WHOOP Podcast - Elite CrossFit coaches James Hobart and Austin Malleolo discuss the evolution of the sport.

Episode Date: February 12, 2020

James Hobart and Austin Malleolo, two of the top CrossFit coaches on the planet, join Mike Lombardi to talk about their experiences as CrossFit Seminar Staff Flowmasters and how they've seen the sport evolve over the last 10 years (6:45). They also discuss how they found their voices as elite coaches (8:03), learning from others (13:20), the 3 questions all coaches should ask themselves (14:20) as well as other tips for new coaches (17:08), the overtraining mindset of athletes (22:45), when Austin almost died (23:40), what they've learned from WHOOP about sleep (30:30), time commitment needed to excel in CrossFit (35:32), secrets to staying fit (36:52), using WHOOP in a coaching role (41:27), and how data will drive change (45:46).Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

We discovered that there were secrets that your body was trying to tell you that could really help you optimize performance, but no one could monitor those things. And that's when we set out to build the technology that we thought could really change the world. Welcome to the Whoop podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of Whoop, where we are on a mission to unlock human performance. At WOOP, our clients range from the best professional athletes in the world to Navy SEALs to fitness enthusiasts to Fortune 500 CEOs and executives. The common thread among WOOP members is a passion to improve. What does it take to optimize performance for athletes, for humans, really anyone?

On this podcast, we dig deeper, we interview experts, we interview industry leaders across sports, data, technology, physiology, athletic achievement, you name it. How can you use data to improve your body? What should you change about your life? My hope is that you'll leave these conversations with some new ideas and a greater passion for performance. With that in mind, I welcome you to the Whoop Podcast. When you are compelled with some data that's specific and measurable and accurate, you will start to make changes whether you like it or not.

Hello, folks. On this week's episode, Mike Lombardi sits down with James Hobart and Austin Maliolo, CrossFit Seminar Staff Flowmasters. What does that mean? James and Austin are two of the most elite CrossFit coaches on the planet. Mike, James, and Austin go deep on all things CrossFit. That includes the evolution of the sport of CrossFit over the years, how James and Austin found their coaching voices

after spending years as elite competitors themselves, and how they're using Whoop today to help make their athletes better. This is a big time of year for, CrossFit with Wadapalooza coming up shortly. Woop will have a large presence in Miami for the event. So if you're going, we hope to see you there. Without further ado, here's Mike with Austin and James. Hi, everyone.

Welcome to the Woop Podcast. This is Mike Lombardi. I'm here with Austin Maliolo and James Hobart. How you doing, guys? We're great. Thanks for having us. Howdy. So I'm going to let you two, who are very distinguished in the CrossFit space,

introduce yourselves give any background you want okay so i'll uh i was hoping i was going to be able to introduce james and give a little background on him and blow him up a little bit so go that route okay yeah so james oliphant hobart uh he grew up in western mass and started at crossfit green barrington it was his crossfit journey where he started went to law school so it's pretty awesome but he has his jurisdiction has not passed the bar yet no no it's different i haven't taken the bar there's a difference okay so James started CrossFit in 2009 oh nine oh nine is he was an avid mountain biker and started competing went to the CrossFit games in 2009 finished last place dead last and that's where I actually met him in 2010 in training for the college at regionals what was regionals in 2010 but most of you guys that know him one of the winningest team athletes in CrossFit Games history,

competed with not only CrossFit New England, but also CrossFit Mayhem. And beyond that, from an individual athlete, team athlete where he has multiple championships, also a 10-year veteran on CrossFit Headquarters seminar staff. He's a core supervisor, a flow master within the world that know the lingo. and as well as an owner of CrossFit One Nation. So he really just does it all.

And most of you know what he looks like because he's all over CrossFit.com. If you buy posters for your gym of what it looks like to AirSquat, that's James on the posters and the videos and all that. So he's the original demo boy. I'm not the original demo boy. That would be some different people. But I'm one of the CrossFit demo people now. Yeah.

and I'm jealous that I'm not. For good reason, you're not. Are you going to introduce Austin, or are we going to let Austin introduce himself? Let him introduce himself. I think he's the best at it. Oh, that's nice. All right, I'll just keep talking. This is great. Yeah, but myself, you know, I've competed similarly to James, but almost in reverse fashion where I did a lot, you know, individual, you know, most of my early career and then transitioned

into team towards the end of my sort of CrossFit games career. I guess I've never actually officially said it's over, but I don't know if it is over or not. It's a swift decline. Yeah. Whatever it is, it's, I don't think it's ramping up at any point in time. Did you, did you not win one of the open workouts? Yeah, I think I, yeah, this year I did win an open workout this year. So, I mean, I still got something in the tank.

Which one was that? It was the deadlift, it was the repeat. It was the, it was the Diane. Which you had won the year before. Yes. So I, it was a, I had to defend the title. But if there's a deadlift workout that happened in the open, I'm pretty sure that I've won it.

I think I've won four open workouts globally. And have you won any CrossFit Games workouts? Yes, I've actually, I've tied. Tied in 2010, the deadlift pistol double under workout, which you recently posted a little throwback on it. I tied Rich Froning Jr. And really upset that I had to tie him. He has all these other wins.

