The Sevan Podcast - Justin Dewing | Fittest Cop in America - Trains with Mat Fraser

Episode Date: November 12, 2023

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Save on home and auto like only you can at tdinsurance.com slash ways to save. TD. Ready for you can you hear me yeah i got you just fine question one is razor shorter than stevan uh no but i do look into his eyes But he's definitely not shorter than me When you met him was he shorter than you thought he would be Um

No I mean I knew he was about like Was he 5'7 Is he that tall okay yeah I'm 5'5 Okay I think he's about 5'7 I mean he's significantly shorter than me How tall are you? I'm about 6'0".

Oh, shit. Like, I have a picture when I was up there next to Jason, and I think he's a little bit taller than me. But we're, like, towering over Matt. Yeah, there you go. God, you know what was crazy, Justinin when i saw um when i was back there at the games and granted you know she had been she'd been working hard i saw catra next to matt yeah and when cat you know she's i don't know eight workouts into the weekend and she's just

swole i mean everyone got crazy swole but she looked she even looked massive next to matt yeah massive yeah it was nuts yeah yeah well grant too and you know in mass defense too he's he's been injured with that knee injury for a while um so he lost some weight just from not working out as much he looks great yeah hey i bet you i bet you he feels great too i bet you he feels incredible like just not know, maybe not psychologically. I don't know if he works out for medicinal reasons, but he looks great. And it probably feels good to be lighter, right? And he definitely didn't get fat, so his eating's tight.

I mean, he looks great. No, like he, I would be shocked if he still couldn't qualify for a semifinal at this point. Well, now everyone can. Justin Dewing, thanks for coming on the show. I'm trying to remember. I don't remember exactly how you popped up on my radar, but what a cool thing you do. You are a father.

You're still an active duty police officer? Yep. I work for Arlington, Texas Police Department. I work for their SWAT team full time. Is SWAT team full time or SWAT team just – I always thought SWAT team was like something that you're a cop and then you're SWAT on the side. That's what you do like two hours weekend, once a month or something. Yeah, I guess it depends on the actual city size. Right.

In Arlington, they have that. They have a part time team. We actually have two part time teams. We have two full teams in the Arlington Police Department. So like kind of where you start out is trying to get on to the part-time team. And as openings come up and people move to other spots from the full-time team, they just backfill it with part-time guys. How long were you on the part-time team?

I got on there, I think it was January of 2019. So, a few years. And then in 2022, you were the CrossFit Games Fittest Cop in America Was that the That was the last year they didn't do Occupational games in 2023 No they didn't Yeah I think 2022

They had it I think in 2021 I didn't do it in 2021 But 2022 was the last year they did it How cool was that Were you pretty stoked on that? Fittest cop in America from no doubt the most legitimate measurement of fitness on planet Earth today. That's pretty fucking cool. Yeah, I thought it was a neat concept to throw in there, especially when you look at the professions that were categorized within that,

you know, fire, police, military, EMS. I think they had like doctors and nurses in there too, and teachers, I think. School teachers, yeah. Yeah. Nurses, doctors, they had all that. Yeah. And I thought it was before the occupational games came out, I'd always said it would be interesting to see, to test yourself among other police officers within the world, essentially. do the the constant just adrenaline spikes and dumps and spikes and dumps working crappy hours it it surely is going to affect your your ability to perform with recovery and all these things

um so i always thought it was a neat concept and when they came out with it i thought it was i thought it was great and then and then also all the gear the demands of the gear maybe not so much with um a lot of those jobs but definitely fire uh definitely uh military definitely uh police officers you guys are just carrying a bunch of on you all the time oh yeah yeah just for going from basic patrol uh patrolman just the duty belt alone, just constantly weighing up, weighing down on your hips. And, you know, a SWAT,

we wear a lot more armor. Um, so that, that'll weigh down on you. What is the SWAT? What is the SWAT outfit way? The whole, the whole shebang with the gun and everything you're,

you're running up the stairs to get positioned somewhere. How much, how much additional stuff is on you? Uh, I know that. So I weigh about two Oh five5 without anything and with all of my gear so that's just the plate carrier there like with all my actual gear if i'm on a call um the vest is heavier your helmet rifle everything i think i weigh about 260 to 265

wow that's no joke and that's average weight on the team. So, so, so 60 pounds of stuff. What's the heaviest thing, the gun or the bullets? No, the armor, the armor, your vest, your vest just has all this stuff hanging off of it. Do you put that on every day? Do you put that on five days a week at some point during the day no so we we run plate carriers if we're just out in the street um just because it's way lighter um but if we're on a any kind of operation that's that's what we throw on is the heavy vest and get everything on um can you tell me what a typical day is like for a full-time SWAT team guy? When I think of SWAT team, I think of you as like firefighters,

just like sitting in a room playing cards, and then a bell goes off and you guys run out. But I'm guessing it's not like that. It honestly depends just on the warrants that we serve and operations that we plan is based off of other investigative units. So you do warrants too i get i let me take you back even so what is SWAT team because in my mind SWAT team is like hey there's a dude who's crazy in a house and you guys have to like cordon off the area around and then like wait for him to come out or shoot him if he walks in front of a window like that like yeah so that's that's

what everyone thinks of SWAT like the we call it barricaded persons um or like hostage rescue type stuff um but we we run planned warrants so like I said like the investigative units like like taking a narcotics unit they do their case they get a warrant signed by the judge and now we run the warrants to secure location how about the mayor how about the mayor of New york who they just took his cell phones away from him was that SWAT team that did that like they just walked up to him on the street and grabbed his shit and they're like hey dude we is that a SWAT team would you ever do that just walk up to a they're like hey we got a warrant on this politician would you guys know probably be

the investigative unit um oh yeah here ken says it was the fbi okay there you go um yeah there has to be a certain um threat matrix like a certain number on a threat matrix where it's dangerous just dangerous enough or way too dangerous for anybody else to be able to go and serve the warrant or do this operation so they bring in swat just because of the special skill sets that we have and that we train on in order to uh is that the oh risk assessment warrant for property warrant for crime against person warrant for major drug possession section two warrant for property crime warrant for crime against the person let me

let me tell you something let me ask you something practical yeah let's say two months prior they found a dead person in my rental car and then they found out that the person i'm dating is and you have a warrant for the person i'm dating and you're going to come to my house and you know the person I'm dating is a known drug dealer and someone who carries a gun. But you have to go get them with a warrant. Is that SWAT team? Yeah, under that criteria, we're going after a murder suspect that would be SWAT. Well, you're not going after the murder suspect. You're going after the murder suspects. murder suspect you're going after the murder suspects may uh it's not you're going after the murder suspects but basically that was the i'm talking about the brianna taylor case they found

a dead body in her car two months prior and then when they went to her house they were going to get her her boyfriend's house they're going to get the boyfriend who is a known drug dealer who is known to be carrying weapons yeah i've seen that that would be a SWAT team that goes and gets that guy right yeah so based off all that intel, weapons and history, criminal history, all that stuff, that's what helps formulate the matrix and what number to go off of if we're going to call SWAT or not. So do you have engagement with bad guys every day? Is your job like that? On the SWAT team, not as much as the proactive team I used to be on when

I was on part-time SWAT um that unit is they're strictly a think of like a major street crimes proactive unit like they don't answer calls for service we go through the entire city basically going to where all of our shootings, stabbings, robberies, stolen cars, all the bad stuff you can think of. That's where that team went. So I was dealing a lot more with like bad guys and criminals and like on a daily basis there, you know, foot chases, car chases, starting to work barricaded persons,

all that stuff. That was almost a, you know, nightly thing. Justin, if you go after someone who has a warrant, does that mean they already had an opportunity to turn themselves in and they didn't? So then like,

now you're like, you're going to get them. Yeah. Typically the investigator will try and contact them to let them to – Okay, show up and turn yourself in. Right. So by the time it's come to you, it's like, hey, this person is probably not going to – they don't want to go. Right.

