The Sevan Podcast - #72 - Zach Watts

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

The Sevan Podcast EP 72 - ZACH WATTS & BRIAN FRIEND @ZWATTS42 @SEVANMATOSSIAN @BRIANFRIENDCROSSFIT 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. I was like, wait a second. How you guys doing? When you're good looking like you, you got to at least throw some rocks at you. Thank you.

I listened to that Jason Hopper podcast. Do you want me to take my shirt off? Please, please get some more viewers. Yeah, right. Before we start, let me just come out hot here and say, you know, I bet you my boy Travis Mayer could also do a 350-pound hand clean and jerk. I don't know. You better keep showing off. You better keep showing off like that.

He could boot it clean, but can he jerk it? What in the hell possessed you to do that that was insane thank you any olympic lifting is good for me do you know do you know uh my co-host and personal scapegoat um for all my problems that have occurred with my life on planet earth i didn't know all that um he messaged me on instagram right after um i qualified and uh i didn't like realize who it was because i had so many messages and stuff and then uh i like went back and like i went to his page and i was like wait a second like i already talked to him awesome yeah um i have many known responsibilities, but bearing the burden of seven shortcomings was secret until now. But you've experienced it. It's just never been titled. A friend of mine in high school, I think it was our senior year, maybe it was our first year at City College,

he learned that term scapegoat, and he said it's a target for misplaced aggression. friend of mine in high school, uh, I think it was our senior year. Maybe it was our first year at city college. He, he learned that term scapegoat and he said it's a target for misplaced aggression. And, uh, and he's like, I'm basically the scapegoat in our group of friends. I was like, Oh yeah, you are. He's just that dude, you know, like you're sitting around in the living room and someone throws a remote at him or a pillow. You know, he was just always that guy who got the shit. He's like, I'm a scapegoat. I the shit he's like yeah right yeah yep uh zach uh before we go on i i the reason why you had to text me and say hey are we doing this or not and i was um because normally i send the link out 10 minutes before and it was

five minutes before and i hadn't sent it out because i was trapped in my head preparing a little monologue. So bear with me here while I go off on my frustrations. So in a previous life, I made a movie called Our House. It's on YouTube now. It won 30 film festival awards, including winning the beating Spellbound, which won the Academy Award that year twice. We beat it twice when we ran across it in film festivals across the country. I received the award for best film from Forrest Whitaker and Salma Hayek at a film festival. And it was about disabled adults, and I worked in a home for mentally disabled adults for five years.

And in that home, there were people with Williams syndrome, Down syndrome, alcohol fetal syndrome. There were like six people, and they lived there. And I lived there on the property with them for five years in my motor home that I illegally parked on the driveway. And I made this movie about them called our house. And one of the things, so basically we just helped take care of them. And, uh, on a side note about the movie, when the movie came out, the state of California, um, the department of disabled services, DDS, they basically tried to shut the house down saying the movie was a bad representation of mentally disabled adults and the parents of those adults

came to my defense and they said hey it may be a bad representation but it's the truth it is the truth this is what it's like living in a disabled home and so uh let that be a little let that sink into everyone's brain about my character this isn't the my first rodeo i was a young homeless man when i made that film just living on the driveway with disabled adults taking care of them wiping people's asses with pleasure and and and doing the good work cooking dinner for people just loving on people who needed love. And one of the things that those, I remember saying to this girl one time who lived there, she was a woman, probably 35 years old. We were at the ATM and we were getting money out for her.

And the ATM had run out of money. And I was like, oh, we have to wait for people to put more money in it. And she's like, what do you mean? And she couldn't grasp the idea that money came from somewhere else besides the ATM machine. She thought that like it just grew back there or something. I don't know what she thought, but I could not for – on my part, I couldn't explain to her where money came from. But I knew that it wasn't growing behind the ATM machine, right? I knew it had to be printed somewhere else and brought there.

And I wasn't any like economics major. I just knew. I just, I felt like I knew I was willing to bet, you know, like my hand on it that like, Hey, the money wasn't being made behind this bank of America teller, which takes me to my next topic. People will say, and you guys can try to connect this all. If you want, people will say that, um, games athletes deserve more money. And they think that like, for some reason reason I think they should deserve it or they should not deserve it or they should get it or they should not get it. It doesn't matter. We're dealing in truth, people.

And if you go outside of that metric, then you kind of lose me. Then when you're not dealing with truth, you're in your head and you're making shit up. If I throw an apple up in the air, I don't have a choice to say, well, that apple deserves to stay up in the air forever. It does not work that way. That apple has the role and it has to come down. That money does not appear from just behind the ATM magically, which brings me to my next thing. It's just basic economics. This guy's like, Hey, you're saying games athletes shouldn't get paid more there and they don't deserve to get paid more. It's not up to me. And I explained to this guy and I didn't even know this.

And this is what I was kind of researching before you came on me. And I explained to this guy, and I didn't even know this, and this is what I was kind of researching before you came on, Zach, and I apologize for sending you the link late, but I said, I bet you the gate at Wimbledon, the gate, that's the ticket sales, are greater than the entire revenue of CrossFit Inc. And I was wrong. But Wimbledon, that event, makes $360 million a year. They give away $48,629,684.95 in prize money. I had to convert that from pounds for you guys. The broadcast deal alone is $160 million. The ticket sales from the Super Bowl are 65 million. What is my point?

You do not understand. And I worked at CrossFitting for 15 years. Sorry, Zach, none of this is directed at you. You don't deserve any of this. I worked at CrossFitting for 15 years. And I'm telling you that there's not five people on the planet who know more about CrossFit in its totality than me. And I am being extremely humble by saying five. So stop saying that. And I know there's different arguments and maybe they're valid. Matt said in our podcast that HQ was blocking the semifinals or the sanctionals or whatever they're called from giving more money than 5,000. I don't know the details of that, but I'm just telling you, understand that money doesn't just appear out of nowhere. CrossFit Inc has to make the money before they give it to you.

And it doesn't matter what you deserve. Like that's just delusional talk. That's just like your emotional plea. Like I don't do the woke crowd shit. I don't do emotional plea. Okay. Peace and love. Zach,

you are a beast. Were you scaredless when you weren't put in the mid-atlantic regional with those savages yeah yeah i was reading through the name list when it got announced and uh i was like man it's just the list is ongoing and never stops and then i started swiping through all the other ones and i was like equally impressed with how many awesome people were at every semifinal and uh I don't know it just kept going like there's so many awesome people I was just impressed with all of them honestly so you kind of lied to yourself and said that there were good dudes elsewhere to kind of make yourself feel better that you were stuck with not a lot Jason Hopper Scott Panchick

Justin Medeiros Travis Mayer I mean this is is Ben Smith. I mean, you were thrown to the wolves. Yeah, I definitely was. Who else did I just saw? Another name I recognize. Marquand Jones. I mean, these are just not CrossFitters. These are legitimate bona fide. Travis Williams.

Oh, you're lucky. He went home early, right? He skipped over Samuel Quant. Samuel Quant. I mean, these are part human, part savages, these guys. Yeah. And, and Hopper's got God on his side. Hopper's got God on his side.

I mean, you're fucked. Um, and you pulled it off. You took fifth place. Yeah. I tried to give it away in the fourth event, but held on. Is that Inception? Yeah, the running workout. Okay, let's start there.

Let's talk about the worst. Let's do it. Let's talk about the worst part. I knew it was coming. Let's just get it over with. Because people will even DM me and be like, hey, do you really deserve to go to the games if you get capped? Brian, what is, if you get capped? Brian, what is – and you got capped plus 24, whatever that means. Brian, what is Inception?

And say the meanest shit you can say about Zach so that from here we can build up and love on him for the next hour. Inception is a three-round workout that has varying rounds of the same work to accomplish, workout that has varying rounds of the same work to accomplish, which in every round in some combination, you have to run 900 meters, do 18 ring muscle-ups, and do 36 wall balls with a heavy wall ball. And I watched actually all of the men's heats from the past weekend recently for the Mid-Atlantic. And I think that Zach's just not up to par with the running relative to the rest of the guys. And now he's made the games, but he also had the longest time between semifinal and games of any athlete could have qualifying

in the first week. And running is one of those things that you can improve dramatically in a couple months if you focus on it. So hopefully he's been doing that because it's usually tested three to six times in various capacities over an entire weekend at the games. That's a beautiful shit sandwich you made him. That was beautiful. Zach, do you have any adjustments you need to make to Brian's analysis?

No. I think that workout was also a little scary in a way that normally workouts, as the workout goes on, the reps get less, but it stayed the same volume all the way through. So I thought that was an interesting take to that workout. So you had to do 18 ring muscle-ups every round? Yeah. Yeah. See, I didn't see, I didn't see your, um, I didn't see your participation in that event, but I would have just, um, out of conventional wisdom guessed it was at the ring muscle-ups. Uh, no, actually

for me, like I love ring muscle-ups and I like wall balls and heavy wall balls are normally good for me. So the running, I'm notoriously not good at running. I mean, I did horrible at the Triple Three event at Regionals. I believe that was 2018. I got like second to last in that workout on a true form runner. But my main problem, unfortunately, is that I work full time. Um, so the time that I do have, um, outside of working is like, I would just like rush to the gym and do like gym focused workouts, like wads and skill stuff. And I unfortunately running got put on the back burner with a limited time that I had.

Uh, we'll, we'll circle back to that work thing. Cause that is fascinating. I heard you say even in one I think it was an interview I saw or I saw it on your Instagram that you said you even just still take classes and yeah

yeah so I started off go ahead we'll come back to that I have one more question about this workout we'll come back to that Brian it is concerning because it's only 900 meters right

well you know each round is 900 meters. So it's a mile and a half of running or so. How would he have done? So he would have done significantly better if it was 200 meters. Maybe. I mean, it's hard to tell because the true form runner is kind of a strange implement. For me, it's easier to tell if someone's a good runner on a, when I

actually see them run then on the true form. Cause on the true form, I mean, you can tell when someone's really bad, but sometimes people look like Jason Hopper actually doesn't look like he's running very well when he's on the true form, but he was running well relative to the other guys. So it's a little bit misleading at times. Do you have a running coach, Zach? misleading at times. Do you have a running coach, Zach? I don't have a specific running coach, but I work with Coach L from Brute Strength,

and they go with a lot of the Chris Henshaw stuff. Are you working on it? Like Brian said, is that like a pretty serious focus for you between now and the games? Yeah, definitely endurance focused. We do a lot of running, a lot of rough running. It's kind of all various forms of running, mainly just outside right now. Do you see yourself getting better?

Yeah, I like to think so. I think over the course of the past four to six weeks, working on all the endurance and all the running, I definitely feel that I am getting better at running. I think just single modality, just running in general, isn't a strong suit. But I think when it's paired with other things, particularly not muscle-ups and wall balls, apparently, I do better. So I was doing the midline madness from the games, the running and yoke carry workout that they did back at the StubHub Center. And I was able to move through that one fine.

