WHOOP Podcast - Jason Khalipa, former CrossFit Games World Champion and current author, coach and gym owner shares the training philosophies that have helped him succeed throughout his career.

Episode Date: February 12, 2019

Jason Khalipa, former CrossFit Games World Champion, owner of NCFIT gyms, and author of As Many Reps As Possible talks about the evolution of the CrossFit Games (6:02), fasting workouts in the morning (10:17) and developing his own training process (12:35), his critical component for success (13:50), including giving people the right tools (19:32) and the value of fitness as a community (22:03), what to look for in a gym (26:13) and how to identify a good coach (27:23), the AMRAP mentality (31:20), "knowing your why" (37:18), the benefits he sees in WHOOP (49:09), and why he plans to invest in a bio freezer (57:35).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 WOOP podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of WOOP, where we are on a mission to unlock human performance. At WOOP, we measure the body 24-7 and provide analytics to our members to help improve performance. This includes strain, recovery, and sleep. Our clients range for 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? We're launching a podcast to dig deeper. We'll interview experts and industry leaders across sports, data, technology, physiology, athletic achievement, you name it. 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.

But I do think the critical component that most people leave out when they think about CrossFit athletes in particular is because there's so much variance and so much complexity and so much time you're training, it's important to create a surround yourself with people that're going to raise you up and push you that one or two extra percent that could be the difference between you getting on the podium or not. How are we doing today, folks?

I am chatting with Jason Kalipa, former CrossFit Games world champion owner of NC Fit and host of the Business of Fitness and Amrap mentality podcast. I had an awesome time going on his show recently and we decided to have him come be a guest on the Whoop podcast. Jason's been using Whoop. We talk about his experience there. We talk about what it took to become a world champion within CrossFit. We also talk about his book as many reps as possible and the mentality behind Amrap. We cover the business business. business side of CrossFit, and also delve into the various training and recovery techniques

that Jason's found valuable throughout his career, both as an athlete and a coach. I think for those of you who do weightlifting or CrossFit of any kind, you're really going to enjoy this episode. Here's Jason. Jason, thanks for coming on. Of course. Yeah, no, thanks for having me. There's a lot of things I want to talk to you about. Your new book, Amrap, as many reps as possible. I devoured it, really enjoyed it. I want to get into that. You've been a successful businessman on the side of gym creation and CrossFit. So I want to talk a little bit about that. But first, you know, when you were growing up, did you know you were always going to be the fittest man on earth? No, no, not at all. When I was growing up, I used to race BMX bikes. I was really

into that. And then I found, you know, like high school style sports with football and track and things like that. And then once I graduated, I started pursuing a bunch different things. But yeah, no, I never really, I don't know. I wonder if circumstances were different. If maybe my athletic career could have been different? I don't quite know. I don't know what would have happened if I had found and identified football at an earlier age if I would have been able to play it longer and perform better at it. But because I jumped around from sport to sport and I ended up getting into BMX, there really wasn't anywhere to go once I turned a certain age and once you turn pro or whatever. So I didn't know I was going to be the fittest man in CrossFit. But I wonder

looking back on my childhood, if I had stayed more committed to a singular sport, what would have happened in the more traditional sports versus CrossFit? But hey, who knows? Now, is it true? Is it normal to have someone of your background go on to win the CrossFit games? I think in the back of my mind of someone who was like an all-star wrestler in college or potentially like a really good football player and then they got into CrossFit. Or, you know, what's the typical background of someone who ends up winning the CrossFit games? Yeah, it's a really good question. In general, if you look historically at the people who have won and done well, it's been people who have a wide variety of athletic background so you get exposure to different things and it's more of a body

type than it is like a background so yes definitely wrestlers uh that's a component because they have the mental strength and they typically have this similar body style that favors crossfit leading up so crossfids changed a lot over the years from a competition perspective but if you're looking like the you know ideal situation today you're about five eight five nine give or 8, 5-8, and you're probably about 190, 190, 195, 190 pounds, give or take. If you're over 220, you're kind of outside the scope. If you're less than 160, you're kind of outside the scope, just because you can't lift heavy enough, and there becomes like this, there becomes more of a body type that favors

well to many different things, like gymnastics, weightlifting, and then more cardio-type stuff, versus backgrounds. There's a wide variety of them where people start. having success. But I think really what caters to people having success at the CrossFit Games is having a strong belief in why they're there and, you know, having the work ethic to put in a lot of time. You know, it makes a lot of sense that there's a certain body type that's going to be good at the CrossFit games. Now, the CrossFit games have evolved a lot since you won in 2008, correct? Oh, yeah, tremendously. I mean, so I won in 2008, but I think my better

accomplishments are I finished second and then third in the world in 13 and 14. And I think that was a cool transition because I saw the sport grow so much, but I was able to stay at the top, which was fun. Talk about that growth. Like I think in 2008, it still had a little bit more of that cult feeling to it. And then by 2013, 2014, I was reading in your book, you know, you're talking about ESPN reporters everywhere and helicopters. Like, was it strange for you to see that evolution? Or did you think it was somewhat inevitable? I mean, obviously at the time when I won the games, I didn't know what was going to happen.

But it was kind of like a slow progress, right? It wasn't like this thing where it just happened overnight. Because when we moved from the ranch into the Home Depot Center, the first year, it wasn't like the place was jam-packed. It was an amazing, amazing location. it was great. But the spectators, it wasn't like crammed in. Then as the years went on, 11, 12, 13, 14, I mean, we really started filling that place up. And then the energy was unbelievable. And so I don't know if anything really surprised me just because of how slowly or how organically I saw it grow. I want to talk a little bit about your training and preparation for the CrossFit game. So leading up to 2008, what was your daily, routine, so to speak, in terms of becoming the fittest man on earth?

