0:05

Hey everybody , welcome to the Herdfit Podcast

0:07

Dr . Sam Rhee and myself , coach

0:10

David Syvertsen . His podcast is

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aimed at helping anyone and everyone looking

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to enhance their healthy lifestyle through fitness

0:16

, nutrition and , most importantly

0:18

, mindset . Alright

0:22

, welcome back to the Herdfit Podcast . I am Coach

0:24

David Syvertsen . I'm here with my Dr

0:26

. , and Coach Sam Rhee , and we have a very

0:29

special guest my fellow broken masters

0:31

heavily and 2023

0:34

Legends competitor , mike McKinney

0:36

, also a fellow bison beast . Mike , thank

0:38

you so much for giving us some time post

0:40

workout here on a Thursday morning .

0:42

Yeah , my pleasure , glad to do this with you guys

0:44

.

0:45

We're going to dive right in . We all have time

0:47

constraints , so we're going to try to get right into discussing

0:50

the review of the 2023

0:52

Legends Championship and we're going

0:54

to try to give as much detail

0:56

and maybe some funny stories , some experiences

0:59

that we both had . But I want to center

1:01

most of the episode around Mike

1:03

and his experience , because he I

1:07

would put money on it that

1:09

he was probably the least experienced

1:11

crossfitter at Legends

1:14

. He's only really about two

1:16

years into his crossfit journey obviously

1:18

an athlete prior to , but

1:20

if you know anything about the sport

1:22

, you know anything about crossfit from a coaching or

1:24

actually athlete perspective . You

1:27

can't fake it . It takes

1:29

a long time to get better at a lot

1:31

of things and it takes a long time to be able to qualify

1:33

for something like this competition and

1:37

I think that's one of the more impressive variables

1:40

to the weekend from all four to 500

1:42

athletes they had that Mike's only been doing this for

1:44

two years and he

1:46

squeaked into the qualifier and

1:48

did an awesome job

1:50

at Legends . And I want to get into

1:52

his experience , his background and just where his

1:54

mindset's at , because I think it's a unique one , right

1:57

? If you interviewed every single athlete from Legends

1:59

, you'd hear a lot of repetition , a lot

2:01

of the same stuff . The fact that he's

2:03

been doing such a small amount of time is really unique . So

2:05

, mike , let's just do a really

2:08

just a really brief intro on

2:10

kind of your background . What

2:12

was your CrossFit start story , as Stan likes

2:14

to say ? How did you get into CrossFit

2:16

? And you recall

2:18

some of those early days .

2:21

Yeah , so I can't remember if it

2:23

was , was it 2020 or 2021

2:26

? 21 . Okay , yeah , so it was 2021 . So

2:28

that was like post COVID

2:30

we started just coming out and

2:33

we had just left another

2:35

gym and Karen and I had just moved

2:37

into a new house and we purchased

2:40

one of those Peloton bikes . And it

2:42

worked , it got the job done .

2:44

Like everyone else , started COVID .

2:47

Everyone's stocks like rode up to the top of Mount

2:49

Everest and then crashed , but we eventually

2:52

sold it . So

2:54

many of you guys know I'm a pastor

2:56

at my church . There was a couple at our church

2:58

they're no longer here anymore but Ryden

3:01

and Nicole Radcliffe . They went to our church and they were moving

3:03

and they

3:05

were just wonderful people as just

3:07

beloved members here at the gym

3:10

and before they left

3:12

they got together with us and they just

3:15

, long story short , they really highly

3:17

encourage us to consider coming to the gym

3:19

and they hooked us up here and

3:21

so we just started coming here . I think

3:23

it was maybe May of 2021

3:25

. And it was . You

3:28

know , we had a unique , we were going through a unique season at that

3:30

time and so it was just a great place for us to come

3:32

, like , clear our heads , get a workout , and

3:35

but very quickly we were

3:37

hooked just because Karen and I had

3:39

college

3:41

sports background she played college

3:43

soccer , we eaten , I played football so

3:46

we always loved the training aspect and that's

3:48

of light lifting and interval training

3:51

, and so it was . It seemed like a really

3:53

natural fit for us and so we've been here since I

3:55

remember getting a text from Liz your first time

3:58

.

3:58

You came in before . This is before membership , this

4:00

is before you guys joined . I think you came and

4:02

tried it out I don't know if Karen was at that workout

4:04

, it might have just been you and she's like

4:07

dude , this guy

4:09

just banged , just beat the entire class in

4:11

a strict hand stand pushup

4:13

, running workout and I was like , okay

4:16

, can he even lift ? Then

4:18

I saw him lift for the first time . I was like okay , we have something

4:20

here

4:22

Really cool . I remember those

4:24

early days really well . Current

4:26

family work life how you know , do

4:28

you get to train six hours a day ? You know like

4:31

, do you even have any kids

4:33

? You know , how did you get so

4:35

fit so fast ? Probably just revolve

4:37

. Your life revolves around CrossFit , right ?

4:39

Yeah , absolutely yeah

4:41

, well , you know what ? I'm a pastor . So

4:43

the rumor is we only work one day a week and

4:46

so the other six days I'm in here training for

4:48

five , six hours a day . No , yeah , so

4:52

I'm a pastor at a church in Paramus

4:55

, new Jersey . Been there for about really

4:57

since the beginning , so a little over 10 years now . But

5:01

yeah , if we've , karen and I have been married for 15

5:03

years , actually this January , which is

5:05

great and then we have four kids 10

5:08

, 7 , 5 , 2 , sort of really

5:10

full house . Whoa , that's a team right

5:12

there . Yeah , yeah , it's a pretty nasty bunch

5:14

, but

5:17

yeah , no , we're we , we squeeze it

5:19

in the morning , so I'll , I'll , typically I'll

5:21

do 5 am , she'll do 6 am , sometimes

5:24

up to the 7 am if Bodie's

5:26

sleeping with us at night , our youngest

5:29

kid . But

5:31

yeah , we , we're pretty consistent

5:33

there and then

5:36

, and so it's really just been more the

5:38

consistency that we do it . So

5:40

I mean , we're usually in here , we're , we're

5:43

five days a week , sometimes six , but

5:45

I think it's more just a consistency . And

5:47

then the college back , college sports background combined

5:50

, which has really helped us to kind of move along , maybe

5:52

a little quicker than than some have

5:55

been able to .

5:56

One observation don't have this in the outline , but I

5:58

think it really has helped both Mike and Karen

6:00

that they're both really into it . I think

6:02

it's helped you and Susan that you're both into it . It's helped

6:05

me that Ashley and I are both into it . Definitely

6:08

not a requirement for someone to do well and cross it , but

6:10

it's . I always say it's a cool thing

6:12

to have in common with your spouse or a

6:14

really good friend of yours that you get to come in

6:16

and then have the same conversations , have

6:19

the same ups and downs , peaks and valleys , and

6:22

you get it . You get why you have to

6:24

go to the gym today . It's not just because you want to go

6:26

get your workout , it's not . I'm training for something

6:28

and I think that

6:30

has helped the both of them progress as much as they

6:32

have as athletes , because Karen has really improved

6:36

by leaps and bounds since she started as

6:38

well , and it's it's really cool

6:40

to watch both of them go through that . Sam

6:42

, do you recall Mike's early days at all ? I

6:44

do .

