The Sevan Podcast - #460 - Matt Dlugos

Episode Date: June 22, 2022

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You guys are witnessing it. Bam, we're live. A giant dude and a midget. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for doing this. Of of course thanks for having me did you recommend a book that's called

of course i don't have my phone here with me i just started i just started reading this new book and i'm trying to figure out who recommended it and i'm trying to figure out if i was watching some podcasts you were on and you recommended it the author's name is Bob Rotella that is you yep yeah how champions think yeah I just started

say it again I just said it's a good read for sure holy cow holy cow do you have a favorite when you think of that book do you have a favorite story in there? Like one of his anecdotal stories Yeah He talks about Tiger

Like Blocking out distractions By like putting And doing things while the TV's playing Or like while other things are going on in the background I'm pretty sure this story was about putting and TV's playing or like while other things are going on in the background i'm pretty sure this story was about putting in tvs um but that like learned that like taught him how to block out anything external um and so like whenever i'm going through the days in the gym or just like going through monostructural and you know you get some crappy music on or you get kids yelling

dogs bark and whatever um i always think back to that and i'm like all right if tiger could putt with you know fans roaring or the tv blasting um i can get through this piece um there's this story my my um my wife was in india for six months taking a backbending course like how you learn how to stand and then you just bend all the way backwards and grab your ankles trip trippy. Right. It doesn't seem like human. But so she's India and she's sharing it. She's, she's roommates with two other people and one of her,

and she's downstairs with one of her housemates and one of her other housemates is upstairs and her housemates comes running down the stairs and goes, can you guys be quiet i'm trying to meditate and the premise of meditation is to watch your mind it doesn't matter whether it's noisy or quiet but it's to watch your mind and your sensations in your body and not react to them it doesn't matter if a car is honking its horn outside or your neighbor's fucking in the room next door like that it's all about being present for it all and so it kind of reminds me of that right that whole book is like there's some really deep deep shit in there about reprogramming your subconscious yeah well and that's what I like about golf, right? Is like golf is a super, super technical sport. And there are so many different variables to every single shot. Like when you listen to guys break it down, like Phil Mickelson or Bryson DeChambeau, like the science that they put into golfing is fucking absurd.

is fucking absurd. And it's kind of the same as CrossFit, right? Like there is like, you guys, you guys don't have to Kowski who signs the shit out of workouts and like break down a movement to it's very like, and there's so many different ways that you can do a movement. Like you can do thrusters paired with anything else in the world.

So I think that there are a lot of ways that you can, like a lot of things that you can pull from, you know, how golfers train, how golfers mentally prepare. Yeah. There's a lot of things that you can pull from, you know, how golfers train, how golfers mentally prepare. Yeah. There's a lot of carry over into the sport. I was going to ask you, I was going to ask you about that too, where some of these ideas that I'm seeing in this book,

how you were implementing them, but we had who day on Andre, who day on for just a couple of minutes the other day after he won, he was walking like to a after party and he said something that i that i think i i've always known but i just didn't realize the value of it until it came out of some his mouth that basically for him being good at crossfit is about, I'm not going to be able to, he used a better word than master.

Master is too ambiguous, but it was to master every movement, to be as efficient as you can in every single movement mechanically. Yeah. He talks about economy a lot. Economy. Maybe that's it too. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I love Andre, but yeah, dude, he's totally right i mean there are so many different things that you have to be good at but you have to like know how to it's just like a putt right you have to know exactly how much power to give for each different putt it's just like a workout right like if you're doing a chipper with 50 reps you got to give a little bit more effort than a 21 59 where you're just all out sprinting so it's a very interesting sport for sure would an example of that be it's funny i'm going to use the i'm going to use the the pull-up as the example the example of that would be whether obviously that the bar is at

the height that you train at because that's where you're most efficient, but also would it be like not to get too much chin over the bar? Like, Hey, you're using too much energy. Hey, all you need, this is the range of motion. This is it at the bottom. This is it at the top. Yeah. And especially in competition, right? Like you kind of, you know, this, you kind of teeter that line of like, what I'm doing enough to get the rep and to get credited for the rep but not to i mean there's no reason i have to do chest of iron touch like you know below my tits every single time um yeah very interesting um there's a there's

a uh part in that book where he talks about, uh, I don't know baseball at all, but he talks about a baseball player named Greg Maddox. And he says, he's like an incredible pitcher. And he says that the, the baseline for just like an ass pitcher in major league baseball is 90 miles an hour. You have to have that. But this guy in his prime didn't have a 90 mile an hour pitch. And yet he was one of the greatest, if not the greatest pitcher to ever live. didn't have a 90 mile an hour pitch and yet he was one of the greatest if not the greatest pitcher to ever live and he made up for it with uh accuracy he could hit it at the get the ball anywhere on the plate at any time and uh and um speed change the ball which is just crazy to me that yeah i can't wrap my head around some of that no i can't wrap my head around that either. And then, but when I heard these,

I was wondering how you apply, I couldn't think of ways to apply that to CrossFit. You've now brought up a couple and I'm not that far into the book. I'm listening to it and it's an eight hour list and I'm about two hours into it. But the other thing that really is the driving point so far in the first two hours of this book is

that you should always want to be the best. Yeah. I think that's pretty, yeah. But it's crazy. Yeah. But anybody who, who endeavors or,

you know, who goes down the endeavor that we do right at a professional level, obviously you're putting all of your, you're pushing all of your chips into something. Um, and I don't know why you would go out to a competition or like train every day and do make all the sacrifices that we do. If you're, if you don't want to be the best like if you're not doing it well you hear dude say all the time i just want to make it to the games or i just want a podium and i had a dude on the other day who's an insane

i had a dude on yesterday who's an or two days ago who's an insane basketball player right he's he's six two and he wants to go then he's in the nba finally he's in their g league and uh but his he made these goals in like sections i want to be a division one scholarship athlete i want to go to them and he's in the nba finally he's in their g league and uh but his he made these goals in like sections i want to be a division one scholarship athlete i want to go to the nba like he didn't but why not just set it right away to be like hey i want to be the six time crossfit games champion and um and uh talk shit about matt fraser when i'm on the podium yeah it's true i mean i think you have to have you have to have the kind of timely or just like obviously being the best is going to be your end goal right and like when you get to the end of

your career you want to be able to say that but along the way there have to be you know different little check marks that you hit right and different things that you can accomplish um and that you can set your sights towards so i talk about this I've talked about this with my dad before. He's always given me the example of like, when you're driving down the road towards your goal, obviously that's the end destination, right? Like that's plugged into the GPS. But along that way, you're going to come across potholes. You're going to come across stuff running in front of you.

You're going to have cars stopping and starting and all that kind of stuff. So you have to be constantly aware of what's happening right in front of you you're gonna have cars stopping starting and all that kind of stuff so you have to be like constantly aware of what's happening right in front of you right like have a not a three-foot focus but have like a pretty uh close focus with your goals and so i feel like that's exactly you know what that what that basketball player is doing or like even what i do right like i want to be the best I want to be the best I can be. And so there are a couple of different like checkpoints that I want to hit along that way. So yeah, I guess that's just an interesting part

of goal setting. Did you ever have a drive that you did that was like you did it every day or five days a week and it was like 40 miles each direction? 40, no, not really. I had one of those for years. And those trips are always broken down into sections. Right, like you hit one landmark and then...

Yeah, and there's like different things in there. One time I did 120 here. This is the spot where I locked up the brakes. Oh, this is the place where I always want to pass the traffic i know people this is where all the dumb shits get on the freeway go over here like it was like broken down to like little countries like little like yeah like a video game but you're right there were like and then and then when you're in the last segment you're like oh shit i'm almost there i should you know like i'm about to go into the classroom i should make sure you know i'm ready yeah but then you like look back

you get to you get to the classroom and then you're like okay cool like i made it like i did it i did what i wanted to but i wouldn't have been able to do that until i passed this thing or until i you know hit 120 on this on this straight away yeah for sure there's he he describes the the lifestyle of these athletes is like almost monastic. Monastic. That's a term. I'll look up exactly what it means. But basically you become a...

You're a... I'm too smart for myself too. You're basically a man relating to monks, nuns, or others living under religious vows. What do you think about that? yeah he says I never think of myself as confident

ever ever ever I've never in my head man I'm a confident person I think probably the opposite I think holy fuck I'm so fucking insecure that's how I kind of live but it comes out of my mouth so easily that I'm going to be the greatest podcaster comedian who ever lived like from like how I'm doing it. I just, it just comes out of my mouth. It's just the goal.

There can't be any other way. And there's only, and these people who are great, there's, he says in the book, there's only three things that really matter to these people consistently. The really great ones, their health, their family and whatever their practice is and outside of that they're kind of like fuck you and i was like wow that's me i only can't like i spend six hours a day on my podcast and six hours a day with my boys yeah and then i and then when and anywhere i can squeeze in like if they're running sprints i run sprints i just

make sure that i work out with them or whatever they're doing. I try to do it. Right. And that sounds kind of like your life. What? I said, is that for your health? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Or like when I'm preparing for Matt DeLugos, I'm like, okay, I'm going to get on the assault bike and watch like an hour worth of interviews he's done in the past.

But there has to be that crossover. Yeah. And other than that, it's just sleep yeah um is that would you say that sums up your life too yeah for sure um you know there's there's not much else outside of crossfit um which is fine. I love it. Like I love the sport. I love the idea of becoming the best version of myself. And I know that there's a lot left in that tank of possibility. So I don't know why I'm talking with my hands, but I know that there's a lot left in that tank of possibility. So I think that it's a really, really cool pursuit too, because it's like, you're literally trying to see how good of a human being, like how good of a machine of a human being you can become, which is crazy to see some of the things that are possible. But it's just a really, yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of like a modest endeavor. Like you just,

you get up, you'll work out, you eat a lot of food, food stretch walk my dog a lot and that's about it i'm looking at the word modest like it's not flashy it's not right like you know especially in vegas right like you don't see me like like you know i'm not like wearing I mean, I have a necklace, but I'm not wearing big diamond rings and gold chains. I'm not in Gucci walking around

or going to the clubs, spending a bunch of money, crap like that. I'm sure there's a time for that, but until you get to the top, there's not much celebrating to do right now. What necklace do you have't there's not much celebrating to do right now you know what necklace do you have it's a wing it's this little gold chain with a wing pendant why do you have that you listen um there's an artist a musical artist named mac miller um oh yeah right now

yep but he has a song called wings and so for me it's a reminder to find something beautiful every day that like no matter how the day went if i can find something beautiful in that day that's gonna lift up my spirits that's gonna lift me up to you know to realize that like life is beautiful right right? Like life is such a gift for everybody. Yeah. You think I'm going to get in trouble for playing this? I'm a huge rap fan, but I don't, I don't know any Mac Miller stuff. I just, I just, when he died was the first time I'd heard of him.

Yeah. This is a great album. I don't know your musical taste. the Divine Feminine is really good um I like the name of it yeah like the great music great great music you work out to it yep say it again I said it's nice and mellow. It's like very relaxing. In your interview with Jared, I saw you do this thing where you closed the door from the top. Yeah. And I have this very, very, very close friend who's, who's,

who's also six, four. And he's the only other human being I've seen do it. And I just remember in high school, he would always do that. And it would make me one, I'd be like, wow, that's something I'll never do. Close the door from the top. And man, that makes me anxious. Because there's the timing component. You've got to get your hand out of there. I mean, that door's open.

Do you want to try it? No, I'm good. I'm not anxious right now. But I saw you do that. I was like, wow, I've only seen one other human being. Yeah, I do that a lot. I don't know why. Close the door from the top. You know it's dusty.

You know it's dusty up there, too. You're the only person who ever touches up there. I always have to wash my fingers off. After you close the door like that. How old are you, Matt? I just turned 25. Quarter of a century. Do you feel a clock ticking?

Do you feel young or do you feel old or do you feel you're running out of time? I feel that clock from Stranger Things. No, I'm just kidding. I feel great. I don't notice that stuff at all. I don't even really, sometimes I don't even really remember how old I am. Like when people ask me, I'll be like, 25. It just doesn't, I don't even really remember how old i am like when people ask me i'll be like 25 it just doesn't i don't think about it ever are you do you feel healthy like the healthiest you've ever felt yeah i feel great yeah i'm trying to remember what it's kind of like to be um

to be 25 there's a um what do you think about all the young guys in your sport? Young guys and girls. Do you think of them as young? Like, Oh shit. There's that, that dude's only 22. Like, like, isn't the champ. How old Justin Medeiros? He's only 22, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, whenever I got in across that, I got in at a younger age. So like my first couple of years competing on a team, I was like 18, 19 years old. And so I was always like, oh, I'm the young one.

Like I'm young in the sport. I'm young, whatever. Even whenever I would go train, like when I met Kerry for the first time and met Bethany and Danielle, I was like, oh yeah, I'm young. And now you see guys like Dallin and James and like Emma Kerry and even alex gazan 20 years old it's like what the hell these kids like i mean like seriously these kids like they're good like they're really really good like those boys down at the brute camp are insane for being 20. it's ridiculous madera seems 22 but in the interviews i see like alex gazan she's like a woman already yeah she's very she seems like wise

and mature and shit i'm like holy cow she's definitely she definitely has like her ditzy side still you'll see when you talk to her but yeah she's she is composed you know and i think that's kind of a trait among you know crossfitters right it's like you're kind of in a situation that is a little bit more mature. Like you've got moms going to your classes or you've got, you know, you're teaching a 60 year old man how to squat. And it's like, you're kind of forced to be a little bit more mature, even just as far as like how you communicate with them. So, yeah, that's interesting.

You said that at 20, I would have never, ever fucking hung around anyone who's 50 or 60 but if you're a crossfitter not only are you in a class with a filipino to your right and a guy to your left wearing a turban you're also with two grandmas in a and it's the whole yeah and then the other class got a whole smorgasbord yeah yeah yeah yeah it's definitely it's definitely a very interesting dynamic being in across the gym. So I think like these kids that have been there since their teens and that's just like natural to them, right? Like they talk to,

they talk to you the same no matter what your background is, what your age is, anything like that. Yeah. My mom used to tell me that she didn't go to the, at her first gym. This is a bunch of years ago. She's 78 now, but she used to not go to the, the, at her first gym. This is a bunch of years ago. She's 78 now, but she used to not go to the, um, uh, weekend partner classes.

Like every weekend, her gym at partner classes. Cause she felt bad. Like she was slowing someone down. I'm like, mom, they don't give, no one gives a fuck.

That just means they have to work harder in there. If they get more rest, that means they just get a different stimulus and they just work harder in their section. And now she gets it. It's like, yeah. Yeah.