Not that anyone wants to go. Right. Well, people do. People do turn themselves in. Do you ever – do you know about the cases? You ever rolled up on someone and you're like, i don't really want to take this person like like you get there and like it's like a mom for shoplifting not that i'm condoning shoplifting at all but you get there and she's breastfeeding and you got to take her in and you're like oh fuck what the fuck is this um there's somewhere

there's somewhere they're similar to that situation, for sure. A judge still has signed a warrant for their arrest, so they have to go to jail. But we'll do everything in our power to help them make accommodations or anything before we leave the scene, things like that, to help out. Because we are put in crappy situations like that sometimes but what about what about this what about this um i was i was filming a this is years ago maybe i don't know 10 years ago i was filming this guys i used to film people's like grow how i had this side hustle where i would film people's like marijuana grows and then i would and then i

would put like 10 marijuana grows on one dvd and 10 marijuana grows on one DVD and then put them on eBay and sell them. So if you were, I guess, an indoor fucking farmer, you could buy my DVD and see how other people were doing it. And I was at this guy's house filming his setup. It was massive, and he was stealing electricity, which is really bad. That's a pretty serious crime and he said that uh a week or and this is when it was like crazy legal this is when washington state had laws before it had turned to pure anarchy and i go in the house and i film and the guy's crazy and he said that the fbi was there two weeks earlier looking for his stepson who was robbing banks on the west coast of the united states i was like oh shit and then the fbi left and they didn't they didn't charge him for anything for the weed or for the stealing

electricity or anything because they they they were like focused on what they wanted do you ever does that ever happen to you too like you like like you go to a house to get someone and then there's like a fucking meth lab in the bathroom and you're like um not to that extent no typically no um now are there i'm you know in arlington we're smack in the middle between Fort Worth and Dallas. Are there houses in Arlington that are like that? I'm sure there are. But typically, we're going after, on SWAT at least, we're serving the warrants that are like the shootings, the robberies,

the stabbings, those kinds of things, where they have an arrest warrant for that person, and then they also have a search warrant for their location for whatever evidence they need for the case. Yeah. Hey, is that plant alive behind? Is that a real plant behind you or a fake plant? No, it's a fake plant. Oh, okay. Who bought, who bought, what's the origins of that? Why would you buy a fake plant? I can't keep it up. I got too much stuff to keep up with. I can't be watering my plants. My wife's too busy. How old are you, Justin? I'm 32. And were you athletic? Are you born and raised in

Texas? Are you a Texas kid? No. Well, I was actually born in California. My father was in the Navy, so we bounced around a lot when I was younger, but I mainly grew up in Wisconsin. And when did you move to Texas? Did you move there for the job? Yeah, I moved down here in 2016, January of 16. And is that when you first became a cop? Yeah, yeah, I moved down here. I got the job and they told me the academy starts in two weeks. Can you be here? And I was like, yeah, I'll be here. So I packed up my little Chevy Cruze at the time and moved down here. And did you have your wife at that point? No, no, no. I met her in 2018.

So you were living in Wisconsin. Can you tell me the story? You're just a dude living in Wisconsin. Had you already gone to a police academy in Wisconsin? Tell me the story. You're just a dude living in Wisconsin. Had you already gone to a police academy in Wisconsin? No, I was actually I had my EMT license. I was trying to be a firefighter. I was looking into it and there was still something kind of missing for me, but still knew I wanted to be in a profession that was similar. And so I just started looking at policing and then I wanted to get out of the snow and I love Texas. So I started looking at just departments in Texas and alphabetically Arlington was in the 80s. Oh, yeah. I started looking up that, you know, good pay, good retirement. And they were the first one I landed on that didn't do the written test.

Because if I'm going to, you know, I was I was just out of college. I didn't have a whole lot of money. And so if I'm going to take, you know, a flight or two down to Texas and spend the money, I want to put my face in front of a couple of people rather than just a name on a piece of paper. Um, and so I just, you know, went through like a month, month and a half long process of that and got hired on and moved down here. Explain that to me again. I'm not following the written test. So normally if you want to apply to a police, I don't know, I guess if you want to apply for a job to be a police officer, you have to fill something out online and you didn't want that. You wanted a live interview just right off the bat. Yeah, there's like service tests that you basically take a test and you'll get graded just like anything else on that test.

And your name just happens to fall. And if you're within that certain range of applicants, the number that they're looking for to bring on for an interview, then you'll get an interview. I wanted to eliminate that first step because my chances would be higher if I would just show up in person for a department, knowing I had to pay for one or two plane tickets with not having a whole lot of money. And so that's why I just did that. I just went down alphabetically, found Arlington. It was a good city, could pay all that stuff and applied. Hey, it's kind of crazy, right, that you did that. It's a pretty hardcore leap of faith because that shit doesn't transfer.

So you could have gone down there. I'm making the presupposition that as a cop there it's it's this it's a 20 it's a 20 year job minimum and so you sign i have friends who are cops places and there have been a cop for like six years in one spot and then the cost of living here in california skyrockets and they're like fuck i want to move like why don't you they're like because i don't want to lose my six years yeah so so you go down there never being down there get the job you kind of got the job on the do they say hey we'll hire you if you pass the academy is that how that works no so in arlington they they host their own academy some departments do they'll send you off to an academy but arlington hosts their own and so basically the time that your start date in the academy, you're

a hired employee. You're not a sworn in officer yet. You have to go through the academy, but they are paying you salary as an employee of the city. So do you just send a picture with your shirt off and you're like, here I am? That's the only thing I sent. There you go. Like, don't be stupid. I'm gonna go to fort worth if you don't pick me yeah so you go down there and you do the interview and they say okay justin uh doing we we dig you uh we're gonna start paying you the the money go to the academy don't fuck up and we'll see you on the other side and get you on the street basically yep and how long is that academy um it was just over six months at the time

just about so then you get you go on the you become a cop and then we kind of i don't know if we're out the other side of it yet but then we went through this kind of two years of just cop hatred were you did you ever think oh what did i do i chose that like a job that the whole society like you're doing your i think of being a police officer i think of being a citizen is like you have a we have some duties and some obligations you know like take your trash out um don't park in front of other people's mailboxes like so you know so the male lady can just pull up and dump the shit in there and leave like we just kind of got like these partnerships right cop talks to you you you know you say hi you lady can just pull up and dump the shit in there and leave. Like we just kind of got like these partnerships, right? Cop talks to you,

you, you know, you say hi, you wave, say they ask you to stop. You stop like just some things that allow shit to function. Right. That's the way like someone's broken down in the road. You don't just speed around and you roll down your window.

You say, what's up? You need help. Right. Basic shit. But that kind of went out the window uh there was like this two year two year campaign i feel like straight through covid where it was like you were seeing shit like defund the police yeah and did that suck did you ever think when that started this whole campaign against that occupation were you like oh no what did i do like no i just you're always going to go through these i mean historically policing has gone through

these pendulum swings if you will do they tell you that in the academy hey just so you know there could be like there's up and downs in our societal popularity no i mean no no they didn't really say anything like that in the academy, but it's just one of those things that, you know, I mean, most times when you're stopped by the police, you know, everyone expects to get a ticket, right? That's not always the case, but, you know, and every time you run into an officer showing up.

And let me add this. Most times you know that you did something wrong too. Right. You know that your registration something wrong, too. Right. You know that your registration's out, your taillight's out. You know that you rolled through that stop sign. Right. You know what I mean? You know that you yelled out the window, fuck off, and now they're coming to ask you, hey, what's up?

Everything good? Yeah. You know? And then it's the same when, like, you get a dispatch call and you show up to somebody's house, too. They're not really thrilled that you're there. Right. Um, so there's always that stuff.

Right. Right. Especially if you're a young male, you don't want to deal with cops. Cause you, you know, you're probably up to something. Right.

Cause that's what we do. We're up to shit. If we're not doing something, we're up to something. Right. Right. Um, but no,

I mean, it always goes through these, these swings and it's kind of you know at the end of the day you kind of have to as a police officer sit back and really remember why you started in the first place um and i'm sure you know 99 of police officers started because they wanted to help people and whether that's you know helping people with um community work or helping people by this dude just robbed me can you help me and go get him um so when you kind of look back and think on the reasons why you started it makes things a little bit easier to kind of get through especially during when we go through a little bit harder times um this um this isaiah 6 8 you have on your instagram it says uh it says then i heard the voice of the lord saying whom shall i send and who will go for us and i said here i am send am, send me. Is that right?

Yeah. Yeah, that's one of the verses that. Damn, Caleb, you good. I didn't even send you the show notes. You good, Caleb. Yeah, that's one of the verses that kind of stick in my head. Well, you just kind of said it in your own words, right? Right.