6:45

He is one of those classic guys I always cater

6:47

. There are certain categories you can put people

6:50

in and he is the former pretty

6:52

high level college athlete who

6:55

has a lot of skill but

6:57

is fragile , like honestly

6:59

, like I've seen college athletes

7:01

come in and they always have a knee issue

7:04

or a back issue or a shoulder issue

7:06

. And especially contact

7:08

sports yes , especially football and

7:10

we have a number of former high level

7:12

football guys and they

7:15

perform really well . But you got to treat

7:18

them with kid gloves at the beginning and I remember

7:20

like some days you'd come in and it was like ooh

7:22

, like it's not happening in my back , like

7:25

it was . Like it was like a Ferrari you don't

7:27

know if you're going to go 200 miles an

7:29

hour or like it stops like sputter

7:31

on the side of the road . And I would say

7:33

the biggest thing I've seen over the years is

7:36

that you've become such a durable athlete

7:38

, like a way more durable athlete than when you

7:40

first started , like

7:44

you had certain workouts

7:47

that really sort of sidelined

7:49

you and now you can pretty much handle almost

7:51

everything and be okay with it . I

7:53

mean , obviously your knowledge helps too , but

7:56

I think the durability is what

7:58

I've seen with a lot of former

8:00

college athletes is that helps

8:02

them .

8:03

Yeah , that was probably my biggest regret coming

8:05

in was I

8:09

came in and I just thought , oh , you know , I've

8:11

got . I kind of know how to do these movements , so I would just kind

8:13

of rush right in and

8:16

that was pretty dumb because I would

8:18

get hurt pretty frequently and with a lot of setbacks

8:20

. If I could do it all

8:22

over again , I would literally probably

8:24

scale every day for I

8:27

don't know for however long until I really started to feel

8:29

comfortable , just really

8:31

kind of work my way into it . But yeah , that's , I

8:33

remember those days . I still have my weeks

8:35

. You know I'll tweak something , but

8:37

yeah , that's been a huge learning curve

8:40

and it's been . It's like half the game

8:42

is learning how to listen to your body

8:44

, which is another skill I've

8:46

had to learn too .

8:47

Yeah , can you do the movements Cool ? Can you recover

8:49

from the movements ?

8:50

Yeah , you know that's .

8:51

that's that second variable that I think it's

8:53

easy to overlook . Last thing

8:55

, and then we'll get into Legends 2023 . You

8:58

took a turn this summer . You

9:00

lost about 20 pounds and

9:02

you don't have to get into the story of why that happened . It was

9:04

more , you know , somewhat medically induced that

9:06

you had to . How

9:10

much did that help you and what did

9:12

it help the most ? The obvious is oh , it helped my muscle

9:14

ups and burpees , right , but you've always been good

9:17

at those things . Can

9:19

you kind of touch on the

9:22

weight loss and just moving cleaner

9:24

, feeling better , a little bit more energy

9:26

, and how that impacted

9:28

your ability to perform really well on the qualifiers , which

9:30

puts you into this position , because I think

9:32

if you did not do that , you would not have qualified

9:34

. Yeah , I agree with that . So can

9:36

you just touch on A the process that you took to

9:38

get there and where you felt

9:41

like it helped you the most ?

9:43

Yeah , let's

9:45

see . Yeah

9:47

, just to give a little context . So like when I was in college I

9:49

weighed the heaviest I weighed was I remember seeing

9:52

214 pounds in college . How tall

9:54

I am ? 5'8" Okay

9:56

, and so today I'm probably between 175-180

9:58

. So that's a pretty significant amount

10:01

of weight loss .

10:02

When's the last time you were 175-180 ?

10:04

Yeah , that was honestly probably junior

10:06

year of high school , yeah , senior year

10:08

I was like 185-190

10:11

. So I've leaned out a lot and

10:13

it wasn't a I

10:16

want to get lean Right , it was

10:18

, and I've told a lot of people before . But I

10:20

just I have high cholesterol in my

10:22

family . I got some blood work

10:24

done , found I have pretty high cholesterol

10:26

from my age , which is pretty much

10:28

a pretty big shock , and Karen's

10:31

a nurse and so she was kind of like on my tail

10:33

a little bit about that . So

10:35

I really started to watch my diet

10:38

. Kathleen Stanton is the

10:40

nurse practitioner that really kind of helps me

10:42

with some of that . So then I really started

10:44

to watch my diet , when I eat , when I drink , how

10:47

I sleep . I mean

10:49

there's one of the things that's pretty cool about

10:51

CrossFit is because the competitive aspect

10:53

you're really trying to look for . What

10:56

else could I do to improve my

10:58

ability to perform in

11:00

this competition

11:02

? So number one

11:04

is just like the capacity , the endurance

11:07

. But then you start to think of through recovery

11:09

Okay , I got to sleep better , I got to eat better

11:11

, and so I got say

11:14

I was just making a comment about this massive junk right

11:16

here . Can you guys see my ? That's

11:19

a half gallon . So I drink at least

11:21

one of these a day , at least one of these a day

11:23

, and so , yeah , in

11:25

it and my body responded really

11:27

, really fast . And

11:30

so there's a lot of things that I changed

11:32

in my diet . When I eat , how I eat , it's

11:34

not like a super intense

11:37

thing , it's more just . I'm more conscious of it and

11:39

Karen's also really health

11:41

conscious as well . So it's a great . That's also

11:43

a really big thing . You got like one person

11:46

in the marriage who's really on it , the other one's

11:48

kind of not it , and when it's a team aspect

11:50

, it's just a lot easier Huge

11:52

. So I lost a lot of weight

11:54

and

11:57

let's see how did that help me

11:59

perform ? I was more just , my

12:01

ability to recover was huge

12:04

, and then obviously

12:06

just the quickness and the ability

12:08

I'm moving less weight Right , and

12:11

then obviously this may sound strange , I don't know if you

12:13

guys have ever heard the I think it was Jerry

12:15

Rice the old saying if you

12:17

look good , you feel good , you feel good , you play

12:19

good . So there was that aspect

12:21

too , where it's like I

12:24

knew that my body was responding

12:26

well and so I just felt better as an

12:28

athlete which kind of added an

12:30

element , a mental edge

12:32

, you might say , to my

12:34

ability to perform . That's awesome . Yep , how old are

12:36

you ? 38 , turn 39 in .

12:38

April . Okay , and what would you say ? Is one

12:41

change , the biggest diet change you made

12:43

that might have impacted you ? What did you say , like

12:45

if you could point to one thing .

12:48

If I had to choose one thing , I

12:53

think one of them is pretty

12:55

much I don't eat anything after

12:58

6pm because

13:00

I've wanted I mean I don't really wear

13:02

it anymore , but I use . I got really into the whoop

13:04

band and one of their big

13:06

things is if you eat late at night

13:08

before you go to sleep , it affects your sleep . So

13:10

I don't eat anything really after 6pm

13:13

. A couple of the things is is just

13:15

cutting out bad carbs and sugar

13:17

, so yeah , good .

13:19

I love that Simple . It's a very simple one

13:21

. Maybe we'll have to throw that to the reset . 2023

13:23

. We're still putting that together . Cool Legends 2023

13:26

, the venue Arizona State Sun

13:29

Devil Athletic Complex , macro . It

13:31

had a pool first

13:33

time ever . It had two

13:35

different floors One would

13:37

you be considered like the main

13:39

floor with the rig , and another one that was in

13:41

the back but don't think back corner like we've

13:44

seen in the past with legends

13:46

. It was a huge , beautiful

13:48

floor and then for athletes

13:50

, it had locker rooms

13:52

. That was used by the Arizona State

13:54

student body , so it was massive . They

13:56

had a locker room that was bigger than our gym and

13:59

my first legends experience , we had porta potties

14:01

with no locker rooms whatsoever

14:04

. We had a vendor village . We

14:06

had an athlete village . The athlete

14:08

village was on the top floor of the building , which

14:10

was probably the size of man . That

14:12

probably was 10,000 square feet

14:15

, wow , and so you just you had

14:17

so much space you never felt

14:19

crowded . For example

14:21

, at Mayhem cool Mayhem's an iconic

14:23

place in CrossFit . Venue

14:26

in CrossFit not even venue , just a gym , but

14:28

that's . We were really crammed

14:30

there last year , like they had to tell us you guys

14:32

can't come before a certain time if your heat's at this

14:34

time . Like you know , we were on top

14:36

of each other all the time in 2020 . We were

14:38

outside the entire time . 2021 in

14:40

San Diego , we were in the basement of a hotel . This

14:43

was by far the best

14:45

venue that legends has ever had , for

14:48

just the simple spacing and logistical

14:51

issues that come up when you have

14:53

four to 500 athletes Proximity

14:55

of the airport , 10 minute drive

14:57

we could walk there . There's hotels

15:00

and a social scene and restaurants and bars

15:02

for spectators . The weather out

15:04

there was just outstanding . The spectator

15:07

experience was much cleaner . Bob

15:10

and Joe , they hit a home run with this venue

15:12

and they already locked this

15:14

place in for next year .