I felt like I was even pushing the pace on the run and moving at a decent pace for me. I don't know how it would reflect at the games itself, but I felt solid in that. How old are you? I'm 25. And you've had the same girlfriend since you've been 16? Yeah, I have. Her name is Bailey. High school sweetheart

you love the shit out of her i do you don't even have an instagram account it's more like a shrine to her seven just one thing before we leave yeah definitely one thing before we leave the running because i think is important is the most i think i think wait wait what was the word you said that they're important yeah say it again important what all right i don't think you're from canada for a second oh um anyway go on don't let me distract you think that's important yeah so he might he might work on the running and maybe he won't do as well relative to the field and the running events as he wants maybe he will but even if he doesn't, as long as he isn't destroyed by those events, as long as the running doesn't make him feel so bad that he can't perform on his other events,

then even still I'd say the running training has paid off. What's this event you took first place in, the 8-mile? Oh, it's the complete opposite of the name. It is a one-rep max snatch. That's what I thought. Why do they call it the eight mile? Because the reason is I actually, uh, Luke SP shared his thoughts, his explanation for all these workout titles.

It's because of you get one shot, one opportunity, that line. So, so you're strong, like bull. You could say that. Yeah, wow. And is that a PR for you, 310? No, I hit 315 a couple years ago. But having that close to 310 in that setting, I'm extremely happy with. I was hoping for anything over 300.

And we stood around for 10, 15 minutes in the back, didn't touch a single barbell and had to just hit it basically cold. Luckily, started off at 280, hit that. That was more nerve-wracking than the 310 was. So why did you choose 310? Did you know the other guys? Did you see that the other guys were you kind of did you see all the strongest guys already go and hit 300 he wasn't in the final yeah it was not yeah yeah it was not i saw i was standing in the back and i heard that like mark hutchinson had hit 300

um in the first heat and i was like i mean that's pretty heavy like i'm hoping i can get close to that and uh people in the back were kind of telling me what they were going to start at. And they were all kind of saying like 275 with a goal of like high 200s. And I was like, well, my goal is definitely higher than that. So I guess I need to start higher than 275. So I started at 280. That was like something that I could muster up in that moment. So 280, then I jumped to 300 and I actually over-pooled that, which, so I missed it. But it was a confidence building lift for me because I like pulled it too hard basically

is how I think of it. And it went behind me. So I looked at my coach and he was just, he was excited about the over-pool and stuff. And he was like, go up to like 305 and i was like no like i want 310 so i put on 310 and uh hit that so that was good it could have been scary but i hit it so yeah so for for people who like for me who don't snatch more than dumbbells um so it's not guaranteed if just because your PR

is 15, 315 a 310 isn't guaranteed in a setting it's still scary as shit is what you're saying yeah for sure for sure and yet these guys still basically that one lift is what sent him to the games when you look like if he missed it

and he only had to record 280 since he missed the second one that cost him 36 points and he makes a game he made the games by 28 points yeah basically would have knocked him down into sixth place yeah then i would have to do the last chance qualifier oh fun that's fun um then well at least then you would have made it on another one of our shows that at least that's the bonus. We talked about you a little bit. That would have been good.

So when you get that, is your snatch or your strength going to suffer because of all this running you're working on? No, I don't think so. I think Olympic lifting is definitely my strong suit. I mean, that 350 clean plus hang, clean plus jerk was literally last weekend. And snatching is just like I have a lot of confidence in snatching. It's just a good thing for me. So you're 25 years old, and how long have you been dabbling in CrossFit?

I started CrossFit in 2014 after i graduated uh from high school um my mom had jumped into crossfit um and kind of pulled all of us in slowly and uh i started i played one semester of college football at a local d3 college here in cincinnati and i just wasn't into it i was just a hitting dummy on the sidelines and I'm just like sitting there thinking like what was what was going on at CrossFit and I didn't have a major that I was interested in at that school so I was actually reading the Rich Froning book when that first came out and he was like talking about how he majored in exercise science and I was like well that's a cool thing like I have my L1 I I'm interested in CrossFit. Exercise science has got to be up that road somewhere. So I saw another college in Cincinnati. It's called Northern Kentucky University. I had it, so I basically transferred over there and went CrossFit as much as I possibly could.

And you met your girlfriend in high school, though? Yeah. Who's now your wife? Yes. Tell me her name again. Her name is Bailey. in high school, though. Yeah. Who's now your wife. Yes. Tell me her name again. Her name is Bailey. Bailey. Bailey, yeah.

So you meet her in high school, and you went to the prom with her? Yeah. Multiple proms. Crazy. Great memories. I can't tell if you're a smart guy by knowing her for so long before you got married, or if you're not a smart guy for getting married so young. But we'll get to the bottom of that by the end of this interview.

She's awesome. Do you have kids? No, I didn't. We have two dogs and a cat. Oh, that's smart. Those are our kids. Yeah, those are kind of the precursor to kids. That's good.

Yeah, right. So when you go away to college how far is your college from your home not far at all it's like 20 minutes from my parents home and uh she went to the same college too oh so when she found out you were going there she decided to go there too yeah she followed me no i don't i don't think that went into it she was kind of already planning on going there in general. It's a closed college. There's not much around this area. And you lived there on campus or around campus?

No, I lived at home. Just trying to save some money. You made the commute. Wow, that's amazing. That is amazing. You have a girlfriend in high school and you keep her all through college. That's really cool. She's awesome.

She's my best friend. Yeah. More than that. Man, your Instagram. It really cool. She's awesome. She's my best friend. Yeah. More than that. Man, your Instagram. It's cool. And then I go to her Instagram and there's even more pictures of you than you have of her on yours. It's pretty amazing. It's cool.

Yeah. So why did your mom get into CrossFit? So she was – I just lost the camera. I don't know where it went. I lost you. Hold on. We can see you. Oh, you can? Yeah. I don't know where it went. I lost you. Hold on. We can see you. Oh, you can?

Yeah. I don't know where it went. Hello? Take your time. There's no rush. There we go. People who listen to this podcast are probably on an assault bike or something. So actually, my mom was into triathlons, and she did a couple of half Ironman. Um, and she just kind of was always training and working out. My dad was a power lifter for a long time. So kind of working out has always been a thing in our family. And, uh, actually my wife's mom was into CrossFit and that's kind of how we knew about it. Um, and my mom was the first one to actually

from our family, like pull everyone into it. And, uh, mom was the first one to actually from our family, like pull everyone into it. And, uh, she always just would jump around from different things, whether it be triathlons or just pure running or just like bootcamps and stuff like that. And, uh, she had a friend invited to a CrossFit class and, uh, like literally she took advantage of the free Saturday morning classes for like a year. And, uh, through that time, she took advantage of the free Saturday morning classes for like a year. And through that time, she just kind of pulled my whole family in. So we had a whole family going to the gym and everything. What was the name of the gym? The old gym that I used to go to was called Fort Wright.

And it was in Northern Kentucky. Yeah. And the new one, the one you currently attend? It's called CrossFit Conjugate. And so that's fascinating. So Emily's mom did CrossFit, which kind of like – Sorry, Bailey's mom. I was like all proud because I was using her name.

Bailey's mom was doing CrossFit, and that's how your mom found out about it. And then your mom started doing it, and then you started doing it. And did your powerlifting dad be like, hey, this is no he was into it he liked it he still um was always into the the bench press and stuff and still benches to this day and stuff so that's definitely his like favorite thing to do but he was all for it he liked he just likes working out he didn't jump on that it's dangerous rhetoric or this is nonsense or you can't get pull-ups or he didn't no no he was never into that all right before i joined though i kind of thought i i knew nothing about crossfit at all and i was like why are they resting like i was watching like rich froning do a games workout and he was like almost done and he like stopped the rest and i was like

why is he resting like he's almost. Just keep going and all that stuff. But just eat those words every day now. Right. Did you figure out why he was resting? Yeah, a lot of times. So what state are you in? Did you say Kentucky? So I live in the greater Cincinnati area. So we cross around from Ohio to Kentucky all the time.

But right now I currently live in Kentucky. Okay. And you were born live in Kentucky. Okay. And you were born there? Yeah. And your parents are still together? Yeah, they are. That's weird. They're good parents.

I'm very thankful for the parents I have. Sounds like it. And what was the first what was your first sort of like sports? It sounds like both your parents were like moving. So you had good role models for moving. But what was your first like sort of, where did you dip your toe in? I played football and baseball in high school.

I played like basketball growing up before high school and stuff. But I like hurt my ankles too much. So I just stopped playing basketball. But mainly I was just football and baseball. and were you good at either of them um i was okay it wasn't anything special just i don't know did what i could what were you good at were there any sports you were good at um i mean i was solid at football and baseball but I just didn't excel like I didn't have um like a bunch of like offers or anything anywhere I actually um hurt my back pretty bad in high school so I sat out my entire junior year from sports um and then senior year just kind of pretty much had fun I knew that it wasn't really gonna amount to a scholarship anywhere and just kind of accepted that.

Did you, did you recognize you had, um, uh, you were stronger than everyone else in the weight room in high school? Um, I definitely recognized that I had like, uh, I definitely loved the gym, loved working out more than most of the other athletes that were like in the high school and stuff. And even in, when I went to the one semester of football, basically football basically um i was definitely into the weight room more than anyone everybody else too okay so you like that kind of movement yeah yeah and then so you get into crossfit and and uh you get into crossfit uh let me see if i can figure it out when you're about 18 years old yeah and when do you start thinking

about it as something that's competitive right away or does it take a little while? Uh, it definitely took a while. Um, I didn't necessarily think I was going to be like a competitor or doing any like cool competitions or anything like that until probably like 2016. And then I got, uh, like humbled real quickly by the open and I just realized I wasn't at all what I thought I was going to be. But I ended up qualifying for regionals in 2017 and 2018 was like the first time that I like made some progress there. Did it light a fire under you at all in 2016 when you didn't do as well in the

open as you imagine you would be? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I thought I was going to be able to at least go to regionals and go there and I actually went to the central east regional in 2016 and I honestly like hated it like I like felt like I was almost embarrassed to be watching which is like just my personal thing like obviously they need fans and stuff but I was just like I want to be on the Like, I don't want to be sitting here watching. So I made it a goal to be there at the following year, and I was. Were you surprised when you felt that way? I'm assuming you went there thinking you were just going to kick back, enjoy, watch,

and the next thing you know, it's like, it's uncomfortable. Was that a surprise to you? Yeah, definitely. I didn't even realize it that I like, I thought it was going to be just a cool event, like you said. And I was just going to watch these like super fit people work out. But it was like really motivating just to see them like on the floor and me not be there. I'm like, man, I want to be there so bad. Like definitely not bad.

Brian, do you ever get that? Like all the years I worked all the events, I never ever like it was the exact opposite. Like I was glad it wasn't me. I like, I've never wanted, I've never aspired to compete at that level um i like doing a competition once in a while but no when i'm at those events i'm pretty happy not to be involved you're you don't get envious or like fuck i wish i maybe i should have like started training harder 10 years ago and i could do this and so no doesn't happen for me. Not like that. Not with that. What's the biggest limiting factor you have for not being better? Um, right now it's my job.

By the way, by the way, let me, let me rephrase that. So people don't fucking lose their mind. I understand how good he is. He's a freak of nature, but there's some there. He clearly has a lot of things going on. We, he, we started off by saying he works. So that's what I'm referencing that to. I'm not saying that by any means, is he not one of the fittest, fittest humans who walks the planet proceeds, Zach. Um, thank you. But I definitely think I'm limited by my job right now. Um, I mean, immediately, um, eight to nine hours of my day is handed over to a company, um, just to do things that, um, don't affect my fitness or actually could make it worse. Um, so I'm just kind of always doing different things other than what I would want to be, want to be doing in that moment. So that's definitely hindering

it. What's your job? Um, I'm an associate medical sales rep here in Cincinnati. What's that? So we sell respiratory devices and oxygen. So like CPAP, BiPAP, non-invasive ventilators and oxygen. Non-invasive ventilators. So business is good. For the full sales rep, yes. Because they get a commission? Yeah. yeah as an associate i'm just helping out the main sales rep right now so i'm not getting anything fancy do you like doing that i'm gonna ask you something deeply personal here and i apologize um kind of um like is part of you like yo like these fucking people were selling this to, they could just be, if I could just get 15 minutes of talking to them, I could make it so they don't need this stuff. Yeah, definitely. I think about that all the time.

