The Sevan Podcast - #63 - Last Chance Qualifier Day 2, Phil Toon

Episode Date: July 4, 2021

The Sevan Podcast EP 63 - Last Chance Qualifier Day 2 - Phil Toon @PHIL_TOON20 @SEVANMATOSSIAN The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hey. Hey, man. How's it going? Do you still have sweat dripping off of you since you just finished and you just got home from the gym and showered?

Yeah, not even showered. Just a little water to the face and I'm good to go. Do you ever stop sweating? Not in Arizona. No, it's just a daily thing. It's crazy when I saw that you're in Arizona. Yeah. It's, I mean, the summer here is, it's just like walking into an oven. I had a friend the other day. I have a friend who lives there. You may have heard of him. His name is Greg Glassman. I've heard of him once or twice. He spent some time there and, uh,

he was there the other day and it was 122 degrees. He's like, dude, you do not understand. Luckily my gym has AC or else I would be dying doing these workouts. So it's nice. What is the temp in your gym when you're doing them? Probably like 80, 85 ish. Oh, that's really cold. Yeah, no, it's super cold. But to us in the summer, it is pretty cold. You have a great name. Toon?

Yeah, Phil Toon. Mm-hmm. Have you always felt like it was a great name? Were you like, damn, I got stoked, I got a great name? Actually, I used to get picked on a little when I was younger with the cartoon and stuff. So I had to fight off those guys, and then I was good to go. And you grew up playing basketball. Yep. I played basketball through high school.

I wanted to play in college. And then after high school, I went to prep school for a year to do a postgraduate year, repeat my senior year. And I had some unfortunate injuries last few years of high school. And I actually had to get surgery on my ankle that year at prep school. So I didn't even get to play a game. And that's how I found CrossFit, actually, originally. Wait, explain that to me. You purposely redid your senior year so you could get better numbers to go to college?

Yeah. So through my high school wasn't a very like good high school for basketball, so we wouldn't get a lot of attention from recruiters. So I played travel called AAU, Amateur Athletic Union, to get noticed by college scouts and whatnot. But I didn't have the interest that I would have liked. I had some Division 3s and Division 2, but I always set the goal. I wanted to play D1. I didn't care what school it was. So I got in touch with a coach. His name's Corey McClure at Gould Academy in Maine, pretty close to Montreal, actually. And he recruited 15 of us for the year. And probably, I'd say about seven of us were postgraduates. so we repeated our senior year did all high school classes again just with the goal of going there to play basketball

and did you say montreal you went to canada for that so it was 30 minutes from the border of montreal it was in this town called bethel maine so it was pretty much in the middle of nowhere like i mean dude we were we had two hour study halls every night, curfew, wifi shuts off at a certain time. It was, it was not very, very fun. So we just had to go there. We just, we went there specifically for that reason, just basketball. So you were 18 years old and you were already kind of living the life of a professional athlete, but you were in high school. Yeah. Dedicated. And if you were in Maine, how did you guys find teams to play? So we played in this division or this league called the NEPSAC.

It's the New England Prep School Association or something. So in the NEPSAC, you played all other prep schools. Like all these prep – NEPSAC is probably the best high school basketball league in America. You play teams from all over New England, and all these other teams, they just recruit high school guys. I'm sure you've heard, if you play teams from all over New England and they, all these other teams, they just recruit high school guys. Like I'm sure you've heard, if you watch basketball at all, like Donovan Mitchell, he plays for the Utah jazz. Uh, he's a really big star now. Like he played in the NEP sack, like everybody in the East coast and even California, they would most,

most often go to this school, like a prep school in the NEP sack. And they would just go there because college coaches would just love to go to the showcases and we would travel to you know, Massachusetts Upwards towards Connecticut all that so we would go on eight-hour bus rides twice a week for games And we're all the guy were all the kids on the team like crazy committed or were you surprised? Was it was it a mixed bag mixed bag no i would so the first the year that i went was the first year of this like recruited basketball team at this school so the nepsack was big but gold was known actually for skiing and um i want to say uh like soccer or something they never had a good basketball team but then my coach came from another school and he recruited all these guys. So there was some, I mean, we had some great players on my team. I have a buddy. He plays at Monmouth, which isn't a big school, but