15:15

Oh , so that's where it's going to be for sure For next December .

15:17

I was just about to ask oh , for December , yeah , yeah

15:19

, oh yeah , this will not be for the games . I

15:21

don't think that's been announced yet and I don't know . I

15:23

have no idea . I do . Bob , when

15:25

he was on with us two weeks

15:27

ago , said that they were going to make a decision this Friday

15:30

because that would be hot in

15:32

August . Yeah , I don't think there's any shot

15:34

, but I mean it was indoor so it's

15:36

not like it's a huge deal . But I would

15:38

think the games , according to what Bob said

15:40

, they're going to want to use the environment . My

15:42

prediction for that is still going to be somewhere in California

15:44

. Okay , but we'll see . But

15:47

the venue itself

15:49

you know , I know there wasn't a broadcast this year

15:51

. We got into the economics of that . It just doesn't make

15:53

sense to get a fancy broadcast for

15:55

an event like this . So , spectators

15:58

, you didn't get to see it as much . But from the

16:00

athlete perspective , this was

16:02

tenfold better than what we've had over

16:04

the past four years and I think , if

16:06

they can , they should lock that location in forever . Yeah

16:09

, mike , did you have any thoughts on the venue itself ? Because you don't

16:11

have anything to compare to , but nothing

16:13

really negative to say about it ? No , nothing .

16:17

I think what I'm already thinking

16:19

about the advantage

16:21

of doing it at the same place is one

16:24

of the most difficult things was establishing a routine

16:26

when you got there . So the first day was like really

16:28

hard , you didn't know what you were doing , but by the second

16:30

day you figured out a routine . So if you have it , you

16:32

get there again next year and you qualify

16:34

. You kind of know what your rhythm is going

16:37

to do that and you can do that from the get-go

16:39

. So you kind of know what things are and how

16:41

to map that out . So that's great , great

16:43

point .

16:43

Another advantage of

16:46

using the same location next year . Joe

16:49

has said that he spends a lot of

16:51

the year trying to figure out where to

16:53

go . He'll go on all these site visits throughout the year

16:55

and then , even when

16:57

you pick a location , you've never run an event

17:00

there that impacts your programming

17:02

Because you don't really know . Again , flow

17:04

Like does this work over here ? Does

17:06

this work over there ? Can we put something over here

17:08

? Now you have the pool , like

17:10

that's . I mean , if this is where it's at next

17:13

year and it hasn't officially been announced

17:15

yet , but it sounds like that's where it's going to be you

17:17

know you better start swimming if you're going to plan on competing

17:19

there next year and you know what swimming event works

17:22

there really well . The pools , matt . There's three pools

17:24

there . They're massive . There's so much space

17:26

that I

17:28

think they can already start planning all the programming

17:30

for next year . Where a venue impacts your programming

17:33

in big ways , I want you to practice

17:35

your swim .

17:36

I watched your swimming .

17:37

Let's like we'll get it to the actual competition

17:40

. I have a story there that that'll be

17:42

funny to share , but I will practice

17:44

my swimming . Okay , now

17:46

let's let you know what . Let's do this . Let's get right into

17:48

the workouts , because I don't want to spend too much time talking

17:50

about stuff that that isn't as interesting

17:53

. The competition itself is really what

17:55

we want to review and you

17:57

know , to be fair , here we're going to give good , bad and ugly

17:59

. You know I'm not only going to praise the programming

18:01

and the venues and the judging right . There's a

18:03

couple of things that I know . Joe and Bob , they both

18:05

want to hear what to work on . It's

18:08

the only way you're going to get better is to find out what

18:10

you don't do . Well , but

18:12

let's get right into these workouts . I think Mike

18:14

has a really unique and interesting perspective

18:17

to listen in on , because Mike , I

18:20

never seen Mike so down after the first day

18:22

, and it was for a couple of reasons , and

18:24

I do want to and he really was

18:26

a different person by the end of it and right

18:29

now . So I kind of want to again discuss

18:31

, because I think from afar it looks like it's all

18:33

fun and peaks , but there are some serious

18:35

valleys when you go through this , it's

18:37

a really long emotional weekend for four

18:40

days . As strong as you are , as confident as you

18:42

are , everyone goes through them . So day

18:44

one , we had workouts , the speaking of the swim

18:46

. You had a 15 , 12 , 9 , each

18:49

arm , so a single dumbbell shoulder

18:51

overhead . You had to do 15 on each side . Go

18:53

swim , 12 on each side . Go swim

18:55

, not on each side and go swim . The

18:57

swim was 100 meters , I think they said , which

19:00

was down and back twice in the pool , not

19:03

a far distance . You know , if you're a swimmer

19:05

it's not even a warm up , but

19:08

it's a hard swim because of the

19:10

intensity that you're putting into it and the fact

19:12

that you're engaging your triceps

19:14

and lats a lot with these pressing overhead . We were

19:16

lit after that . Our triceps were numb , you

19:20

know . We both finished the workout under

19:22

the cap . We did OK in it

19:24

. Mike

19:26

has somewhat of a swimming background

19:28

, which is always a huge deal at comps

19:30

like this . His father was a high level swimmer , so

19:33

those guys always grow up in the water . You can watch him warm up the

19:35

swim too , and you know that he knows what

19:37

he's doing . You could also watch someone

19:39

like me swim and say that he doesn't know what he's doing . So

19:42

there's two elements to this right . There's fitness that

19:45

can take over . We just got done talking with Nick Squire

19:47

about that event . He was a college swimmer and

19:49

it's funny . You can watch someone swim and

19:51

it looks like they're going slower , like

19:53

they're doing less strokes , but

19:56

they're moving so much faster than everyone

19:58

else . I think Nick called me

20:00

an ice cube in the water Trying

20:04

to trying to talk to the kid , and I compared

20:06

it to rowing , where

20:08

you see someone that feels like they need to row faster

20:11

. They do more strokes per minute . They just keep

20:13

pulling and pulling and pulling it . They go fast but

20:15

you get tired quickly . Then you have someone

20:17

that's a really good rower pulling , you

20:19

know , maybe half as frequent and

20:21

rowing faster . It's the same exact

20:23

thing in the water . Mike . Did

20:26

you try swimming at all prior to the event ?

20:29

No , not one single stroke . And

20:32

that was not a conscious choice

20:34

. It was a lot of just my schedule . Yep , I

20:37

really could only work out in the mornings and

20:39

so I thought about doing it

20:41

going out there with you guys . It

20:43

was just too much for me . But

20:49

no , no , I did not train at all and I definitely felt it

20:51

towards the end of the work . The beginning I felt great

20:53

, but then towards the end it was just like you're

20:55

just hanging on for dear life . It was wild .