And I don't really know anybody that ever went hard on those partner workouts like usually that was like social hour like people just yeah um you you're you're training under justin kotler and it's under dogs athletics correct and would you would you say that in like in this book that Bob Rotella wrote, that you have that, what I think is the special sauce is just persistence? Yeah. Do it. Say it, man. Well, so this, I don't know. I don't know if do you, there's a crossfit video. There's a crossfit video that talks about patience. I don't know like what your relationship is. If you love, like crossfit, hate it or pissed off, whatever, but think of me as an angry little man. Okay, that's fair.

And that's what I figured. I love CrossFit. It saved my life and it saved my family's life and it changed it's, by saved I mean it's the greatest besides being born, it's one of the greatest things that ever happened to me. It allows me to live longer and do good things on this planet.

With my mom and my kids and my wife. I mean, shit, it doesn't get better than that. Which is like... And it made me wealthy. And it made me wealthy. Don't forget about that. That's important too. That helps.

Yes. But I think if you ask anybody, that's definitely... Or at least with this much involvement in crossfit it's like yeah it definitely saved they saved my life like i was not going to be down going down this path um anyways what were we talking about you were going to say something you were going to say something i want to see if i if you can remember and if i can get it out of you we were talking about go ahead yes sorry i. Sorry. I know. Uh, it was, there's a patient's video, um, that just talks about like, you know, the, the patients that it

takes to become successful. Um, and I think if you look at any great athlete like Matt Frazier, for sure, but you know, you go into other sports and you look at Tiger Woods or you look at, you know, a Kobe Bryant that puts in 10,000 10 000 hours into their craft um that's where i feel like i'm at it's like working towards that 10 000 mark um and i know that you know if i stick with it long enough good things will come um and i think if you look at the guys who are really good like they have stuck with it like you know i saw a statistic that there's nine or that there's three athletes with nine games trips this year, which is crazy. And that seems like something that continues to happen. Right. It's like these guys like Travis Mayer. Right. Like he was a great dude. I love, you know, being able to compete with him at Granite Games and just talking to him about like the process of what it's been like.

Um, and just talking to him about like the process of what it's been like, cause he started in 2013 or maybe before then, but made it to the games in like 2013, 2014. And it's like crazy to think about eight years later, he's still doing it. Like he's still going back. He's got four kids and he's still, you know, kicking ass across it, like making us look silly. Um, so I think it is one of those things where if you are really bought in and you just continue to put in that work day after day like it'll it will come that when he talks about persistence in the book i'm tripping a little bit because he talks about burnout with other athletes

but what i think i, I think I hurt myself. I think, and he talks about like the importance of like, even though it's not enough, just if you want to be the best golfer in the world, it's not enough to golf three hours a day. He still says like, you know, he has no problem if every six weeks you want to take a week off. But I think with myself, like I hurt myself. I was getting up in the morning doing a workout, then in the afternoon doing a workout, and then at night before I go to bed do a workout. And just stupid shit. You know what I mean? Like deadlifting every single day. And with CrossFit, I feel like there's a level.

You have to be persistent, but you have to – part of that persistence has to be healing. Yeah, very much. I've noticed that my entire routine has changed to pretty much revolve around recovery um like the little things that we talk about and the things that we want to be consistent with like i trust justin with all of my strength and like every every programming piece you know wow yeah we'll come back to that i'm gonna going to make a note. I want to ask you about that. I always wondered what Justin does. Okay.

So he's, he's a giant brain. He's a big brain. Okay. Big brain. Um, but. So recovery. Yeah. So like a lot of my routine now are focused on, you know, uh, are focused on getting the

most out of my body and getting the most to be able to go back in the gym the next day and perform. So it's like being consistent with the, with those things too makes a huge difference. Yeah. A world of difference. I mean, it's crazy. There's a friend of mine who I think took second place at one of the CrossFit games. And, um, he told me that he would have won the crossfit games if he didn't smoke so much weed he's either smoking weed like 10 times a day and and in that book it talks about like if you're

having any struggles or hiccups it's because you have some bad habits you need to change and get rid of like do you are you constantly like watching those two like make sure no bad habits sneak in Are you constantly watching those two? Make sure no bad habits sneak in? Yeah. I mean, I think it's like Carrie. It's super simple. Carrie Pierce, right? Yeah, Carrie Pierce.

Okay. So KP and I were talking about that one day. And she put it really simply because Carrie is just a very simple but stoic person. And so she was just like yeah whenever I was whenever I would do stuff I would just like ask myself is this helping me towards my goal and if it wasn't then I just then I wouldn't do it and I was like oh is that simple cool but when you think about it like that right like you know it does kind of make sense like do you want to be out at the club like out at a bar all night or going downtown on the strip? Or do you want to be making it and winning the CrossFit Games? And I think if you think about it in terms of that, like if you think about it big picture and you realize like some of the things that do serve you and some of the things that don't, it makes all those decisions really easy.

Man, you nailed it. Every single story, everything that happens in my life now, whether it's me doing it or someone else doing it is, is I turn into moving things forward. So I'll give you an example. There was, there are these two parents for two years, they made their kids wear masks to my son's tennis academy. And three days a week, they show up there and the kids are masked and the kids are masked and the kids are masked. And those parents, and I got into it with a couple of those parents. I don't sit by those group of parents, but one time

they came over to me and they were like talking about the vaccine. I'm like, only an idiot would get the vaccine. And they got mad at me. They got fucking, and I don't blame them. Like they, they all, they believed in it. Well, just the other day, I'm listening to them talk, and they're talking about how fucked up the vaccine is and how fucked up it is to put masks on your kids. And I'm like, oh, this is going to be a good story for my podcast. With your same parents? Yeah, same parents, yeah.

Things change. I got it. Things change. Things change. But, and I have a friend who's telling me, hey man, you got to let people off the hook. You got to, but it's funny, like in turn all of these things now that happened to me in my life,

you know what I mean? Like if I'm somewhere and a bird shits on me, it's not bad. It's now a story. And so I'm tying this to what you were saying. Like if it's not, if it's not benefiting your life, then or benefiting your goals to win the CrossFit Games, to sit at the top of the podium, then, then. it, especially at 7.30 AM. That's kind of life, right? Like life is a journey and there is nothing that really, like nothing that really just happens to you, right? Like things, I think things kind of

happen for a reason. Like obviously if a bird shits on me when I walk outside, it's probably not like a deeper reason for that. But I feel like a lot of the interactions, a lot of the relationships I have, a lot of the communication, lot of the relationships i have a lot of the condition you know that i have with people like all those things are teaching me lessons that i can then use maybe it's a month down the road maybe it's five years down the road like yeah if you're able to kind of be aware and be present and take inventory of those things while they happen that's when i feel like you kind of really realize like the beauty in life and the beauty and like what life does for you or what life can do for you um rather than

just kind of going through it making the same mistakes eight times and then being like oh well why didn't i you know looking back and having regrets basically you know like that's that's where i feel like people aren't present is people that don't understand what's happening to them. Um, and you know, kind of use that to make the changes that they need to. It took me so long to realize that you, you open 75, 75, you open 600 peanut butter jars in your life. You, the only one you remember is the one you opened and there was a used condom in there

all the other 599 get thrown away this one fucked up peanut is the only one and i start i don't know when it was maybe like five years ago but now it's gotten really strong now that i have a podcast and i'm always looking for stories to tell um now it's like you you want to um be riding in the uber and the guy throws up on the seat you don't want just a regular uber ride anymore you know what i mean you want it that um you want to be in the 7-eleven when someone runs through there naked like it's your life instead of being like oh that's gross or i can't believe it it's like wow that's interesting that you know i just saw the world's the biggest cockroach i've ever seen. It's not gross. Now it's a story. It, it, everything's enriching my life. Do you find yourself doing that when you go through your life? Do you find yourself like

romanticizing things that happen to be like, Oh, I could, I could tell it this way. This would be a really good story on my podcast. Absolutely. Absolutely. What can I do to make this everything now is like, um, yeah, everything's like that now. It's like, it's like, how am I, how can I say that so that it's funny or yeah. Do you have a switch that you can flip on and off to be like, okay, I'm being present with my kids. I'm focusing on them or like versus being like, oh man, I'm at a coffee shop right now, and this guy just spilled it all over his crotch. That's a funny story. There's not that switch. There's not that switch, but there is a switch when I sit down to talk to you. Like the second I'm done from, like when we get off, I go.

And so I'm. I almost avoid I almost avoid people when I'm in public, whereas I don't do that on the podcast. I fully want to engage with someone. Interesting. You're like more observant and. Yeah. The setting, the public setting. Interesting. Yeah.'re like more observant in yeah those settings like public settings interesting yeah yeah more observant do you have good situational awareness i like to think so yeah like if you were walking down an aisle and someone was having trouble grabbing something up high you would see that and get it for them for sure um yeah for sure there's this gate at my um there's

a back entrance to my kids tennis academy and there's a gate there and if you and so when i leave i always if i'm going to run to my car and get something i leave out the gate but i let it it has a spring action and i don't let it close all the way right but every once in a while you go down some assholes pulled it shut so so when i come up sometimes i'll just be standing there by the gate and like 15 people will walk by and it's so obvious i want to come in yeah and and and no one will do it yeah do you know what i mean i'm just like some people just exist by themselves like they do not have any awareness of what's happening around them. I wish I had a story for that.

I wish there was something that I could recite. I think that's how magicians work. I think they just take advantage of people's lack of awareness. I think a lot of it. Oh, yeah. They just are just raping and pillaging people just that they're asleep. Do you ever try to watch? Sometimes I'll watch YouTube videos on, like, I don't seek these out, but if it comes up, I'll like watch a magic trick and I try to figure

out what they're doing. Like, especially with the side of hand stuff, like obviously it happens so fast, but you're just like, what the fuck? Like, how the fuck did you do that? I suck at figuring that stuff out. Yeah. No matter how aware aware i am like i'm racking my brain and sometimes you're just like i cannot imagine how this happened speaking or the people that swallow swords that that's another thing i just have zero clue how that happens or you know those guys who were swallowing glass some of those guys died prematurely like they were really doing that. Did you ever see that stuff? The guys eating the cups?

Uh-uh. No. It's brutal. Like, chewing on glass? Yes. It's brutal. Yeah, it's brutal. It's crazy shit.

Well, yeah. Fuck that. That can't be good for you, right? It gives me the heavies. No. Probably not. When... No, probably not. When this is, this is, this is about the pull apart incident. When I, when something happened,

when something happens somewhere and my wife's with me, my wife will usually that upsets me. My wife will usually calm me down. So let's say if someone cuts me off, my wife will be like, Hey dude, you know, and I got, if I got pissed, she would calm me down. Or if like we were somewhere she wouldn't engage, if someone disrespected me or did something to me and my wife wouldn't be like that motherfucker disrespected, you whoop his ass.

That's not who she is. She's like, let's move on to the next thing. Take a deep breath. Like she doesn't feed into my ego or my pride. When I spoke to Justin Kotler in the car after the pull-up bar incident, and for those of you who don't know, at the semifinals this year, in a nutshell, basically, there was a pull-up bar that made it so Matt DeLugos couldn't kick properly. And then if you added 20 seconds to his score, which a lot of people think he could have easily have done if he had a pull-up bar the right height, then he could have, um, uh, he could have easily have done if he had a pull up by the right height, then, then he would have knocked out my dear friend, Colton Mertens,

and he would be going to the CrossFit games. So it's a pretty intense subject. And, um, but when, when Justin was in the car and you were next to him, he was getting really riled up. And I just kept thinking, is that good that the coach is getting riled up now it was after the incident. So I don't know if in the, if in the time he might've been like, he might've been like Matt DeLugos, don't worry about it, brother. Just do your best. Or was he fired up then too? Did he handle that? Right. I'm not going to say whether he handled it right or wrong, because regardless we got to the same point.

I will say that whenever... A part of me is like, I appreciate the fact that he's so pissed. He loves you. It's so obvious. It's like Team DeLugos

or Team Brandon or whoever he's focused on. It's like Team Scuds. I mean, so i appreciate that part but another part of me is like man maybe he should be pushing that down yeah but like that's the thing is he's he is that is him he can't he doesn't turn that off like it's not like he's like oh i'm not going to be passionate about this thing i'm not going to be pissed off from an athlete who just got, you know,

just got fucked over by a pull-up bar or just, you know, got a no rep on a legless rope climb like Allie did at Atlas, right? Like, he can't not be upset. Do I think that there's a time and a place for that stuff? Maybe. I know that whenever I finished that workout I got you know I was obviously like upset that I that I lost but I was like or not lost but I was upset with where I came in but I was like you know what like I made the most of that event I did what I could I was tough on everything mentally and you know just did I guess I did whatever I could um so I was on the floor like you know decently happy decently like okay like this is fine like it is what it is you know you kind of have that moment after you finish where you you take inventory of what happened you kind of you know allow emotion to come in a little bit but then you you're done with it right like it's you don't stew in it so for me i'm like okay like it

happened it was what it was um i'm you know i've got one more day of competing like it's you don't stew in it so for me i'm like okay like it happened it was what it was um i'm you know i've got one more day of competing like let's go into it on a good note um and i walked up the stairs and like you know justin's just up there fuming and just yeah at that point i think it's okay kind of that he's fuming but how about before the event was he fuming before the event no because we know because you don't want to get into your head right he doesn't want to get into your head and like give you a built-in excuse

yeah no like like could he have said hey who gives a fuck if the bar's low get it you pussy be accountable like what if he had taken yeah for sure yeah if he would have said that I mean that would have been fine um yeah no matter what he and then afterwards fucking burn the fucking place down yeah but no but like at like whenever i walked

up like i said like i was in good spirits and then he he started to bring that up where he was just like it was bullshit like that should have it was hard to watch like it should have been a little bit taller and blah blah blah like that cost Like that cost, you know, when it started, it started getting into that stuff. And then in the car, you know, he started, he really got animated and really got into it. And I was just sitting there kind of just like not getting sad, but just kind of like, man, that did suck. Like I do.

It's pretty clear. Like, I don't think you should have this mindset. I think you should blame yourself. But as a fan, it, it, it clearly kept you out of the games. Like, it's pretty easy to do the math. If you would have just 20 seconds, and it would have fucking pushed everything around. Yeah.