A funny story I would say was I was setting up this patient with what's called a portable oxygen concentrator. It's they carry it around over their shoulder so they can have oxygen without dragging tanks around. And he was extremely obese, like 600 pounds. Like he had like a huge gurney and everything. Like he was super overweight and we have to like check that they don't smoke. And I was like, so just to verify, like you don't smoke, right? And he's like, oh, I would never put that poison in my body ever. And I'm like, I mean, in my head, I'm thinking about all like the bad food he's eaten and how much worse like that would be for him. Like, I always laugh about that. Yeah, that is so. So you actually deal with the people. I imagine you behind a desk like I imagine you behind desk. You actually see the people who use your gear. you behind desk, you actually see the people who use your gear. Um, for the most part, um,

we kind of travel around the different doctor's offices and just build like relationships and make sure that everything is running smoothly on their end and our end and stuff. Um, but for one particular hospital here in Cincinnati, um, I deliver the oxygen to the patients at the hospital when they're discharging. Wow. And, and are the And are the majority of those people obese? I would say yeah. Yeah. So basically they're addicted. They're basically carbohydrate addicts. Yeah. Between that and smoking. Like there's people who are in horrible conditions, like with extreme cases of COPD and they still smoke and they're like, well, I'm already here. So like, why should I stop? It's like a horrible mindset to have.

Why can't you smoke when you have oxygen? You'll explode? Yes. Yeah, basically. Is that really true? Or did they just say that shit? Is that like, hey, don't swim after you eat food? And you're like, yeah, fuck you.

No, it's definitely, it's combustible. So there's been multiple times when patients all the time will be like i don't want oxygen i had a friend blow up from smoking or from oxygen i'm like well they didn't blow up from oxygen like they were smoking next to the oxygen and it combusted and that's the problem wait a second so you actually know of stories where someone was smoking with this while they were getting oxygen and something bad happened? Yeah, we have to 100 percent tell them that they cannot smoke by the oxygen. Yeah.

And are you dead if that happens? I mean, it'll blow up. There was someone who told me that they knew somebody who they had pulled into the driveway and all of a sudden, like second level of the house exploded and everyone in the that room died. And I was like, I don't that seems a bit extreme, but apparently it happened. Yeah. I mean, one of the what you would think. I mean, I don't I have no idea what the what the explosion looks like. But I've seen some videos, not with with oxygen but on youtube where there's like

a propane tank at a gas station yeah and they have a camera on it and like a few seconds before i don't know a few milliseconds before it explodes you actually see the trees getting pulled into it because this thing's drawing in so much oxygen prior to the explosion and then and then and then the gas station's gone like yeah right like the whole it's gone right but that's that big man okay so you do that so you do that and and um how long have you had that job uh pretty much exactly a year so it was july of last year and did you work before then yeah it was just like odd jobs it wasn't anything like this was like the best job i've ever had um i just kind of working like i worked as a valet like

stuff like that just weird little jobs and do you have any side hustles going on like are you selling t-shirts or do you sell kids programming like me are you trying to make a few dollars on youtube like me like what would you have any like side hustles going? I do not, no, no side hustles. Pretty much training and working my job just take up all my time. No personal coaching? No, mm-mm, no, just trying to focus on, one, just the job itself takes up a lot of my time, and then as soon as I leave there, I'm pretty much going to the gym.

My only, like, technically off days are Saturday and Sunday and most of those are just spent training the whole time. So I don't have a whole lot of free time right now. Did you ever get anything beyond your L1? No, I did not. I was going to get my L2 and then it just kind of never ended up happening. And I actually let the L1 expire. I'd like to come circle back to your L1, but first I want to talk more about helping with your finances. Um, have you thought about moving in with your parents?

Uh, yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, during, um, during COVID we are actually right before COVID we moved out and that was kind of bad timing. Um, cause obviously the whole world shut down. So you and your girlfriend were living, you and your fiance were living at your, at your mom's house. Uh, so she didn't technically like live with us, but she definitely stayed with us a lot. Gotcha. Yeah. Did she have a key to the house? No, she did not, but she knew the garage code. And your parents wouldn't trip if they came home and she was in there like making something in the kitchen like you guys.

Oh, no, no, not at all. I think my mom likes my wife more than me sometimes. Probably. Do you have any sisters? Yeah, I have a sister. Her name is Megan. Oh, well, then your mom got her, Phil. I don't think that's true.

Your mom loves you. Okay. Thank you. it's megan oh oh well then your mom got her phil i don't think that's true she your mom loves you okay so thank you so so did we and i'm serious i mean until i was 34 i was in and out of my mom's house like i would go there as much as i could so i could focus on what i wanted to focus on and make her pay the bills if i would get kicked out and then come back and get kicked out come back but i was like but i was like you like i had like i was on a a mission and I was disciplined and I had good habits you know but why not do that if you don't have kids, damn you have two dogs

that's going to be a hard sale to go back to the house oh we have two dogs, and how many cats? we have one cat two dogs, one cat have you guys thought about moving back in with your parents? no no we like being on our own we like our space Have you guys thought about moving back in with your parents? No, no.

We just, we like being on our own. We like our, we like our space and we like the, we like to have our own spot to be in. My parents also have two other dogs. So that whole four dogs would sound miserable. Yeah, that's a lot of piss and shit. What kind of dogs do you have? We have a golden retriever and an Australian shepherd. I came home with three great Danes, and I don't know if you're familiar with that dog, but seriously, they killed a whole section of my mom's yard just with urine.

They just peed down a whole section of the yard, and Danes will pee for two minutes. It's crazy. Dang. They just completely destroyed a section of the yard, but I never got kicked two minutes it's crazy dang they just completely destroyed a section of yard but i never got kicked out for that it was other stuff so why did you take your l1 and when did you take it uh i took my l1 probably 2015 um i had shown up to the gym and i just liked being there and I was there a lot and the the owner of the gym came up and just like expressed interest in me potentially coaching

and originally our plan was for me to coach the 5 a.m classes and that never happened so I kind of took over for the afternoon and coached probably like three classes a day all through college. Did they pay for your L1? He paid for half of it, I think. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. That's really cool. And did you like your L1 or what were your thoughts?

What was your reaction to the L1? Yeah, I liked it. I actually, full honesty, I failed my first test for the L1. So I had to retake that. Um, and that was kind of weird because like, um, in my head, like I could do all the movements. I knew how to like assess, um, look at someone and like figure out what was going wrong with them. Um, but just like the test itself, just like the, I guess the words were confusing to me at one point and I just

didn't get enough of them right um so when I slowed down the second time and really thought about it I passed it no problem words are confusing to me sometimes too especially yeah right but in my head I was thinking about like how some of the people there like I don't know it's egotistical to think that just because I can do the movements does means that i should have an l1 but there are people there who definitely passed who like couldn't do all the stuff which i have since learned doesn't matter um but at the time when i was young and dumb i definitely thought that should be more important like being able to do stuff it'll be interesting to see over the years how the material you learned in the L1 changes in value to you.

Like, you know, like if you're a games athlete, like it's one thing, but if you're, you know, if you're a doctor, 30, let's say you're a 45 year old doctor who's been practicing for 10 years, the L1 is something totally different. Or if you're a parent. But it's the same information. Sorry, go ahead. Or if you're a parent,

I think that it takes a new meaning on. Yeah. I mean, it's so it's, you can stick, you can point it at anything you want and make shit better. It's really cool. Yeah.

So did anyone else in your family take your L one? Did your mom take it? No, just me. I was the only one that I was interested in like coaching and stuff. Hey, So did anyone else in your family take your L1? Did your mom take it? No, just me. I was the only one that was interested in coaching and stuff. Hey, you would think that maybe when you're at the games, you can say to Dave or someone, you can be like,

hey, you know what would be really – I don't know. Maybe I'm setting you up for failure. But they should give all games athletes a free L1. I don't know. That's for you to talk to Dave. Yeah, just be like, yo, like you get a thousand dollar credit to um any class you want in the CrossFit ecosystem that'd be cool right I love it because not I mean not even every place that makes a game is gets a prize money but that's a pretty good value that you can add on to the accomplishment of qualifying for it.

And who better than to represent CrossFit, the methodology and the certificate than Zach Watts? There you go. That's good. If I walked up to Dave there, that was a good idea. It's probably one I've presented to Greg and Dave and Nicole a thousand times that never took off. If I walked up to Dave, he'd have no idea who I was. I liked – maybe.

I don't know if that's true. He'd probably think you were Josh Bridges. I don't know. At the Mac, he walked up to me and said, are you Jason Hopper? I was like, nope, and walked away. Is that a true story? Yeah, it was in the warm-up area. I'm sure he said sorry.

Maybe he did. Maybe he did it after he walked away, but he just walked away. I was like, all right, that was cool. The man of few words. Yeah, right. Did you speak to any of these guys that you qualified with when you were at the mid-atlantic hopper panchick maderos mayor yeah yeah um during the competition it's just kind of like very brief conversation like in the lump area just everyone's trying to be serious and just focus on what they obviously have to do. But immediately after the competition,

everyone was so social and laughing and joking and just talking in the back room while we were waiting to get drug tested. Oh, how was that? How was the drug test? It was good, yeah. No news is good news, so it was good. And I've gone through this before in other podcasts,

but it's basically you stand there and pee into a cup and there's a dude who makes sure your hand is touching your junk and nothing else. Yeah. Yeah. He's getting a full view of everything down there. How far away is he from you? I'd probably say like four feet. So his, like, so his, like if he's four feet, so like his eyes are like five, he's just out of reach from touching your penis. His eyes are like five feet away. If I were to take a measuring tape and stretch it out from your penis to his eyes, it's five feet away.

Give or take. Because if I were the guy making the drug test, like if I was like the uh usada that would be i wouldn't just have something like so simple and there's like you have to stand within six feet of the person i would be like i'd be like your eyes need to be within six feet of the penis if you drew a straight line from your eyes to the penis and it would be like the driver's license and if you wear glasses you have to have your glasses i mean you want to leave i mean this thing has to be thorough is that your first drug test yeah it is and i was really excited about it honestly um but my question is who wants to do that job like who would apply for that job that's a whole nother show zach holy shit you took my brain to a fucking really weird spot. Don't do that. Don't do that. Stay focused. Wow. I wonder if you get promoted to that job. I wonder if there's like another or what if it's like this? It's like what if like they have three positions like you could be the guy who takes blood. You could be the guy that takes a saliva sampler. You could be the guys who watch people pee. And you're like, no, no, I want to watch the guys pee. I want that one.

people pee and you're like no no i want to watch the guys pee i want that one yeah definitely and that's a sexist job too like that that job they don't give that to women right that's one of those jobs that like we're us males we dominate right like i have no idea watch it have you ever seen a woman yeah that's my first time being drug tested i was just the guy yeah and so you said you were excited because it was like some sort of validation that like you were a professional athlete now. Yeah, definitely. So I went to the Granite Games in 2019 on a team and I was with Alex Parker, Meredith Root and Ethan Helbig, which are all individual games athletes.