he had a pretty good career. He was a starting guard there this past year, and he's going to be playing overseas this coming year. And he's still a great friend of mine. I talk to him, you know, a few times a week. And how tall are you? I'm only five 10. And how old are you? I'm 23. Oh shit. You are young still, huh? I don't feel young. And why do you say that? Oh man, my body's just beat up. I got a just chronic knee pain from basketball. That's, that's the biggest thing. Um, and that's the biggest like problem I've had since beginning CrossFit is just daily knee issues. But I, uh, I have some good people in my corner who have been helping me out. And, you know, when you start CrossFit and you just want to max out and stuff every day, and I've learned as I've progressed

and gotten a little less dumb, I'm still super dumb, but I've become, I warm up a little bit more and stuff like that. But, you know, it's just the knee pain is the biggest thing. I'm still super dumb, but I've become, I warm up a little bit more and stuff like that. But you know, it's just the knee pain is the biggest thing. I actually really messed up my back in the open last year. The first workout, the 20.1 with the snatches and the burpees, I got a protruding L5 S1, which is pretty much like a bulging disc, but instead of it just kind of like being a little squish, it actually stuck out into my sciatic nerve. So I was pretty damn sure I was going to pull out of the open, but I kind of just like went week by week to see what the workouts were. Long story short, I got two epidural injections in my nerve and those have

actually helped a lot. It just took, it took away some pain. You know, I still deal with some, some aches and pains back there. But again, like I said, I I'm more diligent with my warmups. My coach helps me out with stuff like that accessory work. So it's not awful. It's truthfully the worst is, is the knees and that, and that comes a lot from basketball. What happened to the bulge? I'm sorry. What was that? I couldn't hear it. Sorry. What happened to the bulge? The disc? Yeah. So pretty much what like the epidural

injection did is it was just a bandaid, but epidural opposed to cortisone can actually heal a little bit around it. So fingers crossed. I've been, I felt really good on that side. It's my left side. The, the right side actually gives me a little more pain right now. So I wouldn't say anything's healed. I've just, uh, improved things like flexibility and just stretching. And it, it, uh, it's calmed down quite a bit. And the last chance qualifier is over. Is that correct? Uh, I'm probably going to give a workout a redo tomorrow morning. I just finished the burpee one this evening. Okay.

I think I'm going to give that rope climb one another go. I feel like I can't lose anything from it. And what time do you have to have it done by tomorrow? Noon. So it's interesting to hear you talk about your back since you took second in the deadlift with a triple at five 75, what is your deadlift PR? So I did a little power lifting stint, um, like a year and a half ago, two years ago. And I deadlifted six 60, 300 kilos and a meat.

Um, but I was probably, I was like chilling at like 207 pounds then and I weigh up probably about 193 195 now so I pulled 625 back in January for the fittest experience so I would say I'm somewhere around there still that's kind of where I've been at lately tell me the build-up to tell me about yesterday's you said did you do workout one first no I did the deadlift first okay so tell me about yesterday. Did you do workout one first? No, I did the deadlift first. Okay. So tell me about the – you wake up in the morning, you eat, you go to the gym, you warm up. Tell me about the warm-up. So I got to the gym, and my chiropractor met me there, and he's not –

That's awesome. Oh, my God. His whole thing, though, he's great. His whole thing is he's not your typical chro. So we don't just do adjustments. We, he really puts me like, he gets my hip in the right place. And as we do like exercises where I push like in and out of tension to really get the right muscles warmed up. So I was getting some pinching in my right side beforehand. And we really just kind of like work that side, worked my hips. And then after that, like I'll go through some static stretching before I begin

