The Sevan Podcast - #145 - Chris Hinshaw

Episode Date: September 18, 2021

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Come on, baby. Why isn't this working? Okay. Siobhan. I wish you could hear me. Can you guys hear me how's that damn why why are there so many audio issues i hear you now oh i hear you a little bit i hear you a little bit a little bit yeah like uh can you choose a different microphone seeing the bottom uh below your picture my picture there's a little picture of a mic if you put the arrow over it good thank you jason you can hear me i apologize i muted myself and and we have a we have a very very distant

audio on uh mr hinshaw like i was saying with an eye hinshaw don't mispronounce it henshaw there we go you hear me all right that's better that's better it went from a one to a five better how about a 10 oh my goodness wait are we too high no you're a magician you're no is that stop is that okay yeah that's great okay? Yeah, it's great. So I don't need to fiddle anymore? I mean, you can fiddle away, buddy. I've been up since five fiddling just to make this not so nerve wracking. If I get up too early, I'll fiddle too.

Where are you? Cookville, Tennessee. Oh, and that's home for you? Three and a half years. And you said, I saw on your Instagram, you said, bon voyage to Mr. Fraser. Yeah, I miss him. He was a neighbor.

Yeah, I miss both Sammy and Matt. Like literally a neighbor. Yeah, I miss both Sammy and Matt. Like literally a neighbor? Yeah. I have the record from my driveway to his driveway. Running. Less than a minute. Oh, that's awesome. Everything's a competition, right?

But yeah, I have the record. And no cheating. You got to stay on asphalt. Oh, I love it. How far is it? Less than a minute. Did someone else buy his house yet? So the market in Cookville

is doing surprisingly well. Yeah, someone bought it within two days. You should have a race. Don't even tell the people who live there that it's called the annual Fraser 1000 and people show up at your house and run to the, and have to touch the door at this house. A time trial. Yeah, exactly.

Just have a thousand people lined up. Yeah. No, I'm going to sell those, those, those maps, you know, like in Beverly Hills. Here's where everybody lived. Here's Tia's house. Here's Haley's house. Here's where Dan Bailey lived. DZ Mohammed. I mean, the list is Sarah Sigman's daughter.

The list is big. Here's the property that Josh Bridges bought that he still owns. It's holding the world together, though. Yeah, it's awesome. It's holding the world together, though. Yeah, it's awesome. When I was working over at CrossFit, there was the most popular place on the entire planet of planet Earth. And CrossFit had already infected all seven continents, 162 countries, but yet the most popular place on earth for people to do their L1 was this small town called Cookville, Tennessee, which was famous for Rich Froning for so long.

And now it's famous because someone chopped their penis off and threw it out a car window. But I mean, things change. That's how quickly things... It's not funny. It's not funny. It's someone's life. This is where your brain power kicks in, and I need to be careful. It's someone's life. It's not funny. So this morning, I woke up at 6. I'm in California, and I wake up at 6, and I start doing my thing. at six and I start doing my thing. And at about six 55, I start to panic a little bit because I'm like, Oh my God, I haven't talked today because I wait, no one's awake at my house. And the first words that are, it's a podcast. Like I should, I should have to warm my voice up or something. Right. Yeah. But let's face it that you have been doing this for so long and you never, I mean, rarely ever have made a mistake, why worry about it?

Right. The whole thing is a mistake. I think people tune in to watch the train wreck. Well, because that's where your creativity, you know, you have a skill that is unlike anybody else when you communicate, because there's this craftiness that you have, but it's kind of like, it seems to me as a game. I picture you in your daily life saying certain things that resonate with somebody on a certain level, but it's kind of like a joke to you.

And about 10 years later, they're like, Oh, wait a minute. That whole thing was a joke, but it took 10 years to play out. And about 10 years later, they're like, oh, wait a minute. That whole thing was a joke, but it took 10 years to play out. And you, I think, love that when it unfolds a decade later. That's you. Too much Abbott and Costello as a kid. I don't know what it is. I think that what you find is like the question, I'll never forget the

question, the first question you asked me. And it's almost like you get bored. And so you're like, I'm going to just zing this out there and see what happens. And I remember the first question you came up to me and it was 2013. And you're like, you have any tattoos? Ah, I remember that. And then the next question was, do you listen to rap music? Ah, yeah. It was like, wow, that, who is this dude? That, the tattoo one I'm okay with. Do you listen to rap music? I feel like that's hostile. I feel like I was probably being ageist.

I'm like, who is this guy? He's a couple years older than me. Is he as cool as me? Does he listen to rap music? So, well, I zinged it right back to you, and said you know what when i'm with garrett fisher i do nice nice yep you someone asked you um uh i don't remember where and you probably get this question a lot and i was going to ask you this question too but i'm not going to now because so many people have asked it to you they said who can you tell me all the people you've worked with and i was like oh shit that's probably i mean because it's like it's crazy who you've worked

with but maybe the question is is who haven't you worked with like like it is absolutely and do you pursue these people or do they pursue you and And one more thing I'd like to throw in there. I don't know anyone. You are the guy that everyone likes. I was trying to rattle my brain and see if in the 15 years that I was involved with CrossFit, if I ever heard anyone say anything bad about you. And I can't. That's nice. Thank you. I am really lucky in what I do. I mean, I'm grateful every day. And I think that that gratitude, I mean, and it's genuine gratitude. I'm grateful that CrossFit gave me my health back, but it also gave me a second career that I'm really passionate about. And that's fortunate. When you find

something like that and it's handed to you, especially at my age, you do a lot of giving back. I mean, for example, games athletes, I've never seeked out any games athletes to coach them, but I also coach them for free. I've never charged a games athlete. I've never had them pay any expenses, travel, zero. And mainly because that came from a conversation that I had with Glassman years ago. And mainly because that came from a conversation that I had with Glassman years ago. Shoot, I mean, way back when. He told me, he said, you know, what you need to do as a coach is you need to have a few more. And so that's why in the beginning I had this philosophy, I'm going to coach for free. And I did it for free for three years, thousands of people to compress my learning curve, to do basically the roadmap that Coach Glassman laid out for me. For those of you who don't know, and maybe a lot of you are too young to know,

but growing up, the fittest human beings on the planet were the people who performed in what is called the Ironman. It's a race in Hawaii. It was basically the, it was tantamount to being a Navy SEAL as a civilian. As kids, it was on TV. It was like on ABC Wild World of sports, stuff like that. And, uh, you know, our TVs only had like three to 12 stations. And when this thing would come on,

it was nuts. And, um, it was basically, um, dudes and chicks jumping in a water and swimming. And then they, I think they would ride the bike and then they would run. And this, this thing was crazy. I'm assuming iron man's still huge right they just had a like a a version of it in santa cruz california but the one in hawaii was the one that got all the tv time then and tv time then was so precious and valuable it's not like now where you know sarah sigman's daughter can put something on her instagram that's more popular than you know fox news and cnn combined but. And Chris, who we're all staring at right now on our computers, and this is pre-computers even, I mean legitimate computers.

In 1985, Chris did this race in 9 hours and 16 minutes and 40 seconds. He took second place. And it would be hard to find someone alive back then who wouldn't say that's the second fittest man alive and that's um that's pretty that's pretty that's pretty remarkable in 1982 i was only i was 13 years old um and it was it was kind of like the biggest thing on like sporting thing on um tv in that way it was it was it was the it was the it was the crossfit of of its day did you agree with me chris i mean i'm telling you like perspective of a california boy but with no hyperbole with no hyperbole it i mean it was three sports and and so there were tougher events. In my opinion, the Tour de France is significantly more challenging, difficult on every level. But combining three different disciplines created a training predicament, and it had not been done. The original philosophy, like you said, it was really created in Oahu by a bunch of people in the military. And it was more of like these guys were sitting in a bar one night and they were like, can you top this?

Can you top this? What about doing this? And what they did is they came up with this. Let's combine the three well-known endurance events on Oahu, which was the Waikiki Rough Water Swim, it was the Around the Oahu Bike Ride, and then it was the Honolulu Marathon. And so they got up the next morning and went for it. And these guys were big. The philosophy was back then that you had to be big in order to survive that duration. And then the era that I was in, the mid-80s going into the early 90s, was changing that philosophy where it was,

in order to be good in a long-time domain, you had to have a certain physiology. You had to be a slow twitch, high aerobic capacity, right, VO2 max to sustain the speeds in order to place well. And so my body type was unusual when I got in. Matter of fact, I'll never forget a race that I did in 1983. It was in Livermore, and I was on the start of the swim. And I come from a swimming background. Home of CrossFit Livermore, by the way, Matt Souza's gym, the executive producer of the show. Sorry, go on. There you go. So I was in Lake Del Val, and I had getting ready to start a 1.5 kilometer swim. And all of a sudden, I hear hear this and i was on the front line in the swim just because swimmer but keep in mind i was about 130 pounds uh

oh you broke up a little bit there chris start You were 130 pounds. How tall? 5'10". And I hadn't yet matured. I hadn't yet matured and gotten into an adult body. And there was a guy behind me. And all of a sudden, I hear this, hey, little kid, you don't get out of my way, I'm going to run you down. And I was so intimidated in that moment because, let's face it, I was 19 and I knew I was small and I was super insecure. And I was just about to cower back and quit. And the world champion at that time was a guy by the name of Scott Molina. And I had already gone away and competed the first time. And I was top two or something out of the water.

And the world champion, Scott Molina, turns to this guy and says, that's Chris Hinshaw. I think he can handle himself. I had no idea world champion knew who I was. And that resonated with me. I mean, I, I carried that, that comment and the impact that he had on me and it changed the trajectory of my life because he stuck up for me. And yeah, that was really the beginning of, of what started an amazing run.

Can you also, could you also say he believed in you? And yeah, that was really the beginning of what started an amazing run. Could you also say he believed in you? I think that he is just a student of the game. One of the things that I learned way back when was world champions, they're constantly in a quest of wanting to learn and converting that information into knowledge because that's what's making them confident. And they want to know the battlefield. They want to know who is on that battlefield. And they assess everybody because they want to win.

They want to dominate. And they're not just followers. They're leaders. And that's what leaders do. They're out in front of everybody else innovating. And that's what Scott Molina did. He knew me because maybe sometime down the road, I might be a threat. Maybe. He could have not said anything.

Yeah, but it says something about who he was as a man. I mean, there's many people that sit there passively. And I'm grateful for what he did. You know, there's been a few people like that throughout my life that stuck up for me when I needed that. Because especially as you get into middle ages, there's no difference between somebody, you know, in their 40s forties, um, and, and, and someone who's in their, their teenage years, they're both, they have these insecurities, uh, just adults hide them a little better. We live in a world where people argue each other's limitations. People argue their own limitations all their time. It's a line out of the Tao Te Ching, the Stephen Mitchell translation.

For those of you who have not read that book, you should read that book. If you only had one book, that's the book to have. I know some people would say it's the Bible, but it's the Stephen Mitchell Tao Te Ching translation, pocket edition. There's a line in there where he says, argue your limitations and they're yours. And I was thinking about, and I think about that line

all the time, because I think the only thing that's worse than arguing your own limitations is arguing other people's limitations. I think it's a vile, vile, vile disease that we have as human beings to argue other people's limitations. And we've all been around those people. I've had three business partners in the past who I absolutely adored and loved as people, but eventually we broke ways because when you're climbing the mountain at 11,000 feet, they start talking way too loud about how we can't do it. And at some point, you just have to cut your losses and be like, sorry, dude, I'm going to 12,000.

But then there's other people in life. And that's why I said, did he believe in you? Because I thought about this about you last night. Do you think that you genuinely just believe in people more than most people believe in other people? I think I genuinely care. And it doesn't matter who you are, whether it's Matt Frazier or somebody who's just jumped into a class or come into a seminar. I treat them all the same. Yeah, there's no difference. It's interesting for me when I think about when I coach like a Rich Froning or Tia or Sarah, there's this coaching personality that comes out. But I'm also a fan of the sport. And so it's this weird thing. If I'm coaching, it's a different personality than when I'm a fan and getting a text message. You know, like if I get a text message from Rich Froning, it's like,

I can't believe he's texting me. Like what, why, what, how come he's sending me a note? he's texting me. Like, how come he's sending me a note? And then it's like, oh, wait, you forget. And my approach always is that when I'm a coach, my direction is really clear with people. And my intent is very clear. The thing that I'm always trying to figure out, though, with athletes, how motivated are they? You know, like, for example, many people have come to me and they claim that they want to win the CrossFit Games. But part of it is, is that, you know, after a while, you begin to understand what it takes to win. Isn't that incredible? Can we just pause right there one second?

Yeah. People come to you and say they want to win. I'm just like, seriously, it's like, it's like tantamount to saying, Elon saying he wants to go to Mars. I mean, there's something about, there's something about that statement that's like, I mean, someone has to do it.

Might as well be you. I mean, you. But shit, man. Okay, sorry. I mean, it's just – you have to take them seriously, but it's so absurd. Right, and part of it is that you're always evaluating people. I'll tell you something interesting so car web she the year that she lost by two points to Tia she called me that October and she was the only one that gave me a different answer and she calls me and she asked if if I would be willing to help her with

her her muscular stamina her her cardiorespiratory, your longer time domains. And so I asked her, I said, you know, Cara, and part of it is, it's a lot of work to coach an elite athlete. It's a ton of work because the easy stuff by now, you know, in 2021, it's gone. You know, the days of teaching people out of pace and maximize their efficiency and consumption of energy to, you know, create better performance, those days are gone. And so, you have to fine tune. And so, when I'm thinking about Cara, it's like, wow, she presents a lot of unknown. You know, she's a weightlifter. She's been in the sport a long amount of time. And she's got the body type that should not be able to run fast for long amounts of time.

Well, I asked her, what are our goals? What do you want to do? Now, keep in mind, she just lost by two points to Tia. She says, you know what, Chris? I want to break six minutes for a mile. I'm all, no, no, no. Carl, what's your number one goal? She's all, that's it. I'm all, what about winning? She's all, that's number two. I'm like, you want to break six minutes in a mile? She's all, yes, I do. Because you know what? If I do that, no one can ever take it away, ever. I can always have that, which is true. You know, when you accomplish certain things like that, where it's the, they call it the race of truth. You against the clock. You either do it or you don't.

It's not about someone arbitrarily, you know, providing, you know, beneficial programming so that you can win. This is the race of truth. And so I asked her, I said, so what's your fastest current time? She's all 637. And that was a challenge for me. You know, like part of it is, is that I liked her honesty of her answer. And that's where a lot of athletes, they need to be realistic about their expectation. But me as a coach, I must accept their goals as possible.

So like if you came to me, Savan, you said, I want to break five minutes for a mile. I'd have to assume that we can do it until you prove to me we can. And I don't care who you are. If you have a goal, we're going for it until you prove to me that, you know what, your time schedule is a little aggressive. We need more time. Maybe it's your physiology. Maybe I need more than two days a week. Maybe I need three.