That's why you, did you become a cop because you read this or you found this after you were a cop i found i actually found this during the academy um so i'd already became became a cop or was in the academy down the road yeah um but i saw this and i was like yeah like this is this is it. This explains it perfectly. So it's always it's always stuck with me. Do you hold on? Hold on. Good morning, David. Ladies, find yourself a man that loves you as much as Sevan loves cops. Judy Reed, Sevan justifying for always calling the cops

his civic duty I go through these ebb and flows of the chat being nice to me and we're on a real down it's become very trendy to be abusive to me yeah so you go through the same thing you go through that present thing I'm on a low here

you yeah i'm on a low here um you um did you have a tendency to help people um before you were a cop did you like are you like i give you an example um someone in line someone's in line in front of you and it's a cash only place and they don't know it and you know it and so you pay for their shit or like you see a lady like struggling to get her trunk open and she got – holding the cart in one bag of groceries. You run over or like you – is that you already? What signs of you – what signs did you know that like, okay, I'm made to help people? I mean I just – that's kind of how I grew up. Just common courtesy things.

Like that's how I look at it is like those are like common courtesy like helping people um like if you have the awareness to see someone needs help act on it right um yeah and like that's just kind of how i grew up um like sports i take it in sports um quite a bit like i did sports growing up my entire life i did about every sport growing up and it was always, you see someone struggling, like when your teammates struggling, you know, to me, it was like, it was reluctant, reluctant upon me to go over and help them in any way that I could to make them better and to make our team better.

It's kind of that same concept I look at as policing. It's no different. What sport did you play? Growing up? Yeah. I did every, like when I was little, I did every sport. I played ice hockey, football, basketball, soccer. I did swimming, ice hockey. I didn't say that already.

You think you became a cop to scratch that itch that you just want to be on? Part of it is you just want to be on the team. That's part of it. I mean, look where I'm at now. I'm on a SWAT team. I work closely with 11 other guys on our team. So there's always that team environment I've always surrounded myself with, for sure. Are a lot of the guys on the team religious?

Is that a component of the team? A lot of the guys on the team religious? Is that a component of the team? A lot of the guys are Christians? I would say most are. They have some sort of background, religious background, what they believe in. But we're also a bunch of type a dudes that try and get after it. So it's, uh, it's, it's interesting for sure. Um, how did you meet your wife?

Through CrossFit. At the gym, at the affiliate. Yeah. So we were at, uh, both had a different affiliate at the time, and we had met, and after a date or two, I think it was maybe eight months to a year, I had moved up closer to her. That's where we started both going to our new gym, Cowatown CrossFit. Sorry, say that again. Where did you meet her then? we started both going to our new gym, uh, Cowatown CrossFit. And, uh, Wait, wait, sorry. Say that again. Where did you meet her then? So I met her at a gym. Uh, it used to be called Rocket CrossFit. Um, that was down closer to Arlington. And then when I moved up closer to her, But how did you meet her there? If it wasn't your gym,

were you doing a comp there? No, no. Rocket Crossfit was my gym oh i lived in arlington at the time because i was working for arlington right we lived up closer like north fort worth okay um but she had a connection to work at rocket as well as a coach oh oh oh okay okay okay she was your coach was she coaching classes you were taking? She was coaching classes. I never really did a whole lot of classes that we had a small group that just like to work out a lot. And so they had a kind of a open gym room in the back or area that we would always go to. And that's where we would basically work out a lot. And you saw her and you're like okay i'm gonna i like this

yeah basically yeah and so yeah so then i moved up and then um now we both go to cow town crossfit which is in north fort worth um and we started going there for a while and then we ended up uh well we tried to get married in covid uh we had a big wedding planned and then we ended up uh well we tried to get married in covid uh we had a big wedding planned and then that all went to shit when covid happened so but later that year we ended up getting married um well we got married initially and then we had a big wedding celebration later that year was that money well spent i hate the thought of a big wedding i just hear money flushing down the toilet but everyone's always like no it was fun it was i mean it was good but like we we got married we still kept our original date when canceled everything and it was

just like it was in her mom's front yard it was on her grandparents anniversary oh we just had like her mom and my mom and a couple i like that family and it was real we spent like 150 bucks on that one and it was real nice yeah that's my kind of a wedding 150 bucks i like that yeah yeah it was it was great and in the front yard i like that too that's cool that's gangster that's like that's like ethnic shit yeah so That's gangster. That's like ethnic shit. Yeah. So that's at our big meeting. Did you have a lowrider parked out front?

But yeah, that one there, that one's from the wedding we had in September. Actually, that was on my birthday too. Was that her? Why did you have a second wedding? Was that her idea or your idea? Why did you have a second wedding was that her idea or your idea or how do you how do you why did you have a second wedding like i want to squirrel that money away no yeah i have that shirt i have that shirt you're wearing that crossfit regional shirt crazy yeah baseball tee i have that somewhere i probably still have some in plastic bags i have

so much crossfit clothes okay sorry so so so why did you have the second wedding well so the our big celebration wedding we had already basically had everything set for it uh the wedding venue was willing to work with us on just moving the date that they had available yeah and the only one that happened to have was on my birthday so we just we had already paid the money oh okay okay and so was on my birthday so we just we had already paid the money oh okay okay and so it was like okay well the bad decision had already been made yeah um so we just moved the date and kept everything the same and um you know whoever could make it could make it whoever couldn't couldn't how did you find crossfit i found it in college back in the fall of 2011 i think

um i was doing personal training at a gym and you know i was used to the standard like bodybuilding splits like back and bys day chest and tri day and the head did you do legs yeah you did your legs yeah yeah in a machine like in a machine laying on your back like that one the leg press one or did you do like proper squats and stuff yeah i did a little bit of everything i tried to mix it up with that um but the head trainer um one day slid a piece of paper over to me. And it was all that was written on it was Fran, like the workout Fran 21, 59 thrusters and pull-ups.

He's like, I want you to do only this today and go as hard as you can. And that'd be it. And looking at Fran on paper, if you're, you know, he's like, you look at it and it's like,

that's nothing. I'm used to these hour, hour, 15 hour and a half workouts. I don't want to do that. So I didn't, and I actually went home, and on ESPN2, the 2011 CrossFit Games were on rerun, and I watched it for hours. Like that same day? Yeah, that night.

Like the stars were aligned? Yeah, that night it was it was uh it was on i watched it for hours and so i went online and i didn't know what a hero workout was at the time and so i picked a workout that looked hard on paper and it was the workout um like a real workout not this pussy fran stuff it was it was it was santiago it was like dumbbell hang squat cleans pull-ups handstand push-ups which I had never done before uh power cleans which I had hardly done before uh and I was doing it with like the steel 45 pound plates in your typical gym of course let me ask you this really quick when he handed you uh um uh we'll look at Santiago once again when he handed you – we'll look at Santiago one second. When he handed you the Fran, did you know what a thruster was?

No, I asked him what a thruster was. Okay, okay. So you were that green. Okay, me too. That's how I found it too. Okay. And then so then you chose this because Fran wasn't challenging enough. I totally understand.

The first time I did Fran, it took me like 30 minutes, and I was like, I guess that's cool. I didn't know you were supposed to do it for time. I did it with a buddy, and we did it like a bodybuilding workout he did some thrusters i did some and we took turns and then we walked over you know what i mean we just yeah we didn't know it had to be done like in any time so you chose this yeah i i think i got oh this looks bad yeah i think i was like 30 minutes into this workout and i was like three round three or four rounds in and i was like all right i i or four rounds in. And I was like, all right, I need to stop.

Cause I'm going to kill myself here in a minute. Right. And, uh, but that's what got me hooked on it. You're basically reverse curling those one 35, that one 35. Oh yeah.

Yeah. I don't even know. I don't even want to know how my pull-ups looked. And your squat cleans, you were probably just doing just like a slow, uh, your, your hang squat clean was probably just like, you're just pulling it straight up. Oh, yeah.

Like a curl. Yeah. The press. Yeah, that's awesome. But, you know, that workout right there is what got me hooked on CrossFit for sure. 100%. And I ended up doing Fran like like later that week too and it was horrible yeah what do you remember from it what uh what part do you remember being horrible do you remember any specific body part being like oh that's weird that's really weird

no i just you know i just remember just getting close to finishing and you're not quite there and just kind of hating your life. Right. It sucks. Um, but it's the, it's when you're laying on the ground afterwards, kind of just, you never really got that kind of response from like a bodybuilding style, at least for me. Yeah. That, that kind of effort and that like I'm proud of what I just did. Like I'm laying on the ground hurting um but yeah fran that the first time i did fran it was i was at like four minutes or

something wow so you were good at it so you were capable that's nuts four minutes is nuts for your first time yeah it was it i worked to get those four minutes though yeah absolutely i remember my forearms like uh hurting for like 20 minutes after i was done for the first like five times i did it my forearms were just completely destroyed yeah yeah my leg i remember my legs like cramping up a little bit like just laying there in the ground and hurting for sure and in all the times i did fran i never got four minutes i bet a dude that sometime in my career i bet hollis malloy that sometime in my career i'd have a three minute fran i bet him like 100 bucks i probably should pay him that's not gonna happen i can't i can't be like well i'm not dead yet

yeah i should probably just he probably doesn't even remember. I should do the right thing. Okay, so you do that, and then at that point – you do that at the college gym. So at what point are you like, okay, maybe I should go to an affiliate? So, yeah, so all 2012, that's what I did in the gym I was personal training at. And that's the gym on campus? No, it was called a club fitness And that's the gym on campus or? No, it was, um, it was called a club fitness. It's like a global gym.

