The Sevan Podcast - #194 - Jayson Hopper

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

CrossFit Games Athlete. Winner of the MACC semi-final competition in 2021. The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Whether it's the all-terrain capability, ample cargo capacity, or innovative camera technology, the Defender 110 lets you go further and do more. And with seating for up to seven, everyone can enjoy the journey. Learn more at LandRover.ca. Bam! We're live again. I bet you he doesn't show. I bet you he doesn't show. I bet you he doesn't show. I bet you he doesn't show. I can't hear you.

I don't, I don't, I don't give a fuck. I don't. Sorry. He doesn't show. I bet you he doesn't show. Yeah, we haven't heard from him this morning. I bet you he doesn't show. I bet you he doesn't show.

Did you text him privately? No, I just texted him on that thread that you're on. Dude. Yeah. We're in 91 or two shows in and we did our first double book. Fuck. I fucking booked Mike Bergerner and Emily Abbott this morning. Like a jackass.

I thought Bergerner was next week. He is now. Did you see something come in in the calendar for that yeah I committed to it oh that's awesome Bergener is a fascinating man fascinating have you ever talked to him

I don't no I don't think so but I've always just I've appreciated when they've had him on commentary they had him on commentary at, they had him on rogue the first year. Or was it the virtual one? I can't remember.

You bump Bergener for Emily. Not exactly. I know it sounds like that. I know it sounds like that. And that's not exactly, I don't want to say that's exactly true, but, but it's kind of true, but it's not true.

True. Like it's not exactly true what happened to him the morning after the games who's um uh brian's gonna hijack the mike bergner show he's gonna he's gonna make it all about him he's like hey can you help me he's gonna put in these like questions like trying to get help on his clean and on his snatch and on his back squat and like he's gonna be like so should i do this what do you think about hobart's programming he's been trying to help me get stronger i know i'm finally gonna put hobart's programming to the test this weekend oh you are we're having a little showcase at the gym like

olympic lifting showcase and i i'm gonna just i'm gonna do it for fun as like a lifting day but it'll be the first time since i've done this programming that i actually go um like heavy heavy good uh i so someone so someone wrote hopper was supposed to be on at 10 a.m no i don't think i'm gonna see if it is then we're all screwed up then this show then it's gonna um he said uh he said it's got to be tomorrow at 12 Eastern time. I said, great. And then he said, what about 10 Eastern time? And I said, no. That's 7 a.m. for me, and I'll already be on with Emily Abbott.

And he said, okay, 12 works for me. So 12 Eastern time is 9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, right? 12 minus 3 is 9? Oh, yeah, you're on're on it okay thank you and so um it is supposed to be so what i'm gonna do is you have a truck outside your house there's some construction going on the parking lot sorry and you can know it's fine but you can hear that that's some ghetto ass living ghetto Ghetto ass living. I can hear construction outside. What, do you live in Chicago?

Here we go. I should have called him on the house phone. But he might not answer if I call him on the house phone. He might not answer if he sees it's me calling. It's awfully presumptuous of me. Have you ever tried to get Chandler on? No, I haven't actually. Hopper must

be working on full elbow extension. Hopper must be on drain thrusters. Is that a dig? Oh, geez. Oh, geez. Oh, geez. Oh, here he is here he is hey buddy that's what your mom said okay bye oh i hung up on him i hung up on him okay so he's coming that's good that's a good sign

he sounds like that's what your mom said. I know. That wasn't cool. I just can't help it. I know that wasn't cool. He's a good Christian lad. He doesn't deserve any of your mama jokes. He sounded like he was in the bathroom taking a shit, right?

Like, did you hear it was a little echoey? Or maybe popping a zit. I like it. I like it. I like it. You should ask if he's still willing to get Chandlerler you have you ever tried no not chandler uh ask what happened the day after rogue why what happened um maturity level 1000 yes yes that is me make sure the beard is finally groomed brian you'll have a 20 pound pr he's coming but he's getting he's coming but he's getting on the podcast i don't understand he's hey so you did tell me about your article you did with emily abbott

that was right when i started um that was right when i started the morning chalk up and i was it was like three months before the start of the season i didn't know really what to write about because they hired me to be a sports writer and so i i pitched a couple ideas they liked that one but they didn't think i would ever like ever get a hold of her hey dude and you did okay we'll continue that what's up dude can you hear me we can sounds like you're in the bathroom. What? It sounds echoey, like hollow. Like we're not hearing the deep, soothing baritone of your voice. I'm in a loft, and we have these offices, and so I'm in one of those. But is it fine audio?

Do I need to go somewhere else? No, no, you're good. You're good, as long as the connection's good. What do you think, Brian? Just happy you showed good. You're good. As long as the connection is good. What do you think, Brian? Just happy you showed up. Yeah. Otherwise, you're going to start asking too many things about me. Superstar Jason Hopper.

Just glad he showed up. Jason, I have to fix your name on the bottom of your screen. I'm surprised people don't complain in the comments. This is the kind of thing people like to complain about it's j hopper three yeah change it to j hopper seven because he took seventh at rogue brian's getting a little too comfortable way too comfortable i actually tried to change it to get that three off of there because that's so like

I put three that's from like high school my high school football number and I try to take it off and it won't let me uh um uh sorry sorry um Jason I had Emily Abbott on this morning and it and it was probably one of the best podcasts I've ever done. It was the best podcast I've ever done. It was by far the best podcast I've ever done. I'm just saying that, Hopper, to mess with you because of what you told those other podcast people, you douche. But someone wrote in the comments, isn't Emily the one who said she kissed her husband and that's why she popped for drugs? That's the way – Brian thinks that it was – Brian claims that – we discussed this yesterday in the show that it was – that she said it was oral sex. I think that he's confusing his test positive people, and I don't think she said it was oral sex.

I think she said it was like from kissing or something. And it definitely wasn't her husband. No, definitely not her husband. We agree there. But it was the guy she was with at the time. Yes. I've never heard that story, but okay. You don't need to know about that story.

You need to focus on things that are happening now. You're right. Yesterday, Brian, you said that Guy's holes are – what did you say about his holes? You said something about Guy's holes. I said something about his holes taking 19th. You said his holes are fixable. Well, there's an old adage. I think that Ben Bergeron was the first one I heard say it, and he says, you know, I can get you up to like, I can improve your aerobic capacity in six months, but if I want to improve your strength

by the same margin, I need six years. Um, how about, how about Jason's holes or the, is he on the six, does he have six, six months or does he need six years? I mean, actually John's working on something right now that talks about that in CrossFit, you don't need to win strength events. You just need to be strong enough not to take huge hits in them. And Jason's strong enough already. The things that I think, and he can obviously tell us, I think the things that he's working on are things that are fixable in a much shorter time domain relative to strength. What's up, dude?

How are you? What's up, Jason? What's up dude how are you what's up jason what's up you look good you showered this morning yeah did you yeah did you just get me on or something no i'm just like just just feeling the waters you and i beat to different drummers and so i'm just making sure that like you know occasionally our drummers intersect i don't know what that means but okay feeling good i'm feeling great i was actually really sick yesterday for some reason i was throwing up and yeah i don't know why uh another another athlete there told me that too it's so funny it's interesting you say that another athlete i spoke to yesterday told me that they are really really sick and and i said in the way they were describing the sickness was was that

they swam in the water at madison did you have the shits too yeah what the fuck i don't know do you know anyone other athletes you didn't drink that rogue beer, did you? Was it the rogue beer? No. Do you know anyone else who had the shits yesterday? I don't. Oh, and his voice was all fucked up yesterday, too. I talked to him on the phone. I'm like, dude, you're a mess. What happened?

He goes, I have no idea. Just out of the blue, I fucking got the shits. Who was it? Go ahead, Jason. I'll let you talk. So who was it? i can't tell you josh bridges um where is that event where is that event i wanted to talk to you about which was the event that was um four rounds concept two is that number four where he took

eighth yeah can you walk us through that event jason do you give a shit about this brian i do yeah are we not gonna talk about all of them we were sure i mean we can if you if you wanted but that one really interested me that one just me because that for me that was like okay this is really gonna like is this guy like i just kept remembering what happened to you at the games with the hoofle stone, hoofle waffle stone. And I was like, okay, we're going to get to see what happens to Jason here. Four rounds, skier, GHD, he'll run. Like, are we going to have to see, like, Brian Shaw come and carry him off?

That would have been awesome, by the way, if he would have picked you up like a little baby and carried you off. He's so big. It's unreal. I don't think we're ever going to see Jason look like he did at the end of the Hussle bag again. Never.

Why? You'll mitigate that with pacing now because you're smarter or better or both? I would just be smarter. In that workout of both just uh i would just be smarter i mean i was in that workout the games i was just i came out 100 like i was i was an idiot i'll never happen again like that i don't know i kind of like it okay so so event so i mean there's something to be said for that isn't there except Said for what? For just coming out and just giving it your all.

Like, who did we see do that? Who did we see come out super-duper hard? I want to say it was in Event 6. It was one of the women. Who was that? At the Games or in the Rogue? Here at Rogue. I mean, Laura started fast in that event um there was one of the events that one of the women came out so freaking hard and then she just lost it i don't know it was laura she was in the lead after the

the row and the step-ups but you know everyone kind of knew that that would fade when she got to the gymnastic. If the workout was just rowing and sandbag box step-ups, Laura Horvath might win. But if it was just handstand push-ups and ring muscle-ups, she's probably going to lose. So that's not a great example of that. What happened to Jason at the Games in that workout was just that, I mean, like you said, it was really thoughtless execution. He just went out there and went for it in a workout where you needed to kind of ease into it. Correct. Ease into it. And you did that. I mean, I think that, I don't know. I felt like that, that fourth workout, as long as we were talking about, I felt like you, you know, for a four round workout,

you had a fairly good pace throughout you never really fell off the pace you maybe increased a little bit towards the end but it was pretty pretty steady and good execution yeah i did exactly what i wanted to in that workout i knew i wasn't it was a ghd workout it was going to be not necessarily who's going to be the best on the run or the ski. It was going to be whoever can do the GHD as the fastest and be able to move efficiently on the other two movements. And so I knew I wasn't the fastest at the GHDs. And so I, like Medeiros is like crazy at GHGs. And so my strategy was like, hey, we're going to hold this pace on the skier and then basically be controlled on the GHGs.

Move through the run. Like, don't die. Like the whole weekend, the whole thing thing the entire time i was telling myself every single workout you need to be the person that is in control of the throttle like that's the only thing i was telling myself before during each workout and that was a workout where if the moment you become out of control of a workout like you can't put give anymore and on the throttle that you're over and so help my face on the ski move controlably through the GHDs and then move through the run and so

took a happy about it those are some incredible text messages coming in I don't know how to mute them let's see if I mute this or mute me can you hear me now? yeah we can still hear you I can't hear you now when I mute it so I can't hear you

it's cool to know how often you're being texted sorry Brian go ahead at what point did you know that that was a GHD workout? Because I think that Medeiros talked about the fact that after watching the women go, or maybe it was the first team of the men, that he realized like, oh, there's a lot of time that can be made up or lost on GHD. I knew it was a GHD workout when I was in heat two and all the people from heat one passed us and they said it's a GHD workout.