I couldn't have just beat him by one rep. and it could have been all mine but yeah that was it that one yeah i think i think when in the worldwide open is pretty cool too well just one work one workout one workout i think from a data perspective it's extreme i think it's one of the coolest accomplishment you could have yeah because the the pool is so deep and there's so many people it is it is cool it does highlight that i have a proficiency in deadlifts which is nice but other than that yeah i'm owner of cross at one i run um the fitness facility for the at the rebuck world headquarters which incorporates rebecca cross One, what I didn't mention, James and I, with two others, we also own the handplane,

which is an online programming platform. And we also have beyond CrossFit seminar staff, James and I have the same credential as a core supervisor. We own the coach development program, which is where we develop coaches and a few other seminars. So needless to say, we love CrossFit, we do it, we live it, we breathe it, and so if you don't like Cross, I don't know how much you're going to enjoy this podcast. That's the disclaimer right there You guys have been in this

Pretty much since the beginning Of let's say the CrossFit games Because CrossFit had existed prior to the games In the early stages What was that like? Yeah I mean when I first started It was it was all CrossFit.com for me I mean that was like the only place that was

You know giving programming At least that I knew of So I mean that's how I first, when I first found it I found CrossFit.com And they posted a workout and I did it Yeah, I mean, I started CrossFit through a friend who I was training with at the time, and we were really into the whole kettlebell thing, and this was back in 2007-ish, and he stumbled on CrossFit.com, which he had found through another website.

So that's kind of all I knew, and I learned all of CrossFit up until the point I received coaching from a CrossFit affiliate from the website. And I think one of the really interesting things about CrossFit then was it was still very collaborative. I think it still is, even as a competitive sport. but a lot of people were just doing their own thing trying to figure it out I mean it was competitive in the sense

that the workouts were for time and for weight but I don't think any of us really had an idea how to compete at it and what was needed to compete at it and you've seen the programming and the development of the sport changed so much in the last I don't know 10 years it was very different

yeah I mean we had no idea we were doing So you both are you know flow masters correct one does not just become one obviously you said you started in 2010 on the seminar staff does that mean that you were at the base level basically of seminar staff yeah yeah okay um so how much uh did you find sort of your coaching voice through working within the seminar staff versus when you were both still training and other people you worked with so like austin you've been all over and you used the go to the reboc thing

and Rich is there and all the other individual big names are there and then you so there's that you obviously were doing something right to continue being in a top ten position

as an individual and then James you worked with several different teams and maybe you were writing the programming maybe you weren't but definitely a part of it how much do you feel like you took from learning from either the seminar staff environment versus

being in your actual training environment Yeah I guess I can I'll kind of start because James has a very unique perspective of training on such high-level teams relatively, you know, like, you know, early on and then individual and back to a team. But for me, when, in being a part of seminar staff, certainly as fortunately for me, I was really new in the world of cross. I got on staff within about a year and a half of me starting CrossFit, which was, you know, it's unheard of now, but back then it

was sort of like, that's how a lot of us started. So I was just listening and learning to everything around me and obviously being around individuals like kind of James mentioned from you know Adrian Bosman to you know E.C. Sankowski to Pat Sherwood a lot of just crossfit OGs and you know in fact those a lot of them had you know were I asked for them to program for me so I know like Pat gave me a lot of help in the beginning and then Adrian Bosman coached and program for me for about a year and a half if not two years and then EC did so as well so in in one I learned a lot of it was just nice to be told things right like i do this and whereas prior to that i would just go and look at something and do it as opposed to here's your program and do that

but then just also having that sort of 10,000 foot view of on the weekends delivering seminars about programming and getting that so you also have a perspective of well what's actually going into the program and i'm doing and i think the biggest thing i see now certainly with athletes they are just given programming and there's for those that just want to be athletes, there's no critical thinking about what they're doing. Sometimes they just do it, which I think there's value to that, and there's nice just to be the racehorse. But I know I was kind of looking at it with two lenses. It's just because of the nature of what I was doing as well as trying to be an athlete, also as a coach. And I think that brought me a good amount

of learning and opportunity. And I actually never even thought about like programming until almost like, almost five or six years in. It was like, oh, It wasn't even a thought process. It was I just got to do something and I would like someone else to do it for me. Okay. I mean, so that makes sense from the athlete perspective. Yeah. Yeah.

