you weakling, go kick whatever.

But the average person is not like that. And you're not doing them. I remember specifically when I learned that lesson, I had a client who I trained, and she would see me one to two days a week, and she would complain that she wouldn't't lose weight and I knew she was eating terribly and all these different things and I would take a personally my ego didn't like that so I actually sat her down and kind of litter up a little bit made her cry and she never came back and I remember like thinking a week later why isn't she returning my calls remember thinking like first I was irritated she didn't return my calls will forget it fuck her because she's not you know she's not serious about fitness anyway and then I remember thinking like, first I was irritated, she didn't return my calls, we'll forget it, fuck her, because she's not serious about fitness anyway. And then I remember thinking like, I haven't helped her at all.

In fact, when she was in here once or twice a week, she was doing, she was better off than now, not doing anything, because now I've totally alienated her, alienated her to fitness completely. So it's a hundred percent, I totally agree with what you're saying. You have to, you know, no, you, they're not you. You can't train them the way you think. A hundred percent. And like, you got to, you had to know, because if you want, everybody's

going to need to push at some point, right? You had to know when your opportunity is to give them that, right? Like so, in CrossFit, there's a lot of skills that people can't do. Like, double unders, jump in, you know, spin on the rope twice under your feet when you jump. It's like a standard... Oh, my members can do that. Yeah, right. It's a standard competitive thing, but it's so frustrating. And so it's like, there are certain days where if you built up enough equity with a member,

I'll sit there and say, okay, well, you're gonna do a hundred of them and I'll care how long it takes. And like, that's the tough love for them But if I haven't build up that equity with that same member like that week. It's like yeah, I'm not gonna They're gonna they're gonna like MF me run out of the gym like you maybe they never show up again So you got to have that that subtlety to know when to when to push and when they need to push and when they they really just need like a Hand on the shoulder say man, it's all right. Just just call it there and yeah Is there Is there certain exercise like that that you know

is just going to cause me a knee? Oh my God, dude. We program not for the masses because we know it's good for our clients, but at the same time, we program according to what the members say. You know what I mean? You know that certain days people aren't going to show up if you get a little too crazy.

And so you won't program that day. But maybe you will next week because you've given them a long enough break and you just know it's good for them. I have the perfect example of this. And this is like one of my soapbox things at our gym. So our gym is called CrossFitAnywhereFit. Like the idea is, hey, you can do this anywhere.

You don't need to be in a gym. We are situated in Folsom, one mile from Folsom Lake. And I did that on purpose because I wanted to be able to swim. I wanted to be able to go out there on a trail. So once a week, in the summertime, I program a swim, an open water swim. Okay, and it could be like with kettlebells, it could be just a swim, it's like always different,

so it's still varied, but every week, what do you think is the least attended class? Of course. Right? Trying to get people out there in a bathing suit, like a 5.30 in the morning or whatever, like, but I do it and then I try to build up equity all year round.

So that I can just, I can stand firm. I can get your swims. You're like selling it like every single time. And like not buckle and not let them escape. People just won't show up and that's their prerogative, right? That's their choice. But yes, the answer is yes. There are certain things that people will really push back on.

I think in general, Crossfitters don't like to run. They think that this is a way I can do cardio without running. So you'll see people not show up on running days. I don't know about you, Ben, but... Well, if I program 100 meters at my gym, people aren't showing up. That's not a a big running. Yeah, we like being strong Wow now so to do do a lot of gyms tend to have like things that they're known for like it is it because does it come kind of clicky like that I think there should be right like it I think you actually should have a niche right like you should your flavor

Yeah, almost like can't I'm MMA like we like we're producing a fighter that's going into it. Lauren, I like to go back and forth about why mine's better than his. And it's great. And then every year at the competition, my team sweeps the running events. He dominates the lifting events. Oh, see, that's kind of cool. Yeah, you can feel the new energy.

Everybody's curious when everybody's doing the running events. Not very much. When you hit the biggest power clean, that's all right. Try you hit the biggest power clean. That's all right, try to out power clean a bear. Yeah. Try to out. So how do you guys, okay, how do you, how do you guys,

I'll just run away. Exactly. I got that. That's good. That's survival. But we don't go on the trail either though. We would never find ourselves out there. We're in the gym with these weights.

Right. Do you guys know that we interviewed why we were up at Spartan Race? We interviewed Todd or so Todd or so or or or or. Do you remember the video that went viral on YouTube where the guy just got a act dripping blood? He just got attacked by a bear. Yeah, yeah, I just got attacked by a bear. Yeah, he's like yeah, that's it.

Yeah, we met him up there. Yeah, that's where you met him up there. Yeah, what a crazy story dude. He healed up, does he look all right? I mean, he looks totally, he looks great. He's got a little bit of, he lost some function in his, core story bro. Yeah, yeah. He was like, he was, his hand in hanging out.

The manliest shredder ever, I'm not everywhere. So back to the leadership stuff with you guys and your employees, okay, or your, because your coaches would be considered your employees, right? They work underneath you guys, I imagine. So how much time do you guys spend developing them? Do you like that?

What are the struggles? What are the things you enjoy about it? Tell me a little bit about that. For me, part of the, that's been a little bit of a challenge. And I don't say that because I don't have a good coaching staff, I say that because I've got some pretty qualified people under me, and I think sometimes the hardest thing for me to do is lead qualified capable individuals.

Leading leaders is a motherfucker. Yeah, man, it's tough. Yeah. So under me, I've got a guy who, you know, I've got a guy who's just naturally a great coach, younger, he's aspiring to be a firefighter. So he's got like these other goals and so trying to keep him motivated in the coaching area, right? But the nice thing is, he's naturally pretty fricking smart and he's a great coach.

So I just have to continue to help build him up. I got another guy who works with people with spinal cord injuries, right? And he helps develop their bodies and trying to help them either strengthen their body or learn to walk again. And he's almost a physical therapist, right? And he helps develop their bodies and trying to help them either strengthen their body or learn to walk again. And he's almost a physical therapist, right? So he knows in terms of the human body and some of who works under you, he knows a lot, right? And I can go on and on about my coaching staff.