We did it on the show, and everyone agreed, like, oh, shit, this is bad. Yeah, but, I mean, I also missed a 330 clean and jerk complex like if i would have hit 325 that is a difference of a couple points um if i would have pushed the sled like a man instead of a little baby toddler i would have been i could have been which sled oh the fucking 200 yards of sled push on the uh on the first event of day three it was like sled push burpees oh yeah yeah yeah okay yeah yeah yeah yeah okay um so it could have been fitter there could have done my muscle ups a little bit better um on that big chipper you know have faster speed on my thrusters or been able to go unbroken so there's a couple there's like obviously a lot of different things throughout

the weekend that i want to get better at um so yeah no definitely not the pull-up bars fault would it make a difference for sure but if I think about that for for the next year or if I just if I let myself make that an excuse and hold that it's like that's why I didn't make it to the game then I will think in my head like oh everything else that you're doing is fine like you're you're're good enough at muscle ups or you're fit enough or you're strong. It's like, no, I'm not like there. I didn't win every event until like, unless I'm winning every event, that's when I'm like satisfied. And I don't even think that I would be satisfied at that point, but there's a ton of other

things that I need to work on and get better at. So if I started blaming something that I have no control over, like that's pathetic, you know? Are you, are you religious, Guy? A little bit, yeah. Do you ever? Are you? I don't think so.

I don't know. It's a tough question. Yeah. I mean mean i think about god like all the time like all the time in like a curious way yeah like i'm so i'm so enamored by where you were before you were born and where you go when you die right do you think about that yeah full-time non-stop non-stop dude like but in a good way not in a scared way when i was young i used to think of it in a scared way but now i kind of have tools to process it it kind of lets you put your life a little bit in uh or it just gives you perspective as far as like what you're doing and what things you decide to be upset at and the things that you're okay with and all that kind of stuff. Right.

Do you, do you ever ask for guidance? Like spiritually? Like, do I just like, Hey, like, Hey,

like dear God, whatever you need me, this is my goal. I would really like to achieve it. Make sure you, I will do, I will do my best to listen to you. If you can give me advice on to make sure I get on the path to this goal. Well, that's really hard, right? Because like, then you're asking, you're, you're not really putting it up to fate or you're not really putting it into God's hands.

You're kind of like, Hey, I want, I'm saying that I want you to help me, but like, I want you to give me the answer so I can get what I want. Right. And it's like, that's not, so maybe it's gotta be broader. Maybe it's gotta be like, Hey God, just so you know, I'm listening. Hey God, me again. Yeah. I'm listening. Even if he wants to work at a hotdog cart, you'll do it. Like, Hey God, I'm listening. I mean, yeah.

In the meantime, I'm going to do this CrossFit shit. want to like to work at a hot dog cart you'll do it like hey god i'm listening i mean yeah in the meantime i'm gonna do this crossfit shit that's the that's the way that i figured out how i was gonna get out here was i i like didn't know that this was gonna be a possibility and then all what do you mean by that what do you mean you didn't know if this was gonna be a possibility just like financially to pull it off or i mean yeah i i so i had lived in morgantown my whole life and i was just like that's virginia where's that where's that yeah west virginia sorry that's where wvu is at uh west virginia university is in morgantown which is like one of the bigger if not the there's like that and charleston are the two biggest cities which aren't that big but um so yeah so that was one of the things yeah so i was like i'd never really moved i'd never really like done anything that was like

quite that big of a jump or that big of a step like leap of faith um i didn't know what that would look like yeah financially like if i would be able to continue the work that I was doing, like, what kind of work I would be in for. I didn't even know that it would pan out because, like, at this point, I had competed at, like, a couple, like, smaller level, like, sanctionals, but I, like, didn't do very well. And so I was like, well, now I'm just kind of pushing chips all into this thing like for what like it might not even play out but like i said all of the doors lined like all the stars lined up perfectly um for for me to come out here so with things like that i definitely believe that there's some kind of divine intervention happening where it's like, you know, if you're open to those things and if you're aware of, you know, again, like being

able to see the bigger picture of kind of what's happening in your life, that was definitely a moment that stood out to me of like, hey, something, God is pushing you in this direction to kind of take this step and, and trust and believe. Well, can you give me an example of something that fell into place? Like did like your apartment open up or did, did a sponsor be like, Hey, we'll pay your rent. Or was there some like, anything particular that stands out? Well, I mean, I had like resounding support.

I didn't know that I would like moving across the country by myself. Oh, with my dog, but by myself, not really knowing anybody like to have all of the support that I did was, was pretty special. At the time, the company that I worked for was open to allowing me to continue to work for them remotely. Um, which again was another like show of support or like another, you know, uh, door opening up in that line. You have a job now. You work. I do. I'm a coach. At least it's in your field.

Yeah. And it's nice. I love helping other people. If anybody wants to sponsor me, I'm open to it. I don't know if that's shameless plugging or not. Me too. I'm open to it too. If you want a wholesome person, Matt DeLugos, if you want something a little less wholesome, I'm open to it too. If you want a wholesome person, Matt DeLugos,

if you want something a little less wholesome, I'm Savon Matosian, the Savon podcast. We can be the yin and yang. We can rock this world. You want to sponsor both of us? We'll do a regular meeting of the wholesome and unwholesome. Yeah. We're getting into some deep topics here. I won't lie.

We'll do the salty and the sugary. So you go there and are your mom and dad proud of you? I think so. I hope so. That's the goal, right? Like make them proud. I was thinking about this last night, man. Like you were just, oh my gosh, this is crazy. This is just full circle. I love these kind of moments. I was thinking about this last night, man. Like, you were just, oh my gosh, this is crazy. This is just full circle. I love these kind of moments. I was thinking about this last night. What is life without family?

Like, think about all the things that your family has done for you, right? By the way, if your family's dead, don't go kill yourself right now. Don't listen to Matt Douglas. If your family's alive and healthy, yeah. Don't go kill yourself right now. Don't, don't listen to Matt Douglas. If your family's alive and healthy. Yeah. I mean like being grateful for the, you know, for the family that you do have, right. Or the pseudo family that you have, like people that care for you,

people that, that, um, you know, show, show the love and support for you. But like, you know, I think about it with my parents, like they've, they sacrificed a lot to have kids and I'm sure that, you know, that's like, you know, you think about it with my parents. They've sacrificed a lot to have kids. And I'm sure that you know this. Like,'m going to move across the country, not talk to you. Like, you know, I'm going to go my own way, blaze my own path, whatever. Like that's so messed up. And, you know, to CP, to just, you know, spread that love and really kind of say, like, thank you for everything that you've done for me. Like, thank you for putting me in this position to be able to move across the country and chase after my dream for a few years. And, you know, not really, not really be present for a lot of things that happen with families. But yeah, I'm very grateful for the family dynamic that I have and the relationship that I have with my parents. I'm going to say this and it's kind of true,

but it's a little bit romanticized. But when I had my first kid at 43, a door opens up and in that door, you can step through it and you can become selfless. And if you do decide to walk through that door, you'll be rewarded with something that's, I don't know. It's a gift. Let's call it the gift of seeing. And you don't get that gift unless you become selfless. And one of the ways to become selfless, I don't know if having kids is the

only way, but it's one way. If you don't walk through that door of selflessness, you won't get the gift of seeing and your kids will become something you have to sacrifice for and they'll become hard work. It's kind of like, it's weird. And I see a lot of young people, not just young people, but old people too. But it seems like young people have kids than more than older people. By older, I mean over 40. They don't want to step through that door. They think they're going to lose something when you step through the door of selflessness and you do lose something, but you realize that what you lose, you never wanted. It was a burden. It was a fucking burden. So you walk through the door of selflessness and now you get a gift in return,

the gift of seeing, and then all of a sudden you're like, Holy shit, this is awesome. And you wouldn't say stuff like I said, like I don't, I don't sacrifice anything for my kids because everything I'm doing with my kids, I couldn't think of anything better. I would rather be be doing it's actually the rest of the shit it's actually the opposite yeah it's a trip it's i've heard that said before it's a trip yeah a couple of my buddies who have recently had kids like within the past like four or five years they've all said that to you know i asked them how it is to be a dad and they're like, Matt, it's the best thing that's ever happened to me. They're like, I was, yeah. Like you, you're not doing stuff. You would never, you would never. Um, so, so like I'll hear someone

get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and there's not one fiber in my body that wants to get up, but my body gets up and goes and checks on them and gives them a kiss and make sure that they wash their hands and wipe their butt. And then I tucked them in and then I go to bed and it's the whole thing's like an out of body experience. I'm like, who the fuck is this guy? You know what I mean? I don't even recognize myself or it's, I want to sit at the beach and drink beers with my friends, but they're in the water. So I'll go in the water with them, even though I'm freezing, you know, and they're just kids. They don't care, but I'm in there and there's nothing I'd rather be doing than being miserable in the water with them. It's so weird. It is so weird. When you are parenting or when you are raising your child,

do you find that you do better trying to teach the child from the mistakes that you've made or from the things that have made you successful? Like, are you trying to make them child from the mistakes that you've made or from the things that have made you successful? Like, are you trying to make them, you know, kind of as close to you as you can, or are you like, Hey, you do your thing. I made this mistake. Like, let's try not to make that again. I don't know if I've crossed that bridge yet, but the, one of the biggest, for sure, one of the worst parenting techniques I see, and I see it nonstop, is parents that react to their kids. And you see it everywhere. Like the best advice I could give to any parent is to just be in constant meditation.

Your kid falls down, don't react. It's not, oh, or you're okay, or are you okay, or any of the reactions. Yeah. No one wants that. Treat them how you would want to feel. If you fell down, you fell down. Maybe someone like if my kid falls down really hard, I'll walk over. I'll kneel down next to him. I'll just sit there. He'll stand up. He'll be crying. He'll hug me. I'll give him the best fucking hug I can. I'll be like, dude, sorry that happened to you. I don't say anything. Like, I just like, let, let his life unfold for him. And you just be sort of there for them. Don't react. They don't need you. Like there's parents who are just always talking to their kids. Like, stop. Yeah. Just shut

the fuck up and leave them. Stop reacting. Um, I've done these, I've done the, so three nights, three days in a row, I went somewhere where there were other kids and every single time their kid did something bad, the parent would make an excuse for their kid. Oh, I'm sorry. Um, he doesn't have a lot of social interaction with other kids because of the last two years or, oh, I'm sorry, my kid's shy. Or it's like, dude, shut it, shut the fuck up and just let your kid be his his kid and that that's and they flourish and they flourish yeah you just have to be there to make sure uncle buck don't get him and a dog doesn't bite him and if you can protect him from those two things yeah that's how they learn right experience like you gotta go through that stuff

yeah man did you um i had i had this um friend i had for i had i was the kind of person like right? Experience. Like, you gotta go through that stuff. Yeah, man. Did you, I had this friend, I had, I was the kind of person, like, if a girl liked me, I would just date her. Define dating. Like, I would just start dating her. I would just fall in love with her. Just like, I never did one night stands. Like, if the girl

next door liked me, I'd be like, yeah, let's go out. And it's like, they try to fucking base, I'd be all in. Right. I'd be all in. Holy shit, a girl likes me i'm all in let's let's hold hands and let's get married tomorrow yeah let's go walk and get some sparkling water and maybe you know steal a cigarette from your dad and smoke it like let's hang out i'm down yeah but i had these friends who would and i hear this a lot they would sabot themselves. A girl would like them and they would try to picture themselves marrying the girl in the future. And they'd be like, ah, it's not going to work out. So they wouldn't date the girl and they wouldn't have the experience.

Interesting. Do you have a girlfriend? I do not. Which camp do you fall in? Are you avoiding? Do you? No, definitely don't. Well, which of those two camps do you fall in? Just immerse yourself no definitely don't well which of those two camps

do you fall in just immerse yourself like hey i'm all in or shit i already see some signs that we can't be married for 50 years so i'm going to sabotage this and get away from you so um i'm trending more towards the i feel like I'm kind of down the middle. I used to be very much like all in guns a blazing, like let's meet my family tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here's a ring. Let's get it all together. Where's the lease for our house? I used to be a little bit more like that. And now I'm at the point where, again, you come from a small, small town and you move to this big city and you're like, wow, there's a lot out there.

There are like, if I want pizza, there are 50 different places I can go get pizza. Same thing with ladies. Right. You've never, you've never, you've never married a woman from machu picchu you've never met dated a girl from machu picchu but there's some out there correct or girl who's born on antarctica right right yeah and and there's nothing wrong with getting that experience of learning hey i like this and this about this person but i'm not so i'm not super crazy about this one little aspect or like oh and, and with different girls or, you know,

there come different experiences and there come different things that you learn that you do like, or learn that you don't like. And again, that's all part of life, right? Like, I don't know. It's crazy. And you were just talking about kids that like there, I have classmates and things that are getting, you know, getting married at 23, 24, 25, like having kids already, buying houses. I'm like, y'all don't even know what's out there. Like you don't even, you're not, you know, you're sitting at a buffet and you ate one tray.

Like you've tried one little serving of life and you're ready to settle down. It's like, yeah. And when you say classmates, you mean people you went to high school with? Yeah. Yeah, people that I went to high school and college with that are, you know, like I said, like a couple kids have already had kids. And I think about that. And for me, I'm like, if I had a kid right now, like my life would be not over, but I would want it to be about my kid's life.

And I'm not ready to make that sacrifice yet. Right. Rich used to always talk about how he wanted to spend more time with his kids. And when he would say that, I didn't have kids at the time. And I was like, is he crazy? But now I get it. He was ahead of the curve. Yeah. time and I was like is he crazy but now I get it he was ahead of the curve yeah um most of my friends their kids are already like my friends my age their kids are like old yeah so like for you

going through the parenting process it's just I mean I I, I, I grinded in my thirties. I can't imagine having kids in my thirties. I had shit to do. Right. Twenties or thirties. I had shit to do. And now the shit I have to do is with my kids now. So I'm going to get off the, I'm going to finish this podcast with you.

I'm going to take them to the skate park and I'm going to jump on the phone and start figuring out how I'm going to prepare for tomorrow's podcast while they skate. Fuck, it's a good life. Yeah, can't complain about that. Look, I think this is Chase. Don't do it. I'm kidding. I love my kids most of the time. Do you have siblings?

Yeah. I have two younger sisters. Are they following in your footsteps at all? Are they athletes? Uh, they are not. Um, my one sister is pursuing nursing, I believe. Um, and then my other sister is going to school. She's got one semester left and she will become a teacher, a little elementary school teacher. So very different path. Oh, wow. That's cool. Um, you should tell your sister is becoming a nurse.

If she really wants to help people, she should get into CrossFit. I will definitely tell her that. But she won't make any money. Damn. That, yeah. I will definitely tell her that. But she won't make any money. Damn. Yeah. I think that that might be the dissuading factor for sure. Do you golf? I do.