And that's how I treat everybody. But when Kara came in like that, I'm like, I like that. I, and I've never heard that before. And that was a challenge. This is a little off subject. There's a great moment you have on your Instagram. It was one of the favorite, most favorite things I saw on was um the interaction you had with alia hayley adams and basically you're telling her hey you need to slow down and she's like i can't that is funny i mean it's it and you loved it you caught the like you you totally caught it like wow this is a great answer. Like, what can you say?

Every now and then. I'm going too fast. I can't. What do you want me to do, Chris? I can't. I can't run that slow. Yeah. Right.

So every now and then, you know, I have this thing called a gold star. And it's basically when an anomaly occurs. and and hayley adams is like this this kid that she's in this state of bewilderment all the time she cannot even believe what she's able to do and but when someone does something unexpected like like that kind of a comment it's like i gotta give you a gold star because i never saw that coming i'm glad you described her that. So I don't have any personal experience with her. I've only watched videos on the Mayhem channel. And sometimes I get a little bit of spicoli from her. But I'm like, it can't be.

I mean, almost like she took a bong rip. But you know what? I'm misreading that as you're right she's the i like your description better like she's so the world's always unfolding for her because she's aware enough to see the miracle of the world can you imagine every day the world's twice as big every day you wake up and it's now twice as big no it probably should be like that but no i try to make my world twice as small every day. Me too.

No shit. That's why I always just hide inside. I mean, my favorite place is a hotel room when no one knows where I am. Yes. Yeah. That's my favorite spot. So go on with that thought. Can you imagine the world doubling in size every day?

Right. So that's where she is. And keep in mind that she's a Southern girl, right? She comes from a small town, and she likes that small town environment. And so a lot of people, when they listen to her, they form an opinion. But she is one of the kindest people that you'll ever meet. kindest people that you'll ever meet. Keep in mind, we are all shaped by things that have happened in the past. And Haley was severely bullied as a teen, so bad that she had to drop out of her high school because she was doing CrossFit. Yeah, her story is really, it's a bummer because she missed out on a lot of the things that high school kids got because she had to, you know, go to school online.

And she never had all the privileges that we all and those experiences that we had. Imagine that your memories of high school is being bullied, you know, told that you're butch, that you look like Arnold, that you're a lesbian. And it's like, if you know Haley, she is about as feminine as anybody that you'll ever meet. And she has to manage that somehow. It's swirling around in her and it's really a sad thing. But she believed so much that she, you know what? I don't care. I'm moving forward. And imagine the strength that it took a 17-year-old to do that. I mean, she moved in with us when she was 17. She moved in with you? She stayed here.

So, yeah, so probably 10 days before her 18th birthday, my Heidi, myself met with Haley and her mom in South Carolina and just talked it through. And yeah, the mom reluctantly agreed. And she had a bedroom here. Yeah, I would reluctantly agree too. I don't care if God himself was like, hey, send your kid over. I'd be like, fat chance. Right. I mean, at 17? But keep in mind, we had known Haley for a long time, and this was a huge opportunity. You know, one of the things that two months prior to this, we had Haley here in town as part of Power Monkey, and she stayed with us for a couple of days during that time. And here in town as part of Power Monkey.

And she stayed with us for a couple of days during that time. And we went up to the barn and trained with Rich. And Tia was there that day and Ron Ortiz. And Haley shows up and she's like, I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know. Now, this shows you who Haley Adams is. She's in the barn. She's with those three people. Three of the most beautiful people who ever graced the planet, by the way.

Ron, Tia, and Rich. Nuts. Nuts. And they're all right there. Now, imagine if you're there. You're not going to want to do certain workouts where you don't get to interact with them because here's your chance. Right. She's never hung out with them ever.

What does Haley pick? I want to do the marathon row. She sits down and never gets up. She rows it in like three hours and 12 minutes. I think she would have placed like ninth at the games. Tia's coming over and checking her monitor every now and then, and she's just moving along, rolling. Rich was so impressed after that, that Rich came to me and said, if there's any way that Haley would like to come out here, I'd love to have her come up to the barn and train every day. That's how it happened.

What a great story. Have you written a book, Chris? No. No, I think about it. Yeah. I think about it. Like when you say you think about it, like what's that look like? Like, hey, I should write a book.

Oh, honey, you want to go get a hamburger? Like, no, I write a lot. So one of the things I do is I write a lot and, you know, finding solutions. The reason why I coached a lot of people is because CrossFit is a new sport that targeted recreational athletes, you know, the non-Olympian, the people that sit in the middle, the people that aren't good at anything, you know, they just want to do variety. And that population of people really hasn't ever been studied. How to assess them, how to optimize programming to make them, you know, strong, but also give them this ability to endure, knowing that they don't want to be a specialist in one thing. And so, for me,

that was fascinating. And I really focused on this space and what did it take in order to help this population, which represents 99.9% of the population, how can we help them maximize their adaptation in the least possible way? And so I write down those things that I've done, and I have just folders, or let's call them chapters, of different ideas. The problem is that I just never feel like I have enough, that I need to learn something more. And that gets me into trouble a lot. I just need one more yoga retreat. I need my 67th yoga retreat, and then I can go out and

start teaching yoga. we live in this we live in this weird world like that people go to law school and become a lawyer people go to medical school and become a doctor people go to um the police academy become a police officer you still have to realize that the truth is we have to be compassionate with each other this doesn't make you a police officer a doctor lawyer you still need now to practice for 10 years i mean it's it's but but then there's the other side of you someone like you and i get that like you you have the experience and yet you're like okay if i just work with just you and i'm making this up my words not yours if i just work with like five

more athletes and i just figure out this one there's this one other question i still have about running and then i'll write the book right it's It's like, yeah, that I don't do. So this is what I do. I write a workout. So I did that in the beginning with athletes. That's why I took on Carl Webb. That's why I took on Matt Frazier. Matt Frazier was a risk because he has a weightlifting background and we hear about this

interference effect all the time. If you do too much cardio, it's going to interfere with your strength. Rich Froning. I knew I could make him a better runner, but what if I ruined him as a crossfitter? Cara Webb, same thing. I always wonder. I've asked so many coaches if they think that, and they always say no. I'm like, how could you not think that? I get scared carrying my wife's banana bread across the room.

Oh, shit, what if I drop it? You know what I mean? And these people are giving you their whole body. So sorry, go ahead. It's refreshing to hear you say that. But it's the truth. I mean, you think about it. This is Rich's career, his lifestyle, his living, and you're going to alter that. You're going to have him do something that he's never done. And keep in mind, when I started with Froning, he had already won the games four times. So that would be a problem. And so like Frazier, same thing. I was very concerned. A lot of it, those athletes do accept some of the ownership, some of that

responsibility, and that's what's made them champions. For example, to me, it's always surprising that athletes want to get better, meaning they want to move up in the rankings, yet they do what everybody else does. And why are you surprised when you don't move up in your ranking when you're doing what everybody else does? Everybody's going to improve, but how are you going to get an exponential improvement? And that's what makes the difference. And that's what I look for. Are you willing to do the extraordinary? Like Jason Kalipa, 220 pounds, five foot nine in 2013, three weeks before the games, he ran 20 miles in the Santa Cruz mountains with me. That is extraordinary. Is that the year that him and Garrett Fisher and Neil Maddox cleaned up on the first three workouts at the CrossFit games?

Yeah. I mean, Jason Kalipa, Jason Kalipa out of the four endurance events, won three out of four and got a third in the fourth one, but you had to do something extraordinary. And the thing that I admire about those three is that they stuck up for me during that time. The amount of heat that I got because I was doing something different, and they never wavered. They always did what I told them to do. They always showed up on time, and they took an extraordinary risk. How are people being critical? How are people being critical? That's not CrossFit. What are you talking about that you're doing interval style work

and you're giving them rest? What are you talking about, about going slower? You're telling them to go slow all the time, you know, slow down. And that's not CrossFit. Why are you doing 20 mile runs? Why are you doing a workout 10 by 800 with a 400 jog in between? Why?

These things, pacing was not done in 2012 and 2013. It was go out hard and just try and hang on. And that didn't make sense to me. And CrossFit HQ, let's face it, I got a lot of heat from them on it. A lot. But that's another story, right? What's fascinating to me about CrossFit HQ is three years later, they asked me to become a strategic partner. partner. And it shows something about them that I could be highly controversial, but they're also observing, is he making change? Is he providing value? And that to me was, it showed something about the company. I'm trying to remember if I'm, I honestly don't remember that, but I also

wasn't in the training department, but I was very close with Greg, and I do know that Greg was very protective over the methodology. And his first move towards anyone who would tinker with it was hostility, almost always, unless he found you. Totally different story. Go ahead. Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. So Greg was always very supportive, always, and was curious because I had a similar approach that he had. And I listened to his advice and I followed it and it worked. And so he was always pulling me aside. Like when Camille won the games, I had worked with her for 15 months prior to that. And here it was, the awards ceremony, and I happened to be walking past in Carson the suites. And as I'm walking past one of the suites trying to find a place to watch the – because the awards ceremony was coming up and she was going to win, and I wanted to be a part of that. He was standing out in front and he's all Chris Hinshaw, just like that. And he pulls me into the suite and he just wants to rap about the methodologies. What are you doing? What are you working on? What insights are you having? And that's where

I found it. He wanted to know down the road what was I thinking about. And that's always what's driving me. And that's why I don't think about a book is because what I want to work on is something else. Like, for example, fast twitch athletes versus slow twitch athletes. How do we train them different? How do we assess them differently? Because I'm always trying to find ways to maximize adaptation faster. And that's my quest. So going back to that book thing. So you're, I didn't completely

misunderstand. So what you're saying is, is that instead of, um, stopping on the climb to the top of the mountain, um, at 14,000 feet and saying, and writing a book about your journey to the 14,000 foot mark, you're too busy distracted looking at 15,000 feet and 16,000 feet. Or another peak. That's what I'm thinking about is that I want to add another chapter,

another chapter, because I don't feel like the story's been told because I'm still finding significant opportunity to help people. You know, professions, for example, different sports. This is where CrossFit is. It really is incredible if you step back and think about what it provides. So, like, I've done a lot of work in firefighting, a lot. I've spent three years, you know, working on it. And everything is just investigation, working with

firefighters, working with the fire department in New York. And, you know, I was just out there last Friday training them. Part of it is, is professions can look at their movements that they do on the job, and we can find functional fitness movements that are equivalent to that and train it. But the problem is, is that people within FIRE don't have the tools to understand how to write programming to make that happen. And that's where CrossFitters can come in. So we can look at a ladder lift, a body drag. We can look at having to climb stairs with their tank and their gear, and we can come up with equivalent movements. But this is where the challenge happens. Firefighters, how do they train? They train speed, strength, and power, force, right? Intensity. That's how they train.

But how are their jobs performance judged? When you go fight a fire, you have to put on a tank, and that tank typically lasts 20 minutes. And most firefighters, they can't get cleared to put on a second tank, meaning they can't recover, meaning it is their recovery that is their limitation. And if an athlete tells me that their recovery is their limitation, I don't focus on speed. That's the wrong thing. It's the opposite end of the spectrum. But most people don't understand that. And that's where I come in, that if you want to double your capacity to fight a fire, you want people to put on two bottles, then you got to get them to be able to recover so that they can be cleared to go back in. And that's not how firefighters train. They need to take a step back and not think about how fast you could climb six flights of stairs. The question is, is after you climb

six flights of stairs, how soon can you perform your job? What is the answer to that? Is there a magic word for recovery? Well, I mean, think about this. If I ask you what is preventing you from doing a certain movement, what is limiting your work capacity? So if you think about any movement, rope climbs, pull-ups, push-ups, push-ups. Think about how many push-ups you can do when broken. Imagine you have a goal of doing 10 more. Well, me as your coach, you have to tell me what's preventing you from reaching

your goal. And if you tell me, I'll put that stimulus on your body and we'll create that adaptation. Most people don't realize after a while within CrossFit that it is the recovery that prevents them from doing more work. Meaning in your push-ups, you just get tired, right? If you tell me that your limitation in push-ups is I just get tired, then that's what I need to fix. What I need to do is improve your ability to clear fatigue at a faster rate while you're doing push-ups so that when you get to your max, you're less tired and you could do more. It's not your speed, your strength, your power, right?

It's your recovery. And that's what's needed in fire. Fire, their problem is, is that they don't know how to recover because they focus on the wrong end of the spectrum. And what is that? What is that that helps people recover better? Can you tell me? would adapt to do that more volume. That's how you run a marathon. You just add more running volume until the last logical workout is a full marathon. Speed, strength, it's all developed the same. The problem is recovery tricks people. They're not quite clear on it. And what CrossFitters do is they sit around if they do interval work, like take wall balls and you're doing 150 wall

balls. You know what they do? They do wall balls and then they sit around and do nothing and rest. Then they do wall balls. If you're always sitting in your recovery, then you get good at sitting. What we need to do is we need to reframe that. We need to do more work and disguise it as recovery. So instead of doing 20-pound wall balls and then sitting around and doing nothing, what I want you to do is very slow air squats, very slow. And if you get in two air squats in that minute break that you're taking, that's more than just sitting and doing nothing. Pretty soon it will turn into three and four. Pretty soon what you're doing is you're actually alternating between your 20-pound ball and a five-pound plate to the touch to the wall. Essentially, what we're doing is a running sprint and not sitting in a chair for three minutes and recovering. What we're doing is starting

you with a walk to recover and then doing a jog and then doing a a run. So one of the things I say all the time is, how fast can you run and recover? Matt Fraser can run a 735 mile and recover. Rich Froning, 756 and recover. What we need to do is we need to change and reframe some of the programming around athletes' weaknesses, which isn't always speed strength power volume sometimes it's they just get tired it it's like you're um people are always talking about adaptation

and getting adaptation from training you know doing in their training getting adaptation that makes them better athletes you're like you know and the way I've been thinking about it, as you talk is you're forcing an adaptation to what resting looks like. That's correct. You reframe and what your job as a coach is to find that stimulus that hits that goal adaptation. And you have to do it in a way that is logical, that's understandable to the athlete, Otherwise they won't do it. It can't be science-y. And that's the beauty of the human body is it's logical. But what post people don't realize is, is like, they're not, and they shouldn't know. Why would an athlete know what's preventing them from doing more work? And that's where a coach comes in. Is it this? Is it this? Is it this? It's a puzzle. It's a math equation.

Going back to the firefighters, this is a little off subject, but I have, like you, probably not as many as you, I know a lot of firefighters. And over the years, the profession has really, really changed. But one of the things, one of my friends who's a fire captain was telling me, I had seen somewhere this machine that it's like a forklift, but for people. It's for picking up obese people. And he had told me that the number one injury in his department, and he's pretty sure in the entire country, was firefighters hurting their backs from picking obese people up who had fallen behind their toilet. their backs from picking obese people up who had fallen into like, um, like behind their toilet or had fallen somewhere where it was difficult and you had to get into some weird position to pick them up.