So for me to kind of position myself in a place where I'm able to influence them and help them grow is it's tricky, you know, but I kind of, I don't know, I like doing it because I like having the people I'm around, be really talented. I just don't like being around. I know a family member who, I feel like he puts himself around, people he can pay, $5 or $6 an hour, and I say $5 or $6 an hour, knowing that minimum wage

is actually 10 or something like that, because he's paying him cash and They're so underqualified for any other position that it like he can just get away with having whoever around and I don't like that model Like I'd rather have people around who are like asking for more money or asking for more hours or developing on another side because they have You know more goals, right? I think that works really well with CrossFit too because I think the average CrossFit gym a 10 D is like middle upper middle class So you you're attracting that anyway, so providing that quality makes sense and that's the direction of the fitness industry anyway that the whole huge volume low-dollar Model is flat there is no growth there telling me it's dying

Tell me what that does look like. What's the price structure? What is a coach kind of typically make? What's a higher end? Lower end? What's average? Up in areas like between $20 and $30 an hour is probably pretty standard. You know, in your average crossage, I'm some 14, $150 and $200 a month. You remember? Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's kind of... I was actually just reflecting on what you're talking about how you lead your leaders lead your coaches and I mean for me Kind of some but I feel like it's almost like they the coaches select themselves

You know, you do more work screening who's going to be a coach at your gym than you do At least I do then I I do trying to build them. So I feel like- That means you don't have a good job at selecting them. Right. So we do, you know, we have a standard apprentice period, you know, where they get to, they,

they team coach with me or something. Is that normal? Does everybody do that or is that just something you do in your facility? Dude, I have no idea. I know my gym, sometimes I do, but then I have another coach who I didn't mention who runs my kids program, and he's just a natural, he's nails, right?

He's got more patients for 50 kids, all at once yelling at him, then my wife and I have for one of our kids at any second, right? Like combined, you know, so it's, you know, yeah, it's just different. So like that's a coach, I feel like if I'm reading what Blair's saying,

right, kind of selects himself almost in for that position. I couldn't have trained him for that. I could literally not train you to be my CrossFit Kids coach and have 125 kids come through my door on one given day and you deal with all of them. I don't have a capacity to train for that. This question reminds me of a time that I went through. I was about 25 at this time.

And I'd already been leading gyms for four or five years in gyms and so I was responsible for hiring and all that and I was trying to refine my own skills about getting better at selecting. Then I also put something together that we didn't really have that wasn't organized with the company at the time and I kind of created my own 30 day of like onboarding process. And I saw a huge difference in one, the retention of my trainers, the amount of revenue they produce by hands on. It was a lot of work for me.

It was a pain in the ass because I had to now take, here's this new person I'm onboarding and doing the one-on-one stuff for an hour with them. And then I'm watching the way they're doing their shit. And they're following me when I'm teaching. And so, you know, you feel like you wasted all your time with that person. And it does time suck.

And it does sometimes happen. But, you know, the one I did notice a huge, because I track all this stuff. And I would see a huge increase when I did do that. It made a big difference to on board. Like, were you helping them with their, like, how to do fitness stuff, or was it more like the other intangible things?

It was actually everything, right? That's why I took a good 30 days of hanging with me because I would cover everything from programming to nutrition. I would give every, I would try and cram every bit of knowledge that I had in 30 days. And what I thought made me a better coach, a better trainer, and I tried, and I got more organized about like, you know, today we're going to be all about programming type stuff. And then this day we're all about nutrition. And then this day it's all about sales.

This day is all about communication and coaching points and mechanics. Like, so I would break it up like that. And man, it made a huge difference on their coaching abilities by giving that versus, because then I also had guys who, and girls who I'd find, I would inherit from another club, or been trainers for a long time, so they pretty much got it. And so I would kind of like, I'll just throw them in the system because they could do it, and then I'll train them up along the way, and I managed and I did fine with that, but I always got more out of the ones that I, because there's something that happens too with you as a leader and them during that process,

you're birthing them into this new facility and this new position, and you become a more of like a father figure in a sense when you do that really well. And so the way they would come to me and the way I'd be able to lead them and manage them later became a lot easier because of that time spent. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.

Definitely the more time you invest in them, the better producer they're going to be. One thing I think I failed at for a lot of years was I think I was always pretty good at selecting coaches that would deliver the right sort of message in the right tone because that's what I always knew as being the most important quality I was looking for. What I didn't do a great job of is the relationship between me and them, like setting really clear expectations

of what they're expected to do. Compensation was never an issue, that was always very clear from the beginning, because obviously that's, I mean, the standard. Everybody asked that question. Right, but as far as like the relationship between Jim owner and coach,

I never, I didn't do a great job of that. I wanted to be, I think in my mind, I wanted to be an equal with them, and then also a boss. And that's something I've had to learn a lot about just through trial and error and like doing things wrong. I feel that in CrossFit, there are very few gyms that can provide an awesome career for a coach at this point.

There are a few, there are a few out there that have really, they're just, but they're exceptions. The average CrossFit gym can provide, you know, maybe one salary position in addition to the owner, I would say. And if you're doing that, you're asking a lot of that person. Like it's not like you're going to get like a cool part-time deal with benefits. Like it's not happening. So what you have to do, in my opinion, as an owner is either you go all in on somebody like that

and you really make it worth their while, right? Or you look for coaches who are passionate and talented, but have other careers to support themselves. They enjoy coaching for three to five hours a week and they're getting a little extra money, but they're not depending on you to provide a career for them and their family. It's their side hustle. Which is gotta be a very hard,

tough situation, right? It's hard for you guys. I imagine to find that, right? Because no doubt, the perfect, you know, coach is, you know, a version of yourself up and coming, right? One day, it aspires to have his own box or what I thought because you know he's in there. I mean, is that the path?

Like if somebody wants to make a career in this, is it owning your own? It owning your own? Is that really the only other option to making this a career in this, is it owning your own? Is that really the only other option to making this a career? Yeah, I mean, I think to be honest man, the way to make money in fitness is to personal training. It's always gonna be that.

So if you can be a part-time coach at a CrossFit gym and then build a personal training business there, that's the way to do it, I think. But as a CrossFit gym owner, like if someone out there wants to open their own gym, my experience has been that it is more sustainable, long-term, to find people that do not want it to be a career. Right? They love coaching for that short amount of time.

You're not asking too much of them. They're getting a little extra money on the side, and you get the best, they're best three hours every week. They don't get drained, they don't get burned out. Now, you can't do a straight tradeout, that doesn't work either, you have to pay these people, right? But I don't know, I mean, for me, that's the way I was kind of forced to do it

because I am in retail space, my rent is higher. I don't have as much free money to like try to just support a lot of people. I feel like the natural progression, like if I were to get into it, it would be like, I would go work for someone like one of you guys, I would start building them. And then I would build my own confidence

by building my classes to be just exploding, right? Like to where I have the most people out of anybody else that teaches, I'm always loaded. People are showing up for you. Yeah, people are showing up for me. And then I think at that point, I've proven myself, like, okay, like I can draw these people to come see me. Now maybe I feel confident, I would open up my own gyms.

