The Sevan Podcast - #782 - CrossFit Affiliate Series | Ray Fleser of Ocean State CrossFit

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

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oh my goodness bam we're live brian ray hi ray nice to meet you nice to meet you too good morning ocean state crossfit ray flesser yes fleecer but make sure he gets it right there's nothing seven likes more than name pronunciations yeah ray fleecer but a lot of people just throw an H in there because they want to call you Ray Flesher. Correct. Ray Flesher. Yeah, tons of variations. But it's Ray Fleaser.

Dude, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. That's a pretty narrow room. It looks like a jail cell that's been dressed up. No, this is my office and my house. Oh, nice. Nice. and what state are you in rhode island and two crossfit gyms yes and and um uh it's uh two and how close are these gyms depending on traffic about 15 to 20 minutes door to door. Okay. Ocean State CrossFit and Ocean State CrossFit North.

And then this other facility, this Ironclad is within one of the CrossFit gyms or vice versa, the CrossFit gyms within that facility? Correct. Correct. Because we offer a lot more than just CrossFit classes. And the branding sometimes confuses people. So Ironclad Fitness Center is the name of the whole company. And we so ironclad fitness center is the name of the whole company and we do ironclad bootcamp sports performance ironclad barbell club there's a sanctioned usa weightlifting barbell club there um and personal training people come for some of those services solely so there's sports teams that come for ironclad sports performance there are weightlifters that come for ironclad barbell club but another service we offer is crossfit and at the end of the day most of the people come for crossfit and

instead of calling it ironclad crossfit the reason for that probably would have been simpler um it's kind of two separate things when i was in my early 20s and i knew this was what i was going to do for a living uh i had a friend and we were actually kind of discussing opening a gym and i had come up with the ironclad concept, basically named after the first battleships, the wooden ships that got wrapped in iron in the civil war. And kind of just that, that story of wrapping your body in iron, so to speak, that's where ironclad came from. So I knew that back in the day, but then I started working for ocean state, eventually ended up buying ocean state and wanted to keep that name but go with the original idea that i had had back in my 20s so the whole thing is ironclad fitness center ocean state crawlers fit is one of the services it offers

i wish kayla was here to pull this up is that really true they took a wooden boats and wrapped them in oh yeah and can you imagine that rolling up on a bunch of homies with muskets? I put it in the chat for you. Oh, you did? Oh, yeah. Let me see. I think there were like two that made their kind of debut, just changed naval warfare. Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. It looks more like the one that I'm going to pull it up now that Brian shared with me. It looks more like a submarine. Yeah. Yeah, that was it so imagine you've got your muzzle loaded musket

and you got that thing rolling up on you and your bullets are bouncing off it so right so that was that that's like what that's like one of those dixie steamboats now covered in steel look it even has like the little steam towers like sticking out still crazy all right cool cool. So are you a history buff, Ray? Not until like my early 20s. Not in high school, not in college. Didn't do well in history or classes in high school growing up. But yes, definitely as an adult, especially military history, stuff like that. Yeah, that shit's not supposed to happen to you until you're like 50 or or 60 like you get into bird watching and like reading about the original presidents like my mom

does that stuff like all of a sudden she's like did you know george washington you gotta be like you can start early it might also have to do with like somebody who can make you care about about content so i had one particular teacher, this guy, Mr. Politella that did a studies award class. And that was kind of when all of a sudden I was interested in the history as opposed to having to learn it just so I could pass the test. Right.

That definitely changed the perspective. I was actually just chatting with a friend about this yesterday. In my sophomore year in high school, this teacher had us read a story out of the Bible and I went to a public school and the story was Job. And like, I would have never cared about it if we just had to read it. And I remember him saying, Hey, like, I don't give a shit. If your parent, if you report me to your parents or the school, this is an important story. You have to know the story. But afterwards we acted the story out. So first he made us read it. And then we all had to play like a character in it and act it out in

front of the class. And that changed everything for me. Like as a class clown, I loved that shit. Getting up in front of the class and playing out. And you're right. It's a huge difference when you add value to something you're learning. It's more than just passing the test. Like you start getting invested in it. Yes, Brian.

Do you remember what character you were? Probably Job's wife. I hope I was something cool like that. God wife i hope i was something cool like that god i hope i was something cool like that i don't right honestly don't remember i just remember tripping on how fucked up that dude's situation is and i would it would have never uh it would have never hit home he had like three friends that come by and try to it's a it's a it's a good story if you can if you like you said if you can get it into a context that's relatable it's a it's a there's a lot to be learned there yeah if you're

in a class and you're in a part where you get to kiss a girl all the all the uh all the acting is good do you know that story joe ray do you know that story i was about to say whenever you guys stop talking i'm embarrassed but no i actually don't know that story that's okay it's the only story i know i know that one and the dude who built the boat and put the animals on it those are only two i know oh and i know the one in the garden where the chick bit the apple but basically this dude this dude this dude is like loyal to god and then him and the devil the devil says hey i bet you i can break this this dude's loyalty to you and so they start doing bad shit to him it's a it's it's savage to see if this guy will break his loyalty to god and him and the devil are making a a it's it's savage to see if this guy will break his loyalty to god and

him and the devil are making deal i know someone's going to correct me in the comments go ahead i i'm open to you're doing well no it's pretty good layperson explanation is more valuable than uh just reciting scripture i think hey yeah this is the only part you need to know right sean christ is king right okay i think i know of that i think it it might've been, it might've been like South Park. Cause the South Park version of Job. I love it. Tell us. I don't know.

It's a story of like, just everything getting stripped away, stripped away. Like, yes, yes. But I still have my faith. Oh, what the fuck?

Yeah. I think it might've been South Park. Ray, do you have kids? I do. I have two corgis. I have two dogs. Wow wow and you're a corgi guy these are some weird things 35 and into history and corgis so an old person's dog

person who wants a german shepherd but can't keep up no no when the wife wants a dog and then you end up like really really really, really loving the dogs. So, you know, like she's definitely the facilitator of getting these dogs. But they're awesome little critters. And they got big dog personalities. They just don't make big dog messes. Actually, that's not even true. They shed so bad. They're basically German Shepherds with wiener dog bodies, right?

Yes. Yes. Yeah. They're weird looking looking but they are cool i've never met a corgi i didn't like they're they're they have dwarfism a lot of people think they're small dogs but i don't know like people like realize that like if you look at the like kind of what makes them interesting looking the thick bodies the thick head the thick paws but their stumpy legs it's actually dwarfism um so that's just bred into

him could you accidentally get a big quirky like one like a deformed quirky would be like a tall one oh you have a tall one you have a deformed one you got a cheap one and he got tall this guy is 40 pounds oh my god look at him he's a loaf an absolute loaf but in his mind like playing catch running with other dogs he thinks he's a full-size dog uh yash it's a dog eat world out here um that means it's the dog is sort of a precursor how long have you been married uh five years the dog is kind of the precursor to kids. Um, a lot of people say that maybe, but not yet.

It can happen. Trust me. Accidents happen. Look, he's going to take a deuce under. Oh no, he came out of there. Oh my God. If he did that live,

that would be like legendary. He's so well behaved. That would be out of character, but I wouldn't even get mad. That'd be, that'd be legendary. Just, he knew take a deuce on camera. CrossFit's been around for, let's say 20 years,

20 years and you're 35. So it was probably like 15 when, um, you were 15 when it like was like, and when I say first getting off the ground, I mean, that's the affiliate there, there maybe wasn't even one affiliate. Rhode Island was behind the curve. I was involved from the very beginning in Rhode Island because I played rugby at the University of Rhode Island. And one of my rugby coaches, Nate Godfrey, he was following some of the workouts on CrossFit.com. What year? What year, Ray?

This was 2000. This was probably 2008. Okay. Oh, that's early. Yeah, that's late 2006 when I came on. So that's about the same time. My freshman year, we were captain run. And then my sophomore year, that's when Nate came on as a coach.

So summer going into sophomore year, so summer of 2007, summer of 2008, we would pull workouts from CrossFit.com. And the first place that they were actually happening in Rhode Island was the rugby field at URI. There were no affiliates. And then several of the first CrossFits in Rhode Island started at pretty much the same time by people that were involved with rugby.

So this guy, Mike Levertory, with CrossFit Providence, and Judah Boulay with CrossFit No Risk, and Nate Godfrey with CrossFit 401, and then Mike Burling and Aaron Meredith of Ocean State CrossFit, and Mike Burling was also a rugby player,

unaffiliated with these other three. But pretty much all the, like the first four in Rhode Island, all kind of started with guys who were involved with rugby. And so that was 2008. What is that? That's 15 years. You're 20 years old. Yes.

And is that, that was collegiate rugby? Yes. So I was playing there. And so I was in college and then I took a little break, joined the Air National Guard and then back to college. And when I went back to college, in the time I was gone, Nate had raised a few funds. I think they might have gotten a little grant from URI.

I'm not sure how it all happened. But when I came back, CrossFit 401 was there. So it was like truly a box. It was in a storage unit in like a U-Haul self-storage place. And there was like one or two, you know, with Jungle Gym and a couple of GHDs and airbags and rowers. And it was grungy and everything. And that's where the rugby guys worked out. And it was Nick. It was directly next door to this place, Schneider Electric, now like AP's power conversion something like that um very very big building that employed

thousands of people so a bunch of those employees would go over before or after work on their lunch break so there was like three waves of those employees that kept it open and then the rugby team and that's kind of how 401 started and that's how I really got going with CrossFit. team and that's kind of how 401 started and that's how i really got going with crossfit did you did you think about it much at that time like you like it or didn't like it or was it like hey this is just what we do to get ready for rugby like did you have any strong thoughts about it as a as a fitness methodology as a way to move your body definitely so i um i was into fitness forever uh my whole life so i was playing high school football, ended up being in the high school football team,

was working out during that time, did the Bigger, Faster, Stronger program, all that kind of generic, you know, Gold's Gym, YMCA is where I learned to lift weights, but Gold's Gym type bodybuilding, you know, benching, chest and trice, back and body, leg day, things like that for cardio, you're running. You know, just very, very bread and butter kind of old school fitness. And get to college, I was studying kinesiology. I was in a physical education teacher education program, thinking I was going to be a phys ed teacher, maybe a trainer, not sure exactly, you know, what realm I'm going,

but definitely knowing working and teaching fitness and sports. And I'd been working out all my all my life at that point in time i didn't know any of the technicalities of it i didn't know you know what a hang or a squat or but i knew how to do a clean jump the bar on my chest i didn't know the difference between a push jerk split jerk any of that but jump the bar over my head and i could do that with 260 pounds so i was like strong and my buddy the first crossfit workout I did, it was with my rugby guys. He said, all right, we're going to do this thing called grits. We're going to do 30 clean jerks per time with 135 pounds.

I'm like, well, I can do that with 260 pounds. He goes, no, you're not going to do it once. You're going to do it 30 times as fast as you can. And I'm like, all right. And I did it in two and a half minutes. Wow. How old were you? That's at 20.

That's at 20? Say again? That's at 20 years old you did that? It was so, yes, yes. That's crazy 20? Say again? That's at 20 years old you did that? It was so – yes, yes. That's crazy, dude. Hey, was anyone even close to you in your group? Yeah, the captain of the rugby team at the time, Nick Martirosian. He was somewhere around like maybe like –

What was Nick's last name? Martirosian. Nice Armenian name? I pronounce it differently every time I say it. He's been one of my close friends for 15 years. He is Armenian though, right? Yes. Yes, good.

Every good man needs a good Armenian man friend. So there you go. You're set for life. It's the key to success, having an Armenian next to you. We're like the real lucky charms. Nick would go to battle for any of his buddies. So he's definitely, he lives up to that big time. But it took me two and a half minutes.

And then I was on the ground for like probably like 45. Like what the fuck just happened to me? I thought I knew how to work out. You know what I mean? I thought I could run a mile in six minutes. Like what the fuck just happened to me in two and a half minutes? That's leaving me feeling like this. I got to sort this out.