And that, that, and I, and I, oh, and so he goes, now every fire station has one of these machines. He told me that basically you just kind of like drive it in there. You know, it's like a, you're not actually sitting and driving it, but it's like this hand truck that's motorized and it scoops people up. And it's a, that is one of the most amazing things, especially during these COVID times. And when I hear about paramedics, when you get these people who are like three or 400 pounds, or I hear nurses telling stories about like, hey, you get someone who's 300 or 400 pounds who's in a,

and you hear it from CrossFitters, who's in the ICU, and it takes several nurses or one CrossFitter to roll them over. And you have to roll them over periodically or else, you know, they'll suffocate themselves to death. Anyway, it was just a story I thought of because being a firefighter these days, yeah, it's crazy. The size of human beings these days is, and it's nothing like when we were kids. Do you remember that? Like, periodically, once a year, you'd walk into a Denny's and you'd see someone who's three or 400 pounds, and you'd be like, wow, that's, that's like the biggest person I've ever seen. And now like, it's, it's the norm. Well, I mean, that's the thing is like, you look at professions, and this is where people,

I think they're lost. You know, you look at firefighting, for example, almost 50% of firefighters line of duty deaths are because of heart attacks since 2006. Wow. Wow. Yes. And so. Is that the shoveling snow phenomenon? Why is that? Is that like, you know, how like the first snow of every year, there's always a bunch of heart attacks because the old guy like me or you goes out there and shovel snow and it's our first movement of the year and we have a heart attack. Do you know that phenomenon? Yeah, no, I do. Yep. Okay. So what's going on with firefighters? No, it's just the nature of their job. I mean, they've got constant interruptions in their sleep.

You know, I was just at a firehouse in New York on Friday. And a really cool picture on your Instagram of that, by the way. Oh, thanks, man. It was really cool. And the fire alarm goes off for them to report. And it startled me. It raced my heart so hard. I'm like, what? I can't imagine being in a deep sleep and knowing that that can strike at any moment. But part of it is that they lose between 3% and 4% of their fitness every year on the job. There's no physical fitness program for firefighters. There's a lack of information on their risk and the likelihood of heart attacks.

They have no goals. There's no time for them. Right. They lack motivation and they're also protected by a union. So there's no testing. And it's a huge problem. And firefighters agree that it's a problem, but they also don't want any protocols in place that compromise their job and their potential career. Right. Yeah, it's a huge bummer. But that's where I think that professions like that, they need free programming. They need it to be free, doing is related to the profession. So, you know, like hose hoists, you know, stair climbs with hose packs, you know, hose pulls, kneeling hose pulls, lifts and carries, right, of equipment.

All of these things can be simulated in dry land, circuit-type training, CrossFit style in the firehouse. And that's the thing is every single piece, no matter if you're a firefighter or a CrossFit champion, it has to be logical. You have to understand it. If not, no one will do it. I think you're the first person on this show that's ever used the word hose, but whatever. You do you.

You said the program should be free. I want to be very, very clear. I've gotten, I don't know what's going on with me these days. I can't stand it when people blame COVID for things when it's really the COVID response. And I, and now I'm tripping on the word free. And, um, when he says free, he's talking about free for the recipients. Nothing is free. These people need a world-class protocol, world-class gyms. They need – what did I just hear the other day that the U.S. government is spending $2 billion on? It was complete insanity.

But these – you take that number. You find out how many fire stations there are. I don't know how they break fire station. Figure out how many counties there are in the United States. Let's say 5,600. And if you were to spend a million dollars on every county so that they could have their own workout facility, it's not free, but it's like five, what would that be?

5.6 billion. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's $50 billion. But those are the kind of things that would have an enormous impact on all of society, as opposed to some of this other idiocy we're doing. What we're doing is we're acting from a place of fear instead of investing in our future. And it's like building a seawall instead of building your house on higher ground. It's like... Anyway, I just wantall instead of like building your house on higher ground. It's like,

anyway, anyway, I just want to, I want to be very clear that when he says free, he's talking about for the recipient. He's not talking about some janky program. No. Uh, Chris, how were your parents? Did you have good parents? I did. Um, yeah, I mean, I always had a quarter in my pocket. Um, definitely was given a lot of opportunity, but it was also a house that was, it was very disciplined. Very. Your parents, they stayed married? I grew up in a household that it was filled with athletic talent, and I was very late in developing, and I was one that the perception about me was that I was unwilling to commit to anything because I was always moving from one thing to another. Because for me, my brothers, my sisters, they swam, and they were great, all Americans in high school. I wasn't good at swimming.

Were they older? I have an older sister and a younger brother and a younger sister. Okay, wow, one of four, okay. So two went to UCLA and one went to Cal. Wow. And very, very talented, very, um, for people who don't know, um, Cal is UC Berkeley and, um, UCLA and Cal are enormous, enormous accomplishments in, um, in life. I don't know about any more, but for sure in the eighties and nineties,

if you went there and you were an athlete, that means you were smart as shit and you were a physical specimen. Sorry, go on, Chris. I apologize. Yeah, like, I mean, if you think about it, as a senior in high school, yeah, they were the package that these solid schools wanted. I didn't have that. And because of that, I migrated around. I went to baseball. I tried different sports.

And I wasn't good at anything, mainly because I went to baseball. I tried different sports and I wasn't good at anything. Um, mainly because I just developed late and, um, what it would develop late. You mean just puberty late, like hair down to your arms late. Like, yeah. And I was just small. Um, I was small and I, and you know, one of the things I like, like short, like, I don't think of you as small. What do you mean? No, I was skinny. I was skinny. I was I was I was small in comparison to other people in school, for sure. Even your siblings? Yeah, yeah. My brother was bigger than me. And he's 18 months younger. Okay. So, but my parents were always supportive of whatever you wanted to do. Wait, one more thing. When did you realize you were small? Did someone have to tell you? Like, I didn't realize I had a big nose until I was like 16.

I was a sophomore in high school and someone made fun of my nose. I was like, who are you talking to? Isn't that something? And then I went home and I looked in the mirror. I'm like, holy shit. I missed that thing. That's's really funny it must have grown in this afternoon anyway so how did you know you were small well i mean that's the thing is that you don't know you don't know certain things until other people point it out and then you're like

oh you mean i'm not normal in that way you don't do that right like i remember when i was in eighth grade i would tap the front side of a pole and the back side of a pole. And I would walk down the hallway doing it. And my best friend, when I was in eighth grade, he's like, what are you doing? I'm like, oh, it brings me luck. And he's like, how does that happen exactly? And then I thought about it. And then he says these, he goes, freak.

And I never did it again. Yeah. You know, but you don't know until someone points it out. And I knew in high school because my sister was one to always point out things to make me more insecure. My sister was, let's say, challenging on me during high school because we were only 18 months apart. And I was always tagging along with her because she had a car. So she would always point out, the reason why you don't like swimming is because you're so skinny and you have no body fat and that's why you're cold all the time. Just stuff like that. But my parents, to give you an idea, I watched the Ironman one day on TV, Kona, that you were talking about. And that's a 2.4-mile ocean swim, 112-mile bike ride, and 26.2-mile run. And if you're decent, you start that run at around the heat of the day, 12 noon, 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

And it's across the lava fields in Hawaii. And I'm watching it and I'm, you know, 18 years old. I'm there with my dad and keep in mind, he was tough, tough. You know, he was an attorney and everything was yes or no to him. There's no gray, it's black or white. And that's how I grew up. There's no vagueness. You make a decision, you stick to that decision. That's how I grew up. There's no vagueness. You make a decision, you stick to that decision.

So I'm sitting there and inside I'm like watching this and I was fascinated by what the human body can do. And the whole time as I'm watching as an 18-year-old, if I did this and I was able to finish, I now had something that no one could ever take away. Something that I could be proud of. Something that I, because I didn't have anything. And, you know, they were always winning everything. And I never won anything as a kid, ever. I lost, I lost, I lost in everything. And so, I thought maybe, you know, and so, I brought it up sitting there watching it with my dad. And I'm like, I think I want to do that. And now imagine his power as a father for whatever he's going to say next to me. Right, right. That's what coaches have.

That's what parents have. And if you are condescending, if you are sarcastic, if you're disrespectful in that moment, and if he was that way to me, I would have cowered away and never brought it up again. And he didn't. What he did, first of all, is he said, you know, just so we're talking about the same thing, because I was somewhat flighty, you know, he's like, that's 2.4 mile swim and 112 mile bike ride and 26.2 mile run. And I'm like, yeah, no, I know that. Yeah. I'd like to. And he looks over at me and there's this pause and he's all, well, Chris, let's make that happen. And that was a good thing. That was a moment where I needed some help and I got it. Yeah.

He believed in you. In the moment that I needed it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was. Do you have kids, Chris? I do.

I have three. Do they, what's your youngest one so he's 23 he's just finishing up school uh up in san francisco i have another up in san francisco she got two uh undergrads and a master's in psychology down in san diego she's now doing social work in san francisco on the streets, getting clinical hours. And then my oldest one, she's 29, and she was recruited and now working at DoorDash. She's the senior manager there. And what city is that in? San Francisco.

Oh, my goodness. This next thing I say, I might regret. I'm very, very sorry. The Bay Area is a bad place right now it is yeah it is i used to live up there and i visited up there and and the people there are broken their souls are broken my family who lives there everyone i know something has happened yep everybody wants terrified and everyone's terrified of each other well do you realize so i was like it's so hostile it is not it is not the peace love um no uh brawless town that i uh i love so much like i went there with my kids and and since a lady rode by on a bike

with her mask two-year-old and we're on the sidewalk and and she says um to her two-year-old stay away from those kids they're not masked about my kids i'm like hold and and that's like the nor it's bad it is it's that it's it's that plus so bad the homelessness there though is yes and the police aren't doing anything like i were walking. Oh, the police are damaged too. Oh, it's so. And I don't know how you would fix it. Yeah. Well, the people don't realize.

People have to start doing their partnership. People have to. I want to circle back around to your dad, by the way. But people have to realize that you have a partnership with the garbage man, with the postman, and with the police. This is not like you do not park your car in front of the post office box in front of your house. Because the mailman needs to drive up, open your door without getting out of the car and slip the mail in don't be an asshole don't put your garbage cans there we all know that same with the garbage can put your garbage can out the same way so the garbage truck can pick it up and same with the

police man just fucking be cool they have a fucking hard job yeah like do your part as a civilian stop blaming them for fucking everything you do that job it's same with the bees treat the police like the bees stay the fuck away from them let them pollinate the flowers and don't be don't be an asshole around them don't kill them don't like just stay away and don't get stung and let them do their shit sorry yeah but that's true though the bee that's a good analogy people aren't doing their part. That's the bummer. It's like, you know that bee's going to sting you, and why are you doing it? So now you're surprised that you got stung, and now it's the bee's fault?

Please. You know, that's where I get frustrated. But my issue was— And be nice to them. Plant some flowers in the corner of your yard so the bees can have them. Wave to the police officer. Be nice to them. Their job sucks.

Their job is not – their job – I was thinking about your job too, Chris. You have this amazing job and you walk by. I was looking at how much you travel. You walk by. You travel from – you are this guy who probably absolutely loves what you do, but your method of getting place to place travels through people who hate what they do. TSA people, people moving luggage at airports. Like airports bring out the worst in humanity. And here's this man who's traveling from city to city

around the planet sharing health tips and personal empowerment tips. And yet I just imagine you having to like like it's such a juxtaposition probably as you're showing someone your id at tsa i mean i was tripping on it because i was looking at how much you travel it's like traveling sucks why because the people in that industry um i think for the most part, it seems like they hate their jobs. Yeah, I think so too. But you know what? I, I have learned in traveling a lot, a little bit of kindness towards someone who is checking you in the amount of reward that you get.

So like I was in Denver recently and flight got delayed and, and eventually canceled and they wanted to put me in a bus and take me way outside of Denver airport. And I'm like, I'm staying at the Westin, you know, like I'm thinking to myself, I'm staying at the Westin right here on site, which wasn't on the list. And so I went up and I'm all look, and I was just nice. I was just being kind. And here they had a long line of people from cancellations and what a mess that they had to deal with all those angry people. Person looked at me from being nice and said, look, here's what you do in order to get your money back. And what you do is you just submit the receipt. And they gave me exactly how to do it.

And what you did, I didn't do is take the coupon and hop in the bus. I did what I wanted to do, submitted my receipt, and then they paid it. But I got the keys to the car from them out of kindness. And that's the unfortunate part about the police, especially in San Francisco. Like I was there and I'm walking down the sidewalk and I couldn't get down the sidewalk because of all the tents. And I have to walk and it's not safe there, you know, walking between right on the, on the, on the curb, the gutter. I walked down the middle of the street and a cop car went right past me as I'm walking down the middle and they knew exactly why I was walking in the middle. And it was just, I gave him a simple wave and it was just keep on walking. But I am on the line separating the two sides of the street. Can you imagine the center of the street is safer than the sidewalk? I'm talking about...