That kind of the pros, that people do that. I feel like that happens. I've heard of that happening a few times in LA, you know, and different things. But for us, I mean, I've had two coaches do that. You've had two coaches. Gone on to open up other gyms.

There you go. How they do. One of them's doing great. He still owns it. He's in Roseville. He does, he's awesome. And like, I'm really proud of him. And like, we have a good relationship.

The other one ended up moving out of town, did something else to one of different directions. What's it look like? You had mentioned, you can open a box for between $15,000 to $20,000. Is that the average cost of opening a box or is that more on the lower end? That would, I would think that's low. Nowadays it's low.

That's low, right? You're basically what you're doing is at that point, you're like, I think what you're doing is you're saying you love to train and you just want something that kind of pays for you to be able to train, you know, and you can justify spending money. I don't think anybody's trying to get in. You got to remember, like, people were doing this in their garage. So you'd have like 10, 15 people come into a garage who has a squat rack and a pull-up bar, and then they would take that group and open up a gym. So it's like, the 15 to 20 grand, that's like the amount of equipment you

need to train 10 or 15 people, right? And you can do it. CrossFit has a great model for that, because it's all, it's not expensive equipment. It's bars, it's bumpers, maybe a kettlebell on a rope, some rings, like it's not a lot of stuff. So you can do that, you could do that. Now you can't, because it's not, it's like the early adopter phase is gone. CrossFit is out there.

It's too competitive now, right? Now it's like, is it more retail? Like now, like the look of it and the aesthetic of like the gym itself, like does it start to look a it more retail? Like now, like the look of it and the aesthetic of like the gym itself. Like does it start to look a little more commercialized in the box? I mean, I think Blair is more like that, but he has something that you still can have

in the warehouse space and that's like the access to the outside and being able to have access the parking lot. Like you can't open it, it makes it Chipotle. You know what I mean? And start doing it. And then you start parking lot. Yeah, farmer caries across their parking lot.

You'll excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. I didn't think about that, it's a good point. Yeah, so there's a certain amount where the retail side of it, it's gonna, it you kind of want that and I see why Blair did that. And I try to, you know, up the aesthetics of my gym, which is in a warehouse, you know, because of situations where I look over at Blair,

and many did a good job at that. That's really good. But then I open my roll up door and I can just walk right outside and flip tires and not worry about cars and do things like that. So for me when I got into it, it was never about aesthetics. It was always about the quality of the workout

and not that Blair compromised on that at all, but he just had two factors that he took into consideration. I just had one and it was always like, I'm gonna make sure our workout is top notch. Well, I just noticed, because, you know, coming from our commercialized, and I saw that that was sort of like an answer to that, like the counterculture of that, in a sense. And, actually, I don't know, what's the timeline with that Jim Jones? You guys remember that Jim Jones, I came out after like 300. I don't know, like in order, you know, with CrossFit and that, like, you guys remember that Jim Jones, I came out after like 300. I don't know, like in order, you know,

with CrossFit and that, like I just remember before that. Before. Yeah, because that was my first introduction to like unconventional training and like really seen, like somebody build a gym that was like tires and ropes and all that kind of cool shit that I was like already kind of doing in the commercial gym and, you know know sort of making a name for myself that way

But I'm sure you guys get this question all the time But yeah, if somebody opens up a box Average what would they invest and what would they be able to earn off of a box? Once it's like established. Yeah, low-end high-end and then what's realistic for most? um, I would say high end, probably million dollars a year. A gross revenue. Wow, that's okay gross. Gross revenue.

Gross, yeah. Low end, I think there's guys that are scraping like a hundred K. Gross revenue. I mean, it's hard because like in our market, we, Northern California, like you said, birthplace of CrossFit, Santa Cruz has been around the long because you have the highest saturation of gyms for the lowest number of people, right?

You go down to like, to Manhattan, like, I mean, their, their, their growth revenue is way more than a million dollars a year. So like, it just depends on where you go. The economics, right? And like in South America, it is, they're, they're opening like, like five CrossFit gyms a week in Brazil or something crazy.

Like, so it's like, we're at different places on the curve. But if you're in like, say like a not saturated market, like, and there's if there's like decent demand for CrossFit, like there's not a lot of competition there and like you can open up a gym and you're doing you're okay. You're a good coach. Yeah, you're a good coach and you have a quality product. You're not hurting everybody. Like I think that it's very reasonable for you

to take $30,000 for equipment and your lease and your space and all that. And within a year, I think you could be, I think you could be generating a solid amount of money. Maybe for yourself, three to $4,000 a month profit. That's what I say, $3,000 I think a lot of guys who love fitness, probably like all of us, especially the 10-year-old, less-year-old version of us, like 25 somewhere in there, right? You're super happy with that.

Yeah, you're making three grand a month, working for yourself, staying in the gym, hitting the weights, or making five grand a month, working for the mean? I'll make that trade all day long, right? Yeah. So I guess it comes down to whatever your profitability thresholds are, like what you really want to sustain, you know. I would think it would be popular because I had one of my trainers that went and opened his facility. And I remember what he did was he was building his and at the same time he was privately

training clients there too. So I would assume that would be because you could probably easily pick up another two to three thousand dollars a month easily Just off of some private sessions If you're that guy that knows how to do that a lot of the here's you know the biggest problem with CrossFit in the beginning Was it was it was all the gym owners were like police and firefighters? Like not the or X military. Yeah, there's no trainers. Like not that these guys are bad guys, but like they opened up gyms, a lot of them just so it's cool to work out with their buddies. Like they didn't have any, like coaching, like pedigree at all, and they didn't know how

to like do personal training with people that are like, you know, different populations, different demographics. So yeah, if you're a coach that has a coaching background and you know how to personal train someone Absolutely, because now you got no rent like what's the biggest cost for a personal trainer at a gym? You got to give 60% to 24 hours That's right. You do do do do you do any more personal training? Yeah, you do yeah, I do I mean not much. I wish I did more but I have I have three three clients right now I I remember the day

I didn't have to do more personal training and I was so stoked. Because even though I love fitness and I love the interaction that one-on-one interaction, I remember I got a thousand dollar check for some of you pre-bought some sessions, right? And we've all gotten those from 24-hour fitness and you give it to them and you get this like $16 an hour or whatever process you're training, right? And it's like, here's a thousand And and I had it for like two days And I was like why have you not went to the bank? I'm like because if I deposit this it means I have to train them again for like the next three months