Yeah. Okay. And, um, I was just doing like.com workouts. Um, then just whatever was on the website, that's the one I would do for that day. And then it was like right before the open of 2013, I went to CrossFit Edwardsville and down near St. Louis. And I did my first open that year. And then that following year in 2014 is the year I graduated.

And I actually didn't walk at my college graduation because I had qualified for the North Central Regional. Oh, shit. It was the same weekend. Priorities, priorities. Yeah, I called my mom up and I said, Hey, look, I qualified for regionals. The only way I can get both that piece of paper and to do this

is for me to go to this and she's like okay and so that's what i did and that's that was the year that i that i met o'keefe um because he had sponsored me with uh with redline when he was with redline at the time oh no shit that's awesome yep so those are the shorts he handed me literally that morning, I think. That's 2016 right there? That's 2014. 2014. Damn. That's 10 years ago. Yep.

I heard those shorts were awesome, But they don't make them anymore. Did you love those shorts? Yeah. I don't know where those shorts went, but I still have the two t-shirts that he handed me with Redline. I actually wore one of them up to Vermont when I went up there in June to train with them. I actually wore one of the Red line ones because I still had it.

Did you have a good find, Caleb? Hey, did you have aspirations to be a games athlete? Kind of. I kind of always knew that if I put some attention towards it, that I have the capabilities to do it, like the physical and the mental capabilities.

But actually, right after regionals, I had opened or co-owned a CrossFit gym up north with a friend of mine from college. And so I started focusing a little bit more on that. Um, and then that's when in 2016, I got hired on with the police department and I moved down there and it was like, okay, now I'm going to focus all my attention on advancing within the police department to get to where I want to be. Um, and that's what i've done all these last few years and then it wasn't until 2020 i think it was january january of 21 where i was like actually you know what it was um in fall of 2020 crossfit released some video that it was called the emotions of regionals and it was like the slow motion of athletes competing at regionals and it was called the Emotions of Regionals. And it was like the slow motion of athletes competing at regionals.

And it was of the 2014 regionals. Oh, wow. When I went to. Wow. That's where it started sparking like, man, what if I started putting attention towards training? And what if I progressed on a timeline that was acceptable for me and tried to, tried to get there. And so since then I've kind of

taken some steps to focus a little bit more on it, on the training side to see, and everything's kind of fallen in line. Yeah. Is this the video? Yep. I remember the video. I remember the video. Oh, it's a great shot. Dang.

Hey, so you actually went down – you actually owned an affiliate for a second? Yeah, it was up north in Crystal Lake, Illinois. And what were your, and you had a partner? Yeah. And did you guys actually have a location and open the doors and have like members? Yeah. So we, we were opened for about a year and a half. Wow. And when I went to become a police officer,

he still had kept the doors open up until COVID happened, which that messed up a lot of things. But yeah, when I left, they were still doors open, having members come through. When you opened the gym, do you remember why you opened it? Was it, was it just like, God, I just love this stuff. Was it just an impulse thing? Like, just like a passion,

like the same way when you saw your wife, just like, I don't even know what I'm doing, but I'm going this way. Yeah. It was a mixture of wife just like i don't even know what i'm doing but i'm going this way yeah it was a mixture of um basically loving crossfit being um it was still relatively new to me at the time um still like fully immersed in that and i think it was a mixture of wanting falling along the lines of wanting to help people within the community as well. So that's, that was the whole premise behind why I wanted to open one. And,

you know, my partners for the gym at the time was kind of fell under that same mindset. And so we explored paths to try and get one open and got one open. And that was it. I'm trying to think of like things that people do that like they do because they're passionate about like um i don't know i don't know like even even just going out and playing frisbee with my son like i don't do it with any intention except to play frisbee with my son and i feel like that's why a lot of people open crossfit gyms like they're not doing it to make money they're not thinking about the business

they're not thinking they just love this thing and they want to open it um to some degree there's some degree of um well i guess it's in my mind i kind of think that they're just so excited about it they want to share it with everyone so that's why I like playing Frisbee with my son because I want to share that moment with them, that sport, that energy. I'm just trying to figure out why you would open a CrossFit gym. How old were you at the time? I was 22. It was right after regionals, 22 or 23. Yeah.

And it's kind of like the same way. It's like a pretty girl. You know what I mean? Yeah. She looks looks at you you look at her you talk and it's just like wow this is cool like like i i probably should like ask if she wants to go for a walk on the beach yeah yeah yeah it's kind of you know with me it falls under i don't want to look back on anything and regret not being able to do something. I would, I would much rather fail in the attempt, giving my full effort than having to look back and regret,

man, I wish I would have done this. You know, are you glad you opened that gym? You're glad you went down and you had that year and a half experience running a CrossFit gym. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. I mean, I met a great group of people that came through there. Justin, do you know that I'm capable of hitting a hundred out of a hundred shots? I'm capable of throwing a baseball at a bucket 60 feet away and hitting it. That's what you are? Yeah, I'm capable of that. I just want to know if you know that.

If you don't, you do now that's impressive thank you the the audience loves it too they love it when i go outside in my long johns and hit a bucket from 60 feet away listen i made a video i made a video of myself walking 60 feet away from a bucket and throwing a ball at it and hitting it with one shot of baseball because these fucking idiots said I couldn't do it. Yeah. Then this fucking guy, this guy fucking cave dastard. You know what he does? He walks 60 feet away and throws it into the bucket. Oh,

so he went up to you. I mean, I mean, it's not even in the same world. He destroyed me. It's not even, it's not even like, yeah.

So here, here, look at my, my, my baseballs just in my backyard. No warm-up, no nothing. They claim it's just in my long johns. I'm probably wearing this sweatshirt.

Am I wearing this sweatshirt? No, similar. And I just go out. Thank you, Kayla, for playing this. This is a nice trip down memory lane. Here we go. Those bags, by the way, when i i used to grow weed in those bags many many years ago yeah yeah i didn't i didn't smoke the weed i just grew it and my cop

buddies are like dude you're gonna get in trouble for that you don't even smoke weed so i stopped doing it but they still now i see lizards um look at this look at this shot here look at this thank you that's impressive. Thank you. Now lizards live in those bags. So those are black bags, like cloth bags. Yeah. And now lizards live in them. And so I don't want to pick them up because I feel like I'm taking away the lizards' home.

Destroying their families? Yeah. I struggle with it. Yeah. Yeah, I still have all my bags of weed i don't want i don't i don't want to implicate you but down here i've just bags and bags of old old weed it's crazy yeah but i don't smoke weed and i don't condone smoking anything you shouldn't burn anything and inhale into your lungs that's pure idiocy pure idiocy um uh bad people smoke right in general that's like one of their characteristics i'm not saying it's a cause or an effect but it's a

correlate like bad guys smoke a lot of bad guys smoke they vape and shit right they're addicted to something bad bad guys are addicted to stuff yeah sure i mean yeah strong correlate that you Yeah, sure. I mean, yeah. Strong correlate to that. You find something. Yeah. I don't care if it's illegal shmeagle. It's stupid. Drugs are stupid. I'm old and I've come to the other side. So you go down there and then tell me about your pursuit. How do you get – there's that picture and it says you're celebrating. It says it's you with Oki – no, it's you with matt and katrin i showed it in the beginning of the show let me see if i could

find it again how do you how do you end up oh it's it's you and jason hopper and fraser and katrin yeah how do you how do you end up tell me how this happens how do you hook up with these guys again and why are you pursuing crossfit at such a high level now i mean these are the those are like the three best people arguably you know in the community at that at this discipline i know um yeah so you know in 21 is when i kind of started to make that that mindset of should I start to pursue training as an elite athlete in the sport or try at least trying to be. And so, you know, at the time I was on that proactive unit for the police work. So my my hours were from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. And so I was basically all year from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the gym, from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. at work, go to bed at 4 a.m., wake up at 10 and just on repeat.

