Modern Wisdom - #155 - Steven Fawcett - Understanding Fitness As A Competitor

Episode Date: March 30, 2020

Steven Fawcett is a 3 Times CrossFit Games Athlete and Head Coach of JST Compete. How to become fit and how to use that fitness in a competitive environment are two very different challenges. Many athletes will spend years training and competing to see their numbers stay the same, or maybe even go backwards. So what's the solution? As a coach and athlete who has seen phenomenal success over the last few years, I figured Ste would be a good guy to ask. Expect to learn how to periodise your training, how often you should be competing every year, why a full break can be one of the best training tools you can use, what Ste's best advice is on competition weekends and much more. Check out everything I use from The Protein Works and get 35% OFF SITE WIDE with the code MODERN35 - PLUS get a FREE Pouch of Protein with your first order - https://www.theproteinworks.com/modernwisdom/ Extra Stuff: Check out JST Compete - http://www.jstcompete.com/ Follow JST Compete on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jst_compete/ Follow Ste on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/steveyf22 Take a break from alcohol and upgrade your life - https://6monthssober.com/podcast Check out everything I recommend from books to products - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh yes, hello friends, welcome back to Modern Wisdom. My guest today is Steve Fawcett, multiple times CrossFit Games Athelete owner of JST Compete and man with a Wiggin accent, drove down to see him in his man cave garage gym and we had a fantastic discussion speaking about how competitors both local and at the absolute top level of fitness can program their years, how often should you be competing each year, how often should you be doing qualifiers, how can you prepare in between events at competitions, how can you ensure that your progress is not being beset by constantly hammering yourself with meckons, there is a lot to take away from this episode.

But for now, it's time to talk fitness, Steve Force it, take it away. Oh yeah, PS, some of you might be thinking, well, it's all well and good you tellin' us about fitness, Chris, but my gyms shut down at the moment, what am I supposed to do? Well, if there is one takeaway from this podcast, I would say that it is focusing on the individual elements of your sport to then bring it back in so that you can use it in a competition setting. And that is what is happening right now. You have the choice to go away and work on some of your

deficiencies, some of the things that you need to get better at. So go and do it, Steve said so. Go and do it, Steve said so. Steve, forza in the building. How are you, man? Good, thank you. Thanks for having me on. I'm not thankful for traveling to Wigand. You're beautiful. Look at this in the dungeon. I know, this is my little man cave. It's cool, man. It's very cool.

You've come back from Miami. Yes, I was. It was, yeah. Such a good time. Such a good time. I've been back for a week or so now, but in terms of competitions, probably the most fun that I've ever had. Why? Probably a couple of things, mixture of who I was with, who was around.

There was, obviously I was there competing in a team with Taylor, Anita and Mikey, but we also had a little bit of a GST crew going on with Red G, Philip, the Danish ladder, Philip Biscard and the girls as well, so as Evie and Iler there. So it's a good group of maybe eight or nine of us. We've all known each other quite a while, so it's good just to go out to Miami, which is somewhere just completely different to Wiggin or... Slightly different to Wiggin. Yeah, a little bit.

And just going out of a good time, and you know what's like being around Mac and Reggie, you just bounce off each other and, you know, there's kind of laser shot you know it's like being around Mikey and Reggie, they just balance off each other and you know there's kind of laser shout focus when it's time for the event and warming up and then 10-15 minutes after it's just back to just having a good time. So it's something that I've not always had that balance of around competition sometimes I get myself kind of in the zone and the fun aspect is maybe just kind of like limited because I'm so focused on wanting to compete. So having those guys there was just made it really a really full experience. Do you think that you can have the level of focus that you want from yourself and from your athletes whilst still having that turn

off? It's a very hard balance. If we were there competing and we were going there knowing for well that we were going to be a top three team and be at a game ticket then whether or not the environment would have changed just kind of naturally that people would have been a bit more serious. I'm not sure but I mean I'm sure there is a balance out there, but it's a thing that's a very hard balance for people to find because I mean, if there's three hours between events and this next event is potentially going to be life changing with the result that comes, then it's quite hard to be acting the way that we were acting last week.

I'm sure some people have the balance, but I think everyone's balance is just a little bit different. We watch it, right? You can see different personalities come across within the games, you know, watching the documentaries and stuff like that. You see some people who are kind of, especially some of the girls, some of them seem to have real polarized laser focus. Yeah. And others seem to be kind of like giggly spending time with the partner or their coach and like laughing and just doing girls stuff, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah definitely. I like it, I think everyone has that balance that's a bit is different kind of mixing out with people and other people just like to go like full hermit mode and just show off from the world. So yeah, I mean, what's right and wrong is there's probably no particular way, I guess it's just, it's down to each person, down to each athlete. Are there any rules that you think all athletes should try and adhere to within competition periods, like fun, you sleep, nutrition, anything like that? Yeah, I think sleep is definitely something that just, it's not, it doesn't differ that much with different athletes. Everyone needs as much sleep as they can, especially on competition. We can, it's quite hard to get a full night sleep because of no other synergy.

I was going to say, I've never been, so you've been, you've been the games, you've been what a police, you've been with a number of big, big comps. What is your sleep like in between those? Because you know, you're so exhausted from from the day but also so terrified for tomorrow. Yeah, personally I never struggled to fall asleep. It's the waking up I would wake up a couple of hours early than usual, some like four or five o'clock because you know sometimes if you do wake up I say you go for a wait at a toilet and then you start thinking, oh you fucking shit I'm in the game. Yeah, I was in front of a arena mean, the game, it's like,

I've had like, faggles in front of a arena in front of everyone. And that's kind of when you see an S kind of wakes up properly, it's kind of going into that fight mode. And then it's tough to get back to sleep. So I'd probably drop sleep by two or three hours as the lion stage in the morning, but it's just important that the weeks before that it's when you can control it and you can't get a good sleep, that you can't get that sleep in the bank.

So yeah, sleep's definitely something that they'd all need. And like I said, nutrition is probably a different thing. I've got people who help me with nutrition, help my athletes with nutrition because it's quite a big, broad thing. There's programming and coaching and nutrition. It's a lot for kind of one person to try and control everything. Some people deal well with a lot of food during events. Some people deal well with barely any. What's your end disposition? during events, some people deal well with barely any. What's your disposition? I like to eat some food as soon as possible and it's probably something that I can have got myself into the habit of back in the early days of competing. It was

just like shaking some smoothie and then get by but then by the end of the weekend it would always take its toll. The fact that there's just no kind of like solid food in there to fuel me. But now you know, I have to work with some guys for the last few years. I need to get food up. What's your favourite intro event snack or food? It's really boring to be honest. It's really boring to sweep set potatoes and some white meat, white fish. Obviously you've got, you can't be drinking and stuff like that, but just try and keep

it as bland as possible because you don't want to be out of breath in a little bit of mid-work. Yeah, it's still going up over there. It's something horrible, coming up, some fishy, some fishy burps. So yeah it's really it's really not too excited just. So you're spending this weekend at Waterpillosa with a team of guys who there's some young ones and some people that have got experience to know to yourself in there as well. Are you giving them coaching with regards to their mindset during that time, what guys we need to think about this, what about speaking to their girlfriends or their partners or their phones, or what are you doing on that side? Yeah, so a lot of this season and with having what a pleasure just gone, a lot of

my focus towards the athletes is just trying to relay as much knowledge and education to them around competition and training. Well, while I was doing it with them, there's one thing like trying to teach them as a coach and then there's another thing being by the side as an athlete saying you should be doing this, that and the opponent. And I find that being like in the team with a bunch of guys or being there at the competition and maybe even competing and training with them, athletes tend to pick up a lot, they'll pick up a lot more than just like having that coach, athlete relationship where coach says this, athlete does.