And so we're on a four person team and literally all three of them got pulled to be drug tested except for me. And I was like, just go ahead and test me. Like, I'm on the same team. Like, just test me too. And so I took that as just kind of like they don't think that I matter pretty much. So, like, being tested, it's like, are those guys doing something that maybe he's cheating? So that's my thought process on it. So I was excited.

Who is the i i know who meredith and alex parker are we've had them on the podcast fantastic people who was the other guy you said uh ethan hellbig i think he went in 2018 maybe 2017 brian maybe find out brian have you do you know his name look at b. Even Zach's giving you orders now. Everyone just – Yeah, yeah. Brian, do you know that name? Brian knows everything. Do you know that name?

Yeah, he was a fifth-place qualifier out of the Atlantic Regional 2018. He was there. I was at the competition. You weren't there. It was the third week, and we went to the first two together but not the third one. Did I get grounded by Greg? Yeah, probably. I don't know.

Did I invite you to it? Well, no. At that point, I was kind of, I mean, we'd had such a good time the first two weeks. I just assumed we'd do it again. I lived in Florida and I was going there and you're like, I can't go to this one, but you can go there. I'll get you on a list. You can just get in all access Pass and study up on the athletes.

Fuck, I'm a good dude. So even back then, so you've been working with – do you remember the first elite athlete you worked with? I mean because obviously Meredith Root, Alex Parker, and this Ethan Hembleberg. They're, they're obviously good. Cause Brian's heard of them. Do you remember the first time you were like, Oh shit. They're like you, you were around other just phenomenal CrossFitters. There's definitely other instances, but the first one that comes to my mind was one day I woke up and I had a random text message from some random number. And it was like, hey, this is Chandler Smith.

I got your number from a friend. I'm passing through Cincinnati. Is there any chance that you'd want to work out today? And I like shot up out of bed and I was like, yes. Like tell me what time that you're going to be there and I will meet you there. So I got to work out with him. That's awesome. He's an awesome guy.

Yeah. And we just talked pretty much the whole time. And just like basically it was just picking his brain on like how to get to that level and how to just move up and potentially be a games athlete one day. And so even now, like I went to the games. I went to watch the games in 2019. And I like saw him and he immediately gave me this huge hug. He was like, dude, good to see you.

So happy you're here, all that stuff. He's an awesome guy. Did you inappropriately stare at his nub? No, I did not. Did you even notice it? Did you see when he grabbed the bar, he's got less purchase on it? I mean, I haven't noticed it. I haven't seen't seen him no no i i didn't even think about it because when i watch from have you seen it brian is he missing a little piece of his finger

yeah probably third of an inch or half inch i mean because whenever i see him compete i like i get close to the tv set and i'm like i want to, and I want to see him grabbing the bar, and if it gives him less purchase. I mean, shit, you can't tell by his performance that anything. He lost a little bit of his finger. Right. Which one is it? I think it's his ring finger. Oh, you were staring. You were staring.

I remember the post that he made that was just like, hey, my game's hopes are over. I just cut my finger off, and it's ring finger i don't know did you watch the fight last night zach no i did not i saw the update of uh connor's leg though the video of it you did see that yeah it's great did you see it did you see it in slow motion yeah i did it was like his leg was at a 90 It was like his leg was at a 90, it was like his ankle was at a 90 degree, is that 90 degrees? Yeah, 90 degree angle from his shin. It was like, it didn't even make sense.

Your brain couldn't even process it. Yeah, anytime that happens and like they go to step on the ground with their broken, like his example, like his shin bone is touching the ground. I just can't imagine how bad that would hurt. What's crazy is as soon as, like I was watching TV in a room full of people and I yelled as soon as it happened. And he, as he's yelling, I'm yelling. But the referee and Dustin, I don't think Dustin saw it and I don't think the referee saw it, but I don't know how they could not have seen it, and yet they still let him get punched a few more times.

Right. I'm like, dude, this fight needs to be stopped. Yeah. And I like Conor, but I don't think it was. I think he called Dustin's wife a hoe or something, and that kind of damaged me. I'm okay with calling people names, but calling someone's wife a hoe is a little much. Yeah. Even for me.

Do you call someone's wife a hoe, Zach? I would never do that. I wouldn't even do it behind closed doors. No. I don't think. Plus it's a joke. What's just a joke? That he did that?

No, I'm saying like, unless you jokingly call someone a hoe, just to be funny. Right. And if someone got upset, that would be my default position too. I'd be like, no, I was just kidding. Just being funny. Do you have any sponsors? Yeah, I do.

So I'm sponsored by Nova Labs, Nova 3 Labs, and also Brute Strength are my official sponsors. I'm hoping to capitalize on a couple more here soon. What – Nova Labs is like something you eat that makes you stronger? A meal supplement? Yeah, it's a supplement company.

They have a little bit of everything supplement-wise. And Brute Strength, they basically do programming and training? Yeah. Yeah, they basically do programming and training? Yeah. Yeah, they do. So basically you get good enough to a point where you're one of the 30 fittest human beings who's walking the planet, and they're like, okay, we'll give you programming for free, but you have to wear this shirt and put this bumper sticker on your car? Something like that? Yeah, basically. Basically.

Oh, you must have been stoked. I bet you that shit's expensive without that. Yeah. Yeah. So I, uh, I had a friend, um, who got working with coach L, um, through bridge strength a couple of years ago and he just talking about how awesome it was. Um, and he was like trying to like level up to be a games athlete and stuff. And he had a lot of progress. Um,

he ended up going to the games as the central beast. When his name was Zach Souder, they went in 2019. And so he kind of inspired the brute strength movement with me, obviously himself, me, and also his brother Ryan Souder all joined brute strength with coach L and we've been working together for it's probably like in total like two and a half years we took like obviously 2020 off because there was no point of trying to program when I couldn't even get into a gym

so we started that back up after we kind of got loosened up and back into training when we when we were interviewing Cole Mertens about a week ago, do you know who that is? He qualified in – Yeah. I don't know what region. He's the dude who's 5'4". He qualified at Granite Games. He got like fifth, I think.

And he has a day job too, crazy day job, crazy. What does he do? He's a pig farmer. He manages, I think he, I don't want to misquote it, but I think he said there's 15,000 pigs. I don't think they're all at the same farm, but I think that the family's farms have thousands of them, yeah. You think they're all at the same one? Really, they're all really they're all the same thousand

and one i don't know maybe maybe that's true boy can you imagine that'd be a huge field yeah wow i should have asked them that what do they do with all the feces because my three great danes killed my mom's yard what do you do with 15 000 pigs of urine that's got to be an issue someone's going to comment in the YouTube about that and explain that to us. That's cool. That'll be a good little tidbit. Remind me to ask Colton that next time we have him on. That's ridiculous.

There's got to be a way to make money off that. There's got to be some value to all that urine and all that feces. Do you remember on Dodgeball, the movie Dodgeball with like Vince Vaughn, when the coach is like, is it necessary for me to drink my own urine? No, but it's sterile and I like the taste. Have you noticed games athletes are really good with quotes? No, I did not know that. Yeah.

Josh and Matt are always, Josh Bridges and Matt Fraser are always doing quotes, movie quotes. You don't do movie quotes, Brian, do you? It's not my area of expertise. Yeah, not mine either. My brain can't even doesn't even work that way but at least at least Zach quoted a great movie it's a good one that I've heard of um so so Colton basically

talking to him you get this sense of like there like there's nothing else important in life except for the CrossFit Games. And like basically he's going to go until he dies. Like, I mean, he is – his commitment oozes off of him. And he's not like he's emphatic about it. He's the antithesis of a Conor McGregor type. Do you have that? Um, there's, um, do you, do you have that? Um, I've definitely wanted to be at the CrossFit games and also win the CrossFit games for a long time.

Um, I even jokingly, I'm not jokingly, I used to unfortunately put future CrossFit games champion in my Instagram bio, um, until I was, uh, humbled very quickly by how good everyone was and also made fun of by all my friends and my wife. But early on, I just was, I just dreamed of it and I thought that would be like, just so cool. Um, I pretty much lived by the quote, um, if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life.

Like that is like something I think about all the time. So being able to say it again, if you love what what you do you'll never work a day in your life and i think that's like just really inspiring um just because like it would be amazing to be able to be in a point to where just like you can uh provide for your like family through doing something that you love like crossfit so um i just wholeheartedly want to be able to do that. Um, and being a CrossFit Games champion is just like, obviously the, the top echelon of the sport, the fittest of the fit. Um, so that's definitely a goal of mine. Um, I do have, unfortunately I have some holes like running and stuff, but I'm going to work every day until I can get there.

I'm going to work every day until I can get there. Today was the Wimbledon finals. I have no interest in sports like tennis and golf and baseball and football and basketball. Stupid shit. But my son plays tennis and I'm trying to take an enjoyment in tennis. So when his tennis coach, Adam, told me that the Wimbledon finals were today, I got up at 6 in the morning and I put on the Wimbledon finals. And the guy who won it, his name is… Novak Djokovic. Damn, Brian.

Novak Djokovic. And he basically tied Federer and Nadal for 20… Yeah, majors. What was Nadal for 20 majors. It's fucking insane. And he's younger than them, and it's nuts. And I was actually a little bit moved by it. But basically, this ties into what you said about what you put in your profile on Instagram. And maybe you'll switch it now that you hear this story. When he was seven years old in his bedroom,

he built a replica of the Wimbledon trophy. Like just with like paper. And it sounds like it was like paper and popsicle sticks. And now at the age of, I don't know how old he is. Do you know how old he is? I think he's 35. Can't be past.

Yeah. He, he, he, he, he, just won his sixth Wimbledon. But at seven, he built that trophy in his room just as a, like, I want this. Yeah. I mean, it's, of course, people are going to laugh at your dreams. Of course, people are going to laugh at your dreams, right? Yeah.

I mean, you've already done the stupid part, the most stupid part by chasing them. laugh at your dreams of course people are gonna laugh at your dreams right yeah it's crazy i mean you've already done the stupid part the most stupid part by chasing them you might as well just go all the way you know what i mean i agree that facetiously like fuck yeah yeah yeah that was it was a crazy story i couldn't believe and he said you know i've told the story a million times but i can't but i have to tell it again and he told the story and that really moved me and and just from hearing that i kind of like tennis now I think I would start like watching tennis. Yeah. I never thought that I would ever like tennis. I think anytime, like you're in a pursuit of like something, like anyone who wants to be great at something has to visualize that they're

in that spot in order to like be motivated to go. Like, if you think like, Oh, that's not going to be possible, then it's not going to be possible. And I fully always think of like being about being positive and like visualizing things like that. And I mean, one time I visualized just going to regionals and the next year I was there, visualized going to the games and I'm going to be there. So it's just another thing to tackle. How does that work? What's the world magic. How does that work? What's the world magic? Why does that work? Um, I think you just like put your priorities in line and you work towards them.