20:57

It's funny like I think Mike probably started off a little

20:59

faster than me and I ended faster than him and I think

21:02

that's just capacity and

21:04

fitness , more than

21:06

hey Dave can swim , because

21:08

if anything , I would prove that I can

21:10

swim very well . I jumped

21:12

in and my goggles fell off and

21:14

then I found out after you're supposed to tuck your chins

21:17

they kept falling off in the warmup area , like

21:20

every time . Almost every time I jumped in there , coming

21:22

off , I'm like what am I gonna do ? Because I didn't get the train

21:24

diving at the pool we swim at . There's just

21:26

no diving signs everywhere . So I

21:30

asked Mike right before the event . Of course it's

21:32

not me that was the problem . I asked Mike if I could borrow

21:34

his goggles Because my goggles kept falling off

21:36

and I assumed it was the goggles fault

21:38

. And then they fell off on the first

21:40

swim and that was after I kind of belly flopped

21:42

my way into the water . Sam

21:45

, what were your thoughts on watching that one on Facebook

21:47

? You watched all

21:49

of our . We had a lot of fans out there , spectators

21:51

that were able to videotape

21:54

most of the workouts , so that helped a lot . Did you get

21:56

to any feedback on that workout ?

21:57

Yeah , I watched you especially

22:00

and you did

22:02

more work than almost anyone else in

22:04

that workout . It doesn't reflect on the time

22:06

, but when you're literally like how much

22:08

resistance can I build up ? I'm literally

22:10

like trying to . It's like pushing

22:13

like I don't know

22:15

. Yeah , like you said , a cube through the water

22:17

. There's no efficiency

22:19

. And your head was above the water the whole time

22:21

. Like you weren't , your head was not

22:23

in the water , you were literally forward like this max

22:26

resistance and I was like he's

22:29

working so hard and

22:31

watching everyone . You could tell

22:34

it's all technique and

22:39

I swam some in high school so

22:41

I could sort of see like the people who

22:43

like had good

22:45

strokes , who could push off the wall , like I know

22:47

if Nick Squire would do that

22:50

one , he would push off underwater

22:52

and he'd be halfway under the pool before

22:54

he got up and started swimming , and

22:56

it was those kinds of efficiencies and it's still hard

22:59

. Like if you're not used to not breathing

23:02

, like controlling your breathing it's all about controlling

23:04

your breathing Then it's

23:06

really really really , really hard . But

23:09

I figured it was gonna be like that for most people

23:11

. I saw some people standing in the middle of the pool

23:13

and then like resting

23:15

and then going , so like

23:18

it was whatever you could do . Like

23:20

I remember Joe said like he's just worried

23:22

that they were , like he wanted to make it shallow

23:24

enough so people didn't drown , like that was

23:26

sort of the thing . Like there were some people who had real problems

23:29

with it .

23:29

There are some people you could tell right away that

23:31

they don't swim at all Like I've

23:34

been in water before so I know I had to swim

23:36

like from that perspective . But you can see people

23:38

have not even been in that situation when

23:40

they almost got like panicky .

23:42

I was surprised that they actually had a . You

23:44

guys do something poolside all

23:46

wet . What was that ? Like grabbing the

23:49

dumbbell and then like moving around

23:51

on a wet floor and then jumping back in

23:53

like what were the logistics for that for

23:55

you ?

23:57

The movement I was actually . I thought it was an appropriate

24:00

movement because you weren't like having

24:02

to go down and hold onto your

24:04

grip because it was resting on your hands . So I thought it

24:06

was an appropriate movement . The

24:09

challenging thing for me was

24:12

, by doing that , you're

24:15

getting yourself out of breath and then you have to go

24:17

into the water and I like I know how

24:19

to dive into it . But as soon as you go into the water , you

24:21

already need breaths . So you're like , oh my gosh , I

24:23

have to get up and breathe quickly . So

24:25

normally like you're like

24:27

your heart rate's under control so you can like hang

24:29

under the water and really kind of glide . But

24:32

you get underwater like , oh my gosh , I have to get up quick

24:34

to start breathing . And if you don't wait

24:36

to get out of the water , you can like

24:39

suck water in , which was what I was doing a couple of times

24:41

. That was the one challenge for me Got it .

24:43

Yeah , I think Mike walked down and says I almost drowned

24:45

.

24:47

It was actually one that I was . I haven't

24:49

told anybody this , but whenever I finished the workout

24:51

, I swear I smelt

24:54

puke , yeah . And so

24:56

this is what I'm trying to figure out . I was like I

24:58

knew I choked on some water , but I was like I don't remember

25:00

throwing up . And then , I think a couple of days

25:02

after the workout , I was like I really hope

25:05

that no one someone before me didn't

25:07

puke in the water . I swam through

25:09

their puke and I'm like I'm

25:11

just choosing to believe that somehow I

25:13

threw up a little bit I don't know it

25:16

was gross .

25:16

That's what the chlorine .

25:17

Yes , yeah .

25:19

A smart idea , in my opinion , to have us swim first . That

25:21

would be the first responsibility wise , because

25:23

as you get more and more fatigued and sore

25:26

, you're just increasing risk

25:28

. Everyone's their freshest on day

25:30

one , so I think it's always a good idea and , for

25:32

future reference , whatever they do in the water should

25:34

be on day one . I would even say it should be event one

25:37

too . Yeah , she don't want to be predictable

25:39

, but safety is always number one focus

25:41

, especially when you're in water and bad things can really

25:43

happen there , like if you made a swim really

25:45

hard Sunday , I would have been a little scared . Yeah

25:48

, we lifted right after two . This

25:50

was an event Stuff . This was an event

25:53

from 2020 that got canceled

25:55

. I always like to remind people that this was part

25:57

of the reason why I wanted 2020 is

25:59

that this event got canceled and it would have been

26:01

my worst event . It was four

26:04

minutes to establish a one-rep snatch

26:06

, one-minute rest . Four minutes

26:08

to establish a one-rep mass cleaning jerk . The bar's

26:10

not preloaded when you get out there , so

26:12

part of the four minutes is just putting weights on your bar and

26:15

that essentially gives

26:18

you about three attempts at a snatch and maybe

26:20

three attempts at a clean jerk . Sure you could rush

26:22

it and maybe get a fourth in there . Yeah

26:24

, this is where

26:26

it's tough

26:29

to program things like this at a competition

26:31

. The warm-up area was not bad . We've

26:34

seen worse , much worse , but

26:36

it wasn't great either . We

26:38

were in the Arizona state actual

26:41

like workout facility with college students

26:43

doing tricep extensions and bicep curls

26:45

. They gave us a little corner of

26:47

the room , but we're warming up with powerlifting

26:50

bars . Most of us were , and

26:54

you probably get a few lifts in . It's

26:56

always awkward in there . You kind of have to be a little bit aggressive

26:59

and just take a bar and start lifting , even if someone

27:01

else is using that bar . But

27:03

then you have a 20-minute period of just standing

27:05

around and then you have to hurry

27:07

up , scramble weights . You basically have to go to about 75

27:09

to 85% of your one-rep max and just go lift

27:12

it . So

27:14

whether you hit it or not , great I mean , they're always

27:16

impressive to see guys like EZ Muhammad easily

27:18

snatch 275 . And there's a lot of other

27:20

guys who's thrown around massive weights . But

27:24

, mike , let's talk about

27:26

the tweet tip . You tweaked your hip on the clean and

27:28

jerk and it kind

27:30

of put a damper on

27:32

the

27:35

rest of that day and the next day because you didn't know how the

27:37

hip was gonna respond . And Karen's , like

27:39

, should I even come out and watch you ? Like , are you

27:41

gonna be on the sideline ? And I've been in that position before

27:43

being hurt at a comp . It sucks , especially

27:45

when someone comes out to watch you Just

27:48

touch on not so much

27:50

the event and what we hit as weights , all

27:53

right , but more of tweaking the hip

27:55

and what it did to you mentally .