I mean, in 2008, I, you know, I don't attribute that year for me being like the best shape of my life. I'd say I was probably the best shape of my life probably in 2014 when I took third because the competition was so much more challenging. The amount of events, and we're talking about, you know, 20 to 30 events, I mean, tons of events. Whereas in 2008, I mean, it was four or five events, and it was just a totally different landscape. It was a two-day event versus, you know, a four- or five-day event. And as a CrossFit game started to develop, you started to need to have the ability to go really long, two, three, four-hour events. And he'd also need to be able to go really short, like a single-rep high, high-load, clean and jerk or snatch.

And so my preparation was really morning, fasting, cardio. I did a lot of that. Then middle of the day, I would start doing more of a traditional CrossFit style. You know, MetCon with the box jumps and rowing and kettlebell swings and clean and jerks and whatever. And then in the evening, I would do more of like a skill session where it would be developing stamina and developing these types of skills. So you're literally doing three workouts in a day at that point in your career. Oh, at a minimum. As the CrossFit game sort of approach, you know, your season shifted.

So for me, for a couple of years, I would go open, which occurred in like the beginning of the year, like February, which was an online challenge where the workouts were like 15 to 20 minutes in duration. You were able to repeat them if you wanted to, and they were done at the confines of your box. So you knew kind of what the scope was going to be. Then you transitioned from there to regionals, which was at, you know, like an arena. And there was only so much you could do at the regionals as well. then from there you transition to the games when that was really the kind of broadest test so those are things like swimming in the ocean

Camp Pendleton obstacle course all kinds of crazy stuff and then after that you would if you qualified you'd get invited to represent the United States in like a team USA invitational and so my season was a year-round thing and it would have these flows based on what I was doing so if I was getting ready for the CrossFit games I would have to spend more time in the ocean

and more time doing weird stuff, more time on my feet, whereas if I was just getting ready for the open, I'd be more focused on lighter load 15 and 20 minutes, as an example. And so if we think about those three sessions that you had in a day, you said you start in the morning, you had a faster workout, right? Oh, fasting. Oh, you wouldn't eat in the morning. No. And what would you use to kind of start the day?

Do you drink coffee or anything like that? Not if I'm doing like fasting cardio. and probably not uh you know if i was really going to get after it i would probably set my track workout sometime in the middle of the day so i would i would incorporate very track focused workouts i would just crush me once or twice a week you know i'd be swimming once or twice a week uh be going long like really long once a week and then throughout the duration of the week every morning would typically start off with some type of aggressive cardio in my garage whether that's biking intervals, burpees, and whatever,

but it would typically be lighter load, high intensity for, you know, 30 minutes. And that's typically like right when I wake up. That's what I would have done. So you wake up in the morning, you do a high intensity 30 minute workout. And then would you stretch or anything like that? Or is it, you know, straight to the showers on to the next thing of the day? Yeah, I mean, you'd probably just, you know, recover a little bit and then boom, get a shower up and then move on. And, you know, it's the middle of the day.

So for me, and still till today, right, like in my living room right now is a stationary bike from concept two because the garage, sometimes in the morning, it's cold. It's like, all right, I'll bring in the bike. And I'll just hit up intervals right when I wake up. And the reason why I like doing that is it gets my body, you know, kind of going and pumping early without incorporating a load. As soon as I start putting an external object like a barbell or whatever, I need a little bit more time to warm up and groove. And in the mornings, I normally just like to get after it so I can get on with the day. Interesting. So you'll just pump yourself up on the bike or, you know, do some kind of cardio. And then later in the day is when you want to apply an external load.

For the most part. Yeah, I'd say that by in general, yes. Because when I start incorporating the external load, it puts more strain on my body. And for me, again, I'm just referring to myself, and I need to be mentally and physically prepared for that. Mentally, meaning, you know, I'm kind of preparing myself as the day goes on, and then physically, my body is getting warmer and warmer as the day it goes on. So how much of that as a process did you develop for yourself versus, like, collaborate with other people on? I'm always curious how collaborative, something like the CrossFit community is.

I mean, I think nowadays a little bit different than when we first started, I do think too many people put too much attention on the program and not enough on the effort in the in the vibe you create for me it's not so much about what is the program uh i would just kind of create my daily workouts as i went and listened to my body one of the challenges i think every athlete or every person you think about is that if you have somebody else writing your program for you that's fine but they don't know how you feel and you and i talked about this where every day i would evaluate myself and say hey, how am I feeling today? If I was feeling good, I was almost obligated to kind of get after it and set a new personal best or whatever it may be. But if I wasn't feeling good, then I needed to

listen to my body, take a little bit of a step back. But if a coach told me on a day that I wasn't feeling that good to go for a personal best, you know, maybe that isn't the best decision because I wasn't prepared for it. Now, every now and then, there's exceptions to the rule. But point being is I would create my own program based on how I was feeling, and I had a good enough awareness to do that. But I do think the critical component that most people leave out when they think about CrossFit athletes in particular is because there's so much variance and so much complexity and so much time you're training, it's important to create a surround yourself with people that are going to raise you up and push you that one or two extra percent

that could be the difference between you getting on the podium or not, and that's the critical component. Well, we talked about that whole element of if you've got a coach telling you today's a PR day and your body's not in a position to do it, not only are you not going to hit the PR, there's a whole psychological backlash that goes with it. So what you just described is a very whoop mindset, which is that you should be putting the appropriate strain on your body for how recovered you are. And so it sounds like early on in your career or even over time, you got very good at understanding the status of your body, which is something that I've just found in working with a lot of athletes over time is something that actually doesn't

come all that naturally to high performing athletes. And that in part was why I started whoop and this idea of giving athletes the tools to be able to monitor these things about themselves. For sure. And I do think in across the community, there is more focus on training and recovery because that's ultimately what the sport is. And I think that's why it's a little bit different. If you look at someone like, let's just take basketball and you look at, you know, LeBron James, he has certain attributes that enable him to be excellent at his sport. And he has a ton of skill, of course. But his skill, he needs to spend time practicing his sport, which his sport is basketball. He needs a shoot. He needs to, you know, dribble, etc. Whereas for us, because our

sport is the sport of fitness and training, we spend a lot more time and emphasis thinking about that, right? Because we're not thinking about necessarily a skill specific thing. We're thinking about a very broad scope of movements. Although I would say even you're probably being humble. Like there are some workouts within CrossFit that do seem like they're heavily technique oriented. The CrossFit pull-up, remind me the name of the pull-up. Like a kipping or a butterfly pull-up, yeah. Right, watching you do that was a pretty silky, silky experience for me. Oh, yeah, the bar muscle up and things like that.