Okay. And I knew everybody was- and all the people from Heat 1 passed us, and they said it's a GHD workout. Okay. And I knew everybody was- The interesting thing about that comment is, and maybe you talked to Vellner about this, but when watching that, your Heat, it looked to me like Justin- I mean, a lot of the cameras were on those two, which it is what it is, but it looked like a lot of- Justin knew that from the start, and Pat was figuring that out round by round. Oh, really?

Like he was losing a lot of time. He lost a lot of time to everyone on the first round of the GHD. In the second round, it seemed like he was like, I need to do something about this. And then he increased his rate of GHDs in rounds three and four. But it was too late at that point for him relative to Justin, at least. Yeah. For me, I knew that i was gonna pull like if anybody was pulling harder than me on the first round because i think i'm relatively

good at any machine and so my pace was pretty good i feel like like. Like if you were pulling harder than me, if not the same, then you were going really hard. And so I found the pace to settle in on that everybody else was doing because I pretty much knew that this pace was going to affect them more than me. And so I knew it was a GHD workout, so I got on the GHDs and just tried to stay controlled. Do you do weighted GHDs often? Dude, that was the first time I've ever done a weighted GHD. What?

Seriously? Honestly, they don't show up very much. I've never done a weighted GHD. I know people a lot of times will hold on a GHD with a certain weight, but med ball GHDs, they're not that common. I'm not surprised

to hear that. You have an official nickname now, Jason. Jason the Machine Hopper. I like that. Done. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. hopper i like that i like it done done so merry christmas thanks hey is um how is matt your coach like i'm hearing like he's like sitting there with like a notebook watching each of your events taking notes writing down giving feedback like is is it really that close is he your coach coach or is it marconi marconi i mean it's

both of them like he's not my day-to-day but he was there like i was talking to him every day after each event before each event um i mean like yeah he is my coach but there is also another guy who is like right by my side, if you will. And is it helpful? That he's my coach. Yeah. Yeah. Did you not see the games and then this competition?

It's like night and day. Yeah, but you didn't have him as a coach at Mid-Atlantic, and that was night and day from the games as well. Yeah. at mid-Atlantic and that was night and day from the games as well yeah that wasn't those the athletes that were at the match I mean there were there was like eight good ones but everybody else is like just regional type there were more there were more than eight good ones there were a couple of great ones dude so they let the hate pour in now jason's fucked i said there's eight really good ones well i mean hey i don't even know what he's talking about by the way there was only seven games athletes yeah but it's not like they were just 20th to 30th to 40th place finishers at the

games you're talking about a previous champion a now current champion i said eight really good ones yeah but you dusted all of them without fraser or marconi or any of it that's a term from the 80s meaning you whooped their ass you left them in the dust like a like a like a bugs bunny cartoon you know like when he runs away and there's just a pile of dust the dude's left in you dusted them hey but I don't know what he's talking about. Did he do – like I don't think of Jason – I don't think Jason did bad at the games. I don't think he did – I mean – It's not bad. It's not bad.

It's just different. But how? Isn't it just that the competition was better at the games? Like how do we know Jason's getting – There were guys at the Mid-Atlantic who were at the games that Jason crushed at mid Atlantic and got crushed by at the games. Okay. Namely, you know, Justin, but also, you know, Scott Panchuk, even with a hurt knee, who was able to beat him at the games after Jason crushed him at the Mac. Okay.

Okay. And so you think that's just all Travis. That's all. Travis. Travis. And that's all Jason's fault? And Travis Mayer. That's all Jason's fault. Don't forget Travis Mayer. And that's all Jason's fault? That's not because those guys are so good or the programming? That's just Jason shit the bed, fucked up at the games?

No, I think there was some training that hadn't been done for the games because of just lack of experience. And then, you know, there's a lot of it that went into it. Of all the stuff that you're you're most like like like so so there's these things that you see in people like velner shit in the bed on the swim at the games laura horvath and her handstand push-ups i'm sure brian can think of like five or six things where like uh annie with her it was annie's muscle-ups for a long time there's just these things that you're like jesus like as a fan you're just like why aren't these things fixed yet and by the way which i don't think is a fair

judgment of them i think these people are trying to fix these things um do you have anything like that that you look at and you're like oh man this is gonna be really hard to fix Yeah, pretty much all the high volume gymnastics. You just can't fix that overnight. And what does that mean? Handstand push-ups, ring muscle-ups? What are high volume gymnastics? How about pistols? I'm actually really good at pistols, but more so like burpees.

Have you ever done pistols at the same like like in the same at the same time as fraser like when you're with him because that guy's cycle right on pistols is is the best i've ever seen i mean i'm sure i'm not moving that fast just because of range of motion but i mean i'm not like terrible um But yeah, like handstand pushups, gymnastics, like those things will be fixed. But I don't know the time domain of when I'll be like from average to like elite by then. Like, who knows?

And I think that even in that case, there's a distinction. Like no matter how much he works on handstand pushups, if you put him up in a handstand pushup workout that's 50 for time against dan bailey he's never going to beat him because even if jason can do them all unbroken and dan can do them all unbroken it's going to take jason two tenths of a second longer to do every one because of how long his arms are but he has to figure out how to manage those movements for which he's at that disadvantage and he has advantages on other places against someone with a similar stature to Dan, but, but yeah, that's, you know,

I think that's a wise observation. Like that's going to be something that he has to navigate through as he's trying to become the best. Poor Jason, seven on Brian talking like he's in there, dude. This guy likes that. You need to understand Jason. He likes that. Dude, this guy likes that. You need to understand, Jason, he likes that. He likes that.

Off-subject here, and this is a good question. Gershwin's asking, why was Sammy Katrin's coach – do you have any insight into that? Why Sammy was Katrin's coach at the Rogue Invitational? Liar. Okay. Well, thank you. He's not focused on – he's not worried about other athletes. He's focused on what Jason's doing.

I understand. That's not my business. That's none of my business. I see a guy put a comment, Fikowski is tall too and makes it work. Go back and watch Mary and let me know how, how well that worked out for him. What did you think about the final event, Jason? When you heard it, did you love it? I didn't love it.

It was actually pretty scary because I don't like, I'm not a huge fan of like very fast workouts, like 90 seconds, two minutes, like the adrenaline anticipation of those workouts scare me uh and so going out there um knowing that this is a 60 second workout like there's you can't make a mistake you can't miss anything like you can go you can go super fast and it'd be perfect, and it still may not be good enough. 60-second workout would have been good. 66-second workout wasn't good enough. You're right.

You know what? Well, I'm looking at the numbers here, but either way, it wasn't good enough. But I don't think it was your fault. 85% of the men and 70% of the women who had a chance to do that workout twice improved their time the second time they did it and you guys the top five athletes men and women had to go up against 10 other athletes who already had a crack at it who'd already been able to get off their ass get out of the dugout start moving get the blood flowing and practice at once whereas you guys didn't have that chance i think you presented that question in a very that statement

in a very biased way let me tell you what brian is doing here with last night in the show we talked about and we're in we'd love to get your input on it please ignore everything that brian said right there um we'd like to get your input on do you think it was an advantage having a buy or not brian's in the camp and he's got some great fucking points that it's a disadvantage to have a bye, and I'm in the camp of it's an advantage, although he did say some really smart shit last night. Dude, this guy Bug, first of all, in the comments is killing me.

He says, this guy in the comments, Bug, is killing me. He said Fikowski never took 19th. He's taking 23rd at the games. It's just not making comments that are inaccurate, buddy. Yeah, 20 burpees, Bug. I just stop making comments that are, that are in a inaccurate buddy. Yeah. I just put the comments and now I get to see him. Okay. So Jason,

tell us about, this is great. This is great. This is going to be the highlight of the show right here. Tell us about, um, Hey girl, what's up?

What's your name? Hey wife. Holy shit. Did you check her? Is she of age age how old is your wife 21 22 20 i'm 22 carter um uh what what she's beautiful yeah very um uh tell me um about the um about about the buy the final event um i think it was a disadvantage for the athletes reason because i think well there was only only three people got cut out of right only three people got cut out of right. Only three people got cut. All you had to be was all you had to do is beat three people and you would

have moved on. And so the chances of us beating three with like, even the mistakes were relatively high. And so that my time may have still got me into the next round which I would have understood the workout I would have went through it one time

I would have been warm and I would have been ready to go and that was also Brian's argument yesterday and when you say three just to be clear shouldn't it be five or was it three? Because two dudes dropped out. Two dudes dropped out.

And do you know why those dudes dropped out? It was Vino and who day, who day? I mean, today got sick. I didn't, I didn't know the other reasons. Explosive diarrhea and vomiting like you had and Josh Bridges had or

something else i have no idea interesting interesting because and tell me about the allergies there before we go into more about event seven were people there having severe allergies i didn't see any oh you're fucking up the story jason you're fucking up the story i'm just reading the comments i just finally got enough but this is awesome no don't do that come on hey let us determine what you see and don't see jason so you weren't you didn't see a bunch of people blowing their nose like we interviewed velner and like i mean the the dude was blew his nose 20 times in a 20 minute interview and i've spoken with other people and i guess the allergies there

were crazy severe for people you're saying that not a not a boy like you not you ain't no you ain't no pusillanimous it's a word I learned from Emily Abbott this morning you don't call people a pussy you call them a pusillanimous that's the actually the word it's the fool. Is Lance Hopper your brother, Jason? Who's Lance Hopper? Lance is not my brother. Who is that? No idea. Oh.

Do you have a brother? Yes. Moving swimmingly well. Okay, so why couldn't you warm up before what why why did you need to actually do the event in order to um uh warm up why can't you just be warming up on the side they didn't let you do a couple test runs of that before we were ready okay let me get let me throw some numbers at you seven but how about how about before that? Thank you, Brian, but hold on one second. How about before that?

Didn't you get to pick the bag up or do some snatches? Yeah, we did 30 minutes before. Okay, so you were warmed up. I thought you said you didn't have a chance to warm up. We cooled down. Cooled down. Jensen, in every other event, how long before you took the floor did they take you into that dugout? How long before? took the floor did they take you into that dugout? How long before?

Yeah. Like three minutes. And so for the athletes that were in heat one, round one for the men, they were in the dugout maybe, we can say, three to ten minutes before they took the field and did their first run through. Yeah. On the live stream, that happened at four hours and 32 minute mark. Three minutes later, he too took the floor and three and a half, three minutes after that,

he three took the floor. Then there was another 12 minute gap between your heat taking the floor, which means that you guys, because they brought all of the men into the dugout at the same time for that event, right? All, all 18 that were remaining.