And, uh, if you always have that like goal in your mind of, I want to be able to do this and just always think of that, then you can find that motivation when the days are tough and you don't want to do, just do the work to be able to be there. Like you're not going to get there without the work. But why does visualizing work? Do we know why? Brain's a powerful thing. I don't know. Like, is it magic? Cause you still have to do the work. You can't just visualize it, right? Right. Right. it magic because you still have to do the work you can't just visualize it right right right when you snatch do you visualize beforehand like before you did that 310 at the at the

semifinals did you visualize yourself landing it yeah definitely it pretty much anytime uh anytime there's a big lift like i'm visualizing hitting it and being just being done with it after that i'm not going to think about how hard the lift is going to be like it's just like all right let's clean it let's jerk it or let's get it off the ground and get it overhead just being done with it after that. I'm not going to think about how hard the lift is going to be. Like, it's just like, all right, let's clean it. Let's jerk it or let's get it off the ground and get it overhead. Do you actually see yourself doing it in your head? Um,

I think, I think about the end result more so than like actually seeing myself doing it. Well, and how do you think about it? I'm sorry. Cause I don't visualize, but like my son visualizes yeah like hey i see my next skateboard it's got blue wheels and yellow stickers on the bottom and

i'm like holy shit like when i close my eyes i just see darkness how do you visualize it like how does that work um when you say like you visualize the end catching it or standing yeah like i'm definitely thinking of like completing the lift like the final product of the lift Um, I think like you visualize the end catching it or standing. I'm definitely thinking of like completing the lift, like the final product of the lift, like first snatch or cleaning jerk would be putting it overhead. Um, so like, I'm just thinking of like standing up with it, catching it in a good spot, being able to support the weight and stand there like to complete the lift. Um, cause if you're like, if you aren't visualizing you completing the lift like there's no chance you're going to get it like at that point you just don't think you can do it so like why try

have you always visualized uh yeah I think in sports like growing up in sports and stuff all the coaches are just like you have to visualize it like if you're like playing linebacker you're visualizing the plays you're visualizing like where the quarterback's going to go like you're visualizing like every single play of every single quarter um to like prepare for it so i think visualize visualizing is huge and just like i think it's a confidence booster so like when something does happen so like for sport examples um like when the running back happens to do something like you, you've already had that thought. You've already thought like, I know what to do based off of what happens. So pulling a barbell off the floor. I know, obviously this is like hours and hours and hours of technique work and confidence building, but like, I know once it passes my knee, I need to throw my hips,

make solid hip contact, pull into the bar as fast as I can, catch it in a good position, make sure it's stable, stand up. So, like, all of these different things, just, like, just going through, making sure that everything is perfect. Because in lifts like that, specifically Olympic lifting, like, there's no room for error. Like, if you're off by a millimeter, like, you're going to miss the lift. You just serenaded Brian. Like if, I don't know what he's into, men or women, but if someone stood underneath his bedroom window and was like, Brian, and strummed a guitar and said all those points of the lift,

Brian would come down with an erection, come downstairs and let him in. But especially, you should have seen his face. Especially it's nice to hear someone who snatches 315 talk about all the things that everyone who's starting snatching hears it's like you have to hit those those fundamental points it doesn't matter if you're doing it with the pvc pipe for the first time or you have the capacity to do a world-class snatch the points of performance are the same definitely and i think they're like for new athletes trying to snatch like you can only get so far with crappy technique and you hit a wall. And as soon as the technique is fixed and you just have that one thing that snaps, you instantly PR. Instantly, we'll get a new record based off of that one thing. And if you get multiple of those things over the course of years, you'll be snatching 300 in no time.

Easy as that. He should be a motivational speaker. That's my side gig. Sevan, can we investigate his competition history a little? Sure, sure. I was going to start talking about focus. I was getting into myself a little too much. Go ahead.

Well, so Zach, it's difficult to keep track of all the competitions, of course. start talking about focus i was getting into myself a little too much go ahead well so zach you know it's difficult to keep track of all the competitions of course but as far as i know you did regionals two years you did that one team competition on the granite games you went to brazil one time and then you've had the mid-atlantic i don't and i don't know of any other live competitions that you've done at that level at least least? Are we on the right ballpark there? Yeah, definitely. There's just some little ones that have gone through. I did a three-person team with Ryan and Zach Sauter at Guadalupalooza,

elite team on there. Actually, the year that you did that, that elite team of three men's competition was insane. There were like 50 games athletes dispersed amongst these teams most of them all paired up with each other the panchick brothers all did it together the ben smith ben smith and his brothers all did it together froning had a team hobart and i think matt hewitt like there were a ton of good teams there yeah no olsen had a team i remember talking to him um we Ficalsi. We did really well.

Yeah, we did well. I don't remember exact placement. In that field, we were still – I want to say it was eighth, but it gets better and better as the years go on. Eventually, I'll be saying that we won that competition. Okay. So you had the two regionals years and 32nd both year, I think. And then do you feel, you know. 32nd place two years in a row.

So the placing didn't. Out of 40? Probably, yeah, 40. Oh, shit. So the placing maybe not. That's like a bad wow, by the way. Not a good wow. Yeah, I figured.

The placing was the same year to year. But did you feel better or more like a different athlete at all by that second year? Oh yeah, definitely. Um, I'll just go ahead and make me sound even worse. Um, 2017, a bunch of people like, uh, withdrew because they tore their pecs. Um, so technically I didn't beat all those people either. They just didn't finish the competition. Um, so it might be 32nd on the people either. They just didn't finish the competition. Um, so it might be 32nd on the leaderboard, but who knows that they would have probably beat me if they would have stayed in the whole weekend.

Um, so 2018, I definitely felt better overall. Um, like the weekend didn't start off hot. We did triple three, um, which is not a good workout for me. Do you do well on it? Just like, I didn't, I think I was you do well on lambda? I didn't. I think I was just middle of the pack. I didn't do anything special at regionals at all. I think I was mainly there.

Like I was mainly just happy to be there. I was not in the mindset of actually competing. And obviously that's not how you should be. But it was just a mindset switch. I don't know if it was me not feeling like I belonged there or what it was, but it just didn't have the outcome that I had wanted all those years. So I think you're a good demographic for this because there's a lot of people between 20 and maybe 27 years old in 2018 who were trying to get to regionals

or maybe had been to regionals that were pretty disappointed when the season switched and so i'm guessing you were you know you could easily fall into that category but you did choose to compete a little bit the next season despite the changes right yeah yeah so i did um brazil which was like the first time that i felt like i belonged and i felt like like i can can actually be a games athlete one day. Like this isn't in the cards this weekend for Brazil, but I beat a lot of good people in different workouts. I competed against like a ton of games athletes there. Wait, isn't that Noxy Moron?

You went to Brazil and you said you beat a lot of good people. Wait, wait, wait. You have to know the line. there's a ton of people there so this was the these are the people ahead of him it was will morehead who's going to the games this year saxon panchick games this year spencer panchick barely missed it sean sweeney okay alexander caron so all four of the five games athletes that were ahead of him from this year okay Okay. I was just taking a dig at Brazil. I still think none of whom are Brazilian, by the way. Hey, real quick, before you go, before you go on, sorry, don't, don't lose your thought that, that pec tear workout.

That was that, those were like ring muscle ups or something, right? They caused that. Yeah. Yeah. So ring dip. Okay. I think it was a combination of both. So they were, they released the workouts for regionals and like as an athlete

i tested the workouts multiple times but there was the 21 59 of ring dips and dumbbell snatches but there was also 21 59 ring muscle-ups and overhead squats with this with the dumbbell so that's a lot of pec pressing and if you're practicing it multiple times adding the intensity there's pretty much no chance of survival an excessive steroid use and you have a comp no no i'm joking 15 years i've been following the sport i don't know i never i've never seen it few people tested positive so that's not even a funny joke sorry who edits this thing cut that part out go ahead brian okay no no zach you were saying you were talking or we were talking about brazil where i derailed this yeah um so i'm saying just like brazil was the first time that um i had thought that i belonged in the competitive crossfit space i beat a lot of people in a lot of

different workouts um met and hung out with a lot of them and just realized that i'm just another one of them that could potentially compete. We go to the Granite Games, do well at the Granite Games. Why did you choose to go on a team there? One, I don't think I qualified, but I had been asked by Brute Strength to join the team. And we had thought that that would be a competitive place that we could qualify um and we had never even met before that that competition so being able to do as well as we did without actually practicing or anything i was a very very good experience we were just like the

first team to not qualify you thought was your team name the optT Brutes? Is that you guys? Yeah, that's us. Why OPT? Like the OPT Brutes? What's OPT? Like OPEX? Yeah, it was the – not OPEX. It was Optimum – So it's OPT because that was – Michael Fitzgerald took over OPT when James came to the States,

and he was coaching Meredith and Alex. Yes. So it was a collaboration. But aren't Brute Strength – oh, okay. Because Brute Strength and OPT basically are – I mean, I know they're not identical companies, but it was basically the merger of two companies' names, OPT, Brute Strength. Yeah.

But, Sevan, their team did really well at that competition because Krypton was first, Invictus X was second, the Central Beast, this guy Zach Sauter who he's good friends with, was third, Don't Stop was Travis Williams' team was fourth, and their team was fifth. So they were right up there with a lot of the teams that were going to the games that year. Would you ever consider, are you preferring to be individual than being on a team uh yeah yeah like more yeah i definitely like individual more um there's more pressure on it there's more of like relying on yourself making sure that like everything that you do matters

and the team is obviously relying on other people and uh just like working as a team i don't mind the team stuff but I like individual more. So that was it. So you had that Brazil and you had the Grand Game team competition. And then the next season you didn't, which was the 2020 season that was cut short. You didn't participate in any of them. I was kind of surprised that you didn't do Mayhem since it's so close to you. For 2020? Yeah.

I thought Mayhem got canceled. they didn't have it they didn't they they ran their event they didn't have a team competition but it was in january oh oh oh they just told you that zach they just told you no actually actually i was supposed to be on a team for mayhem uh it was going to be me and ryan sauter on a team um but i was supposed to do atlas games so that was the first Sanctional. And we were in Montreal, Canada that Thursday that the world shut down. So was I.

I was there, probably in the same room as you. Didn't know it. Yeah, we would have met. We would have met. And I would have won that competition. That competition was going to be so fun. There were a lot of good guys there and a lot of young guys.

Yeah. That was the competition you guys all flew to and then once you got there it got canceled yep it doesn't even make any crazy dude it was it it happened it went from like happening everyone's building everything out everything was there checking in and six hours later it was like a ghost town in the city yeah we walked in and the rig was half built like you know like normally like you had this huge awesome rig as you walk in like the rig was half built. You know, normally you have this huge, awesome rig as you walk in. The rig was literally half built and everything was laying down on the other side of it. And when we walked in and saw that, it was just basically over already.

There was no good news there. It's surreal. So you didn't get to compete at all that season. And it sounds like you had a difficult time training, at least proportions that season, in terms of access to a gym. Yeah, yeah. I also did, I don't know, I forget the year. It might have been towards, I don't remember when it was, but I did a USA Functional Fitness competition where I went to Sweden to compete at world there. Um, where Zach Sauter won, um, the competition. Um, I forget the guy's name, but his name is like

oldest. He just, he qualified. Yeah. Yeah. He was there. I think he got, um, like in the top, top three, um, Matt DeL matt delugos um who was at the west coast classic i think finished like third or fourth um so there's a lot of good guys there too i think i finished fifth okay well that's cool that's good that you stay relevant in the competitive because i was coming up to this season right and you um obviously we have the open and the first workout didn't go so well for you relative to the rest of them i got i made the mistake earlier in the week of assuming with carolyn prevo that that was because of the wall walks she said it was actually the double unders that slowed her down but was that uh that workout was worth like 95 or 90 percent of your

entire open points yeah right you said that to caro to Carolyn Prevost in our podcast we did with her? There was a weird pattern amongst her workouts where her worst workout every competition had something that was inverted on her hands, but it just also coincidentally had double unders, and I assumed it was the hands, the handstand, hand walking, wall walks, and she corrected me.