27:56

Yeah , well , yeah , I

27:58

was really surprised by how much the swim workout

28:01

took out of me . And

28:03

so I get that I'm a deer in the headlights and I'm

28:05

like Texan Karen . I'm like what am I doing

28:07

here ? This is crazy . Guys

28:10

are like twice the size of me . There's just monsters

28:12

there . So

28:14

I'm a little bit of a deer in the headlights , and then the swimming workout

28:17

takes a lot out of me . And

28:20

then you've got two hours to

28:22

kind of an hour to cool down

28:24

and an hour to like warm up for the next event

28:26

. But

28:29

the whole time I'm thinking about how exhausted I am

28:31

. And then , as we're getting closer to the max lift , I'm

28:33

just like wow , I have no

28:35

, like pop , I don't feel

28:38

like they're amped to lift heavy weight

28:40

. So I was going into the

28:42

workout just not

28:44

having a mental edge , still feeling like what

28:47

am I doing here ? Oh , my gosh , I have to lift heavy

28:49

weight in a four minute high window

28:52

, load my weights . So

28:55

I go into the snatch and don't

28:59

hit near what

29:01

I've hit before . What was your goal and what did

29:03

you hit ? I wanted to hit at least 225

29:06

. And then I

29:08

hit 205 pretty easy , and then I went

29:11

to throw on another 10 , but there was only a 15

29:14

. And I was like , ah , what's happening ? So

29:16

I would have had to , like , take the bars off , put it in the 45

29:18

, that was my time . So I threw 235

29:21

on there , missed it , went down to 225 , missed

29:23

it . I didn't really care because I was just

29:25

like this is crazy . So then

29:27

the clean and jerk happened . And

29:30

the clean and jerk I'm just a lot . I'm really

29:32

really comfortable in the power clean , so

29:35

I was throwing up weight really quick and then I

29:37

wanted to hit 285 . So

29:40

I went to 275 , power

29:43

cleaned it up super easy , felt

29:45

I barely dipped down . But

29:48

for long story short , like

29:50

the one lift that I feel most uncomfortable

29:52

with is probably the jerk . Just because

29:55

of my knee , let it from college , but

29:58

anyways , I went for the jerk and

30:00

I just I've got another college

30:02

tweak injury in my left hip and

30:04

I hadn't felt it in a long time and

30:06

I tweaked it right . When I hit that

30:08

and it was like you know , like you know the pain

30:11

, it's familiar pain . You're like , oh , shoot

30:13

, that's not good . Yeah , it

30:15

wasn't like , oh , I'm gonna get injured and have to go to the hospital

30:17

. It was like this could just be a real . This could

30:20

just get worse and worse and worse throughout the weekend . So

30:24

as soon as I felt that , I just stopped and I had like two

30:26

minutes left , so that was pretty

30:28

disappointing I

30:31

just stopped going . So I only hit 255

30:33

for that lift . I think

30:36

my worst event was the

30:38

lift , which was disappointing , because I'm not a terrible

30:40

lifter , but I'm not a bad lifter , you're a good lifter , so

30:43

anyways . So when that happened

30:45

, it was like they just kind of put me into a spiral

30:48

. It was like , oh my gosh , am I gonna be able to do this ? Karen

30:51

wasn't even out there . She was supposed to travel the next morning . So

30:55

then she and I are on the phone texting back and forth

30:57

. They were like , should she even

30:59

come out ? Like is this gonna get worse and worse and worse

31:02

? So that's kind of

31:04

when I started to go into the hole

31:06

which we could talk about kind of the mental

31:09

low point of that . But that's kind of where that

31:11

began .

31:12

How about you damage mitigation for you ? You're

31:14

also not a heavy lifter , so

31:18

what were your ?

31:19

thoughts going into it . Exactly that damage control

31:21

hit a medium weight . That's like somewhat

31:24

heavy , but what most other people are warming up with

31:26

For me a medium weight , I

31:28

wanted to hit 225 and 295

31:31

. I hit 210

31:33

and then I missed 225 twice . Then

31:36

I was like all right , just go to the cleaning jerk , start building up

31:38

that barbell 225 , 245

31:41

, 265 . I regret

31:43

doing the 245 . I should've just went right to 265

31:46

. So I know I was gonna hit it and then I failed 285

31:49

. I saw that you were so close

31:51

. Yeah , I hit the clean and like the clean was tough

31:53

. But again , same thing . I watched that

31:55

video and I was like that is awful lifting

31:57

. It was really bad , just like a bed . It

31:59

looks slow , slower than normal and

32:02

it did not look clean . Like I see people

32:04

lift all the time here , like there's good lifting and there's

32:06

bad lifting . Some you know sometimes you get

32:08

the same result hit it or miss it . But

32:10

even like my 225 cleaning jerk was just bad

32:12

, you know .

32:14

Do you think it was just the fog of competition Like

32:16

you're just like confidence .

32:18

It really was confidence , because I didn't lift that much this fall

32:20

, I see . And when you don't lift like you

32:22

have to stay on top of lifting , because when your

32:24

confidence isn't there to really throw yourself underneath

32:27

the barbell Remember , moving a bar is not about

32:29

moving it up , it's about you getting underneath it and

32:31

when you don't have that confidence to truly get underneath

32:33

it with a strong base and stability and safety

32:35

, it's gonna be hesitant and

32:38

it's just not gonna look clean . But

32:40

yeah , damage mitigation did

32:43

not hit what I wanted to , and when you miss 20

32:45

, 40 pounds it could drop

32:47

you eight spots like that . Oh yeah , it's

32:50

so tight in there , it's really tight , it's really competitive

32:52

. So it's , you know , when you see

32:55

, you know 40th place

32:57

at a local comp , it's

32:59

a much different feel than 40th place at this

33:01

. You know it's that that person in 40th

33:03

is a big time athlete , you know

33:05

. And so I bring that up , because when you

33:07

do kind of miss your goal by 10%

33:09

, you can lose 40

33:11

points in the standings and 40

33:13

points at the end of the weekend still get you five or six

33:16

spots in the standing . So

33:18

knew it wasn't a great start for me overall

33:21

, but again , part of

33:23

the thought was I felt healthy , I felt safe

33:25

and after last year I was really happy

33:27

about that . The next workout

33:29

was called Hell's Bells . It

33:32

was a seven minute time cap . Most people do not finish

33:34

this it's . You have a dumbbell in each hand . You

33:37

have to walk 200 , lunge 240

33:39

feet with a dumbbell in each hand , 36

33:41

double dumbbell deadlifts , 24

33:44

double dumbbell hang squat cleans

33:46

and then 12 double

33:48

dumbbell doubles press . Catch here

33:50

is that if you break up any of those movements

33:53

you have to take a penalty , which

33:55

was two double dumbbell doubles press . So

33:58

you go into it saying I don't want to do 240

34:01

feet of lunging which for most people , by the

34:03

way , is anywhere between 48 and 60

34:05

reps of lunges with a dumbbell in

34:07

each hand , without stopping and

34:09

turning around every 40 feet

34:11

and you just didn't want to take a penalty

34:14

. So it made you hold onto it and made the rest

34:16

of the workout really tough , also

34:19

a workout I didn't feel confident in , just

34:21

like overall knee health and how my legs

34:23

were feeling heading into it . But you have

34:25

to kind of make a decision prior to like

34:28

I'm doing this unbroken , like it's

34:30

and this is where some

34:32

experience probably went against Mike , and

34:36

there's no substitute for experience . It means a lot

34:38

. But , mike , what happened in this

34:40

workout and I guess we're not going to break

34:42

down every single workout , but I think the first three

34:44

are really important to kind of set the

34:46

tone for the rest of the weekend what happened

34:48

to you in this workout

34:51

, let's see . Hip's

34:54

still not sure if you're going to make it though .

34:56

Yeah , do you want me to kind of go into the

34:59

whole mental thing ?

35:00

Yeah , Like , really I want to

35:02

share is that hang squat with your story because

35:05

you went lunges unbroken .

35:07

No .

35:07

You broke them up once . I took one break .