So you guys had an extra 19 minutes sitting there doing nothing before your first chance to go out on the floor. And during that 19 minutes, you were not allowed to touch any weights. You could do calisthenics in the dugout, but you couldn't do anything else in terms of touching weights, lifting bags, jumping rope, anything like that. Yeah. So that's the extra 19 minutes that he –

and we could say on the low end, 12 minutes. They had an extra 12 minutes relative to some of the other guys who were in the last heat that they just had to sit there. Yeah. I mean, it is what it is. It's not like an excuse. It just is what it is. No, it's not an excuse. But when I sit back and look at the event, this event had a ton of potential.

Savan talked about last night how he thinks that it could have been the greatest event ever programmed. And what I'm saying is there were only 20 athletes in the field. It was a very short event. There was no time constraint. They easily could have had all of you do round one and given you guys what I would consider a more even playing field in that workout and let the best people at this workout actually progress throughout every round. But the fact of the matter is almost everyone improved the second time they did it. And I see some of the comments saying, well, not Will Morad. And that's true. There were

two men and four women who did worse the second time they took the floor. But it's also a workout where, yes, execution matters. What I'm saying is the first time through it was a learning curve for almost everyone. And the second time, nearly everyone improved. And you guys had to go on your first run against a field of people who were going on their second run. While it seemed in theory that you guys had earned a buy and that it should be advantageous, there was so much time between heats that all of you guys are good enough that you can do a 60 second workout like that, recover and do it again 10 minutes later. That is the presupposition there, by the way, that the buy is supposed to help. I mean,

I think it's a fair one, but it should be noted also. Yeah. And so I would say that in this case, I'm not saying that it was a bad, you know, sometimes you make, you make an oversight and you make a mistake and it's fine, but I'm saying moving forward, if we had this circumstance again, I would hope that the programmers of this competition or others would look back and say, you know what? It may be that by wasn't such a big advantage. Maybe it wasn't necessary and maybe there's a better way we could do this next time. Because ultimately, I think the excitement of the event is amplified if you have people like Thor's daughter and velner and hopper make it through a round or two more sure i think it'd be awesome if velner and and uh and annie had a baby

i know that seems off topic but you were talking about exciting things and i just always think it would be it's fun mixing and matching the male and female competitors to make babies. I want to do a podcast where it's just like it's it's it's 40 yes or no questions that I ask Hopper and we do it for time and see if we can start and end the podcast in two minutes. It's like, hi, this is Jason Hopper. And then it's just quite. And he's like, uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Thank you for coming on there. I appreciate it. This was it was nice talking to you and we're done seriously we need to do that i'm going to come up with 40 questions and we're going to do a three minute um a three a three minute podcast let's do it so jason please share with us your your deepest feelings about how you feel about the event what like as you finish like honest feelings not like this bullshit like oh i executed on my plan it was a fantastic experience i plan on learning from my weaknesses and moving into the next week i want you to dig deep into your like your

okay go this is a safe space for you hopper tell me what do you think about the weekend um yeah tell me about tell me about what do you think about the weekend? In front of the whole world? Yeah, tell me about your negative thoughts. Stop reading the comments, Jason. I'm sorry. You can help with a lot, like one pop stop. The weekend was super incredible. The event was, when I got there, it was just well organized from the day we registered. Like, we got cowboy boots and hats, and they interviewed us, or media.

Like, the whole setup was just, I mean, I only had been to a couple competitions in my time. So this one was one that obviously you stand above. I just felt, in a way, I felt more like they were for us. It wasn't like the games. It was like they want to take care of us was their priority, as well as run this event. And so I felt well taken care care of which is the stuff we got like it was awesome as far as the event goes um like it was exactly how i pictured it like i knew

the first couple of days were going to be like my opportunity to like really climb the leaderboard, get up top. I didn't know if event seven, I knew event five and six were going to hurt me. It's not a row workout. It was going to be a straight handstand pushup and remuscle up workout, which I'm not the best at those. I knew I wasn't going to be taking top five in that. And then the burpees and deadlifts, that wasn't going to be tough. And so I knew I – like, I wasn't oblivious to that.

I was most – so I was proud of my effort. Like, I gave everything I had. Like, we executed the plan. Every single workout was perfect. Everything I had, like, we executed the plan. Every single workout was perfect. And so by – even when I was in third place, the goal was to be a top five. Like, I knew these last two were going to be challenging.

And I was okay, like, just telling myself, hey, like, if you get pushed back a few spots on the leaderboard, like it's okay. Like this isn't about leaderboarding. This is about like data for the future. Um, but I was most frustrated with the last workout when I missed the snatch because it was like the whole weekend was like perfect execution. Like no mistakes. Like I was proud of every single workout.

Uh, like we put the hammer down even on the 14th place finishes like I gave my best and I finished across the finish line knowing that I paced perfectly uh and yeah it was awesome and then that last workout was the most frustrating because it was the one where I felt like I choked the most. I knew I was just a Mr. Snatch. That's the one thing I didn't want to do is Mr. Snatch. It's frustrating when you are sitting in the dugout saying, do not miss that snatch.

That's the workout. Make sure you're snatching. Make sure the cycle speed is fast. Be strong in the shoulders like make sure it's like snappy and it was the opposite of that and so that's gonna be frustrating and so took seventh i wanted i wanted to be fifth um like on saturday night or going into saturday i was fifth and i was like i would be so happy if I got top five here. And I did it.

So that was the frustrating part. But other than that, it felt great. Like, again, it was all data. That was what me and Matt talked about. Like, this isn't about, like, it would be super cool to win that much money and, like, be first. But at the end of the day, we're after the CrossFit Games. like being that's the title we're after and so this was the data this was like this is experience this is just like collecting like he he was able to watch me have his eyes on

me the entire time um and it's just for hey like what where can we go now like what are we going to do now like he's super stoked about what he's going to have me do. I'm going to get, get to Vermont soon. A couple of times and go from there. But overall, super proud of myself. Yeah. I just frustrated. I didn't get five, five.

frustrated i think it's five five i felt like i felt like five was my like a good like where i should be and like the when it comes like my fitness level like the dudes that are above me like they earn that their position i i feel like i if i would have taken care of what i take would have taken care of on the last event then then fifth would have been well-deserved. Do you think that, Matt, that Fraser's doing that with any other athletes, watching them that closely, or do you know he's only doing that for you? I believe it's just me. Because I know that I've received some questions over the last month or so about if he's also working with Medeiros.

I know that they'd had some interactions earlier in the season. I just wasn't sure. Yeah, I'm sure they are. I mean, they're in business together. They do. I mean, that's his dude. And before I even stepped on the scene, like, they had a good relationship. And they're always going to have a relationship.

Like, I'm sure Medeiros will go up to Vermont and train with them a few times just because they're cool friends. Um, so yeah, I'm sure he does, but I don't think that he has an eye on Medeiros as much as he has an eye on me just because I'm doing HWPO. Uh, so you were 40 points behind, gee who took uh fifth place so that would have been eight places is it no wait five goes into eight places yeah he would have needed to uh to surpass gee because he had had a couple event wins um so but if he would have taken sixth in that event, he could have been in the top five.

Yeah, fifth or sixth, I think, depending on the tiebreak, because Guy was going to win that one, I think, probably, no matter what. I mean, it was close between him and Sam Quant in the end, but Guy looked strong throughout that workout. If they had tied on points, Guy would have carried the tiebreaker with two event wins to Jason's one. If they had tied on points, he would have carried the tiebreaker with two event wins to Jason's one. And so Jason was in control of his destiny to reach his goal all the way until the very end, I guess is what I was saying, was my point.

What do you think about this, Jason? I know this is splitting hairs, but you say that it was a good event. Do you think – there seemed to be a lack of tension in the air there that I'm used to seeing at the games like it was like too much like the athletes were having too much fun it was too relaxed and i'm wondering if that's because everything's paid for it's like um if someone gives you your parents buy you a football versus you have to buy one for your um with your own allowance when you buy with your own allowance you don't play so close to the edge of the cliff or the neighbor's fence because you paid for that shit and you don't want it to go over the fence and lose your football. Or if it does go over the fence and there's a dog in the yard,

if you paid for the football, you jump in and get it. If your parents paid for it, you don't. Do you think that maybe that it makes the athletes soft in any way? Because it is kind of like there's this vacation component to it. Well, I'm not,

I don't really have to put my own money on the line. For some athletes, maybe. Like the shittier ones? Like the ones that have no chance of winning? Like you have a chance of winning. You're saying like the ones that have no chance of winning? Jason, what was the payout for winning an individual event? $2,500.

Every time you took the floor, even if you didn't think you could win the overall competition, you could easily show up to that. Like Carolyn Prevost, 20th, 18th, 17th, 7th, 2nd. Trust me, she was pushing to win that deadlift workout. Yeah. I don't know.

I'm not going to answer your question, Saban. I'm not in the head of those other athletes. Right. You know that we were, from my two experiences from the Games and Rogue, we were a lot more laid back at the Rogue. I think just because it's not the games. We're not here to be the person that's not going to be the fittest man on earth. This isn't the end-all, be-all.

This isn't the title we're after. It's just a competition that we all get to do together with a good payout, of course. We're going to go freaking hard. Again, it's not the title that we're after. The payout is fucking awesome. Yeah, it is. I felt there might have been one athlete for whom I saw an actually increased

level of intensity as the weekend went on relative to the games and that was Tia because I don't think no matter what they've been doing in the off season I'm not sure she was prepared to be challenged that much with only two events left

for the win yeah I didn't get a chance to really watch challenged that much with only two events left for the, for the win. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't get a chance to really watch the women. Yeah. I got the feeling that it was, you know, it's that you guys are like the 20 of you guys get the chance to be close

and spend time together. And those women get that same opportunity, but there's not as much overlap, which I mean, it makes sense. The locker rooms are obviously going to be separate, and you guys have your space down there, and they have their space over there and whatever.

Are you home already, Jason? Yeah, I got home last night. Did you already train this morning? No. I told you I was sick yesterday. Yeah, I don't know. I didn't know you were a pussy and you were going to take this morning off.

I'm going to colorado tomorrow what are you doing there promoting the grand opening of some fucking weed shop or something um seriously yeah and are you and what's are you allowed to do that? For some reason, I'm getting that like – so I tried to talk to you during the event, and you're like, no, I can't. And I'm like, why? And you're like, that's not what champions do. And so you wouldn't even give us 10 minutes or 15 minutes of your time during the event. And like when we want to do podcasts with you, it has to be like on Mondays and Thursdays between 8 and 8.15 unless it's a harvest moon because on harvest moons it gives you a chance to work out later at night and do some running workout.

I mean, you have all these fucking rules, and now you're going on an elk hunt? Like, what's going on? I told you on the last podcast I was going on an elk hunt. I know, but what's going on? Like, is your training serious? Is it not serious? Like, you didn't train this morning.

You're going on an elk hunt. You have all these rules. Like, what's going on going on like shouldn't you be just like buckle down how is the elk hunt how do you how does an elk how is there time to do an elk hunt or to fit in shouldn't you like climb into a coffin and rest and then just come out to work out and eat maybe um i am taking a week off so in in my week off, I'm going to go to Elk. But after every big competition, maybe not Water Polo, but after Rowe and the games, I mean, that's your time to basically have some time off and vacation in that week off. Are you going with someone famous?