I mean, there's definitely a set of skills that are challenging. I mean, you know, from muscle ups to ring handstand push-ups to rope climbs and all these different things, there's definitely a level of complexity. But, you know, in CrossFit's term, you want to be kind of good at everything and great at nothing. And that's really where you spend a bunch of time. You know, you want to be a guy who, you know, for me at my kind of prime, I was running a 5, 40 mile and trying to, you know, back squat 500 pounds.

And that's kind of like the goal, right, and walk in her hands. And so it just requires a lot of time to develop these skills, just so many. And for you today, like, I know you still work out a lot and obviously fitness is a huge part of your life. How do you stay motivated as a, you know, as a daily fitness enthusiast? when, you know, historically, your performance was probably higher? I mean, the motivation for me, and it's really been interesting for me to see how recovery has played a role.

For example, when I was at, you know, the highest level, my clean and jerk was not that much higher than it is today. And I rarely clean and jerk, but maybe my body's going into it more recovered. I don't quite know what's going on or because I've spent more time. doing other sports like jiu-jitsu, me, my body's finding new muscles it hasn't found before. I have no idea. But it's been really interesting for me to see how my strength

and my abilities haven't fallen off that much. But my motivation is really just, you know, I think you and I were talking about this. I never want fitness to be an inhibitor of my life, ever. I, until the day I die, I never want to have something come up where my son wants to do it or my daughter or my wife, and I'm worried about it because I don't have the fitness to perform it.

If they want to go climb a mountain, if they want to go to the beach, I want to feel comfortable. And that's my motivation every day, and it's never been stronger than it is today. And talk about how you've now channeled that emotion to, you know, affect a whole community of people to get fitter and healthier. Well, I mean, obviously, you know, I was introduced to group style coaching, training years ago, and I fell in love with it. And so we opened up one location, then two, and then we just kept organically expanding to now over 20 locations. And, you know, my goal is to provide a living to coaches and let them do what they love for living like I do. And then in return, you know, impact people's lives through fitness. And I think a coach and a community make a night and day difference for people and their results.

I think a lot of times with everything, if you're like, for example, if I want to get my car fixed, I go to a mechanic. If I want to do certain things, I seek out experts in the space. But for some reason, with fitness, people oftentimes want to do it themselves. And that's fine. But they need to have the proper education and proper know-how. Otherwise, they can really mess themselves up and find themselves wasting a lot of time. And so that's what I think we've been able to do that I'm really proud of is help people be more efficient with their time and get better results. Well, one of the things that I loved in your book, which we'll talk about and bit is you talked about how early on in your career you were selling gym memberships and

you know you got really good at it and you were making a nice commission on it but you realized over time that you didn't actually believe in what the gym was selling and that became an influence for you and how you thought about creating a whole new form of fitness and community talk a little bit about that yeah i mean i think what it really goes into is that at an early age i think I was 14, 15. I started working the front desk. And then I started selling gym memberships and I was making good money. Like, I mean, I remember bringing home some paychecks and they were, they were big, you know, for a high school, call for a college kid.

But I just remember thinking of myself, like I would be sitting across the table from these people. And I'd be saying, hey, look, you know, join today for 19 bucks a month. And, you know, you're going to get in the best shape of your life. And I just remember thinking to myself, I'm not giving these people the tools they need to actually get in the best shape of their life. Obviously the first step is they do need to enroll in a membership, but if they don't have guidance and direction, they're basically going to just walk around aimlessly leave and then maybe we collect their money for another year before they cancel it. But I mean, is that really the right thing to do? So for me, when I found CrossFit and, you know,

group style training with the coach, it was just so simple because it aligned with my core value of, hey, we all need to make a living. I get that. But we could do it in an ethical manner where My goal, today and tomorrow, I have scheduled calls with NC Fit members, which are our gyms. And I do this periodically to check in with our members and say, hey, what can we do better as the business? What are we doing well? What can we improve on? And my goal is for these members to say to me, hey, look, you know, when we see our credit

card statement every month, we don't like, you know, cringe. We accept it and we would actually pay more because you're offering such a great service. And I think if we continue to look at our business that way with always a member-focused approach, I think we'll end up doing really great things. I mean, one thing you just touched on, which is obviously important, is I was staying in touch with your customers. And I've been fascinated by some of the things I've learned from customers. But the other thing that I think is really interesting about the gym setup that you've created

is it's much more community-based, at least from my impression of touring in California with you. Describe the element of fitness as a community versus, you know, you going into a gym and working on a machine by yourself. Well, I mean, I think in the corporate sector, it's even bigger, right? But, I mean, what we've seen is, like, think back to your days, you know, whether you're playing college sports, high school sports. I mean, at some point, almost everybody's played something with other people. And you find yourself drafting off each other's energy and that collaboration makes it where the time flies by. And that's really what we're trying to do in our gyms

is draft off each other's vibes and energy to create this room full of people who are trying to raise the bar and then simultaneously, you know, provide this level of coaching where we're tailoring the workout based on each person's needs and abilities. And I think that's the key

versus wearing headphones and not talking anybody. That's fine. But, you know, after a while, it gets monotonous, boring, and it gets a point where you could kind of start to coast, where when you're with a group and with a coach, they could give you that extra little 5%, 10% push that from my experience, working with thousands and thousands of athletes is really the game changer between finding really good results and just mediocre results. What's your vision for fitness in the corporate setting?