35:09

So I was going into that and that

35:12

was kind of that was after . That

35:14

workout was a huge turning point for

35:16

the positive , because I was going into it like

35:18

I don't know if my hips going to hold up . So

35:21

I kind of had I had a very conservative

35:23

mindset going into this workout . Yeah

35:26

, I knew it was going to be tough on the grip , but

35:29

so mentally

35:32

I'm just like I don't know how this is going to go . So

35:34

, anyways , the event

35:37

starts and I'm just taking

35:39

my time , being very methodical

35:41

, watching my steps , and guys are

35:44

just flying

35:46

. I was like what is happening

35:48

? I was treating it like

35:50

a , like just a bison wad , and these guys are

35:52

like this is not 5 am class on Tuesday . Oh

35:55

my gosh . There was one guy

35:57

lapped me going back and forth

35:59

and I was like at that point

36:01

though I didn't really care , I was just like I just want to finish

36:03

this and stay healthy , right , mentally

36:06

I started feeling better as I was going . I was like , oh , my hips

36:08

, it's holding up , it's not getting worse , it's not

36:10

hurting . So that was great

36:12

. But because I was going slower , my

36:15

grip started to really feel , so

36:17

I had to take a break . I think it was like maybe

36:19

three quarters the way through the lunges , did

36:21

two devil's breaths , finished it out , took

36:24

a little bit of a break , did

36:26

the 36 deadlifts unbroken . That

36:29

was pretty tough , tougher than I thought it would be . And

36:32

then we had the 24 hang squat

36:35

cleans and we talked to some

36:37

guy , dave , prior to that workout

36:39

. He was like , hey , take 10 more seconds

36:41

than you think you need . So I did

36:43

that . I thought I was ready

36:45

. I was like you know what , I'm just going to take a couple more breaths

36:47

and I was planning to go

36:49

unbroken on those hang

36:51

squat cleans to try to finish as many Devil's

36:55

Press as I could at the end . But

36:57

anyways , I did 14

36:59

and I just mentally I

37:01

chickened out and I took a break , did two more Devil's

37:03

Press and I regret that was

37:05

one of my biggest regrets is not just going unbroken

37:08

on the hang squat cleans , because I knew that I could have

37:10

and gotten more reps on the Devil's

37:12

Press . But so

37:14

that was a learning opportunity

37:16

for me there . But

37:18

one of the funny things is in my mind I wasn't

37:21

even thinking about the cap , I was just thinking

37:23

I gotta finish this thing and I'm in a lot of pain . So

37:25

I was just , I was like , oh man , I gotta get these Devil's

37:27

Presses in . All of a sudden , just like three

37:29

, two , one . I'm like , oh , thank God I

37:34

was saved by the cap . I was like , oh , thank

37:36

the Lord . I was like , but yeah , that

37:38

was . But once I finished that , I

37:41

finished that the workout was over there

37:44

was a release that came over me and

37:46

there was all these other guys who were in pain too . We

37:48

were fist patting each other and my hip felt

37:51

great and I was like , okay , I

37:53

can do this . I was

37:56

like this is cool . I think I text scared

37:58

. I was like this is the first time that

38:00

I thought , oh , I could see how this is kinda fun . So

38:05

that was the turning point for me and

38:07

I got my mental ledge back and I

38:09

felt good about going in , not

38:12

about the pain , but the weekend , but it was just . I

38:15

was like I can do this . And so that's when

38:17

things kinda turned around for me .

38:18

Sam , you know that statement about golf or

38:20

it's like that one drive

38:23

that keeps you coming back . Yes , Like

38:25

you shoot a 114 , you're terrible at golf , but

38:27

you had one awesome drive and that's

38:29

what keeps you coming back . That's what that

38:31

moment was for Mike and

38:34

we can all recall whether it be

38:36

CrossFit or CrossFit competing , there's that

38:38

one moment and it can be so many different

38:40

things that says , all right , I

38:42

kinda like this . I could see what is so attractive

38:45

about this . So , Mike and I

38:47

, we had a lot of time together . We stayed together

38:49

over the weekend Recovery

38:52

tubs , hot tub recovery , just sitting

38:54

in the hotel room for hours , a lot of downtime

38:56

. And I can tell you this

38:58

, Mike's transition , attitude-wise

39:01

after day one to after this workout

39:03

in particular , was night and

39:05

day , and I

39:08

was really happy about that because I was like man , I

39:10

kinda felt guilty for a little bit . I was like I

39:12

brought him out here , Like I got him into this

39:14

and you could tell

39:16

it's almost like a weight was taken off

39:18

his shoulders , Like he took a weighted vest off

39:20

, and that's

39:23

where I feel like his ability

39:25

and talent started to show out . So

39:27

that night we had the workout with the jump rope and

39:29

the rope climb . Cool workout , ascending

39:32

complexity . Or I should say , not

39:35

for everyone , that's not the case . You had three different kind of jump

39:37

rope paired with rope climbs , Just

39:40

like you would three different weights paired with muscle

39:42

ups or rope climbs . It had that kind of feel to it . If

39:45

you have a hole in your game with one of those jump ropes , you got

39:47

exposed . I got exposed on that . But

39:49

then capacity came into play with the rope climb

39:51

. But after that we're

39:54

now onto Saturday . There was

39:56

another workout where Mike's

39:59

attitude took another turn

40:01

on the positive . Mike

40:05

hearing about his football career at Wheaton . He

40:07

was a really like , loud , voice-trous

40:10

, emotional player , celebrating

40:12

, screaming . Right , he was a linebacker

40:14

. So all linebackers have a little bit of crazy in them

40:16

.

40:16

Just a little bit .

40:17

Yeah , and he did really

40:19

well in a workout I wanna talk about

40:21

. Bison's gonna do this . It's either gonna be in two

40:23

weeks or in January , haven't narrowed

40:25

that down yet . It was called

40:28

Enter Sandman . It was an eight minute cap

40:30

, again a tight cap , where a lot of people did not finish

40:32

. The workout was four rounds , eight

40:35

snatch , four bar muscle up . Eight

40:37

clean to overhead , clean and jerk . Four

40:40

bar muscle up . Ladies , your bar

40:42

muscle ups were three Light barbell

40:44

it was 95 pounds for guys , 65

40:46

pounds for ladies . And Mike

40:49

was the only one that

40:52

I saw that went singles on every

40:54

single set from the beginning Last

40:57

one on the floor after those snatches

40:59

, last one on the floor after the clean and jerks , and

41:02

he ended up winning or coming in second

41:04

place in his heat , and

41:07

those are so much fun to watch . Someone that kinda

41:09

came out of nowhere because he properly paced

41:12

it . And

41:14

then after the workout , mike

41:16

runs to the finish line . Our

41:18

fans , his wife is there at this time , everyone's

41:20

celebrating . Oh my God , that was awesome . He came

41:22

back and he crushed everybody . He

41:25

takes his grips off and just slams

41:27

them to the ground . Oh , I saw spikes .

41:30

So much emotion Did he do it twice yeah .

41:32

I did . I did both of them , man . Yeah

41:34

, it's funny because he forgot his grips and

41:37

his wife had to run back to the hotel 15

41:39

minutes before his workout .

41:41

That was the wad of the weekend

41:43

here and sprinting back to get my grips .

41:45

Good thing your wife is fit . Yes , but

41:49

Mike was that kind of like

41:51

. I feel like

41:53

you've probably had this said to you

41:55

before At some point

41:57

show who you are , show your emotion . There's nothing wrong

41:59

with showing a lot of emotion it turns some

42:02

people off . But I like to see who you

42:04

truly are and it doesn't have to come out

42:06

every single day . But in that

42:08

kind of environment , at that point your attitude

42:10

shifted . What was that like euphoria

42:12

of like of you went in and you did your plan

42:14

Because everyone and their mother was

42:16

going touch and go on the first set

42:19

, because that's what we do , crossfitters . Right , you

42:21

were responsible , you were smart and

42:23

it helped you out . What

42:26

led to that spiking of the grips ?