like a specific warmup, you know, warming up the exact muscle group. So like step ups, you know, some, some bike RDLs, kettlebell swings, really just get that posterior chain firing, getting those right muscles engaged to try to take a little pressure off the back. And, and what was your, when you, when you start, when you put weight on the bar what do you start with you start with 95 pounds like me uh no so deadlift so i actually had to use kilo plates which is weird because our gym plates are the rogue uh the big rogue bumper ones so i can only get like 505 on there with like and then it just goes to i'd have to use like bands for the rest so i was like i asked or the owner asked if we could get plates from another gym,

and he got some Rogue Kilo ones, so we used those. I just went blue plate, blue plate, blue plate, blue plate, until I think I got to 457 or something. That was the first time I went smaller than a 40-kilo jump. Do you know roughly what your first lift was did i did you say it's 455 my so first so-called attempt when you like no no no just just warming up like you put 225 on the bar and do it 10 times is that so no i'll go i'll go like typically on a deadlift i'll go 135 and i did like 10 and then i went 225 i do seven. And I'll do like three resets and do some touch and go's just to create some tension.

And then I go 315. And then I think I went like 365, 405, 455, 505, stuff like that. Pretty much those are typical jumps. Is there any point in there like you have 225 on there or 305 and you're like, oh shit, this feels heavy? Or are you just a Superman all the way to the end? Definitely not a Superman. I was, I said, my back was blown up when I was warming up yesterday. I was like, man, I didn't tell, I don't tell anybody when I'm like feeling like shit. Cause excuse me when I'm feeling like crap, you could swear. Okay. When I'm feeling like shit, I don't tell anybody and everybody around me hate hates it. Cause I just,

I just convinced myself that I'm fine. And my left side was killing me yesterday. I was like, man, this is bad. So I went to the back room, just kind of did some, like, I think it's like an upward dog, try to loosen it up a little, but then I was just like, screw this. And I just was like, all right, let's, let's throw on weight. Let's start the clock. And, uh, and then from there, I kind of, once the clock starts, you know, it just kind of, you just get kind of tunnel vision and You just stop thinking about the minor aches and pains. You just get in the zone. We have a great community at the gym. There are so many people there watching me.

Truthfully, if I was doing that by myself, I would have been 20, 30 pounds under. They lifted the weights towards the end. Was that your goal, 575, going in there? That was the goal in the back of my head. I told everybody, I said, my safety net, I had my jumps planned out was five 57. I was like, I need that. And then anything after that, like, I feel like I could do it. I had hit five 75 for a triple, a reset triple like that, like two years ago.

And right before I deadlifted six 60. So I was like, that's, that's the goal I want. But I need that five 57. But then I hit that felt pretty good. I was like, you know what, let's just go for it. And, uh, we threw it on and made it happen. And how many minutes, when you say set the clock, I'm not, I'm not familiar with how the workout works. How does it work? So it was 20 minutes, um, 20 minutes to establish a three rep max. Um, and they, I mean, you could start wherever, whenever, like if I, let's say I missed five 75 at 1950, I could have just restarted the clock, did my intro, showed the weights and went. So it really didn't matter the clock. It was similar to

the quarterfinals test. But, uh, I started the clock, I think when I was at like four 85 or something and I did like a rep or two there. And then I did like three so-called attempts that were like, all right, if I get this, like the first attempt, I know I'm going to get, but like, if something happens, I want to have this number down, you know? Um, so I did that, did another one. And then I threw on the five 75 at like 10, 12 minutes in. And then, and then how long after, before you did the, went back to the first workout, workout one, I took like, so my whole thing was I was originally going to do it like pretty much right after, but while a deadlift, you know, a heavy lift like that for three reps, it doesn't

necessarily make you feel like you're going to die from breathing. It really does tax your central nervous system. So while I didn't feel like I was dead, I know if I went right into that row, like I was probably gassed out after the first few calories. So I was like, I'm going to get some carbs, get some protein in me, relax, let my adrenaline come down, let my heart rate come down. So I waited like a good hour and a half, two hours before I even started warming up again. And then were you just wanting, did you do any of them repeat any of them today? Nope. I just did. I did the row one yesterday. Um, I improved my, from my practice time by like 32 seconds, 34 seconds. So I knew I wasn't going to win that one, but I do, I do, I have worked

really hard on my rowing. So I felt like it was a good time. Um, and then the, the ones today, I just hit the rope climb and then i just came back from the burpee and i think i'm gonna go redo that rope climb one tomorrow when did you see the leaderboard i didn't actually see it first because i like because i've been in the online format with the quarterfinals and the semifinals so i got a my girlfriend got a text from her friend and said phil's in second. I was like, Oh crap. I was like, all right, let's mind lose now. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy that it's over. I mean, except for the few hours people have to redo tomorrow. It's crazy that you guys don't know each other's times. I don't mean crazy in a bad way, like in an exciting way. For sure.