Well, I mean, obviously it's going to be the same thing. I mean, for me, you know, we got our first corporate accounts when I, uh, someone proposed to their then girlfriend on the floor of our gym. And he, he kneeled down, he proposed her. And it was at that moment that I recognize what we're providing inside these walls is something different and unique. Because not only do they meet at the gym, but now he felt so compelled and so close to this community that he was going to propose in front of, you know, their peers. And I started thinking to myself as an example, right? How do we take that connection, these bonds that are fostered, and bring them into companies where that's critical for a company's success? And what we found is that through the gym, through doing burpees next to the CEO, you develop a sense of, of you just, you break down this corporate veil and it really starts to improve productivity.

Because now the guy in accounting is talking to the guy in HR, guy or girl. and saying, hey, by the way, I sent you an email, do you mind following up with it? And instead of that person just kind of letting it sit in the inbox for another half an hour, they actually get on it because they have a personal connection to it. I think that's really special. Yeah, I think there's a natural camaraderie that comes with a bunch of people in the same setting, doing any kind of a workout and this idea of how a fitness class can bring an organization together and also have people interact with one another that otherwise wouldn't.

Like, that really resonates for me. And it's also something that we've tried to do here at Woop, where we do all kinds of different fitness classes and stuff together. But I thought the way that you had set that up for a number of corporate clients was really smart, where the facility and everything lended itself to being more of a group and a community experience. Yeah, I mean, I think that's what we're kind of shooting for. I mean, Western Digital is probably our best example of that. They've rolled it out globally. And it's been really powerful because instead of buying a bunch of treadmill,

the ellipticals, you're basically purchasing open space and a coach. And this coach starts to act as a facilitator too, right? And I think that's really important because there needs to be someone there to kind of connect people as well. A good example is like you go to a dinner party and your friend introduces you to a bunch of people. Well, now all of a sudden you have some mutual friend, you have mutual interest. You can start having good conversation. But if you just showed up there by yourself, it's a little bit harder to create conversation. That same thing occurs by having a coach. Hey, guys, do me a favor.

Just go ahead and partner up with somebody you don't know. Let's go and get this warm up going. Now, all of a sudden, it's in an organic way, just low-key. You're partnering with somebody, and it's a nice way to start a conversation, maybe after class or whatever that may be. So for someone who's listening right now who is thinking about getting into fitness as more of a community-oriented thing, you know, we have a lot of college athletes who are now graduating or we have fitness and things.

enthusiasts, executives, like, what would be the pitch for CrossFit from you to them? I mean, my pitch wouldn't necessarily be this word CrossFit or anything else. The pitch would be, hey, go find a gym that specializes in more of a coached community aspect. If it's a CrossFit gym, great. If it's another type of gym that's more functional base, does that have cross on a label? That's fine. Just find a gym where there's a coach who cares, who wants to raise the bar. and who wants to provide you a phenomenal experience.

And if you don't find it on your first try, go to the next one. And if you don't find it there, go to the next one. But eventually, you need to find this kind of this tribe mentality where you have a coach who really cares. They're knowledgeable and they're there to support you on your fitness journey.

Regardless of the name of the gym, I think you have an obligation to check out a few of them. And those are traditionally not going to be your conventional gyms. They're going to be more of the boutique style gyms. what are some tips for identifying like whether a coach knows what the hell they're talking about that's a really good question i think first off is their atmosphere their vibe right are they are they warm or are they cold do they think they know everything or do they think that they're just are they just really nice people who are running a small business and i think you got to pick up

on the vibe and then from there it would it would look at what does the on ramping process look like so they say to you hey you know go ahead and come on in for a class tomorrow. We're going to go ahead and have a coach, you know, observe you. And I really think what it comes down to is as you're taking on these classes, how much attention are you getting? The way I like to think about is if you come in our gym, you want to be at least touched three times. So if you remember, you know, you're greeted in the door for sure. The coach gives clear, concise direction on what the workout is. And throughout the workout, throughout the warm, throughout everything, is at least, you know, touching you, meaning verbally tactile, some type

of, you know, hand cue, sometimes a visual cue, minimum of two to three times, especially in your first day, they should be giving you very clear guidance on what they're looking for and how you can improve or maybe decrease or increase your speed. So your model is almost a hybrid of personal training and community training. Is that fair where it's like you have a notion of a coach, but they're not hovering over you the whole time? That's correct. I would say it's a hybrid between, that's right. I mean, for me, if I'm in a class, of 15, my goal is that by the end of that class, each person feels like they got, you know, as a business owner, I like to say that, you know, our members are one bad experience away

from never coming back in. And that's something I really try and think about every day. When I go into the gym, it's, hey, I need to provide these people with a ton of value because they're one bad experience with never coming back. Even if they've been a member of ours for three, four, five years, it just takes that one time and we need to make sure we support them and how are we going to do that today? What are some trends right now in like the fitness class community that that you're vibing or you think are good? You know, there's, there's sort of this new wave of cult communities like Barry's boot camp and Soul Cycle and Flywheel and what do you think of some of these different type programs or what are some other ones that I didn't even mention.