Leading, for example, as well as dictating, like being in there and then showing them like why things, Elven, that's why recently over the last few months I've enjoyed getting back into training competing because we've got a lot of younger athletes coming up through the ranks and I find that the results that we've had from JST over the last kind of eight or so years have come off the back of that work. I've been in the kind of environment of competing and training, as well as coaching at the same time, rather than just being kind of step back and saying, like, I'm a coach now, do this. Like, I find that getting that environment and that group of people together and putting

the knowledge and education into that way is helping the guys develop much better. It's interesting to see people that lead by example, especially in a sport like CrossFit, right? Every CrossFit respects hard work. It's very much a nose, grindstone, suffering sport. And I wonder how much extra a coach brings by leading by example versus how much they lose by having to inevitably sacrifice a tiny bit of coaching performance to focus on their

own performance. You know what I mean? Like there's a real balance there, but I would say certainly knowing Reggie, Mikey, Taylor, some of the guys that you work with, they're the sort of team I think that would err towards wanting to see you live the lessons you're trying to give to them. Yeah, 100%. And like, I'm living that example right now, his last year, I thought more of a step away and went more coaching role. So I've coached Taylor and Jack coaches, Mike and Reggie, and we've very much had like the coach set away and

then there the athlete and more recently we've got more involved and with training with them and competing with them and they're coming on much quicker and you can tell they enjoy the fact that the coach is in there with them rather than just being kind of stood there telling them to do this right and this in the program if we're in there getting involved and doing it with them and then able to also teach them and like say educate them on just a small or minute details because they see us doing them and then they ask, why are you doing that for a line that we're in trainers, why we're in left and choose, why not we're in a belt, all the really small minute details were when you're in that

coach kind of away from them, you might not pick up all the small little. Especially coming out to everyone as a competitive first, right, or a competitive coach, like running in parallel. Yeah, that's definitely a unique selling point. There's far more coaches and athletes than there are coach and athletes, right? Yeah, 100%. 100%.

I just went through it because that's how I learned as an athlete. I learned as an athlete when I was around other athletes or other coaches that were involved and more practically involved. Just kind of a stand off, kind of do as I say. Just kind of took that same kind of method up in sport that I felt that I learnt the most and just passed it on. Any stuff that you've picked up since, over the last couple of years,

since the games, since what a producer and stuff that you've brought into Comp Weekends that you've thought was a bit of a realization? What, yeah, what, so it's been, yeah, in what essence, anything, man. So have you realized that having a nap between competitions is a good idea. Have you realized that you need to leave your phone down?

Have you realized that you need to spend time warming up more time last time, whatever? Yeah, I mean, yeah, if it comes down, there's a lot of different things where an app could work, it couldn't work, like if someone's on or off. And again, it sounds like the same answer it comes down to the individual some people might just need that little bit of time on the phone just to escape and other people are getting too involved that it's going to start affecting their performance. I think ultimately

it's making sure that whatever is the doing it's keeping them in the right mind frame, making sure that whatever is the doing is keeping them in the right mind frame, the right positive mind frame, to always approach that next event with the right mindset that they need. You need to know your athlete very well for that to be true. Like I said, the 10 athletes I've got, my attitude towards each one of them is different. Just two examples of David Schrunk and Taylor Howe, when David walks into the warm area, he's got his earphones on and we call it his grocery face, I don't know if you've heard the nerve around some. And I get that sometimes I'm scared of talking to him because he's just

like laser focus when he decides that one is starting, if one's going and it means business from that point and there's not really much joking around, from that point it's just he wants to get perfect warm up, make sure he's feeling like 100% as soon as he steps on to that competition floor and everything's very kind of serious and just kind of fine tuned. That's fine. That's when he starts. It comes off the arena floor. Smiles gleaming at a good time and it's back to being his usual self.

Whereas Taylor just needs a little bit more white attitude, the awkward and warm up, it'll keep her smiling and keep her happy. And that makes her perform better. So it's like it's the balance of the different athletes and it's understanding what makes people tick, what's too much for certain and what's not enough. You've got one athlete who needs to get into their head more, one athlete that probably needs to get out of the head more. So, this is one of the things I think's interesting about,

everyone that's listening, that does cross-fit, they want the secret sauce, right? They want, like, yeah, but what's, no, no, no, I know that you're saying like it's individual and stuff, but yeah, like, how much sleep do I need, or what, how long do I need to warm up, or whatever? And the fact that we all are very unique individuals unfortunately makes these prescriptive like rules for people to

follow and I suppose this is the the value of a coach right yeah yeah 100% and and all that whole thing is what we try and get across to all the guys that are on our programs. Now what I want to hear, they're on the could be on the 30 pound program where we've got hundreds of people following all the way up to you just want to wind individual. And it's just the tools to be able to know what to educate them so that they can make their own decisions for what's the best for them. And if every athlete can then make their own decision, you know, and they know that's the right decision for them, whether it's what to eat after a comp, how much sleep they should get, should they have an app in between, hydration, you know, wearing certain equipment on some events and not the others. If they know and they're educated then they can make that decision themselves. Then it's going to be far more effective

than a coach trying to guess what's right for them. Dickey knows himself better than anyone else knows them. So education for the athletes is key and that's something that we try. Really hard to get across with the guys on the program so that they can make the right decisions because someone's not, there's not always going to be someone there that can tell you what to do. You need to be able to, if it's middle and over then where it's just you and your judge on the competition floor, like something happens, you need to be able to make a decision yourself, best off your own knowledge. It's a great point, you can't rely on your coaches, some crutch for every incident which occurs.

So you've touched on it there, the fact that GST over the last few years has seen quite a bit of success. What are some of the accolades that you guys have had? Yeah, so we've had sort of the first, so I was the first British male. It's qualified for the games. First British male, really? Yeah, out we've had sort of the first, so I was the first British male to qualify for the games. First British male, really, out of regionals. There was actually a guy, Jamie, it was called, I think, maybe 2009, qualified through us, I think called it, Sections Back then. But out of regionals, the first British guy, and then we, two years later,

we were the first British team to the games. And then two years later, so last year, 2019, we made it back again as the second on the British team to get that. Team six. So the individual team of six team four, with the years resting between. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Yeah, 2015, 17, 19. Nice.

So you've seen some real, you know, that's a number of different experiences. Yeah, and on top of that, like, first, right? So what is it about JST's approach to coaching or programming or training? What's moving the needle here? Do you know, I think it's doing a lot of little things the right way and this is something that I only come into terms with now kind of like the role where I'm getting the more more people more athletes I see and more gyms I'm getting about is as I'm seeing people just doing the little things, not optimally, not the right way.