It's super exciting. It's super nerve wracking. And I got us like, anytime I finish one of these weekends, I always come back to it. I like the weekend goes by so quick. And then I'm like, man, that was fun. Cause when I'm doing it, I'm so stressed out. I'm always thinking about the next move, the next workout. I don't ever, it's really hard to like be present. Um, so that's something I really do try to work on just obviously in daily life, it's always a good thing to do. So these weekends always fly by. They're super fun. You push yourself to the max. It's a good time, but it's definitely stressful not knowing what other people are doing. Only two of you go, huh?

Two of us, yeah. Everybody is good at this one. There's no weak links. Yeah. Mathematically, do you know how bad it is for the guys who are in the bottom 10? Like points wise to get in to the top two? Yeah. Yeah. Like you have 172 and I'm looking at Taylor Self in 12th place and he has 99. That can't be good. So I think.

Because now he's not in control of his own destiny. Like you're in control of your own destiny. Yeah. These guys like you have to shit the bed for those guys to make it up, right? Yeah, for sure. And so with the last online semi, like Fikowski, for instance, I think he started out the weekend in 15th, and he had, like, a crazy comeback and ended up taking fifth. And that was six workouts, though. So truthfully, I do feel like a 12th place could. six workouts though. So I, I truthfully, I do feel like a 12th place could, if he does very,

very good on these next two workouts, he could jump up just because they're like, the competition's very heavy in this one. So there might be like one of us who gets a pretty bad finish. Um, but four workouts is like, there's not that many points. Whereas six, you could just inch up a little easier so maybe the person that's in like 18th or 20th i don't even think with two first place finishes that that person can make it that's just that's just how i look at it i'm not an expert so so you're a senior in high school you're playing basketball you're you get injured and you get introduced to CrossFit. Is that what you were saying? Yeah. So my brother, my brother had done CrossFit since 2010. Um, older brother, older brother. Yep. Okay. So he's the one who got me into CrossFit. He got me into competing. He, you know, he built my foundation for strength, everything. So, you know, he, I, it goes without saying he's

a huge credit for where I'm at today. So that's how I started. And then I just really built on just watching the guys. I remember watching the 2015 games, and I was like, holy crap, I want to do that. I remember Ben Smith, Matt Frazier battling it out, and that was so cool. And once I – go ahead. So sorry, so high school was over and you moved back home. So I was in – you're talking after prep school, right? Yep, yep, yep, after prep school.

So I came to Arizona and I started at Arizona State the following fall. And I worked out at my brother's gym. I worked out and I spent a long time just building a strength foundation. Not really competing in CrossFit, just cleaning jerks, snatches, which I still really struggle with, deadlift squats. And that's really what got me like to the point where I was strong enough to compete and then just had to start building the other stuff. Were you weak as a bird when you started? Were you? It's actually funny because I mean, even now, like I'm like the least jacked guy out there. I just have tattoos, so it helps a little, but I'm telling you, like, you'll, you know, you see me next to these guys and I'm like, man, these guys are jacked guy out there. I just have tattoos, so it helps a little, but I'm telling you like, you'll, you'll, you know, you see me next to these guys and I'm like, man, these guys

are jacked. But, uh, I was always really skinny in high school in basketball. Um, but I came in like within a few months of doing CrossFit, I squat back, squatted four or five. Yeah. Like the squat just really clicked for me. I don't know why I didn't squat that much in basketball. And then the deadlift kind of just, as I got stronger at squatting, my deadlift just jumped up with it. I can't do bench press very well, but, uh, the squat and the deadlift just went hand in hand for me. And it's just clicked. And like I said, the snatch is a huge struggle for me, which is, you know, a lot more of a technical movement. Are you surprised that 11 guys in the last chance qualifier have lifts that are 500 pounds or more than 500 pounds top 11? It looks like the top 11 had 500 pounds or more for a triple.