Oh, you do? Yeah. You have time for that? Occasionally. It's like once a week right now. I go with Carrie Pierce's boyfriend. His name is Mitch Bloom. Usually we'll go out and hit some balls or my buddy dakota and i will go out and hit some balls sometimes too and when you say hit some balls someone told me about that they have

one of these places in santa cruz it's like or maybe it's san jose where you just like you go up top and like you can order like hot dogs and beer and then you just hit balls as far as you can is that what you do yeah so the one that i go to with mitch we have like a legit golf range so it's like you got to show up in your attire like they don't allow baggy jeans or like a t-shirt or anything like that so you got to show up fancy or golf ready uh the one that i go to with dakota sometimes has like a a rave night so it'll like play some like you know crazy lights like the lights will be like blacked out and like they'll have like loud music and stuff and then there's a top golf which oh yeah yeah that's what it is top golf that's

what i keep hearing about top golf if you ever get the chance to come out to vegas we'll go out to top golf there there's a fucking this thing is like four stories high there's bars at every level there's a pool at one section i don't even know about the top i didn't make it we didn't go all the way up there but i think there's a pool up top as well um so this thing is like vegas out like it is club it is like a club plus you can hit some golf balls if you want so like we were there and like we were, you know, we were smacking them around, but you would look left and right. And there's just like drunk idiots, like almost falling over the net. Wild.

You stand on the fourth floor and hit balls from the fourth floor. Yeah. You just nuke them. That's awesome. Are there injuries in golf but like by that i mean i don't mean like um athletic injuries i mean like someone get hit with a club or balls hit people or yeah there's videos oh man i could send you some i just saw one the other day where this dude was going to hit across the pond and he like hit uh he like hit the fence or hit something down low and the ball ricocheted back and like smacked his buddy who was recording it. You get that sometimes. I've been, I've been hit by a golf club too. Back in high school, I was working this camp for little kids. So we were like teaching them,

kind of like teaching them how to swing. You know, it's just like kids out there being babysat for two hours. But I went to go like help a kid and like place the ball down and he like swung backwards and like where i was he had like smacked me on the top of the head and like kind of fucking you know kind of started ringing for a little bit i was like oh my gosh um but yeah there's definitely that stuff or golf carts you also have to be careful with golf yeah i've actually had friends roll golf carts drunk friends roll tell me about rolling golf cards or have you seen the video of the guy putting as a bear walks towards him like 20 30 feet away bear buddy

i wonder if this is it let's see videos oh no bear runs full speed at golf or then reacts bizarrely at golf clubs let's see if this is it oh it doesn't have that oh yeah here it does

let's see see if I get in trouble for playing this Oh, it doesn't have that. Oh, yeah, here it does. Let's see. See if I get in trouble for playing this. This? My golf club's the bear. My golf club's the bear. No, it's not that video. Oh, man.

That's funny, though. What happens to this guy like i mean i i think that the video cuts out like as the guy is kind of walking away but he's like it's one of those it's one of those memes where it's like how am i supposed to chip with this going on and the guy is like legit like lining up his putt like taking a couple practice swings as this bear is walking from like 50 feet away and then he finally like realizes like, Oh shit, this is probably not something I want to do. He like hits his ball and you know,

it starts to backtrack and Oh man. I was like, a bear will fuck you up. Sage steel of ESPN just got all her teeth knocked out by Rom in a golf tourney ugh got all of her teeth knocked out I wonder if it was by the club or the ball

ask him if he has experienced the dark side of Vegas no look at him do you know the dark side of Vegas you know that answer no no dark side got hit by a ball mmm You know that answer. No dark side. Got hit by a ball. There's always someone running the back end.

Always someone running the back end. When I think of other sports, I think that there's room for innovation. By that, I mean... think of other sports i think that there's there's room for um innovation by that i mean and i and i had i had that nba guy on you a couple days ago and i don't think he understood the question innovation is it's something crazy when innovation happens i'll give you an example of innovation innovation was the fosbury flop you know what that is when the guy when you do the high jump and you turn on your back the guy was the worst high jumper ever in the history but he won the fucking gold medal in the olympics because he invented he innovated he was an engineer he never even did high jump and he's like these motherfuckers are doing this shit wrong and and fosbury i think he's still alive he

he was an engineer and he went to the olymp Olympics and he won the gold the next year he got destroyed right because everyone started using his neck technique I when you see someone like um Fikowski I don't know if what he's doing is innovation but he's for sure blazing right he's kind of like a Lewis and Clark for a guy who's that tall he's he's kind of leading the way right he's the best big man ever to do it and not that tall, he's kind of leading the way, right? He's the best big man ever to do it. And not just the best. He's like, I mean, a couple guys missing and he'd be games champ, right? Six years in a row.

Do you, tell me about how you, do you do that? Do you just plagiarize from him? Do you watch Fikowski videos and be like, okay, I'm going to plagiarize from him do you watch fikowski videos and be like okay i'm gonna plagiarize from this guy yeah all the time i've got videos saved where i'll like screen record something that he does and put it up next to mine and be like okay how can i make my muscles look a little bit closer to what his look like um yeah man he he gave he gave me the blueprint you know like and i'm still learning from it, but as a, whatever athlete, as a tall athlete, as a short athlete, as a, you know, thicker, stronger athlete, more gymnastics athlete, like you have to figure out the best, you have to figure out a way to maximize your

own success. So as a tall person, I have to figure out, okay, I'm not going to be as fast as Colton Mertens on thrusters, but I have to figure out a way to maximize my points through this workout and my points through this weekend, you know, to be able to, to be able to accomplish my goal and beat him or be, you know, whatever, whatever that goal is. So Brent Fikowski does a really good job of, yeah, professoring the crap out of stuff so he will figure out a workout and figure out exactly how much time he needs to rest in between from you know from one movement to another or within sets of of muscle ups like he knows you know exactly what to do there he knows the little techniques of like how

to more efficiently pick up a barbell or cycle through dumbbell snatches or thrusters, whatever it is. So there are always things that I'm looking, you know, unfortunately he's a pretty closed off guy. I like him a lot. Very, very, um, you know, easy to chat with and easy to kind of like mess around with. But, um, you can tell that there's a lot of knowledge in his, in his brain. And I would love to pick that brain of his one day, but while he's still competing, I'm sure that that's probably not going to happen. But if he wants to help another big man do well,

another shameless plug. Could you just go up there and just train with him? When I say up there, I don't even know where he trains. I just figured somewhere like way up high in Canada. Savant, yeah. It is sunny 363 days out of the year here i don't want to leave that right it's amazing here yeah maybe you need to invite him i wonder if he leaves i don't know you just had that kid that kid you

just had a kid he had a kid too are you confusing him with kid. He had a kid too. Are you confusing him with Velner? He had a kid. Nope. He's got a kid, man. It was like a super low key post that he made or his wife made, I think. And it was just kind of like,

yep. And then I asked him about it whenever we were down at, um, at the granite games. And he was like, Oh yeah. Like she's a couple of weeks old, blah,

blah, blah. So if you want to, if you want to, if you want to get close to him, talk about kid shit. People who just had kids are fucking nuts. They're nuts about their kids. So use that to get close to him.

For sure. I'll weasel my way in. Is there room for innovation in CrossFit? And I'll give you an example. Go ahead. I was just going to ask as a sport or as a, like how you were talking as far as maybe, maybe like innovating a movement or innovating a train, like a, a way to train like the butter, like the butterfly or

maybe something with the push-up or you know we saw this thing that fikowski does where he does throws the wall ball and then he brings his hands down like that you know this thing right is there room still to innovate in crossfit like places where people can you know i mean if you think of it this way if you increase your efficiency by a half a percent in six places now you have three percent three percent more and that's huge right that's huge yeah um do you see um i get what you're asking i think that innovation you know would look a little bit different um i think that efficiency is what you're looking for, right? Cause like, especially for me as a taller athlete, you know, you got to maximize time. So, or minimize time. So like I have to minimize the time that it takes for me

to get from one movement to the next or to get started on the next movement, um, or between one rep to the next, right? Like being able to be a little bit more efficient with doing a snatch, dropping the bar, either letting it settle, putting hands on like there's there's things like that that are you know innovative but um i think that that's the cool part about the sport is that there's not really you know like when you watch brent train or you watch noah train or you watch rich train there's not anything that they're doing. That's like crazy different. Right. It kind of just comes down to like, are you willing to work harder than the guy next to you? Like, are you willing to, to suffer? Um, which I like,

right. Cause then that's, there's nothing that's, and maybe this is me saying this because I don't want to give, give an excuse to something that I'm going to not be great at. Right. So like, I don't want to look at Carrie Pierce doing strict handstand pushups and be like, Oh, well, she has a special way of doing it. Um, you know, that I, I can't even really try to emulate because she's super short and her levers are different. Um, so I might as well not even try. Right. I would rather say no, like nobody's doing it differently than you are. You just need to do it better. Yeah. And that kind of drives that pursuit.

How is, how is your, um, uh, metabolic conditioning? Is it good? Do you feel like you have a big engine when you think of yourself? Yeah. I think that we're working on moving my engine a little bit more towards like CrossFit workouts. Like I have a pretty good engine whenever it comes to like monostructural work, running, rowing, any kind of like combination of those.

But it's when you start to add body weight movements, you start to add handstand pushups or muscle ups or, you know, box jumps, burpees, whatever it is. That's where I start to struggle a little bit. So we're working on it. Have you ever cried in a workout? No. Do boys, this is going to sound horrible, but I don't care. I've never seen a boy crying. I've seen girls crying in workouts.

I've never seen a boy crying in a workout. Like in a workout? Yeah. Like in a workout. Yeah. Like in a workout. No, I just taught myself quit being a bitch. Yeah. Go. I think that's the male mentality versus like, I know you, you ask Alex the same question. She cried like in training, like just the other day.

Alex. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like she said, she training like just the other day alex yeah yeah yeah it's like she said yeah she'll get to the point where she's just like and i don't even think that it's like a oh my gosh i'm sad this workout's so hard i think it's just like a i am putting everything into this workout and like i'm just emotionally fatigued and i need to like let something out. But yeah, no, for a guy, it's like, okay. My, my, my, my son was, um, a sparring with this kid in jujitsu and, um, the kid started crying and, and they kept going, they didn't stop. And afterwards he came over and he said, do you know why that boy cried? And I said, no, why? And he goes, that means you're trying your hardest. I was like,

kind of like a teapot blowing off steam, right? Just like, yeah, you're kind of just like, interesting. You're giving it your all and some shit just spilt over the top. Yeah, but I feel like crying is a reaction. Maybe that's a male thing too, but like, or not male, masculine. So crying is a reaction. It's not involuntary like breathing or ejaculating or digesting food for me it's a little bit more of like something happened i'm having these emotional responses and crying is the way that i'm going to release them

um and maybe for maybe for some people that happens instantly where they're like, I'm overcome with emotions because I'm trying so hard and just tears, you know? Do you remember the last time you cried? Yeah. When was that? When I was 14 points away. Oh, tell me you did. You went and wept. I mean yeah i should i shed some tears bro i'm not ashamed i'm not ashamed of this i i was upset after cried and not ashamed that's a

shirt cried and not ashamed collar make him the shirt he uh he knows that he saw it so wait so this is great so you're you're out there they announced that um that um mr mertens is going and then do you feel yourself over do you feel that like i'll sometimes be um uh like when we start talking about god earlier i'll feel my tear ducts turn on like i'll feel like a oh yeah yeah and often in my podcast i'll feel my tear ducts turn on. Like I'll feel like a real, oh yeah, yeah. And often in my podcast, I'll feel my tear ducts turn on. I'll get this super crazy intense emotional charge and I'll feel, did you feel your tear ducts turn? You know what I mean, that feeling? Like, oh, your motherfucker's just turned on.

Like mine just turned on a little bit now thinking about it. Yeah, like my body gets into this weird, like it's like, oh, it overcomes my body where I kind of just feel like almost like a little like goose bumpy, like a little like, ooh, like what's happening here? Yeah. And I'm definitely like, oh, this is me being upset. Yeah. Me being sad.

Like, so I finished the event and I was like, you know, hoping that it did enough, but, you know, in my head kind of being like, okay, it probably didn't do enough. But then I was like, well, I, you know, I was, I came in, I think in 10th or 9th. So I was like, well, I just, you know, now can maybe start thinking about whether or not I made it to the last chance. And then they like came up and they're like, hey Matt, we're going to drug test you. And I was like, oh, and they're like, we're going to drug test you because you made it to the last chance. And then they like came up and they're like, Hey Matt, we're going to drug test you. And I was like, Oh, and they're like, we're going to drug test you because you made it to last chance. And I'm like, Oh cool. And the lady, her name's Bree. I love her.

She's a sweetheart. But she goes, I was like, Oh, do you know where I finished up? And she's like, yeah, I think you were like six or seven. And I was like, don't tell me that. Like, don't tell me that I was like, like, you know, it's not a James Sprague where it's one point close but it's like make a clean jerk do a little bit faster on a different workout so they haven't even announced it and she tells you that they haven't even announced it yet and she tells you that is that bad am i gonna get her in trouble don't no no no no no no, no, no, no, no, no. No. Yeah. She, and if you are, it's too late.

Oh no. She comes up and tells me that I'm about to be about to be drug tested and like Kiefer and Justin were over there with me. So they're like refreshing the leaderboard and they didn't like, it didn't update yet. And you guys are all just milling around all the guys in the final heat. Yeah. Just kind of standing around talking to whoever. And I'm just kind of sat there like, Oh man, she said six. Like that, that might be a reach, but like maybe it's seventh.

And then they told me seventh by 14, 14 points. And I was just like, fuck like seriously like what started going through my mind was you made a dumb ass jump you should have hit 325 I was like you left you know you left a couple other points on the table throughout the weekend and you and you're feeling really emotional you feel like you could start crying in any second oh on the field yeah when she told me that yeah i was like yeah yes did any roll did any come out uh i think so i think one rolled out before i caught it and then you know you're just sat there did you push it

back in did you roll it back in or did you wipe it off no i flicked it to somebody here you go you flicked it on colton yeah well here you take my tears well how it feels yeah but um when i got fired from crossfit i i don't know if it was that day but i i remember at some point being like okay i i need i think i need to cry. And I, and I didn't like, I didn't even know why I didn't even know why, like there was no narrative behind it. There was no like my life's over or what am I going to do? Or this isn't fair. There was no narrative like that, but I just went, I, um,

I just went into my bedroom and I laid on the floor and I shut the door and I just kind of like faked it until kind of like I was like, yeah, until it was real. Yeah. And it was crazy. And I've never done that before, but I was like, man, I, I, like I, this something's in here that has to get out. It was like, like taking a shit. It was like taking a shit. And then I cried for like 10 minutes and then i was like okay and it was over but it was weird there was no you know my whole life usually when there's crying there's like some sort of narrative behind it well i'll tell

you another interesting crying moment um the year i don't know who won the crossfit games but it was in i think it was the first year was in madison and you don't know who won the game was it tia must have been oh it was either t or matt is that is that what i was gonna say yeah there's probably like a or b oh so so it was the girls it was the girls so it must have been tia then and all the girls started crying up there except for like two. I think maybe Bethany Shadburn was one of the ones who didn't cry. Really? But all the girls cried except for two. And I was up there with my camera and that was fucking intense. That was just like you were too close to the fire and you were catching on fire.