A little bit off the play. What do you think, James? I think a huge part of it came from seminar staff. You know, one of the really cool things about kind of being an early adopter of something and I feel like we were early adopters of CrossFit, is you get in the ground floor and you meet a lot of the people who are at the front of it and pushing it forward. So we were both really lucky to get involved with CrossFit early on

and meet a lot of people who were already working on seminar staff. And whether they knew it or not, they were already very talented people in previous fields or other disciplines, and they brought that to CrossFit. And we were able to get to know a lot of the, you know, at that time, you know, the business had not quite formed as well as it has and strategically as it has now. But we met a lot of people inside of CrossFit,

you know, CrossFit's founder, Greg Glassman, and guys like Dave Castro and, you know, the list goes and Nicole Carroll and the list goes on and on. So as far as influencing our coaching voice, I think for both of us, we were very fortunate to be around people who were excellent at what they were doing. And that has a really big influence on you

if you're around people like that and you have the wherewithal or just you haphazardly listen to them and take feedback from them. And the really cool thing about seminar staff is that it's really collaborative and it's constructive and it's feedback. There's no weekend that goes by

that we don't receive feedback. And so for Austin and myself, 10 years into seminar staff now, we've been receiving feedback on our coaching, our presentation to groups, how we prepare, how we carry ourselves, continued education. And people who join seminar staff today will continue to receive that. So seminar staff has had an immense influence on my coaching voice. But also at the same time, you know, I always joke,

you know, how did I end up on Crosswood New England's team? that won a championship and then we also got a second place and then mayhams team that we won two championships and cross of mayhem has continued to win championships and i imagine they will continue to do that um i always joke that i just have the my superpower is that i just find the best coattails to ride um however that works but i i also i do pride myself on paying attention to people who i think do things i won't don't want to just say better but do things better but also do things differently than me you know i always think there's value and learning for from an experience that isn't yours.

Luckily, both Austin and I in the last decade of our life, we're able to learn from people who are quite excellent at whatever they do, whether it was business, content development, fitness, fill in the blank. So it's had a huge impact on my coaching voice. And, you know, we weren't just exposed to one way. We were exposed to a lot of different ways. And, you know, it's kind of a buffet of development, both intellectually, personally, physically,

for us over the last 10 years, which has been really, really amazing. I think the feedback is the biggest thing. Huge. Yeah, that's what I was going to bring up. It's this sort of feedback loop that is consistently happening for all levels, whether you're running it, whether you're just presenting, you know, the deadlift or one of the other movements, whatever the case, what are you guys looking at? Since you guys do run the show, you run the show, you're the coach of coaches.

What do you kind of instill upon people to get out of each session and how do you help members and athletes that are trying to get better that aren't as good as you that's a lot loaded in that so you can you can unpack that i think the biggest thing is you know when you're when you're watching you know when you're evaluating a coach and coaching a class and i ask three questions you know we have a workout we need to make sure we get the workout we have to give athletes the up that was a statement right that wasn't a question well did you have did you get a workout okay all right That's the question you'd ask. Then the next thing you think about, which turns into a question is, did you give the

athletes the opportunity to learn a new skill or refine a current skill, right? Did they learn? In turn, did you, you know, teach, see correct, scale appropriately? And then finally, did they have fun? So you ask those questions, right? So we've got to get a workout in, got to have fun, and you've got to give people an opportunity to learn at the very least refine a current skill, keyword opportunity. And I think from there, as you watch, one, your feedback, you need to meet feedback at the level of the coach.

So if I'm watching James coach a class, James is a very competent high level instructor. My feedback lens is going to be very different than if I'm watching someone that just passed their level one. So I think that's the first thing that is very important is meet them where they are and where they, you know, what feedback is appropriate for them. The simplest thing is just give them something to do. It's no different than an athlete. Feedback to a coach, feedback to athletes very same. You need to give them something to do. It's not, well, you know, I wish you coached a better class.

Like, that's useless, right? And also, it's like you need to teach better, still useless. How? If I need you to open up your hip as an athlete, I need to give you an actionable cue to do that. Then, whatever I ask you to do, squeeze your butt, jump higher, I need to see if it actually happens. So whatever feedback I give a coach on, hey, you know what, let's spend a little more time while you're teaching the progression of a push jerk on actually calling reps and then looking to see what you're looking for maybe call some corrections. How do we do that? Well, let's call five reps per person and just look at the hip. And that means if you have 10 people

in class, you've got to call a lot of reps. So keep an eye on that. Give them something actionable to do and then you can watch it and follow up. So I think that's as simple as it can be, but I think the key is giving action. And that's where it's the same as a coach to your athletes. You have to give your athletes something to do. If you can do that, now we can be effective because we've been actionable there. So, I mean, that's what I think about. I know James might have a different approach to it, but I think from a macro perspective, that's what we do. Yeah, I mean, I hate admitting this because I don't want to give them any other reason to gloat. But this is one thing I tell a lot of new trainers and coaches at CrossFit level ones, because these people coming into CrossFit Level

ones, you know, that's their first step if they want to open a CrossFit affiliate. For some of them, it might be, you know, career redire direction. But one of the things I often tell them, because it's hard to receive feedback, make yourself better if you don't have a goal in mind. Like if you're just kind of walking around in the dark and I'm giving feedback and I don't have a goal either. It's the blind leading the blind, so to speak.