Yeah, that's nuts. So are you saying, Oh no, that's even more. There's a guy in 20th place are more for a triple. Yeah. That's nuts. So are you saying, Oh no, that's even more. There's a guy in 20th place who got five 18 and 19th place. No, I'm so wrong.

I'm so wrong. There's yeah. There's a guy in 14th place who did five 57, James Newberry, five, half the, let's say half. Are you surprised that half the guys,

so 500 pounds for a triple? This is nuts. Yeah. So actually, I mean, when Morning Chalk Up did that write-up and everything on me, I had knew about that guy from Greece. I saw his page. I was like, that dude's strong. He might add to that lift for me. And if he does, great.

But I did the fittest experience back in January, like I said. And we had a 100 max deadlift. And I was like, man, I'm going to win this easy. I was like, I'm just going to pull over 600, be good. And I pulled 625 and I was pumped. I was like easy first place. And I actually got second in that this dude, Josh Woodhull, who's a friend of mine, he pulled 636 and like four other guys or five other guys out of 12 pulled over 600 in that field. So that was the point where I realized crossfitters are getting stronger, like way stronger.

So I mean, there was a time when people were questioning if a crossfitter would ever dead the 500 pounds. I remember. I'm sure it's, it's so crazy to see the changes that the sports sport is making. And even the past, like two, three years,

strength, endurance, everything. Yeah. How about what Adam Klink did? Did that impress you? Oh yeah. I mean, when I was just really working my squat, my deadlift, my running suffered so much that 500 sub five minute miles. Unbelievable. Yeah. It's complete savagery yeah do you have any idea how you did on workout three and four relative to the field or are you just in the dark i have no idea how i did so my coach is matt torres who also coaches dollin pepper and uh cole grace haber who are also in the last chance qualifier they're both you know extreme they're young don's 19 he's an animal but he's a man child i can't believe he's 19 i think like he's he looks like a 30 year old man and he's like married and shit already his quads are as big as both mine together

stupid but uh i have no idea i mean i don't expect him to tell me don's times and stuff like that like i wouldn't ask for that. But I feel very good about the burpee one. I exceeded my expectations for that. The rope climb one, the rope climb is what kept me out of the games from the semis. I did awful on that. There's plenty of things out of my control that happened on that workout. So I did okay today. I was happy with it.

I didn't have any huge errors or anything. But in my head, I always happy with it. I didn't have any huge errors or anything, but in my head, like I always do whatever it takes and I feel like it won't hurt me to give it another go. Like if it's the last workout of my season, I'm like, at least I did it. You know, I didn't sit there and just be happy with what I did. I want to always put my best foot forward. So I'm going to go in tomorrow. I have my goal time and I know I want to beat it. If not, you know, at least I gave it my best. How bad was the burpee workout?

I'm at 12 inch, dude. I did 30 at my game pace like two days ago, three days ago. And I was thinking, oh, let's hold like maybe 20 on the minute. And I did it 30 at a minute 27 for practice, and my quads were blown up. So I was like, there's no way I can hold that. So, I mean, everybody started screaming at me, and I think it was rep 72 that I just took off. Oh, awesome.

Yeah, so they really helped me on that. And I'm sure there's going to be some guys that beat it, but I felt like I really gave it a good, strong effort today. So I was happy with that one. And how long do you stay on the ground after you finish a workout like that? Well, we got to go right over to the camera and say this password. So that's the hardest part about doing the online stuff, man. I messed up on the semis, I said, for workout three, we had

our password changed from, I think, Toronto to coffee. And I said, Toronto. And I realized like 10 minutes after I'm done, I'm like, oh God, they're going to DQ me because I said the wrong password. So there's no proof that I did it within the time. So I was freaking out. I sent them like a timestamp and luckily it worked out. But yeah, man, you finish that workout. Only thing you want to do is die, but you got to run to the camera, say that password first. Could you dunk when you played basketball? I first dunked when I was 15. Were you 5'10 yet?