And it is a lot of really small little things. But why are you wearing, I've talked to you before, why are you wearing trainers to do back squats instead of lifting shoes at this point this season? So just to explain that one itself, lifting shoes are going to help most people lift. They're going to help most people squat better, say, most not everyone. But they're making you better at lifting because it's an accessory that's going on to you. It's not yourself, it's something that you're adding to your body. So learning to squat or lift without that added performer, we call it a performing, performance enhancing accessory, epi.

Learning to lift without them and then introducing them closer to competition so it does give you that effect, is going to put you at a higher level than if you just wore them all year round because you're improving your own body's ability to do whatever it is you're trying to do. And then you're adding on the performance and hand in excess room. And that's just one small tiny little thing. Another thing is maybe resetting on your snatch dead lifts

instead of touching, if it's three sets of three snatch dead left, so many people I will see just doing touch and go, but it's like, again, it's a very small thing, but you do a snatched deadlift, a three sets of three at high percentage, so it transfers into one rep max snatch. So doing that touch and go rep is not that second rep and the third rep, it's not transferring into a one, into your one rep where you're pulling it from a dead stop off the floor. And like I say, loads of really small time things and this is what I'm out of love, fun doing now, it is educating the likes of Taylor, David and Mike and Reggie with Jack, to get all the really small details of how to live the life and how to approach

a training session, how to recover from a training session, you know, when to supplement, when to time certain meals, like all these fine little details, and we call them inches, all of them done the right way, or say if all of them done the right way, all of them done the right way over one week, is 10 things that you've 10 inches. That done for six months is just then it starts to snowball and yeah exactly yards and miles. But that's something that I only really now have realised that we started doing, we started doing from the beginning. So it's stuff that I only really now have realised that we started doing, we started doing from the beginning. So, stuff that I had learnt and passed down from other cultures and other athletes, I had competed and worked with.

And then we kind of had this group in the beginning at GST, we had this group of maybe ten or so athletes, where we'd always be training together. If someone was doing something wrong, if someone was wearing lifting shoes when it didn't really make sense for them to wear left shoes, they'd be told in a nice way. And I said, look, you should just not wear them because this, that and the other.

Belts would only be used at a certain stage. And then coaching cues and techniques, little things that just get tweaked, but going round and round in those 10 people for weeks, months, and years and end, made those 10 people get to a high level, and then that kind of snowballed again that people wanted to get involved

and the whole knowledge and education of just kind of training, living, and having the professional lifestyle that an athlete needs to grow and to develop rather than just like the actual training session that are completing. One of the things that Reggie mentioned to me either day was the professionalism that he sees when training with you guys, that he really says he struggles to see elsewhere Yeah, and what I find interesting about that you know all of the crossfit is that are listening there are two Crossfit's problem is that it is two things it is a training methodology

But also a competitive sport and there are some people who do it because they like to train crossfit And there are some people who train crossfit because they like to compete in crossFit. And the fact that you have those two things running side by side means that you've got the normal class environment, rock up before Angela comes in five minutes late, she'll just jump on the C2 bike instead of doing the run because everyone's halfway around and blah blah. And then you've got the guys that want to make it to the games, want to make it to the region, not regionals now, want to make it to the sanctioned events. You know, you've got those guys who were also in that environment, you know, someone who's still maybe sweating out a couple of beers from last night or whatever it is, and you don't have them segmented off, whereas if you look at any other sport, you have

any semi-professional or professional football team, they don't also have the Sunday league team warming up with them, you know? Yeah, and it is two completely different things. And it should be two completely different things and it should also, to the kind of, to the outlooker looking in, it probably looks quite similar, but in terms of how they train and how they live

like it should be completely different. I put a post out not too long ago actually on our Instagram about constant is just called constantly varied with question mark and how an elite athlete is training is rarely constantly varied if anything it's just constantly repeated it's just the same is this, you get a bunch of exercises or a bunch of workouts that are perfect for this type of person, and it's just repeated, repeated, repeated, until they improve, and then it's developed. Whereas you, like you say, your CrossFit class,

where you've got Angelo comes in, they just wanna have a good time, get fit, and do different movements, so it's constantly varied and it keeps them on the toes just want to have a good time, get fit and do different movements so it's constantly varied and it keeps them on the toes and everyone has a good time. But to get for the elite athlete, I get so much different, it's so different. It's progressive overload king in all areas, yeah, that's 100%. There's all the methods, but I would say because CrossFit, because we cover so many different modalities in CrossFit running swimming away left in gymnastics, we are still way behind

runners at running. So our training, our training to get better at running needs to be much more simple than Mofarra's training programme. And our gymnastics training is a lot more simple to Max Whitlock's training programme. And the same goes for our weightlifting. Whereas progressive overload, it can't not work for CrossFit as because with that I will level this that law compared to these elite athletes. Progressive overload for Mofaro probably won't work it probably not see any, it'll be much more sort of cyclical periodization of ups and downs. It needs to be much in much finer detail but because we are

kind of at maybe like say we're like 70% performance than all then the guys really affleek in their spot. It can be a lot more simple and I think it's people see them, the people at the top in their spot and they try and copy their methods of training. But I think it's sometimes special for something that running. It's too advanced to do in training sessions that is further on than them. Certainly one of the things that I remember seeing a few years ago was when Megan started working with you guys when she moved down the Wiggin. And she was talking about particular ways of programming monostrultural works of rowing and running with splits, taking a time, chopping that up into individual distances,

at slightly negative splits of that. And then the same for gymnastics, the same again, like do one set max and then take percentages of that that with percentage rest and you know like it's the same for Everything it would appear in life whether it be meditation whether it be learning whether it be reading whether it be you know What whatever the your chosen domain of competence is like pick the thing that you can do at the maximum You can do it for and then try and make that a little bit more compound that a little bit more over time each time. Yeah, and that and a nutshell is exactly how we would periodize training where there's a phase of training where you do just that where things are rolling and running is trained separately to gymnastics and went off.

And then there's a phase of training when you get in close to competition where now we're going to take, we're going to take, we've built the base of all these different modalities and we're going to take that and start mixing it together into more crossfit or event style workout so that your body is fine tuning to the stress it's going to come up against. But if it can handle

higher rowing volume, higher intensity, because you've trained for three or four months rowing on its own and specifically worked on that, then when a rowing workout comes up in an event, you've got a better foundation of rowing to then go into whatever it's coupled up with. And if it's coupled up with some gymnastics and barbell, if they've also been worked separately for three or four months, and the volume and capacity of them of those things have increased. you set yourself up for better performance because the base of those exercises has just improved, increased massively. So the limit on how fast you can do, how many reps you can do, how long you can stay on broke and see things with the exercise. It's open and that's how you get

progressively develop your performance rather than a lot of people see the competitions and they see what they get tested on and where they fall behind on that test and how many times you heard someone struggling in an open workout and go I'm gonna do that open workout every week for the next six months. Just like it's not just not how it works. It's not as simple a not how it works. I'm afraid it's not as simple as, a little trainer needs to be simple, it's not as simple as just doing that one workout over and over, it needs to be kind of separated. Look at what energy systems, what movement mechanics

go into it. And then like I said, build the ceiling of those elements and then bring them together when they need to come together. When it comes to training, that's a really important point that I've heard brought up by Ben Bergeron before, which is the difference between Metcons for practice, for competition and what you do in training. Is there a pattern at the moment of overtraining Metcons for a lot of athletes or people starting to catch on to the,