But you try to give them a goal, and I actually heard this from Austin a long time ago, and he summed it up already, but it's keep people safe, make them better at one, maybe two things, help them have some fun. And I think that's a pretty low barrier to entry as a coach. Now there's a lot of hows to do.

do that. But if they can walk into a class with those three things in mind, and I have those three things in mind, it's easier for us to have a conversation about what feedback will be. And I think that's one of the biggest things, you know, whether it's coach, athlete, it doesn't really matter if it's even related to fitness. If you don't have a, you know, a mission that you're marching toward an end goal that you're marching toward, whether it's close or far away, it's really hard to receive, take, give feedback effectively. So I think that's probably the biggest thing. And on staff, they're so great about that with Crosswood Seminar staff is our feedback. has been constructive, it's direct and actionable and tangible.

You know, it's something you could take away. It's not just, hey, you know, you watch somebody moving. You're like, hey, you just need to be better. Well, you need to push your knees out, and that'll make that squat a little bit better. So deep, deep desire to make people better is obviously very important to both of you. Yeah. Do you think that you are better coaches or athletes? Oh, I'm a way better coach.

Yeah, I would say I'm a better coach and athlete. Yeah, I would hope. If you can compare those, yeah. Even peak? Peak athlete versus peak coach. When I was peak athlete, I don't think I was as good of a coach as I am now, but now I'm a better coach than I ever was an athlete. That's awesome.

So what's kind of been the progression? And when did you start making the transition from more focused on athlete to, okay, I get it. The bigger picture is actually maybe my role in this space is to, to transcend and help everyone else get better. I've achieved so much. When does the switch kind of go off? Is it because you

wanted it to? First off, or it just kind of happened, like time happened, or you consciously made the decision, I'm going to focus more on seminars and coaching and teaching and affiliates. Part of it was probably time. I, you know, I think about this a lot. A friend of ours

he works for CrossFit, Savon, and he said to me once, he said, team is where all good washed up individual athletes go. And there might be some truth to that.

But, or he said something like that's where athletes who can't make it as individuals go. It's like where individual athletes go to die or something.

Yeah, something like that. Something really inspirational. Yeah. I don't think that's, that's completely the case in all cases. But I think time was certainly part of it

for me and I think a bigger thing for me was that I felt relatively fulfilled with what I had accomplished as an individual CrossFit Games athlete and a team's CrossFit Games athlete and, you know, I had wanted to find another peak to climb and I think

putting more time into you know, the other areas of CrossFit or fitness that I hadn't explored was a really good way to do it for me and that came down to running an affiliate, owning an affiliate, coaching more and developing other coaches. Sharing what I had learned as an athlete with others.

I desired to do that more than just put more into myself as an athlete, I think. Yeah, I think time obviously is, you know, I think it's, I think that just is a natural progression as you get older, just what, you know, from where you start, you know, I always say like, what's your, you know,

time under tension as an athlete, right? So that happens, you get, you know, banged up or, you know, injuries here or there, which naturally kind of slow you down. But, you know, for me, I never looked at, I don't think I ever consciously had a thought was like, you know, I'm transitioning. I think a lot of it for me was, you know,

I guess for lack of way to put it, I've always been greedy when it comes to thinking about things I can do, you know, where, you know, every year I worked a seminar the weekend before the CrossFit games. So, and I, and it's like, because I was like, well, why not? I do it all year round. I'll work a seminar. And I know, and I think James is, is relatively similar from that perspective, too, is that for the past 10 years, it's, we've, we've had the opportunity to grow our coaching career while our athletic career was sort of, you know, Maybe, you know, going up the umbrella and maybe down the other side. And I think a few things for me was there was a clear conscious choice of time commitment. And I don't know if that time commitment was, you know what I'm transitioning from athlete to coach. It was I know that the amount of time and sacrifice it would take to even attempt to maintain to be at the best individual athlete I could ever be. And I remember the thought process.

I don't know if I'm willing to make that sacrifice, whether it is to spend time with my family, to grow businesses, to coach, whatever it might be. There was a conscious choice of I knew the sacrifice. And when I questioned whether it was something I wanted to do, I knew, I don't know if I don't think I admitted it right away to myself. but I think that was the point where I knew that things were transitioning because I'd never had that thought maybe two or three years prior. It was no question.

It was going to train four or five hours a day, of course. Like what else would we do? It was almost like, there was a point in time where I couldn't imagine life any other way. If you asked me, you know, what's, what, and I think I remember saying this, like, what's life going to be like after competing?

Like, I'll compete until I die. You know, because that's what, that's the mind. Once Austin told me that, quote, he would rip his bottom lip off to qualify for the CrossFit games. Exactly. Is that recently? No, that's 2014? Yeah, like that 14 or 15. Yeah.

But like, now he'd probably rip both bottom and top lip off. Yeah, right. Yeah, but that was like the mind. So so blinded by that, which I think is an important aspect of an athlete in that moment, right? I think that you ask any athlete that is, you know, where they need to be, you know, mentally and emotionally, that response will be the same. Should we talk about the time that you almost died and didn't know it? Oh, my 176 resting heart rate? We should also just preface us with the fact that,

and I wish, I would be curious to see that Austin's whooped out leading up to this, but he didn't have one at the time. When Austin gave himself shingles, which you only get from, not only, but you get it when you're very stressed out and run down. Yeah, I did that. Yeah. I beat it pretty quick. Yeah.