No, I was like 5'7. If you go back on my Instagram, it's like a rim grazer. If you go back on my Instagram, it's like a rim grazer. But I mean, so that's actually what got me into working out was plyometrics and stuff. I was a chubby kid, so I was very self-conscious and I wanted to lose weight. So I started doing like plyometrics. I always wanted to touch the rim, touch the backboard, stuff like that. So I would just go to the park for hours and just try to dunk.

And that's probably why my knees are so bad, but I got it. Did you, um, it's funny. I think I was talking to this with Taylor self too. Did you wear the, uh, when you go to birthday swim birthday parties, did you wear the t-shirt in the pool?

Were you like that chubby kid? Oh yeah. Me too. Damn. I can't believe how many of us there are. Bro. I was wearing, it was,

it was until I had to go shirts for skins in a travel team practice that I was like, all right, dude, it's time to lose weight. So I just pretty, I actually, no lie, like I have a picture. My mom has a picture. I was like this at one point. I got so skinny. I was just drinking Gatorade. That's the only food I was eating.

It was bad. I talked with this with Taylor too. This is, the t-shirt thing is such a bad idea because it just sticks to your gut. Yeah, your belly button looks huge. Yeah, all of a sudden everyone's like, what the fuck? Is that a beach whale? No, I'm just a seventh grade kid who's self-conscious. That's it.

Nothing bad. So you said you were 15 years old the first time you dunked. Yep. Five, seven. So you said you were 15 years old the first time you dunked. Yep. 5'7". And I had a follow-up question there. Damn. Oh, yes, time domain. In the sport of basketball, you have a time domain that's pretty restricted, right?

I'm not deeply familiar with basketball, but I remember interviewing Katie Motter years ago, who's now Katieie henniger and she won the crossfit games in 2008 and i remember her saying that um of course she was going to do good at this games because she's the four minute time domain she owns it because that's what you do in basketball yeah it's four minutes as hard as you can and then rest it was that is that true for you and is it weird leaving that time domain in CrossFit? Was that a difficult change for you? Yeah. Truthfully,

I, especially since working with my coach, I've really realized I'm more of like a anaerobic type athlete. So a power output. So basketball, like, like she said, it's a lot of stop and go.

So you'll go quick for like, whenever we would do like conditioning and practice would be two minutes it would be two minutes like do like 22 sprints up and down the court try to get it it was never run five miles so it was very anaerobic i would say a lot more than aerobic so that transition has been difficult so i struggle more on the long side of things like 5k run and rowing. Like we do that, like I can't hold my paces as well as some of these guys. Whereas if it's 500 meters, I can, I feel like I can hang up there. Um, so that has been a bit of a transition and that's something that I'm definitely working on. If you, if, so if you're only 23 and you found CrossFit when you were 17 or 18, so that's five,

six years, it's crazy because some people say it takes 10 years to get strong. Again, that's, you know, we put a plan together for me just to, I really didn't do many Metcons. I just hammered the strength and, um, I'm still getting, I would say I'm still getting a little stronger here, there, but when I was doing the power lifting, I did like a three month power lifting stint. I was stupid strong for me. I mean, there's definitely people stronger, but I was putting up much better, much bigger numbers. But I, I remember I tried to run a 5k like three days after my meet three minutes in, I had to stop. My back was so lit. So I was like, all right, you got to start doing some cardio again.

And you were a 15 pounds heavier. Yeah. Yeah. Right there. Yeah. Yeah. Way, way heavier. Tell me about the semifinals. What you said you did the virtual one, which region were you in the North America, the Atlas games. Okay. And what place did you take i took ninth um so i was the last i was only able to go to the last chance because we had the backfill spots from because we had other people from other continents competing we had two of them so they took four from ours instead of the uh scheduled three so i had had to try to make it count. So that would be insane if you made it.