No. Just friends? Yeah, my brother. Just regular people. You're going with someone famous no just friends yeah my brother just regular people let you go with lance yeah and then and then so so you take that off and then what's the next event you do water palooza and so will you take no time off between this elk hunt and Wadapalooza? Yeah, probably not. And what are the dates on Wadapalooza? January 13th to 16th. Yeah. See you there.

Oh, that's awesome. You're going to that, Brian? Yep. Are you, are you, are you like working there for someone? Yeah. I'll offer you $10 a day to do podcasts with me. We'll probably do it. We'll,

we'll, we'll make something work. I'll bring my stuff. $11, $11 a day. Um, tell me about this podcast that you did. That was so good.

The, uh, just ask me, these are cool questions. better than yours i understand and we took a deep dive into my past that's why i like i got to revisit a lot of memories that i had um from my high school and college like deep deep dives into which was cool yeah i really like that too we never did that no we never did it where like i asked you where you were born and like if you breastfed i never did any we never did that no oh shit we need to do that that's like my forte i guess we you asked me like

you asked me about like football questions and like college, but you didn't like, we didn't talk about like things other than sports. This podcast was like my whole life. If you will. Like my, we talked about how I met my wife, like high school,

like all that stuff. Yeah. Those motherfuckers. They stole my, they stole, they stole my shit. Slipping. Yeah.

That's good stuff. I need to go listen to that. I need to Slipping. Yeah, that's good stuff. I need to go listen to that. You need to. I need to listen to that. And what's the name of the podcast? Apogee Podcast. I know. I'm going to write it on here so people can see.

Apogee. What does Apogee mean? I have no idea. Do you know, Brian? Checking. Okay. It's the highest point in the development of something, a climax or culmination. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think it's a mathematical term. It's like the furthest away from the center of a circle. What did you say? It's the pinnacle of podcasting. Yes. Oh, damn. Did I spell it right apogee podcast yeah i think so nice guys by the way they've interacted with me on instagram a

bit if you want to know what trauma happened in jason hopper's youth that's caught that he's running from that's causing him to want to pursue a fitness or to pursue being coming across the games champion, what, why he thinks he deserves that pain. You can listen to the Apogee podcast. They get to the root of his. Fair, right? Yeah, I guess. Fair, fair assessment. What was the, what did you think about the programming at Rogue? I thought it was awesome. Well-designed. It was fun.

I wanted to look forward to it. I thought each event was awesome. Even the ones that didn't do well. Did you smell mayhem on it? Did you smell Rich Froning on it? Not really. Are you familiar with their programming do you think you would yeah i would because we got some feedback from some some of the athletes saying that

it was just so it was so rich it was so rich it was so rich i was expecting if it was rich i was expecting, if it was rich, I was expecting like two sets of 60 GHDs and a workout or something, something crazy, 200 GHDs altogether. Let's talk about your favorite event. All right. Okay, go ahead.

I'm talking about the one you won. It is event number... Well, let's talk about it anyway then. Let's not talk about your favorite event. Event number three. When you see this event, people were saying you were going to do good on it. I believe that Brian and both John Young

were saying that you were going to do good on it. Did you know you were going to win that event? I knew I was able to win that event? I knew I was able to win that event. I had potential to win it, yeah. Do you think Fikowski could have got you on that one? I don't know.

I don't know either, but I feel like he would have been right in the mix. Maybe. So they say 3-2-1-go. Can you walk us through that? They say 3-2-1-go. I don't remember. Did you do all the thrusters unbroken?

Did you jump on the bike? Did you waste any time chalking up? Walk us through that event. Yeah, so we went out there. They said 3-2, one, go. I went up to the bar. I started doing thrusters. I've done 20.

No, I'm just kidding. I knew that there was going to be one on the bike, but you didn't want to come out guns blazing because you wanted to be able to fit like do your last 20 thrusters like efficiently and fast and so the first 20 i knew i wasn't i'm not the fastest at doing thrusters like madero says super fast uh and there's some other dudes that are super fast just because of range of motion and i feel like adler's pretty good at cycling him yeah um and so i was the whole goal was hey efficiently be controlled make sure you're

breathing like go don't go slow but be be urgent but not like as fast as you can get through 20 hop on the bike and like just go to work like find a pace that you can hold the entire time like don't come out there don't get on the bike and like just go 100 miles an hour and not be able to finish 100 miles an hour so the whole goal was to basically increase the entire time on the bike and so i get on that i think i held like 93 rpm for like the whole time i'm so glad you use rpm so many people use watts and i don't use watts i use rpm that. That's what I watch when I'm doing it. So you held 93 RPM for what was it? 40 calories or 60? What was it?

Yeah, I got on there. I held like 80 to 90 for the first few just because of that lactic acid from the thrusters. But then that goes away and it's all about the bite. You start pulling more than one and then i took it up to 90 92 93 did you back off the last couple calories at all to set up yourself up for that last set no you cruised all the way in 93 like you saw it go over 40 calories and then took and then got off the gas why yeah because i thought like i didn't, I didn't want to regret losing this workout. And if I lost, I would blame it on the last, like, few calories I coasted through.

And I just didn't want to have that regret. So I freaking sent it. God, I'm having the most crass thought in my head right now. I just really have to push it down. Push it down, Sebi. Don't say it. God, I'm having the most crass thought in my head right now. I just really have to push it down. Push it down, Sebi. Don't say it. And then you jump off and do you chalk up or you just grab the

bar and just thruster? Do you do any stupid shit? Take a glass of water, take your shirt off? Anything silly between the bike and the thrusters? No. Grab that bar and go. And do you remember the workout, Jason, or is it just a blur?

Like, do you remember being out there? I remember, yeah. I remember every bit of it. When you start your thrusters, when they say three, two, one, go, do you have beads of sweat on your body already

or are you cold? Do you have so much adrenaline and anticipation? it's actually yeah i wasn't sweating it's actually felt really good outside over there are you shaking like adrenaline like a little like like you have a little vibrant vibration like a hum going no it's No, it's just a very nervous feeling of like, I don't know how to describe it. You feel sick to your stomach until you start. Once you start, it all goes away. knowing that you're about to freaking like hurt this bad in order to win is makes you very um like a little antsy for those who embrace the impossible the defender 110 is up for the

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Dad, thank you. This is literally the best day of my life. On August 2nd. What's with all the police trucks outside? You know, the butcher goes around just chopping people up. Comes a new M. Night Shyamalan experience. The feds are hurt. He's going to be here today.

Josh Hartnett. I'm in control. And Salika as Lady Raven. This whole concert, it's a trap. Trap, directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Only in theaters August 2nd. Did you throw up after that workout? No.

Did anyone that you know of? I don't think so. I knew we all, we could barely, we couldn't breathe. We had a friend on, all of us. It was bad. Oh, you did how long did how long does that last the rest of the you still have it like an hour okay so not not over until the next day you're not like coughing for days no but we were our lungs it was like our whole chest it was just like because it was the air was dry out there and it was miserable

are you and when you finish that do you know are you like holy do you know that you did well are you like holy shit bam yeah i knew i won when i i knew i won yeah i knew i won when I got to the thrusters. Oh, really? I knew that I got the bike. Cole Sager was to my left. And I saw him do his first one and like go pretty slow in the first one. And I knew I could

because he came out like so hot, like 100 RPMs like max sprint. And I knew that he was feeling way worse than i on that bike just because of that what he did there and so i knew that if i'm feeling how like the way i'm feeling on this coaster like he is like really hurting because of that max run he did and that show that showed up in the last 20 for sure he faded all the way to 14th in that event yeah and so he finished 30 seconds behind you how does a veteran make a mistake like that and the guy's fucking smart right

and he's got great coaching it's not like i mean especially on a machine right because it's like so like if i could understand if you're doing 100 100 thrusters and like you fucked that up but on a machine you have all the metrics right in front of you right you're like okay like you must know that if you would have touched 100 shit would have gone bad right that's why you stayed at 93 yeah and that's i mean this isn't people have known this forever like you can you go five seconds faster on a on a on a row and it can cost you 30 seconds on the next movement like it's not it's not worth you have to know your threshold with 20 thrusters to go it looked to me like you did you did that perfectly because i think in the last set of 20 thrusters you were still

pulling the bar down and cycling them fast faster than the first one yeah you are pulling the bar down yeah on the last 20 how do you know how to do that you just pull it down i know but when in your crossfit career like i've never i never pulled i've never pulled the bar down once in my life never i haven't pulled a fucking pvc pipe down i'm serious i just i went when um who teaches you that like when you know that like i saw miko salo do that for the first time i didn't even know really what i was seeing it when we showed the video of miko salo doing fran one time people thought we sped it up and i think the reason why they said they thought we sped it up is because no one had ever seen anyone pull the bar down. So, like, how do you learn that?

Does someone tell you, hey, you got to pull the bar down? You're like, what? Why would I do that? There's gravity. I think it just comes with time and working out. Like, I learned that my first couple of years of doing CrossFit, just doing thrusters, and then, like, you try to go faster on thrusters and then like you try to go faster on thrusters and you're trying to figure things out and you pull down one time on the bar and it

makes sense and it's just like oh that was fast so you keep doing it brian do you pull down with 95 pounds i'm so bad at thrusters in general that that no, I'm in the same camp as you here. But toes-to-bar is an example. Depending on the sets of toes-to-bar, I'll do long, really big kipping swings. Or sometimes I'll pull my feet down and cycle them back up and forth real quick if it's a small set or the end of a workout or whatever. Yeah. It's fun hearing you talk about the workouts. I was surprised how much I just enjoyed that.

I like the part where you're like, I look at the work and I say, what? We can only talk about two. Okay. Which one do you want to talk about? Which one was your favorite? My favorite was the concept two.

That was the first one we asked you about actually yeah it ended up being my favorite too he's lying this is some bullshit that Matt told him he's fucking being told to like change the story in his head to like the ones that are as big as weakness

I smelled this is just psychology shit he's going to smoke up for us there's something going on here I'm not buying this shit I knew it was new it was my favorite because it was the most fun like running up the hill like doing that was like when they put that hill up there before the competition i was like that is going to be so fun to run up what was the what was the view like when you turned the corner around the pylon and looked back down at the field and saw the fans? Could you appreciate that in the moment of the workout?

I don't think I did that. Is that thing shaking at all, that hill? Is there any movement or it's sturdy as a mofo? It's pretty sturdy. I almost tumbled down on the last the last hill run like i almost ate it because travis mayor was behind me but like he was coming up he was like halfway up the hill and i was just turning around and i was like i and i cannot lose this last sprint like 100 yard sprint i could not lose it And I literally just let go of my body down that hill.