I got to see what this is about. And that was kind of what hooked it. And I know that was an old school way of hooking people. like, all right, let's give them a taste and really fuck them up on their first go. I think that's kind of evolved. I think when people come in the door, we're going to ease them in now. We don't want people to be short. For every one person that had the experience I had and was like, wow, I need to, I need to keep going with this. This was, this was fucking awesome.

I think maybe four or five people, Oh my God, that's hard. People are going to get killed. So I think that kind of trial by fire, um, maybe switch, but that was definitely my integration. Hey Ray, here's the thing too. I'm sure you and Brian appreciate this, but a lot of people don't get this. I had a friend. I've had him on the show, Travis Bajent, who could snatch 135 pounds with one hand, no problem. Like slow, in slow motion like this. But the first time I asked him to do grace, he tapped.

He fucking tapped. He got fucking 15 reps in. He's done. He's a fucking arm wrestler he felt horrible i remember we were in a basketball gym i tried to film it for crossfit.com like what are you doing dude he's like i can't do the same with like i mean you see some of these big guys do burpees it it is a to be able to do 260 pound clean and jerk but also to transfer it to 30 reps at 135 and two and a half these aren't even in the same world no no totally

it's fun it's fucking crazy what that does to people what do you think about this though way off subject here i really want to talk about your gyms but let's stop i think my mom likes crossfit and she's she's she to be 80, 80 next year because when she wears her CrossFit shit, shit, CrossFit shirt to her book club, it freaks the other ladies out. And I know that that's why the rest of us like wearing CrossFit shirts too, because we like the brand value because when we walk into Starbucks, everyone knows we're the fittest person in there. Just like I wouldn't wear a UFC shirt because if I did, I'm basically telling everyone around me, Hey, I'll beat, I could beat your, everyone in this'll beat I could beat your everyone in this Walmart I could beat your ass there is that brand value that we still want to keep though right like

hey if you do CrossFit that shit is fucking hard so we're different so you're welcome to come join us but this shit is hard absolutely and I think uh it's like a couple of different points here so on the one hand don't want to scare the shit out of somebody or hurt somebody on their first day. I want to safely kind of get them involved and get them to fall in love with it. Because I said, like I said,

I fell in love with it, getting my absolute ass kicked into an offense. But then when I started kind of like diving into the the the crossfit world and seeing so much of the philosophy of wellness you know one of my favorite things that glasman ever said was the the needs of olympians and the elderly differ by intensity not type that was like you know so that's kind of a different perspective than then going in as a college athlete and getting your ass kicked with like slinging a heavy barbell really fast. So, okay, so it's not that really to your ground. Okay, let's take a different kind of mindset is, all right, well, now we're looking at squats for wellness and for health and for longevity, not for getting your ass kicked in two and a half minutes.

And I think that's a really, really, really important part. really important part. I'm listening to some of your stuff recently where you're talking about, you know, taking health and wellness into your own hands. You know, so much of the problems with people's health could be helped with fitness and CrossFit made fitness fun. Instead of going to the gym and doing the same thing all the time,

all of a sudden now there's like 300 new things i want to try to learn i want to try and do that muscle up i want to try and do that handstand walk i'm trying to figure out that snatcher i want to make that heavier and it kind of gave like a whole it kind of ignited a whole new spark and fitness for an already enthusiastic guy um so so again there's the intense aspect of it there's the the the life aspect of it. You know, why should, again, a 60-year-old, 70-year-old do this? It might be a little bit different than the reason the college athlete got hooked on it. But I think those reasons are extremely important. And then to echo what you're saying, there is that little part of you that's proud that you're doing something a lot of people aren't willing to do.

They're too scared to do it. Maybe they have too much pride to do it. They're a guy who's jacked up and thinks he's tough and goes to the CrossFit gym and gets his shit pushed in. The first workout, he never shows up again because he can't hold to the pride. One way or another, if you're willing to come and you're willing to stick it out day after day, the frustrations, because it hurts.

It's frustrating. It's sometimes demoralizing.'s like it's painful um it's it's emotional but if you can keep fighting through that there is this like sense of pride when you know like most people aren't willing to kind of like there's a line by on swarshaning when somebody says like oh well yeah but i don't want to be big like you he's like don't worry you never will and's like, like most people don't even have the guts to do that. And there's definitely a sense of pride in that motivation. Yeah. I love, I love the, I love the brand value it has. I love how hard it is.

I also love the fact that every, every, anyone and anyone can do it. And that really it's just people themselves holding themselves back, especially if you find a good, what sounds like a great affiliate like yours like hey it doesn't even matter if you can barely walk from your car into the door just give it six months we'll have you jogging from your car to your uh from your car to the front door that's the whole goal right to move the needle i mean the goal is just i make people do burpee shuttles that's um that's like definitely a favorite of mine um what's a burpee shuttle you you shuttle run with a burpee on each end yeah so it could be 20 feet 10 feet the the parameters that could could vary but um might throw in a back pedal so

run forward to that line do a burpee back pedal back to this oh i like it but some variation of burpee shuttles and i always say like you, this is the most important workout you can possibly do. The snatches, it cleans the muscle up. That's cool. But think about what you're doing right now. You're getting on the ground and you're moving from point A to point B. The speed of that will vary based on fitness, age, ability.

But the day you can't do this workout, you're fucked. The day you can't do burpee shovels, just check into the nursing home. You can't move. Hey, I wonder wonder what do you think the ratio is of how many if there's 300 million americans in the united states how many of them do you think that um can't lay down and stand up 10 times in a minute i'm not even saying a burpee i'm just saying lay on their stomach so I bet you it's 100 million, dude.

I bet you a third of the public can't do that. Isn't that crazy? I had this client. I didn't own her at the time. I was the head coach at Evershed State. This woman walks in with her husband. She wasn't five feet, so she was like 4 11 she was a little over 300 pounds and she's like 60 some years old i think she was 64 at the time and her daughter

had lost like 100 pounds uh gym out on cape cod so she kind of referred she looked up some gyms a crossfit gym her daughter did it across the gym badass so she told her mom to come to ocean state she kind of looked up what was going on in rhoda for gyms and she was go to ocean state and our staff was on our website she said go find this guy right so she walked in and the owner comes up to me and he's like hey right there's somebody here to see you you're gonna have you're gonna have your hands full with this one and because he had talked to her for a minute and i walked up and i'm talking to this lady i'm like oh this is um all right well this is why we're here. This is going to be tough.

So she was on. Why did you think that? Why did you think it was going to be tough? 4'11", 300 pounds. Why would, why would, why would it be tough? She's 64 years old and she's on an inhaler. She's on like multiple different. She's like the, she's the definition of what's wrong with, with healthcare in this country.

Over a lifetime of red flags, the answer was always a diagnosis and a medication, never nutrition and exercise, never once nutrition and exercise. So she was on. Never once, never once in 64 years. So she's on every diabetes medication. She's got blood thinners. She's got inhalers for her mind.

The lady is just an absolute mess. She's got blood pressure medication, and she's got, like, ridiculously high cholesterol, and she's saying that, you know know she has all these plaque neuroses and her she her most recent kind of doctor's appointment was uh doctor said hey your blood sugar is at a certain point where it's going to start eating at your nerves and you're going to end up getting some things amputated and you're going to die so you need to make a change and i can't put you on any meds and all the meds you possibly do so she's like well what am i out

i might have to do some exercise. That was like, that was like the last major part of your nearby team. So I'm here and I'm like, all right, we got to fill out a specific waiver for you. You understand like, you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. We've got an AED.

I'm CPR certified. I've got an asthma inhaler. I'll have my phone on me with full charge at all times if we get a call 911 but if we knock a piece of that plaque off of one of your arteries I don't know where it's going to go you're like so right there but we have to try

so I made a custom waiver and her and her husband signed it kind of like admitting that we're going into some dangerous territory but it's worth it and the first couple sessions would be her sitting down into a box that was basically just a matter of her flexing her knees because she basically lived with her knees in lockout because if she bent her knees she she would

pretty much collapse and i had to set up a safety net under the rig around her with bands and over the course of time got him a little lower and lower and lower but i had to set it up because if she fell number one i might not be able to pick her up number two she might break something she was so frail and it had been 10 years since she had been in conversation how long has it been since you've been able to get on the ground and get back up and she said i haven't been on the ground in over 10 years so that's like but put everything in her house you know what i mean let's install the railing by the toilet. Let's install the lift at the stairs. Let's not, let's not fix the issue. Let's, let's get another bandaid. And throughout the course of assistance and, and, and, and, and various,

you know, methods of getting to lunge. It took us six months to be able to get her to get on the ground without assistance. Wow. You did it. Well, halfway. It took another six to be able to get her off the ground without assistance. Okay. So I messed up for her to kind of crawl her way up.

But a year in, we got her first burpee. And that was like the first time something kind of like viral, if you will, happened on my Facebook. But up until that time, Facebook's got like 20 likes, 30 likes. How old were you when you did that? Probably 28. That's also like a, like you're kind of like your most selfish years, right? To like, well, I was, you know, zero, like what should you give a fuck at 28 about a fucking 62 year old woman who

should lay down and get up? I mean, that was cool because it took, it took a year to do that and then you know within about a year we we had gotten to the point where we could do 10 in a minute so like the thing you had just said what do you think the percentage is like that actually that actually happened we actually got barbara to do 10 in a minute i worked with barbara for a half hour a week three times a week for up until covid and um and by the time like that kind of air that time frame was there around 2019 she had gotten off all of her diabetes medication she had gotten off all of her blood thinners all of her heart meds and her inhaler like that woman is like just an example like the the absolute perfect example of everything that's fucked up with our health care system but also the amazing amazing amazing just

benefits of exercise like the true power of crossfit it's unbelievable you know hey what did uh what did the people in the gym think about her did after all those years of her being there would people say hi to her? Did she become part of the community? Everybody loved Barbara. You kidding me? Yeah. Because everybody's got those people in their family, right?

I have those people in my family. What are you going to do? Just ruin every family dinner and every event just kind of playing the self-righteous game and hating on people that aren't taking care of themselves? It is what it is. You know what I mean? Like I kind of can't, I can't make the horse drink the water. I can bring it. You know what I mean? So I have the gym and the doors open, but I can't make people come, um,

show them, show them that it's there. Bring them over floor. I can't make it drink. So kind of let it be. But I think like seeing this woman, um, reminded everybody of somebody that they know it could help. Dude, that lady in my mind is a hero. There's never been a time more important for overweight people to like all these people who are overweight, who are going to the gym and talking about their diet and posting their pictures on their Instagram. Those are my favorite. Like, do it. Be the example. show that shit off, put the incredible pressure on yourself to change. We need you now. Society civilization needs you. I mean, the truth is you just have to look at yourself. You are the burden that's on society right now. You like show off as you, as you reduce your burden on society. It's so easy to help society. If you're one of those people and yourself at the same time. It's awesome.

It's truly awesome. Like I said, you know, for her to get off the heart meds and for her to get off the blood then, it's very cholesterol-tip going down by just doing, you know, Is she still alive now? She made it through COVID? Yes, yep. Yep.

Gosh, she must have been so happy she started two years before. Imagine going into COVID not being able to get on the ground and get up. I can't fathom living like that, but, um, but, but she fixed it. And you know, when, when COVID was happening and people were talking about all these, you know, how scared they were of dying. And'm like at one point at one point it was like oh covid's killed more people than vietnam and i'm like that's not that many people that's 50,000

people don't get me wrong vietnam was a tragedy vietnam was an absolute absolute tragedy um but but that was 50,000 people 500,000 people a year die in the united states from the number one killer cardiac disease and of that said that 90 of those are preventable through lifestyle changes and habits so i think that's being generous for saying 90 it's probably 90 it might be more but that's just like the number right they put out so it's like okay you guys are worried about about something that that has killed 50 000 people but you're not worried about a lifestyle habit that you can see coming from 10 years out, 20 years out. You can see it coming, and it's going to kill 450. What are you worried about?