42:31

Yeah , it was the total buildup of going

42:34

into the hole after the first day to

42:38

not performing well . But

42:41

things started to take a turn for the better

42:43

after the Hell's Bells workout

42:45

. But

42:47

what's funny about that workout is I

42:50

was facing away , my back was to everyone

42:52

, so I literally had no clue

42:54

what was happening . I was just like I'm just gonna stay

42:56

in my lane , do my thing . The

42:59

guy I talked to , some guy in the 40 to 44

43:01

bracket and he was like

43:03

I went singles the whole way and finished I think

43:05

it was at first or second his heat . I was like I'm doing

43:07

that , I'm just gonna do it . My

43:09

only regret , I told you , dave , was I didn't just

43:11

go ham at the very end cleaning

43:14

jerks , just touch and go , and I probably would have won the heat

43:16

. But whatever , yep , let it on . Yeah

43:18

. So I just got

43:20

into my rhythm and I just I didn't

43:23

know what was happening . All I know is the very last round

43:25

, everyone

43:27

in front of me was screaming and I was like I think

43:29

something's happening here . So

43:31

then I finished my

43:33

muscle ups and I'm running and I'm like I'm

43:35

by myself . This is crazy . And it

43:38

wasn't that I got second . Honestly

43:40

, it was like I finished an event . It

43:43

just felt so good to finish an event . And

43:45

then the combination of like man

43:47

, I beat everyone and

43:49

it did kind of , it was a combination of like oh

43:53

man , it was the high of coming out of the hole

43:56

that I was in . I was in a really deep hole . Coming

43:59

out of that , getting

44:02

second in the event , finishing an event

44:05

, and kind of being like it

44:07

was like I can do this , I can

44:09

hang with these guys , and

44:13

it was just . And then on the

44:15

other , when I finished , when I crossed the finish line and

44:17

the bunch of bison people were there , they were screaming

44:20

too and

44:22

yeah , it was just the pent up . Everything

44:25

kind of came out and I just like slammed

44:28

my grips on the ground and it was kind

44:31

of this , it wasn't this like that's right , take

44:33

that everyone . It was

44:35

like I freaking did

44:37

it .

44:38

It was like yes .

44:40

It was honestly I was . It was

44:42

emotion , just a sense

44:45

of accomplishment for myself .

44:46

Absolutely . That's what it was . That's why we do this stuff right

44:48

. It's not for money , not for attention . It's

44:50

this personal fulfillment that

44:53

your brightest days come

44:55

after the darkest hours , right , like you're always . You

44:58

were in that dark hole for a long time and getting to

45:00

that sense of euphoria , it's such a personal

45:03

accomplishment that you can't

45:05

replicate anywhere else , and I think that's a big

45:07

reason why people love to do this so much . It's

45:09

just that's always

45:11

what it's gonna come down to just your personal fulfillment

45:14

of knowing where you're , the only person that really knows

45:16

where you've been with this right .

45:18

And you guys both finished well

45:20

. In that event . I think it was eighth and 12th . That was

45:22

a very bison and Dave's

45:24

been like you only finished four spots

45:26

back of Dave . Dave's been doing this for about 10

45:28

, 12 , 14 years and you've done it for two

45:31

, so next year you're just gonna

45:33

surpass him . Elijah

45:35

Muhammad finished . He blew everyone away

45:38

. It was like 30 seconds faster than

45:40

everyone else . That was amazing

45:42

.

45:42

Yeah , he . I think he was touch and go

45:44

for the whole thing . I believe he

45:47

might've taken a couple of calculated arrests . He's

45:50

an outstanding athlete . He's just

45:52

with some things he's on a different level Former

45:56

games athlete , those guys that it's always

45:58

humbling to see that you could try as hard as

46:00

you can . There's certain things I mean the rope climb event

46:02

. He would jump up three quarters of the rope

46:05

and just kind of like this is why up there they come back

46:07

down .

46:07

That's his thing . Yeah , I mean the spectators

46:09

who went from Bison one of them a shout

46:11

out . Yeah , one of the things they all said

46:14

was just watching the caliber

46:16

of athletes and how

46:18

many good , amazing

46:20

athletes there were in every age

46:22

division , just blew them away Like this was like

46:25

the elite of the elite type people

46:27

.

46:27

Yeah , I do wanna give them a shout out , because

46:29

part of that I think the emotion that came from Mike in

46:31

that was you know , we

46:33

have people . I don't think any gym had

46:36

as many people that we did out there and

46:38

we live across the country . You know it's a five

46:40

hour flight . It's a lot of money

46:42

too , if you add everything up with

46:44

the hotels and food and everything , and

46:47

Mike and I were both in that front lane

46:49

for that workout . So it is a little bit

46:51

of a disadvantage that you don't know where everyone

46:54

else is during the workout . And they

46:56

were so good about like

46:58

you just give them a quick look , like you gotta hurry up , you're

47:00

good , you're good , you're good . Oh , you're passing , he's passing you

47:02

. I mean , you have nine

47:04

people screaming . You can't really

47:06

make out the words . Yeah , you think

47:08

you , you understand what's going on , but that

47:10

combination of that and then that floor

47:13

, the way it's set up , you had people looking at you on

47:15

top of you from the balcony and

47:17

then that's where it got crowded and

47:20

you know the 35 to 39 heats

47:22

. There's , just there's . It felt like there was a lot more people

47:24

there watching and you almost

47:26

had like a stadium arena type feel

47:28

to it . It just increases the intensity , it increases

47:30

the emotion and

47:35

our fans , spectators were a huge

47:37

deal , just like good people . Hey , what do

47:39

you need ? Is there anything I can get you ? They check out the

47:41

heat before you , they give you a time , they give you a pace

47:43

, a video . They definitely don't

47:45

need to do that at all . I never would expect

47:47

them to do it . I've been out there by myself before

47:50

. Like that's again , you go out to compete for yourself

47:52

, but they made a big

47:54

difference all weekend and I definitely want to give them

47:56

a shout out and a big thank you on

47:59

here . And then spectators as legends grows

48:01

, they have the games next year . Like we need to try

48:04

to go out there and watch the

48:06

spectate and support the actual organization

48:08

itself , because it's the only way it's gonna

48:10

stick around and whether you're competing or not

48:12

, it's a big deal

48:14

that you go out there and watch and support . Now

48:18

the last three workouts

48:20

. We're gonna group this together because this is where I do want

48:22

to throw little constructive

48:24

criticism . Their way . They added

48:27

scaled and team this year and

48:29

I understand why and I love the

48:31

concept behind , why Either they're doing

48:33

it for the community and you want other people

48:36

to experience this . We had two

48:39

athletes out there and we had another one qualify that couldn't

48:41

go out there . Dave

48:43

and Ella were out there for scaled yeah

48:45

, for scaled and they did an awesome job . They had

48:47

a great experience too and it was fun to watch them

48:49

. I got to watch each of them one or two times

48:52

and it's

48:54

great to see them in that environment . The

48:57

debate here and Bob said this on

48:59

our podcast it's I hate to say this

49:01

because it's not , it's I

49:03

want to find a different way of saying it because it's a resource suck

49:05

. Like it takes judges

49:08

floor space time

49:10

scheduling . Like we had an event on Saturday

49:12

. We didn't start till 4.30 PM . Amy started

49:14

after us . Yeah , I saw that and

49:17

it's hey , you're an athlete , you have to adjust on

49:19

the fly . I'm not , but it's because

49:21

they had so many more divisions and

49:23

, as Bob said , they don't . A lot of them can't

49:26

show up or don't show up Like they . You know it's

49:28

easier , they're easier for them to drop last second

49:30

. So you had divisions with two or three people

49:32

on it , right , and the

49:34

team division . It's kind of messy

49:36

. When you got four people on these small floors out there

49:39

, I wonder if they

49:41

could go back and rewind , if they would do

49:43

that same thing again .