Yeah, I mean, I think, look, I think anything is better than nothing. I think anybody getting off the couch and moving is phenomenal. I think if you haven't walked outside for 10 minutes, today, go do it. That's a great place to start. We don't need to go so crazy. But I do think that if you start with Orange Theory, Barry's boot camp, it's perfectly fine. But I do think where the industry is shifting towards is that over time, I think people are going to find that it will still get a little bit monotonous. So if you look at from an industry perspective, if you're talking business, 15, 20 years ago, you know, 24-hour fitness and these other type of gyms are dominating the industry with traditional base equipment, you know, little coaching, little community

low price, et cetera. CrossFit came in and kind of changed a game a little bit. Higher price, boutique style, a lot of complexity, a lot of variance, you know, a lot of going on. But then Orange Theory Berries and a lot of others kind of found this middle ground where it's not as complex, not as varied as CrossFit is, but it still provides more than the traditional gym. And so I think they've done a really good job with that. In the future, I think what's going to happen is the people who want more are going to seek it out, and the people who want, you know, less complexity are going to maybe find themselves doing different things. Maybe one day it's orange theory, next day it's soul cycle, et cetera. For our gym, what we're trying to do is provide three different

programs to kind of tailor to each individual's desired how often they come in and, you know, what do they desire to do. But they're all founded on functional movements, you know, movements that we can perform in the gym are going to help us outside the gym, perform with a coach at your best effort. So I want to talk about AMRAP, your new book, succeeding in competition, business, and life by making the most of every single minute. The AMRAP mentality is a big theme. So just start by saying what was ultimately your goal in writing this book? Yeah, I mean, that's a great place to start. So far this year, I traveled 100 nights so far, right? And in four years ago, I was, you know, more than that. I would travel all the time, whether it was with my family

or by myself or business career, open up locations globally. Well, as I traveled, I'd start picking up every book I could at the airport. I'm sure you've probably done the same thing. And I'd be reading books, looking for inspiration, looking for guidance, looking for creative thought. And what I would end up finding is a lot of things that didn't align with what I saw in my own experience, meaning, you know, work less, get paid more, try less, do better. and it just didn't align with my kind of philosophy. And so I wanted to kind of write something for our community that was really shaped around this concept of just putting in the hard work for a long period of time and seeing results.

But then my daughter got sick. And when she got diagnosed with leukemia, it really transformed my thought process. Because my thought process went from, hey, I want to write this book to kind of counteract what I see in the bookstore to, hey, I want to write this book. because by me incorporating this mindset for so many years, it put me in the best position to battle this huge life, you know, life challenge. And I want to provide this set of tools to other people to hopefully give them a little bit of a hedge so that if something does happen in their life, they're best prepared to handle it. Well, the moment you discuss

really in the beginning of the book on your daughter, Ava's diagnosis with leukemia is really powerful. And I can't really imagine what that was like for you as a father. But for our audience, take us back to that moment where, you know, your world was turns upside down. Yeah. I mean, so I start the book off and it's titled, you know, how it all got started. I think that's a fair title to that chapter. It's a little heavy and it's a little, you know, it's a powerful way to start the book because it's so raw. And it's raw because, you know, for a, few months, we were having all these different problems. We just couldn't figure it out. And then finally, Ava started having bruising. And so we went and finally our doctor decided to get

blood work done. And they were hesitant to do it because, for a number of reasons. But when we got the blood work back, we were immediately told to go to the ER. We went to Stanford, which is, by the way, you know, one of the best hospitals on the planet. I'm so grateful for them. I actually just got home from Stanford right now. And, you know, we got a lot of really bad news that night. It was a really, really terrible night. We were told at about 2 a.m. that she had leukemia, but they didn't know what type. They didn't know severity. There's two different types mainly in children.

One's called A-L, one's A-M-L. And you really want, if you were going to get one, one called A-L-L. And if you're going to even want that, you're going to want B-cell. And if you're going to want that, there's another variation to it that you would prefer. And we were just super, super, super-grateful that, you know, The next day, she was put to sleep for the first time, and it was the worst, worst, worst. But we were super so blessed that her results came back with a more favorable version of leukemia that was treatable. And that kind of sparked, you know, two and a half years of treatment and a lot of really challenging conversations and a lot of really challenging experiences that have transformed my thought process and who I am forever.

well good for you finding gratefulness in that moment i again i can only imagine what that that must have been like for you but i think the the fact that you were able to you know see that silver lining and then use that as something to in part help motivate you is a is a powerful theme in the book uh what also uh struck me was you included the email that you sent to your your business um at that moment in time and you know you write effectively until you know you write effectively until further notice, I don't want to be involved in any business, and, you know, don't think of me as the president. And, you know, as someone who's running a business myself right now, I can only imagine how challenging that must have been. But also, I mean, it's empowering in that you felt

comfortable giving that responsibility to other people that you worked with. Talk about how you balance that moment in time where obviously you have to support your family and you realize that you can't dedicate time to your business in the process. Yeah, I mean, so that was like at, you know, three or four in the morning. And I had a few, there was a few people tag on that email. And what I did was, so Matt Walker, he was our acting CFO. And he's also the best man in my wedding. We've been friends forever. And I wrote that email. And really, that's the inspiration for the book, is because I embraced this hard work and I worked hard on my relationships, I worked hard on the business, I worked hard on my fitness, it allowed me to, and I'd like to say it was tough as a business

owner, but it really wasn't. It was, I trusted the team that was in place and we had no other option. You know, I, that night we wrote that email and I said, hey, look, it could be a month, it could be six months, it could be a year, but until further notice, like, this is where my full focus needs to go is getting my daughter better. And that's what we did. It's an amazing story. And I love how you used it as a motivation for the book. One big theme that that you talk about in the book is knowing your why. For you, before this diagnosis, what would you say was your why in life? Well, I mean, I think, you know, there's a number of ways to look at the why. There's a macro and there's a micro and I think my big picture was I wanted to provide for my family right that was my kind of

my goal and my focus and you know my wife for the crossfit games I wanted to see what all this training allowed me to do and what I was capable of and how I could push myself against the best in the world and see how I stacked up and but my why really always revolved around my family and wanting to provide them with with the things they wanted in life but as but as but as my why has shifted now to where it is today where I want to spread this message, I want to impact people's lives, and I want to support families going through this terrible disease. You know, my wife and I, we are highly motivated to impact families because we were the lucky ones, you know, we were the lucky ones. We're the guys who got a curable form of leukemia

where a lot don't. And we had the financial and the family and all these things lined up perfectly for us. I almost felt like it was destiny for us to go through this experience to now make a bigger impact on other people's lives, specifically those families that are going through, you know, pediatric cancer and how can we, you know, raise money and support them in any way we can. How can people help support leukemia research or some of the things that you're involved in? So every year on this year, it's February 23rd, my wife hosts a really big event called Ava's Kitchen with Chef Michael Mina at the 49ers Stadium in Santa Clara, California. And it's a fundraiser that raises quite a bit of money.