Don't worry about COVID. Don't worry about COVID. It's tragic. It's tragic. But take care of yourself. That's the bigger, that's, that's, that's the bigger priority. If your average age. So also if the average age of death of COVID is 80 and the average age of death in general, the United States is 78, then you didn't die from COVID.

You died with COVID. And that, that's another thing like, Hey dude, anyway, we agree too much to have this discussion hey um is that the crowning achievement of your I don't want anybody out there to think I'm like like to if somebody you know obviously obviously COVID was a tragic new box on the checklist right how did how did somebody die did they die of pneumonia did they have a heart attack did they die did they die of pneumonia? Did they have a heart attack? Did they die of COVID? Whether it came from a bat or it came from a lab, I don't know how it got here. But there's a new box on the checklist.

And for anybody who dies of pneumonia or anybody who dies of influenza or anybody who dies of anything, it's very tragic. We've got a new box on the checklist. But I'm not going about my life in constant fear of dying of the flu. I'm not going about my life in constant fear of dying of any other really disease. I'm going to go about it and try to just live moderately healthy. And to think that, again, American culture, you have people that are, again, three, four, 500 pounds drinking, you know, soda habitually throughout the um and don't do any fitness at all and they're worried about covid i'm like there's a small chance covid might kill you there's a hundred percent chance your lifestyle is gonna kill you and that's you know what i mean hey when

i i know shit when i see someone like slumped over like in an entryway of a building and it's like clinton like with three other guys and there's piss and shit around them and i know they're all passed out from fentanyl you know that look you ever seen that you ever go to like you ever go to boston probably everywhere there yeah you see you see that stuff uh just it's just in miami for water palooza okay yeah yeah and and like and you can go on any video and see videos in philadelphia or san francisco it's just hundreds of people if not thousands with like needles hanging out of Yeah. Yeah. And like and you can go on any video and see videos in Philadelphia or San Francisco. It's just hundreds of people, if not thousands, with like needles hanging out of them, passed out. And just it looks like a zombie movie. That's how I feel when I see someone also who's 500 pounds walking out of Safeway with four, two liters of Coke.

Well, I just see I just see a drug addict. I'm like, holy shit. I just see a drug addict. It's like an identical feeling of like, oh, fuck, there's a drug addict. I'm like, holy shit. I just see a drug addict. It's like an identical feeling of like, Oh fuck, there's a drug addict to me. Yeah. Well, that's, that's totally true because you know, so in addition to just some family members that, you know, and close friends over the years that are known with eating disorders and not eating disorders, meaning to not eating enough. Both ways. Um, we, we, we run a program at, uh, our gym, at one of our gyms called move to heal. It's a pretty amazing program. And, um, and it's, it's a 30 minute workout. It's, it's simple.

It's not going to be, you know, we're not going to teach the snatch or the handstand pushup. It's very simple. It's meant to get the endorphins flowing. So anybody can come at any level of experience fitness it does not have to be uh experience in fitness at all we're going to come we're going to work out and then there's a 60 minute group meeting and it's for anybody who either has substance abuse issues um is in any kind of form of recovery or also any mental health, whether life trauma, whether depression, anxiety, anything. You teach this class at your gym?

This is a class at your gym? Yeah, it's like a session, if you will. Yes, we do that. What days? We do it Wednesdays at 6.30 p.m. and Saturdays at 8 a.m. How much does it cost? So that's the thing. So Move to Heal is free.

To come to it is free. The organization is called Move to Heal. And if you attend these sessions regularly, there's standards to it, criteria, then you are eligible for other services and these other services include a complimentary gym membership at my gym and bi-monthly counseling sessions with a licensed therapist so if you come to move to heal four times a month we offer a class if you come four times a month so you come once a week you come twice in one week if you come to four sessions a month, you get a free gym membership at my gym, and you can see a licensed therapist twice a month. Holy shit, Ray. This is dope.

It's an amazing program. It's an amazing program. Why are you doing that? How does that make sense if you're a business? Which gym is that at, by the way? Is that at Ocean State or at North? That's North. That's North.

Why are you doing that? Why not? That sounds crazy. So, well, one thing at a time. So I'll land a quick claim. So when it comes to food, hearing people talk and seeing people and just working with people, some of the nutrition over the years, exactly what you just said. Food is like a drug to some people. There are some people that don't have alcohol problems. So instead of coming home and having, you know, 10 beers and passing out,

they eat, you know, a jumbo size bag of Skittles and, you know, wash it down with a two liter of Coke. And that's like, they're like, they're fixed. You know what I mean? So food is definitely, definitely a drug to a lot of people. And it kills them. It's not even that it kills them like drugs. If you look at the numbers, I forget exactly. I don't want to get my numbers wrong here. But again, cardiovascular disease around 500,000 Americans a year with, again, what they say, 90% due to lifestyle. And when you look at drug overdoses, it's like half that.

So it's like a bad body is going to kill twice as many people as drugs so food is actually killing twice as many people as drugs um drugs not all but uh so this program so i've had a pretty pretty wild roller coaster of life and um fitness has been you know what's gotten gotten me through some some bad times kept me off the ledge. When I have fallen off the ledge, fitness has helped me get back up. I've always been down to pay that forward. We've had

a couple of different groups, rehab places, treatment centers, ask if they could bring some people in who are in recovery. I've always said yes to that. I never charged. That's never really taken off. I just, that's kind of like a good deed and we were approached about this move to

yield program. And I went into that with the same mindset. I was like, sure. Like, I don't, I don't know how successful it's going to be, but if, if you got, you know, people that want to come and work out anything that can help them with their sobriety or can help them with whatever, then, then yeah, for sure. And, um, and then I had a meeting with the founder of this company and it was, well, actually there's some money in it. If John Doe comes and he comes to one meeting, four meetings a month, averages once a week, we will pay for his gym membership at your gym.

So Move to Heal compensates my gym for the attendees of this program. So Move to Heal gets its finances from private donations. They raise funds. I don't know how they get their funds. It's mostly private donations. But at the end of the month, we look at how many people came to our meetings and of those people, how many elected to have a gym membership to maintain the gym membership. They have to come to, Ooh, what is it?

What is it? Four classes a week? No, eight classes a month, eight classes a month. So they have to go to four meetings and eight CrossFit classes a month to earn that free membership. Um, and in other words, the reason it's called move to heal is whether you're getting over mental

illness or, or dealing with trauma from life or trying to get through recovery. If fitness is going to help you, then this company is going to pick up the bill. And that's, that's, that's the program. It's amazing. Hey, um, uh, we, did you have a, were you dabbling in drugs? Is that what happened to you?

Um, so I kind of say like, I was always, I always did the right thing, but then I also always did the wrong thing. So when I was growing up, you know, I was, I was a really, you know, decent, decent student. I was kind of a punk forever, but I mean, I was not a real student. I got like a partial academic scholarship to URI and I was captain of my high school football team. But then I was also just absolutely rough around the edges. So partying in high school, definitely drugs and alcohol. And then in college, same thing.

So college, I was in the community college program. I was in the Rhode Island Air National Guard. I was on the college rugby team. I started fraternity at URI. It's still there. It's the biggest fraternity at URI. I did a lot of the right things, but then also a lot of the wrong things, the drugs and alcohol.

So luckily for me, did you go to jail? Ray? I actually, uh, I did briefly. Yeah. I got, I got mixed up. Uh, I got mixed up with some of the wrong people. Um, when I was in college and made some, made some bad decisions. Um, and that actually kind of, that was the worst time in my life. Actually, that was, that was, that was the worst time in my life, but it, it, it lit a fire under my ass that got me, you said like, why would somebody in their twenties be going as hard as I did?

And it was because I was, I was embarrassed and I wanted to redeem myself, if you will. So that's kind of what, what, what of what started the hustle was the rock bottom. There's a little off subject here, but I wondered about that. I have this. I think shame is a really powerful tool, like it's a powerful mechanism we should all feel if we can use it to uh straighten our our ship right so like i don't like when i was a um in my life when i've been addicted to nicotine i mean i've always been ashamed to walk up to that counter and if there's anyone else checking out to be like hey can i get those cigarettes or can i get a can of that shit because i think every when someone does that i think it just screams you're weak anyone and i i like that shame i needed that shame i wanted to feel that

you know what i mean like i was never like this sucks that i am i feel ashamed to get nicotine no motherfucker you're fucking showing off that you're a fucking addict and everyone in line behind you 7-eleven can see it you know what i mean uh do you have any thoughts on that and basically it sounds like you you ran into some trouble and some shit and you were fucking embarrassed and ashamed and you're like okay i'm gonna have to overcompensate now and get my shit really together well yeah i mean that's that that's pretty much it um i was at a rock bottom and you were rock bottom. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. What was your drug? Well, I was not a drug. That wasn't it. So.

All right. Rock bottom is a crazy spot. Was that rock bottom is a crazy spot. So what had happened was I was in college and I was very, very, very broke. Very what? Broken? Just no money. I worked in the restaurant business and the kinesiology department at URI is pretty small. It made working in a restaurant pretty tough because there'd be classes that were only offered once a semester so you'd have to take them.

It'd be class at 9 a.m. and then a class at you know 5 p.m i'm like well or the labs we had once you get into the p program the labs as they call them the the hands-on stuff with with uh kids that would come in with their parents and you would you know teach kids with disabilities um those are all at night so it really made working in the restaurant hard and you know i just i actually joined the international guard because i was so sick of being broke and going international guard came back and they say they pay for school and that's true they give you a tuition waiver so i stopped taking out loans for tuition but as far as paying rent and you know car and cell phone and just life it was still on me and the restaurant and

it was broke then and some some buddies of mine that that we're in a similar financial situation when i left we're no longer in that situation when i came back and i said all right well what do you guys got going on and they were they were they were selling weed in pretty high quantities and at this point in time it was totally illegal there was no medicinal it was it was illegal everywhere and um i said all right well let's get involved with that now and my main thing was just kind of driving it like go pick it up from one place and bring it to another place and at that point in time people knew that you wouldn't you wouldn't really mess with me so it was it was i was a safe safe kind of ride. Because you were a little rough around the edges.

That's it. That's it. So some kid got caught. Apparently it was DUI, but some kid got caught, and he ratted out the whole kind of operation, and they did a surveillance on his house, and I was leaving the house with a load. So you were a truck driver for agricultural products. Yeah.

Hey, what did you drive? What was your car? Oh, it was the only thing I could afford, man. It was a Hyundai Sonata. It was an old Hyundai Sonata. All right. I'm down. So that whole thing happened so i had to go to the uh so they the cops pull you over and open your trunk

and you got a bunch of weed in there yeah yeah hey anything else besides weed no thank god like not you didn't have like 5 000 pills of molly or something no thank god it wouldn't be talking you probably but but uh that was yeah so so hey what year was that isn't that weird now like you'd be like a national hero if you're driving weed around all of those guys now just do it legally and and it's on their instagram you know what i mean um but anyways so so that was during uh midterms at uri so i had to go to the aci for a little bit and then when i got out on bail wait you went to the what for a little bit aci yeah there's jail and then there's prison that was that's that's the prison so okay um not not not for very long but that's where they hold you they don't hold you for like

long periods of time in jail so then when i was there um i was that was that was that was the rock bottom because then i got out and i withdrew from uri because i didn't know what the case was going to do and i had missed all my midterms with being in jail isn't a valid excuse so they didn't let me retake them so i'm like all right i'm either gonna fail all my classes right now or i'm going to um just withdraw and take an eye so i withdrew and i was you know sitting at home and i'm like what how do we go from here so i had absolutely no money and I had just withdrawn from school. And because of the nature of that, I,

I was discharged from the military. I was honorably discharged because I was a civilian on my own time. I didn't just service the military, but, but I was out of the military. And in doing that, um, move with school about a week later, I got a note of a letter from URI saying that I owed them $7,000.

And I was like, why do I owe you $7,000? He said, well, you withdrew from school after the drop date and your GI Bill retracted. So I was like, oh, God. So I'm down and I'm like, well, I don't have it. And they're like, okay, we'll go to collection. So I'm 24 years old at this time. And I was a senior in college, and I withdrew, and I was literally just sitting there with my dick in my hand, and I'm like, well, let's hustle, boy.