Bounced back. That was during the open, too. or like regional training so I did give myself shingles yep I actually a quick little story on that I got some body work done you know when you get body work done you're like oh like you know like they get beat up in the lats right because like you know your lats and ribs and you know all that stuff and I was like man like I got beat up there a little bit and then and my lower back was killing me and I was like man like my back never gets sore retrospect these are all symptoms of shingles no idea I was like man I and I was really upset with myself I'm like why am I sore

Like, I shouldn't be sore from working out. Like, it made me mad. I was mad at myself. I'm like foam rolling. Nothing's getting better. Like, then this thing on my side starts to grow. I'm like, that's not normal. That's when I went to the doctor.

And he said, he's like, yeah, you have shingles. And I was like, well, that's not good. In fact, he actually said this. He goes, you have herpes zuster. I was like, excuse me? I was very concerned. It's not Zoster. It's, yeah, he says...

It's Zuster. I mean... Wow. And I was like, excuse me? And he's like, shingles, I'm like, okay. Glad. Like, heart rate went way even higher at that point. And then he's like, yeah, but he's like, does your lower back hurt?

I'm like, yeah. He's like, how bad? I'm like, I don't know. I'm just like, I don't know. I just thought I was like really sore. He's like, yeah. It's like, those are like, you know, kidney's failing or something like that. So like, I'm like, cool.

And he just, you know, gave me. I got out of it. And he's like, he looked at me like I was crazy. so I just didn't train for two days but I'm proud of that that I beat shingles in two days in two days

and then but then what I I didn't realize in the moment so it's an open workout for those of that remember it was the rowing wall ball workout right so it was like 19 18 1

18.15 minute am wrap and you had to complete 19 wall ball ball shots through 10 foot target and 19 calorie row just go back and forth it was Monday and it was I was repeating it

I almost always do better on a repeat, no matter what, whether it's just one rep or more, and I've always repeated it because why not? I'm starting the workout, and about like two minutes in, I realized something's wrong, because I'm like, I felt like my heart rate was through the roof, but I'm only like two minutes into a workout, and I'm rowing at like maybe 1,500 calories. I'm like, this is not hard right now, but I feel awful. I get off the rower, and then I stop the workout, and Connor, who's judging me, is panicked at this point. never stopped a workout. And I go and I throw up and it's a little bloody. I'm like,

man, that's not good. But I'm like, I had a Lara Bar like two days ago. Maybe it was a Lara Bar, you know, it was like Cherry or something like that. So that's like, that was my excuse to myself. You made a Lara Bar two days ago. Yeah, something like that. And you threw it up. It was like, you know. And so I wasn't feeling good. I went home. I'm laying down. My wife, who's a rational human, you know, she says, awesome, you should go to the doctor. and I was like no like I'm fine she's like no you're there's something wrong with you

go to urgent care like finally by like 4 p.m. I go to urgent care and I get there it's super nice and you know so the lady comes in and you know that checks your vitals and she sticks a little heart rate thing on and I look at it and I'm watching her and I see your face

like kind of give an expression of sort of befuddlement and like okay she's like oh let's take that again I'm like okay because like the other screen's facing her takes it again she goes something's wrong with this machine

I'm like oh what is she goes well your heart rate's at 176 she goes that's not right I'm like I'm like that's not good and she's like how do you feel I'm like I don't feel great but I mean if you ask me to do something I would do it and then so she leaves right

so she's gone she brings in the reinforcements and then they take with another instrument they take my heart rate and it's like 175 176 then they immediately send me to the back room and then they hook me up to like the the ecc the ecc like so like they get the things all over me the show like the doctor comes in and like ask me all these questions and i'm like you know now i'm freezing because i'm like half naked you know and by the time the doctor comes in i normalize i'm like oh like look and he's like this is how like you know i'm not maybe a huge fan of all doctors

He's like, ah, you must be dehydrated. Like, that's what you got for me? Like, that's all you hit me with. You must be, I was like, I don't know if that's the case,

but I'll go with it. So they just hooked me up to an IV. And then finally, I was like, I really have to go to the bathroom. So you need to take this IV out of me. And I, because I have to go to the bathroom.

That's how I got out of there earlier than they wanted me to because I was waste of my time. You just left. Yeah. But, and I was fine. But the real, the real kicker was I had to go to Poland to the next day.

Remember that? And I was very, I was actually nervous about it. I was like, should I fly around the world for a seminar? And I was like, well, and I, my back, because my lower back was bothering me. I was like, man, did I give myself shingles again? I was concerned. Like you said, you have not woken up and not entered stressed.

It's true, yeah. Any morning. That's right. Yeah, it's always in there. I feel high stress. But I flew to Poland. Definitely didn't feel great. And of course, the workout was the squat clean double under total bar workout.

That was not a fun one to do. But I did it. and I'm still here, so I don't know what it was, but I'd like to say that I had a resting heart rate of 176, which I've tried on my whoop to break. I've tried to get above 176, and I haven't seen it record above 176 for max heart rate. So I'm wondering if, like, I just like...