It's true. I know it. Yeah, I know the experience. Terrible. The kindness thing is really amazing. I'm one of those people that realizes that every time I go to a restaurant and I have a waiter, a waitress or everywhere I go, whether I have a checker, it's, and I used to be a checker myself. My first job was a checker and I loved it because I got to like really put on

the charm and try to like to make, or not make, but be a benefit to people's lives, be a light in people's eyes, you know? And, um, uh,

it's the same thing. Like if you're pulling into a parking spot at the same time as someone else, like your default always should be to back out, even if you're a hundred percent in the right, because the benefit you get when you do that for someone, for me at least is insane. Cause they're so happy and you are part of that and you just move on to the next parking spot. Like who gives a shit? Like that person's stoked well yeah um don't don't you ever feel like you go to a restaurant every person you're dealing with like they should be charming you because they want the tip but instead it's actually you trying to charm them like it's but some of my best meals my best and and i i love so mean, I travel and do all of my seminars, mainly because I want to get

a pulse on what's going on around the world. I want to know what people are interested in, what they know and what they don't know. And I mean, that's the main reason. But the other is, because I like, you know, the food and I like sampling different things. And I mean, there's a reason why we go to Italy so frequently. But the best meals that I've ever had is where I was very kind to the people as coming in, staff. And then I say to them, I'm all, look, can you just bring me and Heidi, whatever the chef recommends? I don't even want it just weed everything. and that's when your kindness pays off because then they're going to bring you the juice the good stuff the cream of the crop yeah off menu yeah i love it yeah i love it yeah kindness i think that you know what i was you know i was asking hayley adams this

was a i gave her a quiz and i said hayley if you have picked the chance you know, I was asking Haley Adams, this was a, I gave her a quiz and I said, Haley, if you have to pick the chance, you know, get a guy, would you prefer rich, good looking, funny, or nice? She's all rich. And then good looking, and then funny and nice was last and it's like wow how things change when you get older oh yes oh yes just nice the the the thing about being with someone who's good looking there's two really bad things about it it it wanes and it's not the part that the fact that there looks wane for you. That's going to be hard. It's the fact that how much good looking people rely on their looks. When you're little,

you hear in your, in your, a man of five foot five, you hear about something called, um, short man's complex. And when you're older, you start to become aware of the world that has the people with the tall man

complex. You would rather be picked on as a kid and have the hardships as a kid than have a perfect life and have to not be not have the calluses needed to survive as an adult and it's kind of like that and when you when you're with people who've been had everything i don't want to say given to them it's not their fault that they're good looking um but when you when you when you're around those people who've had a lot of gifts especially men that i've worked with in the past i'm growing up and life's been easy for them they end up being um six foot four tall handsome men in their 40s and 50s who end up or cry babies who are just offended easily and it's like dude are you kidding me like well that's what that's

and the whole changes. Yeah. That's why I hate what they're doing in a lot of these, you know, communities where they with kids, youth, they're not keeping score. Everybody's a winner. And it's like, at some point in time, they're going to get the realities of life. And that is you're going to lose the majority of the time. And probably every time there's only one winner. And that's where I feel like me and I look back on where I was when I was younger and

just the beatings that I took. I was not good at anything. I lost at everything I did for 20 years. I didn't learn how to win until I was in my 20s. I did for 20 years. I didn't learn how to win until I was in my 20s. And I think that that's valuable because part of it is, is that when I lose, I go back and how do I fix it? What learning from those things. And it's the same thing with a workout with an athlete. The worst workout I could ever give an athlete is one that we didn't learn anything. We need to always want to learn. And by losing, that's your catalyst. Unfortunately, that's getting lost on a lot of this current generation because they always win. They always

get a ribbon. And it's like, that's not how it is when you get, you know, you grow up. When you took second place in the Ironman, were you disappointed or were you happy? No, I was happy? No. No, I was happy about it. Just to be clear, from what I could tell, you won the swim, you won the bike, and then you switched places with the winner in the run. Is that correct? So you were in the lead most of the time? About eight miles in.

Yeah. But it was a breakout performance for me. I got fourth in the national championship short course, you know, three weeks prior to that. You know, the thing about it is, is that in hindsight, and this also drives me as a coach. I think about my career back then, and I could have been better. I never went into a gym and lifted heavy. I did no CNS-type work. What's CNS? Central nervous system. So heavy lifting.

To work on my power output, my strength, my ability to sprint, my finishing kick. I could never figure out why I would lose every single sprint to the finish. And the environment back then, one, you couldn't talk to your coaches. There wasn't coaches, whether they knew things or not, they weren't approachable. And so, I take that with me now where anybody that I work with, I don't want them to be reflective and go, I could have been better. Because that is a huge regret of mine when I think back on when I raced. I could have been better. But that's not to say that in my events, for example, I got second in the world championships, uh, three years after

that race. And I got passed in the last, like less than a mile to go. And I had been out in front for, you know, eight hours and 40 minutes. Crazy. And I got passed and I ran a two 50 marathon and got passed by a guy that ran. And I had a 20 minute lead coming off of the bike. And I ran a 250 marathon and got passed by a guy that ran. And I had a 20-minute lead coming off of the bike, and I got passed. He ran 230 in a marathon in an Ironman. And, boy, that was a day. So my dad, you know, was following me. This is my second-to-last race I ever did. Your dad went to your races?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, my dad was very active i mean my dad did iron man several times uh my dad was as a master swimmer he had more world records than any other swimmer um that that had existed before he was you know sponsored by the olympic club yeah very talented uh yeah it's not by accident that kids have talent. It's genetics. When the gods came down and handed out athletic ability, I got some good ones. But my dad, when I got passed, he hops out of the car following me. And I'm sitting by this time because I was so devastated, devastated that that happened.

I thought for sure, like, I got it, I got it. He gets out, and he's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I just have to regroup. And he's like, no, you're sitting here, and you're not going. And I was having like a little pout, right? But my whole body shut down on me. As soon as I got passed, it was like I had nothing left. I gave everything.

And he's like, know like this is in this is during the race you stopped when you got with less than a mile to go oh yeah no my whole system shuts down and i'm sitting there kneeling and i'm like you know like on the side of the road and he gets out and he parks in the middle of the street comes over to me and he me, what are you doing? And I'm like, I just don't have it. I'm trying to regroup. And I was trying to make some sense. He just looks at me straight in the eye, gets right in me. He's all, champions don't quit. They don't quit. And I've never quit, ever, ever. And I looked at him, and I just got up and I went and I ran, you know, eight, eight hours and 50 minutes and got second place there too. But in that event, it was the best I could do. I got beat by somebody better.

Did you ever talk to that guy? Oh, all the time. Ray Browning. Yeah. Did he know? Ray Browning. Did he know? He was so weird. He was, he like, was he like, Oh, I'm going to fuck Chris in the run? No.

Was he scared the whole race? He's like, oh, shit, I'm going to lose. Or did he know? No, because he's a competitor. This is where you need to realize that when you're at that level, you can't not go after somebody. You go for it. I'll never realize that, but go on.

But you take extraordinary. I'll never realize that but go on but you take extraordinary you wouldn't like that i i just don't know i don't have any of that in me i'm i'm a fucking pussy i got wait okay here's you know what i mean yeah here's your scenario so let's just say i know what i am i'm a squid i'm not a shark but let's just say that you have someone who you've always wanted to beat, and you're doing a 5K run in Santa Cruz, and that person is 50 meters in front of you, and you've been gaining on that person for the last mile. Yes. And you only got a little bit of time left, but it's a long, steep descent coming into the finish. Are you not going to take risk of flying down that hill of injury, falling, right? You will.

Yes, for sure. Yes. Yeah, I am like that. That's the, so many of us CrossFitters are like that. Yep. But that's it. Exactly. So when you're riding down a mountain pass and you're going around the corner so sharp,

so fast that they begin to slide and you feel that slide where you're on the edge of the envelope, that's where you are all the time. And this guy that was catching me, I knew he was going to come. He was going to make a run. Um, but that's why it's like, I just did the best I possibly could. And I ran two hours and 50 minutes and got beat. Yeah. It's nuts. It's nuts because you only that, but you won the first two events. I still got second. That's like kissing your sister. Ouch. Oh, man. I've never heard that. I might use that. That's the most vile thing that's ever been said on this show. I can't believe it. But that's how second feels. Oh, my goodness. So you said your house had discipline.

There's this thing that I talk about, pretending like I know what I'm talking about when I talk about parenting, that discipline, structure, and follow through. Those are the things that I'm constantly reminding myself, if I'm going to be a good dad. And what do you mean that there was discipline in your house? Give me some examples. Expectations. There was structure. you a good dad that and what do you mean you're there was discipline in your house well give me some examples um expectations there was structure there was there was no ambiguity that every one of

us was not going to college you were going and it it was just like that was part of growing up. You were always going to do a sport. So when I got back into swimming when I was 17, 18 years old, morning swim practice was at 5 a.m. And you're going. And it wasn't even talked about like, hey, you're going tomorrow. It's like you're going to get up and you're going to go and take care of yourself. You're going to go there and come back. That's how it was. When I trained for Ironman, my dad would work all day.

And when he came home, he wanted to know, what did you do today? No day was wasted. You were, there was expectations all the time and it was not acceptable to just hang out. My dad would always say, you know, if you said to him you were bored, he saw, you know what, boredom? It's a self-inflicted state of mind. That's what it was like. If my kids use that word, I tell them, I said, you were never allowed to use that word until you can tell me what it means. Self-inflicted state of mind.

And they don't use it anymore. I'm like, you don't even know what that means. Self-inflicted state of mind. And they don't use it anymore. I'm like, you don't even know what that means. Yeah. But you do, I think that your kids are in, are they in jujitsu? They're, yeah, that's one of the things they do. I ride them pretty damn hard. But I think that that's the key is things like jujitsu, it teaches discipline, right? Self-respect. is discipline, right? Self-respect. And that's important. And I noticed that that's missing with a lot of athletes that say they want to go to the games or win the games. There's this lack of ownership on their part. They just are drifting. My stepmom one time was telling, and I was very young and it didn't really resonate with me until I got older.

She was telling me about the importance of having identity as a child. And I would remember one of my friends who was like the homecoming king and the most handsome guy from the second grade to my senior year in high school. His name was Jeff Holman. He's probably my best friend I've ever had in my life. And he would always be like, man, it's so cool that you're Armenian. It's so cool that you're Armenian. And I never really understood that. And then somewhere in my 20s, I had a rebirth. I realized I had an awakening. I had a, I guess some people would call a born again moment. Something happened to me and I hit rock bottom, and I got reset, and I realized, oh, shit, like, I am not who.

I've been resting on this identity that I had, but it's not who I am. I can actually be anything. Like, even my name is made up. You know what I mean? Like, the whole world, the whole bottom fell out of the world. Like Ronnie Teasdale, he changed his name to Raw. You can do whatever the fuck you want. Right, right.

the fuck you want right right um and so um but but but that being said if you don't give something if you don't give a child an identity or help a child build an identity then they you have to go through those phases if you don't become 100 sure that you're a caterpillar and flourish as a caterpillar and kick ass and eat leaves you will never become a fucking butterfly right and so you have to play that fake fake ass game and some people never become a butterfly and they just are amazing caterpillars that's fine too but the worst thing that can happen to you is you're never even an amazing caterpillar you really have to brace this fakeness until you have an opportunity one day to wake up and realize you're nothing. My point being is, and this is something that you said a bunch that I never had as a kid.

My kids have my, the world gave me my identity, which is fine. You're Armenian. These are your parents. My kid at the age of six years old earned his gray belt and one of the instructors walked by me and said well that'll never be taken from him and i watched his gray belt induction and it was very emotional like it was a really hard test he had to pass and it was emotional but but but whatever i didn't give a fuck like oh it's cool i was proud of him but that's it and then this instructor walks by me and says that will never be taken from him and i was tripping i'm like what do you mean by that and he's all he could quit jujitsu now and

come back in 10 years and he'll still be a gray belt that's his and i almost started crying right there i'm like holy shit and then we got in the car and i asked my son obvious that how was that and he said i had to fight back tears the entire time during the test in front of all his peer group this 40 minute test or whatever garth taylor jujitsu and i'm like holy shit i don't like wipe back tears the entire time during the test in front of all his peer group, this 40 minute test or whatever, Garth Taylor Jiu Jitsu. And I'm like, holy shit.

I don't like, holy shit. This six year old now has accomplished something that will never be taken from him. And I'm thinking, what's the first thing I accomplished? I was 16 years old and I got a paycheck and I probably bought a box of condoms and a two liter of Coke with it, you know,

that I never used because I didn't lose my virginity until I was almost 18. But I still had the box of condoms just in case. But Coke with it, you know, that I never used. Cause I didn't lose my virginity until I was almost 18, but I still had the box of condoms just in case. But like, he's, he's, um, it's, it's crazy. It's like what you're saying. Like you earned, like you were giving these examples of things that like, once you personally earn that it's yours. And, um, he said he was going to, and it's going back to your story about your dad when you told him you want to do that. And there was that moment where you wanted to try the Ironman. And there was that moment where he's like, and he went over the distances. And he's like, okay.

I had a skateboard in my house and I wanted Avi to skate so bad. And I left the skateboard out in the entryway of the house. And I would put him on the skateboard every once in a while from when he was 10 months old to like two years old. And I wanted him to be, I wanted to have this freak phenom like kid, like that, you know what I mean? Like he'd be on like some TV show. Oh my God, look, a two-year-old can skate. He never showed any interest in the skateboard. I didn't really like, you know, I didn't push him to it.

I just left it out in the open. At five and a half years old, he walks by the skateboard that's been sitting there for three years. And he says to me, I'm going to ride this every single day. And I'm like, you are? And he goes, yeah. And I go, hey, I'm like, for how long? And he said, I'm going to ride this every single day for a year. And I said, really?

He goes, yeah. And I go, do you want help doing that? And he goes, yeah. I'm like, because I'll ride you and make sure you make that goal. And he said, yeah, let's do it. And he's five and a half. And I said, okay. And I don't feed my kids really any added sugar or ice cream or any of that shit. And I go, here's something else I'll do. Every hundred consecutive days you make it, I'll buy you an ice cream cone. And if you make it 365 days, I'll buy you an ice cream cake that you can pick out

and you can invite everyone, anyone over you want to come eat it. And he's like, holy shit. And I would say 360 of those 365 days, he willingly got on that skateboard. And only five days I was like, Hey dude, we got to go in the garage. You just have to stand on it for 10 minutes. I don't give a shit what you do. Yeah. Like I know it's raining outside, but you got to go stand on the skateboard for 10 minutes. I like that. And he would go out. Yeah. And he made it, and he knows that now. Yeah. And he's a shredder. And the first 100 days were horrible, Chris. I'm telling you.

Like, so bad. Like, I mean, like, literally, like, it would take him, sometimes we would go out for a mile skateboard ride, and I can't skateboard, so I can't give him any tips, and it would take three hours. I mean, the first 100 days, the learning curve was atrocious harder than harder than walking for a child i'd say and um and now he did that that and that's another thing and i'm just seeing all my it's like what you're saying like this fuck the skateboard he learned he's adding to his identity he's building discipline he's building structure he's. He's building discipline. He's building structure. He's building, it's like.

You just want them to make a choice. And parents, I'm so happy you didn't make him do it because that's not going to actually help down the road. You as a kid to make a choice and to take ownership and responsibility. And that's why even what like a lot of people that are listening may be saying, oh, he's bribing with ice cream. No, no, no, no, no. What we're doing is celebrating. We're celebrating because you know what? We're doing this together. It's a celebration. That's just the same thing as graduating. Graduating from college is not a bribe. It's a celebration. And that's why I always tell parents and other coaches, it's like, we all have responsibilities, but if they don't own anything, then they're not going to actually create any confidence,

knowledge. There's nothing of any substance there. We need them to take ownership. No identity being built. I'll tell you about forcing people, and I've told this story a thousand times, and I'm clearly living through my kids vicariously. I'm definitely having my kids do things that I wish I would have done. Skateboarding, dancing, the martial arts. So I take Avi to jujitsu class at three years old. They tell me not to take him until he's four, and basically he starts crying.

And so I take him out right away, right? And the instructor told me not to bring him until he's four, but I told him my kid's a phenom. He can do it at three. I was wrong. The instructor was right. I brought him back a year later. I set him up in the jiu-jitsu class. And he does the first 15 minutes of class, which is all warmup, running, bear crawls, shuffling, all that stuff. And after 15 minutes, he's supposed to start working on technique for

the next 15 minutes. And with technique and jiu-jitsu, you have to touch people, put your hands on people's chest. There's grown men grabbing you, all this shit, right? And he's four years old. He comes over, and he's got a tear running down his face. He goes, I don't want to do the technique. I go, why? What's up? He goes, I don't want anyone touching me.