And I did that all year until the 2022 quarterfinals happened, which, you know, I have a 19 year old son and he was he was actually born the day before that quarterfinal started um wait no you have a 19 month old son yeah okay okay i thought i heard you say 19 year old son month old oh no no okay okay i was like uh-oh there's some part of the story we really fucking missed already okay okay um but. But yeah, so like, you know, I put all this effort into training and the year before in quarterfinals, I had finished like 300 something place and they took the top one 20. So I was like, okay, if I, I should be, I should be able to qualify for a semifinal that next year in 2022. And so that quarterfinals happened and I basically, um, felt just short.

I felt, I think I finished in like 140 something. Um, when your celebration of life is prepaid in advance, it becomes a gift from you to your family later because no one should have to plan for a loss while they're experiencing one. Paying in advance protects your loved ones and gives you the peace of mind you deserve. Let us help you plan every detail with professionalism and compassion.

We are your local Dignity Memorial provider. Find us at dignityemorial.ca. What's 2FA security on Kraken? Let's say I'm captaining my soccer team, and we're up by a goal against, I don't know, the Burlington Bulldogs. Do we relax? No way. Time to create an extra line of defense and protect that lead. That's like 2FA on Kraken,

a surefire way to keep what you already have safe and sound. Go to kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See kraken.com slash legal slash CA dash PRU dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. And so after that was the occupational games, um, which I technically have lost. Well, actually lost by one point internationally to some guy in Europe, but I was number one in United States. And so that's when you say occupational games,

it's really just the points from the open, right? No, no. So they had an actual, um, it was very, the format was very similar to quarter finals okay yeah so you actually okay yep and where do you do those you just do those and you do those in an affiliate those with those workouts yeah yeah so just like quarters you just there's

four plans there you have to tape measure everything okay okay i didn't know that cool all right all right cool um so i did that and you know, I just, I fell, my goal was to be number one and I felt I lost literally by a point. And so I basically had these two, two things happen back to back that were just like a punch in the gut almost. And so last fall I actually for about two and a half months stopped doing CrossFit altogether. You started smoking weed? Exactly. fall i actually for about two and a half months stopped doing crossfit altogether you started smoking weed exactly um but uh it wasn't until january of this year i kind of doubt started

dabbling back into it starting to figure out if i wanted to just do crossfit to stay in shape or if i wanted to start exploring getting back to the competing side how long wow so it was really was a break you actually pulled away from just high intensity movements altogether yeah I went back to the standard just like bodybuilding split just really taking a break yeah um did you enjoy it when you went back to bodybuilding? Just bench pressing, hanging out, strict pull-ups. Did you enjoy it? Yeah. I enjoyed it more so for the break from CrossFit altogether.

Yeah. But, you know, so I started dabbling back in it in January and then went through quarters, qualified for semis. and then went through quarters, qualified for semis. And then at semis, going into the last day, I was sitting in 19th place. And that's where I started having that realization of everything I've been doing has been working. You know, I'm kind of on that trajectory of the path of what I said I was going to do two years ago. And so, um, after the handstand pirouette event, um, which I completely crapped the bed on that, where I finished almost in dead last in that workout. Um,

lost in that workout um but i met up that's when i met back up with o'keefe and i knew where was that that was on in the west that was in pasadena yeah yep so so in january you pick up crossfit again you end up in pasadena even though you're not going full steam ahead and you see o'keefe there crazy this is crazy okay leading up to semis I was basically working out for maybe an hour hour and a half a day why did you go did you think hey I'm not even gonna go why did you go I I basically went this year because I felt like I had put all the that sacrifice of time and energy and lack of sleep from work and stuff from 2021 to try and make it in 22 and fell just short. Um, and so I made it now and I was like, okay, my mindset was basically, I was there to like gain some information about myself as an

athlete to not embarrass myself, which that workout right there is a i it was bad um but uh and just kind of have fun with it like that my mindset was not at all like all the guys in that heat like cole sager and colton mertens and scott tetlow they were all in that heat like those guys mindsets all weekend long where i'm going to i'm going to compete at semis to qualify for the CrossFit Games. I'm not just going to compete at semis. Right. And so, you know, it wasn't until really that morning where I was like, oh, I can actually do this.

And so afterwards I had met up with O'Keefe and, um, you know, we caught up a little bit, talked and I started talking about him, about getting on, uh, HWPO programming. Cause I been keeping my eye on it for what programming were you doing? Just your own? Just your own? No, I was doing Mayhem athlete. Okay. Okay. And so talking to O'Keefe, I don't know if he knows this or not.

I started to like feel him out a little bit. Almost to a point where I was like, hey, you know, maybe like maybe after the games when things slow down, I can come up there and just be a sponge and train and like almost instantly he was like dude matt is down there coaching another athlete like go talk to him but he's going to tell you to come up as soon as you can and so right before the last event at semis you know that's exactly what i did i went over uh to matt who's down there talked to him for a little bit um and then i basically gave him the same spiel you know you don't want to be that guy that like forces his way in kind of thing and so i kind of left it up to them and you know said the same thing to matt and was like hey like maybe after like things slow down after the games i can come up and he's like, dude, come up during games training and we'll throw you in with Jason,

Katrin and everybody and just get you in the mix. And it was kind of like at that moment. And that's what you wanted to, you were gleaning. You wanted to peak at the next level. You wanted to hang out with some people who'd made it to where you had just missed. Right. Right. And, and true. Like I've never had a Crossfit coach a day in my life either

um you know when i went up to vermont obviously i wanted to get up there because and when you say you went to vermont this is in june of uh of this year yeah end of june this year okay yeah yeah there's the last week of june this year, so you didn't make it to the games, but you went up there to train with the guys who did make it to the games. Yep. Okay. Not only other guys that like just made it to the games, like they're,

they're top athletes at the game. Right. Right. And so anyone else besides Katrin and, uh, Jason, you see up there, Katrin,

Jason, were there any of the other, was any, any, uh, Amanda Barnhart or anyone else besides Katrin and Jason, you see up there, Katrin, Jason, were there any of the other, was any, any Amanda Barnhart or anyone else? No, no. I only went up for a few days and it was just Jason. I don't want to say just, but it was Jason and Katrin. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. So I, like for myself, I knew never having a coach, I knew to go to the next level.

It's not so much the physical capabilities. It's more of the mental and the attention to details that's going to help get you there. And so that's kind of what I was looking for a little bit. And so when Matt told me that I was like, this is it. Like, this is. This is where I need to be. This is what I need to be doing. If they're going to have two top-end athletes in the world at this sport leading up to the event, and they're willing to let me come in.

You know what I mean? Hell yeah, dude. Hell yeah. Anyone in any profession would take that. If you were a photographer and they invited up you, you should take it. If you're a filmmaker, you should take it. If you're a gym, like anything, like to be around people who are pushing that hard period, you should go. And it just so happens they're doing the same thing you're doing. But yeah, absolutely.

Those people aren't great on accident. Right. So, like, when I got back, I ended up – I got with – O'Keefe got me linked up with Jay Marconi and coordinated when to get up there. And going up there, dude, I was probably more nervous going up there than I was to go to semifinals just because you just don't – you don't know what to expect. You don't, like, know what to expect you don't like know what the atmosphere is going to be like and it was it was in a non-insulting way it was so laid back and welcoming it felt like just being at my home gym um you know like when i got there like and i

credit to matt man like i was standing there in the gym and he walks in holding up just a bunch of shit he's carrying in he sees me sets everything down willing to walk over and give me a tour of the whole hq up there um you know and then he's like all right you know jason catron are gonna come in and they're gonna doing this first, and then we'll start working out for the morning session. And so, like, Jason came in, introduced himself. Kat came in, introduced herself. And they're both – they made – as hard as we went at everything, they made training very, very fun.

Like, super laid back. Just Jason, you know Jason. I mean, he wants to have fun. He says it. He wants to fool around and have fun while he's training. Yeah. He's like that very outgoing. He made training like real fun.

But I remember before we started the first morning session that I was there. In my head, I have this like built up vision in my head that there's just going to be other people in the gym and it starts rolling up to 8 30 when we're supposed to start i'm looking around and i just see there's just me jason and katrin in the gym and then matt comes walking in we all go over the whiteboard i'm looking around like kind of like oh shit like you know this is it yeah this is it just you and these two animals yeah jason yeah crazy dude so we went through that and like um randomly i didn't know but craig ritchie was up there filming jason and katrin for their build-up um so i got to meet him and jasmine as, and they were awesome.