I don't know what you call it, specialization of movements. Yeah, I would hope people, and I think people are catching on. Although it is still hard for people to kind of let go because if they kind of, it's kind of like a safety thing that if I'm doing Metcons, I'm getting better. And if I'm finishing a workout completely depleted, then that's me got better as an athlete. And the thing is for the first few years of CrossFit, that worked because everyone was

that new to this board that anything would have worked. But it's getting to that level now where the improvements aren't as quick in the top tier of athletes. So it needs a different approach and it needs that special approach where you train and things, assemble it and bring them together and actually periodise and train. You you know, a bit more thought than just head in, train out, be on the floor and then leave the gym. Have you got any examples of particular pairings that you like to put together in terms of, you know, daily or periods of pairings where you think are some monostructural stuff, is some gymnastics stuff tends to go well, or if you're doing muscle ups with rowing, I don't know. But there's some things that you've found tend to

lend each other as compliments. Yeah, it's a... You can go into it and how much detail you want, but there's... You've got your skill elements of CrossFit, so weightlifting, max weightlifting, heavy weightlifting, e-dumnaistics, and your max lifts in general, and then you've got your capacity and threshold end of CrossFit, so your burpees, your rowing, and running, just the really simple things, your assault by, simple things that anyone can do. I'm both limited by, limited by different things. So your capacity is limited by, you're too much, your heart rate, your threshold, and the skills are limited by coordination, strength, balance, and being able to use different muscle groups more of your body at the same time,

kind of core contraction of different muscle groups. And it's hard to, if you've got something at this end, which is like the highest skill, let's say your max snatch is 120 kilos. If you link that in with something capacity based where your heart rate raised, then the skill breaks down. And that's an obvious example. Like if you was doing hit a max snatch from fresh

and completely kind of arrested and prepared state. And then if you're to do a one-k row, a hard intense state and then hit a snap, you're not gonna make it, you're very unlikely to make the lift. And that's just an obvious example there of how skill and threshold how it affects each other. And then can go into it quite a bit of detail,

how you can work them with each other so that the threshold of the skill gradually increased over time. That's what people are looking to do, right? In competition. This is what I think this seductive factor of mechons is, it's the, I hit 90% of my ex-movement after I did 2K protests, 30 muscle ups for time, blah, blah, whatever it might be. And that's where it's like, and that's that sort of send it mentality is kind of, that's what people are chasing right? It's like can I do the thing which I could almost not do fresh Undefatique yeah But from a training perspective that suboptimal it's

It's not that it's suboptimal. It's the time and things like if you're gonna have to do that at competition Then you're gonna have to get used to doing that when you get in close to the competition. But long term doing that over and over again is not going to increase your performance year and year. So if it, let's say it was just rowing into some heavy snatches and the snatch way was 100 kilos and you had, I'm going to say you will take the strength and depth workout was double unders and cleans and the snatch weight was 100 kilos and you had, um, I'm going to say you will take the strength and depth workout was double unders and cleans and the cleans got heavier as you went along and the heaviest weight for the guys was 140 and the girls maybe 93 and it's heavy for a lot of

people and um that's the end of a roundabout 10 minute workout with they probably had a good 200 or so double unders by then. And I think another 28 clean reps. So the fatigue is built up quite a lot there. But in order for that athletes performance to increase, say maybe in a 12 and a time if that workouts to come back, the skill level of clean needs to be increased. The threshold level of working, kind of those lower weight barbell cycling reps with double unders, which is now probably classed as more of a lower skill exercise.

Building the threshold of that, building the skill level of heavy cleans, then bringing them back together, letting the body get used to that kind of, that clash of skill and threshold, and then retesting, is the only way that that type of workout is going to improve,

rather than just doing that type of workout over and over again. And I think it is, people are clicking onto it, especially the guys that are at the top like they get it. It's the athletes that are at the top like they get it. It's the athletes that want it to get to a sanctional level. I find that the guys that compete at a good level around like the country, that they want to get to that European or that international level.

And I think it's mainly for them where everything kind of gets a bit mixed because they want to do so well and they want to improve so much, they they get caught into it too much, they see what other athletes are doing at competition, they want to do that, so then they do it and it's just kind of taking that step back and having a bit more of a sensible approach, a logical approach to what can actually get them. So the season, for the guys that are competing at a local level, they're not, they don't need to be going to the game, so they need to be specialising, they need to be focusing, periodising their training properly and not just getting themselves with Macconzi around. Yeah, I mean, it depends on your training age.

Like, everyone who starts CrossFit can just do regular CrossFit for maybe six months, or maybe two years and continually get better. And they probably need to do just crossfit for, like I said, we say anyone that comes in the program, make sure you've done crossfit from a box for at least six months so that your body has been exposed to crossfit, knows what it's about, and then you also know what it is,

and then start looking to maybe find two areas. But yeah, anyone that's looking to compete at any level, if you've got to a point where your lifts have stayed at a certain level, you don't feel like getting much fitter, your gymnastics isn't getting much better, and you're doing all those things in like it's all mumbled up in that one session, then it's time to stop, separate them, work on them individually, work on your weightlifting, work on your condition, work on your gymnastics, build them all up separately, and then bring them back together. I love it. It's so simple. It's that set. Reggie always says, you speak so much logically, and I would say it on your podcast, it makes me wet. You can say, that's not, that is by far not the worst thing that we've seen. We had a porn star on a couple of weeks ago.

So I mean, she'd be good mates with Reggie Pond. Yeah, it seems, it does seem really, really basic. You know, why wouldn't you just go away and do a microcosm of what the specialists within each of their disciplines are doing, and then re-bring them back together? Let's say that there's some athletes listening that are those local level comps, maybe scaled one, maybe Rx, team or individual. How would you advise your athletes of that standard? How frequently would you allow them to compete? Yeah, this is this. It's the question everyone wants to know, right?

Everyone wants to know and everyone asks is that it's such a talked about thing for our athletes on the program and just generally people and they just want some advice, is they're always asking how often should I compete? I think the question might actually be how often can I compete? Yeah, And the answer I always give is, first of all, you need to decide why you're doing it, why you train and why you're competing. Are you doing it to get to the highest physical level that you can get your body to, or you just do it because you enjoy your competing? And

you, although you'd want to get at higher level, like you just like go into, you know, you get a lot of your RX comps every few weeks, and just do them and have a good time. I think that's the first thing that people need to understand and they need to realize. And then off the back of that, can they then make a decision?