You know what I mean? And I literally went back and I gave the check. Oh give it back to the lady and I said hey I'd love to have you as part of my community. I'd love to have you as part of my gym. I just can't train you any come on Ben I'm dead That's true story. I would have gone to her and be like I can to have you as part of my gym. I just can't train you any more. Come on, Ben. That's true story. What a meanie dude. I would have gone to her and be like, I can't train you, but I have another trainer who can,

who's very good. Then I would have gone to that trainer and be like, for 500 bucks. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I got a great deal for you. I know. So I just couldn't do it anymore. But now I do actually have one person I meet with

for half an hour a week, and I don't charge a thing. So just just- So I do actually have one person I meet with for half an hour a week and I don't charge a thing. So just to keep... So I do something similar. I do some online coaching, but it's not because I need to online coach, it's because it keeps my finger on the pulse of fitness. I mean, I get to stack, but you guys have gyms, you guys are just in there all the time. We're in here all the time, and I was finding myself a little by little losing that touch of working with people every single day. So it's not as relatable anymore.

Yeah, I do the same thing. I have just one client, like I'll show up in the morning and just going through the process of like a trouble shooting and using new techniques and stuff you've learned, like FRC or something that's just come out and I wanna see how to apply this in the programming sense. It's like you have to, you've learned, like FRC or something that's just come out and I want to see how to apply this in the programming sense. It's like you have to keep that out of it. It keeps you sharp. It's like the McDonald's owner going in and doing

french fries every once in a while. You want to be in there and keep your finger on the pulse of it. But I think fitness is interesting. It's one of those industries where you people enter it because of passion. Very few people go into the fitness industry and think, I'm going to be a millionaire. Like very few people do that. Most people like, I love working out. It's your jeeling, Michael. Yeah, I love working out. I love training people.

I love fitness. This will be awesome if I can make some money doing what I love. But then you do have some of those people who get in there, do it because of the passion and then they're like, okay, I want to build a big business. I want to build a phenomenal business. And we've been seeing the rise of, and really the best opportunity for this is merging the two. You have your brick and mortar, physical location, business, or clients, but also working

now with the new emerging side of fitness, which is your social media. And now you're reaching 5,000 or 10,000 people who also value what you have to say. Now you can build a six, seven figure business, whereas before in order to do that, you had to have like a shit ton of locations or a lot of, you know, tight up assets in your business. So are you guys doing any,

I know you guys have your podcast, are you also looking to build in those other ways for your businesses or? I mean, no. I have, me personally, I have a travel business that I do. We once a year we run like 10 day trips around the world. It's called AnymoreFit Travel. So that's like a diversification of my business

where we take groups of 30 people, we go to Iceland, we go to Greece, we go to Thailand, we go to New Zealand. It's a fitness trip. It's a fitness trip. So it's essentially like a waste of a trip to Thailand if you ask me. It's perfect. So you go on vacationing in. No, it's a fitness trip. The workouts It's a fitness trip. The workouts are, the workouts are kind of done on the fly. So say like in Iceland for example, we were on a bus between waterfalls as one does in Iceland. And there's like this dormant volcano and we're like, oh boom pull off, we're going to

do a buddy carry to the top of this volcano like stuff like that. So the workouts are interwoven into the trip. That's very cool. As a way to kind of like make the experience more memorable. So that's like that's a side business that I run. It's actually really clever. Yeah, that's cool man. Yeah, I love it.

I guess I look forward to it. Did you just start that even doing that for a while? Been doing it since 2011. So I've done 12 major trips. Oh no shit. Yeah. So we're this next June we're going to Peru. I'm gonna do...

Much of peach. Much of peach, of course. Gonna do Rainbow Mountain. I'll ask a buddy, Carrie. That's right. I'll ask a buddy, Carrie. First drink this. 10 muscle ups.

Do you do this alone or do you have a partner who does it with you? How do you do me? So the idea was born when I was on that, that in Europe for that year doing my master's program, this is how it was working out. I was like, oh, I'm in Europe, I wanna go check out Germany and Italy and France and whatever,

and I would still need to train for the CrossFit Games. So I was doing these workouts. During the course of that year, I made friends with a guy named Sven. His name is actually Sven Bjorn, Sven Bjornson. So if you guys know, very Swedish, yeah. So he's Icelandic.

He's Icelandic. In Iceland. I would never guess. Yeah. They have no surnames. So it's only whoever your father's name is, it's that plus son or plus daughter. So like Sven's dad's name is Sven.

So he's Sven, Sven's son, Sven Bjornson. Anyways, that's interesting aside. So he's my good friend now and he runs these trips with me. So we go out and he does a lot of the logistics. That is the wife come with you or is it just you? The wife comes with me. Oh, wow. So it's like paid vacation for us.

That was a toss, huh? We haven't, she hasn't come in the last two years because of our kids, but eventually that's what I want it to be is, you know, I take, it's cross branded, so our gym, like I said, is crossfit anywhere, these trips are called anywhere fit travel. So it's the same idea, the same mantra, the same logos, everything is connected that way. And I would love for this to be something

that we continue to do as a family, like when my kids get older, you know, 10, 15 years down the road. So you like roughen it throughout this, or you guys actually like having hotels? No, we do, it depends. So like in a place like Iceland, there's some in it because there's just that that's the deal there You know, but like in Thailand we were staying in like five star. Oh, there you go like

Baller baller. It's like 15 bucks a night or something like that's amazing Yeah, like the way to really make money or like to to profit on a trip like that is to go to a place That's more third world because your money just goes so far So anyways, that's like that's one way I diversify our business. I don't do a lot of stuff on Instagram. I don't know what it is and I feel like I need to get over this but I look down on people that are Instagram stars. I look at them and I'm like, really?

I guess I'd jealous these what it is. I'm like, you're making like 100K a year for like a year. It's your own ego that makes you frustrated that, that it's that way. We're all the same generation, hold you guys? 35. Yeah, so we're all the same generation. So we came up before that, we saw it grow,

but we're not too old to where we're super disconnected. So it's like, you look at it and like, what the fuck is it? I remember when I, when I, when I make it millions, when I first started talking, I start met Adam for the first time over the phone. We were talking and this is before,

this is when we decided we're gonna start a podcast and he's like, you need to get on Instagram, dude. Like that's what you need to do because I had this program that I developed and I wanted to sell and then I went on Instagram like, what the fuck is this is like narcissism hell? Like I'm never gonna get on this. He's like no, you don't understand.