It'd be pretty awesome. I'm going to, I'm just going to put my best foot forward on that. Did you, have you had any chance to enjoy your second place or it's not like that? No, I don't care about it at all. I actually hate looking at the leaderboard. The weekend's not over. I'm not like, I got, I was telling my girlfriend cause I was in second place after day one of the Atlas games. And, uh, I was like, man, I hate people that people are tagging me right now. Cause you know, Kobe Bryant was a big influence on me. And he, you know, there was a famous interview he had after like, I think it was game two or game three of the finals. They were like, he had a great game. They had a great win and he wouldn't smile in the interview. And I mean, that's the mentality that you got to take.

It's like, it's a long weekend. A lot more can happen. It's cool. You know, it's great. You, you executed how you should execute. Um, but the weekend's not over. There's still more work to be done. So that's, that's the mindset you have to take across it. Like you watch the Rich Ferroni documentary. So much can happen over the course of a weekend. So you can't ever get complacent. And the people that do get complacent and are happy with where they're at at the current moment are not the people that can be successful in the sport. There's so many good athletes who are ready to take your spot. Did you see what happened to Cedric LaPointe? I did. I saw that. That's super unfortunate. And I feel for that,

you know, having had like back stuff, that's always the biggest scare is like, I do love heavy deadlifts, but it would suck to get taken out. And I feel for him and that's terrible. He's a, he's a beast. And it's even worse to watch the video, right? I mean, yeah, you saw it clearly. And you're just, it just kind of hurts your heart to see that happen to someone. Cause we all know what that for sure. that moment, right? You get the electricity and you're like, oh, shit. Yep, yep. I know that exact feeling.

It's heartbreaking, especially, you know, he had a great showing in the semis and people were very, very confident in him going into this last chance. So, you know, he puts it all out there every single day and to have it ruined by something completely out of his control it's heartbreaking when you see when you saw that there was a three rep max deadlift did that enter your mind where like oh shit i could get hurt here and this could be the end with this one yeah i mean it goes in your mind but it's pretty much what took over my mind is i get the deadlift heavy.

Going into the Atlas Games when the workouts came out, I said I got to prove to myself that I don't need a max lift to be able to hang with these guys because in the quarterfinals, the Open, I had pretty decent finishes. I surprised myself in both those. And it came down to there was the clean and jerk complex, and then there was the 4MX front squat, which took me way up the leaderboard. So I wanted to try to hang with just traditional crossfit and i was able to do just enough to squeak into the last chance qualifier so when i saw the deadlift i was i was pretty pumped how how serious are you about crossfit like obviously you're you're

are you about CrossFit? Like, obviously you're super serious, but maybe serious isn't the right word. How far out have you looked at in your life for where CrossFit's going to play a role in it, assuming you stay healthy? Do you see yourself just doing this until you win the games?

Like, okay, I'm only five years in. I have another five years until I reach my, you know, if I can win the games when I'm 28, then I till, till I like reach my, you know, if I, if I can win the games when I'm 28, then I can hang on till I'm 32 and I can get four wins, but I have five years to just keep getting better. Or are you just like, Hey, this is just something I'm doing. I'm totally game to work as hard as I can, but I'm not looking much further than just one year at a time. There's just something in the middle. Yeah. I mean, truthfully, man, I would say I didn't. So

like I said, I had been working towards being a good CrossFitter for quite some time. I had broke, broke it down, gotten worked on strength, but this, I would say like October, I decided I'm going to really, I'm going to really try this year. Like COVID put a dent in my wanting to compete. But then once I qualified for the fittest experience, I was like, I'm going to really try to get good at this thing. And then after the fittest experience, I started working with Matt Torres. Um, and then since then I've, I've put all the cards on the table. I still work a lot of hours. Um, I do lots of personal training, nutrition, coaching, online, remote coaching, um, classes. So I'm not fully at the full-time athlete stage, but I'm pretty excited because this year I'm pretty sure I'm going to be making