Like, you know what I mean? Like I didn't want to cry, but I just felt like I was fighting back tears the whole time. I'm like, what the fuck am I crying about? But it's because I was in a room full of people who were crying. It was nuts. Sometimes I find myself being a little bit less sympathetic to people that are crying because I know like if I was going through that, I wouldn't really want somebody to be like, let me come cry with you.

You know, I'd want somebody to come over and say, Hey, like, it's okay that you're feeling this way, but like, let's start to, you know, like, let, let's find ways to be productive with this. Like, let's find ways to use this energy that you're feeling or, you know, to reason through it and understand that there are, you know, good that there is good to come out of it. Um, I had my son run suicide sprints yesterday. Do you know what those are? Where you touch the line and run back, touch the line and run back. So he's running suicides and all three of them were running suicides.

And he got to like seven and they were taking turns. I was going to have him do 10. And then he got to seven and he's like, I'm tired. I'm like, well, there's three more. I'll run them with you. And he got to nine and he's like, I'm tired. I'm like, well, there's three more. I'll run them with you. And he got to nine and he's like, Hey man, I'm done. And I'm, and then I was like, Hey, you're going to run five more with your brothers now. And he got to like 13 and he starts crying. And, and I'd never seen him cry, like from working out or me pushing him too hard. And he's like, and he's like hyperventilating. He's like telling me he can't breathe. And he

is, it's hot outside. It's not that hot, like 85 it's hot outside. And he's like, and he's like hyperventilating. He's like telling me he can't breathe. And it's hot outside. It's not that hot, like 85 it's hot outside and he's thirsty and we're out of water. And I didn't know my reaction was to not be my, I got angry, but I didn't show him. And I just sat quiet. Like you were saying, like, I didn't, I didn't. And it's just my philosophy, like don't react. So I just basically sat there and let him come just sit on my lap and I just stayed super duper quiet. But it was interesting to see that.

I saw the other day, a boy, a boy's parent, this whole boy's family runs marathons, right? And there's like six kids and the kid was five or seven or something. And he ran a marathon and he was at mile 22 and he started crying and i know crazy right but his parents were being like his parents were being like they're the child protective services came out you know and like part of me is like but the kid's so proud he did it. Right. It's weird. It's weird. I conflated ideas. They're pushing your kids so hard to a point where it's abuse versus crying. you have to go through that feeling. Like you have to process whatever emotions you're feeling, you know? And for some people processing, it looks like crying. Um, it's funny that you say that. I think that Bethany would be okay with me talking about this, but like she, she would get to a point where, you know, like through training, like she would have moments of being very frustrated and upset with something and like on,

you know, like we would be training, whatever. And double-enders weren't going her way or something. Some other movement wasn't going her way. And she would like take a couple minutes and like cry and just like let that stuff out. And then she would literally be like, you know, you, we would like come by and be like, Hey, come on, like, keep your head up. You got this, like, you know, let's keep working, blah, blah, blah. And she, she would be like, I just needed to, like, I just needed to feel that. Like, I just needed to get that stuff out. Like feel that,

that frustration, that upsetness. And now I'm good. Like, she's like, you know, we don't have to talk about it ever again. Um, and I feel like that's, that's kind of where I get to whenever I cry. It's like, you know, obviously you do have, there are times that you'll have a narrative to why you're crying, but there are other times where you're just like, man, if I keep bottling up these emotions and never letting myself feel and express them, I'm not going to like, I won't, I won't know how to handle myself in any situation. Like the next time I get into a hard situation, I won't know how to handle, you know, this, this feeling. It's like that, like that quote, it's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener

at war. Like it's better to be in touch with those emotions. Wow. That's good. Yeah. It's better to be able to feel those and know what it feels like and be able to sit there and like that's like i had a conversation with a buddy whenever i got back here you know because like i i told him i was like man i'm upset like i don't like the way that this feels um you know to have to be to be close and to be giving it all and come up short and then like you

know you have those questions of like well am i good enough am i fit enough like am is this the right did i make the right decision moving across the country and leaving my family and being by myself and all that stuff and he's like oh yeah like well oh shit the weight of all of that just that that's like pandora's box just opened wow wow wow maybe i should have just got a job at the college doing sports education like that shit right it's yeah um like this is a this put it in perspective for me but i lost my grandfather this year and he was the he's like the first uh you know of the knowable relatives that I've lost, you know, like, I've had like a great grandfather pass away, but you, uh, you know,

I don't really know him as well as I do my grandpa. And I had my grandpa pass away not too long ago. And those thoughts have filled my head ever since. It's like, you're out here by yourself chasing after this dream like was it worth it like you you know you missed obviously you can't tell when that stuff's gonna happen but like i feel with the tear ducts opening up but like you you have you know missed opportunities to see him and you know now you've missed the last chances to see him so it's like they're opening up but it's like you better make this stuff worth it you know like can you leverage

that i know it sounds a little shallow but can you leverage that you know what i mean by leverage it like next time you want to quit a workout be like no i'm doing this for my fucking granddad i've already wasted my i've already wasted my tap outs fuck you no yeah so long like every time that i'm that i'm sat there like do i want to go through this accessory do i want to push this hard on the workout you know do i want to like whatever it is i want to do everything right do i want to go sit in the sauna do i want to you track my macros and eat well or stretch like you better fucking do it like did you did you come all the way out here to not do it like did you come all the way out here to to sell yourself short and to like i said miss out on these opportunities or are you

gonna try to get it you know man you're going to be so happy uh britney says i i legit cried in the middle of a road doing a 400 meter body weight prowler push in the middle of august it was so hot i couldn't breathe yeah of course you did you're a a girl. Okay. Next. Um, no, I'm just joking. I can't get a sponsor cause of shit like that comes out of my mouth. Baby, do you need me to be sweet right now? I'm never going to get a sponsorship. I would, uh, struggle as well.

Uh, this podcast has been very good. If someone keeps up, I'm going to be a fan of too many. I know it's crazy. I know I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to stick the Lugos. I knew I was a fan. I'd like, I like big people. I like big things. I like things outliers. I like weird things like you and Colton. And so I knew I'd already like, when I spotted you came on the scene,

I was like, Oh, I hope this guy gets good. This is going to be fun being a fan of his. I appreciate that. Thank you. I go to the zoo to see the giraffe. Gotcha. That's what I am. I'll take a flask and go sit in front.

I'll be like, I'm just going to stay here and look at the giraffes and get my buzz on. You go look at the rest of the animals. You ever watch gorillas? I can't remember i like a lot of it in minneapolis with alex and we went to a zoo and they had a gorilla exhibit and there were a couple gorillas inside and it opened up to the outside and there were like four or five gorillas sitting there and when you think about you know the whole process and you know you start thinking about god and then you're like okay well you know what maybe was there like some kind of

evolutionary process that went down and you watch these gorillas like move around and the way that they like look at each other and the way that they like look at each other and the way that they, the things that they do and the things that they, the ways that they just, the interactions that they have, the interactions you're just like, wow, like I could literally sit here and watch you guys do this all day. And my mind races is like, you know, did these guys come before us? Like these guys like what should they be in a cage like maybe they need to be let out right obviously obviously you have rescues and you have

places that are safe for them yeah but are safe for us so they don't need us for us yeah but yeah you wonder you're like do they just like sit there and like fucking hate themselves like hate their lives like it can't be a great experience right must suck dude day after day it must be like what it's like living in a small European country

that's what I think when I think of zoo animals but they don't but they don't know any better I know fuck you send me hate to my DMs I don't give a fuck I don't know any better. I know. Fuck you. Send me hate to my DMs. I don't give a fuck. I was just like, I don't know how to respond to that one. There's these people,

there's just people who live in cities with all of these rules and these concrete jungles. Like I used to live in London for six months or like when I go to the East Coast and I spend a lot of time in New York, I'm like, these people don't realize that like

they're caged animals and they don't even know it and they're okay with it. They want to be taken care of and that's kind of what in New York. I'm like, these people don't realize that like they're caged animals and they don't even know it and they're okay with it. They want to be taken care of and that's kind of what it's like. Yeah, I feel bad for those animals. It's like almost like,

how about like when you go to aquariums and there's just fish swimming in circles? I'm like, what the fuck? Yeah. And you see the big ones, but then you go, you go over to those little ones

that are like a two foot by two foot. Yeah. And it's like, man, this fish probably swims its head into the wall 50 times a day. Yeah. day after day for the rest of its life yeah i agree sebon it's fun being a fan of this dude i love shannon that's my gym mom she is probably somewhere do you really know who she is? Yeah.

She took me and picked me up from the airport. This last chance qualifier thing I don't know if I should talk to you about this. I'm here for it. Whatever you want. This just looks so miserable. This just sucks so bad these guys like all you guys were so so so tuesday night we're doing a show um the uh brian's gonna rank all the athletes in the order of the top 30 best men and top 30 best female crossfitters and he said a bunch of

them are in the last chance qualifier i wonder if you're gonna be in there but i don't know about that but this just this just looks really bad this thing is just there's so many of you vying for so few spots i just picture you guys should be sleeping and like resting yeah i'm getting ready for the games and now you have to go back out and war yeah that's been trippy for me mentally because i'm out of you know you finish you peak up for your competition and then you come off of it and you have a lot of uh emotional dump and you just like are tired and you just want to sleep and um i don't know you don't even want to eat but like there's so many different feelings that you have and then for us it was like the next you know i was like

justin's like hey friday you should probably start moving again and then by the next friday meaning meaning you finish competing on sunday and he's going to give you monday tuesday wednesday thursday and then you got to get back in there yeah thursday was like thursday was like a biker like we did a long like active recovery because i was like i can't go into friday being not having done anything for four days like i'm gonna feel like trash but so monday tuesday wednesday you actually took off yeah what's that look like monday was traveling so i just uh i was in minneapolis with my family so i got to spend some more time with them um tuesday was like catching up with some work stuff um cleaning up the house like doing all the little things like once you get back from a vacation or back from trip unpack yeah unpack

laundry vacuum everything um wednesday was we went up and hiked this uh okay place at this place called mount charleston so we went me and my dog went up for a little like three hour hike which is really awesome and so you're alone you're alone and you're processing during those three hours okay really through the three days yeah yeah i was trying to i was trying to picture with you with you with your family on monday it must have been weird. You're physically and emotionally exhausted. It's a really tough balance having family competitions for me because I love them so much and I want to be around them as much as I can.

But I have a job to do and there's priorities. So going out to eat with them all the time isn't like i can't i can't do that um and i've had these conversations with them so they kind of understand but like you're balancing between let me get the most out of spending time with them because i don't get to see them that often and let me focus and do everything and be selfish because i need to be in order to set myself up for success and then the day after is kind of the same thing, right? Like you're overwhelmed with everything that just happened. You know, like you're proud of your efforts.

You're disappointed with results. You're figuring out what you can do better for next year. You're figuring out, oh, I got to compete in three weeks at the last chance qualifier. What does that look like? And then you're like oh hey dad let's chat it up about some whatever like let's you know bullshit and you know talk to my mom about stuff and it's a weird balance for sure hey just so you know your parents don't need shit

like if you're on the floor and you and you look at your mom that that will sustain her for like a month if you ever win an event at at one of these games things and you go over and the first person you hug is your mom or your dad that that will they'll explode you know what i mean i'm just telling you as a parent like they don't need shit if you just look at your dad and wave he'll be like he'll fucking start to get lightheaded and shit trust yeah we love our kids so much we don't give a shit i know i know but i don't feel obligated to give them shit just a simple hi or hold your mom's hand or give her a kiss and she'll be just yeah she'll come unhinged we're easy i know but they travel everywhere with me, man. Yeah. I've competed in some amazing places, and my mom has been there. She's been to London to watch me compete.

She's been to Sweden. She's been to Norway. She's been everywhere. Dude, like, only competition that she's missed was Waterpalooza because I got called, like, the weekend before to go out and do it. That's the only one that she's ever not been at. Can you talk to your parents about everything? I feel like it. Yeah.

Politics? Yeah. I don't know anything about politics. I can't really discuss that stuff. Religion? That one's a little bit trickier. Because we... I was raised very traditional like, traditional Catholic.

And, like, and that's how they were raised. And this has only been within the last couple of years that I've started, you know, having my own thoughts. My own, like, independent thoughts as far as what's going on in this, like, crazy world. Right. And I feel like- Like, what we are as a yeah like what's happening to us and like why we're here yeah and um i'll be honest man like that stuff just doesn't really come up whenever i'm with them right i got we chat about you know chat about a lot of other

things instead of these like real serious topics. My dad has rules and it's kind of one of the things I want to make sure I never put on my kids. I want them to be able to talk to me about venereal diseases, God and Biden Trump. Like it's all, it's all, I want to be, I'm. Do you think there's a reason that, that, that those limits have been put on your all's relationship? I mean, I think the obvious answer is yes, but I don't know. I want to say, yeah, well, of course, but then if I'm afraid you're going to be like, why? And then I'm going to be like, fuck, I don't know.

So I don't know. So I don't know so i don't know i mean what do you think i i want to say yeah like why i why would i not want my kid to talk to me about anything i made him i'm here for him the one thing that that i've heard before is like you know you want your kid to feel like they are your kid and you are a parent and it's not there's not any lines of like oh we're friends i can get away with stuff or there's not i don't have a respect for them anymore like you know maybe in some people's minds those conversations like level things out and then you know like you said like there's no respect for the authority that oh that's interesting no no i don't think it's that if i yeah i don't think that either i think if anything it's that they're that my dad might be a little afraid because i can go anywhere there's only like a few places in my brain i cannot go

and other than that i can go i can explore anything i can explore there's there's nothing there's nothing that that really freaks me out like um but but i do like to really drill down and look at like what does this word mean what what what and why is this like this and I like to just keep going deeper and deeper and just keep peeling back. And I don't think, I don't think that that is something that I don't know why everyone doesn't like doing it to me. It's, it's like the whole reason we're alive. I think that the conversations that I've had with my parents, I've noticed a big switch or just a big progression in what they were

or what they are as I've gotten older. So maybe that's something that I'm experiencing, you know, because for my parents, like they haven't, they've never had a child who's 25 years old. So the things that I'm going through and the conversations that I'm having with myself and that I'm having with them, like these are all first, right? So like, I haven't ever cared about politics. So I'm not going to learn about them. And then that means I'm not really going to talk to them about that stuff. But I noticed that I do have more of these thoughts as far as like, you know, maybe a little bit more along the lines of like, what, what should our life, what should our life look like? Like,

what should, you know, what are characteristics that, you know, you should have as a good human being? Like, what are things that you want to be remembered for? How to, you know, just like how to live your life. And those are things that some dude walking right outside of my patio, that was weird. But those are the conversations that I'm having with them more and more often. So I think maybe it's just like a progression, right? Like maybe it's just a couple steps down the road that we'll get to talking about politics. Like maybe once I have my own kids and I start to care about what, you know, what governing body chooses the school district or whatever. Right, right.