You gotta get in there. This is essential for business and it is. You just have to. You have to. Just to come do it. I'm just not maximizing it at all. You know, I'm on there. Like our gym is on there.

I have a personal page and it's like, I don't know, I'm not monetizing it. I'm not turning it into a business the way a lot of these other people are. They're taking advantage of it. Ben's much better at social media. It takes time. I remember when I sat down, and this was like six, six, seven years ago before, the first time I ever met, so you guys met Taylor already in here.

So Taylor has, the story is, God, this is eight years ago. He's only 23 years old. And he had built a six figure plus Facebook business. And at this time, like Facebook's been around for a while, and I had heard of people doing this, but I didn't know anybody personally. So at this point, I'm not really diving into it. I haven't met anybody. He was like, yeah, I've made this bunch of money

off of Facebook or whatever. I finally met somebody and I was really fascinated by what he did. And he started on Twitter and he had just built this large following of people that have interest in shoes. He's a shoe guy. Long story short, he pivoted that over into a business and made really good money.

At that moment, I was fascinated with like, wow, this 23 year old kid built a six figure business, but I got what he did. Like he what he did was he just gathered a bunch of like-minded people What that are all into shoes? He helped them. He connected them all by helping them out because they were Brokering shoes to each other and he made no money off of it He just put the people together which now he became the guy who hey if you're looking for a specific shoe That's the guy to ask right he'll put you in line with the right people. It's always the solace.

Bing, Bing, boom. And then he's got, it's got, it's got, it's all she wrote. He's got 10,000 people now that are paying attention to what he's doing. And he turned it into, then he made a t-shirt business and sweaters and hoodies and clocks. And they all had sneakers on him. Air fresheners, which were like, he made most his money. Just a smart, he made most of my air fresheners off a dollar Well, they won't cost him like three cents to make, you know, and he sold them for like a dollar so I love that

I love that sort of simplicity. So do I. Yeah, so do I and that's I was instantly intrigued by this 23 year old kid who had done this and at that moment I remember I was doing something completely different at the time I'm like I'm gonna do this because that, I was never a Facebook social, I didn't have any of it. I didn't care. Like I was, I had a MySpace for a little while when MySpace for started and I was like, I was over. Because I was already into my 20s and stuff.

I was still out there, do you see my space page? Yeah, man, it's alive, is it? Is it really? I got an email. You can search all of MySpace page? I didn't know, I didn't even know. My old band page still, I'm not gonna say that. It's 12, you need to know.

So sad. So I was, I was't even know. My old band page is still on. I don't know if you're gonna say that. It's 12, you need this in the morning. So sad. So I was not into it at all, and until I had seen that. And then, and I remember he told me, he says, you're gonna plug away at this for at least a year. He says at least a year, and you're gonna hate it, and you'll be annoyed by it, because you'll feel like you're talking to nobody,

and it'll feel silly what you're doing, and this and that, he says, but you gotta be consistent, you gotta keep plugging away at it, and eventually you'll find like you're talking to nobody and it'll feel silly what you're doing. And this natty says, but you've got to be consistent, you've got to keep plugging away at it. And eventually you'll find your voice. Eventually you'll find your niche of people that want to hear what you have to say. And then that's, and you just stick to that.

And I bought some ebooks too on it, like on how you should be posting and shit, whatever. And it was like telling me, I'm supposed to post four times a day. So I was posting like four times a day. And one, a shirtless picture shirtless picture is back then in the bodybuilding days, you know, and then exercise videos. Then I then I put up controversial post up. Like, so, you know, I, and it just would slowly add, you know, slowly building, building, building. And, you know, even when Justin, before we started Mind Pump, Justin, I created the first nutrition guide.

And I thought, once I got up like 20,000, I was like, all right, let's see this thing makes so money. And we turned it on. And I said, hey, here's the guide. It's out, go buy it, type of deal. I'm like, hardly any people. I think we sold it for you maybe 20 or 30 that month or whatever. Which, it's like, I got it.

Let's just jack the price higher. Yeah. So at that, 30 that month or whatever that which is like, let's just jack the price higher. Yeah. So at that, at that, at the 30 and a thousand dollars, you're not crushing it. Yeah, exactly. So we learned real quick that it was gonna take more than that for sure.

And so I think that's the part, like it's kind of frustrating because you won't see any real return from it for a really long time. Even now like our Instagram doesn't make us a bunch of money. It really kind of just speaks to the rest of the show and everything else what we're doing right in our first. It's just like a business card's back in the day or anything else back in the day, like blogs.

It's all, you mean you guys have your podcasts? So you guys are in that world a little bit and podcasting is like radio. It's modern radio. Well, for me, I didn't develop anywhere fit trips. I wish I did because I think they're really cool as much as I like to make fun of them. You gotta run, though, bro.

Yeah, I know. You gotta do so much cardio outside the gym. Like, why am I gonna go to Thailand and spend 11 days in the gym, right? But for me, when I got into CrossFit, I actually got into it in part because of guys like Blair, like literally Blair and other guys like him because in 2009 when I found CrossFit, right? But I already had my first son at that point, my wife and I were already married. Wasn't as easy for me to kind of travel and kind of do some of the things I saw these guys go into this place or that place.

So I would just follow the CrossFit.com page. And back then, they'd post workouts and they'd put a picture up of somebody, and they'd put below the picture two notable athletes who had done the workout, and their times. So I didn't have to go anywhere. I didn't have to go seek out training partners, I didn't have to go travel to some big gym or anything like that.

And I would read Blair Morrison, 19 minutes, seven seconds. And I'd be like, whoa, I think, who's this guy? I'm gonna try to beat him. And'm like Ben Alderman, you know, I'd put my time in the comments section, 24 minutes, 18 seconds, I'm like, crap. This guy, right? And then I, I'm meeting Blair, you know, a couple of years later, maybe you're, I don't even remember exactly when it was. And so I was always kind of tied to the gym,

but now social media has given me a little bit of a voice, you know, and I coach my kids, because they're old enough now to start lifting and then I'm gonna go back to the gym, and then I'm gonna of tied to the gym, but now social media is giving me a little bit of a voice You know, and I I coach my kids because they're old enough now to start lifting my son loves loves to lift Yeah, I get all kinds of flack for that, but I'm really busy too because I have four kids and Three gyms the podcast all these other different things So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to relate to the other guys out there who have a lot of stuff going on.