Your body is self-governed now. What way you do it? Exactly. I wonder if I created some new, like, governor because of it. Because I think 176 is the highest I got my whoop, and I was like, man. And I've done some really awful things in workouts. I'm like where I felt like my heart was going to explode,

and it's like... It was. I mean, I don't recommend having your heart rate at 176. I just want to put that out there. I don't think it's advisable. Avoid that if you can, people. I'm still just amazed that science and the doctors didn't come up with a reason.

He hit me, when he hit me with dehydrated, I lost a little faith in, you know, doctors. Have you been back to the doctor since? No, no. But I feel great, you know? You don't have shingles. No, I don't have shingles. I brush my teeth twice a day.

I feel like I'm good. That's it? Good. Yeah, I floss. So back in the day, in the heyday, so to speak, before whoop for you guys, how much you guys actually sleeping versus training? Actually, this is, you know, really funny because when I was competing, I, you know, with Mayhem or with New England, I never had a whoop.

But I would, like, bet my hat on the fact that I sleep far worse now, even with the extra data. And I was joking about this other day with somebody because I saw it was like, my whoop told me that I would need 10 hours for optimal sleep recovery. And I laughed and I said to myself, who the hell has 10 hours to sleep at night? Nobody. You know, like, I'm lucky if I get 10 hours in two days of sleep.

But then I thought to myself, I was like, oh, competitive athletes definitely have 10 hours to sleep at night. And I could see how that would be beneficial for them. So I know that I slept far better when I was an athlete. I mean, when we were at Mayhem, I don't think I woke up until 10A. I mean, the goal was to you just slept until you couldn't stand being in bed anymore. because the goal after that was we're going to literally work out until somebody quits. Or dies.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was really, there was a, in 2014, we got better at it, I think, the mayhem crew down there. But, you know, in 2014, Rich certainly had this mentality. And it was really fun to be around at that time where it was like, if you had energy left, like there were days we would finish working out, we would come inside, we would start making dinner. And he'd be like, it would be like 9 o'clock at night. He'd be like, you want to go run?

No, but why not? know, like I could still stand. I can move my feet. So, yeah, let's go run. So, that being said, I was sleeping way better then. You were just sleeping more. Way more. Maybe not better.

Yeah, maybe not better. But it could be. I was on like the three, people would ask me, what supplement do you take? And I was like, for Crossett, I was like, Tylenol in excess amounts to help you sleep. Yeah. I think it's interesting, James, that you said you sleep worse now. And I think. I should say worse.

I definitely sleep less. You sleep way less. And it's, it's, my take would be. I sleep less, too, because there's just more now, right? Because when you extrapolate from that singular focus of, I need to get to the CrossFit Games, I need to win the CrossFit games, I need to do X thing, and then all of a sudden you do have four things that are actually pretty important, they still probably have to happen.

So understanding, I mean, for me at least, I find that I use my Whoop data particularly to modify training at this point. because you know that's not my top focus like I want to train it might be different for you guys because you're still in the more of the fitness environment than I am because it's livelihood right it's this is your life another thing I find interesting about your sleep data Austin is that despite the fact that you sleep not that much you actually have pretty good recoveries yeah because of your sleep consistency yeah of what so what's your routine pretty much. Yeah, I mean, yeah, so I don't sleep a lot, but I usually get to bed around like 10, 10.30,

but it's like the routine is, I have a 15-month-old, so when she goes to sleep at like 6.30 or 7, and then at that point, it's, you know, time for myself, my wife to kind of hang out. So it is, so my, no matter when I get home, whether on night shift or morning shift, it slows down. So we just hang out, and I usually just get work done, but we watch TV, we hang out. So, and then we get to bed around 10, 10, 30, but then, no matter what, whether I open or close a gym, I'm up around, I'm up between four and five every day. Is that natural? Yeah.

Yeah, so, like, if I'm not opening, for example, I don't set my alarm, but I will be up right around 5 o'clock every day. The only time that's a little different is on seminar weekends, seminar weekends, I actually looked at my data recently about how, like, I sleep the most on the weekends because I travel. and I go to bed way earlier because I'm not spending time with anyone alone so I go to bed way earlier than I do during the week when I'm at home

but it's across the board relatively consistent and it's ironic because from when I look at the data I actually I get better recovery scores during the week than on the weekends yet I sleep more on the weekends

because it's different and so like and things are different and I don't know much beyond that but it's funny how I can sleep you know four and a half five hours sometimes and my recovery's 70 80 percent and then I'll sleep like eight and a half hours I'm like I look at it and I don't feel any I don't feel that much different so it's that always highlights to me I'm like okay maybe you know I'm good with the you know six hours of sleep average or whatever I get so yeah it's potent yeah the more the more regular you can be on it you know the more potent that sleep is going to end up being yeah do you

see similar things, James? Do you get more sleep when you're at a seminar? I don't know. I don't know. You know, I'll tell you the lesson learned. I think the lesson I learned was to, you know, to be at that, I don't know, I don't ever see myself as an elite performer, but I think to perform at that elite level, you kind of, you do have to, like Austin said, make an immense amount of sacrifices and the time commitment to it is huge. You know, it's a 40-hour, a week job plus, and that's when people always asked me, oh, I want to compete at the CrossFit games. What do I do? I'm like, do you have a full-time job? They're like, yeah, I'm a quit. And they kind of look at me like I'm making a joke, but I'm being really serious because the people who do it and do it well, it truly