If someone has really cool live auction item or wants to attend, please check it out. It's Ava'skitchen.org is the website. The event my wife puts on and the money we raise is to give families memories. And so we do these kind of like these breakaway adventures. where families that are going through treatment for a year, two years, whatever it may be, can go ahead and we could give them the financial means to go to Disneyland for a day, to go out to dinner, to go do these little things, and we've been able to make a lot of impact on a lot of families,

and hopefully anybody listening can check out avaskitchen.org and, you know, support an organization we do called NIGU, N-E-G-U, which is a never-ever give-up organization. Well, it's an amazing, amazing initiative. thank you for all the work that you're doing on that in the in the book you know you also you talk about how growing up you weren't actually all that focused and a lot of the things that you you preach in the am rap mentality you hadn't uh harnessed yet describe your your sort of youth growing up and how you think it shifted yeah i mean i think you know throughout

high school i just kind of got by and i think with moderate effort there's like this system in place that just scoots you along. And I think where things shifted for me was once I got to college, there was no longer this kind of this system that scooted me along. And I always remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine after like a couple years ago or when we were in college. I just remember thinking to myself, this guy is one of the smartest people I've ever met in my entire life. But once you graduate college and you kind of just, you know, you put in moderate effort, he got B's and all these different things. When you get into the real world, there's no benefit for moderate effort, right? Like, it's not like you could just,

it's not like you have like this finish line where when you graduate, it's like, whether you graduate with A's, you graduate with B's, it's irrelevant, hypothetically. In life, you know, you got to put in the effort and there's no, there's no kind of force field that's pushing you forward. There's not this, this support group that's trying to help you with all these different, you know, school people. And that's really where I had to wake up. I went to junior college, I was no longer the cool kid. I was no longer anything. I was just another person that could get stuck there for a lot of years. And I had to wake up and I had to realize that no one owed me anything. I had to go out there and go get it on my own. One of the best

themes of the book is just the importance of hard work, which is something that you and I talked a lot about. You emphasize just how important it's been in your life. In the process, you take a shot at my generation, millennials, have you found that the millennial audience is not working as hard as it should be? I actually think the millennial generation is pretty soft, and I can say that as a member of it. Yeah, so I mean, I'm 33, so I don't know where you put me, but I just think in general, and social media does not help this, by the way, at all, is that people think that they're going to get results overnight, and people think that, you know, especially in the Bay Area, you know, you have people who get, you know, whether they get lucky or they work hard, who knows,

where they get these, you know, they become number of three at a company that goes IPO and they make a gazillion dollars and these, their friends see them do this. And so they, they don't know the backstory, but they just want that instant gratification. And so I think for me, one of the, one of the problems I see in society, especially because of social media, is this idea that if someone is successful, people want to hate on them and think they got. lucky instead of just reflecting on hey maybe this person put in a lot of dues for a long time and was able to kind of come out on top and then also like just like our fitness you're not going to get results overnight you need to consistently put in for a long period of time and so

if you don't see results immediately that's okay but you just got to keep consistent at it because if you keep jumping around from one thing to another you're really never going to be able to make a huge impact on anything i think that consistency and hard work are really two of the most fundamental and important things in life and really to any success you can have. And so it's sort of amazing to me when I meet people who are asking for what is the secret, you know, or what is the hack to this thing when so much of it is just you keep working at it. And then I think the fascinating thing is after you've worked at something for a long time, all of a sudden there is what seems to be this overnight success. And so people always focus on that overnight.

But the reality is it took a long time to become an overnight success. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I was interviewing a gentleman named Max Greenfield. And he's on a new show called The Neighborhood. And before that, he was on a show called New Girl. And, you know, some people might say, oh, Max, you know, you made it. You're on these, you know, hit TV shows.

What they don't realize is that he had been rejected from a thousand, you know, rehearsals before that, and he had been grinding as an actor for over a decade, but they just see that this gentleman kind of popped on to the scene, but they don't see the whole backstory. And I think it's really unfortunate as a society that in general, we look at that and our first immediate instinct would be, oh, that person, you know, got a lucky break or whatever, and you don't, I think our first reaction should be, first off, good for him. And then secondly, wow, you know, what did he do to get to where he's at? I'd love to learn from that.

Yeah, I think a lot of success backstories are missing that like five to 10 year period where someone was just working their ass off or figuring it out. Or to be fair, maybe not succeeding, but learning and continuing to grind something out. And you talk about that in your book. For sure, for sure. I mean, that's why you see a lot of people that are successful. You know, it happens in mid-30s, 40s, et cetera, because they've kind of had to develop their craft. I mean, if you think of like Malcolm Gladwell and the 10,000 hour rule, I mean, it takes a long time to be really good at something, which is one of the reasons why, you know, you see people that are in a sport for a long period of time before they start achieving this kind of mastery level.