And I go, yeah, I don't want anyone touching me either. I go, just sit here, and let's just wait. Just hang out for the next 15 minutes. He goes, really? I go, yeah, just sit. They have this thing. It's called base, where you sit on your knees. I go, just sit in base and be respectful to the class.

He goes, thank you, Heidi. That means thank you, just sit in base and be respectful to the class. He goes, thank you, Heidi. That means thank you, father. I give him a kiss on the cheek. We do that three days a week for three months. It's a half hour drive to the class and a one hour fucking drive home in traffic.

And after how many classes is that? That's a 12 after 36 classes in three months, he was only doing the first 15 minutes and sitting there in base the next 15 minutes and i'm always like giving him a high five the instructor comes over to him and says garth taylor says obvi obvi goes what and he goes did you know that batman does jujitsu and obvi goes really and he goes yeah and bam no and now obvi's a gray belt and he just kicked ass in his second tournament jujitsu-Jitsu tournament, which is a whole other talk. Putting a six-year-old in front of 1,000 people to do Jiu-Jitsu, you want to throw up.

Do that to your kid and watch your kid. And he's telling me, no, he's not going to do the tournament the whole time. And I'm like, yeah, you don't have to. Just let's go. I already bought you a remote-control car. To get it, all you got to do is show up to the tournament, put your gi on, bow, and then if you don't want to do it, let's get out of there and get home and play with your car. And I mean it. Like, I don't care.

I'm scared for him. Like, I kind of don't want him to do it either. You know what I mean? Well, because you're right. But you're right. You got to give them a choice. At some point, you got to, like, you have to force them, but you also have to give them a choice at some point you got to like you have to you have to force them but you also have to give them a choice they have to have a um they have to be in control they have to

know that they did it that's correct yeah i didn't do shit you did it that's why it's like as a coach you know people talk about the people that i've worked with and then winning it's like those that's those wins the athlete did it the athlete and and part of it's like those wins, the athlete did it. The athlete, and part of it is, is there's no difference of being a coach, like Matt Frazier. Matt Frazier, you know, in working with him in 2014 until he retired, he was a kid. I'm 58 years old. And part of it is, is that your job is with your maturity and experience is to give them some guidance that's going to help them afterwards, not only during, but afterwards. And that was one of the things that you always sit down and you will talk with athletes about, hey, there is opportunity all around you, but please pay attention to it.

Because the last thing that you want to do is when this is all done, and it will end, you're now scrambling, you're panicked because you had no plan. And that's what a parent should do is point out this opportunity and make opportunity available. I mean, you know, this whole conversation, you know, in 2020 about privilege, that is privilege because you can create these opportunities by sitting in a class for three months and not doing anything. Right. Right. Right. But that's what we should be doing is looking at the variables and providing that and not pushing, but here's the opportunity. Now, do you want to do it? And my job is just that. We have all these options, but which one do you want to pick?

And that's important. I could pick it certainly, but I need them to pick it because then they own it. And there's a big difference from that. Big. Because when they fail, they picked. They failed. It wasn't blaming me. You did it. And what are we going to do about it? And I am here. That was the biggest thing that my dad in that conversation, what he told me, well, you know what? Let's make this happen. We were a team. Meaning if I failed, Let's make this happen. We were a team. Meaning if I failed, he's got me.

He was basically saying, Chris, go and take the risk. And if it doesn't work, I still have got you. And that's an important life lesson is that you have to take risk. You have to, but you also need a support structure behind you that's got you just in case. And even if it's an illusion, I mean, it is an illusion. No, but we provide that for people. Yeah. Well, let's face it.

You know, when your life, if it unravels, your friends can only be there for support. And let's just say that you wanted to start drinking and you drank and drank and drank no friend's going to step in your way and pull the bottle out of your hands they're just going to go be there for comfort and be there that is a hundred percent up to you to turn your life around to fix it to solve your problem and that's what i think that coaches and kids it's the same thing. And there's no difference. I mean, I've done a lot of work with kids like, you know, that with Kayla Foundation and the trail run. And I noticed the insecurities that those kids have and adults, like I said earlier in this podcast, adults have the exact same thing, these same exact insecurities. And we need to help them build their confidence back because

they've been beaten down through their whole life. And fitness is the very first thing where you see doubt. That's where it surfaces. When you are a child, your insecurities, I don't know what the word is, but they're real. And they are not your fault. There becomes a point in your life for every single human being out there. I don't know what the age is. I don't know what the turning point is. Where insecurities are no longer real and you are now indulging.

And I don't have a cure for you but you it is on you and only you to get over those insecurities you must take responsibility for them you must stop blaming they they they now now blaming could be part of the process blaming could be part of the process to get over them but in the end it is you that is what is being an adult is about i i you touched on something i was thinking about recently i i see these people who are like 60 70 years old and they're having these issues like with their boyfriends or their girlfriends or they have this shit or they're worried about the way they look or you're getting botox at 70 and i'm like man you you are I'm like, man, you are like really, really missing the boat. You are like really – there's a point in your life where you have to climb down out of the tree.

You have to, and if you don't, you won't be happy. I get it. You're young. You're powerful. You want to climb to the highest branch, but it doesn't mean you're right. Things change. climb to the highest branch but it doesn't mean you're right that things change but that's what's great about this current generation savannah is that they're asking why why do i need to stay at a profession my entire life why can't i move around right they're questioning things like

it is amazing the amount say something positive because i'm down as shit. I'm going to rally you. The thing is, I get so many people that are younger generation reaching out. Fuck you, Chris. You only work with winners. You don't know shit. You only work with winners. You have no idea. You know, one of the things that I'm asked all the time,

are you surprised by overnight success? And it's like, yeah. Yeah, this just happened overnight. Yeah, like, sure. You're like, yeah, I've never seen it. Okay, sorry, go on. So tell me some positive about this generation. No, so the generation now is asking why.

And the amount of people that reach out to me are younger people because they believe everybody's accessible. It is our generation. So, for example, Rich Froning lives 15 minutes from here. He's told me, your family, you could come in and inside the house, you could have our food, you could stay overnight, whatever you need, you don't need to ask. Your family. I would never, ever, ever go over there unless I told them I'm on my way. I just don't do that. And part of it is, is that the older generation versus this current generation, they're behaving differently and they're pushing boundaries and asking questions. They're not getting married, having a kid, getting a full-time job and buying a house, right? Going into debt. Like they're not doing that. They're questioning why. And that to me, those challenges is great because now, like when I was a kid, my coaches, you know, I did, I went to a

track workout and I got 10 by one mile, two days in a row. I couldn't talk to the coach and go, Hey, do you know you gave this yesterday? We just did it. That's what I like is I want people to challenge coaches. I want people to challenge their instructors, their teachers. I want people to ask, not just say, hey, why? Like little babies do, why, why, why?

You know what? I'm gonna explain the purpose, the reasoning, and that's going to challenge me to go out and learn more. And that's what I always tell people is like, I'm going to tell you in my seminar, I give all the things I know, the valuable things in my seminar, all of them. And people say to me, are you afraid that you're giving all of this away? Isn't that your intellectual property? People say to me, they're like, are you afraid that you're giving all of this away? Isn't that your intellectual property? It's not.

It forces me to go out and learn more. I'm in a constant quest to learn because the number of people asking me the why, the how, right? Like Frazier, I make this comment all the time. Four years ago, I was in his living room and he points at his assault bike and he says, how can you help me to win on that assault bike? Not get more fit. He wants to win.

And you got to answer that question sitting there. I like that. I want people to be challenged and pushes the edges of our experience, our knowledge base. That's what drives me as a coach. That's what drives me. I'm never satisfied. Like people watch me write workouts. I'll write a workout and I'll redo that workout over and over in my head. How do I make it better? How do I personalize it? How can I write it so it makes more logical sense? What would be the workout before this? What would be the workout after it? I'll write up 50 workouts as a spinoff of just one idea.

I want to make each piece the best. And every workout, in my opinion, should have a purpose. And if the athlete doesn't know what that purpose is, then why are you doing it? That's where I'm going. And it's being driven by the youth of this generation. Why? And it must be logical,

meaning if they can't tell a third party, it's too confusing. So there's many examples like, you know, we could talk about that, but that's where... I like all of that, by the way. I like all of that. Do you? Good. Yeah, I love that. I wish people... I don't see it enough, unfortunately, but I'm glad you see it. I see a bunch of people who are sleeping

zombies around me just walking towards the light, like a moth to the light. But I'm glad you see it. I'm glad you see it. That's the part that frustrates me is that, especially here in the United States, life is so good. So good. It's incredible. And the thing is, is like, people can reach out to me right now. And I will see that message in an hour, which how incredible is that? And, and the truth is, is that if I have something available, and that ask isn't much, you know what,

send me your email, I'll send it right over to you. There you go. That's unheard of. It's incredible. Right. And that's what but that's the culture that Glassman created. He didn't charge for workouts in the beginning. He gave them away for free. That's the culture. It's the methodology. So of course you get these things for free. Of course, athletes are accessible and coaches are accessible.

And yeah, but I find that the generation now is forcing the bad coaches to go out there and become better. Otherwise, they're going to get left behind. And it's interesting to me, I always question things. For example, if you do a Metcon, a CrossFit Metcon, why is it that everybody just lays on the ground afterwards? It never made any sense to me. You build up all of this fatigue, this lactic acid, it builds up in your body, it builds up in the muscles, it spills into the bloodstream and it's throughout your entire body and it reaches its peak. You finish the workout and you lay on the ground. of the bell-shaped curve leading you into that peak of fatigue, and now you lay on the ground and just drop straight to the floor. That never made any sense to me. Why don't we double the value of that Metcon by working the backside of that bell-shaped curve? Meaning instead of sitting around and doing nothing, let's do an active recovery and double the amount of workout time, but we just reframe it by calling

it recovery when in fact, it's a mirror image of what you just did. Those things is what- Just to objectify that real quick, you mean run a 5k and then instead of just stopping there or falling on the ground or putting your hands on your waist uh then get on an assault bike that's at the track also and just pedal it really slow right let's say you do fran do fran and then what do you do after fran fall on the ground you do nothing right and why what you could do is now that that lactate that lactate and the the acidity is in your blood that lactic acid is in your blood you can do any active recovery protocol. And let's say you're going to do moderate load, high volume deadlifts after a fran. So you'll take 15, 20, 30 seconds to kind of like get your bearings again. And then you're going to do two minutes of

very slow deadlifts at a moderate load. And where those muscles are partially going to get that energy is pulling that lactate out of the blood because it's a fuel for the slow twitch fibers. And when it takes the lactate, it will take the acidity and remove it from your body. Essentially, what you're doing is you're using your Metcon to improve your recovery in your weak movements, such as, like we said, a deadlift. And that's where it's- How do you know this? How do you know? Is this true? It's absolutely true. How do you know this?

That's part of what I, in a constant quest to learn and become better. I think that that's this thing of continuous improvement, you know, finding a way to maximize people's time. For example, five by five back squat. What do you do? You take three minutes of rest in between. Why? Because your purpose is, your focus is the five reps and the load. If you don't get three to five minutes of rest,

you're not going to be able to lift the five reps or the load. Okay. But in CrossFit, unfortunately, we're not in control of all the variables. And so maybe sometimes you should row 500 meters in that three minutes, super slow. But now in the same amount of time, I got you to row 2,500 meters and five by five

back squat. And so maybe you set a PR with your back squat and everyone's sitting around scratching their head. You know, the truth is, is that there is not an athlete that I have ever worked with on the elite level that has won the CrossFit Games that did not run two days a week and did not get stronger. Every one of them got stronger. Every one of them. There's a great video on your Instagram about that. A great video. Oh, thanks.

Yeah, you know, I do a lot of... Exactly what you just said. I do a lot of programming. I do a lot of white label of programming that is just quietly done. But with Mayhem, I do it publicly. And one of the things that I do with Mayhem is I experiment on the population that's in there. And so recently, we finished a mile for time progression, and it was the original 24 workouts in 12 weeks that I gave Rich Froning back in 2014. And we had 2,035 people do this program. And basically it was a research study. Congratulations. Yeah. It was pretty cool. And it was a research study. And what I did

without them knowing I'm experimenting on them is they're beginning onboarding numbers and what will their ending results be. And what I did is I personalized paces for every single person two times per week, similar to what I did for Rich back in 2014. Rich redid the workouts as well all the way through. This time it was on an air runner. And Rich at the end, I mean, Rich can run a 510 mile. He's more fit now than he's ever been. But my point is that I used it as an experiment to validate things that I'm doing.

That is just one example of the things that I'm trying to do to find a better way. I mean, if you went to the running community and you said, I'm going to take this guy that weighs 198 pounds, he's 5'7", and I'm going to get him to run a 505 mile running two times a week, they would laugh at you. But the reality is, is that it's done and it's done all the time. And that's what I like playing around with. And that's why I never charge elites because in a roundabout way, I'm experimenting on them. And if I can make them

better, I can make a recreational athlete significantly better. Yes. So obvious. I see that. Yep. Yeah. So I learned that from Glassman too, is that you can make something better. Yes. So obvious. I see that. Yep. Yeah. So I learned that from Glassman too, is that you can make something better. That's already pushing up on the top of the glass ceiling, then shit, it'll work miracles on someone who's can't even see the ceiling, right? Like the average improvement in that mile time with mayhem was over 50 seconds in 12 weeks. And it didn't matter if they were in their strength program, their, their compete program masters scaled. It didn't matter. Yeah. And so speaking of data points, Samuel Cornway said that Rich Ronin is the fittest man alive. And now we have a second data point

with Chris Hinshaw. That's with an I, said that Rich is fitter than he's ever been. He is. It's the truth. It is truly remarkable to hear people say that. No, he is. Top three for sure this year at the Games. It would have been for sure. He is – it's really – I can't figure him out.

It's an anomaly. Like he shouldn't be able to do the things that he's doing, and it's done. And he's so nice. Fuck, he's nice. It's that Southern charm. My mom, I got to tell you a story about him. Yep, tell me.

So my father passed away. You know, the last open workout that, I think it was in 2016, where it was Rich, Matt, and was it Ben Smith? Is that the ranch? So my dad died two days before that, three days before that. Two days after my dad passed away, I brought, I was with Matt, Rich, and James Hobart. And they went to my parents, my home as a kid. And they wanted to do a swim workout in the backyard. And my mom was there.