Sorry, on what? And how often they compete. I would say 3 to 4, 3, maybe 4, but definitely 3 competitions per year as a maximum and try and have them so they're quite closely knitted together, so there's maybe six to eight weeks between them. Okay, so I guess for somewhere like the UK that works as you kind of bundle a bunch of comps into summer. Yeah, exactly. You can now also add the open prep as probably the last comp of the year or one of the last comps of the year as a part. Yeah, just like, example, maybe it's, you've obviously got the open now, which is October, and then there's,

there's Strength in Depth, which is January. And if there's a couple more, have it ABB UK or Europe based competitions in around there, then that's kind of that your season to compete. And if your goal is for long term development, then that gives you potentially eight months of off-season. To do exactly what we've just been talking about, just to really break things down and build them

back up, when it comes back around to the next year's open, you will be in a better position to perform better and get to a higher level, perform higher. It's part of the complication, so one of the complications of why people can't get better whilst competing is that their training in the build up to a competition requires them to do more Metcon style stuff, which doesn't lend itself to improving progressively over time. Yeah. But how much of it is also the demands of the comp itself? Is it 50-50, do you think? Yeah. It goes hand in hand that before a competition, you know, the two weeks before the volume would hope is dropped. Maybe it's still some intensity there,

but the volume should be lower than what it has been in the weeks leading up. So if you say there's a two week period there like before the competition and then you've got a one to two week deal or a bit of time after competition then you've had a month a month for a training it hasn't really been at the volume or intensities to Warren continue developing it's been it's the volume has changed and the intensity has changed so that performance that that two days in the middle is at the best it could be. And then about two weeks is probably, no, most people have our factor of competition. That's in there to recover from the stresses from that competition. And yeah, then the problem you get is people don't

take the two weeks to take two days if you look it Yeah, and then they have another one two weeks later and it goes and they just kind of like snowball into that Look, I kind of over-trained and I guess it's a lot of stress on the body in a competition weekend Although not actual the actual amount of reps is the adrenaline the nerves See that's right. Yeah, that CNS just is in complete fight mode and then just not letting it come out of that and reset and then go back into training. That's over and over again,

if you compete in year round and you compete in one to month, you can just see now how that stopped someone progressing. Put a girl on the program who we told, we basically told that whole story too, fully aware of it, that she loved competing. So that's why I actually trained. So it was kind of like what position we need to tell her like to stop, don't do the thing

that you like doing. Exactly. I suppose if someone can see to the fact that over time, they're not going to progress. Someone might very well be able to say, I'm fine with my lift staying the same for the next two years. If I get to do a competition with my friends every two months. Exactly.

So again, like a lot of the United and principle, it seems like what we're talking about here is understand yourself as an athlete, understand what you want from the sport. Yeah. And then how can you facilitate your training and competing cadence to allow you to enjoy that. So the next question, so first off, whatever one you want me to know is how often can I compete? The next question everyone wants to know is how often can I do qualifiers? It's a hard one now because there's that many of them, although, you know,

it's all kind of a thing. The number of guys that are in the gym, they'll do class and they'll be like, what's going to, are you going to do, should we do some strict press? It's like, oh, mate, no, I'm going to do a qualified deadline. We've got three qualifiers to do before midnight. that will take five minutes or more. Yeah, it's a qualifier is competition because you know it needs a competition maybe it is defined that you need to be at your top physical performance and obviously everyone wants to qualify. If you can do a qualifier and hit it with the same.

So maximally. Yeah, it's the same training intensity, I know a lot of advantage does that. He'll just do it as his train and accept that he's not going to qualify at the top, but he'll qualify. And you get to competitions. And then you can, and he sees the potentially lower taken position

in comp as a good compromise to permit him to not, maybe be able to train the next day properly or whatever. Exactly. That's a close way to do it, but I suppose that's relying on the fact that you're sufficiently strong beyond that. Not sending and still make it. You need to be already at that level to be able to, like, you 90% need to be still. Everyone else is 100%.

Yeah, exactly. You need to be still a good athlete to be able to do that. But again, the qualifications are obviously, you need to qualify to get to a competition. So you need to decide what competition you want to do, what are the most important competitions of the year, what are kind of like secondary or that priority wise to that, and what's further down the line, and obviously prioritise the ones at the top prioritise those qualifiers and they maybe you have to do those qualifiers to get the competition and just don't get sucked into the hype of a competition or some really good marketing from a

competition if it's not ultimately what you want what you set out to do that year. You right, it's very seductive. You see the, you, your three friends throwing down in a stadium in the sunshine. Yeah, and you're like, fucking hell, this sounds mint, but you're right, you have to, it's the guy saying, I know you're driving, but just one more pint, it's a one more pint guy, right? And you let it fuck like, I really need to consider does doing this qualifier align with my long-term goals as an athlete. Yeah. I wonder how many people that are listening are pushing themselves, you know, I love, I absolutely love the fact that the UK has got some cool competitions, you know, like

other things like the coast, the coast, bike ride that we just had recently, that's mint, I don't know the class that has a comp, I mean some of the guys, I'm probably going to have to take a little bit of the week's off squats, but you know, there's cool shit happening, but the problem with cool shit happening is it's distracting from training, exactly, exactly, and you know, I've had a podcast with Eric from Waylifters in 101 a few months ago and we went through in detail my development as an athlete from 2010 when I started CrossFit to up until this point. And for the first five years the common thing that went round and round is that I did the open and then did regials and then it didn't compete. And then I did

the odd one here and there. But for five years running it was open regials, did regials and then it didn't compete. And they made it like the odd one here and there. But for five years running, it was open regials, open regials, until it became open regials again. And whereas now, then, didn't have the opportunity to compete every other weekend because there wasn't a competition to do, like in 2012, there was maybe regials on one of the UK comets London throw down which changed its name about five different times.

But the opportunity wasn't there, so you kind of got forced just to train properly. You had to go into like enough season mode because there's no distractions. But now you could literally do one every weekend which is great, it's great for the industry, it's more people participating in CrossFit and in competitive CrossFit, which is brilliant, but I do think it's limiting the level of, like the top level athlete that we're producing, it's stopping people,

like Regis, an example, he's got so much, the lad's got so much potential, he's 23 or 24 years old. He's built like perfectly for CrossFit and he's got a great kind of mindset for it, but he's kind of being used to doing all these little competitions around the country in it and because he's done well at them,

that's been his like, if he's got him going and he wants to keep entering them, then we're actually doing battle for middle ground together in two weeks and it doesn't know it yet. And I don't know if this will be released or not. It won't be, it'll be after. But we're going to finish the competition and tell him that's the last time that you do anything that's not a sectional or a game. And because he needs to accept that it's better than that level of competition, not to call back to another round or any other competitions, but he's just competed at Wadda Pluser and he's beat maybe 15 games athlete

in a rowing event and he's five foot four. How many plates above Alex Smith, yeah, yeah, be overall, I think I'm 18 to the end. I just came one place above Dan Bailey at filthy 150. So he needs to realise that he is, he is a high level athlete, but he needs to live an act like a high level athlete for him to get above those. I mean, you don't see like, Dan Bailey or Alex Smith going like, oh, the Cincinnati throw down, like I'm gonna go and do that this weekend or whatever. They'll go to the like the rogue invitation

or they'll go to the ones that either raise their profile or fit their season, yeah for sure. So, you know, everything that we're talking about here kind of, it seems comes back to firstly what your goals, and then secondly, can you let your ego and the inherent excitement of CrossFit as a sport, can you allow that to go away from you so that you can focus on the things that matter. Yeah, so the goal that you actually, like a long term, when you look back, say you're

40 years old and you career as old, you can look back and say, well, I achieved X, Y and then got to the highest level I could physically get to rather than having maybe been like 10% down from that and done a lot of other average, just better than average finishes. Yeah, because that's the thing as well, you know, even if you're not thinking about somebody that's maybe making it to sanctionals, if you're in the RX sort of division of a local comp, taking two years off to do real focused, periodized, specialised work might mean that you then come back and pull him in two years' time. Like, would you sacrifice two years of competition at not competing? To get that. I think a lot of people probably would, but when you're in the gym and your friends

come up to you and say, hey man, the new fucking battle for middle-ground work out, or the new this, or the new that's just been released, you are we should go John's doing it with them we can be them yeah that how there's a decent little bit of prize when it is competition so I fucking I'm like I tell you what to tell us a good one so I went to Bali I was in Bali when they had the isotonic drink 350 or whatever it was called anthanes and his misses won it. They won every single event pretty much and then Anteins and his misses won it. It was seven and a half grand each prize money.