If someone's listening who doesn't think deep down they're a hard worker, what advice would you give to them? Like, how do you become a hard worker? I would recommend to go lift up a barbell. You know, I think that we have found an oasis of a secret that no one else knows about. And it's, you know, lifting up and putting down objects and it's training. And I just think the benefits that come from fitness are so astronomical that if someone isn't doing at least something, they're missing out on something really beautiful. I would equate it to like before you had a cell phone and now you do and you can have the

access to everything at your fingertips. It's the same thing with fitness where you might feel sluggish throughout the day. You might feel like you can't do something. All of a sudden you find fitness. You get in better shape and now it unleashes a whole level of energy and stress relief. And not to mention all the health benefits, of course. course, I'm talking about just the ones that also happening between the ears where now you learn to overcome adversity by having a bad workout and having to be okay with it or going

for a set of five, you only get four. That's okay. You know, you're overcoming it. I just think the benefit of fitness in general is something that cannot be expressed enough. And I hope that anybody who's listening to at least start off by doing a 10-minute walk a day and then start lifting up a kettlebell or something. Now, you mentioned cell phones. And in the book, you wrote a little bit about them. How have you been able to, you know, you're still active on things like social media and you've got a ton of fans out there. But you also talk about the importance of, you know, at work, be at work and at home, be at home and, you know, to be mindful of cell phone usage. Yeah. I mean, I think, look, and I'm not the best at it. I'm working on it, but at least

I'm aware of it. And what I'm aware of is that this thing in my pocket could give me access to the entire world at an instant notice, instantaneously, which is beautiful and amazing. And I can keep up with people all over the place. I can answer emails anywhere I want in the world. But it also becomes something where it becomes habitual, becomes an addiction. And we said to be aware of that because I can't remember the last time we went to a restaurant and didn't see at least half the restaurant on their phone. And my thing is, like, if you want to be on your phone, go be on your phone. That's no, I'm not, I don't judge for me on your phone, go ahead. But just, you know, try and walk outside and prioritize that call versus trying to prioritize a meal with a loved one and yet you're half prioritizing it because

you're also on your phone. And so I just think there's something to be said about when you're at work, be at work, when you're at home, be at home, when you're, you know, when you're with someone at dinner, be with them. You know, enjoy their company. And I think if you can continue this, it helps you in the future when challenging situations come up. You know, again, using myself as an example, My wife and I, we met at the age of 14, and we developed a bond over the years through good communication, and it wasn't always that way. But recently, we've been communicating really well because I'm paying attention to her and I'm listening. And you can't really do that if you're one foot in and one foot out.

Well, it makes a lot of sense and I think overall good advice. So I want to talk for a second about your habits. today, you recently got on whoop. What are some things that you've learned from using the product? I mean, I think just with whoop, what's really interesting to me, and obviously after talking to you, is the fact that it can give you kind of like this day strain. And, well, first off, I think you started looking at your sleep habits, which I think is really unique because I don't think we track it enough. And what time you go to bed and how good of sleep, you know, when are you waking? How many times are you waking? And it just gives you an idea of, you know, how hard should be training that day. What does your strain look like?

think it's all interesting information. I think it's just it's a piece to a big puzzle, right? Whoop is a component that you should be aware of, just like nutrition is a component and fitness is a component, all of these little pieces. But I do think what's cool about whoop that I don't think enough people get it credit for. It makes you aware of what's going on. It makes you more present that there is something tracking your fitness. There is something tracking your performance, etc. And it kind of holds you more accountable to it. And I think that's a really cool aspect of the product. Well, I like to say you can only manage what you measure. And, you know, so many people out there say that sleep and recovery are important, but they have no, you know, metrics to go with

them. So it's interesting that you picked up on that. I was had an interesting conversation with Seth Rollins, though, who's a WWE wrestler yesterday about your product. And we were having a really cool conversation about how his heart rate, I think, was at 170 for like 45 minutes straight when he was actually on the floor competing at his event. And I thought that was really interesting because in his workouts, he would hit those numbers, of course, but this one, he would stay consistent for 40 minutes, which I thought was fascinating. Part of it's probably because he's so amped up being in front of that huge crowd, right? And he has a more theatrical performance that goes with just the fitness performance of it too. Oh, 100%. You're absolutely right. And what are

some use cases you can think of for whoop going forwards or what are some things that you want to do with the product? I think for me it's more consistency. For me, it's trying to understand better on, you know, what data I could drive and how it impacts me in my life without, like you said, if you don't measure it, you can't get information from it. But at least for me, if I can start measuring these things, then how can I start making more of an impact on sleep in particular is going to be something I'm really intrigued on and staying more diligent on consistent time going to bed and waking up, of course. But I think the impact is going to be in use case for this.

I do think in a commercial setting or corporate setting would be interesting if someone was able to wear it for an extended period of time, start understanding their body like after a month or two, and at least as a baseline for all of us to start using at our gyms when someone new enrols. That's something I want to start playing with and talk to you guys about. Yeah, we'd love to do that. We've done similar things in actually research studies where you're determining the efficacy of something else. And then you look at data before someone has worn whoop and then once they get on whoop and then something new gets introduced in that person's life.

In your case, it could be a new fitness routine. in other people's case it's a new diet or new sleep habits or you know fill in the blank this thing and you try to then all of a sudden you can start to create this idea of a cause and effect like what is actually shifting a baseline um positively or negatively right so it's yeah we'd love to work with you on that and and uh i think it makes a lot of sense uh for you has nutrition changed much over time uh you know years ago no i mean not really i mean because i don't have as high of like called a day strain or as much volume that I'm putting in I do need to be a little bit more aware of what I'm eating because before if I was training X amount of hours a day long swims I would need the caloric intake to kind of you know stay stay at a certain level and so I wouldn't be as concerned but now I need to be more aware of what I'm eating and what I'm also paying more attention to is any type of allergy that I have you know for me dairy really plays a

role, and I think people need to start looking at, you know, what slight allergies they have to gluten or dairy, and how does that make them feel? So I'm paying a lot more attention to now than I used to. It's a really good point. I would recommend everyone who's listening to this gets tested for any food sensitivities, because what you'll find is that there's things you may be eating every day that are actually just decreasing the way you feel marginally, you know, 5, 10%. And if you can cut those things out of your life, to your point, it can make you more optimal. Absolutely.

Okay, I want to ask you a few quick hit questions. So you're someone who travels a lot. Oh, yeah. What are some tips that you have for beating jet lag? Oh, yeah. No, I mean, these ones I think are, yes. So a couple. I travel to Asia all the time.