Because you have a pool at your house? We do. Yeah, we have a lap pool in the pool. So when I grew up, it was a house of fitness. That's all we did. I mean, everybody in my house has done Ironman. Every one of them. My brother had the swim record. My sister had the swim record. You know, I mean, it's the list of lists and they're all, they're all attorneys. I'm the only non-attorney. No, it's a list of my dad and my mom, that discipline. It's just the way we grew up. By example, that's how they were. So, they come over and we do a swim workout and my nephew was there, my niece was there,

my sister was there, younger sister. And my nephew, who was five at the time, interviews Rich with a bunch of questions like, what's your favorite cereal? You know, and just different things like that, that a five-year-old would ask. It was a moment for my mom that she still talks about today that she completely forgot about her sadness in that moment with those boys. And it was Rich Froning that resonated for her, that his kindness and talking to a five year old was unlike anything that she had seen. And it surprised him. And she didn't follow CrossFit really in what I was doing until that moment. And her favorite to this day is Rich Froning because of his kindness, that he is nice and he's respectful of not only her, but to a five-year-old boy that he'll never meet again. Yeah, it was a great moment.

And my mom talks about it all the time. Thank God that that happened because she just needed a break. He truly is remarkable. Yeah, I want to say a bunch of nice stuff about him. I feel like it's already been said. he, he truly is remarkable. Yeah. I, I, I want to say a bunch of nice stuff about him. I feel like it's already been said.

I feel like it can't be said enough. He's not normal. He's not normal. I know. I make some comments sometimes about him and people are like, wow, you know, like,

come on, let's calm down. It's like, but you know what? He's, he's a good man. He really is. And we're lucky to have him in the sport.

He's the guy. He's so different than the rest of you. And I know that there's a bunch of you who are like this. But he is the guy who, like, if you're at a gas station and you lift your gas cap off and you drove off, he'd put his fingers in his mouth and whistle at you, like 10 if you're at a gas station and you lift your gas cap off and you drove off, he'd put his fingers in his mouth and whistle at you, like 10 out of 10 times. I mean, like, he's the stop-and-fix-your-flat-tire guy. I mean, I don't know how to say it. Like, he is just cool as shit.

And, you know, there's some people who are cool as shit, and you wouldn't want them dating your mom or your sister, but not Rich, he could date whoever the fuck he wants in your family. The dude is such a, such a cool dude. He's a gentleman. Um, and, and incredibly disciplined, you know, people always talk to me about like this whole word and it's talked about, you know, coachable. If you haven't coached a lot of people, you don't know what coachable is. You don't, you have no idea. The other thing is, is that what you come across is athletes that are coachable, but they're also anomalies. And Rich isn't an anomaly, meaning he's incredibly strong.

But his cardio, his VO2 max in the movement of running rivals world record holders in the marathon. That's how good his, his VO two max is in running. So for people listening, it's 72 milliliters per kilogram per minute, which is incredible. Um, many world record holders in the past, you know, have had, you know, under 70 and have run, you know, 208. And I always tell rich, if you can get down to 115 pounds, I think you could run, you know, maybe make it to a hundred miles. But I mean, that's where he is. He is not only coachable, but he's an anomaly. He can do things that are extraordinary. It's not that

he's just strong. He has an incredible ability to endure. And that's what, you know what, what CrossFit with Glassman created is magical in that it created, let's face it, Rich loved baseball and he was eventually told you're not good enough and he was told to leave. Most of that happens to all of us. And it doesn't mean that we don't like fitness. It's just, there's no sport for us because we're not in the elite of the elite. We're not an Olympian. there's no sport for us because we're not in the elite of the elite.

We're not an Olympian. And what Rich is proving and what CrossFit has created this opportunity to prove is that you could span these previously recognized mutually ends of the spectrums, mutual ends of the spectrum, such as endurances on one end and speed, strength, powers on the other. Sprinters on one side, endurance athletes on the other, where CrossFitters sit in the middle. But what they do is their reach is broader. Like for me, I'll never be strong. Never. Never. Same thing with Usain Bolt. He'll never have the ability to endure. That's the way we were born. But CrossFit created a sport that is now proving what is true

fitness, what is true health. And that is what these people, Jason Kalipa was an anomaly, Matt Frazier, an anomaly, Tia's an anomaly. Her ability to endure and her strength is unheard of. It's not documented. And that's cool. And to think that here we are, you know, in 2021, and we're recognizing what true fitness is, and it's because of what CrossFit created. You should do a variety. Yeah. And Rich, he is the example of that. the, the, the, the example of that, you know, somewhere in time, there was the guy who ran, um, 10 miles to his job in the rock quarry and, um, and then lifted a hundred pound rocks, um, for eight hours and then ran back home to his kids. And, you know, somewhere, somewhere in, in, in the time span of this planet and that man's been on there, it's been done.

Not a lot, don't get me wrong. You know, and probably some of the greatest feats of strength were done by slaves, you know, building pyramids somewhere, all that crazy shit. You know, all the crazy shit where manpower was used, you know. But I agree with you it is it is it is remarkable what's happened and the ground that we've made just in the last 15 years and watching what human beings are capable of it is yeah i wish that that was celebrated more you know one of the shames that i i i wish that crossfit would like but if you don't do it, you don't know, right? Right.

But the problem is there's no evidence behind it. And so everybody's like, where's the evidence? Like, we should have a central database of these workouts and compiling the data, like I'm doing with Mayhem and experimenting on them. And you could publish that. I mean, part of it is, is it's, oh, you're just one of them. It's like, hold on. This is my own personal experience. And this is, but I'm just one of them. It's like, hold on. This is my own personal experience.

And this is, but I'm just one sample size. And part of it is, is that what people can do in our sport. That's why I was sad that Matt retired. I mean, when he came over, he was like, I'm thinking about retiring. If this was even the year before he thought about it too. And my heart sank because you want someone like that, like Bob Beamon when he jumped 29 feet, to do something extraordinary, to push the edges of what humans can do and open up that package, that envelope of here's opportunity. And when he leaves, when's the next person that's going to push the boundaries like he did? believes, when's the next person that's going to push the boundaries like he did?

He truly showed extraordinary things that a recreational athlete can do. It's funny, what's crazy about Matt too is we never thought anyone would, there'd be another Rich in our lifetime, and then bam, there's Matt. And now we never thought there'd be another Matt in our lifetime, and bam, there's Tia. Yeah. Tia. I mean, Tia is... and bam, there's Tia. Yeah. Tia. I mean, Tia is. Yeah.

Problem is, is that, you know, it's like watching the women, it's no longer fun anymore because she's just so dominant. And, but that happens. You know what? Every athlete has a run. Yep. Do you know Laura Horvath? Mm-hmm.

Have you worked with her? Mm-hmm. She stayed here. She's not built like a runner either, right? She's not. But she's a fucking running machine, right? But that's an anomaly, right? So she's able to manage her weight. So here's the thing that, so there's weight classes in rowing. Why? So there's weight classes in rowing. Why? Because when you are big, you have greater muscle mass. And because of that muscle mass, you have more mitochondria, you have more capillaries to absorb that oxygen and use that oxygen as a fuel, right? You have this aerobic capacity. And when you are big... Is that the definition of aerobic capacity right there? That's funny. That was like... I'm totally off script. I had all these questions. I was supposed to open this interview with what is aerobic capacity.

Such a fucking amazing... Aerobic capacity is your VO2 max. So it's your ability to bring in oxygen, right? And get it to the muscles that are moving so that they can utilize that oxygen as a fuel to convert your carbohydrates and your fat into fuel to get your muscles to contract. The thing about aerobic capacity is that it's based upon the movement that you do. Remember, it's testing when you do a VO2 max test, which is your aerobic capacity. It's testing your movement. So, if you do it on a treadmill, it tests the running muscles. It doesn't tell you anything about deadlifting or swimming or anything. That's that whole theory of specificity.

So that's what aerobic capacity, that's what it is. So going back to Laura Horvath, sorry. So what she has, she being bigger, that's the problem with bigger people. And you hop them on a rower, they'll have amazing robot capacity because of their size. And when they hop on a rower, they don't have to manage that weight, right? The weight is managed by the object. So if they're on a bike, if they're on a rower, if they're in the pool, they don't have to manage the weight. But when they run, now they have to manage their body weight. Most of what we do in the pool, they don't have to manage the weight. But when they run, now they have to manage their body weight. Most of what we do in the gym, you're managing your structure, your weight. And so when you're heavier, you have to manage that size. And so when they

look at aerobic capacity on anything where you're having to support your weight, such as riding a buck uphill, they divide it by your aerobic capacity, your VO2, by your body weight in kilograms. And so, that's called aerobic power, right? It's basically your aerobic capacity divided by your weight, and that's aerobic power. Now, normally, if you're bigger, like a Jason Kalipa, a Matt Fraser, a Rich Froning, a Laura Horvath, you should have to, you'll be punished for that weight, that size, because you got to carry it. They don't. That's why they're an anomaly. There's certain people that are big. Jason Kalipa can run a 520 mile and he could pull a 610 2K row. There you go.

Nuts. It's nuts. And he's 220 pounds. That's an anomaly. I think that you're, I don't know if you're going to laugh at me or not for this. I think Laura can get her shit together and beat Tia. Let me rephrase that. I think she can get her shit together and cause problems for Tia.

As soon as Tia loses, as soon as she loses what she's gonna learn right but as soon as she does she's gonna learn how to lose and until someone comes up until someone comes up to rattle her she's unstoppable she has to get beat and as soon as she gets beat once, she's going to figure out how to lose. And that's the whole thing. That's how negative thought propagates. Negative thought doesn't propagate. That's why that marathon row crippled CrossFitters because they had never done anything that long. It's not that a marathon row is hard.

You just sit there. But they hadn't done it before, And that's where negative thought propagated. When she loses, it will take hold. And if she doesn't know how to back up out of it, now she's in that path and it's over. Yeah. I am. I am. I had Laura Horvath on the show. It was extremely bizarre show. I really enjoyed it. It was like black licorice. Like, like really enjoyed it it was like black licorice like

like i mean i like black licorice but i don't like it it's weird i gotta have her on again i mean i'm dying to have her on again at the end of the show i don't think this recorded this but she goes well why do you even do a podcast i go because i want to be the best at the world at it she goes you'll never be that good i was like oh shit wow i gotta i gotta have you on again wow but but it was good it was it was just you know when someone says something they're not being mean but like you know if you're like six years old it might that's the difference between i'm an adult you know what i mean like i don't i'm an adult now like it's not mean it's just like oh shit like but could could you imagine being her, though?

Like, here you get second. No. I cannot imagine being her. She's amazing. Right. But then you lose everything. I mean, imagine your product that you sell is yourself. And everybody tells you that, you know what?

That was luck. That was the programming. And now we don't like your product. We don't like the product that you're selling and you're over. Imagine that she had that taste and then brings it back, that she did it. Like that experience that she gave is not only going to humble herself, but she's never going to make that mistake again. She will respect her position and she will not want the same nosedive happening ever again.

What are you referencing? What are you referencing? That she got second, what, two, three years ago, and then had bad games, bad games, bad games, and then comes back and gets second. That tailspin that she had, it augering into the earth, right? That nosedive, it shaped shaped her it reshaped her and now she gets a second bite of the apple it's the same thing that matt frazier got he's in weightlifting he disrespects the sport he thinks that it's going on forever he's young his body recovers and next thing you know he breaks his back and he's told you're out of here you need to leave the olympic training center and's over. And yet he finds CrossFit and he gets

a second bite of the apple and he doesn't abuse it the same way. That's where Laura is. And that's why she's a threat because she went through that cycle. Right. And people that don't experience that, they think that their youth will carry forever and it won't. They think that their career will never end. Laura knows her career will end. She knows it's vulnerable. And Katja had that also, right? Same thing. Katja had that too. She made it to the games and didn't make it to the games and then pulled her shit together and came back as a tour de force. Yep. That's why having those moments, if an athlete's experienced that set, like look at Rich Froning. Do you know that Rich Froning heard his throwing arm pitching?

He loved baseball so much that he spent two years having to throw left-handed. He learned how to throw a baseball with his left hand equally as well as his right hand, and he had never thrown with his left before. That is incredible. That's incredible. Never heard that story. And imagine that you do all of that work and then you soon are told you're not good enough and you got to leave. And then he finds CrossFit. That's what I'm talking about.

You have to have this frame of mind that, you know what? I am lucky. This is a privilege. And it can end all of a sudden one day. It gives you perspective. And that's what Frazier has. That's what Froning had. Kalipa, he had the same thing.

His career was on a downward slide, and he revitalized it. He brought it back. What they did that year is crazy, what him and Garrett and Neil Maddox did. Unfortunately, neither of them won the games that year, but that would go down, in my opinion. Those three workouts is probably one of the most, if not the most exciting CrossFit games in the history. If anyone has a chance, they should go back and rewatch that. I mean, Garrett, Neil, and Jason put on a fucking show. And they trained together.

That's what was crazy. Yep. I did two times a week on the track with me, and I'd run with them. All three of them? Oh, yeah. You know what? Those are those moments that you know it's a moment. And they're so different too. Neil and Jason and Garrett are so different. Yeah. But what they knew was this greatness was being created and that's what kept, that was the glue. As soon as that glue ended, it just fragmented apart.

But we all knew that it was a moment that was, yeah, that we knew we would recognize as, wow, this was a great moment. What I really respect is they not only gave me the shot and defended me when, you know, getting attacked, but then they delivered. Like they went to the game, right? They came through. when getting attacked, but then they delivered. Delivered? Right? They came through. Didn't Jason win the sprint row and the long? Yep. And he ran the burden run, and Garrett Fisher dominated that burden run.

Dominated, yeah. Yeah. No, that was a great time. That was a great time. But, yeah, for me, that wasn't really the proof that I shouldn't quit my full-time job. I kept it as a hobby for shoot until middle of 2015 just because I didn't feel like I knew enough. I needed to have a bigger sample size, as Coach said. We're approaching two hours. Thank you.

I want to ask you one last question. Yes. And thanks for staying on so long. How, when I go through your Instagram account, I see all these amazing people. And I think some of them I'm friends with and some of them I'm not friends with. But all of them I have been friends with at some point. And I've had some falling out, whether it be a character flaw on my part or not. How is it that, what advice do you have for me? Is it important to stay friends with everyone,

to be nice to everyone, to play nice in the sandbox? Like, you seem to just be able to keep friends and i can't i i was like does he want to be more like me or do i want to be more like him like i like would he rather like sometimes that he just would tell some people hey fuck you he did or is it like no that there that's never the path. It's always, it's always to, to, you know, I don't want to say I'm a very forgiving person because I'm not really a person that hold grudges. Like I could be friends with my enemies, like very quickly, right? Just put me in a room with someone, let me talk to someone again. And, and I think, but how do you do it? How do you stay friends with all these people? And are you glad you do it? Well, I mean, I'm not friends with everybody.