the move to Naples to be with Matt and some Dolan and some other guys and stuff. So I'm really excited for the rest of this year. And, you know, hopefully this last chance qualifier plays out well, but I'm really looking towards next year. So I would say I'm more on the side of smaller yearly goals, even smaller than yearly, you know? Sorry, go ahead. Will you take your girlfriend with you to Naples? Yeah. Unless, uh, unless she decides to leave me before that, because you celebrate her quite, quite, uh your instagram yeah yeah she's uh she's awesome she's you know she's so supportive of me and she's a freak athlete her and her mom are both

absolute beasts she's that fun fact is actually on the the wilks total is how you measure power lifting like strength she has a higher wilks total than me oh and it's relative to body weight to total yeah and hers is higher she's she could be like catcher I mean I'm she's getting stronger and I'm just kind of staying the same you've hit a glass ceiling yeah yeah like my back is like dude like you go to 600 you're gonna be in a wheelchair for a week she's like I'll pull 425 easy any day she's a beast holy cow you're not she your girlfriend pulls 425 she pulls 425 how much does your body weight 127 127 pounds yeah she's little yeah she's oh my god yeah

on your instagram she's like so little she's so little shit i know wait till you i'm telling like i knew she was tiny and then when i saw her in person for the first time, I was like, wow, you are really tiny. How did you guys meet? We met at an awful competition hosted in Arizona a few years back. It's called the Legion of Beast Games. This was the worst competition I've ever been a part of in my life. But I saw her there. I was like, oh, she's cute, and she does CrossFit.

She's cool. And we kind of just kept in touch through Instagram. She's cute and she does crossfit she's cool and uh we kind of just kept in touch through instagram she's cute she does crossfit she looks cool that's all the three boxes yeah yeah yeah she's not smoking a cigarette yeah so all right i mean she smokes a few cigarettes here and there something we're working on but uh but uh yeah it was we kind of just kept in touch through instagram and uh and then we started hanging out a little she lived in albuquerque But yeah, we kind of just kept in touch through Instagram. And then we started hanging out a little. She lived in Albuquerque, so it wasn't too far from here.

She came down, visited a few times, jumped in CrossFit workouts with me. We had that in common, so that was super cool. And I train with her regularly. We both did the powerlifting. So we just had a lot in common, and it just clicked with us. It's funny that you say it was one of the worst competitions ever, and yet you met one of the greatest people in your life there. It's a blessing.

It sounds like a good balance. Absolutely. What if it was a good competition? You would have been distracted and wouldn't have ever seen her. If it was this competition, don't see anybody. Right? Yeah. So Naples is fascinating. Have you ever been to Naples?

I have not, but I love Florida. I've wanted to live there my whole life. It's a fascinating town because when you go there, everyone there has gray hair. I've heard that. It's extreme. I mean, if you think the people in Scottsdale are old, like Naples is twice as old. Yeah. And it's extremely clean

extremely beautiful extremely expensive everything is so blue yeah it's nuts yeah it's it's a it's a it's a magical place well so that sort of answers the question if you're moving to naples that's pretty to be with your coach that's pretty serious. And if you're taking your girlfriend with you, that's even more serious. Oh yeah. All right, Phil, thank you for your time.

Yeah, man. Thank you. It was a blast being on here. It was great to get a peek. You said you didn't like to be tagged or you didn't want to look at second place, but I can't lie to you.

I looked at, uh, the leaderboard popped up and I immediately called Brian. I'm like, dude, we got to get this dude Phil Toon on. We got to get this dude Phil Toon on. And I don't know if you listen to the podcast, but I've mentioned your name a half dozen times

just because of your name because I just love the name. Like, I'm just looking through. I'm like, oh, Phil Toon, there he is. There he is. That's that guy. You would have been great in the NBA. You would have got a lot of commentator time

with a name like that. I needed to get a little taller. A little too tiny. Well, you're the perfect height, I think, for a name like that. I needed to get a little taller, a little too tiny. Well, you're the perfect height, I think, for a CrossFitter. That's what it looks like. Thanks for your time. And I'll be bugging you tomorrow, whether to say I'm sorry or holy shit, you did it. Thank you so much, man. Really appreciate it.