And somehow I did it. I faced the plant. Running downhill is a skill you can practice. And I remember, I think it was maybe the first round of that workout, Haley Adams was in the lead of her heat, and she looked totally uncomfortable coming down that Hill and catching was behind her. And I know that Ben takes those athletes up and does hill sprints with them

every summer and catching looked real fluid coming down the Hill and like gained like 15 yards on her just on the descent of the Hill. Yeah. Um, this guy, the above the, the above the box podcast first of all uh 50 burpees for you for um coming on here with another podcast and commenting uh but but but this is interesting you learn how to pull down the bar if you're over six feet and got to go on thrusters is that

is that is that really true that's kind of a big man thing big guys learn that faster than little guys i i would disagree. I mean, you've seen Medeiros do it. You've seen Fraser do it. We've seen Bridges do it when he was winning thruster workouts in the Open for years. That's an old thing that all the best athletes have figured out. Okay, well then I'm going to say I do not endorse the Above the Box podcast for spreading misinformation about tall people.

Do not listen to the Above the Box podcast. Hey, Above the box podcast for spreading misinformation about tall people. Do not listen to the above the box podcast. Hey, above the box podcast. You know what you should do? You should go to barbelljobs.com and get yourself a new job because the above the box podcast is not for you for spreading misinformation and you will be canceled soon by Facebook and Instagram. So please go to barbelljobs.com. barbelljobs.com.

So messed up. What'd you say? I said that's so messed up. I know. It's just, it's the only way I know how to give love is like through like put downs and stuff. It's, it's because I'm not in touch with myself, my feminine side or something. And so it's like, I have to be abusive to give love.

So I want to give love to the above the box podcast, but I have to do it in an abusive way. Jason, you talk about uh about faith with any of the guys in the back yeah um whenever i get the chance cole sager and i have some conversations um like what like what do you say like right before the event you look over and you say, hey, Cole, just because I think you're a piece of shit and want to beat you, I want you to know Jesus loves you. Like that? No. We had that common part of us, I guess. What did he say?

He broke up to me. I can't hear God because I'm such a heathen. What did he say? He broke up to me. I can't hear God because I'm such a heathen. What did he say? I started melting. I said we share that together. We both love Jesus. You and Cole. And Travis.

I mean, there's a whole school of you. You can't even be good at CrossFit unless you love Jesus. They say Jesus is the way to heaven. It seems like it's the way to being crossfit games champion is it a is it a prerequisite to be part of the mayhem team i have no idea i don't think so they're all wearing those shirts that say pray wear that shirt you're a christian the the thing is is that those guys are i mean i don't know about the anymore but those guys like those I mean, I don't know about the anymore, but those

guys, like those fucking Bible beaters, like rich and just whatever, they're so fucking awesome. It went every time they invited me into their prayer circle. I feel like I won the lot of there's like, I'm not even like that. And there's nothing more loving or fun than when those guys invite you to their circle, they put their arms around you and everyone's taking a moment of time to like, just be thankful and pray. It's good shit.

There's nothing pretentious about it. I always just thought it was cool. I thought it was cool. Did you guys do any of that? Let's get this real, Zavon. There you go. There you go. Game, recognize game. Real, recognize real.

Jason, a lot of people asked for your autograph this weekend. A few people. Is that something you're using? Do you like that or do you not care at all? I mean, it is what it is.

I saw, dude, the fans were loving you. I saw after you won the work, after you won the workout, there was like everyone left the field before you and you had to do your thing. And then when you cruised off the field, there's like someone who escorts you, like they jog with you. And I saw you signing t-shirts and taking pictures.

I thought it was awesome. How could you not enjoy that if you're not enjoying that you should enjoy that some people think it's a sickness to enjoy that i don't you should always go the fans are so awesome you should let them love on you and i know you do i'm not saying i'm not preaching to you like like like you don't but like what i mean that's the whole thing about being a champion, right? Letting people love on you and being able to spread the love. Post this comment by Zachary Cates. What?

Signing, all right, taking pictures with fans and like talking to fans is different than signing autographs. to fans is different than signing autographs. Like, whenever someone hands you a t-shirt and with a sharpie, and you get to write on their hand on the shirt, that's kind of hard. It's like, it's very tough to do your signature when it's, you're like, just writing on the shirt with no, you're not writing on anything. So it's hard, so that's kind of it's annoying but other than that like taking pictures with fans like selfies meet people that's awesome

i love signing people's um um uh the backs of their shirts because it's nice and hard and easy to write on but like those women with the giant tits and then they want me to sign their tits it's just a mess because I can't get like a just my writing looks so sloppy is that what you're saying Jason? yeah even on the back of a person's shirt

it's hard to put that shirt on man I love Jesus but I'm not good at CrossFit. That's because your love does not go deep enough. What was your least favorite workout, Jason? The deadlifts. Okay, let's talk about it then. Yeah, yeah, you go down funny in your burpees, right?

You have that big man thing you start to get tired and you're in your down is weird right probably dude my legs were so trashed after ghgs in that hill run we were in the warm-up and dude 315 felt like 350 and everybody else was like cycling the barbell super fast in the warm-up and i was like oh man this is gonna be pretty interesting and when you mean cycling it you mean like basically bouncing it getting a good bounce off the bottom yeah yeah they were just strong out over there that looked what was the most when when you warmed up back there what was the most you Yeah, they were just strong out of their deadlift. What was the most, when you warmed up back there, what was the most you lifted? Did you deadlift 350?

Yeah, we just went to 315. Really? So in the warm-up area, you don't go up to 350 or something or maybe 400? So just do one rep so that when you go out there, 315 feels lighter? We do more than one rep but no but what i'm saying when you're warming up what was the heaviest weight you warmed up with in the warm-up area okay yeah shit what do i know but i when i when i've lifted heavy in the past or when i'm gonna like do let's say high reps at 225 or something i would always like first go higher so that when i came

back down it felt lighter because obviously 225 felt heavy as shit to me you don't do that you didn't see guys doing that back there i don't think so we're all just doing like intervals like we would do like maybe like a few deadlifts into a few burpee pull-ups. When they briefed you on that workout, did they say that you could grip the pull-up bar any way you wanted, underhand, overhand, mixed grip? Yeah. I didn't specifically watch it. Did you try out different styles of that,

or did you just go with one style throughout? Yeah, I just went with one style. Because I think that someone was telling me one of the women did underhand grip the whole time, and I think that Tia switched her grip in the middle. Well, I wasn't necessarily pulling. I would jump, like, all the way up to the rig. So it really wasn't a pulling factor for me. I think it's like the burpee pull-up.

You know, one of the things is the things is your line of sight. Do you know where the bar is? Do you have to look up and grab it or not? And maybe it's just a comfort thing underhand versus overhand. It was a comfort thing. I found the bar when I was in the air jumping.

I would do my burpee and then jump out of my burpee and then when I'm in the air, I would do my burpee and then like jump out of my burpee and then when I'm in the air I would like just grab it Shamu live says uh Hopper's audio sucks well that's because you don't this is a special show with people who have a fetish of only listening to people who sound like they're in the bathroom and that's what sorry I should have made that more clear at the beginning of this show um Um, so, so you get,

so you get out there and do you do all 21 deadlifts on broken with three 15? No, I did 15 and six or 14 and seven. And, and, and did the winner do them on broken? And so, um,

why do you put it down at, at, at, at what did you say? 15 and six. Why do you put it down at 15? What do you feel that is it in your back, your hands? Why do you put it down at, what did you say, 15 and 6? Why do you put it down at 15? What do you feel? Is it in your back, your hands?

Why do you stop? My hamstrings were just lit up. And I knew that. My burpees. It depends on what you were good at. If you were really good at deadlifts, then you probably had time. You were probably going to feel less worn out on the burpees when you got there. But if you weren't very good at deadlifts and you were good at burpees, then you're

going to want to pace the deadlifts and then go harder on the burpees. For me, it was a burpee workout. And so I knew, hey, I can't do 21 unbroken deadlifts because i'm not going to be able to necessarily move efficiently on the burpees um not as fast not as fast as i want would want to to like be in the race for this you know um and so no that doesn't make sense to me i'm thinking it's the opposite way if you know that if you know um no that doesn't make sense to me i'm thinking it's the opposite way if you know that if you know that it that burpees aren't your strong point why not just kick ass in the deadlifts and then just fucking deal with the burpees why not just do the deadlifts all unbroken

and especially especially if you break up the first round of deadlifts then aren't you kind of like fuck i'm out of it i can't win No, because if you break up the deadlifts, you can push harder on the burpees. Okay. If I get down to 21, I mean, 21 is a lot. You're going to feel pretty smoked. Everybody feels pretty smoked after 21, 315. When you look back on this workout and you see your time relative to the top times and it's almost like 35 percent

slower is that like is that something you feel like there's like you can close that gap or is it is it like daunting to you man that's a lot that's a lot of time in a small workout yeah i was doing my deadlifts wrong um and my burpees wrong so there's a lot of room for improvement there and i will by the way i will say the athletes that did it two years ago improved quite a bit this time around on that workout. And I wasn't sure if that would be the case because, as you alluded to, it was the third workout that day. The midline and nervous system had already been taxed by the previous two workouts.

But nevertheless, there were significant improvements, even from Vellner, who won it both years. Yeah, it was just, I mean, there was many factors I went into. I did my deadlifts wrong. I did my burpees wrong. Matt, I saw Matt after the workout, and he was like, dude, did you, have you seen, have you watched the event yet? And he was like, you were doing Romanian deadlifts.

Like, you weren't even using your legs or your, uh, your quads. You're doing deadlifts like Jukic was doing skier. I was, I was doing, um, on the burpees. I was just coming down too slow. Like I would get up there fast, but I was going down too slow. Um, and so those. Yeah, you were going down, like you were going down weird. You're going down. Like I've seen a lot of big men go down. Yeah. So those two things just over, over

the course of six minutes, I mean, in a fast workout, it's just a few seconds, every rep, if you do it that way. I mean, if it's, if it's one second per ref, there's your 90 seconds. Yeah. So you take all that away and change the whole thing. But then also the volume of the weekend. It was the first time that weekend I started feeling the volume of it, the entire weekend. The GHDs, the freaking acid bath that we had that morning. Have you done the acid bath workout no i think i would be curious to know what your time on that would be

it would hurt um yeah i want to hear about the ass challenge but the best scores ever on that before we go to the ass bath i want to because i was very interested in and you answered it pretty good when you said that you do too um you did – Matt was saying or you said someone was saying that you did the deadlifts and the burpees wrong. It's fascinating to hear someone who's at this elite level say that, that you went out there and did something like you did the movements wrong. It's kind of fucking crazy. How does that happen? Is that just – like specifically the burpees, how do you do the burpees wrong? Is it you're just pure fatigue? You're like because you went down like an old man, right? Or you went down like just like one leg at a time almost. I have to go back and look at it. But is that just pure fatigue? You're like, fuck. At that point, it's just like all about getting down and up. and up yeah but if i would have knew how to do the burpee like the most efficiently before the workout then no matter how fatigued i would have been like i would have done it that way

like whether it had been slow or not so you're saying but you do know how to do a burpee correctly you're just saying you weren't disciplined or you didn't remind yourself to do it or you don't or you just don't know how to do a burpee correctly. You're just saying you weren't disciplined or you didn't remind yourself to do it or you don't, or you just don't know how to do a burpee correctly. Maybe I don't. There were so many, there were so many things in that workout that I was unfamiliar with, like the burpee pull up. I haven't been training burpee pull up a whole lot in my, my life. my life um and so there was a few things that i was focused on in that workout that was new to me and so that's the only thing i was thinking about the entire time on the bird pull-ups not necessarily like for instance i was focused on making sure i was not pulling on the bar and just like jumping high enough where i'm just like i'm already already there. My chin's already above the bar. And so as soon as that's all I'm thinking about is making sure I'm like driving out of the hole into that position.