I hear you, but you said that in our podcast oh i don't even remember that it's so weird okay okay so back to you zach so what yeah i try to listen i swear to god i try my damnedest okay zach so uh all brian was saying how did you fuck it up um it was just the wall walks i was um i don't know. I would say that it's a big guy problem, but Brent Fikowski apparently didn't have a problem with it. The first time, I honestly just didn't know what to expect on the first go-around. I don't know. I just didn't know what to expect on it, and towards the end there when the sets were larger, definitely fatigued. I didn't have any problem with double owners. Double owners are normally a strength for me. But just overall, I honestly didn't know what to expect. I wasn't really training a whole lot before the Open.

So after the first week, I was like, well, this is where I'm at. This is what I deserve. I haven't really. Yeah, no, I'm doing a podcast. Do you recognize that guy that guy he told a funny ass story about you already hey hey is anybody even tuning into your stupid fucking podcast tell me do you know who that is do you know who that is he told a great story about you don't get look immediately you go on the attack in the navy or something anybody does anybody even tune into that ridiculous thing he said you walked up to him dave he said you walked up to no i'm my i am

canceled on instagram he said you walked up to him at the at the mid-atlantic and you're like are you jason hopper and he's like no and then you just turned around and walked away I was looking for Hopper Hopper was crushing it he was the only one who was first finding ouch in Dave's

in Dave's defense Zach you're really pixelated on my screen so he probably can't he probably won't recognize you again when he sees you

at the game no hard feelings hey nice to see you Zach nice to see you too dave look forward to seeing you soon yeah right he said see anything else any clues you want to give us about any of the events dave please yeah i'll give you a clue okay so event number three includes. He's a good dude.

He's a good dude. Okay, sorry, sorry. I always let Dave interrupt the show. Is he FaceTiming you regularly now? Sorry, Brian. No, no, no. He texted me. He said, what are you doing?

What are you doing? I said, podcast. And then he's like, you're such a game zista. You're such a game zista. And then he FaceTimes in because he needs some FaceTime. Needs the attention. Yeah, steal the show. Okay, so wall walks.

Difficult, which, whatever. And you do pretty well the rest of the way. How tall are you, Zach? Sorry, I forget. I think you said in the beginning. I'm six foot. Ooh, another one, Brian. You know what?

So I did this actually analysis today. I found the average of all the games, athletes' heights and weights this year because it seemed like there were a lot of guys. I think there's a dozen guys six feet or taller, but it comes out to the same. The average listed height is still 5'10 and 197. It went up two pounds and no inches.

Colton Mertens is fucking it all up. He's fucking it all up. Seriously, I mean, like, I'm curious if it would change that much if you, like, in no offense at all, took out that as, like, the outlier. Oh, he's going to beat your ass, dude. You're screwed. There's going to be video of a dude who's five, four is like chewing on your neck.

No, I'm just curious. I'm kind of a numbers guy too. So that's just something I'm interested in. Yeah. I could just, just remove that one and see, move it up.

Maybe, you know, quarter of an inch. Um, Brian, what's the shortest it's ever been? Has it ever been five, eight?

Like, like if you were to ask me, like, even though I've heard you say five, 10 forever, I would say that the average games athlete the perfect height is five eight five nine hundred and seventy nine pounds maybe way off yeah we're just fine but the 179 pounds how much do you weigh zach uh like 205 and yeah dude i don't ever remember hearing these numbers

is it because i didn't do a podcast before with games athletes? I don't know. Probably. But I don't actually have the totals of every average per year. I usually just look at the top 10, and it's always been right around 510, 195, 5.4.5, 145. It's been pretty consistent. But there's, there's outliers.

Like there's people in there that are six, two or five, seven. And there's women that are five, seven or five, one, but on average, they're right there anyway. So you get to the quarterfinals,

but Colton Mertens is sorry. Sorry. We'll pick up the quarterfinals quarterfinals in a second, but Colton Mertens is the shortest person in the history of the CrossFit games to come to the man. Um, I, I don't know for sure, but I would think so. Yeah. But Colton Mertens is the shortest person in the history of the CrossFit Games to compete, right? I don't know for sure, but I would think so, yeah. And do you know who the tallest is?

Is it like Asia Bartow? Whoever it is, it's probably not more than 6'3", 6'4", at most. Okay. All right. Quarterfinals with Zach Watts. He's like 6'1", 6'2". There's a lot of 6'1", 6'2", guys, but 6'3", I can't tell you a 6'3 guy who's been to the games for sure. Tommy, have you ever seen Tommy in person? Yeah.

Zach? He feels really big when you're next to him. Broad shoulders. I can see why you would think he's huge. Yeah. He's not like big, like super thick. He gives off big. Like not fight him in a bar kind of big. That kind of big.

Anyway, so you get to quarterfinals. And I was kind of surprised when I saw your quarterfinal finishes. Usually there's a lot of athletes have great events and a bad event here or there but you just had very average placements one between 154 and 286 on everything i had uh i got two adjustments unfortunately um which were no like obviously not intentional ways of cheating at all, but, uh, the push press and the dumbbells, they didn't, uh, like my lockout on a couple of the reps on the, um, push press.

It took a minor penalty on that. And then I took a major penalty on the sprint workout of the snatches and box jump overs. Um, cause I cycled the first nine snatches and they didn't necessarily like my knee extension at the top of the rep, unfortunately. So that was very scary. That was the one I was wondering about because I would have thought that you'd have a pretty good time on that workout. Yeah, that was my best workout in the beginning before the adjustments,

and then when they adjusted it, it fell to that. But outside of Olympic lifting like i'm pretty consistent all around i don't like necessarily excel in uh like really like like do awesome in a lot of workouts i'm like pretty consistent and it's it's um it's a notable feature because like i said cole mertens is actually a great example or brent fukowski is you know there's certain guys that have this hit or miss kind of pattern to their their workouts and there's others that are just kind of in in the mix every time but don't often win an event you seem to have the potential to win one specific thing or at least top three and one specific thing that probably will you know show up at some point and then just be pretty good at everything else without anything terrible.

Yeah. A definite strength of mine is explosive workouts. So like fast sprints and stuff like that. Like anything like that. So if we see workouts at the games. I don't know. I don't know if that's true what you said, Brian. I don't know if that's true.

He got capped, dude. That's not an explosive workout. That's a long workout. No, no, but he's saying that you're not going to do terrible at anything, and that's a glaring hole to get capped. I mean, just as much as it's glaring that he won the snatch with 310 and it's not even his PR, most of the guys we've talked to said their PR is at the event.

I mean, for a games athlete, i know we're talking minutiae but within that context of minutiae he's way out of balance you're you're getting ahead of me you're getting ahead of me okay sorry sorry i thought you were giving him a compliment i had to beat him down no no i'm saying we get through because i what i really wanted to ask him was that we get through the quarterfinal and we see fairly consistent across the board semifinal we've already talked about and we know that the running was kind of the outlier there from the negative side. And then we know

historically that running is always tested at the games. But this year, because of the way that things were in the world, half of the guys had an online test in which running wasn't tested. And think about the situation. I don't know if you've thought about it. What if that running workout ended up keeping you out and you see the online program and you're like man, if I didn't have to run, I probably could have got in.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think I had like a first, a fourth, a sixth, twelfth, and a twenty-seventh or whatever at the Mac. Sixth. Two sixes? No, twenty-sixth. Oh, twenty-sixth. Thanks. I said 27. So I'll take it. Um, so consistently humble by the way. Thank you. Um, but if I look at like the other five events, like if you just put a normal, like a not running dominant workout in there, and let's say I even just get middle of the pack, like that sets me up way better for going into the final workout than potentially not making it in the final workout. Like if I just get, like say I get 12th or 15th in that fourth workout instead of 26th, I'm sitting in a way better spot. And it just speaks on how much I need to work on running to fill that gap

and complete my game, basically. Two things, Brian, before you go on to the next thing. One, good job getting that in, grinding the Brian friend axe of comparing the online qualifier to live and different

events. Good job. Keep sharpening that axe, buddy. You're going to get us fucking kicked out of it. Before we. Keep, keep sharpening that ass buddy. Before we know it, Dave's going to be telling us not to talk to games athletes anymore. And two, and two, um,

I don't know, dude, I was looking, granted you're with some beasts, but even if you would have won that workout, those, you're kind of in no man's land in fifth place. Everyone above you trounced you and then you fucking trounce the guys below you yeah i appreciate that thank you kind of in a way so it's like it's it's an interest it's an it's it's an interesting thing in one final thing before you

move on brian brian is he gonna win an event at the games? And does everyone know, oh, shit, Zach Watts is strong as shit? Like there's always a guy at the games where everyone's like, oh, great, this guy's here. Is he that guy? If there's a one-rep max snatch, he can definitely win. If there's a one-rep max clean and jerk, there will be a guy that's giving him a run for his money, but he's right up there with the best. Um, are, are you ready to set a PR at the games? Hell yeah.

I literally can't wait. It's like, so it's a really weird feeling like lifting, especially like spotlight lifting kind of like the Mac did, like where all eyes are on you. And like, for example, the games and the clean and stuff, this is not dramatic at all. Like there's like this like tingly sensation like when you're about to lift and uh like the weight is like weightless like there's there's no feeling on it and so i felt like i could have snatched like 330 at that or maybe i don't know exactly but i could have snatched way more 320 at least at the event mainly just because the weight

felt so light so i can only imagine me at the games in that moment in like the adrenaline and just like just how pumped up you'll be just to lift that weight so i'm hoping for a pr big pr there you hear it right brian he's got championship mindset yeah you hear um okay go on. Sorry. That was a great description, Zach. Thanks. That's cool. No, no. The thing I wanted to ask him is you always think I'm grinding the axe against CrossFit.

I'm curious of the athlete's opinions, and I'm curious if he cares. Do you care that other people were able to qualify through different means, or would you prefer to know that I made it through the same testing process as all these guys? that I made it through the same testing process as all these guys? As in like the last chance qualifier or just like different workouts in the different semifinals? The different workouts in the different semifinals. I think I like the different aspect of it. Looking at the events, going into Granite Games, so that was something that i didn't necessarily want to go to um because when i went to granite games on the team like i knew that they had a field and i knew that they would probably focus around running i knew they'd be

outside and like those are just things of like longer endurance events that I wouldn't necessarily like choose to go to. Which ended up not being the case actually. Right. Aren't they notorious for heavy events? Short and heavy? Yeah, but he's thinking about the new facility that they have. And so he wasn't sure. Yeah.

It was a fair assumption, but in this case it ended up being not the opposite. They had the shortest events of any semifinal. I think the max workout was what like 12 to 15 minutes yeah that dumbbell thruster workout that took like yeah exactly yeah they said that they would count the back-to-back workouts that had like a little one minute reset they're on the field for like 20 yeah two minutes at a time as a long long-ish event and it was actually a long time in that heat there. So 7, that's exactly right. So he thought about that, and it was a strategy to his approach

to try to get placed at the one he wanted. So he's not just all muscle. He's got some brain too. Tried to. But I think it's cool. I mean, some of the athletes say they want the same test for everyone, and others are like, no, you know, it's kind of cool that there's some different ones and whatever, when we get,

if you know, get through the, however you need to. And when you get there, then we'll, we'll see who, who should maybe shouldn't have been here or who's the best amongst us. What I'm most thankful for.