And so now, you know, I took a lot from there. You know, credit to Matt. Like Matt would pull me aside in the trainings and start like coaching me, even when Jason and Katrin are up there doing their training. You know what I mean? Yeah, so like that picture there. There he is peeping you right there. Yeah, so he's working with me right there just on the jerks and just not heavyweight, just pure technique stuff.

And I had respect for Matt before. I had so much more for me personally, after going through that weekend. Tell me why his commitment to the team, his commitment, what, what, what did he do that impressed you so much? So it was more for me personally, not just as a coach, cause at semifinals like a lot of people didn't see Matt Dowling coaching. He was coaching Raphael Sanson, who's a HWPO athlete. Is that Allison Scud's boyfriend?

Is that Raphael? I only know one Raphael. I have no idea. Does he look like Superman and have huge, huge thighs? Huge. No, I don't think that's him. Okay, okay. This guy's quads are absolutely insane.

Rafael Sanz. Let me see. No, okay. Oh, this is the guy that's the Mexican version of me. Okay, I've seen this guy before. Jason pointed me out to him. Okay, he's cool. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, so. This is me if I was seen this guy before. Jason pointed me out to him. Okay, he's good. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so – Just me if I was Mexican and good-looking and fit. But, yeah, like Matt was coaching Rafael down at semis, and you would think that Matt, seeing all of his old friends and the people he's competed with all these times, would be kind of talking and chit-chatting with, you know, all these friends that he's competed talking and chit-chatting with you know all these friends that he's competed against for so many years yeah time i would look over at matt it

was him either by himself buried in his notepad or sitting down with rafael and they're just going over everything and that's what kind of you know it's like okay like you got a lot of respect at least for me just seeing that just being a brother and so when i went up there he did the same thing with me even though jason and katrin are leading up to the biggest event of the year you know what i mean you're willing to spend time. He was pouring. It sounds like he had more than time. It sounds like you felt like he was pouring his attention and energy into you. Yeah. He made your trip.

What more, more than worth it. Yeah. Look, I have a video of Amy Everett came up to work with Jason. Cool chick. Yeah. She's awesome.

And, uh, you know, she, I have a video where, uh, Matt sit down in a chair and Jason, Amy's next to Jason. He's about to lift.

And I'm just off to the side just working, like, 95-pound cleans, squat cleans, like real technique stuff. And the second I step up to the bar, you can see Matt's head shift from Jason to me, watches me lift. Once I'm done, he stands up, walks around everybody to me and starts giving me a bunch of cues. And it's like, you think about that and it's like, first of all, like, I'm really nobody in the sport, right? And you got Jason and Katrin right next to you and you're willing to take time while they're still lifting to give me some attention and what I was looking for um that's what where I was like I have a lot of respect for Matt as a coach um after going through that weekend because it was like that all weekend

did you ever relax and settle in there like after like an hour after a workout were you just like okay i'm i'm settling in yeah well like the feeling yeah i don't know about relax because i was like hurting the entire time but uh it's kind of like i guess i mean this what advice would you have to people who have that opportunity to work out with? So you're going there. Like, even in a best-case scenario, you are going there to be a rabbit, right? Okay, look, listen, Justin Dewing, we know you're fit, but shut the fuck up. You're not as fit as these guys.

We're setting you up so they can just beat you down and chase you. Do your job. You know what I mean? Like, you were the sparring partner. You didn't I mean? Like, like you were the sparring partner. You didn't have the big fight, but you were the sparring partner. They respect you as an athlete, but you're coming here to be a sparring partner. Did you, did you prep for that mentally? Like, okay, don't burden them, but don't be uptight.

Don't fanboy, but be respectful. Like, is there any advice you would give to someone who's going into that situation? You want to add value, right? You don't want to go there and take, you like was there any prep you had going having the opportunity to go to train with the fittest man who's ever lived and catron two-time games champion and jason hopper the fucking prodigy was it like okay um don't act like a fucking ding dong be cool push all that shit like i feel like that whenever i have rich froning on or like i have tyson bajan on now i'm like just push all the fanboy shit away and just kind of act try to act kind of normal right um yeah i mean i was i went there to you know just be myself um you don't you

kind of have that like when i first saw jason catrin walk in it was bigger than life right like i don't think people realize that like she like i don't i don't believe in auras but that fucking chick's got an aura yeah um like she's she's pretty amazing yeah and she's she is incredibly nice. Like the entire weekend, it was like you kind of when you first walk in, you see them come in. It's kind of like that. You're not surrounded by that all the time. Like me, I work out by myself all day, every day. And when you see them walk in, it's kind of like, oh, shit, kind of moment. Yeah.

But it instantly went away. And I think a lot of that was credit to them too like they it wasn't them just like like brushing me off in any way either like jason was like you want to share a bar catch him was giving me advice the entire time like they just made it so nice and welcoming to be there everyone did that even from like the staff at HQ, all of them, like Jake and Josh. Yeah, Marconi's pretty laid back, huh? Yeah. So it was a good weekend. I had a couple – I had a sit-down with Jake.

I had a sit-down with Matt. I talked to Josh a little bit just about me, my training in the future and what to work on and things. And so, you know, and obviously O'Keefe invited my family down to Rogue just this past two weekends now, whenever the Rogue Invitational was. And so we got to go down and kind of see everybody again and hang out. And I had taken a little bit of Jake's advice. He had given me and reached out to some people and got a little bit of funding to start in January. Once a month, flying up there to train all the way up until quarters and semis.

So you've been doing that. Doing what? Flying up there. Yeah. It's going to, I'm getting with jake now i'm getting some times for january february march april may to fly up there so you're going for it yeah if i my wife and i said kind of have talked and we're like if we're you were in a position last this year at semis to really have a chance.

Right. And so she's like, you now have these resources that through their experience, through Matt's experience, which is any advice that he gives me, I'm going to take it. Right. And then Jake was a high end athlete too,

at semifinals. He knows what he's talking about and then you have jason catron brooke wells is over at hwpo now so like yeah that's right that's right so like you have all of these these athletes with so much experience at the top level you're like my wife was like if you're gonna do this we need to be all in and figure out a way to get you up there at least once a month to gain that experience to gain that confidence to dude you found the right woman yeah yeah my wife she was my uh she was my coach she had my coaches pass at semis yeah like i trained by myself and all that but um like she had my coach. She did awesome.

Anything I needed, she was right there for it. So it's definitely easier when you have someone who's not only supportive, but she's the one that's pushing you to move forward more and more. How old is your son right now, Justin? He's 19 months now? Yeah, 19 and a half months. So 2022 CrossFit Games Fittest Cop in America, 2023 CrossFit Games Northwest Semifinalist. This year it is a little – when you qualified last year for the semifinals,

do you remember where you qualified? Because I want to say they took 60. Yeah, so I wouldn't have, I was, I qualified in 49. Okay. So this year, the qualifications going to be more difficult. Yeah.

So they're only taking 40, but if you look at my, if you look at my scoring and you can look at 2022, uh, quarterfinals leaderboard too yeah like there is one event that in total points wise yeah equal all of my other events together so there's just one glaring weakness that i've i've have to build on and work on which i have is it being upside down yeah it's handstand push-ups that handstand workout okay um at semis um that was the one i'm going in where when i tested it i finished it

through um just under 13 minutes and so going into it i'm like okay it's probably gonna be my worst one um and then it was just one of those that everything that could go wrong did i got my own head like everything just didn't go right yeah um but when you look at the leader board like at quarterfinals um is that the first is that the workout right there workout number one no it wouldn't what workout is it no where's that is that semifinals is that the workout right there workout number one? No, it wouldn't work out. Is it? No, where's that? Is that semifinals? Is that semifinals? Sorry Okay. Yeah, so that's semis but in quarters if you look at the Like it's very apparent which one's the handstand push-up one for me

Hey, oh, go ahead. Go ahead finish. Are you gonna say something? Um No, I don't remember I was gonna say something um no i don't remember okay i want to tell uh this is a really this i can't overstate this enough by the way ken i owe you a massive uh thank you by the way thank you for schooling me on doug flutie when i spoke to travis bajan last night and tyson in the car that i was ripping doug flutieie and Travis told me I was a fucking idiot. And then you posted that on YouTube. You schooled me up. I'll read that later on in the show.