Let's make it happen. So I had already done all the kinesiology classes. I was like one semester away from the degree so i went and i uh took the last pennies i had and i got a personal training certification through nasm i didn't even need to open the book i just went to take the test and um and i and i started training i hustled i was training every which way i could i was doing boot camps on narragansett beach i bootcamps in a sorority house. I bought some kettlebells and had people in my basement.

I would train them in my basement. I was training anybody I could get content with. If they could give me 20 bucks, if they could give me 10 bucks, I wouldn't care. I was working in a restaurant. I was going a million miles an hour. And then ended up saving a little bit of money enough to get a CrossFit certification.

Ended up getting a CrossFit certification in like 2012, I think, and was training people at the CrossFit gym that my college rugby coach had opened. So I had my hands in just as much fitness as I could. And I started this website, FleasorFitness.com, and I would go around and I would take videos of other coaches to just try and network and just try and, you know, get it, get content, you know? And, um, and so if you went to police or fitness.com, it wouldn't necessarily be me working out. It would be, Hey,

here's this trainer going to show you this movement with this equipment. So that website, uh, if you're going to pull it up, it's no longer there. You might be able to find something, but it's no longer there. I was, um, I was actually getting my back tattooed and um i was emailing to some some gyms to see if they wanted to do some stuff with my website and ocean state crossfit was one of them and i hit up the owner and he said yeah come by to mom uh come work out at noon. So I came by the next day, worked out. So this is 11 years ago. Yeah. And I went there and I beat everybody.

And he's like, who the fuck are you? And can you come back here tomorrow? I'm like, yeah. So I went back the next day and he's like, my business partner's here. And it was like this older dude in a suit.

And we worked out again. And then he's like, you got time to talk? And we went like this older dude in a suit. And we worked out again. And then he's like, you got time to talk? We went and talked. And they just talked to me for like 20, 30 minutes. And he's like, how would you like to work here? And I'm like, I can't, man. Like I'm literally doing all these different things. And at that point, I was also helping this guy open a restaurant that was literally supposed to open the next day.

And I was going to- Did you have a girlfriend during this time? No. You're just hustling. Yep. Yep. No corgis, no vagina, no nothing, just working. Every moment of every day. Okay.

And I was supposed to open this restaurant the next day. And this guy says, well, all right, i'll give you forty thousand dollars a year you'll coach 27 classes a week you can do personal training here and keep 100 of it and i said fuck when do you want me to start and he said tomorrow at 5 a.m you got a key and um literally on the ride home i hit up my mom that's a lot of classes. That's four classes a day, dude. That was a half of what I was like hustling with. So, so on the way home, I called my mom and I was like, you know, Hey, I just got this opportunity. She's like, you know,

what do you want to do with your life? Right. In 10 years, you want to be the best trainer in Rhode Island or do you want to be, you know, the best bartender? I said, I want to be the best trainer. She said, well, you know what you have to do. So I said, all right. So I went to work. Why your mom? Why not your dad? Um, I'd have probably, I'd have called my mom too. I was going to say probably, but not, not even probably a hundred percent. I don't really have an answer to that. I love my dad very much. Um,

but I'm always believed in you. Your mom always believed in you. Yeah. But, um, but she said, you know, and that line stuck with me because that line stuck with me really big because that next day i went and i started at ocean state and that started this this journey that that i'm still on now and um and i went i went and opened then i went to the restaurant that morning for the first day opening and i told the guy and i was expecting him to flip out and he goes bro this isn't what you're going to do for a living man i appreciate you helping me but that's it that's your opportunity and he like wished me luck and i was like really relieved by that

so then i just went and you were probably really good at that though too huh you weren't fucking around anything you did you just did good pretty pretty much i i'm i'm pretty i i do everything pretty hard um anytime i talk to people about you i do stuff how do you do stuff good no hard hard it's it's a level beyond good you do stuff with excellence no hard i am i remember that line because then a couple years later like things have developed at ocean, and they kept developing and developing and developing. And in 2015, we were the first gym from Rhode Island to make it to regionals.

And a gym had done it before, but it wasn't like the same thing. It was when you could just sign up and go. It wasn't like you had to qualify, let alone year after year. And that time, it just kept getting harder and harder and harder um but in 2015 we ended up making the the first punch to regionals and i got an email that i didn't even know this was going to be a thing but i got an email after the open was done and said congratulations ray fleece for your performance in the open um you've earned the the title of fittest man in the round. And I remember, like, I coached this team.

I called my mom. I said, Mom, remember when you asked me if I wanted to be the best trainer on the island in 10 years? And she said, yeah. And I said, well, I did it, and it didn't take 10. It took three. And I always remember that. Dude.

So, yeah. dude so yeah so my so at that point were you uh owning the gym yet or still just working there still i was the head coach at that time and there was only one at that time there was one ocean state at that time yes okay how did you meet him brian how do you know ray well because he was the fittest in rhode, and I know everyone is the fittest anywhere. No, just kidding. Okay, okay. Ray, well, I mean, as far as his individual CrossFit career goes, he did end up taking that team to the Games in 2017. And then I don't know exactly how he got on my radar,, I spent the time of 2015 to 18 studying affiliates methodology,

the level one stuff, just as much as any of the game stuff. And, you know, he came across my path during that time and then they started competing. He, he would start, he did, I think his teams did a lot of competitions during the sanctionals tours of those two years. And we met at one of those. Gotcha. Okay. of competitions during the sanctionals tours of those two years and we met at one of those gotcha okay ray in what year did you buy the gym 2016 and i'm going to skip ahead a little bit because i don't want to run out of time although we have plenty of time i know things can just fly by you have two gyms now and and and they're both successful yes so kranson the original ocean state crossfit um a partner or at the time a member uh dave ward smith you know we were very close friends

and worked out together and we're just talking about you know he was working at a physical therapist office and you know we at that point in time the owner aaron meredith he had basically phased out of uh the the front of the house operation he was handling still some of the back of the house stuff but but most members didn't know him interacting with anything a lot of people thought i owned it um and i did want to so at some point in time kind of talked to him about that he's he's like, yep. And then, so I kind of knew that Aaron would sell. And then in my communications with Dave, at one point we went out and we were having some, we were having some drinks in Providence and it was, you want to do this?

Let's fucking do it. Let's fucking do it. And we shook hands over, over espresso martinis on Federal Hill. And, and we, we got to the drawing board and we ended up buying out Aaron. And it's been an awesome ride. Dave's a great partner. He handles the back end of the operation, the member relations,

and I handle the front end, the fitness and the actual operation on the day-to-day. And obviously I do a lot of coaching as well. And then an athlete that I met at Ocean State, she started coming to Ocean State, this master's athlete, Jen Jasper, world record holder in Olympic lifting, absolutely amazing athlete. She was coming to Ocean State and she, you know know had dreams of owning a gym she lives in

northern or island and kind of dave and jen and i just got to talking about you know maybe maybe maybe opening a gym up there and then her husband uh he's not as competitive as she is so the drive from northern or islands of cranston was not something he was really interested in worked out at this gym called crossfit no risk And he kind of heard that his wife was interested in, you know, maybe opening a gym up there. And he's like, hey, John, I think Judah might be down to sell No Risk. So the thought process with Dave, Jen, and I went from opening a gym on Northern Ireland to buying No Risk

and rebranding it and changing it around to ours. So we did that. That negotiation started before COVID, but then obviously I'm not going to buy a gym during COVID time. So once the dust all settled from that, we went back to the drawing board and that, that, that deal took, it took about six months, but it really took about a year just to get the paperwork in order for the, for the, for the actual.

Why did they want to sell? They were just done. They had done their time. Yeah, the owner, Judah Boulay, he had run it for a long time, and he was moving on to kind of other things, some sports performance stuff. He's a coach of Bryant College rugby team. He does some sports performance things in various capacities.

He had phased out of the Crossfit realm of nervous crossfit a long time ago he wasn't coaching class he um yeah it was he was he was down to to to pass the torch and we rebranded it um to ocean state just because well it's going to do the same program it's going to follow the same methodology we do i'm not going to call that something else. So we went in and changed around the facility to kind of suit the way the Cranston facility is set up and carry out the same operation. So the two mirror, they're mirror facilities. A lot of the coaches coach back and forth.

They do the same programming. Same, yeah. Did I hear these numbers right? Are there, you have 600 members between the two yes yeah that is absolutely amazing yeah it's um it's a pretty it's a pretty special place so so i mean the cranton facility there's there's people that drive like an hour to go there you know i mean it's it's there's nothing really like it um when you say what do you mean nothing like it the how clean it is how nice the people are the equipment the training

i would say all that i'd say all that the p um so oh hold on right let me let me let me help out because he said when you took over and where they when uh first guy uh, first guy offer you a job, 27 hours coaching a week, and then you could do your personal training based on what I, you know, and you could keep a hundred percent of that based on what I know about you. Now, I'm guessing that you did also 27 hours of personal training a week. This guy works all day,

man. I'm telling you something like that. But, um, well, the thing that, that makes over to say like really, really amazing is exactly, is all the things you just said. It is incredibly clean. We keep it, we keep it immaculate or at least die trying. We actually

don't even have a cleaning company. I do it. My partner does it. Um, just over the years, we, we hired and fired so many cleaning companies for doing an inadequate job that we just, you know, we sat down and we bought the floor scrubber we bought spent two thousand dollars on on an industrial uh remote vacuum cleaner because we kept killing the filters on dysons with the chalk dust so we got this like um vacuum like the the the facility we do our absolute damnedest to keep clean. I do want to I want to echo that by the way Dyson is the best

and coolest vacuum cleaner ever unless you're really going to use it every day I went through fucking five twelve hundred dollar Dyson vacuum cleaners having three boys and two dogs at home and they just eat those cordless fuckers up so don't do that just get the one at Costco the

shark and with the plugs fuck cordless fuckers up. So don't do that. Just get the one at Costco, the shark and with the plugs. Fuck cordless shit. Anyway, proceeds. Sorry. So the programming, I do it and I've done it since 2012. And I definitely take a lot of pride in it. You write it or do you actually also do it yourself? So that was about to be what I said.

That was going to be what I said next. So I do it yourself so that was about to be what i said that was going to be what i said next so i do it and um i think that's a really important thing that's forgotten in in in crossfit these days is you know they say program for the best scale for the rest but when you when you look at a lot of gyms that are high performing you don't see the best athletes taking class and that's always been a philosophy at ocean state like the competitors like to compete like you have to take class it's not even like an option because how am i going to look a person in the eye when they walk in the door and say hey my gym's 199 a month and it's one of the best gyms in the world and you're

gonna get really really fit but all those amazing athletes over there they do some other shit like fuck that you got the ariel lowen you must love ariel lowen then huh what's who's that she's a she's a games athlete she's a mom and we had her on the show and we're like you know she's top 10 top 11 bet fittest woman in the world and we're like hey how do you what's your programming she's like i just go to an affiliate and at the end of every week i make a list of all the movements they did in the affiliate whichever ones they didn't do then i do them on my own so if the affiliate didn't program handstand walking and she just takes the fucking classes and then fills in on the side what they didn't program i'm like what the fuck and she's a savage love that yeah crazy right well i mean i, for the community aspect of it, like I, I, I take classes.

Every, everybody, you know, Christine Middleton is, is the strongest female in CrossFit. You know, she, she holds the record for the, for the clean jerk 265 at Granite Games. And, you know, she's a three-time games athlete, like, you know, absolutely amazing athlete at USA Williams and coach. She placed third at USA Nationals. You know, she's up on stage and up on the podium with Maddie Rogers. And she takes class with our members. You know what I mean? So, like, you might have somebody who can clean 65 pounds and you got Christine who's cleaning 285 pounds.