And I agree with you. You don't have to like everybody. Sometimes, you know, you just, you have differences. And that does happen every now and then. It happens with athletes. You know, part of it is, is that as a coach, my job is to give them the tools so they don't need me. Like I'm really doing that. Like one time I went to Rich Froning after... Uh-oh, you broke up. You got to start that story again when you come back. Sorry, am I back? Yeah, you're back. So one time you went to Rich Froning,

that's always going to be a good story. Well, so it was after programming for two years and And I said to him, I said, you know, I'm the only one that you use. And I know you like writing your own workouts. I know you like doing your own thing. And I've really taught you how I write these things. I taught you the relationships between intensity, distance, and recovery. And he's like, hold on. He says, I don't know what you're talking about. But if you think I'm going to write my workouts, I'm never going to do that.

I want you to do that and be a part of this, which was really cool of him. But really, what I was saying was, is that, you know what, you don't need the training wheels anymore. You're able to do this yourself. And that's a different approach than others, because most would take a Matt Fraser and not want to nurture them so that they're independent, that they don't need you. And that's really always been my approach is like, I don't want you to be dependent on me for anything. I want you to be able to make decisions on your own. I want you to be able to calculate, you know, and understand. And that's how I pursue every relationship that I have. But I'm also very sensitive.

You know, I do get frustrated by people when I put a lot of effort into something and they can't even provide me a workout response. Or they'll change my workout because the pacing was too slow. workout response, or they'll change my workout because the pacing was too slow, that they'll correct me in what I've done. And that frustrates me because I feel like I'm always doing a job of explaining purpose behind workouts so that when I hand it off, they understand what we're looking for, what adaptation we're driving at. So every now and then, I will stop working with athletes, and that will happen a lot. Either they'll move on, like Tia. Tia, you know what? As soon as she turned her, she was really a head case from losing

to Catherine. And as soon as she realized that she was compromising her performances by underestimating her fitness, as soon as that happened, it was a different Tia. And that was my only task is to show her what I saw. And as soon as she saw it, you should do your own thing. And there's many examples of athletes where it's like, you know what? You're cured. Like Cara Webb. She ran five minutes and 47 seconds, six months afterwards. Went to the games, workouts didn't drop her weight, but you know what? My job was done. Dude, we came full circle to that story. We got closure to it. That's amazing.

I never even asked you the follow-up question. Did she ever get her goal? And you gave it. She did it. 547 for that girl. Isn't that incredible? Oh, God. Two times a week. Yeah, she was so fierce. She is fierce. She is not everyone's cup of tea. I enjoy it, but I can definitely see where some people would be like, I mean, that is a dynamo. Yeah, well, same thing, Katrin. I mean, Katrin, I don't know if you've heard,

but the way I met Katrin was she sent an email after the games in 2013 to Jason Kalipa. She was, what, 20 years old. And she asked Jason, would you be willing to coach me? And he, of course, says, I don't coach people. And she says, well, no, but I don't want you to coach me on everything, just your endurance. And Jason said, I've copied my endurance coach, Chris Hinshaw. Maybe he can help you because he writes all my workouts. an email and she says, Chris, I want you to know, I didn't want Jason to ever coach me. I was just trying to get your contact information. Would you be willing to help me? She was 20. Oh, shit. That's a hungry athlete, right? That's hungry. Oh my goodness. Yep. We've been together ever since. And I think that's also the sign the sign you know that if you are able to retain athletes you're doing something right you know if they keep coming back after seven years

i know a woman who was um man i don't know if i should tell the story i I know a woman. Just do it. You do all that stuff anyways. I know a woman who wanted to date this guy who was really, really rich. Like, really rich. And so what she did is she basically started dating one of his lawyers in order to get to this guy. And it worked. That's smart. Yeah. And she got to the rich guy and ditched the lawyer

and married the rich guy. Wow. And it worked. And I got a front row seat to it. It was really, yeah, I guess it's kind of like fishing, like what we do. You put a small fish on the hook to catch the big fish. I mean, I don't know.

I'll tell you what it is, Savan. So my OCD, when I was in eighth grade, where I would tap the doors or the walls and doorknobs and poles. Yeah, yeah. So when I stopped doing that, I just, I thought I stopped doing it. And I was talking to a shrink, you know, 40 years later. And she asked how I sold. So I was in sales in Silicon Valley, high, you know, electronics and all that for 25 years, $600 million company ran their sales.

I know the guy I knew your, I know your old boss. Dave Chanchuli. Yes. That's how I know Glassman in back in 2000. That's how Glassman knows me. Yes. Do you know where Dave Cianciulli lives? Do you know where he lives now? He's in Santa Barbara. They have some holistic retreat.

Holy shit, dude. Yeah, with Erica. I went there once. Oh, my God. It is the most amazing place ever. Anyway, you can't even believe a place like this exists on Earth, to be honest with you. It's actually in Ojai and it yep it it is the it is fucking mind-boggling yeah it was him that he introduced sorry go on spit he did okay sorry he did 2000 2001 yeah so i've known glassman for

a while and he's because dave and coach you know, they did some hanging out. Like, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, I, I have a decent background, you know, and knowing him for a long, long time. But I, I, you know, I was in sales and a lot of people, like they listen to me talk and it's like, wow, he's really selling. Well, when I was with the shrink, what the shrink said is, how do you sell? And I said, well, I know if I say something, I could get someone and I can invoke a response. And I already know what that response is because I'm driving the response.

And since I already know what they're gonna say, I already have my next question queued. And if the person follows a normal pattern of behavior, I could kind of guide them into essentially my OCD went from this to this to this to this to this. And that's what it did. And that's why when I write workouts, I'm always flipping and going this page, this side, this side, this side, and I'm leading myself up.

And so I'm never satisfied with the initial question. It's where is this going to take me? And that's how I think. And it's that OCD that I had that I internalized. And now it plays out in my head when I look at math equations, and I look at workouts, I look at science, you know, research studies, it leads to another question, which there's the answer, and there's the question, and we just go up the chain. I want everyone who does not understand what's happening in the world right now, fuck it. You can think that you do understand what's happening in the world right now,

and I want you to go back to two hours and 11 minutes and start listening to what Chris Hinshaw just said. He just said something that is happening to at least 50% of the public right before our eyes. You are hearing a message coming from the media and they know and they knew what your next move was going to be and they've led you down a rabbit hole i don't know yeah i don't want to say it with negative connotation but you are a ton of you have been asleep at the wheel and you're have automated responses and you have been led down a funnel with your behaviors because they know what your next move is going to be and don't be so arrogant to think that that would never happen to you the mind is fascinating i can look at someone who's asleep consciously asleep and be

like you're asleep wake up and for a split second though i'll see them wake up and be like no i'm not and then they go right back to sleep. That is how tricky the human brain is. But Chris said something amazing right there. There's a book called Influence. Oh, good job on that. That describes it in fucking, you can read that book and learn about it in 15 hours. Or you can go back to two hours and 11 minutes of this podcast, two hours and 12 minutes, and you can hear Chris say the whole thing in one sentence. And if you can catch that, you should repeat that, what he said to you,

probably 10,000 times until you get a glimmer of what it's like to wake up. And do not think you're awake just because you woke up for a split second and told yourself you're awake. Yep. And that is out there. And you're absolutely right. They're capitalizing on the predictability of certain groups. And there are major categories of groups, but once you know that formula, you could tap into that code and predict exactly where you're going to take them. That's what makes crazy people crazy is that there's no code. It's random. And you realize that after time. But most people are doing things that are predictable. And if you do something, say something, you know what their response is. And it could be a game. And you're right. In media, it's a game. it doesn't make those people in media bad people it didn't make chris hinshaw a bad person it's just how how we operate we start seeing those patterns and it starts to become how we operate it's like instinct it's just it's just cogs it look it's just it's just cogs turning each other

but but you will be so much happier if you wake up from it's what meditation is but you don't have to believe exactly what i'm about to tell you guys but but but the spirit of what i'm saying is is is true and i don't know how to explain it there when you're about two years old your your life is a record and at about the age of two years old your record seals off and it's a permanent imprint of your story and the way your life will play out over and over until the day you die is the record will start playing at the beginning and the needle will move all the way down to the end and then it will start over again. And that will be your life.

And it will be the same exact patterns of things. The same thing that offended you when you were 18 months old is now going to hurt your feelings when you're 75, when it hits that same spot in the record. There is only one way to change that record. And how do you change that record? Through meditation. And what is meditation? Meditation is, there's the same, I can say it with, there's the same people who don't ever stop thinking, never think of anything new. meaning if you don't ever take a pause and watch your record and open up a moment of silence when you open up that moment of silence and hold the space you'll get something new rewritten in your record and some people don't want their re-record rewritten like they've talked to mike tyson about he's like fuck that i don't want my shit rewritten like this these horrible

things in this part of the record is what makes it so I can kill people. You know what I mean? But anyway, I just wanted to... But don't you think... I like what you said a lot. Let me build off of that. The reason why I don't judge people

like your past and the things that you've experienced, you know, and you've had a lot of tough things that have happened, these experiences. But I look back on individual experiences like that, and we all remember the bad things. But I don't judge because I like who you are now. And so, all of those experiences that you did that I may disagree with, the fact is, I don't really care because I have you right now and this is what I like. This is what I prefer. And if those things didn't happen, I may not like you. I may not want to talk to you or spend time with you or help you, but I like where you are.

And I find that a lot of people dwell too much on things that have happened and trying to answer those things when, in fact, you're a likable person today because those things did happen. And so why would I judge those negatively? Why? I'm grateful that they happened because however those pieces came together to shape you, you're perfect. And that's what I like. Right. And so I think about that, too, because a lot of people, especially adults, will dwell on, especially from a fitness standpoint, they'll dwell on these insecurities that have happened. But you know what? If those didn't happen, you wouldn't be with me today.

And I'm going to help you because I like you. Yeah, you're a good person and you're wise. No, I try. I try. You know what? I'm grateful for, I'm very grateful every day. I woke up this morning and I'm just like, I'm so happy to be here. Yes. Every day. And it comes from my heart like yeah that's how i feel too too much i need to sleep more i'm so excited about life i don't like to sleep i'm so excited i feel like i'm

wasting fucking time when i sleep so i've made a mistake with these these earbuds I'll put on podcasts at night and I'll find that I'll just stay awake and listening. And it's now like two in the morning. And I thought that it would like help me drift off, like get distracted and only think about one thing. But I can't, I need just empty, like you were saying about meditation. I need just blank. I need it black, quiet, no vibrations. And I struggle with that. I haven't been able to get a decent night's sleep in probably 25, 30 years. It's the long, I don't even know. I just nap.

And it's, I've tried. I'm a napper too. Isn't napping the greatest invention ever? It's like parallel parking. It's amazing. Except when you nap because you're exhausted and it's so, I gotta tell you, so when Haley was here, it gets dark here in the wintertime at like five o'clock. It's black outside. Well, after about an hour and a half of it being black outside, it's like, I'm just going to go to bed. So Heidi and I would go to bed in the wintertime at 6.30 at being black outside, it's like, I'm just going to go to bed. So Heidi

and I would go to bed in the wintertime at 6.30 at night. And Haley's like, guys, guys, guys, what are you doing? And it's like, we're going to bed. And she's like, but guys, it's 6.30. Pretty soon Haley started to go to bed at 6.30. But I'd go to bed at 6.30 and I'd be up by 10. And now what do you do? She'd go to bed at 6.30 and wake up at nine. Like nine at night or nine in the morning? Nine in the morning. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. Right. A kid can sleep. And it was like, wow, how do you do it? And she's like, just, yeah.

There was something you said about like active recovery and about not falling on the floor after you do something. I do want to say this, though. Those of you who do fall on the floor, people like me, that is when you get free meditation. There is a smoking is evil meditation, like smoking cigarettes. It is evil meditation. By that, I mean it's really an amazing time to become present. That's why smoking cigarettes and doing something else at the same time is complete idiocy because you're doing damage to your lungs, but what an amazing time to

just... And the same thing is true after you do 100 burpees or after you do Fran. If you are going to lie on the floor, really try to surrender. Really try to surrender. Don't waste that moment. You put in all that work. You just did a hundred burpees for time, literally fall on the ground and don't even try to control your breath. Watch, just bring all of your attention to yourself. This is, these are, these are ways of, of, of sort of hacking, um, uh, hacking meditation. Um, uh, oxygen deprivation will always bring you to the present. Yeah. And that is something that's happening in the CrossFit community. I used to speak about it with Greg and Lauren,

and they thought I was a complete lunatic. But what is happening is by these people who are forcing themselves into continuous oxygen deprivation are also forcing spiritual growth. I use spiritual growth. I wish I could come up with a better term for it. No, but that works. You're forcing yourself to become a more selfless person. I'm curious.

Because in the end, that is what spiritual growth is. But when you talk to Lauren and Greg about it, is it that you weren't able to… That was like in 2007. it like is it that you i was like 2007 were you not able to calibrate your explanation to their knowledge to get them to understand because what you just told me makes sense to me right like it really does greg doesn't believe at the time i mean i talked to greg a lot i should actually revisit this conversation with them maybe i'll do it later on today by the way at 10 a.m you guys i know this this podcast has probably been the most mature podcast i've done it's all chris henshaw's fault i apologize that

there hasn't been any nudity yet but at 10 a.m i'm going to jump on a podcast with dave castro and we're going to make predictions something much more fun and superficial than the shit i'm talking about with chris and we're going to make predictions for the fight between, um, that's going to happen over in Dubai, Saturday night at Josh Bridges. So Josh, yeah, I got, I hope you're right, but he's an underdog, but I'm telling you as soon as if, if, if Hefner gets hurt at all, like he feels any sting, it's over. Josh Bridges has felt sting and it's not going to remember that whole negative thought propagating. Yes. Josh Bridges is going to get his bell rung and it's not going to, it's not, he knows how to back out of it and reframe. Hefner is going to go down that road and that you see in boxing matches all the time, especially if you're there, that momentum shift because

they're down that path. And as soon as Hefner, all it's going to take is one hit. And when that happens, I know Bridges is going to win. The question is, is can Bridges get a good hit to create a little sting to get them on the road to that negative thought? That's my prediction. I had no idea Chris Hinshaw had skin in the game. Oh yeah. No, no, no. And I love Heppner but but but it's because of the background i don't think heppner's ever been hurt man it's gonna be it's gonna be interesting that's it's it's tennie and west west coast time um what were we talking about we were talking about um uh glassman and just that whole thing oh afterwards so i was riding with greg glassman in a car one

time it was like 2008 or nine. And we were on a long ride, like five or six hours. We were driving from California, Arizona. And he was telling me that if it can't be measured, it doesn't exist. And he's naming off the five different kinds of measurements. And you know, his dad was smarter than God. And so he's telling me these five different kinds of measurements. And if it can't be measured, it doesn't exist. And I turned to him and I said, well, what if there's a measurement that hasn't been discovered yet, therefore not allowing us to perceive something, right? And he did not like that at all. He went straight to ad hominem and attacked me, which is okay.