is their job. Well, especially now. Yeah, and all the stuff, and all this, it's not just like exercising all day, it's all the stuff that goes into it. But what I have learned since I stopped competing really in 2017, so almost three years of reflection, is that, all right, I'm not putting in the effort anymore to be at that tip of the spear level. But I have learned, you know, I want to say how little, but it's not like a one or the other. Like I put, I work out way less than I used to. I pay attention way, you know, I have less time to commit to like recovery and getting bodywork and sleeping than I used to. But that being said, there are a couple things you can pay attention to and still perform really, really, really well.

You know, I'd argue that I'll be 34, 35 next year. I don't know. One of those two. And I think I'm still way ahead of the curve. and, you know, and I think you can still accomplish that. You know, it's not, it's not the one or the other either. You're at the, you're at the, you're top 1% or you're dead. You know, there's, there's a couple things you can do to still be pretty damn fit.

Do you want to dive into this? Yeah, I mean, consist. Are these the Hobart's secrets to success that only, that only you have? The snake oil. No, I think one of the big things is consistency. You know, part of it is I have. In terms of training or your day schedule? schedule and training, I think, are two really big ones. And with 10 years of competing at a high

level under my belt, it's like, I don't have to keep training at that volume to maintain being pretty darn fit and healthy, which helps. So it's like whatever you're doing, I think showing up consistently to it. One of my favorite piece of advice I've ever heard is practice good habits poorly. So what does that mean? It's like, you don't always have to like have the perfect day of training to keep moving things in the right direction. And it's so, or, At the other end of it, it's like, you know, it's like if your recovery isn't a thousand percent and you take a day off and you get back to it the next day, it's like, that's going to be okay. It's just the consistency over the long term of following that schedule I think is really important.

The other thing that really helped me is kind of paying attention to what things occurred or I did to myself outside of the gym. I know I joke about the sleep one. Like, I definitely don't sleep as much as I used to, but I do pay attention to the details of sleep more than I ever have, whether or not I do a good job of that or not. and then the other one was nutrition, which is really funny. And this is just the way we rolled. But it was like I pay way more attention to my nutrition now than I ever did as a competitor.

And I think part of that was just like, well, if you're trending this much a day, I want to go home and have a slice of pizza and I want to wake up and have a Pop-Tart because the next 12 hours is going to suck and this will be really fun. It would be a nice little treat. So I think those three things have helped me a lot in stepping away from competing and still feeling really good and really fit and performing well. without training five hours a day. And I think the thing you take,

where you take for granted is intensity. Yeah. You know, it's like, yes, the volume is much lower, but, you know, when you train, you've got to hit it real hard. And that is the hardest thing to do when you don't have a background. It's the hardest thing for me to teach people.

It's the hardest thing for people that are looking for, I only have X amount of time, but teaching intensity is very hard. for those of us that know how to do it you know it's setting your work i know for me it's like i need to set myself up for workouts to achieve that level of intensity because it's i gotta be i got to i got to get there so whether it's a for me i love taking class because it'll like i don't when i'm around people i get amped up and like so like you know like that's for me is like i love

taking class and it it gives it puts me in a place where i'm just good sometimes i just take class I'm great. I mean, it just, I'm spent now. And whereas that's a little different when you're volumizing across a day where he might hit one session with that level of intensity, but your other stuff is going to be a little lower. So intensity is really important, specifically when you're limiting what you're doing.

But it goes hand in hand because the less that you do, the higher with intensity you can attack things. Exactly. But it's hard to teach. Intensity's really hard to teach. And, you know, that's the nugget that makes CrossFit so special. but that's also the nugget that makes a CrossFit gym so important because it's very difficult to achieve that on your own.

That's why you walk into a traditional gym and you really, the one thing you see is a lack of intensity. And it's not because the people are bad people. It's just the environment is not conducive and you need support. Yeah. You need support when you're doing that. So we talked about, you know, coaching coaches and how you give them feedback. So, you know, Whoop obviously offers the ability to see a group.

You know, we have the Reebok group, and we've got Cross at One Nation, Crosset, Boston have groups. A coach could hypothetically look at, let's say today's workout, which looks atrociously hard, for someone to come in with, you know, a red recovery, you know, how could a coach really kind of look at that, know what was yesterday, what the stimulus is for today, and be able to kind of help the athletes, It's particularly the ones that, even when they're in a good position, bite off more than they can chew and don't really listen to the loading and scaling options. So have you guys used it personally? Have you thought about using it in terms of being able to reach athletes in a way of, hey, here's what your body's telling you. Maybe don't go as heavy as is written today so that you cannot have to take the next four days off.