It's happening in the same class with everything in between. So, like, on a day, we have 10 sets of rings. And on a day with ring muscle-ups like they'll all be down and there'll be classes like you know the evening classes people have to double up on you that's a very rare thing to go to a gym and see 12 people doing muscle-ups in class not in not in competitors session whatever um right this isn't this isn't 11 a.m at invictus this is all day at that's not a dig in invictus, by the way. Great place. But this is just every class at Ocean CrossFit. I actually used to like try and make some stuff with like looking at the leaderboard from locals in Rhode Island and piecing numbers to kind of see

how gyms would rank, not just their top athletes. Because I used to say like, you know, when Rich Froning is not necessarily indicative of CrossFit Mayhem. After Rich Froning and his team, whoever it might be, let me see what the next 20 members are. Or Kelsey Keel and Tolomarar kenyo weren't necessarily you know indicative of invictus boston let me see the next 20 members at that gym and how they rank up and the list goes on and on and i always said like we we don't have a txu we don't have a matt frazier

we don't have a noah olsen but what we do have is like 50 amazing athletes. We have like 200 really good athletes. And like, sometimes the numbers are almost unbelievable. Like there's over 20 women at Ocean State that can clean and jerk 200 plus pounds. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said-

That reminds me of Hiller when he owned a gym. He wanted, he prided himself on saying, hey, I have the fittest gym in the country. We're fitter than me. He didn't know about Ray's gym. He didn't. He obviously didn't. It didn't matter whether it's true or not. It's just the fact that he believed that.

Well, the affiliate leaderboard, I thought, was – I think that's the most important leaderboard when you're actually looking at what a gym can do. Like, don't worry about, especially now where you don't, you know, it's not that super teams are totally back because you have to at least be present for the open and for the quarterfinal in person. But the fact that you don't even have to go to the gym that you're going to compete for habitually, like teams are not representative of a gym's ability to cultivate athleticism because you can literally recruit and that's what you're going to do. That's what you have to do to stay competitive. You know, we're recruiting. That's what you have to do. You know, most of our athletes are organic, but if somebody lives an hour away and they're the only athlete from the gym

and they want to come to Ocean State, come on back. But to know, you know, how a gym actually produces produces athletes look at the affiliate leaderboard of the top 20 that's that's where you're gonna see it and it's cool because we didn't have a matt frazier or a taser persevage but we beat mayhem like that we had comparatively speaking fitter membership than mayhem hey they had some rando at mayhem that rich didn't even know last year some fucking random dude at mayhem won the first two workouts in the open or some shit. Do you remember that? He was beating everyone at mayhem and I'm where like rich, who is that?

Rich is like, I don't know. That was fucking crazy. Will you, can you talk? Cause you know, people, some people I think are asking questions that could help that you could help answer with this. Will you talk about how you program strength training at your gym and not just like, like over the course of years, even.

Yeah. So, um, I don't want to get way off. Um, so I think. Get a membership, get an internship with Ray.

I mean, Ray, the example that you gave. I got you. So, so you, you have to actually give strength its attention and a lot of a lot of crossfit methodology doesn't do that so i'm a crossfit level three oh that's a funny fucking story we can go down um i'll circle back there's i got a

couple questions i gotta get to you i'll ask you about your level three um but you know that that that there's a lot of crossfit teachings that i don't necessarily agree with and and um and the whole warm-up for 45 minutes to do like a seven minute workout like i don't at the end of the day um i think more can be done in an hour so we definitely do the strength and metcon uh format that i think a lot of gyms do that you know we'll build to a lift and then we'll do a metcon and um i think a lot of crossfitters are used to the feeling of cardio so they're wanting the fast pace and they don't take enough rest and they don't give strength enough time so if you're if you're looking to build you know if you're doing a snatch volume

of like you know say you want to so you want to do three sets of three reps you know you that's not an approach that's going to happen in 10 minutes that's like a 20 minute situation where you're doing like five five four four three three three like of all building sets until you finally get to the weight you're going to use might It might be something like that, like 85%. And those sets need to be very spaced out, like two, three-minute breaks in between so you can do your best at them. Because you need to create a situation

where you can raise the ceiling for potential weight. If you're always tired, you're always doing a superset wall ball, you're not going to lift your potential. So you might try really hard and you're doing, you know, hey, we're going to do a clean ladder where we're going to do 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1. And you're going to end with a one right max on cleans. And you're going to do it as fast as you can with five burpees in between each one. There's no way you're going to actually clean your heaviest weight. You

want to clean your heaviest weight. You've to pump the brakes take big breaths between sets um and also the the the warm-ups a lot of gyms do um do elaborate warm-ups but then don't teach the movement so much so like i've been to gyms i've dropped into gyms where we might snatch but we're going to do this really big crazy warm-up not really about the snatch. Then the coach will say, okay, you've got seven minutes. Build to a heavy snatch. And it's like that's not how people are going to get strong. First of all, like they're not going to learn the lift.

Like if it's snatch day, the warm-up you do should be, all right, everybody grab a barbell or a PVC pipe if we're not familiar with this lift yet and go through the overhead squat, go through the jumping under the bar, go through some different progressions with the snatch. Warm up the snatch and then give them 20 minutes in a structured approach to be able to – Seems like common sense. This seems like common sense.

It's not the way a lot of gyms do it. So, Ray, that's the micro. I saw this on your instagram the other day that you you spent basically two years chasing 20 pounds on your clean and jerk i think tried to go from 385 to 405 yep and but but uh in the macro sense how you went about getting there was not a linear build it was more of this like peaks and valleys and that's something i say too like the better somebody gets the stronger somebody gets, the stronger somebody gets, the more they can destruct their body and the more they need to be aware of that

and period out their recovery. So say you're somebody who's brand new to muscle-ups and you can do them like a little bit. Well, you can probably do muscle-ups like four or five days a week because if you're doing, you know, in a 10-minute period period i kind of say that when you practice the skills like you should really get them in about 10 minutes that's the sweet spot if you're practicing handstand push-ups double unders toe-to-bar whatever as an accessory workout you should 10 minutes is like your sweet spot because after that the productivity is the movement pattern is going to break down productivity

so when it comes to you know strength or strength or advanced gymnastics, if you're not very strong or you don't have very big capacity with gymnastics, you can do that stuff pretty frequently. If you can clean and jerk as a guy, if you can clean and jerk like 150 pounds, not to insult anybody that has that lift, that's perfectly fine. But that's not destroying your body too much you can probably lift weights pretty consistently for a long period of time if you get into the higher things you know north of 300 350 pounds on a clean and jerk ladies north of like 250 pounds when you do one of those sessions what that's doing to your body your central nervous system your tendons your ligaments what that's doing to your body, your central nervous system, your tendons, your ligaments, what that's doing to you, it takes a while to recover.

So when you do like a strength cycle, if say you're preparing for a meet, an elliptic meet or a powerlifting meet or, you know, a seven finals or the games, you're ramping up your training, you're ramping up your volume. And when you kind of like peak, when you're kind of done, when you hit your goals, whatever, you need to give yourself a little bit of time to recover. And you got to be understanding of the fact that in that time, you're going to lose a little bit.

But if you went up to here, you're only going to lose to here. So then the next time you push, you're going to go to here and you're going to recover to here. So it's not linear. It's more like that kind of stock market of growth over time. People got to be aware of that and be comfortable with that. I think that one of the scary things for people is sometimes they think they're building this strength and then they'll get to week three, four, five, six, or whatever the cycle is supposed to be. And they can't hit the number that they're expecting to hit.

And then they're like scared that like, wait a minute, it's everything I'm doing wrong. And they might abandon it, but it's perfectly fine to have that little lull that you talk about of that recovery and that reset before you make the next jump. Yeah, so there's a lot of variables to that that's going to have to do with recovery, that's going to have to do with diet, but it's also going to have to do with genetics. And a lot of people get really frustrated when they, they're, they're looking left and right instead of putting the blinders on. I'd say if you take 10 people off the street and you give them the exact same squat program and the exact same diet and the exact same sleeping pattern and lifestyle habits,

you're still going to see 10 slightly different results. Not everybody's built the same. So what, you know, you write these, you write, you write these, you write, you write these, um, these programs out and some people may hit the numbers. Exactly. Some people may actually exceed what you kind of thought they could do on them. And some people might come up a little bit short, but that's, that's, that's, that's part of it. Um, and I

think that's really important too, when, when strength programming, you're doing strength cycling, to come up with realistic goals and make sure you don't come out too hot. So the one that I ran to do that 405 clean was a 16-week program. And the first, it was four weeks. You did it? You did it? Yes. Wow.

So it was a four-week program that cycled four times and i told people like hey the first four weeks like you should leave every session and say i could have done 10 pounds more i could have done 15 pounds more because if you start your baseline testing at max effort there's no way you're going to build on that on three more cycles and i think a lot of people do that i mean even even at my gym even with all the explanation and coaching and stuff that i tried to try to convey some people in those in those first four weeks of baseline testing would still go too hard and i'm like oh this is supposed to be like a five by five that you're going to do more on the second and more on the third and more on the fourth cycle.

And you just went to failure. It's unlikely. You're going to make those numbers increase four times. You know what I'm saying? So I think that's a big, that's a big issue. People have, they go too heavy,

too fast. And this is, this is crazy. This is absolutely nuts. When it, when was this? November 28th. Oh, my goodness.

He knew the exact date because it says it right there on the screen. Oh, yeah. No, that was a shot. Oh, he's making fun of me. Don't worry. Brian's very good like that. He doesn't make fun of the guests. Wow.

But this is the thing. What I like about Ray is that he doesn't make fun of the guests wow but but but this is the thing like what i like what i like about about ray is that he's doing it with them like there are times that he'll be in one of those classes doing the same thing that was in class there's another video of that like the video that's happening right here i remember i remember this is so there's wow hey what are you thinking in the hole did you think you weren't going to get it um to be honest with you that i've caught that without reading the whole post here i've i've i've gone for that on four separate occasions and um that was like the most secure i caught it and um and i just i don't know what i was really thinking we just keep going just keep going yeah it's always thinking

but here but but i i guarantee you what happened what happens there and this happens at the affiliate i will train at too is that on the way there there might be people that are hitting bigger sets for you no bigger numbers than you on that five by five but at the end of the cycle they're not hitting the 405 because they've overdone it in the process and they haven't paid attention to the details or they broke along the way also said that you gotta get your body acclimated to the volume you're about to put it through so like doing doing doing a strength cycle is like okay you're doing like two hours worth of lifting um another thing i don't think a lot of people are are willing to do is take off days so i would do like a two-hour lifting session and then the next day would be

completely off um what is this sorry to interrupt what what movement is this a tall snatch or most people call it a tall snatch you call it a snatch pull under so it's like a sumo snatch you're not even exploding at the bottom i feel like if i tried that with like 10 pounds my shoulder would break off let alone a fucking whole barbell look how slow that is what are you doing there so it isolates the third pull there's no jump if i were to jump that'd be a high hang squat snatch you'll see the initiation is with the arm pull and that and then i just pick my feet up and drop straight down how fucking strong do you have to be to do that my god that's all that's all technique that's not that's not like a strength movement so that this isn't the strength look at

what's going on here all you're doing is not a strength movement that thing is crazy that's only 155 pounds oh my god i've snatched 315 so so for me to cap out at 55 pounds and 100 it's 50 so proportionally that's a very weak lift now if you go to the next video in this post by jumping under the bar i add 125 pounds by jumping under the bar aka the high hang squat that's 275 for three so very minor difference but now this is the second and third pull so now i jump under the bar that simple act of jumping adds 125 pounds of potential to the set that's 275 your hang snatching for three high hang snatching but yes and look but look. And look, but look at this. Look at the other people in these videos, Savant. These are just the

members of his team. He does this shit in the classes. It's a lead by example. Why, Ray, why did you, when you opened your second gym, why did you keep the CrossFit name? You already had one. Why pay two affiliate fees um

i suppose and was it and was it a struggle for you were you thinking that maybe i just won't do this one as crossfit no we wanted to keep the brand we have pride sort of like what you said um you know i i i do have pride in in taking part in a style of fitness that most people are maybe a little bit intimidated by or can at least acknowledge that it's very challenging. It's humbling. But also those members, they take pride in that. Again, we didn't start a gym. We bought a gym. We rebranded it.