So what I do is when I first go on the plane, I'll ask the flight attendant for X amount of bottles of water based on how many hours it is. So if it's a traditionally when I fly to Asia, it's like, I don't know, from here to Hong Kong is like 14 hours or whatever it is. And so I'll line up, you know, I try and get the big liter bottle, so I'm not wasting only smaller ones, but I'll just stack up enough water where it starts to look like something that I feel comfortable with for that duration of time. I think on planes dehydration becomes a big factor because you don't realize you're on a

plane for 14 hours, you might only have one bottle of water. And so I hold myself accountable to drink, you know, the desired amount of water that I want for the duration of it. and I put those bottles, you know, next to me, and by the time I land, they need to be done. So that's one thing I do. Second thing is as soon as I land, no matter where I'm at in the world, no matter what time it is, I go work out. And so whether it's in my hotel room, at their gym, at another CrossFit gym, whatever it is, I go work out and I instantly feel better. Those are two big things.

And the third one I do is I time my meals accordingly. Obviously, I time my sleep. You know, that's a no-brainer. But I time my meals to get on track with where the location is that I'm going. So those are the three things I try and do. Hydrate, exercise, and plan my meals. Really good advice. How about bedtime routine?

Do you have any tips to falling asleep quickly or anything that you've tried to focus on to improve your sleep? It's so funny. We were talking about this at one of our coaches meetings recently. And I said, like, I don't really think about it at all because I've never had to worry about it. As soon as my head hits the pillow, I'm asleep. So it's a non-issue for me. Now, morning routine is something I'm playing with right now between cold plunges and exercising and actually heat. I'm supposed to be getting a sauna in today.

Yeah, I'm playing with morning routines, but I have not really messed with evening routines. I just started doing this sauna cold routine where you sit in a sauna for 10 to 15 minutes. and then you take like a freezing cold shower for 30 seconds to a minute, and then you go back and you go back and forth like a few times. And afterwards, I swear, I feel euphoric. That's right. Talk to me about what you're doing with cold plunges and so. Well, I mean, I've played around with it a lot when I travel.

You know, oftentimes I'll have some type of cold plunge or some type of sauna, et cetera. But at my house, what I'm doing is, you know, I live in California. And so the pool is not like crazy cold. I think it's like, I don't know, 48 degrees. it's not like crazy but i'll go sit in that for like 20 to 30 deep deep deep breaths and then i'll get out and get on my day so i'll go do a workout and then cardio then i'll go sit in the pool for 20 to 30 deep breaths until i can get to a point where i can recover my breath so it's no longer like you know i want to get to a point where it's nice and smooth and then from there i get ready for

the day um in the future what i'm looking to do is to um actually do like buy a freezer have it at the appropriate temperature and then combine that with the sauna. That's what I'm going to try and start getting into, but I have not done that yet. What's the bio-freezer or describe that? So you just buy like a traditional flat freezer. So instead of the freezer that stands tall,

it's the one that's like traditionally, you know, like you open from the top type of thing and you buy like a certain cubic square foot so that it's big enough for you. And what you do is you plug it in for like two or three hours a day. So you pour water up to like halfway. way and you only plug it in for like two or three hours a day and you have a temperature gauge in there once it hits the temperature you're looking for it basically you turn it off then you turn it on

turn off and before you get in it obviously it goes out saying you make sure it's been plugged and then you get in it yeah right you don't want to become a popsicle while you're in it uh is that i mean is that the intended use for a bio freezer or did you just figure out this like clever hack for using no i mean the type of freezer i'm talking about i mean i don't know what is called. But it's just like the traditional one where, yeah, I mean, it's a hack for it for sure. It's like, you know, something you'd see in the deli section, you know, where you open it up from the top. And the hack is you just don't leave it on all the time. Otherwise, the water would turn for the ice. What are some influences for you on health or, you know, overall

fitness? What are some things that you read or you listen to that you think are valuable? I mean, I have a podcast called Amrat Mentality and also Business of Fitness, but the Amrat Mentality one, I get to interact with some really cool people and actually both podcasts. And so I consume a lot of information that way because I'm talking, I'm listening. So I really enjoy that. But mainly podcasts and books, but more so podcasts nowadays than books. When you hear the expression optimal performance who comes to mind. I mean, obviously in our industry, you be this guy.

Matt Fraser. I think he's a CrossFit Games champion. I think he would be that. But I think for me, it's anybody who's just optimizing their life and feeling like they're elevating their game every day. You know, something my wife and I talk about all the time is, you know, how are we going to be a better version of ourselves, you know, for our kids a year, two years, three years from now. And I think anybody who's doing that, whether that be in your fitness or mindset or whatever it is, is raising the bar and all good. Agreed. Where can people find you online or if they want to interact with you yeah i mean jasonclippa.com is a great location you could find our podcast there you could find my book there it's available on amazon as many reps as possible

as the title um and then instagram and twitter at jason calipa uh is probably the best location and if you want daily workouts uh we have a app called nc fit you can download and um we put out daily videos and daily workouts that i think are a great place to start for people well we'll include all of that in the show notes. And in your book, Amrap, when's that coming out? So it releases January 8th. It's on pre-sell right now. So depending on when this show is released, it might already be available or it's still for pre-sale. All pre-sale proceeds, every penny, go to the kids, and then thereafter, a large percentage will. Awesome, man. Well, this has been a real pleasure. And also for folks listening, Jason

interviewed me on his podcast. So you can check that out. Jason, thanks so much for All right. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank Jason for coming on the podcast, and I know he'll be a big hit with many of our whoop users, especially those of you who are into CrossFit. If you're not already a member, you can join the whoop community now for as low as $18 a month. We'll provide you a 24-7 access to your biometric data,

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Just tag E-U on the end of my name, and that'll get you 30 euros off when you join. Check out Woop.com slash the locker. for show notes and more, including links to relevant topics from our conversation. You can subscribe, rate, and review the Whoop podcast on iTunes, Google, Spotify, or wherever you've found this podcast. We'd love to hear your feedback. You can find me online at Will Ahmed and follow at Whoop on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. You can also email The Locker at Whoop.com with any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions.

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