That's the easiest weekend's work that anyone's done in my life. Just I've rolled out to Bali, do a couple of workouts, fuck off at 15 grand between you go travel in front of a couple of months, yeah, deposit down on the house. Easy work. fuck off at 15 grand between you go traveling for another couple of months Yeah, I'm gonna posit down on the house. Yeah, you know, you said easy work Yeah, and the maths that is the good thing about being sort of in competitions and the issues that it's it's becoming Easier to earn or make money. It's still it's still hard, but you know Being able to

When you're about to a Britain and then get it a pounds, like a thousand pounds for a lot of people, is going to set them up for, you're an athlete that's listening, is think about the fact that there are more competitions and that more people are getting into doing them. Everybody else is coming up against the same challenge that you are at the moment, which is that competing is seductive and it seems cool and there's more CrossFit gyms and more CrossFit members and blah, blah, blah. That means that if you can do something which gives you a competitive advantage

which includes not competing. If you can do the thing that no one else is doing and you know you can see on the walls for people are just listening. We're in Steeze, Garage Gym and I'm surrounded by shirts and memorabilia from all manner of top level competitions. you can see that the people who for them the top level of the sport is the goal, that is what they're doing, they're not allowing their athletes to compete all of the time. If you want to do that, if you want to move the needle in that direction, then presumably you have to take on board some of those principles.

Yeah, 100%. And I always come back to the feelings that athletes have at the end of a competition and they see the leaderboard, they see where they're finished and maybe they're not so satisfied by it, they want to place higher next time. So at that moment those feelings that have those raw emotions that you have there at the end of a competition is remember those emotions and then and then plan if it's that same competition 12 months later is planned back from there and how do you get from that that position that you're in right now? To um, to having the emotion that you want, want to have.

And does that include competing every every month or every two months? Does it mean like, include competing every month or every two months, does it mean like nukkling down? And if you think if the 10 competitors they come 10 from the 10 competitors that above you are and then above you are They're gonna compete three or four times Then that's like we said before if it's a month out you training for every competition That's four months potentially that there that you could gain on them if you're just doing a little bit this that there, that you could gain on them. If you're just doing a little bit of your training,

or your lifestyle, or your recovery, or nutrition, that's gonna help you improve that little bit more. If that's a little bit more than the person that's just beat you, then in 12 times, that little bit more, or that inch, what we say, inches to your eyes, it's gonna put you in a better position.

That is your competitive advantage, right? That is your competitive advantage. The difference in your modality, the difference in the cadence of you competing. That is it. So I think, I hope that it's given some people sort of a second thought about whether or not their competing schedule is facilitating their goals

in training. I was listening to something on the way down here about evolutionary psychology and about how the anticipation of an event is often, the pleasure to arrive from the anticipation of an event is often so much higher than the event itself or the aftermath. It's why thinking about eating food

is often actually better than the food or the examples it was used was, you think about a holiday, you book a holiday six months in advance, you get excited for six months, you know, it's gonna be amazing. I'm gonna go over this beach and there's gonna be a sunset and you're looking at all the Instagram photos of it, then you get to the beach and you sit down, you like, well this is nice, but there's a bit of sand between my toes and all my beer could be a bit colder and blah blah blah. But when you look back you don't remember the sand and when you back you don't remember the sand

and when you anticipate you don't think about it. So what you actually want to do and you can hack your way in happiness by doing this is plan things that you want to do well in advance because you essentially get to enjoy the event and some of the anticipate the tree kind of dopamine kicks that you get. So plant, right, I'm going to do a strength in debt 2021. And you're like, right, that's my goal. I get to think about that event for all of this time, you know? And like, right, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do it. This is when the qualifiers are going to come out. Now, plant towards that as opposed to just being rigged around by, oh, this event that

I've never heard of, but happens to be within 50 miles of me has released some online qualifiers. Should we go bin ourselves tomorrow? Yeah. Yeah, and do you know what the thing is, it's hard to commit. It is hard to commit to training for eight months and not being that position in the competition

and testing yourself. Like the day to day, lifestyle and commitment to training can get a bit monotamous and it can be can be hard but you just have to keep the kind of end goal kind of clear in your head that of what you are working towards and I think that's why people do then just go and do a competition because they need that kind of kick to keep them going, keep the motivation high but if you can kind of just clearly set the path from now

until the competition in 8 to 12 months time and just keep chipping away and just go like month by month rather than just thinking, oh it's going to be 8 months until that compete again and just kind of break it down, then you probably steer away from being kind of sucked into competing every month. I guess having a training partner or like a little squad of people that are potentially on that more, I don't want to call it more virtuous journey, that more long-term gold journey. That's our feature of a lot. You think that might be a good way to kind of take that more robust. And that's probably another thing that we've created there in JST.

We've got a group of guys that understand it. So they're not kind of like, they're not kind of false nature. If someone goes into the competition, that was wasn't kind of planned, and it just came out of the blue, then it's kind of like, why are you doing that? We've got supposed to be focusing on

the role, the invitation, what's coming up in May or something. Yeah, if you have that group that are kind of all aligned in the same kind of mentality of training then that definitely makes. I can't go to each other. Yeah, it makes decisions a lot easier.

One thing that I wanted to bring up you mentioned about the CNS, frying nature of doing competitions, talk to me about what it's like taking JST, your business, your gym over to the games as the first British team and then talking to me about the aftermath of what was your CNS like before during and after? Yeah, so I mean, I think the most I've struggled is 2015 games. Didn't really have much, the JST compete wrong story, it was around then, there was probably 10% of the amount of people on it as there is now, but it was still there, it was still a thing, and that was probably the only thing as well as running the gym that had outside

of training. So training was just like, you had training, you had training people to train and you had training people to train online. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, put my own train itself, like my wife would tell you, and any of my friends that around me was like, if, if anything didn't, um, help me with training, then it was a hindrance. Yeah, it was kind of out the way. And that for years and years and years and then having the competition and it being a bit of a brutal competition to else 15 games, to then coming back to old scams like, it's like that happened. And then UCNS still having like that fatigue, like that was really struck up.