We brought our methodology there um but but those people were doing crossfit we didn't want to we didn't want to pull the rug out on that and then also um and then also those members uh had some had done the open the open wasn't as celebrated as it is in in crston, the original Ocean State, but we were certainly going to bring that there. So we do the Friday night lights there. The Open is a big thing. We wanted to make that CrossFit. We wanted to keep going with CrossFit.

The affiliate fee is validated. And what do you get from that? Basically, a lot of people say it's a loyalty. So you like the name. You like representing the brand. I definitely like the name. I definitely like the brand. I don't get anything from CrossFit HQ.

So they're cute with calling it affiliate. I don't know. People say, oh, what is a franchise? No, it's not. A franchise is quality control. So somebody from corporate will go around to subway and make sure that there aren't rats running around the place somebody from corporate will go around to to to buffalo wild wings and make sure that that you know the the bartender

isn't you know spitting in the drinks so there's quality control right fuck there's no quality control in crossfit so i don't get anything out of them. I wish there was. I tell you what, every horse you've heard, even if that particular one was a lie, it's probably happened to somebody. It's probably true. And we got a shame in that name, and that sucks.

So I wish there was quality control. But they don't do any advertising for us, and I think that's a huge thing with franchising is, you know, you'll never watch the Super Bowl and see a CrossFit commercial, right? You'll never be driving down the road and hear on the radio a CrossFit commercial. The only time you ever see CrossFit commercials is on the Jumbotron in between events at Guadalupe or, or, or across the November, everybody there already knows this CrossFit.

Like who are you marketing to? Um, so I don't get anything out of CrossFit. Um, I, I definitely, again, it's kind of circling back to my rock bottom,

um, my rock bottom, my early twenties, you know, I was, I, I CrossFit saved my life for sure. If it wasn't to cross it

and i stayed doing what i was doing i'd be dead i i don't know that i i'm lucky i'm lucky i didn't wind up dead anyway but really why didn't so you get i don't get it why i don't get that go back to some of those people are unsavory people and you never know what kind of situations they may wind up in. You know, it, luckily things never went really wrong for me. Um, but, but I mean, aside from getting arrested, but a lot of, a lot of, a lot of the, the people that, that, that I used to hang around with back then did wind up, you know, when, when Percocets dried up, uh, went, went the heroin route and a lot of them passed away. Um, you know,

I've lost, I've lost a lot of friends with that, but, but CrossFit saved my life. And when you, by the way, just on a side note, when you say heroin, do you mean fentanyl? Uh, yeah, but yeah. Um, no, no, nobody, nobody really wants to do fentanyl. They, they, they started with Percocets and and that dried up, and they went to heroin, and now it's fentanyl. And then someone laced it with fentanyl, and they died. Hey, a lot of people, you know a lot of people who died? Like more than five?

Oh, shit. Family members? Any family members? Thank God, shit. Family members? Any family members? Thank God, no. That was a period of time in my later 20s. I was going on a funeral a year. But CrossFit saved my life. So I do have some loyalty to that. And I wouldn't be who I am if it wasn't for having gotten in trouble

and the ocean state community like some people could look at that and say oh what the fuck i didn't know ray was a fuck-up back in the day well lucky was well lit a fire under my ass to become the coach fleece as people know today so it is what it is um hey there's only two kinds of people man there's people who fucked up and have uh uh you straighten their straightened out and then there's people who are still fucking up so i don't trust anyone who who hasn't fucked up uh and had to straighten themselves out nobody like dylan pepper don't don't get it yeah like down fuck that dude everything or everything's way too good in his life so no so so cause it saved my life so that's that's that's one of the reasons for that brand

and fitness most certainly saved my life so that's that's why we do the move to heal program when we got involved with the move to your program because that is saving people's lives like every every week people are saying like this this program is what's keeping me off the ledge um but at the end hey you wouldn't be doing that program probably if you hadn't have gone through what you had gone through. Same thing with Matt Schindledecker. I don't know if you heard that show, but that dude's mom came onto a fucking school bus and killed a bus driver right in front of him. And that was 28 years of fucking trauma, and he didn't fucking know why he had to go through that in his life. And now today he's helping fucking thousands of kids based on that trauma he had. So, and those kids

wouldn't have that opportunity if Matt hadn't have had to go through that pain. You know what I mean? So it's like, fuck, he's an alchemist. And that's what you are too. You're an alchemist. You're, you're transforming what you, you know, your struggle into something positive. Well, that's,'s that that's what CrossFit has helped me with that's what fitness is helping with that's why I pay it forward and again the rock bottom is what ended up lighting a fire that led to who I am now um so that's that but as far as when I get out of CrossFit the name that's a marketing tool and that's the right to show up on Google. And we generate new members from two things. One is word of mouth.

The other is Google. And we always ask people, hey, how do you hear about us? And most of them say, oh, I Googled CrossFit or they heard about us. And when the Googling stops happening, when the CrossFit name is no longer worth $6,000 between the two affiliates a year because of marketing, then we'll reevaluate. But at this point in time, Google is our biggest recruit. If you think back, when Greg talks about the origins of CrossFit, he would say, you don't need a billboard. Every member is my walking billboard. But the world's

changed now. There's a lot of people that I think especially in the last couple years, people aren't going out in social settings the way that they used to. They're not even going to the grocery store the way that they used to anymore. And CrossFit has not responded in terms of marketing

to help affiliates in that regard. Ray says, yeah, some people hear about it by word of mouth, but a lot more people in the last three to five years are finding things online. CrossFit says some great stuff. At the end of the day, he started an amazing movement. I think there's a lot of the – I – you know, Glassman says some great stuff.

At the end of the day, he started an amazing movement. But I think there's a lot of things, a lot of practices, that are really just a denial of responsibility. So a big one is, you know, the answer to why is there no quality control and, like, his kind of philosophy of, like, survival of the fittest. Oh, if you're a bad gym and you don't have good hygiene habits and you don't have good coaching you don't have good um and you don't have good uh equipment and and and and whatever you're not gonna make it that that's his answer to that and i'm like okay that's true but in the process of that they're

gonna they're gonna give a lot. The problem is you nailed it. We all share the same name. So you're kind of – what you're saying might be true, but you're also fucking us. Exactly right. So here's CrossFit123. They suck. They got a bad coach.

He's a creep. He's sending dick pics to all the chicks. He's like – he's taking people's money and he's not showing up to class. He's just doing every horror story you've heard he's doing and he goes out of business cool in glossman's eyes all right well survival of the fittest out of business in my eyes i'm like 500 people walk through the door and now hate crossfit because of that douche and i they're wondering if ray's gonna send dick pics hey it's a it's a valid it's a valid point if you get a picture of my sausage it's my dog those are the people that were looking for ray flasher they didn't they forgot it was actually fleecer you're right ray tell me tell me about the um uh, on the other hand, I just want to say this.

Be careful what you ask for too because people always think the grass is going to be greener on the other side. And you think, okay, we're going to do a little quality control. And next thing you know, they got their thumb up your ass. You know what I mean? I totally agree with that. I totally agree with that. I wouldn't want somebody coming in. And maybe it's just because I believe that what i'm doing is a great job i think deep down we're doing a shit job they know they're doing a shit job but but i wouldn't want that

so on the one hand i'm like on the other hand hey it it's it's here i'll give you this too you want to just get crazy before i ask you what's level three there's all this talk about fucking um uh giving police more training listen dumb fucks the police don't need more training you as a society need more training you as a society need to fucking learn how to interact with cops you dumb fucks it's like bees you don't see a bee full of bushes and jump into it trying to get honey you stay away from that bush and you go to the store and get the honey. I'm not defending any bad action. They're fucking a necessary fucking evil. Leave them the fuck alone and learn how to deal with fucking cops.

Why is it always the same fucking person who's resisting arrest that ends up getting the fuck in their head kicked in? I've never – I never see the fucking video where 30 cops just show up to someone's house and beat the fuck out of them you don't see the black kid playing the tube on his front lawn and the cops go up and start beating them it's always like and maybe they tell you to get on the ground and you shouldn't get on the ground maybe but but hey you know how this plays out i know you own that bush and there's a thousand bees in it don't go over and tell them to get out. Anyway, I just get frustrated that society just wants to blame. There becomes a point where people need to take

some fucking personal or fucking responsibility. Be careful what you ask for. We got rid of cops in Portland and look what's happening. Murders up 422%. Oh, that was... You jackasses. Yeah, the scene in Rhode Island is not so great.

The scene in Rhode Island is not so great. Sorry, I didn't mean to drag you into my political ramp. It's okay. It's okay, yeah. Let's ask him about his level three. Okay, your level three. Easy, Sevan. Sorry.

I just, I'm just, I'm so tired. I want to see a video every day of cops doing good shit, not bad shit. And there's millions of them on YouTube. I'm going to start a series on my show. Cops that do good stuff. Fucking cops need more training. You jackasses need more training. Stop fucking having kids if you're not going to raise stuff. Fucking cops need more training. You jackasses need more training. Stop fucking having kids if you're not going to raise them.

Fucking idiots. Oh, my wife's not going to like that. She just told me last night to stop the name calling. Okay, level three. So you took your level three. Well, so I did a level one, and then... What year? 2012, I think.

Yeah, you talked about that. You scraped your, your, some of your minimal coin together to do it. Yes. Yep. And then it was, it's funny when I was, so when I started at Ocean State, a lot of members would say, oh, well, did you graduate from URI? And I said, no, I'm actually like, like, like you got like, you know, senior job out. I got one semester left. And they always said, Oh, we'll go back.

And at the time I said, well, Aaron, the owner of the gym, he's not going to pay me more if I go back and get my degree. So if you pay for it, I'll go, but otherwise I'm not going to go back. And I always planned on finishing my degree, but kind of one semester at a time, I just was real busy working and just knew that a degree in kinesiology would never actually give me anything because all that was left was the practical hours and i was already in the field so like well i'm gonna pay uri to do a semester of like intern

fuck that i'm already i'm in the field and that's kind of like a like hey word to anybody who may watch this and is thinking about being a trainer for a living don't go to school for kinesiology don't need that degree if you want to be a physical therapist you do but i did learn a lot but i also wasted a lot of money you know like i want to be a trainer and here i am paying the university of rhode island for western civ music theater spanish and i i got horrible grades in those classes because i didn't give a fuck because i wasn't there to do it so whatever college is another rant so across the level one and then there was a period of time where i wanted to set my game up a little bit my level one was starting to kind of like get close to expiring I think I was like three years in so I did the level two

and then then several years later I was thinking that I might want to get the level three but then I was kind of pushed because my level one was going to expire and I thought kind of having level two would push it forward

but apparently like if you. You're saying after three years, you got the level two, but your level one was still going to expire after five. Yeah. That. Yeah.

So, so yeah, that, so, so I got my level. Some of this has changed over the years. Four years later, I got my level two and that doesn't extend the life of the level one.

Your shelf life, your level one is still there. Fuck that. Anyway. So, so then I, the life of the level one your shelf life your level one is still there fuck that anyway so so then i i i'm like okay well what do i have to do to keep my credits and they're like well if you do the level three it extends the life of your level one i'm like well that makes sense i don't know why level two doesn't do that but whatever so i studied my fucking ass off for level three, which was a really shitty time to do it because it was 2018. I had a team that I was on for regionals and four individuals that made it to regionals and a master that made it to the games in the club that I was coaching,

Ocean State's Finals. Running those sessions, managing the team, and running the sessions with all the individuals, and then my normal coaching job and my normal personal training and everything. And so I'm already working 50-plus hours a week, and that's the norm for me. 50 to 60 is the norm for me and then

you throw in the competitors program during the season and that's on top i don't stop work to do that that just makes my saturday go from three hours to six hours and then maybe seven hours and then um we were also moving buildings that was the winter I was doing a build-out at the building we are now in, and I was going to have to be moving. So I've got my normal 50-, 60-hour work week. I've got the addition of training the competitors, and I'm also putting on some grinding clothes and going and doing construction at our soon-to-be building.