I mean, what I have liked it for, I haven't used it specifically for that. What I have liked it for is because, man, it's hard to stop people from themselves. And even if times it's like you talk to somebody and they're like, well, my recovery, it was, you know, 30% last night. And you're like, well, you know, that probably means you should just take it easy today. I catch them over and, you know, you peel weight off their bar and then there's stuff in 25-pound plates back on their bar. And I'm like, you should just be easy in the transitions and they're running around like maniacs. I think what it's actually helped me do more than anything is not prevent them from making bad choices related to their recovery in the moment. but allow them to look at, hey, well, if you're not going to listen to me when you stroll in the gym

or take rest days, here's other things we can pinpoint that you can work on. So you have a bit of a better defense or a little bit more of a buffer. And I think that's one of the coolest things about it. Because, you know, the longer I've done this and, you know, it's like you work really hard on educating clients and you even give them a tool to measure their recovery. It's, I think for most people coming in, they just, if they're in the gym, they're going to get after it like maniacs for the most part. But what you can do is now have a tool that I think has let me kind of, kind of, of point to them like, hey, look, if you do X, Y, and Z before you go to bed, you're going to sleep a little bit better. And that is going to contribute to the time you actually have when

you do sleep. So that's where I found it as a really useful tool. I think it's been, you know, me personally, too, I'm the same way. You know, this thing will, this thing, it could have, like, I think I should have a symbol on the whoop that it shows that it's just a skull and crossbones when your recovery is at a certain level. But if that symbol showed up for me, I'd be like, I'd be like, hell yeah, let's roll. You know, like, let's see if, let's see if it will. Can we turn it red. I told my wife today my goal this year was to try and work so hard that I need a heart replacement. I like that goal. So, but no, it has helped pinpoint, like I said, for me as a coach, it's helped pinpoint. What can they do outside of the gym a little bit better to try and

buffer their bad decisions? I'm in the same. I think it's very hard to, scaling people effectively inappropriate, I think, is that will always happen. I think the data we can get from the Rupin that I've seen is more or less like, well, why is it there? Because it is what it is. You're here. We're going to keep you safe. You're going to get a workout and we're going to train to train another day. And hopefully maybe, you know, what the data on there, you know, can back, you know, now you trust me a little more, right? But more importantly is, well, why is that the case? Can we pinpoint behavior we might want to change? Is it something that we know is unavoidable, right? Oh, you know, like, well, every Tuesday night is this night. So I don't

feel like, great. We just need to be aware of that. No different than prior to, lot. I mean, I, on a Monday, I'm always like, hey, guys, who burned it down all weekend? And, you know, part of it's fun, but also it's like, you know, the one or two people will be like, I'm going to keep an eye on them a little more. I know, I'm going to, I'm going to keep them closer to the front or maybe the closer to the bathroom, right? Because, and, but things like that, because, and it matters, like, those things have affected the class. So I think, and if we can look back at behavior change, because that's what I think is the beauty of the data and the whoop is, okay, what can we learn from that about our behavior. and are you you know because if you're if you're wearing it if you're getting the data it means you care and it means that you I hope that you're willing to make some type of behavior change based off the results you're getting and I think that's that where as certainly as coaches that's something that we need to start to do and it's because the conversation nutrition is no different it's the same thing as well why I can get I can tell you to eat meats and vegetables nuts and seed some fruit little starch no sugar and weigh and measure your food but what's more

important is what what made it so hard for you not to do it why did you fail last night or last week what were the the life circumstances that didn't allow it to happen that's what we need to talk about and i think that's where a lot of that data can come into play yeah i think a lot of times uh when people kind of maybe astray from how they would strive to to to eat and you know go about their day it's lack of sleep because when when you lose that sleep you lose you lose a bit of control I mean, that's just physiological. I don't know if the whoop psychology department has a, has like a term for this or is a phenomenon, but it's also like, it's really hard when you're confronted with hard data, like specific numbers or a graphic to like argue against it. You know, like I can sleep poorly and eat poorly and be like, I feel, you know, I feel crappy and just, but I can still keep letting that happening.

But it's like, it's like saying to yourself, like, I'm okay at muscle ups. And then you go into the gym and you are in front of a class or a coach and you don't have muscle ups and you put, you know, DFL. on the board next to your name, and you're almost like compelled to react to that data a little bit. And I, you know, I hate being told what to do. And so, like I joked, like, if I'm told by, you know, my whoops suggests I have a poor recovery score, I literally look at it. I'm like, you know, you man, I'm going to work. I'm going to make it worse. But it's so funny. It's like just the sleep data. It kind of sucks you. And, you know, like, I'll look at my sleep day. I'm like, wow, didn't sleep well last night. What did I do yesterday? Oh, slept well last night. What did I do differently

yesterday. So I think what's really cool about it is when you are compelled with some data that's specific and measurable, you know, and accurate, you will start to make changes whether you like it or not. Thanks to Austin and James for coming on the program this week. We're glad to have them as WOOP members. If you're not already a WOOP member, you can join our community for as low as $30 to begin. We provide you with 24-7 access to your biometric data, as well as analytics across strain, sleep, recovery, heart rate variability, and more. The membership comes with a free whoop strap 3.0. We offer 6, 12, and 18-month memberships.

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