And I'm not necessarily thinking about going back down, you know? So there's so many things you're thinking about that you just happen to personally not think about one thing that's very important. I love hearing all this because it gives me hope that you're going to be across the Games champion. Lauren Knowles, how does Hopper feel about being the most attractive man out there? You don't even have to tell us how you feel. That's too intimate how dare you lauren this is a podcast this is a sports podcast she didn't mean how do you feel she says how do you

process it intellectually we don't mean to get so deep with you a little more surface jason how do you feel intellectually about being so handsome i mean got to thank my creator. I didn't make myself this way. He did. He's handsome, Lauren, but if Jesus were standing next to him, he'd look like a turd. How's that? Jason, I don't think we've touched on either event one or six yet. In both events, I thought that there was a lot of potential in these events, but ultimately it just came down to one of the several implements.

The first workout, I think you and I might have talked about it, that the rope climbs, especially the back half of the rope climbs, ended up being the crux of the entire workout. that the rope climbs and especially the back half of the rope climbs ended up being the crux of the entire workout. And then the sixth event, which I thought was a really cool event in its design. It was really, I think it was really about the, either the second set of ring muscle ups or handstand pushups, depending on which one of those things you're better at.

And it kind of took away from the fact that like, you know, box step ups with the sandbag on your back or a, you know, a farmer's carry with some, you know, moderate weight implements or in the first workout, you know, box step ups with a sandbag on your back or, uh, you know, a farmer's carry with some, you know, moderate weight implements or in the first workout, you know, running up a hill with a ruck and a sandbag, like those are good tests and those are things that should be tested, but I feel like they were negligible relative to what, how the workout was designed. Did you

have that experience? Yeah, I did. I knew that they were like that wasn't the workout it was just kind of like in there to be in there um like more just to fatigue you get your heart rate up but it was definitely that middle pack of work that was the workout so it was kind of uh you know i don't know i don't know necessarily what the solution is there but i just felt like you know i actually did that triple workout and i felt those, like the sandbag step ups were a good challenge, but ultimately they didn't matter because there was so much volume with gymnastics centered in the middle. Did that carry matter at all?

No, no. I thought it did a little bit. It fatigued your grip because it was so thick, the grip was so thick. And it just gets your heart rate up. And so thick the grip was so thick um and it just gets your heart rate up and so like you do 15 ring muscle-ups pick that thing up you walk 100 plus yards and your grip is your forearms are blown your heart rate tire and and it's all about who wants to jump up first foot to the ring do um do you feel like you manage the sets muscle-ups differently better more strategically than you did when when there were big sets like that at the games

yeah i did six five four on both sets of 15 and i did uh six sets of no five sets of six on this um handstand push-ups and i do six i've come down like check it out for like four or five seconds do another set of six dude i executed that for that to work out exactly how i should have like the 14th is just welded like it was deserved like i shouldn't have been any higher or the back like it just is what it is. I'm just not the best at that

workout. But I would consider you one of the better rowers in the field. And when I look here like you must have known getting on that rower that there were some guys you could potentially close the gap on. Yeah. They were just too far ahead about a few calories were you i mean were you were you hurting on that row were

you going for it were you trying to catch them yeah i mean i knew that going into that workout alex perrone and chandler smith and travis mayer were the three people people behind me and they were the three people on the rower in front of me and i was like dude i if i can just beat these guys like i'm going to get more points than all of them um which i was in fifth and so like i can just get more like separate more that would be so ideal and they all beat me by like a few seconds. Yep. Travis, seven seconds. Caron, five seconds. And who was the other guy who said Cole?

Chandler. Oh, Chandler. Got you by, what, 11 seconds, 12, 10 seconds? Yeah, man, it was close. And Chase Ingram was talking about it on the broadcast. He's like, if you can position yourself somehow so you don't have to race this row that goes a long way and you found yourself in the exact opposite

situation where the guys you needed to beat were right there in front of you like that dangling parrot and you're trying to chase them I got off the handstand pushups and as soon as I got off the we were doing step-ups.

I had like five step-ups left, and they were all getting on the rover. And so I knew that they were going to be like maybe eight calories ahead, and it was just going to be a bloodbath. And they ended up beating me by a little bit. But, yeah, I executed that workout exactly how we wanted um really good wanted we wanted he keeps saying that we we what am i supposed to say hey oh was it all was there a spot where all the usual suspects were hanging out like did you see everyone back there was there a spot where all the usual suspects were hanging out like did you see everyone back there was there a spot where all the usual suspects were hanging out like did you

see adam knifer matt o'keefe ben bergeron max el haj like just like all the coaches like was there a spot like because in the live feed i didn't see any of them was there a spot like a warm-up area where all those dudes were like hanging out and yeah we, we had a warmup area that we were all at. And Jake was down there with you. Yeah. And they had all the gear. Did they, did they have the,

um, the, the 250 pound bag. Yeah. In the warmup area. They did. Have you lifted a 250 pound bag before this weekend? Did you, did you feel like you adapted to it quickly or or was it a challenge for you and something you'd like to get more practice with

i think i picked it up pretty well i mean i only had to do it once and practice oh man dude hopper in practice practice, it went pretty well. Hey, is it lighter out there during the event because of that adrenaline, or is it heavier than in the back? Savan, tell me about your pedestal thought. It's so much lighter. In the comp, it's lighter? Yeah.

Because it's weird. Okay, I'll tell him pedestal thought. Because it's weird because i used to i used to train with 100 pound d ball all the time i still have it i don't train with it now it's just a stool in my garage but i used to train with it all the fucking time and i was fucking good at it i could just mash that thing and uh for shit loads of reps and then one day i was i think it was at the games or something and they had 150 pound d balls and i went over to pick it up and it was like unmovable to me i was like like, what the fuck? This thing might as

well be a thousand pounds. And so it's kind of, it is, do you think you could pick up a 300 pound bag and do that with a 300 pound bag? Like, does there, does there become a point where you just all like, is it just like one pound and all of a sudden you'd be stopped and you'd be like, what the fuck is this? No, 300 maybe like the Linda. I think if I had to do like people like some money, if it fell on your wife, you'd pick it up. What?

Like if a 300 pound bag fell, like you said, if I had to. So I just imagine if a 300 pound bag fell on your wife, you'd pick it up. Cause you just had to. Yeah. Sorry,

honey. I didn't mean to drop that on you. Let me get that. I wonder like in the testing of that workout, you know, because Rogue can manufacture whatever they want. If they have bags that are 220, 240, 250, 270, 290, and they have someone test it with these different things to find out what the limit is or how they want it to feel. Yeah, Rich said he did that thing three times, didn't he? But I wonder if he did it with different size sandbags or if he just tested it with different reps counts or something like that.

Yeah. Oh, Rich said he tested that workout three times? Pretty sure he told you that. Oh, me? He told me that? I think so. I mean, I wasn't on that podcast, but I think that's where he talked about it with you.

You don't listen, son. What'd you say? You don't listen. Can't hear you. I was thinking that the – no, no, because I asked him about the final workout, and he said, no, he can't tell me about it. And I said, is there a dumbbell snatch in it? And he's like – he was just really stoic. That was actually a good impersonation um uh jason um so i was i was when i look at that pedestal i was thinking that

it was beautiful like i was kind of like stunned by it i was looking at that um just the way it shaped and they had that steel platform that like holds it down and then there's the piece of wood that comes up and it's just milled or whatever perfectly smooth. It says Rogue on it. But on the top, they put that steel plate and I think that steel plate was a fuck up. What they really needed to do is have no steel top and either a bigger log or something because when people were picking the bag up, it would get stuck underneath the table, right? were picking the bag up it would get stuck underneath the table right to where as the original strongman it was just a pedestal that they would set the rock on or set the bag on and i think that's the way they should have done it that way that table wouldn't have interfered

with some people's movement and it's basically what fucking killed annie as i recall correctly so when you talk to when you talk to bill have him fix that okay well but here's the thing that's exactly the thing i was talking about is if she'd have a second chance to do it, because once she put it down and picked it back up, she realized, oh, this thing's in my way. She picked it up and moved it over that ledge easily. So I think she would have had an experience similar to someone like Katrin or there was one other person that had like a 10 or 12 second improvement in their second attempt from their first attempt, just because of something like that.

Chris, I think Kristen Holter was the other one. Yeah. Kristen Holter went from a minute and 11 seconds all the way down to 58 seconds in her second, second run. He's not listening to you. He's reading comments. Look at his eyes. I was like, yeah, you're right. That is true. Someone is listening, Brian. That is true. Kristen Holter, Brian. That is true. Kristen Holter heard you say her name. She's like, huh?

Did someone say my name for the first time in 10 years? Huh? And she deserves more. That's not a dig at her. That's a dig at all of us idiots. Deanna? Dina? Dina?

Miss McCarthy? What happened when he missed the snatch on that? That's for you, Hopper, not Brian. What happened when he missed the snatch? Hold on. Hold on. Hold on one second. Sorry. Hey, babe, what's up?

You're live. Can you give someone permission for me to talk to them on your behalf? Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. Go ahead. I can merge you in? Yeah, go ahead. Merge me in.

Okay, thanks. Yep. Sorry, sure. Go ahead. I can merge you in. Yeah, go ahead. Merge me in. Okay, thanks. Sorry, guys. It'll only take a second. Hi. Talk amongst yourselves, people. Jason, I want to answer Deanna's question about the snatch. What happened when I missed the snatch I did 60 heavy dubs and I went up to the bar and it was just my shoulders were wobbly from 60 heavy dubs

that emphasized the pull a little a little bit more I'm trying to remember did you miss did you struggle on the first rep or the last rep what did you struggle on the first snatch or the last snatch all of them okay because I think I missed my first rep but every single one was wobbly you missed your first one and I think Vellner missed his last one I think I was just confusing the two but you know I my understanding is that you know people like yourself elite level CrossFitters and elite level CrossFit coaches understand that at a CrossFit competition, you're going to have a chance to warm up and eventually they're going to call you to an area and you're probably going to stand there for 10 to 20 minutes before you go out onto the competition floor. Yeah. And I mean, and I would assume that that's something that you practice. Yeah, but not to that extreme.