But I owe you a big one, kid. But let's look at this for a second. The most important thing to success is having a supportive partner. So yesterday, yesterday morning, I was supposed to have uh i was supposed to have a podcast in the morning and it was supposed to be the quarterback for the chicago bears and he he called and he's like dude i'm so tired and i'm just wanting to go hang with my family like dude i totally get it no big deal and my and my wife left the house and when my wife left the house i could tell um i normally do friday mornings with the kids and that it's a long drive we take

them to a to skate with a professional skater it's 45 minute drive and i know my wife didn't want to do the drive she wasn't being rude she wasn't anything but i felt i could tell she didn't want to do the drive and three minutes into the car ride she goes she texts me hey i love you don't worry about me i pulled my head out of my ass and I'm happy. She knew that her not being happy was fucking stressing me out. Yeah. And she let me off the – she sent me a text or called me. I can't remember. And let me off the hook.

Yeah. And, like – That's – It's such a nuance, dude, but it's huge because I just want to go run and help her. Like, I want to be like – I won't do – I'm telling her, like, I don't care. I don't have to do this podcast. I really don't give a fuck. I will drive the kids. I want you to go run and help her. Like, I want to be like, I won't do, I'll tell her like, I don't care. I don't have to do this podcast. I really don't give a fuck. I will drive the kids.

I want you to be happy. Yeah. I don't want you to like to have to do anything you don't want to do. And she's like, no, no, it just took me a second. Cause I normally do it. She's like, it just took me a second to shift and get my head wrapped around my new day. Yep. And, but dude, holy fuck.

I was unraveling at home. And like, I don't tell her that. Right. Because it's, it's's it's really nothing yeah my wife but this is huge that she says that to you right it's not just she's supporting you she's setting you free because you're like but i need to be at home and have dinner with you and i need to make sure i watch my son because i know you like to work out every day at three o'clock and i know sundays you like to do this and I need to be doing this for you and right you need someone to set you free because you take your obligation to her so fucking seriously right yeah yep it's no different crazy like coming home I get home at like 5 30 p.m at night and so usually from 5 30 to 7 30 that's

you know hang out time with the little kiddo and I I do that time and either her or I will put them to bed. And there's times where, because I train at night too at the house. We have a home gym in our backyard. And so, you know, there's times where I'm just feeling tired and where she'll just be like, look, I got them. Like, let me take them, go work out, get it done. where she'll just be like look i got them like let me take them go work i'll get it done and then we'll reevaluate where we're at like when we come together for dinner or whatever um and it's those little things so huge yeah it's those little things where they notice you don't want to put like i don't want to be like hey i i really want to go and work out now

because i don't want to do it later. Just because of where my energy level is at right now. And her recognizing that and being like, look, I'll just take them without me saying anything. Cause I'm not going to say anything. Right. She just does it. And then it's like, it's okay. Go do it. Everything's fine. And moving forward. That's, that's what you're talking about. Those little things that are massive. They are massive

things for us. At least for me. The most important thing to success is having a supportive partner. When I hear people who don't have supportive partners, I don't even know how they do it. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I thought I was burdening my wife.

I would fucking lose my shit yeah crazy that man i think about that with all great people men and women who the people are who are their right hand man right who's their wingman i think some of the best, and I bet you like, like, uh, like Matt will say the same thing about Sammy. Right.

She's an incredible, she must be the most amazing wing person ever. Right. Just having, and it's just one of those. I'm sure she was just like, look, I got this.

You go do this. So you focus on like, even though she might have been having like a hard day or something she's like look dude you go do this i got it we'll reevaluate here like later today you know what i mean yeah and more than that i'm such a baby that i need my wife even to be like i got it and i'm happy to get it like i need her like to put that you know what i mean because if i said she's not 100 into it i'm like no I got it. Like she has to like really convince me because I'm so fucking insecure about me burdening her. You know, like if I sense even like she's like, don't worry, I got it.

It won't be enough for me. I need to be like, I'm excited to fucking vacuum right now. Go ahead, Sebi. Do your stupid pod. I mean, your podcast. You know what I mean? Like, it's crazy. It's crazy.

It's, you can't be like, I mean, worst case scenario. Just imagine, like, it's the final event of the games, and you find out your spouse is cheating on you. You got to fucking swallow that because they're about to do the final event. You got to be a fucking good spouse. Or you find out your spouse is cheating on you you gotta fucking swallow that because they're about to do the final event you gotta be a fucking good spouse or you you find your mom or dad died or your dog died like you gotta fucking be like nope everything's fine go i mean if you want to be like right a level wingman yeah and you should want to be an a level wingman um but it's uh it's crazy yeah crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Having that kind of support is, is, is massive, is, is, is truly massive.

I don't think, I don't think the, the significant others, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, whoever it is on the other side, don't get the credit as much as they should, get the credit as much as they should because it is it is for sure a massive thing to that person who is in the spotlight or whatever whatever you however you want to say that but yeah it is it is cool though to have a front row seat like i've had friends like like i like even being a wingman to greg as he was building crossfit like like you get, you get, you get just trampled a lot by the crowd and by things, but like, I never let it get to me. Cause I'm always like, wow, I have a front row seat. So, you know, there's hopefully like a point I'm sure your wife's like so proud to be with you too. You know what I mean? Like she, as long, as long as you don't

have a jealous, as long as you don't have jealous people in your life um they're they're ecstatic yeah um how about your mom and dad do they go to your events yeah so they they flew out to california um to watch your mom and dad tripping on you how fit you are no i mean everyone like even the people with, like, are you like doings in shape? And it's like, well, it's all relative to how you look at things, because I don't think I am because I'm looking at all these other athletes who are also in very. Right. But, yeah, I mean, they do. Why do you think your parents come to the event? Why do you think they come?

Just support. They're just very, very supportive. They always have been when like even growing up in sports and stuff. Do your parents, do you think your mom and dad will cry if you make it to the games? Like if you're at semifinals and you make it? No, they'll cry. My mom, maybe. I don't think he'll cry. My mom, maybe. I don't think they'll – probably not.

You'll be 33 at semifinals? I will be – well, I'll still be 32. I turned 32. My birthday's in September. So I just turned 32. But is any notice of age catching up to you you're gonna be i mean you're young but with these guys you're gonna be on the older side yeah and i actually it's it's kind of funny i talked to at rogue i ran into cole sager

and he had remembered me from some eyes because i had like just briefly talked to him from semis because I had like just briefly talked to him um while I was there and I was talking to him and I was like you know people keep saying that like the 32 33 is kind of at the tail end of things but when you look at like look at Vellner and Fikowski and Sager like they're all they're all up there as well the only difference between physically between what they have done and what i've done is they've been putting their bodies through hell the last 10 years to go to the games every single year i haven't and so i kind of look at it kind of like a in a aspect. Yes, like 10 years from now when I'm 42 years old, I'm not going to be qualifying for the CrossFit Games.

But physically, I feel better than I've ever felt, especially at this point, like leading up into in-season stuff. Like I feel better than I've ever felt before. So I, I don't really have the age thing really affect anything that I'm doing. I think that the first place people notice it is, is in, is in recovery and by recovery, I mean like literally back to back events. Yeah. I mean like literally back-to-back events. Yeah, I mean. And so if you're not noticing it, you're not noticing it.

And like you said, there are people. I mean, I'm not trying to force you to be like, yeah, I'm fucking old. I am old. But you feel good is what you're saying. Yeah. I mean, I went to regionals 10 years ago. How old was Mal O'Brien 10 years ago? Right.

Nine, 10 years old. Yeah. Yeah. But physically, I stay on top of everything outside of the gym that I have to to try and perform every day in training. I may not qualify for the CrossFit Games next year, but I'm going to prepare in every aspect that I can in order to do so. I think you should request the time off already for the Games.

Request the time off? Just to be like, fuck you, I'm making it. I think you should request the time off already for the games. Request the time off? Well, so, yeah. Just to be like, fuck you, I'm making it. In the unit, I mean, I'm fortunate enough to have flexibility in my schedule, so if I needed it all for it, I could get it. How cool would it be? Do you think you'll go to the games anyway since it's in Texas? Yeah, probably. I mean, it's right by your house.

Yeah, Dickie's Arena is like 25 minutes from my house. Yeah, that's awesome. That's close. Mike McCaskey, Justin, tell us about a time where CrossFit was critical to your job. You ever have to deal with bad guys where you're like, oh, thank God I'm in shape?

Yeah, I mean, any like I'll give shape. Yeah. I mean, any, any, like, so I'll give you, I'll give you one story. I won't go into like true specifics for it, but it applies to what CrossFit does for me.