Oh, sorry. What? No, no, you go ahead. I was going to say what I'm most thankful for is that you have to like earn your spot at these competitions. Um, these competitions because the sanctionals and stuff, being someone who doesn't have sponsors that are just like throwing money around.

Like I couldn't afford to go to multiple events. I mean, some of these athletes were going to weekend after weekend of CrossFit competitions just to have a chance at qualifying. And someone who's paying out of pocket for these events, like I can't afford to go to these events. I can't book hotels and flights and stuff like that. So I went to my sanctionals that I went to two sanctionals and that was it. And I mean, I had to do fundraising and all that stuff. Like I paid for that. So I think this opportunity of like, Hey, you have your chance, you earn your spot and you go. Like, I think that's the best way to do it.

I think it's the fairest way. Until you're making loot. What do you think about that? That's a, that's a very interesting argument. Part of me loves, like, I love it coming out of Zach's mouth.

Cause I haven't heard it before, but part of me is, is like, you know, like fuck equity. Uh, I mean like getting your, getting your car and sleep in the back and go to it.

But I do like what he's saying a lot, just because I think it gets under your skin. No, it doesn't get under my skin either way. Like I've said before, I think it's good to have the conversation because we're ultimately looking for the best process. I don't know that we've found the best process yet. But, you know, do we ever best process yet but you know do we do we ever want to be complacent and say we have or always explore different options good dude just another data point for you what's your max weighted pull-up oh I haven't maxed that out in a long time, but it's, shoot, I don't know.

I'd have to go back into the coaching app that I have and go find it. I don't remember. Have you ever done 100 pounds? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 110 pounds? I want to say it was probably like 120. That's the number that's coming in my head. I don't know.

Did you use a dumbbell or did you use like the weight strap with the chain and put the plates through it? The weight chain with like a ton of kettlebells on it. Oh, wow. You just never know. So you just keep adding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. I've never done it that way.

I was like way into that at one point and I'm pretty sure I did a 100-pound dumbbell for two. And then I think I tried to go up from there for one, and I couldn't do it. But I was hoping I could just tell you right now out of your face. I was looking at you that I did something stronger than you. Zach, do you have any swim? And I think it's harder with that shit swinging from you. Any swimming in your background? I've always had a pool growing up um so i learned how to swim like just through constantly swimming all the time um

so i think i'm a fast swimmer um i don't know necessarily how long he's gonna make us swim um i recently raced a collegiate swimmer uh It was a woman who was bragging, thinking that she was going to beat me. I may or may not have beat her, so that was pretty cool. Have you ever done a mass start in a lake like that? I swam in two competitions before. One was a mass start, and one was actually in a pool in Brazil. where one was a mass start and one was actually in a pool in Brazil. So in Guadalupe, on the three-person team,

it was like a sandbag, air squat, synchro workout for the three-person teams. And they did guys and girls together, and there was 30 teams on the floor. And we were the 29th team in the water. So everybody was already in the water before us except for one team and uh so my other teammate zach souder literally just like was like all right we're gonna jump and just jumped on everybody and dove in and uh i was like i approve i approve so much of that i was more so on the side of like I really just don't want to drown. So I like jumped out and swam extra around everybody and like past everybody. It was a way smarter move.

Yeah, I mean you said your mom did triathlons, so she's probably had some familiarity with that. So I didn't know if maybe you'd, you know. Because it's different to swim and then to swim with 30, 40, 50 other bodies all around you. For sure. For sure. My dad did some swimming too. He did some like do-athlons. So he was big into swimming, so I would go with him every once in a while.

What kind of athlons? A do-athlon. So it's like two. Instead of a triathlon, it's a do-athlon. He can't run. He's got two a duathlon. He can't run. He's got two replaced knees, so he can't run. Oh, so swimming and biking. Yeah.

Do they have swimming and running and they also call it a duathlon? I don't know. Maybe. Do your dogs know you're the boss of the house? Careful, this is a loaded question. I would say no. I think my wife is the boss. It's kind of funny too i i shouldn't that maybe that was a bad guess because like i i pride myself of being like the fucking king of my house but you're right my my dogs actually think my wife's

the boss too that's weird maybe i'm maybe i'm lying to myself but this ties in with what Brian was saying about a mass starts. Like you seem like such a nice guy. Like, do you have the, do you have the, um, I mean, I know,

I know you're not fighting in a cage, but there, there is a little bit of a killer instinct you will need to have in that, in that mass start. I'm guessing like, do you have that? Like, are you willing to like pick your line and run it and like,

just let dudes bounce off of you? You're a big dude. Yeah, for sure. I think I'm definitely – people probably are better long-distance swimmers, but I'm more powerful in terms of if I really just need to screw it and get around someone, I can definitely overtake them in swimming. So I'm confident. I'm saying this starting line that only holds 15 guys and there's 40 guys

vying for a spot. Are you going to stand where you want to stand? Yeah, for sure. And I'm just, I'm going to get out in front of everybody. So I don't have to deal with that. Have you ever,

uh, have you ever flipped the pig? I have not never flipped the pig, but we have some pretty dang big tires at the gym. Uh, here at Cincinnati. Cause conjugates, do you have any tips? They've put out some teams before.

They've had some competitors, right? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I forget the year. They have the... They went a couple years with the six-person team, I think, back when Sam Dancer

was there. He was at Conjugate for a while. Alex Bookout, the head coach of CrossFit Conjugate, I believe he went to the regionals on the team. So they have some competitive history there. When's the last class you've taken at an affiliate where you just jumped in with a class uh this past week yeah you're awesome dude um i want to ask you we're at 94 minutes but there's

a question i want to ask you before we let you go about your diet will you ever go back to eating um like oreos and mac and cheese and what do you think about that version of yourself that used to eat that like does it blow your mind that you did that? Uh, yeah. I mean, everyone like, no, for sure. Um, being like health conscious and trying to be as fit as possible. Um, you don't eat it too much, but I mean, I, as a cheat right after the semifinal, I had some double stuffed Oreos and they were amazing. Yeah. As a cheat.

And tell me, tell me about like a typical day for you for eating, um, for eating, um, preparing for the games and stuff. And, uh,

semifinals, I was getting up at, or I am getting up at 5. A.M. Um, I eat something real quick, like a protein shake and like a granola bar. Uh, I head to the gym

um train for that's the that's the stuff that when you say sorry your protein shake shake you're talking about the nova yeah yeah nova labs okay quick protein shake it's like 30 grams of protein in a scoop so chug that real quick eat a granola bar just to get some carbs um and then go train for a little bit. Then I come home, have a big breakfast. Then I'll go to work, which is... What's in your breakfast? What's in your breakfast? Mainly it's like eggs, sausage, and like fruit and toast or stuff like that. Then I go to work. So I work from like 8.30 to like 12.30. Then I'll have lunch, which is normally like turkey, rice, and vegetables.

And then I'll work till 4.30. And then I'll have a quick snack. Just kind of depends on the day, whether it's like a protein bar or just something quick. Go to the gym, train for... Does Nova make a protein bar? No, they do not. That'd be cool though okay it's a good idea yeah um and then after the gym i come home and uh normally my wife makes

dinner and try to just eat as much carbs as i can get to fuel the next day so what's that look like eat as much carbs as you can what's that look like? Basically a lot of rice, whether it's rice, sweet potatoes, basically anything I can. Try to get probably like 100 to 150 grams of carbs at night, basically before I go to bed. Not immediately before bed, but just to refuel the next day. Would you eat pasta? Oh, yeah, like whole wheat pasta, yeah. And this toast that you said you eat, do you know how many ingredients are in your toast not a lot it's pretty solid toast

it's like because we have this stuff here in my town it's called like watsonville sourdough and it only has like three ingredients oh i was just wondering if you know it a, and there's no sugar in it. Um, it's just like whole wheat toast. Okay. And no, what's the name of the supplement you take? Uh, it's called Nova three labs. Okay. You're welcome. Nova three labs.

You see how, when he said he took a supplement, I brought it up again. Mr. Nova, do you know who the CEO is over there? Uh, yeah. I know the owner. Yeah. What's his name? Her name is Jen Lord. June Lord. June Lord?

Jen. Jen. Yeah. Lord. Miss Jen Lord, you're welcome. Also, I know one of your friends. And I'm willing to coach any of your athletes or Jen Lord on what to say and not to say on a podcast. I know one of your friends.

Well, you can get it from Zach. Savon. Oh, who? Lance Kelly. Siobhan. Oh, who? Lance Kelly. Who? Oh, that's where he works? Yeah. Oh, that's a trip.

Yeah. I see him. He just moved to Santa Cruz. Yeah, he said what's up. They're a Canadian. What's up, Lance? They're a Canadian organization outfit? Yeah, actually, I think so.

Because I think he just moved to Santa Cruz because I keep seeing him down at the beach. Yeah. I haven't seen him in a while, but I used to see him like – in a while, I mean like a month or two. But I used to see him down there all the time. Damn, I should have invited – I keep saying I'm going to invite him to my house for a fight. I should have invited him last night. A seven. He just started following me on Instagram yesterday.

Small world, yeah. Lance? He knew. last night we had a seven he just he just started following me on instagram yesterday small world yeah lance he knew yeah he's have you ever he knew i was coming on that's probably there we go have you ever worked out with him uh so actually it's a cool story um i randomly we'll be the judge of that we'll be the judge of that go okay okay that's fair um i ran into him at the brazil sanctional and and randomly just started talking to him. I have no idea why or, like, how it started or anything, but I started talking to him. And I ran into him a couple times at a couple different competitions. And then at the MAC, I ran into him again, sparked conversation. And he ended up messaging me afterward and was like, hey, like, I am the chief branding officer of Nova Labs. And, like, I can also help out with some other companies if you want.

So I work with Angelo DiCicco, and I don't know how to say his name, but Sam Cornier from Disqualified. Yeah, Samuel Cornway. I forget how to say his name. Yeah. See, he can't say his name either, Zach, or Brian. Why don't you laugh at him like you laugh at me every time? Come on, man. But he works with them, like helping with other companies and stuff and partnering and stuff.

So he's been helping me out. He's been great. And hopefully we can get to a point where I don't have to work a full time job anymore. This whole CrossFit Games thing goes well. Yeah, that is a cool story. You're right. Have you worked out with him? Have you ever worked out with him? No, I never actually worked out with him, no.

I can't remember the exact story, but the spirit of the story will be right. I walked into CrossFit HQ into the gym. I went downstairs to work out, and he was down there. And I can't remember what the workout was. It was like, I know there were deadlifts in it and something else, two movements, like a deadlifts and then some sort of body weight movement.

And I think we worked out together. But whatever the workout was, it was something like 350 pound deadlift. And then I scaled it down to like 150. And he still fucking destroyed me. I was like, and it wasn't like I was out of shape or anything, but he might not seem strong to you as a games athlete, but to me he was just a savage. Yeah, definitely.