I felt like it was, you know, we have already talked about I felt like it was a little bit more extreme, especially for those with the buy in that event. But it's, you know, to me, it's very different. Like when you're going to if you're going to do an open workout, you have control of all of those variables. going to do an open workout, you have control of all of those variables, right? And you know, like, okay, I'm going to start at, I'll start when I'm ready and I can warm up appropriately and have the amount of rest I want to have for my warmup before I start doing that workout. And in CrossFit, live CrossFit competitions, that's not the case. Like that variable is oftentimes out of your control. And so while I'm sitting here saying like, you know, it was disadvantageous for you guys. I think it, on the other hand, and you can, you can tell me while I'm sitting here saying like, you know, it was disadvantageous for you guys. I think on the other hand, and you can tell me that I'm right or wrong if you care to, you know, that's something that you should be prepared for is that, yeah, there might be an opportunity in the future where I have to sit cold for 30 minutes before I go cycle a 205 snatch. It definitely is.

There's a level of it that you can definitely train for, but there's also a level that you can't like being at a competition. You're not going to be able to get that just training in your gym, like waiting 20 minutes. You can wait 20 minutes for a max snatch and be, be cold and then go like snatch, but you're not going to be able to have that adrenaline rush, the anticipation, nervousness while you're training in a gym and so there there are some things that you can for sure train and then there's some things that you just have that experience with

like girls yeah and i think that this is you know we were talking about it a little bit last night because I think Mallory O'Brien had a pretty brutal experience in her second round of the last event where she got a bunch of no reps on the snatches and how she's, you know, obviously very young. And these are learning moments and experiences for her. And even though you're, you know, five, six years older than her, you're also relatively new to the sport into the space. And so something like that. And I think that that's what you, what you mean when you say, um, yeah, I'm not happy with my placement, but overall,

this is a data point. These are things that we're going to, that we're going to grow from. And so even though it's hard to learn from it, it still is now that it's happened. It's something that you can draw on the next time that it happens. Yeah, sure.

Are your parents Christians? Yeah. Did you go, were they Christians before you? Yes. Yeah, okay. I'm just preparing questions for our next podcast where I go in depth. Do you spend any time, get to spend any time with the legends? I hung out with Josh a little bit.

Bridges. Yeah. We actually, the day before he did a workout with me. And now you guys, did you guys kiss and now you guys both have explosive diarrhea and vomiting. Jesus. What is going on?

I stole his, his mat that they got with his name on it. I have it now. Do you really? Yeah. Did you take his mat home with you? Yeah. Look, I took a picture of it.

And did you put it on eBay? I'm selling it. Oh, that is awesome. Jason, did you guys get any Rogue apparel? Yeah, we got just some, like a sweatshirt. No competition shirts with your names on it or anything like that yeah we um he did a workout with me talked about some coffee do you have any preference for that as an athlete who is sponsored i know it like some of the competitions like the last time dubai was live they gave the

athlete shirts and they were you know required to at least wear those shirts when they took the floor as you know and it looked like in this competition that you guys were able to wear whatever uh you know whatever apparel you wanted from shirts to shoes etc yeah you wear whatever do you care either way you know is that a i like wearing nike where could can people buy hopper shit like can i buy a shirt that says like hopper on it you just go to the store and buy a white t-shirt and write it with sharpie and like we did it but there isn't like a hopper shirt anywhere like rogue doesn't sell a hopper shirt or like nike doesn't sell a hopper shirt no uh just stepping back from the ministry to focus on fitness affect

you at all any backlash from the shirt church he didn't do shit there whenever i talked to him when he was there he just sat around and used their wi-fi i don't think he was doing anything there that was like a push-ass. He didn't dust the pews. He didn't clean out those like candle containers. He didn't do shit. That's my guess. Jason, any thoughts?

Oh, you pretty much said it all. All right. I knew it. Hey guys, do you mind if I just sit in this room and pretend like I have a job here? Yeah, he was perfect.

Yeah. Do that. He was subsidized by the church. Did you, I guess this person had a question here. Did you watch any of the Strongman stuff? We watched the dumbbells where they put it over their head. The sear, I think it's called the sear bell

or spar bell or something like that. Yeah, that's pretty crazy, dude. Yeah, dude. I mean, because of Rogue, I've had some exposures to Strongman over the last couple of years, and it is pretty impressive what those guys can do. There's some massive guys out there. Yeah, they're massive.

The smallest guy competing there is 100 pounds more than you guy competing there is a hundred pounds more than you. The smallest guy is a hundred pounds more than you. You know, it's crazy, dude. They are the nicest people out of all of those guys. I think the most intimidating looking guys, just big teddy bears though.

They're so much nicer than all the CrossFitters. Some of those dudes are the nicest people you'll ever meet. I was impressed that the apparel company had cowboy boots and hats that fit some of them. Yeah. And when those guys put them on, I mean, it looked like they were wearing slippers, like not boots. Boots usually make your feet look big. Their bodies made the boots look small. And the crazy thing is we were all in the locker room

and all like the CrossFitters, all like the CrossFit athletes were like, so like tense, like not talking to one another, like minding their own business. And then these strong men are competing against each other. They're all like sitting at the table, like having a great time together, like talking.

Do you wish there, there was more of that in CrossFit or do you like the tension? There should be a balance. It's. I mean, I feel like there's gotta be some, like I'm imagining, I'm just a picturing like Guy and Lazar, like just joking around in the corner

or whatever but i even think that maderos and like velner's a pretty i feel like he's a pretty easygoing guy in the back uh velner is the funniest dude in the back he makes pretty much he like lightens the mood i told him this uh whenever he retires basically to keep coming to all the competitions and just stay in the locker room just to like set the mood someone else will take his place he's funny though there's always been a few funny dudes back there

Panchik was always funny Bridges was always funny there were dudes back there who just were just tearing shit up just talking shit and just he's always talking donor yeah it's awesome it's awesome um uh well someone asked what his uh his his echo burner rpm was we talked about that you're gonna have to scroll back but i think he said he got up to 93 and that's kind of where he held it once brian brian we didn't talk about that one event that you talked

about oh never mind we talked about event six oh but uh before we talk about that one event that you talked about. Oh, never mind. We talked about event six. Oh, but before we get to that one event, whatever it is, did you get anyone's phone number this weekend? Like you're saying that you met a lot of nice people. Did you add anyone to your contacts this weekend? I don't think so. Nah, so it wasn't that good of an event.

You don't got like Brian Shaw's number? You can't like call him right now and see if you can get him on my podcast? No. Oh, fuck. Did you talk to Bill? Did you talk to Bill and Katie at all? I met Bill. Is that your first time?

Yeah. Oh, how was that? It was great. God, I'd love to be a fly on the wall when you and Bill meet. I'll tell you how it went. Why?

Hi. Hey. Cool event. Thanks. I like the hill. It wasn't like that. He was talking to O'Keefe. I just shook his hand.

Let me tell you something. Bill is a man of less than few words. Oh. And you only know yes and no, so it's like, fuck. He's like, mm. You're like, yes. He's like, mm. You're like, no.

He's doing something right. Love the podcast here from Chile. Thank you, Sevan, for all the dedication. Have thought about having tony budding on i have not i have not talked to tony in forever that would be interesting i've thought about um or i i should maybe even just reach out and say hi i think i should start just by saying hi to tony before i start like thinking about having him on the podcast. Our relationship was, could be tense at times. Maybe that can be another cathartic healing for you. True. It could be. Jason,

you should hand Medeiros a note at the next competition right before an event saying we've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty. Someone, that's extended warranty. Someone, that's like a spam joke, I guess. I guess. I don't know what that means. Are there any assholes in the locker room?

Are there, like, are there any assholes there? I don't think so. If Colton Mertens was there, he would have met 10 new friends on accident. Dude. Colton Mertens standing next to one of the strong men would have been epic.

Epic. That's true. Oh man. Um, anything else, Brian, before we let him go back to, um, I think that I actually think the only workout we haven't talked about is the lifting. Okay. Oh, man. Anything else, Brian, before we let him go back to his –

I actually think the only workout we haven't talked about is the lifting. Okay. The Bella? Yeah. And Jason did tell me about it, but I'm sure people would like to hear what you told me. Yeah. I want to hear, too. What did I tell you?

Just about your experience out there and walking through the weight choices and then how it felt to lift that that 350 in front of the crowd like that yeah i went out there and i put on i hit i think i hit 295 in warm-up and then i went out there I was going to start with 305, and then everybody started putting on three blue plates, or I saw a few people do that, and I was like, oh, man. You got to do it. I put on 315, and I hit it, I put on 315 and I hit it and I thought I was thinking that like 335, 340 was going to be like my lift simply because I've jerked a 365 one time in my life.

And the before that I put 335 over my head. And there was no in between. It was like 335, and my next PR was like 365, and it was only once. And there was no 350 PR at one point. There was a 345 PR at one point. was like it was 335 and then it was 365 and so i went out there with a 365 pr one time in my life and i put on 315 i hit it it felt really good like really snappy um and then i put on is that the one that dropped on your toe it hit my toe man i. I was so mad.

It bounced like two or three times and landed just on the outside of your foot. Yeah. You saw that? You saw that, Brian? Or you found out afterwards? Someone sent it to me. Wow. You can go watch it.

Like, it's on the video. So in the Bella Complex, the last movement was to get the bar from shoulder to overhead. And you're saying when you dropped it, it landed on your toe on your right foot? No, I dropped it and then it bounced. And when it bounced, it like moved over and hit my toe. And did that hurt? Yeah, it hurt. If it would have hit further up my foot, though, it may have would have broken.

Wow. It hit my toe. If you watch, you can see, like, you react like that instinctual reaction where you just, like, pull your foot out of there, like, danger, danger. And then I hit 335. After 315, were you watching to see what everyone else was doing to make that decision to go to 335? Or were you like, you know what?

I'm feeling it. This is what I'm going to do regardless of anything else yeah after 315 i was like all right that felt really easy i think i could do 30 or 21 pounds and so 335 was pretty smart and you know it seems like it was about a 50-50 mix. Like when I look at the lifts here, you chose never to use those two fractional pound plates that they gave you, whereas about half the field did. Is there any reason for that? Yeah. I didn't really see a need to use them until, like, the last lift. And when I had 350 on, I was already, already like pretty much intimidated by the fact that it was

350 then i was so i didn't want to add any weight like i was okay with taking fourth or whatever i did you know he burned that in the whole event um with 350 because i put I've never put this over my head, but one time in my life and I have to do it twice here. Like three 50s enough. Uh, but I was the whole, the whole event. I was talking to Matt, like he was at a,

um, a booth. And now we were locking eyes the entire time and i was like communicating with him and so he would tell me like to put my sweatshirt on he was like put your sweatshirt on and so i was like all right all right put my sweatshirt on is this what you guys practice in vermont like morse code where you blink so many times what do you know what's communicating with them you mean you guys are both like there's a picture there's a picture of me hold on let me see if i can find it i get i put on 350 and i find matt in the stands and i'm i ask

him should i go down like is this crazy of me to put 350 on the bar um and there's a picture of me like asking him look here's can he hear you oh i see oh that's a great picture wow you don't even look like you right there it's like a like a feral animal look how manly you look yeah um so yeah i uh 350 i was pretty stoked about it. What's your mindset stepping up to that weight? Do you have cues that you were first in your mind? Do you have something that you say to pump yourself up? Do you breathe a certain way? There was a cue that Jake gave me with my jerk technique and warm-ups uh because i was letting the bar get

out in front of me a little bit on my jerk and so he gave me a cue of basically like acting like my back is against the wall when i would jerk so it goes more like a for that one unit and so really when it got heavy i wasn't i was I was gonna, I was gonna clean 350. I was gonna front squat it. It was all, it's gonna be, and I was gonna get it high enough. It was gonna come down to where the bar is positioned. Because if I catch it off an inch in front of me, I'm not gonna be able to make the lift. And so all I was thinking about was making sure my back was against the wall and it helped.