I'd planned three weeks rest after competition, took the three weeks rest, came back to training for a week and then needed another six. I'd been, I don't know, it was immensely because for so long in my head, like it would build and not to get to the game for five years or so. And then like it kind of, I was in LA for like four weeks and I'm also in Muscle Beach, competing in front of thousands and then I get back into my front room and we're getting it, my dogs wanting to go for a walk and it's pissing down outside and it's like, oh, so that kind of whole dump of adrenaline and like expectation to then just like back to normality. I think that people struggle with, when you're at a competition, your name's been called

out from the MC, in the crowd cheer, your name, and then you have a good event, and the endorphins are flying, you go from that, and then it's suddenly being over two days later, you're back home and like, where did you go yeah it's like that I think that's what athlete stole with the most as opposed to maybe the actual physical effects of the competition is that dump but having having experienced that quite badly in 2015 like I'm able to I know I know it's gonna happen now I know I did what a pleasure the weekend I know it's going to happen now, I know it, I didn't want to pledge with all your kind of notes, I'm going to be a great town, I know I'm just going to come home and I can't say I expected how it would feel like. You learn from that experience 2015. So getting that across to the guys as well is quite important for them to then

regain motivation and have it back rather than just hitting them like a bottom being like oh shit yeah yeah yeah yeah so I feel like that's in terms of you call it CNS but in terms of just kind of having like that don't laugh the competition. It's more than just CNS right you will be fatigued from the level of work that you've put in but it's like a sociocultural thing as well that's been going on. I have been placed in high esteem. Here is Egos just game. Yeah. Cold shovel into it like that. Yeah, for sure. And I recently did a podcast, I've done two with DJs recently, Geico Christoff and another

one called Danny T. And both of those guys talk about their post show slump and Danny deals with it a lot better than the Christos, but He's supporting Eric Prids around the world. He's playing to thousands of people. He's literally living the dream for this guy and He gets back to the hotel and it's just him and a room service and a flight in four hours time to go to Buenos Aires or wherever is next on the tour and it's just lonely and sad man. And you know you see this with people like Avici Timberg, you know DJ who had the capability

had the artistic capacity but he wasn't able to deal with the sociocultural ego side, the exposure, that stuff. And people don't see athletes in that same light, right? They don't view them as performers despite the fact that you have to perform. Like it's in, you know, you're paying to watch the performance. It is a performance, you know. Yeah, 100%. And I guess it's the same for every sports, but that's why you see footballs and rugby players having a tough time when they're retired because they've gone from living their life to then retired and then boom.

But you say, yes, just kind of that on a different scale, I guess. So you've had that 2015, 2017, you got to be thinking, right, I need to prepare myself a little bit more gently, somehow or account for it when I come back and then 19 as well, what was some of the strategies that you put in place to kind of bring yourself out of that slump? Yeah, I think it just helps knowing that that's a thing and it happens and it happens. So if you're prepared for it, because I wasn't prepared for it after the 15.

No one wants you to do this. You're going to carry on going and then it's just... Asfisted by some... Like the ex, yeah, necessarily. So just simply just being aware that it happens and it's normal because you go from having all those endorphins and having the greatest family of your life to then just being back to your normal life, just understanding that that happens just helps greatly.

But also for me it's just like not making immediate plans like after the game. So people always say, it's been how you're on another comeback, like you've retired for a time. And so that's not, that's not that I'm having a comeback or retire in it, so that I'm just taking more time off and then only restarting when I know that I'm ready to build back up training and compete again. If I tried competing through all of 2018, 19 and continue, then I probably wouldn't be able to compete any more because one hour won't be good enough or it'll just lost love for it. So just not kind of making immediate plans when the main competition, whether it's games or it's you know, it's re-enill or whatever you're doing, not having immediate plans for

like two weeks after to do another competition, another competition. It's just accepting just to kind of that step down, that step away, let your mind and your body just completely reset and then get back into it when you're ready to get back into it. You don't know where your head's going to be at. No. I mean, sometimes it's a great sign is that you're two weeks after training, you're flying again, you can't wait to get back into this. Oh, best case scenario. It's a great indicator that your body's in a good place, your mind's in a good place. But a lot of people then try and they don't have that feeling, they try and maybe have that feeling artificially.

They've artificially made that feeling. And that's when it just kind of gets a little bit out of control. So, yeah, like in 2017 and 2019, just kind of like a a little bit out of control. So yeah, like in 2017 and 2019, just, I just kind of accepted that I didn't need to train. You know, I trained when I wanted to and then I enjoyed that made me enjoy it because I wanted to do it. Because there's a lot of times as an athlete where you have to do a lot of training sessions and a lot of things that times as an athlete where you have to do a lot of training sessions and a lot of things that every part of you does not want to do it. Like it goes back to the constantly very cost, I said that it's not always a fun thing to do is training and like sitting

on a roller and doing 12, 500 meter rolls with a minute's rest, unless you love rolling. Like I don't love rolling, it's not a fun thing. No one loves rowing, it's a thing. So, a lot of those little fights that you have in your head, like do this thing that you don't want to do over and over again for years and years, like just to be able to then have a moment of time where... I fully let go. I don't have to do it anymore, it's just, it's like such a nice feeling, and then you gradually find yourself being like, I want to get back to that. I miss that get back. I'm in that list. Well, it's the same as, you know, the first bite of ice cream is real tasty, but if I make

you eat fively ice cream, you'll have to buy the end of it. It's not that good. There's a quote from James Clears, atomic habits where he spoke to a Chinese weightlifting coach and he said, what separates the very, very best lifters from everybody else? And he says, it's the lifters who can put up with boredom the most. I think there is a kind of like this folk law belief that guys at the top end of the sport somehow have like a bottomless pit of motivation. He'd say it's got nothing to do with that as far as I can see not in any way being a league level athlete,

but it appears to be who can withstand the monotony and the boredom better than everybody else. And a final point there on what you just said is when you take a love and turn into a labor, it can sometimes overshoot being a labor of love and just become work. You know, like if training is your job, but you trained because you loved it, and now you train because you, it's what you have to do, you know? Like, everyone sees the punch drunk 45-year-old heavyweight

boxer coming back for one more fight because, you know, I need to look sad, but there's an equivalent of people doing that to themselves mentally in the gym. You know, you're passionate, you're passionate passion is left you behind and you're now like just ringing out every last drop of willpower that you've got to get yourself through a training session which for Tasnidim just feels like play to him or for Zach George just feels like, you know, because everything's brand new because he's 12. Like, you know, and an absolute monster, he's's actually going games this year as well, isn't he?

Yeah, it's an idea of offer. Yeah. Unbelievable, man. How cool. Yeah. Like, like Tyson Fury as an example, then I'm sure he had retired. And then he had hit that stage where he, I think recently there was, he was on some ones game. Someone's whole show about the depression it had gone through. But he had probably had a couple of years off and he's just been now a deante while there and he's back to being World Champion. He's just a perfect example there is that there needs to be a bit of a reset to be able to account for longevity and competing.