I didn't give a fuck about that stuff either. It's funny how that shit creeps in. Yeah, right. I didn't give a fuck about that stuff either. It's funny how that shit creeps in. Yeah, right. I looked at my mom the other day and go, fuck, your life's weird. And she goes, why? And I go, you have a 50-year-old son. She goes, I know. And I was just imagining.

Is there a dude in your house? No, he's like growling at him now. But he's the sweetest little dog back there. You can see him right there. But he's just growling at him now, but he's the sweetest little dog back there. You can see him right there. But he's just ready to rumble. It would be so weird to have a 50-year-old son, I told my mom. She goes, it is. This must be so weird.

Like you have an old man for a son. Your kids are supposed to be little kids. And now you have an old man for a son. It must be so weird. Well, that transition was something that I got to see not too long ago because obviously i just moved out i've been out here for a year and a half and uh one of the like so whenever my parents were out here for west coast classic there was like a distinct moment where you could see it happening that my mom was like, this is like,

this is my baby, but this isn't a baby anymore. Like, right. The real man. And that was trippy. That was weird. So great. Fuck. Life is great. Okay. Back to, so before I let you go, I do want to talk about this last chance qualifier a little bit more. So are you getting your head wrapped around it? A little bit. It's getting more real as the training has kind of increased back up.

Like we've been hitting some really tough workouts, but I've been feeling really, really good with them. So I'm just kind of letting that, you know, really good with them so i'm just kind of letting that um you know boost my confidence because like you said it's you know it's twofold right like the field i guess it's like a mini game like there are probably over half of the people that are in the last chance qualifier that have either been to the games or deserve a spot at the games like they're really really really thick crew um and then the second thing is that you know online qualifiers when you see this with brent fukowski again not to make an excuse but typically they're a little bit more or a little bit less favorable for taller bigger stronger athletes um you know

and you get into situations where like oh i can control everything that i can control like i have my my favorite rower set up right next to my favorite pull-up bar and i'm playing my perfect music and i've got all these conditions that are you know you're not really being athletic you're kind of doing it all in that closed controlled environment um whereas like i like the competition field like i like seeing a guy you know starting to kind of waver and being like all right like step on their throat let's go get it yeah so it's just a it'll be an experience for sure i'm interested to see what it's like but yeah i'm kind of trying not to let all that other i'm trying not to let those two things creep up too much and just be like, Hey, I'm crushing workouts right now.

I'm feeling really good. Like just keep that energy going. What is the date? 29th. Um, oh shit. Oh shit. It's here. Pretty much.

Will there be something you'll do on the 28th? Like, like watch the movie Sparta or i i don't know i don't know what people watch and where you're just kind of like okay or you're gonna listen to just like jordan peterson quotes or kobe bryant quotes or just some shit like that where it's just like are you here to fucking win are you here to fuck it like will you do something like before like to just so what served me really well at granite games was that i never let myself do that which is totally opposite of what i've done in years past interesting okay in years past i feel like maybe it's a i don't know whether it's mature or immature but i've let myself fire myself up to

the point where i'm like you know two before ready to run through a wall. Um, and so I've like jacked myself up a ton and then it's really hard to sustain that. And so then I like get fired up for the workouts. I get really antsy about them. I get really anxious. Maybe I start off too hot. I do whatever doesn't go the way that I want it to. Now I'm a wreck because I'm like, well, I thought that I was going to win that workout and i finished in tenth and like now i have to try to get myself all the way back up to that point again like now i gotta watch another gladiator movie

right and so like what i've tried what i did at granite Games is like, like my playlist is Yeba. It's like chill, you know, R&B. It's very relaxing music to just like cool myself down, like just keep myself even keel. So honestly, I'll probably keep that day before very easy, very similar to what I already do. Like might go hit the range. You know, I might go hit the range um you know i might go for a long you know drive with the dog or go to a park or something like that but i'll try to be

as relaxed as i can be because i think that that does like i'll get to that point in the workout right like when i start warming up yes evergreen wow yes evergreen wow okay this is r&b damn you're introducing me to all sorts of shit yeah man it's good stuff you got to listen to um uh boomerang is another really good one by her um she does a cover of age of worry i believe it is by uh john mayer like she does a cover of that which is amazing she's a really good artist what about on the last day can you do that on the last day? Can you do that? On the last day of the last chance qualifier? Can you put in the Sparta? Yeah.

Yeah, last day, I'll fucking rage. So the last workout, you can just fucking turn the thrusters on full blast, and who cares if you burn out or whatever? So emotionally, just go. Yeah, it's a long weekend, and you have to be able to navigate that pretty level-headed. But when you get to the end, empty the tank. I've never been afraid of getting...

Go ahead, go ahead. Oh, no, I was just going to say, so speaking of music, this is complete opposite. But Ricky Garrard introduced me to this artist. His name's Troy Candy. And I will put on... It's on soundcloud um and he might have it on youtube but it's like troy candy and he has like 30 something volumes and i'll pick one of the

ones in the 30s and i will put that on and it just makes me and justin knows it too it just makes me want to run my head through a wall and i see why ricky loves it and i'm sure he like i'm sure that like gets him through his workouts and like it you know gets him to push to that next level because every time i listen to it i'm ready to just like go dark it's crazy is this um is this him no were you disappointed when um when ricky gerard didn't stay in vegas when he when he couldn't when he would we bummed a little bit yeah i like i like ricky you've talked to him before right yeah i love him

yeah he's a great dude yeah he's the kind of friend like i would want my kids to have he's so chill yeah he's a great i mean obviously a freak athlete but yeah he's a really good dude um just you know he's easy right he's not the if you if you if you're the kind of person who's like i have to go to this coffee shop at this time and then i have to do this i have to do this he'll be like okay like he he doesn't seem like the kind of guy no i want to go to this coffee shop he just rolls yeah rolls. Yeah. Yeah. It seems very mellow. I wish that I got to spend more time with him and actually he'll be coming up here in a couple of weeks.

He's like right after last chance qualifier. Yeah. He's going to train with us. So that'll be super sick, but. Oh, that's it. And then will he stay there until the games? I think so. Oh, that's awesome. Will he bring his chick with him? I know that for the first little

bit of time that he's here, he's going to be by himself. And then at some point, Michelle is coming up as well. Because they're staying with Mitch, who is Gary's boyfriend. Oh, shit. So it's like a family.

Yeah, we got a nice little family over here. I've kept you so long, but I want to say one more thing. Dude, I love this. Please, talk my ear off. Okay, good. I'm not afraid of I'm not afraid of ever getting hurt emotionally.

That's another, that was another thing going back to the relationship thing. Like, I don't like, I probably cried like a thousand times over girls from when I was five years old to the present. Like, I don't give a fuck about getting like,

I have friends who like, don't want to get emotionally hurt. Do you have any issues getting emotionally hurt? Like for me, it's just like part of the game. This is a tough question for me to answer and i don't mean for this to come across as arrogant but like i've never really like experienced that i've always go over there and kick your dog as hard as you can i promise you you'll have a you'll hate yourself You'll hate yourself.

You'll hate yourself. I've shut his tail in the door before. I've done it like two or three times. Dude, it fucking hurts. It hurts me to hear him scream like that. It's because you close it from the top instead of like a normal person and look down low. I don't have time for looking down there. There's nothing good for me down there.

So you've never had a girl a girl break up with you or um and been hurt emotionally like that no no i'm waiting for the day i mean i'll go through a heartbreak i'm not afraid of it but yeah i haven't yet yeah so it's hard for me to it's hard for me to speak on that yeah my i remember my first one was in the sixth grade man it fucking hurt really yeah but it was good for me what you remember it yeah yeah yeah i totally remember i remember coming be crying on the couch and putting my head in my mom's lap and just i was just wailing just wailing but I think it made me like emotionally very um strong like in a healthy way like to navigate I'm used like I'm used to it yeah I'm comfortable I'm comfortable being hurt

do you two questions do have you ever been the one to like break the heart to like to to do yeah yeah yeah i've heard tons of girls yes yes i've heard that hurt yeah that sucks too yes different kind of hurt it's like you don't want to you know that that's the right decision but you don't want to see that person go through what you know they're about to go through. For me, mostly, it's just I was just dating too many girls. They would always get hurt. I have like 10 fucking girlfriends. And that hurt, and people don't like that.

Yeah, they definitely don't. You got to be a little careful about how you harsh with all of them. And I would feel horrible. I would feel horrible hurting their feelings. Horrible. Horrible. Do you, though? You had time for them. and i would feel horrible i would feel horrible hurting their feelings horrible horrible do you though you had yeah you had to have been like yeah they're gonna fucking find out eventually oh yeah yeah yeah i would never even hide it love that i would never even hide it just listen you can't be a pimp and be hiding that shit no no i learned at a young age if you're gonna have five girlfriends they all have like there can be no hiding you can't you can't um you can't be dude i'll tell you

crazy stories i i went to school uc santa barbara do you know what you know what that is uc santa barbara and there's a town there called isla vista and it's it's a half square mile with 20 000 students just sitting on the beach in the middle of fucking nowhere, just sitting on the beach. And I would be like just at a outside, you know, like bar area and with one of my girlfriend, you know, getting drunk and eating. And another one of my girlfriends would come. And then she'd sit down and join us. Yeah, yeah. And then another one.

And it would just be like, and part of me was like this is so fucked up but another part of me is like i'm game i'm like yeah it's like tiptoeing through a bunch of mousetraps like but you're like i made it you're like yeah i'm game like this is just like all right like this is like yeah of course this is gonna happen and uh yeah just i was with just act cool act calm like nothing's weird just just act normal like the fire's going on around here like yeah just got your arm on just just hang just hang be nice to everyone i was with um the two girls that i have like dated dated i was with them for two the one was like two and a half years the other one was like all the way through high school and college.

And those were experiences where it was like, you know, we like their needs, this needs to, you know, feelings have changed and things need to go their ways. But like doing that to somebody that you spent the last however many years with that, that's where it gets like, I don't want to do this, but I know I have to do this, but I don't want to do it. Um, that's where it gets like i don't want to do this but i know i have to do this but i don't want to do it um that's a tough one but i'm just kind of getting into that realm of being a little bit more like you so if i need any advice i'm going to come to you as far as like all right honesty how do i honestly honesty is everything and just being cool honesty the problem is too Honesty is everything. And just being cool. Honesty.

The problem is too, your, your generate, I think it's your generation. I mean, you can tell me they're too demanding. There's a too demanding, demanding, like this,

this necessity for constant communication. Ah, yeah, yeah. And texting. It's not acceptable. It's not acceptable to me. That's what I meant by like instant. Like you want like an instant gratification or like an instant response or instant validation of your feelings, which is hard. And I've tried to be as upfront with people as I can be to say, Hey,

I'm going, like, I'm doing something that is super selfish. I know that I don't make time for anybody else. And if you're cool with that, cool, but don't say that you're cool with it. And then three weeks later, be upset with me for not texting you back within a three hour. upset with me for not texting you back within a three hour like i could go until the end of the day before i i message you back or before i you know give you a facetime call or whatever it is but like if that's what you're wanting you can't look here for it i'm not going to give that to you um that book that sets you up for failure right right that book that you recommended to me how champions think he brings up the topic and it's it's maybe he'll bring it up again but it's a topic i bring up with a lot of a lot of athletes a lot of like like whenever i have champions on

like i had alexander volkanovsky on or i've've talked to Fraser about it or just whoever I've even talked to rich about it. How do you, how do you have Volkanovski on? Yeah. And Aljermaine Sterling. And last week's main event. You know what someone said to me the other day? No,

you got me off on a tangent. Someone said, someone told one of my mutual friends, Sevan only, Sevan can't get any real UFC fighters on like of the last 15 UFC fights or something. something 10 of them i've had the fucking guy on the main card on my show next week there's a guy armin um surakian fighting on the main card for ufc he was on my show he doesn't do any fucking interviews he's the fucking greatest 150 pound five pound fighter alive right now he would i i it's either him or islam but he will fuck anyone

up and i had him on my show a couple weeks ago and it's like people who that guy who said that he had a fucking cock slap him but anyway i'm getting a little riled up well no that's fair but yeah dude that's fucking crazy volkanovski wasn't a great interview he was he was guarded yeah kind of have to be he was he was guarded um i was gonna ask you something about emotional girls oh in that book in that book um how champions think i always wonder to be with a champion whether you're the husband or the wife, you have to understand. I use the bald Eagle thing, the metaphor the other day,

it's basically like, if you want to be with a bald Eagle, you cannot cage it or else everything you loved about this bald Eagle will be gone. That dude just soars. That's what he does. He soars. He kicks ass. He steals fish from bears. He fucking beats up coyotes. He's a fucking bald eagle. And if you put him in a cage, then you're not going to have it. And so there's these there are these mates out there. They exist. I have one that. eagles. They know how to exist with people who just have fucking really strict habits, crazy discipline and persistent go-getters. And they exist. And it's just like this. If I was, let's say, let's say you're dating a girl and she texts you and then you don't text her back like in 24 hours, she needs, they need to come to terms with the fact that they want something and not project it onto you and be like, Hey Matt, I just want to let you know, I miss you. I love you. Hit me up when you can just be confident in yourself to just bug you again. Don't put it on you and be like, Hey asshole, I text you an hour ago. No,

no, that's not going to work. Right. And that's what, that, that pushes me away. Yeah. Yeah. That's not, that's not going to own it. Take a second, but that, that might be how you feel. Hey, this motherfucker's not texting me. Take, own it. Take a second, but that might be how you feel. Hey, this motherfucker's not texting me. Take a few deep breaths, meditate, let the script flipped. It will naturally, it always flips up for anyone who does some mindfulness and you'll realize it's you who wants something. And so put it back on yourself.