That's awesome. But you didn't even know you could do it. You didn't go into it with confidence and you still did it. The way 335 felt, I was thinking there was a chance. But I needed the adrenaline. The adrenaline was obviously super helpful and i mean it was under the lights like i'm sure if i did that complex in the gym tomorrow like feeling fresh i'm gonna probably getting over near that is that a moment that you can

appreciate the crowd or are you pretty dialed in? Like I'm, I'm talking to Matt and I'm focused on my weight and I'm not looking at anything else. No, the crowd definitely helped. Yeah. Do you think that like the, do you feed off any of the other athletes lifts? No.

Oh, that's not, that's not true. That's not true. Well, I think on how he interprets the question, that's not true. There's something here that's interesting.

Basically we started the show with saying that he stayed, he likes this event because he stayed in his lane, meaning he stayed to his plan. He stuck to his plan. He stuck to his plan. He stuck to his plan. And in this event, what's interesting is when we talk about it, he was supposed to open with 305 on the bar, but because he saw the other fucking meatheads putting three plates on, He too said, me meathead, me put three plate on. And he did put three plates on. There is something. This is an interesting one. And I want to finish it with a happy ending. And it had a happy ending.

He was successful. He was successful coming out of his lane and leaving his game plan. No. Go ahead. Staying in your own lane. David McFadden, this is the third podcast in a row, you fucking slut, where you said you like my guests. You cannot fucking love all the guests.

Slut bucket. Okay, sorry. Go ahead. When I say staying in my own, it is referring mostly to the Metcons that we are doing. Not necessarily the lifts. Ah, clearly. My bad. The reason I ask. There's a distinction between feeling peer pressure in Metcon.

And that's fair. I hear you. So you're basically saying, well, you tell me, why is that more important in the Metcons than in the heavy lifts? Sorry, Brian, I didn't mean to cut you off either. Because it's easy to chase a rabbit out of a Metcon. And you can't worry about their pace out the gate because it's not your pace. And you don't know what they suck at. And you don't know the reasons why they're going a certain speed at a certain given time. You got to run your race. You got to do what's best for you

and don't care about nobody else. Well, and also if you damage yourself in a Metcon, there's no fix. In that Bella complex, if you would have opened, let's say with 350 and failed, were you allowed to go down in weight? Were you allowed to go down?

Or did they have a rule you can't go backwards? You can't go backwards. Okay. It was actually kind of, that's kind of of clever and it's really a cat and mouse because in the event of a tie break the tie break was your opening lift so you want to go as heavy as you can but you can't really afford to miss yeah oh the um the reason why i asked is because now this is the second time this year that i've seen you be part of a format that was like that at the Mac with the snatches. And now this one with the Bella complex where you were in a heat where most where everyone was was successfully lifting. And I feel, you know, there were very, very few. I don't know if there were any mislifts, like maybe a couple.

But most people were hitting their lifts. And I feel like that just creates this environment. Like it's, um, like it's an adrenaline rush. And it's just like, you guys build off of each other. I'm losing. I'm not giving up the word that I want. Just expectation. Just like a, it's like a collective momentum because at the Mac, you know, probably everyone knows there were like five guys in that heat that hit 300 pounds, but there were also guys like Justin Medeiros who PR'd at 285. And so every lift, like lift after lift, there were guys just yeah like the energy's rising and rising and i felt like it was similar there

um for that heat did you ever um did you talk to bkg at all not really not even a hello yeah we talked like we said hello did you ever say his name bjororgvin did you ever say hey what's up bjorgvin no bjorgvin bjorg what's up what's up bjorgvin carl gudemanson you never said that bjorgvin good to see you dude looking buff nothing no dude you got to say his name every time you say sam bjorgvin if you don't you'll forget it and never be able to say it we were doing the we were doing the remuscle-ups, though, and he was in, like, two lanes next to me. And he – so I was talking to Jeffrey Adler. Adler. Adler.

Adler. Adler. Oh, you're never – if you can't say Jeffrey Adler, you're never going to be able to say Björgvin Carl Gudmundsson. You're fucked. And we were in the warm-up, and we talking about like i was like hey dude like you're the only one i'm worried about and jeffrey was like you should be worried about the person the people behind me because bkg is like really good at chippers um and so i was like okay okay, well, now I'm worried about BKG. We get out there, and he's moving through.

I knew I was on my step-ups, and he's on the ring muscle-ups. I get to the ring muscle-ups, and he's deep into a set. I don't know what number he's at, but he's been on the ring muscle-ups for a long time. I'm doing my ring muscle-ups and after like a good like like a couple minutes of me doing ring muscle-ups i looked to my left and he's still there and i'm like oh my goodness he blew up like this is my chance to like i'm gonna beat bkg in this workout. And then I get done. I get done with my last set. And he gets on the freaking, he starts doing handstand pushups. And I'm like, he freaking laughed me. He finished his last set of remuscles before I finished my first.

Well, this was, I mean, the. Dude, that's a great story. Hopper, you need to tell more stories. A fucking hour and 53 minutes into the podcast. No one's even going to hear that one. That's the best thing you said the whole podcast. You didn't tell me about stories. All right.

I'll tell you another story. No, I don't have any stories. I mean, look, that workout is BKG written all over it. He crushed the chipper online last year in Rogue, and he crushed this one. He was over a minute faster than the next guy in your heat on that workout. Caleb, an hour and 53 minutes. Cut that clip, Caleb. Get that clip.

I'll tell you what, though. On the concept, too, I wasn't as nervous on the concept, too. On the concept, too, I wasn't as nervous on the concept, too. But one thing I did to, like, calm my nerves was, like, hey, remind myself, like, hey, like, I ran out there. It was, like, the sun was, like, setting. It was, like, perfect. It was, like, perfect temperature. It was, like, amazing, like, ideal situation.

And before competition, like, a couple minutes before, I was, like calm my nerves like you're talking to yourself you're like you're trying to get in that that mindset and I kept telling myself like Jason enjoy this workout like enjoy it like look where you're at where you're at and then I started telling myself, you're working out next to Pat Donner. Enjoy this moment. Like this is a dream come true. And the entire time I was skiing, I was like, I'm actually working out next to Patrick owner the entire time. And he, and he's going to be dead soon. It's like going to an Eric Clapton concert. Good. I like that. I'm working out next to Velner and he's going to be dead soon it's like going to an art clapton concert good i like that

i'm working on like the velner he's and he's going to be dead soon so like it's good i like that yeah old dog uh a couple couple important competition questions for you do you know like there's some there's sometimes when you have to hold in a fart like you go somewhere and like this is not the place to fart yeah um but what about if you're out there in the fart, like you go somewhere and like, this is not the place to fart. Yeah. What about if you're out there in the game, if you're out there on the floor in the games that is like, you don't hold in a fart there. You just let it fly. You don't give a fuck.

Right. Yeah. Like judges next to you. Who cares? Like you got to get that. Like you have to be like, you can't be like worried about holding in a fart. Do you think the judges are worried? They're like, fuck, I don't want to fart right now and mess this guy's workout up. You ever heard a judge fart next to you?

No. Do you have a... Have y'all had Travis or Pat on the podcast? Travis Mayer? Yeah. Only a thousand times. You haven't had him on a thousand times we should get him it's been a while we got to get travis back on travis mayor since the road no we had him on right

before we had him on the day the rogue started like from his hotel room or some shit didn't we yes yeah i wasn't on for that one but that was just a short one right yeah we need to have him back on he should be a regular why what and who was the other person you asked travis or who patrick i was so when i knew oh yeah we had patrick on mid patrick patrick was nice enough He should be a regular. Why? And who was the other person you asked? Travis or who? Patrick. I wasn't. So when I knew. Oh, yeah. We had Patrick on mid. Patrick. Patrick was nice enough.

He beat you, by the way, in this competition. And he beat you at the games, by the way, in case you didn't know. And he also did come on at 10 o'clock at night in the middle of the competition to give some love to the Sevan podcast. So go ahead. What were you going to say, Jason? You should ask them about me grunting on the ghd med ball workout did he say anything to you about it like hey dude pipe down like in the middle of the workout pipe down over there no i was like grunting i don't know why but i was like every and Patrick told me

that every time he closed his eyes because the sun was in front of him and so whenever he heard me grunting he was able to know how far ahead he was so the first round he was like oh I'm two reps ahead of you

because I just started hearing him grunting and it got further back and further back as he got further ahead of me in the organ it's like yeah on like the last round he was like he didn't hear that we're grunting until like 14 med balls and he was like all right i'm 14 14 reps ahead of hopper another great story at a at an hour and 57 in um were the judges more lenient at the rogue invitational than the crossfit games because as a fan it did seem that way yeah i think so i mean i don't shit that was easy i didn't get i didn't get no revved a whole lot at either competition.

I wonder what they say to the judges at the Rogue Invitational. Like, hey, be cool, man. Judge the person like it's your mom. Can Jason grow facial hair? A beard would do him well. I don't know if it well i don't know i don't agree with the second part but the first part is an interesting question this took two months oh wow is that true yeah uh the uh will have brands brandstetter says tell susan to edit out the first hour and a half uh jason have you ever thought about getting a mental coach

dude that's matt that's what matt is not on some woo-woo shit but it sounds like you get in your head a lot no how dare you ryan how dare you i got that i think he said it sounds like you get a lot of head i think that's what he meant that's a typo i got that book remember oh yeah oh the bible that one no well that's too bad no um pat was on the day uh he was on the on the day of the rogue and pat was battling sinus issues yeah pat was battling sinus issues oh do you have any other questions for him i gotta go to the skate park yeah let's do it again next month hey see y'all at uh december 1st so so you you have a you're not gonna be on some elk hunt or you you want to run this by Let's do it again next month. I see y'all on December 1st.

So you're not going to be on some elk hunt? You want to run this by Matt first to see if it's okay if you come on? It's going to have to be on December 6th. Why? What's up with the first? What are you doing? That's on the calendar. First Monday of the month, December 6th. Put it on the calendar. All right. December 6th. Put it on the calendar. December 6th. All right.

I got to go. Peace.