And now I'm getting the pressure from CrossFit saying, you need to do your level three or your level one's going to expire and explain to them, okay, we're in season. I'm the coach. Here's the team. Here's the individuals. Here's the place. I'm literally swinging a hammer and doing Can you, like, give me a couple months? And they were like, no, we can't do that.

This is the date. And I'm like, fuck you! But okay. Right, right, right. Hey, you should be in the movies. That was some Al Pacino shit. Say hello to my little gun. Say hello to my little friend. Yeah, it's good. What are you?

What's your ethnicity? What's your ethnicity? I'm a mutt, but a good amount of Italian is in there. Yeah, okay. But I ended up studying my ass off and I passed it. And that was a really proud moment for me. There's a picture of me with my test score on my Instagram from back then. That was a really proud moment.

Not just passing the L3, but the circumstances that I had to prepare for it. I was studying midnight to 4 a.m. before opening the gym. That was fucking brutal. I passed that. I thought that that lasted a really long time i didn't know how long that lasted um but i'm kind of like in the application to even like apply for the crossfit level three like you have to coach so many classes whatever like i don't know what it was at the time but i've coached over 10 000 classes and i hit that i think well i got 12 000 I think I hit 12,000. I hit 10,000 a couple years ago.

I've also taken CrossFit Strongman and CrossFit Kids. I heard CrossFit Kids is fucking amazing. Did you like it? Did you take CrossFit Old People too? The thing Matt Swift made up? I heard that's amazing. I have not. CrossFit Kids... I think that might be gone, by the way.

I heard that's as good as the L1. CrossFit Kids is awesome. I think that might be gone, by the way, but I heard that's as good as the L1. CrossFit Kids is awesome. That's kind of a separate point of station. It's hard to do a program, to allocate a room and a coach because there's a demand. We've got a bunch of kids within the community, but they don't all share the same schedule. So it's like Tim's parents can get in there on Tuesday. Billy's parents can get in there on Thursday. Cindy's parents can get her there in the morning. So it's like

to say, hey, we're going to do CrossFit Kids at 5.30pm. We've tried it. And maybe we'll try it again. And it's hard finding a transgender level one coach to teach your kids class. Well, by their reward, it would have to be me. Because I'm the one who got the cert.

And most importantly, I'm the one whose background. Make sure only transgender are teaching your kids stuff. Okay. Thank you. But then, you know, so last year, last year, two years ago, I forget exactly. Started getting heat from CrossFit again. It was during COVID that like, oh, your credentials are going to expire. I'm like, what the fuck? I'm a level

three, like I passed it. I'm actively working in the field. I get like if I like took the test, passed it and then I stopped working, but I'm working in the field. I've literally coached to the games since taking the other. Okay, what do I need to do to keep it? And they told me

the continuing education courses I had to take and they were seminars and I had to take several keep it and they told me the continuing uh education courses i had to take and they were seminars and i had to take several of them and i forget exactly what they were like a thousand dollars a piece and i had to take several of them and because of covid they weren't even in person they were online and i'm like hold on a minute yeah that sucks i'm like hold on i snatched 315 i clean and jerk 385 i literally coached and your bathrooms are clean you have hot clients that you don't fuck i mean you check all the bucks but now you want me to pay a thousand dollars to take the olympic weightlifting seminar i mean you're the same lifting coach now you want me to take the usa weightlifting seminar the the

crossfit weightlifting seminar give you another $1,000. But wait, it's online? It's not even in person? Once again, fuck that! So what did you do? Hey, can you take a level four and never have to deal with any of that shit again? Well, maybe, but I was in a pissing

match with him, and I dug my feet in, and I didn't bend. I lost my credential down to an l1 because or i guess l2 because an l2 is valid if you've got an l so you have your l3 but you're not allowed to tell anyone you have your l3 because you didn't do the follow-up you didn't maintain it yes he says well fuck all that i'm an l3 so no i'm sorry i didn't give crossfit an extra couple thousand dollars to do online seminars for shit. So when will your L2 now expire and then your L1 and then you'll lose

your gym? When my L3 was going to expire and I was getting in a pissy match with them, I'm like, guys, I'll pay you. If it's a matter of you just want money, I'll give you a thousand dollars to maintain my certification. I don't want to do

online seminars for content I already know. By the way, everything that's in those seminars is in the level three anyways. You have to read all the handbooks anyways. To pay money and do the Olympic weightlifting seminar through CrossFit, you have to learn that content for the L3 anyways. So I said, well, where can we go from here? They said you can do your L1. And I go, fuck you. Fine.

So I paid and I did the L1 again. Online? So it was so stupid. So I thought it was just going to be the test. So I did the test. And then I got an email from CrossFit saying, all right, you did like half of it, but you have to sit in on the webinar. And I'm like, wait, what? And they're like, well, yeah, the CrossFit level one is a live webinar. I'm like, guys. I would die if I had to sit through one of those.

So I sat through the L1 again. On general principle, I wasn't going to give CrossFit, like, I'm not doing a bunch more than 10 years to maintain the outfit. it like i'm not doing a bunch more than 10 years in the office hey this reminds me of people wearing masks on airplanes and everyone's like they made us do it it's like no if everyone just stopped flying they wouldn't have made you do it they would have had to fucking let up because they because they need people in those seats i feel like at some point there needs to be like dude you own two fucking affiliates you've taken taken the level one, level two, level three kids. You mentioned one more. I don't know if it was football or weightlifting.

It's like, when does it stop? So I think in this regard, I mean, I'm, I believe in some sort of continued education, but also like, don't make it feel like a money grab. No, but in this regard, you know, I, I believe when I took the level one that they said, we recommend 750 hours of coaching before you take your level two. And I took that somewhat seriously. I had a Google spreadsheet and I documented because I was like shadowing classes and I was coaching classes, but being observed.

And then eventually I started coaching classes and I documented all the way until I made it to a thousand hours. And I thought in my mind, okay, I've exceeded their recommendation. I've actually been in the field doing the thing. And now I feel like at any time going forward from now, I should be ready to take the level two. But you don't have to do that. There's nothing holding you accountable to those 750 hours.

It's just a recommendation. I think at the level three, there is some kind of stipulation where you have to be able to document that you've actually coached a certain amount of time. And what I don't understand is why the, if you want to maintain your level three, that you just have to keep coaching and you can just every year say here, here's my coaching log for the year. Good. You're good for one more year.

Well, they didn't see it though. I do see it that way. So I dug my feet in and I said, fine, what's the cheapest way i can maintain credentials to have my affiliate and they said retake dl1 and i said all right that's what i'll do hey do you have any burnout um i'm shifting subjects here i always think like like when i first found crossfit i wanted to open a gym so fucking bad and and like i used to just carry all take all my weights and stuff down to the field in the back of my truck and i would i probably met like 10 people who would work out with me every day there that I just met at this track, this public track in Berkeley. Carl was one of them.

You guess. Yep. And, and after about, I don't know, after about six months of that shit, I was like, okay, I'm like, I don't want to open a gym. And I always wonder like for you, like I'm like 25 to 30 seems like a good time to open a gym. And I always wonder, like for you, like I'm like 25 to 30 seems like a good time to open a gym. And then I would think that maybe you'd get burnt out or like want to be more ambitious. And for you, you've scratched that ambition, right? You've opened a second gym. You have the, that, that program that's two days a week, that's helping people you've, you've branched out and you have a Olympic weightlifting, you have all these you know different disciplines within but is there any advice you have for anyone who's 25 years old

and wants to jump in all in with the gym rent the space sign the five-year lease fucking get all the things the certificates buy the equipment like how do you stop from not getting burnt out being like okay i want to do something else i mean even the guy you bought the gym from, right? Both people, they were ready to move on, but you don't seem like you're ready to move on. You seem like at 35, you just keep reinventing what, what the gym is. Well, I think make sure it's not a flavor of the week. So the guy who started Ocean State, The guy who started Ocean State, he is a really, really, really passionate guy about whatever he's doing at the time. And he's a really smart guy, and he's very capable, I think is a good way to put it. Like, all right, he wants to start a gym and he is all in and he made it happen. He's like, when he says he's going to do something like he, when I say capable, like he can make it happen.

He doesn't talk about it for a long time. He gets shit done. But that wasn't his lifelong dream. He had done a couple of things before that and then in the time you know that i had worked for him and he was and he had switched over to online marketing went really really deep in with that and then switched over to real estate and he sold me my first house and went really really really deep in with that and um and if first house how many houses do you have uh well i moved out of that one uh first house and then where I live now. But it wasn't – and he didn't fail in a sense.

He sold it, but that wasn't his lifelong dream. That was his business that he was passionate about at the time because it was what he was doing. So for people who are going to get into this and don't want to fail, they need to either be incredibly capable like that guy was. You need to be able to build something really good in a short period of time and sell it like he did. Or you need to be like me and you need to be incredibly passionate and know that this is going to be your life. This is going to be your life for a really long time. It's going to be late nights. It's going to be incredibly passionate and know that this is going to be your life. This is, this is going to be your life for, for a really long time. It's going to mean late nights. It's going to be early mornings.

It's going to mean putting on a face when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're fucking dead and depressed and tired because people want to see coach ready. So you, you're going to put aside feelings. You're going to swallow so many frustrations. It is an emotion. Do you ever do that in your car? You pull up to the gym and you're like,

look in the mirror and you're like, hi coach Ray. And like, fuck with yourself. Like get yourself a pant pumped up. Um, no, you're not crazy.

No, it's more like, it's more like, um, just the pressure of like, so say I go to a wedding on a Saturday night and I go to coach on Sunday, like, and I'm not 100% me. And don't forget, when Ray goes to a wedding, he goes hard. Yeah, yes. Yeah, I believe it.

I believe it. But, you know, you get, hey, is everything all right, Ray? You weren't yourself today it's like started into a fucking backflip and i walked in the door you know what i mean like there's there's that pressure um but but you just you need you you need to be on and you need to be very accommodating with your schedule which pretty much means you you you live for it i don't know i think a lot of people think it's easier than it is i think i think a lot of people right it's some part-time oh i like fitness i'll open up a gym and i'll hire a coach and i'll coach a little bit i'll bring my dog and i'll put my baby in the stroller

over there it'll be cute and we'll love it not going to do well not not going to do well it's too competitive the days of you know the cross the floor when we're out of business the days of the of the crossfit in a box in a grimy little U-Haul with some old equipment and people with their shirts off and bracing the fact that they're doing burpees and getting covered and shit. Those days are done. Those days are done. That's not what it is.

You're not, that's not happening. You're like, why would somebody pay you to go to your gym when the gym around the corner has got nice equipment, got professional coaches, has bathroom showers, like, like those days are done so you you're not gonna you're not gonna it's not gonna be your side project like any advice to people getting into it don't don't

get into it if it's going to be your side project it's not it's not gonna work it's great to meet you ray great as well 105 minutes of well-spent time i really um i enjoy you you're a good dude i hope we get i wish you lived closer i'd hang out with you or if i try to hang out with you well if you're ever in rhode island yeah i don't even believe rhode island exists i think it's it's it's it's a split half of us belong to connecticut half of us belong to to massachusetts all right uh brian thank you for introducing me to ray well i think he's a good dude a lot of fun stories and one of the hardest working guys i know ray are do other affiliates are you comfortable with other affiliates reaching out to you and

asking for advice sure okay i mean my communication uh timing leaves a little something to be desired. It's just 600 members is, I think, a place between two gyms that a lot of people would like to get. And if you could, you know, I'm sure that people will be like, hey, any thoughts? Yeah. Again, just be ready to give it everything you have. I never stop trying. My partners, both of them, Jen and Dave and I and Smithfield, Dave and I and Cranston, we never stop investing in the gym, in our equipment, in our facility. I know that sounds cheesy and it sounds easy and it's like, well, duh, but we never stop trying.

And that's not true of everybody you can tell when the passion is left and people just stop giving a fuck you can see that um so again like that's that that's my advice just keep keep trying keep trying but yeah awesome brother thank you thank you for having me. Yep. Have an amazing day. You too. Take care, Ryan. Take care, guys. Bye. Oh, shit. Suits us here. Now, listen, you fucking jackasses. Where are we with this cop thing? I'm not saying that cops don't need more training.