Anything else you want to say, Brian? I don't think so I just have a really general optimism for this year's games I think there's a really good balance of new guys guys coming back who've been doing other things for a year or two and some obviously well entrenched guys who are making a run at the title and it's going to be cool to see how it all works together because the men's field this year is different than any recent memory year i think we have to go all the way back to

2009 to find a year that's in my mind is like you know similar to this um so cool to see someone like this a part of it i always like guys that can that can mix it up on some of the unusual events i think you can do that and consistent finishes and all the kind of classic ones see what happens. Zach, do you still feel like you're getting better? You're only 25. Yeah, I definitely feel like I'm getting better. Definitely was impressed by this season. Impressed myself. I didn't really train a whole lot

before the Open. i just really didn't know what was going on with a full-time job uh we had just gotten married in october um so just kind of there's a lot of things going on um just with general in life and not really focusing on training so much um so in another interview they asked like when i realized like yeah this could be the year um like i didn't even realize that this was even possible until like I was at the Mac, like after day one, sitting in second place. And I was like, man, at this point I just can't screw it up and got to hold on. So I'm impressed that I,

with the little amount of training that I was doing that I've been able to come this far. I think um especially with the more time I have potentially after the games if it goes well and being able to train full-time um and make a living being a professional crossfitter like putting all that all that other stuff aside that like pretty much drains all my time like I could obviously focus on running and focus on getting better in the areas that I need to. So I'm excited for that. Does it matter where you place in the games for how hard you're going to train for next year? Like whether you take 10th or 30th, like do you,

do you think that next year you'll come back even stronger than you are now? Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely. So this kind of lit a fire under you. You feel like this is huge. You made the games and that in itself motivated like this is huge you made the games and and that in itself is like gonna motivate you for next year yeah for sure like i'm really excited like obviously i want to do well um i wanted i i think an easy goal is just like an easy goal as in not like a perfect number of like i want to get like top whatever um it's just like top half so like top 20 I think would be

um just an awesome accomplishment I think I'm excited to get back to like training to work on weaknesses um and if that means no full-time job then I'm gonna hammer away until I can potentially win the games one day is top top 20 doable for him, Brian? It's a field of savages. You think, how many semifinals were there? Different numbers go from each one of them. Ten? Okay, so how many, so if he took, I mean, even if he made the top 30,

let's say he took 30th, that would still be roughly mathematically speaking, put him at the top of the heap of all the guys who took fifth or last place in their semifinal. Yeah, but the game is different. And also, look at the guys that beat him at his particular semifinal. All four of those guys are top 10 threats. And granted, his point total was a little bit withdrawn from theirs, but you still can't discount that. So like you said earlier, a huge host of guys who everyone was looking at to make the games that he beat just to get there in that field.

I'm not sure yet, and I kind of know historically what a fourth and fifth place finish in regionals translate to at the games, but this is the first year of semifinals, so I'm not so sure if it's going to be the same kind of correlate or not. And you've never done an event with 14 workouts, have you? No. No, but we train pretty high volume already, especially preparing for this over the past couple of weeks. You don't train high volume? What are you talking about? You work all day. Well, I mean, I try to get as much volume as I can.

You carry oxygen bottles around all day. Hey, they're heavy. All right. All right. All right. You have any concerns for them, Brian, in terms of 14 events? I thought it was 15. 14, 15, whatever. What's one event? Is it? Have they announced that, Zach?

Have they announced that? Dave keeps doing like hashtag 15 for 15, and I think I'm just taking that as 15 events. That's a 15th year. I think as long as, kind of we talked about earlier with the running, as long as the events that are most difficult for him don't become so problematic

that they affect everything else, then it's fine. I think that's the real, really when you get into trouble at the games, is if you go too hard in an event and it sets you back for the next events. What do you mean if you go too hard in an event? Sorry, I won't let you go. That doesn't even make, don't you have to go too hard in an event?

No, think about Kara Saunders and Murph, the 2015. It's an easy example. As she went so hard in that event that it affected the rest of her performances on the weekend. Annie Thorzada did the same. She had to withdraw from the competition. And sometimes it's not so obvious. Sometimes it's more of a subtle thing. It might not be a health thing, but it's a mental thing where you're like, man, I made that one mistake in that workout. And then this happened. I cost all these points and some people can't get over it. So I think that especially if you know that you got that many tests,

you have to be realistic with yourself about when you can go for it and when you can't because of what it could cost you down the road. That actually sparks the thought, actually, for me. It keeps saying that. So the third event at the MAC was was like that new girl workout i think it was called gretel or something it was 10 rounds of three cleaning jerks and three bar facing burpees um i like sold my soul for that workout and i was hurting for like a long time i we went to go get food after that because we had a little bit of downtime and i couldn't eat like i just

like was trying to recover and slowly just like eventually started drinking shakes and stuff because the food wasn't going down um so I'm curious if that played a played a fact a factor in that next event so you took six that's very interesting because you took sixth in that event which is amazing and then that's when after that is when you had your worst I think about this the guy laid outside for like the guy right below him was Tyler Aguiman on the overall leaderboard. He finished 14th on Gretel. He was only 12 seconds slower than Zach. He placed 11th on the next workout.

His total points for those two workouts, 14th and 11th, was 109. Zach's 6th with a 26th is 93, so he gave away 16 points there. If he would have maybe just gone back a few seconds, you know, it's like a row. Like if you do a 1K row and you go for it, like really go for it, or you go 95%, it's only a couple seconds difference. But it's a world of difference of how you feel. Yeah. Oh, shit. I see what you're saying here.

So you're saying basically if those were just those two workouts, Tyler would have gone to the game. I'm just saying maybe Tyler didn't go into the depth of his soul to get the sixth place and he just went to 95% and took the 14th. And then he, I mean, we're speculating and then maybe he felt good enough to do another average performance where Zach was still climbing back from that and had a really bad performance. It's just, just a thought, but you know, you feel like you want to go for it all the time and get every point you can. But if you have 14 tests, you have to have that total mindset of, this is only test seven. Is it worth it for me to push that extra 5% here if it's going to cost me 30% tonight? Do you know how to do that? Do you know how to reel yourself in Zach?

I guess we'll see. I mean, that's serious. I'm being serious. Definitely. Like I, so I think another factor that went into that third workout was I thought I was going to win that workout. And so, um, that was a workout that I was very confident in. Barbell cycling, uh, is a huge strength of mine.'s a huge confidence workout for me and I was just like gonna push the burpees as fast as I could and we did the first round and everyone on that final heat was flying and so I was just like all right we're doing this and went full sprint like I was going like as fast as I could and I think I ended up slowing down in the last like three rounds because I was just like gassed so hard so I ended up having that like Frank off, you

know, like you just like, you start coughing and stuff afterward. Um, I laid on the ground for like 30 minutes out outside on the cold, like the cool concrete just to like cool down and stuff. Um, so I think that was a factor. I didn't even think of that, but it definitely could be. I mean, that's, that's the element of when I say someone has experience at the games that I think is really hard to replicate by doing competitions that have 5 to 10 workouts even instead of 10 to 15. Like it's a totally different kind of experience to navigate that and to understand it. And you have that thought now and you go there and you try to do the best you can with, within what you know and about that kind of competition. But coming out of that weekend, you're going to have so much information that you didn't have before,

no matter whether you do well or not. And that's like, that's when you see the guys that have five, six, seven, eight years of experience at the games. They're really the only ones that know as much as you can know, when's the right time to push and when's the right time to just like,

accept this as where is my as my placement in this one. Yeah, right. Do you know why you're so comfortable hurting in the pain cave? Do you know why you're – what in you makes you suited for, suited for the, the high levels of discomfort and CrossFit workouts? Um, not exactly. Uh, I just like I'm competitive and I want to, like, I want to win. I want to beat people. And through just the experience of all the workouts I've done over the course of the past, like seven years, um, you learn where to push and when to push and like what you got to do to beat people. So I'm very fortunate that in my past, I've had pretty good or not pretty good,

pretty awesome training partners that have pushed me in areas where I needed to push. So I was able to train with another individual games athlete, Ryan Souder, for like two years straight, who he qualified in 2019 and went to the games. So we just push each other constantly. So I think that competitive drive, I mean, he's one of my best friends, but I also want to beat him in every workout I possibly can. So having that drive literally right next to me and just to square over in the gym, it's huge motivation.

And you just learn to start hurting and if you want to win you got to hurt so so there's nothing in you like you're you're not trying you you're not holding on to the bully who pulled your hair and spit on you in the third grade no not at all i just want to win interesting because man it's a lot of it's a lot of discomfort yeah does your does your wife do crossfit uh yeah she does crossfit but not competitively she just does it for fun you train together uh she goes to the gym with me yeah but we don't do the same workout if you ever go to a hotel room do you guys ever do like 100 burpees together or

anything like that there's never time when you guys work out together yeah every once in a while like if we go on vacation or something like we'll work out together go for a run together um like she's been help helping me get motivated to go up uh get up early in the morning and go to the gym she's been going with me to the gym and we wake up at five a.m every day to go and she goes with me and uh just knowing that uh she's gonna get up with me and help like push me out the door that's a huge um factor uh into into me training every morning and also like there's another guy at the gym um who meets me there every single every single morning trains with me and uh just knowing that i like can't let like my wife down and can't let him down. I'm not going to like just not show up.

That's a huge motivation to get up in the morning. So it makes it easy. What's his deal? What's his name? Why is he doing that? His name is Dalton. He's just a good guy. I think.

Michael Dalton? No, his name is Dalton Boucher, like the water boy. Bobby Boucher. Okay. Another movie reference. There you go. But yeah, he's been. what go ahead what and why does he do that he's just a good friend I think it's really cool um I didn't like necessarily expect anyone to go through all of this games training with me

and stuff but I've had a lot of a lot of cool guys from the gym help me out another one uh his name's Caleb Farrell um he's a younger guy he's like 20 years old um he's doing a lot of workouts with me um our coach our gym our gym coach his name is alex book out he's been doing a lot of workouts with me um just a lot of push and i think they're extremely supportive and they want to see me do well and it's just it's way easier to have someone like suffering with you, like next to you than just doing it in the corner by yourself. Yeah. That's, that's really cool. That's really cool. Your wife does that. Did you, did you guys, um, is the gym open or do you have a key when you

get there? You let yourself in? Uh, no, Jim's open. I don't have a key. And did you have a discussion with your wife about that? Or it's like, hey, will you go with me at 5 a.m.? Did you have to ask her? How does that work? So it was actually the Sunday morning at the MAC. We were about to go in for the final two workouts. And so she had done CrossFit for a long time and then kind of got away from it during COVID and stuff and like hasn't really like jumped back into it. So we're getting ready to leave.

And she comes back and she's like all right i'll make you a deal i'm like what do you mean and she's like well if you finish this day strong and qualify like i'll join crossfit conjugate and we can go to the 6 a.m class every single day together and uh holy i was like 6 a.m she said 6 a.m well the class is at 6 a.m we get up at 5 a.m a.m she said 6 a.m well the class is at 6 a.m we get up at 5 a.m okay so um we get up uh so she said that and uh i was like oh okay because i've been trying to like get her to get back into the into crossfit and stuff um because i knew that she would like it to get back into it um so she said that was really exciting and uh i knew that it would help me get up in the morning as well. That was on your way to the max, you said that? Yeah, yeah.

And then when you won, when you qualified for the games, how long after before you talked about that again? Was it like five minutes after? You're like, she walks off the podium and she's like, damn. Yeah, I don't even know if she really knew what she was getting into. But we talked about it pretty immediately after qualifying, just how we're going to prepare to get ready for the games. Dude, that's a good wife, man.

Yeah, she's awesome. That's it. That is really, really cool. Yeah. Winners surrounding themselves with winners. Yeah. That's it. I love that.

Zach, thanks for coming on with us I really appreciate you guys having me dude our pleasure we have no show without you so we appreciate it it was nice to finally meet you Savon and Brian definitely see you up in Madison