So, you know, we always hear about the dad bod, you know, and he's like, okay, to be a little fat, little pudgy, not take care of yourself. And I'm like, I don't think so, man. I can think that we should reclaim the dad bod just a bit and stop giving ourselves a way out. Like, we don't think it's cool to let our kids get away with being slack in school, right?

Or in any other areas of their life. So why are we gonna model like a, like an okay, self-image of being fat and lazy and not work hard? Yeah, just giving up. It's like, oh yeah, you gotta work hard in sports. You gotta be this kind of student, or you gotta be this one.

No, it's over. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a classic dude, I say, not what I do got to work hard in sports, you got to be this kind of student, or you got to be this one. And then it's over. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a classic dude, I say not what I do, right? Right, exactly, right? So you got to model it. And then at the same time, I have all those same characteristics that being competitive in CrossFit helps satisfy. So I was like trying to stay competitive in CrossFit.

So I ask myself crazy questions all the time. I ask myself, if I could only train for an hour a day, Could I still be one of the best in the world? Or if I could only train an hour a day? Could I finally beat Blair Morrison at a running workout? Right? And the answer is usually no, but by asking those crazy questions I've come up with like a training methodology that allows me to train Sometimes it's a little like 10 to 20 minutes a day, and then stay pretty fit. You know what I mean? I mean the last six years, I made it to Regionals which is one step below the Games, but in California, and I think five of those six years,

I was top 10 fitness guys in California, and I don't get to train as much as a lot of people, and not as much as a lot of people think I train. So even my competitors, I lay out three, four hours of program for my in-house competitors. I don't do any of it. I do so a little of it. In fact, you're on the dad-bought program. I'm on the dad-bought program. Literally, I'll just, all right, what am I going to do here? And I'll just think of something really quick that takes very little warm-up, which is,

kind of limits my movements because I've got a lot of mileage on me. I've been doing this for a while. So if I don't spend a lot of time warming up, which is kind of limits my movements because I've got a lot of mileage on me. I've been doing this for a while. So if I don't spend a lot of time warming up, right? I can't necessarily get into a great overhead squat or a Olympic lifting positions, right? So I have to change it up and do things that allow me just to, very smart. Yeah, I've got 15 minutes to work out.

Literally, I have 15 minutes to work if I don't get home, my wife's gonna be pissed. Very smart, right? So you got into, what were you doing before then for work? Cause you said you got into this 2009, what were you doing? You were married when you got into CrossFit? Or, oh wow.

Yeah, I was married. So what were you doing for work before that? Well, I worked in the gym. Okay. Yeah, I worked in the gym. So at 20, I was working for 24 hour fitness. Oh, I didn't know you started there. Yeah, which one?

It was in Sacramento, it was at Laguna. Oh, sure. Yeah, Center Parkway. Yeah, which one? It was in Sacramento. It was a laguna or yeah Center Parkway Yeah, and I just met some some young kid called me yesterday and heard about me from from a family friend and Said hey, I wanted to do what you've done and I'm like, what do you do right now? He's like, oh, I work front desk at 24-feet and I'm like, which one? He's like Center Parkway and Laguna I'm like, oh man. I was like help you out with that, you know, and just do what I did and you'll be exactly where I'm like, oh man, I was like, help you out with that. And just do what I did, and you'll be exactly where I'm at right now. Just do it in the year rather than 10, you'll be all right.

But yeah, that's what I did. And then I got into, I did some construction stuff, not like building things with my hands, just doing some of the office type stuff, estimating and different things. Got into some sales, I sold time share actually for about a year in Hawaii, which was interesting. Talked me a lot about communicating with people and overcoming objections and seeing where people are coming from.

Most important skill you can teach any business person is how to sell, which is really how to communicate. Absolutely. You came back here, leveraged that into a management position at Golds Gym, which is really not doing much. Did that for a little while, and then got into mixed martial arts. Got beat up by a bunch of guys from Team Alpha Mail who are 50 pounds less than me, and figured out the good man.

Figured out my training protocol sucked. That would have been humbling, right? That was humbling, yeah. And then changed my training protocol to CrossFit. And now I just had more energy when they were beating me up. So, you know, I stopped fighting. The guys are making fun of me. Because we have the Conomer Gregor cut out inside here.

I saw it. Yeah, and I said I wouldn't be afraid of them. And they all made fun of me instead of you with my ass up and down. Spoken like somebody who would break you. And I feel like I've never done a day of Jiu Jitsu. I was like, I learned my lesson. That's how I started Jiu Jitsu for six years.

I got up to a purple belt. Oh, that's good. But what got me to sign up was I walked in and the instructor was this 160 pound, that very strong Indian dude, ended up becoming one of my good friends and he was a purple belt and I'm a new guy and I had some judo background

so it wasn't like I was a total beginner and I'm 200 and at the time 210, maybe 215 and he tapped me out like five times in five minutes and I went outside and threw up, came back inside and signed up because I'm like if that fucking small I have to kick my ass like this, I need to learn this shit. Show me the ways.

Yeah, exactly. So when Adam was saying, I bet I could, I don't know, he's not that big. I can't like. He would kick your ass while he was. He could literally read a book while doing it. Yeah, that would be humbling. It would be very humbling to let someone with that size difference will fall over you. Yeah, so after all the nicks and brews that I've taken along the way, dadboughtathletics.com

is born November 1st this year, so coming up, I don't know when this episode releases. And I'll basically be giving people their purple belt and fitness in 10 or 15 minutes a day. I like that. Yeah. I think you're on to something. I like that. So when you guys look at the future of the business, the future of CrossFit and the future of the fitness industry, what do you guys see happening? I'm pretty excited about it. There's a while there where I wasn't sure

what was gonna happen with CrossFit because I could see. Does it feel like it's peaked and it's popular there? Do you think it's still going? No, I think it's peaked and it's level right now. I don't think it's getting worse. I think. You're like the third person that's told us that who's very privy to the industry.

Yeah, so the way I'm looking at it now is we had this great rush of interest and then I think it plateaued and I think I don't know if it ever really went down, but you had people that had tried CrossFit and decided it wasn't for them. And like there's a lot of negative PR out there as you guys are aware, like there's people getting hurt. And like there wasn't a lot coming from CrossFit to combat that saying that because Glassman like you said he is a free market guys through and through the product is good it will win out cream or rest at the top.