It's all fucking relative. It comes down to this. Listen. Listen up. Cops need more training, David. Listen, you could get 90% of what you want if you train society. You're only going to get 10 percent of what you want from cops. It's just it's just you have to contextualize it and make it relative. The apps, you the story's always lopsided. Just put masks on people, give them injections, give them pills. Everything will be better. No consideration for what the consequences are. Just shut down all the schools. Everything will be fine.

That's the way you sound when you keep talking about cops needing more training out of this ratio of really if you just train society more and told society more how they need to behave around cops, which you never hear. You hear zero. This show is the only place you've ever fucking heard it. hear you hear zero this show is the only place you've ever fucking heard it you're fucking 28 year old fucking crossfitter you've never fucking heard until i just said it on this show it's a society that needs the training they need the training they bear the cops bear the sure train cops all you want all you want all you want all you want but i'm just saying if you want the most bang for your buck unfuck the citizens do you know the city of seattle is now fucking suing kia and hyundai because their cars are too stealable they're blaming the car manufacturer because your car is too stealable you remember it's not okay to blame women for getting raped, right? You jugheads.

That was a jump. Well, that's exactly the same thing. That's a leap. Hey, it's the exact same thing. You would never blame a woman for getting raped because she was wearing the fucking wrong clothes in the park at night. No. And why are you blaming the car manufacturer for their cars getting stolen? But cops do need more fucking training.

You jackasses. Fine. But it's irrelevant in the thing. It's irrelevant in the bigger scope of what the problem is in society. Yeah, I don't take it. Every single person who's taken a fucking L from the cops has fucking resisted arrest. Stop fucking resisting arrest.

Behave yourself. Stop stealing. Stop speeding. Stop, stop. Understand the social contract that we have with them they work for us you know we hired them right you know we need them you know if you just fuck them and throw them out it's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater zero to 100 savvy do you know the origin of that uh throw the baby out with the bathwater no i like

it is please tell me it's it. Please tell me it's totally inappropriate. Back to the Middle Ages time when people often bathed maybe once every six months. They had a hierarchy to bathing. It started with the man. Sometimes then the oldest son, the wife, was probably up towards the beginning and the baby was last when the water was black because they all used the same tub because they only had access to it once every few months. Yeah. And when you went to dump it out, don't throw the baby out with the bath water wow so it was real i am no thing which is different than nothing logan mars it's been a while buddy i remember when we used to be friends i know i feel like i haven't seen him in the chat in a while someone's mustache was his filter and now that it's gone it's all coming out oh shut it i don't want to fucking

hear a thing just tell me how great i am that's it that's all i want in the um in the comments well yes let's focus on brian so brian um i was supposed to ask you uh can i ask you about it now while we're online or do i'm going to ask you about it later? You can ask me, I guess. So, so trolling the leaderboard. Tell me about that. That was something we used to do that back in the day. That was how we met.

Trolling the leaderboard. I like that. You were doing the CrossFit podcast. It was 2018 and all of it. And I was following along pretty closely. And much like the podcast now, your podcast was called The CrossFit Podcast, but you spoke to a variety of different people and I felt like I was learning a lot through it.

And then all of a sudden, Trolling the Leaderboard 18.1 pops up as an episode. And I thought to myself- Who was on that episode with me? Matt Bischel. And I don't know who the- We didn't know shit about the games. We just pretended like we knew.

You had free reign. You just did whatever you wanted. And I was like, this is it. And I was sitting at the place I was living in Naples, Florida at the time. And I remember thinking to myself, yes,

finally, a person who actually has a platform has the, and has free reign and unlimited time resources, the ability to look at more of the stories on the leaderboard than just the who won the workout this week story. But everyone in the comments might be super surprised at this moment that you barely talked about the open leaderboard at all. You got way off topic, talked about anything. And I was sitting there making notes. I was like, God damn it. There were so many good things he could have talked about here. And I wrote down like a page

of notes. And then I said, you know what? I'm going to take a chance. So I DM'd you with three ideas. And I said, Hey, trolling the leaderboard. Great idea. But you really got off topic there and look at some of the meat you left on the bone. And you responded, damn impressive. Send me more. I'll never forget it. Damn impressive. Send me more. So next week, God, I'm so humble. Next week that the leaderboard finalizes on, it was on the evenings then Monday night, 8 PM Eastern time. And I stayed up to like 2 AM scouring, looking for notes, whatever. And I typed up all this stuff and sent it to you. Trolling the leaderboard 18.2. You printed off my notes. I couldn't believe it. You printed off my notes. You open the podcast. You go,

some guy on Instagram, Brian, Brian friend told me that we have a good idea, but we did a shitty show. He gave me, he gave me notes that can make our show better. So we're just going to try it. The whole show, you just read off my notes. And then that was like, yeah, that's awesome. Three weeks later, I was there in. And that's when I left you. I invited you out there, but I was I left town. That's what I was going to say.

I was like, didn't you go all the way there? And he wasn't there. I go all the way there. I'm like, OK, it's going to be me and Matt and Sevan. It's going to be fun. And I'm prepared. And Tommy Mar marquez walks out he goes brian i'm like yeah he goes seven had to had something to do for greg he's not gonna be here and i'm just like two things i'm like one like that's tommy marquez who at that time was the like the only guy doing that and the guy

that i looked up to as as the what I would love to be in the sport. And two, the guy who invited me out here isn't even fucking here. And then he goes. I was probably sitting first class having a fucking, what's the red drink called that's made of tomato juice? Bloody Mary. It's probably on my third Bloody Mary on first class flight somewhere. He didn't remember until two days later when he got home. then he goes yeah but it's all it's all good we'll do we're gonna do the podcast official's gonna host it to me you and me and i'm thinking oh no

like now i have i'm gonna go on this live fucking podcast with tommy marquez like i'm fucked i thought i was fucked i was like there's no way he knows everything it's his job to know everything but we had a good show anyway my idea is that we should bring it back. I think we should do a trolling the leaderboard this year. So, so what, so, so basically every leaderboard five years later. So every, um, um, Monday night after the leaderboard finalizes. Yeah. We just hop on.

I have a couple of ideas of people we can bring out with us and we'll just, yeah. I love it. The untold stories on the leaderboard.izes, we just hop on. I have a couple of ideas of people we can bring out with us and we'll just look for the untold stories on the leaderboard. And if we start setting it up ahead of time, people can even feed us some stuff to help guide the conversation because there's so many people who do it in so many stories that we wouldn't even know to look for otherwise. Yeah. When is the first... I've already written out an entire list of dates and times that I'm going to send to you guys later today. Oh, God. You're such a beast. You're a beast, dude.

You're a beast. Hold on one second. That's my breakfast date finishing podcast. I was just going to go on like a random like how you did right when it stopped in a breath. Look, people, if you want to change anything around you, you need to start by changing yourself. That means excellence and anything you bleed and breathe. It needs to happen. And if you're not taking your training seriously as a law enforcement officer, there's no way society will ever step up and treat you the way that you need to be

treated. So remember law enforcement officers, it starts with your culture and setting your house in perfect order. Train. Don't be fat. Be prepared. Don't be fat. Do you guys see the New York minute? I did. I did. I did. Those are the guys, the FDNY guys that I've got had a relationship over the last couple of years. And they sent me that the other day. I thought that that was pretty cool. I mean, they are doing what Sousa just talked about. They are preparing themselves every day for whatever happens when they walk out that door on a call.

Good deeds. Listen, John Mulligan, I'm not sure if I understand this, but I retired with 23 years with the sheriff's office. Training will help, especially jujitsu. Hit the job makes good people go insane. Yeah, that is the thing that other people don't realize also i don't know if he's saying this but i'll tell you this being a cop will make you insane you are dealing with a lot of fucking bad people over and over and over and over i'm not saying i'm not saying that there's shouldn't be any accountability from the police that there shouldn't be more training that there's not bad cops i'm saying it's so disproportionately talked about. That's all I'm saying.

I'm saying is like, hey, dude, we would get more way more bang for our buck if we just stopped looking at cops and society did its part. Have either of you ever had more bang for its buck? Yeah. Have either of you ever had someone with a military background or law enforcement background? Have you ever watched one of them teach a Turkish get up? Can't say that I have now. No, maybe. I'm sure I have. I'm sure I have. So somewhere I've seen someone. Oh, yes, of course I have. Yes. Yes. I took my seminar from Jeff Martone. I took the fucking kettlebell seminar from Jeff Martone.

The first the first time i said that that happened it totally like changed the concept not just of that movement for me but of like moving in general when i'm working out into something that was practical and applicable to a real world scenario and he was basically describing that same movement of getting off the ground in a way that you you could do it with a gun or if someone else has a gun or in a hand to hand situation and then it like i don't, it just changed my thinking about movement in general. What is the first date on this? I'm just for my own.

Do you have it? What would be the first? When does the open start? The actual like. Oh, the first open workout will be announced on the 16th of February. So we would do our first show on the 23rd? Or we would start in? Oh, we could do the first one on the 16th.

No. I got it for you. We don't need to talk about that here. Okay, I'm excited. I'm pumped. We should block those dates off, Susan because we're we're filling up fast i cannot fucking believe the people we have coming on this show do you know who we have on tomorrow brian jake locker yeah have you ever seen him i don't think he's ever been interviewed

i mean he uh if people if you follow the mayhem programming if you receive it i think that you will probably get a visual interaction with him quite often. Outside of that, you probably have maybe seen some of the stuff on the blogs that they do. But in terms of finding out who he is, I don't think so. Yeah, I'm pretty pumped for that. Do you have – no. I don't have Dave on today. I don't know when Dave's coming on, but he's coming on soon because I'm putting in a lot of effort. You know what the last thing I have to do is i have to take this desk right here

and move it over here and i'm really nervous to do that one because it's like probably thirty thousand dollars worth of fucking gear i have to move and because what what if it ends up not looking good and i have to move it all back? I have, I have like part of my OCD thing is I can't ever backtrack. Like if I miss a freeway exit, I can't just turn around and come back. You can't explain it right now,

but I hate backtracking. Like we need to dig into that. I hate backtracking. I cannot, I have an issue with backtracking. Hey, why don't you think of it like a slingshot? You know,

sometimes you got to go backwards to really propel yourself even further forward. Quit being a baby, so on. I know. I have so many excuses. Idiosyncrasies. Yes. The Sigmund's daughter interview was stellar. Yeah.

Brian upped his game. Brian was very happy. Even my mom said, wow, Brian was really happy. He was very happy. Even my mom said, wow, Brian was really happy. He was very happy. I text Snorri after that one. And I just said, you know, every time we get a chance to talk to her, I'm more and more impressed. And I know she doesn't do a lot of those. So if you are, yes, we, you know, uh, I think you get to see a lot of who she is and how she's grown as a person outside of, of CrossFit, CrossFit in the conversation we had. I like her.

I'm flattered that we get to have her on. Peter Shaw, please have Dave on as often as possible. I'm going to, Peter. Thank you for saying that. I'm totally going to. Pete Shaw, you know who that is, right? Yeah. He's a beast too.

Yeah, he is. Canadian guy. Like one of Canada's only cool people. Sarah makes people happy. All right. Brian, thanks for coming on. Tomorrow morning, Jake Lockhart. Are you coming on for that?

So people can make fun of you for not talking? no uh i wanted to listen to ray i know ray really well i thought it would be fun to see you guys interact and i figured that on the back half i'd be able to help out a little bit more i'd ignore those people those people are stupid i like looking at you you're fun to look at i wore a fun colorful shirt today just because i knew i wasn't going to say much yeah seven hey uh wait uh seven has a calming effect seven has a calming effect on the entire seven podcast sarah she does not have a calming effect shut your pie hole oh it's over show's over okay uh thank you very much, everyone. Susan, thank you for not cutting your hair. Brian, thanks for coming on. It's always exciting.

My sister says, Brian, you're a class act. And everyone, buh-bye.