I wonder how many athletes that will never, will never know, but they're at the top to be able to account for longevity and competing. I wonder how many athletes that will never, will never know, but they're at the top end of the sport. I wonder how much better, no-we're also no-matte-phrase or a pat valina or a brand-for-calski, or like Tia Claire, Tumia, whatever. I wonder how many of those could be even better if they took a year to regain, because you don't know. No-one's ever, this is how many of those could be even better if they took a year to regain,

because you don't know. No one's ever, this is the sort of thing that no one will ever put in an Instagram post where they'll say, do you know what it is? My desire to train actually is waning at the moment, and I don't love the sport, but I've maybe still got five years of career in me, you know? Like it's a real unspoken about mechanism that's happening. Yeah, that was in 2016. So for after post-slump, yeah, it's just like in the head, everyone's going, you know, you're going to get back to the games. Yeah, probably should try and get back to the games because I think that's what I've

been doing for the last few years, should do it again. And like, I wouldn't have been, I've been struggled to kind of like get the, the, the drive to get back trading and after the games, just kind of like forcing myself into it and just getting back into that routine again. And then just applying everything just as much as I did in 2015, in 2016, and then actually got injured in regionals on the second event in 2016. It was at that point when I got injured, although I was gutted to be injured and I didn't want to be like it was such a relief to have gotten injured.

And looking back now, if I had taken out, after 2015, if I had listened to that part of my head that it was saying, you shouldn't compete this year, you should just take this year off, improve, and get yourself to be a top 10 games individual in 2017 because you need that town. There's part of my head that was saying that, and then you've got the other part of the head that was saying, get back to the games next year, and then do it the year after, and then do it the year after. Be it five times games, actually. If I look back now, then I wouldn't have competed in 2016 and I would have saved it in 2017.

The other side of that is that we were then competed in an amazing team, which was a great team, the first team to call off after the end of 2017. So if I was thinking solely as an individual, then I would have competed to Alan XVI and hopefully been in that position in Alan XII, but then so when I've had the experience. Might not have ended up. So it's everything in the whole office. Yeah, I wonder how we can focus on our badden nature, so to speak, I don't really know. The thing as well is it's beautiful with hindsight to say,

well yeah, of course I should have taken a break after 2015, but if you'd not got injured, you'd walked into another game spot. You'd have been like, yeah, I knew, I knew that I actually threw it. Yeah, exactly. So I want to finish on this actually, because it's something that keeps coming up in discussions that I have with people. And it's, how do you know when enough is enough within training? You know, JST, I think, especially with this new wave of athletes that you've got that are coming through, the guys train hard. You know, they do like to go hard. How do you know when it's time to slow down because you're pushing your body too much? And how do you know when you need to slow down because you're pushing your body too much and how do you know when

you need to push more because you've got some left in the tank? Yeah, I mean, it's hard to just kind of like say a few things like, I just, in say I mean just like know when it's time to take some time off. I know for my own performance and for my own life that if relationships are business that have a negative effect on my own health, like last year, a local piece at the games, I had a kidney infection, a chest infection and an ear infection. That's a lot of form. And that was between having qualified at Recivic and then before the games. So for me during that time, that was like, well, this is enough indication. I've got those infections. Like life was busy. My life was six months or so, all at that point, like this is too much.

That's compete life, it's direct plus, plus, plus. Yeah. So competing and training to be an athlete, after I get through to this game, once that's done, it just needs to take a back burner until I feel like I'm ready to go again and it took for all, it took the more August and then December. It was like, right, I feel like I've got everything in the control and the health's better. I've been a better routine

with the baby and the business is in a better position for me to be able to bring training back into my life again. I was always training but what I've classed as a proper training. So I guess it's, you've just got to, for anyone else, they've just got to understand the priorities in the life and they have a negative effect from training and issue performance also not benefiting from constantly going and going. Isn't it interesting that you were saying in 2015 anything that was in your life that didn't serve you was pushed to the side because of training and then move it forward to sort of 2017, 2019 and you're using those the quality of those other things in your life as the canary in the coal mine to tell you when training's going too far

in this sort of strangely poetically ironic how that comes back around. Yeah, and I guess probably as I've got all those, there's been a shift in priorities to because business and family is, as comes to the top of the list and that training is now on like number three. So, I guess training is the hindrance sometimes to a family and business. So yeah, it's kind of turned on its head. But like I said, for the next year or so for a lot of competitions, I've got a plan. I'm enjoying the fact that it is turned on its head and I'm still able to perform at a decent level and just see where it kind

of gets me to with a bit of a different perspective. I think certainly, you know, watching people like Kara Webb, what do you know? Um, so on, as well. Kara Sonders, sorry Kara. You know, watching her, watching an athlete choose to be a mom in the like slap bang in the middle of a career, like two second place finishes

and a row or something then kid. Like the strength of will that it takes to decide to put your athlete career to the side and maybe the fear is never come back. You know, I'm sure that she will. She's a monster. But like, you know, to see people do that, I think it's I think it's very, very healthy to see people having the wholesome family life. Because the bottom line is that for pretty much everyone, their family, their child, their life, everything, that is what is going to be the most important thing. But the immediate gratification of, no, but one more year competing, one more year training,

you can one more year until you're so it's so late that you maybe can't and that's real big sacrifice to make. Yeah and it just shows that you know deep down and if we're using calories as the example that she, her long-term life goals and maybe in line that it involves kids more so actually not maybe people can say they've come second at the game so she's not twice and you know she's probably earning a full time salary from being an athlete so she's kind of ticked those boxes but there's only so long in her life that she's going to be able to take the start of family box and she knows that she's proven now that she'll always be able to return to the athlete.

It's always a bit of a... No one knows whether she'll always be... Women go through quite a lot in the pregnancy, so changes their hormones, changes in body, makeup, changes in everything. So being able to get back to that level is always a bit of a gamble maybe, but I mean, she's proving that she's... She's competing actually this weekend and Australia, I think. Sure, how cool is it going to be if she makes it back to the games, man?

Like, if she steps back out of the floor, did she not do it from the up, I'm not sure. I don't know. But yeah, I think, you know, to kind of round the pot, we've gone through there, there's certainly a unifying principle across everything it would seem, which is what are your goals within training within life, you know within work within business, all the rest of it. And other things that you're doing on a daily basis, moving me toward that. And then on top of that, like, okay, I know what I need to do. My training needs to look like this. And then how can I ensure the all of the individual parts, the tiny inches, how can those add up towards yards and miles? And as long as you're consistently reflecting and moving back toward it, it makes it seem really fucking simple. Like, I'll just go to the games next year.

Exactly, that's all you do. Awesome. So people want to find out about GST, where do they go? Yeah, so Instagram, we're at GST, on the score, compete. That's why I'm also, I have, that's why I'm also, I'm, I'm also, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I're at GST on the score, Compete, that's where I'm also, I have more sorry information is, but you've got GSTcompete.com. Yeah, those are two main pages, and then that all, that were actual program

and it's on FitterTrade and website, which you'll little directly to, so there you can just take a look through. Sure, as an email or an Instagram message and a lot of your art. Beautiful man. People aren't coming out of sunny weekend, come out of camp. They're coming.

Getting my little, we got six people in here. The new box. Six here. That must be cool. Everything that we've spoken about will be linked in these show notes below, Steve Mantle, it's been awesome. I really appreciate you. Thanks for having me.

Thank you, bro. Cheers. Thank you. I really appreciate you. Thanks for having me. Thank you bro. Cheers. Thank you. I'm around. Yeah. Yeah. I'm around.