But so that's how I know. That's disappointing, actually. That's disappointing. Well, I didn't mean it to be negative i didn't know but my point is because you want to be open-minded about things so yeah i sold product into apple so these these cords 240 million of them in 2015 and you sold the um the old version of these yes i did that's. That's correct. Can you imagine that? That's a whole nother podcast, but if you knew. 88 cents for that plus this in a box. I've just paid $37.95. 88 cents. Okay. So along the lines of that, so when you buy, when you make these, there's a specification that quality looks at. And in this, remember, Apple, what they want is when you buy a product and you open it, it's an experience.

That's what you're really trying to create. Not only does it have to work, but you're creating this experience. And so there is a aesthetic look to it, right? There is a feel, the texture, the suppleness of it. There is a feel, the texture, the suppleness of it. And Apple, and this is where you'll get it, and Glassman would be questioning it because you can't measure it. It has to have a smell. That's part of the experience. And how do you standardize smell?

You can't. But they do it. And, but they do it. There is an outgassing so that when you unfold it, you smell that sanoprene type, that plastic PVC smell, and it lasts only for a little bit of time and it's in the design. And that is what you have to open your mind to. If you're not, if you're always thinking something needs to be measurable, then you are losing out on the next generation. And that's what I'm saying in my workout design and what I do is, where's the next level, right? Not the fourth or the fifth, but the sixth dimension. Where are we going?

And we don't know yet. We have no idea. But that's where I open my mind to because, you know what? Sometimes it isn't measurable. Sometimes it's a feeling. It's a feeling that you have. And that's the key. Have you been balanced?

Sorry, go on. Go on. Well, no, until an athlete proves to you that or a person proves to you that it's not possible. Right. And now you found your boundary. So, you know, I was with some firefighters, you know. Then you throw them away and you get a new athlete, but go on. No, that's not true. That's not true. That's not true. There are many athletes that I've

worked with that didn't win. And the thing is, is that it's more about those journeys and what you're doing to help them. You're really having these conversations with them and it helps both of you. It really does. Like, yeah, I, yeah. Anyway, that's my, that's my life story, Simon. We didn't even get into it. We didn't even, the only, I think. We didn't even get your questions. We didn't talk about Greece. My mom had one question for you. I didn't even get to that. She's going to.

Your mom? Yeah. She wants to know about nose breathing. Are you ever, yeah. I did ask you about friendship. That was good. Except there's so much more to talk about there. Ma'am.

You use the word coachable. That needs defining. There's so much to talk to you about. We talked about your parents a little bit. I like that. How did you get your blue checkmark? And then I have to let you go because I have to pee and get ready for my 10 a.m. podcast. I honestly don't know. You don't know how you got your blue checkmark?

I think I just made a request. Or someone made a request yeah just do that yeah um it's funny i have that question for every single person that's ever gotten a blue check mark that i've interviewed and you have you have a blue check don't you i do yeah but you got it through crossfit right didn't they get a mass grouping of them um no well i don't know um i just asked jonathan haynes do you know who that is no he's the he um he's black guy he runs the one well when i was there he ran uh he worked for me and he ran crossfit games media very i know who he is right i know who he is of course yeah um

so he he just had um he just said hey do you want me to get your blue checkmark? I said, yeah. And he just fucking a week later, he got it for me. It's pretty good. So you know what? A friend of mine did the same. So it was making the request through the site and, um, and now I've made many posts that you're, if you're, you're better off anything that someone with a blue checkmark says to

not believe if, if you were playing the odds. Hmm. anything that someone with a blue check mark says to not believe if if you were playing the odds so i'm suggesting that 51 of the people with blue check marks are the ones you should who are not telling you the truth i'm not very like but seven but people like seven do you have a blue check mark i'm like yeah who would know better that smoking is bad for you than a smoker yeah i i don't do a whole lot on. It's one of my things where it's like, if I have a certain amount of time, I'd rather program. Do your kids trip on your social media? You have young kids and they see that you have 118,000 followers? They did. They're like, Dad, you're a dork.

What's going on? Yeah, they do. But you know what? It's interesting about life that my kids, you go through, like I raised my girls by myself and that was riddled with challenges. And I got them when they were, you know, 11 and 13. And the thing I think about is their level of appreciation towards the things I did as they got older. And they go through that. They don't have any idea to, I hate you. Don't talk to me too. I need money to then when they get into their mid twenties, there's all of a sudden an appreciation. It's like, oh, that's the sacrifice you made. Oh,

that's what you did. And I love this moment now with the kids. I love it. I love going on trips with them. I love hanging out with them. I love when they ask me for advice because there's a level of appreciation. And when that happens with your kids, now we create some growth together and I will never pass up on anything with them. Be in a level of appreciation versus just, you know, take, take, take, take, take type of a thing. And I, I didn't know that that side would happen. I know that I felt that way towards my parents. Um, but it was nice when it, when it started happening, like really, I'm still, I'm still in the early phases. I'm a long way to go. Yeah.

Right. You probably don't even go. You're not going to go to the bathroom in peace for another 10 years. You're going to get dad. Dad, what are you doing? Yes. What are you doing? Watch me.

Watch me. Watch me. Yeah. It's like, can I just have two minutes? They went through a phase. They're out of it, but they went through a phase where they, if I turned on the shower, they would come in and watch me shower. And they would like, it was crazy. They had a million fucking questions, but then the thing that they love the most is they wanted to watch me soap my hair. And I remember wanting to watch my dad

soap his hair too, because I'd be like, how the hell does he do that? That looks so dangerous. And my kids thought the same thing. They're like, that soap is way too close to your eyes. What are you doing? Well, I have an old man test for you, Savan. So what your old man test is, is that you're going to grab a pair of socks. So just ankle socks, you'll get a pair of shoes and they could be tied. And what you have to do is you have to balance on one foot, put the sock on that foot, untie the shoe, put the shoe on, tie the shoe without that foot touching the ground. As soon as it's tied, you put that foot on the ground, you switch, you have to go down, pick up the sock with the foot in the air, put the sock on, go down, pick up the shoe, untie

it, put it on, tie it. If you can do that without having your feet touch the ground, losing balance, you're still young. You still got it. So my dad told me about this and that he does some stuff like this. It's the old man test. And do you know what the arrogant fucking part of me said? No, you need to sit down and show your mobility

but now that you said it and it didn't come from my dad i'm gonna try it my mom just commented my mom just commented yes the most mature podcast you've ever done what a great insightful interview oh that's sweet i'm sorry mom i didn't ask him about nose breathing i'll have him well you know what if i'm ever over are you in s, where are you? I'm in Santa Cruz. Yeah, it'd be cool to do some stuff on breathing because, you know, so I'll give you an example. When I was the first podcast that Rich did, I was on it and it's the only one there was no video.

And during the middle of it, he asked me who's the smartest in the sport. And my reaction was, it's Matt Frazier. And Rich is smart, right? He's got a degree in exercise science, strength and conditioning coach. I mean, obviously with all of the things that he's done. And so he asked me why. And I said, well, do you know that Matt Frazier can look six lanes over and watch someone's chest move? And based upon the rate that the chest is moving, know what their breathing rate is and know whether or not they're hyperventilating or

in control. And based upon that rate of breath, he will look at the remaining distance they have to determine whether or not they're a contender. And he could do it real time. Rich was like, that's pretty smart. That's pretty smart. But what I could teach, and if I ever went over there, I could teach and talk to your mom about when you're in control and out of control and the breath, using that as the tell for your level of intensity. And that's the key. That's the only thing that I look at. And so teaching the consistency of the breath as you move, is it a reliable and predictable pattern?

And are you in control of it or are you out of control? And what does that mean? And when should you have that experience or that feeling of being out of control in an event, in a workout? Yeah, that I could sit down and I could show her because that is, that's the keys to the car right there. That's, that's where it's at. That's a preview to our next podcast. About a year ago, when my mom started talking to me about nose breathing, I started, I made a, uh, for just no other reason that it came from my mom, I made a concerted effort and I started doing all of my workouts with only nose breathing. And what I

found out by doing nose breathing is that it was a good excuse not to work as hard as I possibly can. I was like, Oh, I'm doing nose breathing. And I, so I would just, and since then I've been doing it to like cut corners and not work out as hard. But that being said, I just went through of having, I think I'm, I have, I have a SARS-CoV-2 right now and I've had it for like, I'm guessing the last two weeks. And, and actually it's been, it's been phenomenal to do. So I get on the, when I work out now, I just do nose breathing. Since I i do nose breathing i can sit down and start working out and feel horrible like my sinus is just so congested my throat so sore but i can start a workout like 10 calories on the assault bike 10 push-ups 10 strict pull-ups and if i just stay nose breathing man 10 minutes in there's no sign

which is really cool and then for the next eight hours, I'm healthy as a fucking 16-year-old boy. Yeah, it's crazy. And if I wouldn't have been practicing that nose breathing for the last year, I wouldn't have done that. And the nose breathing has been godsend. But the first few minutes are horrible.

Because you have to, you know, I'm doing 40 RPMs on the assault bike because I'm holding my nostrils open like this trying to breathe because i have sars right but then once you get the air going and and my mom showed me some tricks where you squeeze your nose for a little bit and it makes it runny and then it opens up it's just shit like that it's like holy shit just but it's cool the truth is is that if you don't use the nose to nasal breathe it's not going to open up and the passageway is going to become smaller and smaller and by using it you'll be able to use more air. But like you said, the problem is

this, is that you do get more air through your mouth and that's what nasal breathing is all about, right? We need to restrict at rest the amount of air coming in. We don't need to oversaturate the body with this oxygen. But what we have to be careful of in doing it in our training is that it will limit our intensity. And it's almost like that training mask, you know, when people were like saying, oh, use this training mask and do your workouts in it. It's like, do you realize what that's doing though? It's going to limit your amount of air, which is going to make the difficulty go up, but you're not going to go any faster because you need that oxygen in order to move.

And so essentially, you're training yourself to hurt bad and go slow. And what you want to do is hurt bad and train the muscles to go fast. And that's the problem is knowing when you need to transition out of nasal breathing and focus on intensity. And that most people don't know that, you know, everybody wants to go to the most advanced type of breathing, which is nasal breathing. And they don't even know the basics yet. Well, I just recommend doing it so you can cheat and not push as hard. Stop it. You've never cut corners ever, ever. Your road to the games and what you did, I don't even know how you came up with that, but it was genius. And I miss those days because it gave you insight into people because you were so good at highlighting people's personality.

I really liked it. It was incredible. I really loved it. The Road to the Games was actually done by Marston and Heber. I just produced all of them. Behind the Games. I did do the behind the scenes, yeah. Behind.

Those are the ones, those seven-part, eight-part series. Yeah, it's because I love people. That's what sucks about being mad at people. I really love people. Well, I mean mean i must assume that that offended some people because you gave them some rope and a lot of people didn't realize you were giving them rope and there it was unfortunately right right but i like that i really do because it and i miss those things.

I wish there were people that were recognizing we need to create out of these elites characters that we can follow and like and not like. I miss that. And that's why you see all the people that people are really still following are the ones that had media from previously, not the new athletes. Yes. Right? Like Jason Hopper, I know you had him on, an amazing kid.

There was media on him and here's background and showing, I mean, what a great kid. The media has, I've said this before, there's never been a greater hunger for CrossFit media and there's never been a bigger drought. It is abysmal. They missed an enormous opportunity in the last 24 months when people were just getting fat and addicted to Netflix

and CrossFit should have just been pumping out shit. Pumping. And authentic shit. Yep, I agree with you. And that's why there will never be a media director as great as me ever in the history of CrossFit Inc. Takes vision. And you know what?

I heard my wife just laugh. No, she said, I heard her. She said, you're right. I heard it. You don't even need to interpret it. She laughed at me. No, bro. I heard it.

She laughed at me. I heard it. No, and the thing is, is that now, because they stepped out, they created this vacuum. Yeah. And, you know, like Rory McKernan and what he's doing here with Mayhem is unprecedented. Oh, the Mayhem, yeah, the Mayhem media is very impressive. And the thing is, is they have momentum. There's no way CrossFit HQ can capture that kind of momentum.

They just don't have the infrastructure. And if they don't hire permanent employees, if they're just keeping with temps or outsourcing, it's like there's no team going again. They're going to keep doing that because the – and this isn't to dig. This isn't to put down at all. The leadership that they have in place more and more is growing to selling widgets. And CrossFit doesn't really have anything to sell except personal accountability.

But it takes years and years of working there to realize that, especially if you come from like the Harvard Business School or if you think of business in the traditional sense that you're actually selling something. The thing about CrossFit is it can't be measured what it's selling. There we go. How ironic that Greg Glassman invented the thing that can't be measured what it's selling. There we go. How ironic that Greg Glassman invented the thing that can't be measured. I hope it can. Yeah.

And so it's a movement, and the people who are there will, instead of doing media, they're going to do marketing. They'll be a chief marketing officer. There'll be these things that aren't relevant to the subject. They're not selling hamburgers, right? So it's a weird one. I personally, and I shouldn't say really too much of this with you on the show because I don't want any of my toxicity rubbing off on you, but I think it's very hard to understand what CrossFit is, and it takes many, many years, and I suspect that the owners who bought it think they bought Harley-Davidson,

a beautiful motorcycle manufacturing plant, but instead they really bought the Hells Angels, meaning it's a movement. It's a brand brand it's their control of moving meth up and down the west coast and that's what they do and they do it on motorcycles with their cool jackets and people have to get stabbed once in a while but they don't make motorcycles they do not

and so I think that's what CrossFit is I don't think it's a motorcycle manufacturing plant I think it's a no the people moving the brand are people like me yeah right it's the affiliate owners that that they're not talking to and that's who's moving the brand and creating the value like i love the brand i love what it's done for me and i could sing the praises all day long and there's right nothing better than taking the l1 if you haven't taken the l1 too it's like a show that should be a broadway show it it's it's an incredible experience

that should be a broadway show holy shit bro i i did my level one holy shit stop have you ever said that before by the way there's a ton of comments saying the greatest um seminar anyone's taken is the aerobic capacity there's a ton of comments saying the greatest seminar anyone's taken is the Aerobic Capacity. There's a lot of nice comments. You should go back and read these. Have you ever said that before, that this should be a Broadway show? No, bro. You're like true serum.

Why? That's fucking brilliant, dude. That would be fucking crazy to sing and dance the L1. That is crazy. That would be insane. i love it i had i had miranda oldroyd as my flow master i had neil maddox pat barber jason kalipa wow michelle moots oh moots she's the shit um uh zach pine wow and yeah i mean that's that's you got you had everyone Zach Pine. Wow. Oh, man.

You had everyone. Did you do that at CJ's gym? What was the name of that gym? No, I did it at NorCal. It was awesome. It was awesome. And Neil, every time he'd get up and demo, he took off his shirt. It was just the show of shows.

I love it. This is the longest I've ever gone without peeing in my life. Two hours and 45 minutes. Guys, thanks for tuning in. I promise we'll have Hinshaw on again. Peace and love. And the live stream is

over. Dude.