So that's I think that's all 100% true. I really believe that Orange Theory built that built their whole business off of that. Off of the negativity comes that absolutely. I literally think they their time in the market was could not be more per I know everybody you know, Rantzen Rape's love same mechanisms right. Exactly. They took the best of Crossfit that what everybody was scared about all the Olympic lifts and the scared removed it and said here you go. And dressed it up a little

nicer. Yeah. So I think I think Orange Theory will expire because they don't have the true magic in CrossFit. Number one is the community, like we said, right? But there's also very high complexity in the movements and that's like where you require really good coaching and attention. I think that is going to increase popularity again. So I would say in the next five years, CrossFit has become more popular. I don't necessarily think there's gonna be

a rush of new gyms opening up. I think that day is done because it's gonna cost a lot more to compete with these established gyms. Do you see a more specialized CrossFit gym as far as some of those Olympic, it's more known for just being Olympic lifting versus like say, your more endurance-based crossfit gym.

I don't think there'll be more specialized gyms than there are now. I think like Ben was saying, you're gonna have your niche based on what you like to do. I mean, it's almost unavoidable. But what I think is gonna happen is you're gonna have, you have a population that, you have people in their 20s that are aging

into their 30s and people in their 30s that are aging into their 40s and people in their 30s that are aging into their 40s. And what happens when you age, A, you make more money, B, you start caring more about your longevity, right? You become more acquainted with your mortality, your kids, your grandkids, whatever. These things become more important to be functional.

And when you look at the functional fitness market, CrossFit is at the top. And it's kind of I I think, as we get further away from this negative PR about CrossFit, being damaging, you have better quality gyms that are around, like there's gonna be less and less objections to going that route. Like the money is there, people can afford it.

If the quality is there, there's no, in my opinion, there's still not a better way, a more efficient way to maximize your gym experience. The community, the culture, the variety of movement patterns and mobility that cross with demands of people. If you have good coaches that are preventing you from overdoing it, like, why not? Why not do that?

So that's what I see happening. I think Orange Theory, like you said, they filled, they nailed it, man. Like they just nailed it. They took the stuff that was scary out. They did enough of the same sort of thing, the high intensity circuit thing that was like making people sweat and like feel like they got to work out it. And they made it a game, you know?

They did a great job, but I think what I, when I ask people now, it's like how many people, or what's the longevity of people in Orange Theory? Nobody's there longer than a year. They're not committed in the long term, so it's still a fact. I think in Orange Theory, I agree 100%. I think we're gonna see a huge drop off. Well, you talk about some of the struggles

that CrossFit had at the beginning was the lack of good coaches, Orange Therese, that time's 10. Right. You're getting very entry-level trainers that are at the facilities there, and it was part of the reason why. God, it's such a cycle of fitness too.

I swear to God, you see that so much. Yeah, it's, you know, and if there, I think if there was a higher level of even coaching there, the place would do better than members only showing up. Because what's happening is, you know, the members are pounding on their body for, they have these class for one hour, they come in just like I'm sure this was happening in CrossFit, right?

They come in for their one hour class to get hammered. There's no real emphasis on their mobility and what they're where this person is this person right here Has no ankle mobility this person right here as an asymmetrical shift this person has forward shoulders, but yet we're all doing this Running on the treadmill as hard as we can, rolling as hard as we can, then going over and doing weights in the weight room in this one hour and then boom, you're out. And that's all my communication with you as a coach. I remember the first time I was there and I saw the 50 minute checkoff point for the coaches. And I looked at it and I just laughed because I was like, this is hilarious.

There's actually no real coaching in this. It's like all the things that you need to do. With the music and with the queueing and running. I'm going like, if you literally lose it, it was literally 50 checkoffs for a 50-minute class. I thought to myself, where the fuck is the room for the coaching? There's no room for coaching at that speed of a class. That's where they're going to get blown Right. It's inevitable that people are gonna get injuries, especially if you're running them on a treadmill. You're just gonna exaggerate it even faster.

If you at least took that out, you get a little bit longer a life out of them, but just the running on the treadmill combined with all the poor movements and that fast of a pace. And it's just too repetitive, man. Like, it's too repetitive. You're gonna get bored. What's great about a personal trainer is they can change the workout for you every single day. That fast of a pace. And it's just too repetitive, man. Like, yeah. It's too repetitive. You're gonna get bored.

What's great about a personal trainer is they can change the workout for you every single day. Like, that's what you're paying them for. Is there attention to you and their ability to make it interesting? I think Orange Theory is, it is, I think that's another area where it lacks. It lacks the creativity department

that CrossFit thrives in. If you're at a good gem, right? So. Yeah, I mean, I don't know personally, I've never actually even been doing orange theory. I've walked by it like three or four times. Kind of makes me a little bit like, queasy when I look inside, everything's orange.

You know, like you're in a room with like a really weird lighting and you're just trying to like, like everybody's wearing blue blockers. Can you imagine what we're doing, doing burpees like in an orange room, you know, with orange, like that sounds crazy to me. So I don't know. Well, what they're doubling down on the culture side.

So what you see is. They're trying to build this whole, right? Yeah, they're doing a lot of the, you know, wine and yoga on one day's and the community things within and they're heavily smart. Yeah, they are. They're doubling down on that, which is, I think they crossfit laid the blueprints out for everybody.

Little, you hit it right on the head with that. They did really, really well with the culture. And that was the biggest piece that was, they did that and then the movements that were lacking, right? To me, and CrossFit's two biggest things that they really separated themselves from the normal big box gyms that we were all going to, just 15 years ago, is they got people

to do the most important lifts again, which no one was doing. Especially women. Yeah, right. Nobody was squatting in deadlifting and women definitely were squatting in deadlifting and now they are. And then the culture, right?

Because if you go to a big box gym, everyone's got headphones on, you don't communicate to anybody, you don't talk to anybody at all. Like CrossFit's totally different. I bet most your members don't communicate to anybody, you don't talk to anybody at all. Cross fits totally different. I bet most of your members don't even have headphones in whether they're working out. Most of them are probably... If somebody puts in headphones, they must be new.

Oh, see, that's great. You haven't even know that, right? So I can totally see how they would... That's so different, though, right? I mean, that forces you to interact with the other person that's five feet away from you where the big box shims would do that. And for a business and for good cultures and stuff like that, that would be more ideal. So those two things, they're not to the part.