Be like, hey baby, I hope everything's okay. If you need something, you know, I'm here for you. Call me. I'm super flexible. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that's kind of what i'm looking for right is like i want another bald eagle like yeah yeah when you're flying through my hood let's go catch some fish together right yeah yeah like you go out there

and you kick ass at whatever it is that you love and like you chase your dreams and you be about it and i will support you a hundred percent. Yeah. If you support, like if we can, we can coexist supporting each other, becoming the best versions of ourselves. But when you get into that kind of shit where it's like,

Oh, you didn't text like, Oh, that's funny. You know, you made a post on Instagram, but she can't text me back. Oh,

fuck you. It's like, dude, now like, like that's for, to me, that's like showing that you're setting yourself up or that you're gonna set this relationship up relationship up for failure you know being codependent on me for that stuff right like you you need me in order to feel validated with your feelings like you can't just go through your day feeling the way you feel like you you want me to um you know to to tell you that I like you or to, you know, to,

to know that I'm there for you. And it's like, no, I've showed you plenty of times, but I think a lot of couples, what about, this is something I never had to deal with, but I bet you a lot of couples, they get, um, young couples. And I know some games athletes who've had this struggle, they have girlfriends and their girlfriends are upset because they don't put their girlfriends on their Instagram. And all that shit just… I had this conversation recently. You did? Yeah.

If I had that feeling that my wife didn't put me on her Instagram, do you know what I would do with it? I would push it down. I would not let that come out i know that the conventional wisdom is not to push it down i'd push that shit down because you wouldn't want to seem needy or that's part of it because you don't think it's like a valid thing to be upset at that's the other part yeah i don't think that's a reason to be upset either um i get how the insecurity creeps in i'm not blaming myself for having it but i don't want to give it life and tell her because you start to do that and then it and then it turns into you're at the gym with this person. Oh, this, the, you're, you're, you're training with, you know, these ladies, these attractive people, or, oh, you went and did this with this person that you got dinner, you know, or, oh, you're texting this person.

Is it just about CrossFit or is it about that? Like then, and then, yeah, you just turns into something bad. turns into something bad. I'm going to tell this to some girls out there who have men who are, there's the truth is, is I think most of the time we would rather be doing nothing than being with you. And so when you say that shit,

like you were with this girl or you did this, it's, it's, it's, it's doubly painful and annoying because we don't even want to fucking be there with those people. We'd rather fucking be curled up on a couch, fucking with you somewhere watching TV.

So yeah, it's crazy. That's the worst is when you're, when you're getting drilled for shit and it's like, dude, I don't want to be doing that shit. Yeah. Or yeah. Like this is a job, like, this is a job.

Yeah, this is a job. Yeah. Yeah. Just like, let me go do my job. Like, I don't come to you at work and be like, oh, are you talking to this co-worker? Are you in a meeting with this person? It's like, nah, that shit doesn't matter. Same way that it does.

I get it why it could matter in CrossFit or why it could be seen a different way. But now when you look at it black and white, yeah. Like I would, if I would, if I was with somebody that would be the feeling is like, yeah, I would rather be spending time with you, but I'm here doing the things I need to do to get towards my dream. So if you're going to bust my balls about, if you're going to bust, if you're going to give me a hard time and make me stressed out about what i'm trying to do for a living and then i'm gonna come back

and have to like reason with you to make sure that you feel like i love you that's not something i can sustain like i can't hold on to that and chase my dream who do you work out with who's in there every day who do you see like if you go to the gym will you go to the gym today not today um maybe and then when you go in there who will you see will you see um justin is he in there he is there i would say like 80 percent of the time there's a couple days of the week that he's not there um but most days he's there i would say like 80 percent of the time there's a couple days of the week that he's not there um but most days he's there so actually probably closer to like 90 how about carrie pierce carrie has been rocking her power abs like just taking people's money so she's not in the gym as

much she's been coming in recently that makes me so happy to hear that she's killing it she's doing so good and like she's the most deserving of that yeah awesome okay um uh how about um uh danielle brandon if you go and do you see her uh yeah how about bethany no don't see betany you froze I think you there? oh I froze oh shit it's me my internet went down for a second are you there? I'm there I'm here

how about Bethany? I don't see Bethany anymore no? no is she part of the underdogs athletics team? um you know I'm not really sure I'm not really sure. Um, you're not supposed to talk about it.

I just don't know enough. Okay. And that's probably something that's better left for them to explain. Um, okay. Uh, who, who else do you see if you go into the gym? Uh, I see Alex. She's in there every day. I see Allie Scuds and her boyfriend, Raph. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's Raph doing? Why is he in there?

Is he training? Does he want to go to the games? Yeah, he's trying to put together a team, which if they do, it would be fucking good. Savage. Raph is a stud, dude. Raph is a beast. And he's been out with a couple of different teams. Quadzilla. Dude, is a beast and he's been quadzilla quadzilla should i know but he's

had knee problems he hasn't been able to squat this is crazy listen to this this man did not squat for like four or five months because of these knee problems came into quarterfinals and pr'd his squat clean he hit 347 after not squatting for four months and he was upset at the like i get it he he didn't make it to semifinals which i understand was upsetting but i like looked at him and wanted to like smack him in the face because i was like dude you haven't been able to train this and you just hit a lift that most people don't even fathom hitting like you pr'd and you're upset at that like what ah he's a great dude i love ralph can the knees over toes guy i've only met him a couple times and i loved him too he was so easy can the knees over toes guys um help him they've helped me they have i've been telling i've

been telling ralph to walk backwards and do the the tibs and the calves and all the stretching and he's been doing it he's been getting better at it um yeah okay so um danielle alex gazon um allison scuds um raf um who else do you see like you know 50 of the time you go in there or more um soon ricky so that yeah soon ricky um and that's kind of our that's kind of our like you know elite level crew um we we've got some people that are you know that are working towards getting there um that are still in the gym every day busting busting it and getting after it um we've gotten like we've got this one guy his name is dan he's a beast or he's just a he's a great dude to have at the gym he's like he's kind of just like a random uh i'm trying to think of like a good character that he would be like or like a good

example of what kind of character he would be but he's just kind of this dude that'll like come in he's not he's not like doesn't train for crossfit but he'll like come in throw down with us like fucking you know rip all the workouts that we do he'll be dead tired he'll do like three workouts there's like three days without working out like have a blast like be talking shit to us the whole time making us laugh like making us just enjoy the session um and then he'll dip out for like a week and then come back in do the same thing about um see we've got we've got people like that and then you know obviously like the coaches at camp rhino um some of the members that are training either during the open gym time or just train you know at the little tail ends when we're in there so what's camp rhino

camp rhino is the crossfit gym that we're at. Okay. The reason why I was asking you. I see Shannon Scheffler, the one who commented. Yeah. She's probably listening right now. I see her every day as well. So, yeah, there's a lot of people. Is she an athlete?

What does she do? Yeah, she's a master's athlete. She's a stud. She took this year off of quarterfinals for a personal reason. But she's a teacher. It's really cool. She teaches at one of the schools here in Las Vegas. And she has created a program that is part of their curriculum.

I believe it's an elective that they can take. But she does CrossFit at school. So, like, has a full rig has one place like i believe it's middle school so like six days yeah and she does that throughout the year and it's like literally like i said one of the classes that they teach and she you know takes them through fundamentals takes them through workouts changes their movement patterns all that kind of stuff. It's really, really cool. Yeah. She's giving them a gift. They're going to have their whole life. It's really special. I wish that I could be more involved with it.

I, sometimes I would get to have a class in college or high school, or I'd have a job or something. And whenever there would be someone who, excuse me, there would be someone there who I was always happy to see. So like in the second grade, there was this kid, Jeff Holman. And I just, I would love going to school because I just loved playing with him. I was like, oh, Jeff's here. And if the Daisy wasn't there, I felt like, like I was ready to go home. Like if he wasn't there, it didn't happen often, but I'd be like, this fucking sucks. What am I like?

Why am I here today? Is it like that? Are there here today um is it like that are there people like is it like that do you kind of feel like you need that at your you know what i mean like you see carrie there and she kind of lifts you up or you see shannon there or you see scuds there you see raft there and you kind of get like oh yeah yeah my friends are here yeah yeah they there are definitely people that bring that energy or just bring that like comfort to the gym. Dan is definitely one of them. Shannon for sure. Cause she's, she's been, she's been like there for me through a couple of like difficult times throughout this year that have just like made me appreciate her and her

presence. And, you know, obviously each teammate is going to bring something different as well so like but at the same time you understand these teams the teammates that i have are like on an individual pursuit as well right so like if they're upset or if they're frustrated or whatever like i kind of let them go through that stuff because i understand for myself if i'm frustrated about something or whatever like having somebody you know to keep you in line is one thing but to like come over and like always be checking on you or like know everything about your business like that's a little bit too much um for for me to

share with everybody but you know whenever it's people that can keep it a little bit lighthearted or like keep it in focus for me like Dan's a great example because you know dan will go out in the summertime here in vegas and work from 5 a.m until 3 p.m or whatever 10 hours is like he starts at five works until middle of the day um with 40 pounds of crap on his on his chest like he's a contractor carpenter so he'll like be out in the middle of the sun stuff strapped on his chest and then he'll like come in and work out with us. And if there's days where I'm like, you know, getting starting to bitch about something or starting to get a little soft

or whatever it is, like, you know, or just like the things that I talk about and that I complain about, whenever I complain to him about that stuff, I'm like, he's got a kid. He's working to make a living and put food on, on her table and make sure that she's set up for success like i'm complaining about this workout are these really the same and do i really need to be doing this no like let's let's enjoy this for what it is let's have a good time let's you know let's talk some shit let's talk about whatever be boys boys and, you know, realize that this is a very good life that I live.

And I think with other CrossFitters, you kind of end up, you know, you end up complaining about the same things. You end up saying, oh, this programming was tough. Oh man, my triceps are blown up this week. And so you end up having these same, like, you know, kind of similar conversations. Whereas like with people outside of that, rarely talk about crossfit like when i talk to shannon or when i talk to dan we're never really talking about crossfit which is great because like if there's a second where i can you know obviously you're focused all the time but if there's if there are chances for me to like let myself off of that gas pedal a little bit that's like a great mental release for me. Like the great, like mental relax, relaxation to where I can, you know, put things into perspective, um,

have a little bit of a personality outside of CrossFit and then come right back to it. So it's not always consuming my mind. All right. I'm going to give you something hard. Ready hard ready okay that's what she said or he said go ahead um when when when when you're when they're let's say there's like six couples and they always do shit together and then one of the couples gets a divorce or one or you find out that one of the husbands was cheating on the wife, it sets ripples through all the other couples. So then all of a sudden, like I'm looking at my wife being like, man, is this bitch cheating on me too? Like, like, like all of a sudden,

it brings like this question into, into the group. Right. It's like, it's like, it's like crazy. Or, um, before, um, um, I had a boss who, who, um, I, who is sleeping with one of the girls. It was, uh, the, I don't even know if I should, how much I've talked about it on this podcast before, but there was a, I worked with these two people and they were senior people in the company and they were having, they were having sex with each other and having a relationship,

but they were both married. And I started thinking about them as if they're, if they're like, if their home life is in chaos, then I started thinking about them as if their, if their life, if their home life is in chaos, then I started seeing, like I started like second guessing them. Right. I started like, I didn't judge them like ethically or morally, but I thought they're people of low integrity. They don't live honest lives. Right. And where's the, and where's the other dishonesty in their lives?

And it just crept in like a disease. And I didn't, I don't mean it from any moral standpoint i want everyone to do what they want but like i don't want the guy who's my uber driver also to also know of him as an alcoholic right even if he doesn gazon and and i bring up bethany for a reason allison scud roff and they all have these relationships with justin and maybe one of them gets rocked or someone's leaving like maybe bethany's leaving um does that is that another reason why you you sort of keep your shit more private um like with all and you don't want it because you don't you don't want your boat to be rocked like who gives a fuck what's going on with justin and the other

athletes you need this pure relationship with him or like does that fuck with the boat when someone leaves i mean i think the drama or the stories or the yeah i think that you can if you let it um you know and like obviously man like that that's kind of a that's an interesting question um you know it is tough because like we've talked about with Justin too, he is an emotional person. So like nothing's ever, it's never just like, oh yep. They decided to leave. Oh yep.

You know, this happened. Like, okay, we're moved on. It's like, you know, that he feels those things, you know, that he cares about a person. And so whatever ends up happening, drama he feels it so you feel that too but like for me what i've tried to really do is like separate myself from that even to the point where like when i know that he's obsessed about those things that i that don't affect me like that are happening to whatever other athlete or happening in his relationship with whatever other, like all that kind of stuff. I really try

not to like ask too many questions. I'm kind of just like, Oh, okay. Tough. Like keep it separate, right? Like if he wants to feel that stuff, that's fine. Um, you know, and if things are happening, if drama is happening again, that's fine. But like I said, like, I kind of want this to be as professional, you know, as it can be. How do you learn that? How do you learn that? How do you, how, how are you like that? Oh, really experience.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, well, yeah, you go through, I have an adverse reaction to that word you said, professional. Why? I just hate it. That we call ourselves professional? No, no, no, no. Like when you say, no, no, I don't mind that.

No, but when you just said, I try to keep it professional. Like I just, I feel this sense of like fakeness, not from you. I'm saying it's me. Like in my, like when people used to say Dave Castro is not professional, I'd be like, you have fucking,

but you've, I would get so fucking angry. Why? Because he doesn't wear a three P suit. You think the guy who fucking works at fucking Harvard medical Institute's professional, that guy's this fucking scumbag. And I'll tell you 30 reasons why.

Right. This guy fucking killed people for a fucking living. He knows what professional is. Every fucking choice he made meant life or death. Because you don't recognize professional, he's not professional? No, it's because you don't recognize it. And so that

has nothing to do with you. I'm just saying, I just got triggered by that word. But I get it. Being emotional isn't professional, right? Being emotional isn't professional. Maybe having separation, having – being able to distance yourself from certain situations that are going to cause you to act unprofessionally, right? Or that will cause you to act in a way that's just not really suitable for what the intention is of you being out here. Right. Yeah. Your goal. Yeah. I respect that. I think it's tough as shit. I think that's the way you need to be. You need to do whatever it takes to get to the goal.