Yeah. But it involves with a foot chase, right? So guys running from a house and jumping fences and I'm on a parallel house, jumping fences with them and jumps over a fence to the back. The house that's behind their house jumps that fence. And as I'm coming around, I'm basically the house is in the center. He's on one side. I'm on the other and in my head i'm picturing like we're going to both run

and i'm there's just going to be this beaming shine of light coming down on him for me to just right um because you know he this person was considered to be armed and dangerous and all the stuff and so i round the corner i don't see him so i keep running around the house and he's trying to jump back on top of this fence to jump back over into the yard. He had just jumped from. So he was doubling back. He knew that he was going to try to do the, okay. Yeah. He's doubling back. And so he's up there and that was just the green light for me to sprint as

hard as I could without any slowing down. And either in my head, we were both going through this fence. And cause if this guy did have a gun, he wasn't going to pull it out on me. And so, um, basically after jumping all these fences and chasing this guy, still having enough energy to do a full on sprint to then go hands on,

tackle the guy, bring them to the ground. on, tackle the guy, bring them to the ground. Was he on the top of the fence still going over when you grabbed him? Yeah. Yeah. It was, did he even see you coming?

Uh, I don't know. He, he felt me coming when I hit him. Right, right, right. But,

um, cause I'm not, I'm not a relatively smaller guy either. Right. Um, you know, we basically bounced off of the fence, and then I turned, and we went to the ground. And then I basically had to just hold him in a position. Because the way that he fell, you know, I had his right arm, and then my arm kind of grasping his torso. And his left arm was just caught on his waistband in between the ground and his left arm was just caught um in on like on his waistband in between the ground and

his body so i'm just sitting there like you know and your heart's racing a million miles an hour at this point because you're thinking this guy could be armed and dangerous the way that he's falling now i don't control of his left arm and it's like okay if what am i going to do if he pulls out a gun um or a knife or whatever? And so backup finally came around the corner and helped me. He didn't have anything on him. But it was like you look back at those where you're jumping over all these fences. You're in a foot chase after somebody.

So your heart rate is going to spike no matter what. And then you're talking on the radio. You're coordinating with with other people and then you see them you're wearing all that gear you have a fucking weight vest on yep you're wearing all that stuff and then by the time you go hands-on with them now you have to be in shape enough to still control yourself and control them so you you can stay safe um it's all of these things um where you look back and it's like damn dude like crossfit really does prepare you just for the job just the general gpp program will really prepare you for a job like this um and there's a bunch of instances like that i can go through but hey so so is that base i was

thinking about does that start because you go to a house to get a bad guy and then they say the guy just runs like you knock on the door and you're like police we're looking for blah blah blah and then you you hear the back door open and close like in the movies and you're like it's on yeah yeah so it was a it was a this was like a planned operation and so pd had pulled up in the front that guy obviously saw it and scurried out the back door started jumping fences um but we already had people in place to try and cut him off or eliminate him from escaping um but yeah stuff like that all the time where are you working out now where do you do most you're working out now so i do a lot at so on swat we're pretty fortunate to be able to work

out on duty so in the mornings um you know i work from 7 a.m to 5 p.m so from like 7 to 9 i work out at the training center at the police department. And then at night, my wife and I, we've got our own little home gym. You don't have a training partner? No, I train by myself. Crazy. Yeah. Do you wish you had a training partner?

At times, yeah. Do you wish you had a training partner? At times, yeah. Those are just those days where, just like anything else, you're just kind of unmotivated. And it's a little easier to do when you have somebody else with you. But that's part of it. Hey, dude, thanks for coming on this morning. We'll be watching.

I'm pumped for you. I hope that – not to put pressure on you, but I really do hope you make it to the games. But either way, I hope you scratch that itch. It's going to be a crazy journey. Congratulations with getting hooked up with Matt and the HWPO team. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it sounds like you're around the right people.

And stay in touch. And thank you for everything you do. Thanks for getting bad guys. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate it too. Thank you. All right, brother. Have a touch and thank you for everything you do thanks for getting bad guys I really appreciate it thank you I appreciate it too thank you alright brother have a good day alright you too just in doing

ladies and gentlemen cool yeah fuck what a cool dude Chris Beesterfield Meth fit I'm accepting five meth addicts They're trying to figure out how Perps were so athletic

Is it the meth or is it the adrenaline So There's this movie I made called Desert Runners And these people would go And they run in the desert i don't know like 200 kilometers over a one week period or a two week period i can't even remember and the deserts are the four driest deserts in the world the atacama the gobi the sahara and

antarctica and most people only run one desert they just run one desert runners yeah here's the movie but there's some people there's some people who want to run all four in one year and that's like considered like the crown jewel of fucking ultra marathoning or whatever they call it racing and you have to carry all of your food with you it's it's wild right all your shit with you everything except your your your well you're supposed to even carry your water with you, but you can refill up on water every morning and every night. But during the race, you're totally sustained by your own shit. And you can't, and the whole race, you can't get food from anyone or anything. It's, it's, it's a wild race. Anyway, this is the crazy part. I went on all four races in one year to make this documentary.

And in the very first race of the year i met this asian dude from australia and he revealed to me that he's a meth addict and the only reason why he's doing these races is to prove that you can be healthy and be on meth wow and i wanted him to be a character in the movie so bad But Jennifer didn't want him to be That would be epic What a crazy Yeah he was a crazy character dude

I couldn't believe even when he told me Did he make it? To be honest I don't remember I do remember seeing him in Antarctica Which was the last race And I'm like dude are you still doing on meth he goes yeah he was not only on meth he was a meth dealer he and he looked worse and worse every race like uh oh my mom says this is a great documentary anyway yeah I uncovered a guy who was doing all four races. He OD'd.

I honestly think he – I don't know if I'm making this up, but I think I looked up his name like a year later or something, and he ended up going to jail or something. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. But that was his whole thing Like I would interview him And his whole thing was He wanted to prove that meth wasn't bad Bizarre Okay, off to tennis

Thank you everyone, Caleb, thank you UFC tonight Oh, Ken, hold on, Ken Hold on, there's one last. This has to be said. I have to go here. So I was ripping on Bryce Young for being short and Doug Flutie being just the shitty quarterback that everyone thought was going to be the greatest ever. And, and I was telling Travis this and he's like, dude, you're a fucking idiot. You don't know anything about football, but as everyone knows, I'm pretending like I know I'm not even pretending.

I think I know everything about football now, but Ken had to school the shit out of me on YouTube. I want to read it to you guys. If I can find it. God, it's so good. Just tossed me up. Damn. Where is that?

Ken Walters. Do you see it? I'm in the comments looking. Maybe I'll have to save it for another show. Ken knows so much cool shit about football. He even pointed out like a good... Is it the thousands of NFL quarterbacks who would love to...

Oh, yeah, yeah. Could you pull that up? I mean, he schooled me. He also pointed out a kicker that did tackling on the Raiders, who I think I kind of remember now that he mentioned it. Okay. Ken Walters. So I was saying Doug Flutie was a shit quarterback and he was too little.

Thousands of NFL and Ken Walters writes, thousands of NFL quarterbacks would have loved to have Doug Flutie's professional career, 21 seasons, 12 of those NFL. That's crazy. Right there. I 21 seasons, 12 of those NFL. That's crazy right there. I'm like, I'm an idiot. 1998 Pro Bowler and NFL Comeback of the Year player. They would even kill for his nine season financial career in the CFL, three Gray Cups, three MVPs and CFL HOF, whatever that is.

I love Tyson and all the success in the Hall of Fame. Thank you, Tyson. I want all the success in the world for him, but even if he has close to a Flutie career, he will be very happy. Seve, I have to disagree with you. You're not even disagreeing with me. You're just ass-pounding me. I have to just take it.

Seve, I have to disagree with you that Flutie was a disaster. John Madden said that the inch-for-inch Flutie in his prime was the best QB of his generation. That's amazing. Football historian Brad Ormelin's ranking of the best quarterbacks in history. Doug Flutie came in at 31 based on his performance in the NFL as well as his complete dominance of CFL for years. My God. Oh, my God.

Okay, I'm going to go punch myself in the face. Ken Walters, love you, buddy. You're the man. Fact-checked. And I believe that's a punch myself in the face. Ken Walters, love you, buddy. You're the man. Fact-checked. And I believe that's a real fact-checker. I think Ken Walters, I think I had one interaction with him. He says he has over a million cards, like cards like these WAD zombies, like Colton Merton cards.

Wow. All right, guys. Talk to you, I guess, tomorrow morning. Love you guys. Bye-bye.