Those two things are the things that I think Orange Theory is really latching on to, hoping that it will carry them. I think the smaller, the lower volume, higher price per unit model is what's exploding. And CrossFit started it, but you see explosion of Pilates Studios, yoga studios, boot camp type classes, other type of group training type things. These are gyms that have far less members,

but much higher cost per unit. Cause I mean, let's be honest, people are getting their monies worth when they pay $150 a month for a place that they're actually going to use and work out versus the $20 a month planet fitness gym that I never go to. You know, it's a totally different model, but that's where I see the growth. That's where the growth is.

Do you guys ever think about getting back down to just one and kind of doubling down on that place? And if I didn't realize how much one of those can make, do you ever think that the multiple facilities spreads you thin and doesn't allow you to like really make one just fucking on best coaches ever, just incredible culture and the spot. Then you could raise your prices potentially.

You ever think that way? Do you guys ever, does that ever cross your mind? Yeah, all the time. We talk about all the time because we have similar experiences. We have a flagship gym and then we have like an expansion location. Ben now has two, but for a long time, he just had the second gym. And for both of us, our experience, and I guess I'll just speak for myself. My experience has been that you can't put the same heartbeat in multiple brick and mortar

locations. You just can't do it. You try to. You want to proliferate your model and you have this kind of arrogance that, hey, I did it here. I can do it there. But there's so many factors and the heartbeat is just different. So you have to let it be different. And that's okay.

So yeah, I thought about, I came very close to closing my second location and just focusing on the first one because it felt like that's kind of what was happening anyways. But I went against that. I'm glad that I did. I think that, even if, I think it's okay for the gyms to be different, I don't think it necessarily needs, they don't need to be at the same revenue level, the same membership level.

You're just, what you're doing is you're providing, you're providing something that, that, that demographic needs, right? And, I think long term, I think long term, because of the trends that I see that I think are going to happen, I think it's going to pay off to have multiple. To have multiple. Been around for a long time and a long time. Been around and it And be established. Yeah, I really do.

Like Ben said before, there's a lot of opportunities coming across our desks lately to buy gyms or to combine gyms. Because people are getting to that point where they're like, you know, they either want to move on or they've had enough or it's just too much of a stress. I think for me, like look you know that question like hey do you think it'd be easier if you had just one kid Yeah, it would be Like that's the real answer right like so do I entertain you don't want to get rid of you

Kid do you pick you know But you know I already know which one I think He's having an asshole, but she's had a hard time. I already know which one I'd pick, but I'm not gonna say. It's a podcast libra, right? You can't, man. You can't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and really that one probably be terrible too, if I didn't have anything to juxtapose with.

But the idea of like, would you be able to focus on just the one, I think a location that has, let's just say, one third of Blair Morrison at it, because he's got two or three of them, is better than a gym with no personality, with no guidance, with no captain right and over time we'll learn better how to give a good amount to each one and then those those will grow because the knowledge and experience that that Blair has or the the mileage that

he's that he's went really you can't duplicate that you know I mean his experiences is is very unique to himself, obviously. And if he wants to have a community that gets a little piece of that, that's a good thing, right? And I would think that same thing for me, people know I have like a drum, I just pound. I've got four kids, I've got three gym. All the stuff all the time.

People like, hey Ben, did you train them? I've got four kids, I've got three gym. It would be a great stitched, we could actually get producer dog on this. Just match it up. All the time's been, I said, I got four kids, I've got three kids. It would be a great stitched, we could get producer dog on this. Just match it up. All the times Ben said, I got four kids. I got four kids. I got four kids. Big leather diaper bag.

I met Regels getting interviewed in front like three or four thousand people and they're like, hey Ben, how's your training? She's like, well, you know, I've got four kids and stuff so I get it in what I can. You know what I mean? I leave my barbell low to 95 pounds to do a few strict press.

You know what I mean? And I just do what I can, you know? And that's like literally my mantra, but I just like, I think there's enough for those four kids. I think there's enough for my three gyms, especially if we start doing things better. And that's what I think Blair and I's challenge and probably any other affiliate owner, box owner, gym owner

is when they're trying to scale their business up. It's learning how to systemize things better so that everybody gets enough of you. You know what, I think I waste a lot of time and energy on things that don't really matter all that much, and I think if I can start better analyzing those and getting rid of those, and only focusing on my best practices, I think there's more than enough of me to go around for all three gyms.

Absolutely, and I'll say this right now, I think you guys have a tremendous opportunity with your podcast. I've talked to quite a few podcasters we've been in the space for a while. You guys are really good. You have the natural ability to get on the mics and go. I think there's a massive opportunity with your podcast. And the cool thing about it is,

unlike opening a new box, you don't need to invest any more capital. The amount of time that you have to invest in, it really isn't that much more than, you know, than maybe what you're doing now or a little bit more, but nothing like a new box. capital. The amount of time that you have to invest in, it really isn't that much more than, then maybe what you're doing now or a little bit more, but nothing like a new box, and the opportunity to reach the amount of people that you may want to reach to grow, you can't touch that with a box that relies on your local, your locality. So that's where I would say you guys have a tremendous opportunity. I really appreciate you guys coming on. Come on,

doing this with us. We'll be getting started hanging out with you boys. Absolutely. I really appreciate you guys coming on. I'm doing this with us. I'm hanging out with you boys. Absolutely. We really enjoy you guys' podcast. You guys want to give it a shout out real quick? Good Blair Blair is more articulate. He went to Princeton. Long time ago. Yeah, our podcast is called Beyond the Barbell. So we focus on Ben and I's experiences as athletes, fathers, business owners. We try to get a little bit away from a lot of the science of programming and fitness and talk about the lifestyle, what people, what struggles people go through,

what experiences we have. And so we, I mean, it's a guest-based podcast. We almost always have a guest on the show. It's been around two and a half years. It's like a laborer love for us. We have a lot of fun doing it. We do a lot of traveling for it. You know, we go down to a lot of the big events,

the CrossFit Games, Spartan World Championships. And it's not limited just to CrossFit. So we try to branch out. You guys set a great model for this, like being open to all different forms and experts and things like that. It makes it more interesting, and that's kind of what we like to do as well. So we're really happy to be here with you guys for sure. Awesome.

Well, maybe you'll invite us down to the CrossFit Games because I think the only way we could go is to get you guys out. We need some to back. We need some street cred. If we're gonna get in there, we need some guys that have been there. For sure.

Make sure we don't get fucked with. Now, we've got your back guys. We got your answer. Yeah, we're OGs, man. We're good. Okay, we get anybody anywhere. OGs man. We're good. We get anybody anywhere So check this out go to YouTube subscribe to our channel mind pump TV We're gonna have some sick videos up for you to watch today also if you go to mind pump media.com

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