Yeah. And I'm learning, I'm learning, like I said, through experience, I'm learning to keep all of those things as separate as I can, or like almost imagining that there's like me holding my hand out against somebody's head while stuff's trying to run at me. It's like, stay with, like, I'm going to keep you at bay. I'm going to keep you there. Like I'll deal with it when I need to. But, um, especially when you're in the gym, it's like, come on, we've got, we've got things to do. Like we've got workouts to hit. We've got whatever to whatever that we want to do. And, um,

look at it right here. But anyways, um, yeah, there, there has to be, there has to be a little bit of a separation. Um, I think as people, because we're with each other so much, you want to know more about them. Like I want to know, I want to know about, um, Allie and Raph, and I want to know more about me and I want to hear her experiences and her stories and the things that they have to teach um but you also have to respect that like the same way that I'm not going to share everything that I'm going through they're probably not going

to do the same thing either so like understand that there are boundaries to that and that separation is good because and like I don't know this is a little mini tangent but like i'm impressed by people that in crossfit that date high level like the two high level athletes like date each other um like frederick and annie yeah yeah and like maybe Like Frederick and Annie? Yeah. Yeah. And like maybe. He fucking, they, they had to decide that she's the better.

I mean, I'm kind of making this up, but kind of not. They had to decide, Hey, you're the better athlete. That's what I mean. That's gotta be a tough blast to your ego. For sure.

I could handle it for sure. But I know I could totally handle that. Like, I don't have any of that, but i've never been a high level athlete right like what if your wife decided that she wanted to have a podcast and it blows up and she's like hey savannah i need you to take care of the kids like yes i'm game i'm so game if my wife made yeah i don't know if my wife made more money than my wife has made more money than me we've gone back and forth in our life but if i'm i'm so game i don't have any my identity is not like in any of that stuff but but that being said i've never been at frederick's level in anything you know what i mean like so like how the fuck do i know and he was really high but

he just happened to be at someone who's twice as high i mean they're not even comparable not that he's not great but they're not even comparable she's on another planet she's like a mount mount rushmore type of yes yeah like level for sure yeah but even even down levels right where like you're trying to reach that point and you're going through these selfish endeavors and you're making those decisions that's got to be really hard to do with two people that are doing those same things you know like two people that are doing those same things, you know, like two people that are, and then to go into the gym together, you know, to come back home and, and eat as clean as you do.

And to have your bedtime routines, like I half off to you guys, if you make it work, but yeah, I don't know. but yeah i don't know you think you're gonna get married and have kids do you see that i don't think about it yeah if it happens it happens but i think i would like to be a dad but like we said there's things that i want to accomplish. And until I'm ready to leave those things to either say like, Hey, yeah, I'm okay with where I got to now let's start this next phase. Or if I'm like, yeah, this stuff isn't going to play out the way that I wanted it to. And I'm ready to, you know, give my life to my kid. Like, I don't think I could make a decision until then.

Cause that's what I mean. And that's what we talked about, right? You are definitely at Frederick's level in filmmaking. Thank you, Dick Butter. I can't believe there's a guy who listens to my show named Dick Butter. What? I was going to say, do you have people that come on with like the same little nickname or same little like stupid shit? That dude's a staple.

Love it. That dude's always here. Dick Butter. And there's another dude named Richard Margarine. Instead of Dick Butter. And I thought they were the same dude, but sometimes I see them talking to each other in the comments. They talk to each other? That's amazing.

Hey, there's the same, like, 150 people here every morning. So this guy's always here, Wadzombie. This guy's always here, Corey Leonard. They're like my friends. It's kind of weird. This lady's always here. I have this lady's phone number on my phone.

This guy says he's a priest. This guy's always here, Anthony Andrews. Oh, there's Jeffrey Birchfield. He's always here. Look at Wad Zombie's giving money twice. Is Matt single? Literally asking for... Oh, yeah, he's single.

He's single. He's open to dating a lot of different people. Yep. At the same time. Be ready for it. Yeah. This guy's always here, Brandon Waddellell i fight with this guy sometimes in the comments is there a guy named tom uh jaron drawn oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah tom jaron the third or something i think i fight with him sometimes

what's funny is i fight with all these people a little bit i don't really fight with bruce wayne too much well i think that's why they like you is that you like have those back and forth with them i fight with them probably this this girl here this girl here so there's these three ladies who are like in a competition with each other to make me reels like i never used to have reels and now i have more reels than i know what to do with and i told one of the other ladies i said why are you making so many reels she's i hate the thought of the other ladies making more reels than me like shit wow you know what i and andrew hiller even told so we did semi-finals like um like recap shows and andrew hiller did all the shows with me and there were a bunch of people who

did most of the shows with me but andrew k was here every single one. And we got off the air. You're going to like this. This kind of reminds me of championship mindset, how champions think. And I go, Hey dude, I go, why are you doing all these shows with me?

And he goes, I hate the thought of you working harder than me. It's like, damn. And I have that kind of too. I hate the thought of some other YouTube dude working harder than me. I hate that. That is amazing because I love that feeling of I want to feel and I think it's a it's a never ending pursuit. But like that feeling of, yeah, I've worked harder than you because you don't know somebody else next to you.

that feeling of, yeah, I've worked harder than you. Cause you don't know that somebody else is next to you. But like whenever I take that, whenever I take that field and I'm snatching next to whoever the fuck I'm snatching next to, I want that feeling of like, you're not going to beat me cause I've done this shit too many times for you to out, like for you to beat me on it. Like I've, I have put in this work more than you. And that's why I love CrossFit is because it comes down to that, right?

Like it kind of comes down to, hey, there's nothing special that you're doing. Like we're snatching the exact, like form is the exact same. Like you don't have some kind of advantage. It just comes down to who has put in more work and who's willing to work harder right now. And it's just a, it's kind of black and white in that,

in that way. I lost three, I lost three business partners because they we give you an example. We would go somewhere to do filming and then i would call them like at six in the morning but i can't meet me downstairs we'll go that we're gonna go do this and they'll be like oh i'm going hiking this morning i'm like you're going hiking this morning and they're like yeah you know we've been working seven days straight and we're in colorado i want to go

hiking but and then and then you know like that happens 10 times and i'm i'm out yeah i find myself i had a conversation with my dad about this recently um like i'm at the gym all like all the time like i'm there from you know 10 until four or five like i'm there the whole day and you go to bed early too i noticed i watched one of your videos a day in the life of delugos you were like okay i'm gonna go and eat and go to bed i'm like the fucking sun's out yeah yeah well i said like yeah no but i you know i'm in the gym there um you know and you watch you watch you watch people come in and out and you know, and you watch, you watch, you watch people come in and out and, you know, you, you, you see different people's, uh, not work ethics because everybody works hard and everybody,

you know, is chasing after that stuff. But like, there are so many, um, stones to unturn and it's like, yeah, be 95 degrees out it might be a beautiful day to go sit by the pool or like go to a pool party or go you know just take some like just be done at one o'clock for the day or two o'clock for the day um but i'm always in the mindset of like well there's probably something else that we there's probably something else that i could be doing there's probably something else that i could work at and And like I said, if I, if I moved out here to, you know, to rush through my programming, why am I out here? Like, why would I not spend a little bit more time and warm up for this piece a little bit longer and hit it harder and, um, you know, push my accessory work and sit in the sauna for 35

minutes instead of 30. Like, you know, there are always things that you can be doing to outwork somebody. Um, and we're all given the same 24 hours in the day. So if I don't make the most of it, somebody else is. And when I get to the games that somebody else is probably going to be standing next to me and I don't want to stand next to that person and say, Oh shit, you outworked me. Like you got me this year. I took some time off or I, you know, I left the gym at, I left the gym early these days or I left these, you know, I didn't do these mobility pieces or whatever. Cause yeah, I feel like everybody that's at the games is doing all that stuff. So I want to get there and say, yeah, you've done it, but I've done it a little bit more. What, what, what, what's accessory work? Can you name off? Like, is there a lot of it? Is there endless? Yeah, you've done it, but I've done it a little bit more.

What's accessory work? Can you name off, like, is there a lot of it? Is there endless? Are there 50 different things? Is accessory work, like, is doing curls accessory work? Yeah, we do curls on Sunday. And that would be considered accessory though, right? Yeah, but for me, I think of accessory as, is like anything that's going to supplement what i'm doing so mobility is kind of like accessory work for me

um uh doing the knees over toes guy doing some like hip work from bernie griffith um doing some uh if it's like a pt if it's things that the pt gave me right for like scapular wall slides or rolling out my tib and my adductor like those little things are accessory work too um how about weighted pull-ups weighted pull-ups weighted dips man i could go down the list strict press rdls reverse hypers like all the all the different little movements that contribute to uh the success for the clean or the jerk or back squat what's the what's the least um not the worst but what's the accessory work that you're just like you have to like talk yourself into doing like if like i don't want to do that and i need to do that like l sits or like yeah l sits are hard especially whenever

you know like sometimes they'll just have us do like a max effort hold and so you're like okay i have to like i want to beat you know 30 well and then you watch bethany and ali scud do it for like a minute and a half straight fucking perfect legs pointed feet and you're like and probably carrie pierce is probably pretty good too she's pretty good at those i'll say that those girls are phenomenal um nah man uh dumb but like rear foot elevated split squats bulgarian split squats least favorite most disgusting most everything else i'm pretty good with getting through but disgusting most everything else i'm pretty good with getting through but it's those that i'm just like because we'll do those with heavy dumb actually i can't give away the secret no more but that movement i'm just kidding we'll do that we'll do that with like a overhead hold and

i'm trying to think it revolves sometimes but it's usually like another like hinging movement and so my legs are just like torched and it's usually after a day that we've already squatted and i'm like this i don't want to do i don't want to pick up these 90s to hold for these bulgarian split squats but like if that little difference if that little if if making myself get through that makes the difference then you got to do it or do you do stairmaster no i want to though frazier does it right dude i want one so fucking bad i want one so it's burning a hole in my in my heart the last like i'm obsessive and i'm i i want a stairmaster so bad for the like condition like for the cardio aspect of it or like yeah so i just i just so i spend a lot

of time on the assault bike a lot of time i'm just looking just because because i and i have a tv set right in front of it and so like that's how i do research that's how i study that's how like i get stuff done so if i'm gonna have someone on i just sit there on youtube and go through and watch stuff on them and i spend just shit loads of time and um but i was thinking if i had this with the t then i could mix my game up a little bit yeah i mean i just i'm i spend too much time on i ride the bike every day for fucking an hour and it's like, it's getting ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah.

Got to switch it up a little bit. I know for Asia or I'm pretty sure I heard for Asia. Yes. Yeah. Um, we have, I live in a little apartment complex. It's actually pretty nice, but they have one at the gym. So maybe you inspired me to go use it today. I wonder if you're going to, I bet you it's in a low ceiling today i wonder if you're gonna i bet you it's in a low ceiling i wonder if you're on that top stair if your head hits the ceiling oh it's tall enough get out of here i don't know dude look at each one of those steps is like one feet two feet three feet you're six feet tall and if they're eight foot ceilings no this is like a

this is like the there's like a back there's entire basketball court on the right side and then this is like above it so you can kind of like look down into it but my head would be close in that little facility it's not cheap no i wonder how much but i wonder why i wonder how much it costs to um to uh ship this estimated shipping i'm gonna look real uh united states yeah um nine get quote see oh okay so 500 bucks to ship it 5600 bucks if bucks. If you're already paying $5,100 for that. Oh no, shipping's free. It's the tax.

Look, it's the shipping's free. My bad. Oh. So Rogue ships that for free. Do you figure that they, because it's so expensive that they're, like, I don't know how that stuff works, but. I don't know either. But I know Bill, Bill, I promise I'll talk about this.

Mr. Henniger and katie henniger i will talk about this every single day on my podcast for three million days if you send me one of these imagine how fit my kids would get what i said let's get savannah sponsor for stairmaster yeah yeah you can walk while you do your net your next few podcasts like once every week you're just on the stair master talking to people and i promise i won't tell anyone you're my sponsor so you don't have to be affiliated with with um all the crass shit i say that's perfect for you then huh huh? And one for my friend DeLugos. Yes, there, buddies.

We'll have the biggest calves. D-L-G-O-S. Nope. How do you spell it? D-L-U. Oh. D-L-U-G-O-S. Oh, I wonder. Do I?

Oh, okay. That makes more sense. I mean, who has? There's D-L is such. It's so weird. There's in crossfit there's like one other person that whenever i type in dl because that's always a that takes away everybody else but there's one other person with the last name that's like very very similar it's like deluge or like it turns into something else like with the W at the end of it or

Z there's a poet named Tim DeLugos interesting I don't know him American poet he's dead it's a very uncommon what is it

I believe it's Polish oh shit he died of AIDS he's a poet AIDS acquired What is it? I believe it's Polish. Oh, shit. He died of AIDS. He's a poet. AIDS. Acquired. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome. It was scary in the 80s.

I believe that. I don't have that. There's been. There's only been. You don't have that. You don't have AIDS. No, we're clear. so anybody asking for their friends um there's only been one other person that i've ever came across and she's like an actress um or like now she does tiktoks or something like that but her last her name is courtney delugos

and i remember coming across her page and i was like, dad, who the fuck is this? I've never seen this. Do I relate it? Do we have a cousin? And he kind of explained through the little... Oh, she's hot. She's hot. Listen, I'm from West Virginia, but I can't speak on that.

She's hot. I'm going to show you we'll end the show with uh courtney delugas look at her you're not related to her uh the relation is like i think it's like one of my dad's like cousins or second cousins had a child with somebody she looks like i mean she kind of looks like she could be related to you i know oh my god another one okay hey it's kristin obviously what's up okay what do you there's that one.

Not this one. Okay. Three strikes and you're out, girl. Three strikes. I'm a ghost all the time. Okay, punk. Okay. On your own. On your own time, anyone can go look at uh courtney delugos

let's end it with a grit with a fantastic question what uh this is the only sound i don't give a i don't give a look i don't give a that's the only sound i have on my soundboard you ever hit somebody with that mid-response? You're just like, man, I don't give a fuck. Just like Matt Souser, just the regulars. You don't hit it. I would never hit it on you. If I do hit it on you, that means you know

I'm your friend. Perfect. We will be watching with the last chance qualifier. I hope staying calm until the last workout pans out for you. And I appreciate this was an incredibly, um, long podcast, two hours and 40 minutes. And I, thanks for giving me all your time. I'm, I can't believe neither of us had to pee.

I know. I didn't even think about that. But at one point you were kind of going like this and I'm like, Oh shit. He has to pee. Yeah. No, no. No, yeah, no. I drank too much water today. I literally woke up at like 6.45, and I was like, oh, fuck, I got to get on this podcast. I drank this whole thing of coffee.

I had a little cup as well, a tinier one. Paper Street, I like it. Would you like to try some Paper Street coffee? I would. Okay, I'll Would you like to try some Paper Street coffee? I would. Okay, I'll get you some sent out. Is that a local one for you? No, it's Jersey. It's one of my sponsors. A good sponsor, too. Like a fucking

great sponsor. I had them send Danielle some coffee, but then she moved houses, so I don't know if she got it. And she don't give a fuck alright peace and love