49:45

Well , I think , after they , you

49:47

know analyze it , I think it's worth

49:49

asking them what they think , because what it

49:51

also does , it can impede our program , the

49:54

programming for Rx .

49:55

Right , like shorter windows . A

49:57

lot of the guys that I talked to when we were talking about the workouts

49:59

, a lot of them said it's very short this year . Right

50:02

, the workouts are very short and it's because you have

50:04

logistics to deal with . Yeah , we

50:06

were on the rig once .

50:07

Yeah .

50:07

The entire weekend Right

50:10

, and because I think that

50:12

floor only had 10 zones , 10 lanes in it

50:14

. Was that my , my 10 spots on the rig

50:16

or eight ?

50:17

Yeah .

50:17

I think it was 10 or eight . And so

50:19

when you have four to 500 athletes and they all have

50:21

to get on that floor , that's 50 heats that

50:23

you know like don't you wish we had ? Could

50:25

that floor could have had 20 spots , or you

50:28

had more time to work with , to make the workouts longer

50:30

and throw a gymnastics element into it . That's

50:33

where you know

50:35

if you really are trying to find the best

50:37

competitors there , the most fitness

50:39

there . I think that does

50:41

need to come first .

50:43

I think I was going to ask you about this . I was asking

50:45

now they deliberately chose

50:47

no machines this year . Yeah

50:49

, no long pieces , like

50:51

you said . Yep Really hurts

50:53

someone like you who's good at machines

50:56

. Good at long pieces Like

50:58

that might have helped a lot

51:00

.

51:00

Oh for sure it would have helped but would that

51:02

?

51:03

wouldn't that be part of finding someone

51:05

who's like ? I understand

51:07

why Bob said listen , machines are prone to breakdown

51:09

Absolutely Logistically . They're expensive . You

51:11

have to rely on the vendor . It's a

51:13

pain in the ass .

51:14

I had to fix two rows yesterday during the while I was so

51:17

pissed off . I get that

51:19

, but 100% .

51:20

But if you are , it's been

51:22

integral to CrossFit from the inception

51:25

. Shouldn't that be

51:27

part of determining Like a

51:29

staple , yeah of who the fittest is ? I

51:31

mean seriously I do .

51:33

I do think machines , a machine , should be in

51:36

every single four day competition

51:38

. If it's a comp with three events , four events , then

51:40

no , I don't . But that

51:42

kind of aerobic capacity and heart rate

51:44

and muscle contractions that can

51:46

affect the rest of a workout are

51:49

huge . And if you don't have capacity on machine , like

51:51

no , I don't think you can deserve to win . But

51:55

that's

51:57

coming from someone that's good on machines and not good at some of

51:59

the stuff that they did program . So I want to

52:01

take myself out of that discussion . Like

52:04

example , I want no max lifting at comps

52:06

. You know like I could tell you that it's

52:08

part of safety and there's other ways to test

52:10

strength , but it's partially because I'm not

52:12

good at it . So you have

52:14

to consider the source when you hear things like this . But

52:17

when you have 10 events , I think a machine

52:19

needs to be there , or a run and

52:22

I'm not that great of a runner , so like

52:24

an air runner , meaning , which is a machine

52:26

, I think one of those things has to

52:28

be in a 10 event comp

52:31

I respect . And

52:33

here's another thing Dave Castro , greg

52:35

Glassman , adrian Bosman what's

52:38

her name ? Colleen Lawrence or Heather Lawrence the

52:41

big shots of CrossFit were at

52:43

there . Yeah , that was amazing , like , and it was really

52:45

cool . But I would be nervous

52:47

if they were coming to a comp that I was running after . They just

52:49

agreed to give me the games . In

52:51

my opinion , the program had some feel

52:53

to it that said , let's

52:56

make sure nothing gets screwed up and make us look

52:58

bad . So , conservative yeah

53:00

, not easy , definitely not easy , no , but Just

53:03

more conservative in terms of , like , taking a little of a risk on a comp

53:05

, Because

53:08

if a machine starts to go out or four bikes

53:10

start to go out , air runners start to go out and those guys

53:12

are watching and that's a really hard

53:14

problem to solve on the fly . I've

53:16

seen CrossFit struggle with this . Remember

53:18

the year at Regionals they had to count white stripes

53:21

on the treadmill ? Yes , like that , there

53:23

are issues , but you know

53:25

, if you are gonna

53:27

be running the most prestigious master's

53:29

comp in the world starting next year

53:31

, that stuff

53:34

needs to be a staple . But I liked

53:36

the idea like , hey , this year we did no

53:38

machines , they'll be back , dave , don't worry , next year they'll be

53:40

back . I'm cool with that , because one of your

53:42

Regionals CrossFit Regionals did no barbell

53:44

. You know how many people were pissed off about

53:46

that and of course they complained about it

53:48

. But Dave Cascio was like I don't want

53:50

you to know what to prepare for , so

53:53

I prepare on the machines . And I had all of our athletes prepare

53:55

on the machines . We didn't see a machine shortcoming

53:57

on my fan maybe , or you just you

53:59

can't predict this spot . This is what James Fitzgerald hates

54:02

about CrossFit sport . You don't know what's

54:04

coming and you could prepare your ass

54:06

off for this and that , but if it

54:08

doesn't show up , it's kind of a waste . So

54:11

, yeah , I do think machines be involved . To sum that

54:13

up , where to

54:15

go from here ? Because

54:18

we don't need to break down that last workout . Bison's doing

54:20

that one as well . Dumbbell Snatch , galva Squad . But

54:24

where to go from here , mike

54:27

? Our other athletes we

54:29

had we also

54:31

had Amy out there and Mindy and Kathleen

54:33

Five

54:36

, six , yeah , and they're all different

54:38

divisions . We got to see them work out a few times

54:40

and they're all different areas

54:43

of life , different experience levels , different

54:46

performances , different goals . I would even say , are

54:49

there any macro piece of advice , mike

54:52

, that where

54:54

do you go from a competition like this ? Because

54:56

you had highs , you had lows and I

54:58

could tell you're already itching to kind of get back at it

55:00

. Well

55:02

, mike , how about you share that ? Where are you at right now Mentally

55:04

?

55:07

Yeah , mentally I already feel

55:09

the desire to

55:11

do it next year again , really . Yeah

55:14

, yeah , I do . I

55:17

think it's a combination of how

55:20

emotionally I felt towards the end

55:22

, coming out of that negative hole

55:24

, and

55:26

I think also that one event , when I finished

55:29

second at my heat , it was kind of like , oh , if I stick

55:31

with this I could just keep

55:33

doing better . And

55:36

just the sense of accomplishment I mean

55:38

I told this , I said this

55:40

to you the day before like that was , hands

55:42

down , physically , the hardest , most humbling

55:45

thing I've ever been through in my entire

55:47

life , ever , ever , like no

55:49

exceptions , not even there's no question in

55:51

my mind Just the mental , the physical

55:54

, was unbelievable . And

55:56

then just the sense of accomplishment , of getting

55:59

through it , was

56:01

very rewarding , and so I

56:03

could see how even

56:05

performing even better could just be even

56:07

more rewarding . I can't imagine , dave

56:10

, you winning that , how

56:12

the sense of accomplishment you would feel . But I

56:14

think that's

56:16

kind of where I'm at . But I think you

56:19

gave me great advice just give it a month to

56:21

just kind of sit on it and by

56:23

the end of that month you're still feeling that sense of like

56:25

I wanna do this . That's really where you're at

56:27

, not so I don't have any like

56:30

impulsive reactions to it , so I'm

56:32

just kind of sitting on it now . But

56:34

macro advice is

56:37

I don't know if you think you can do

56:39

it like , go for it . And

56:42

I think Two

56:44

things that just come right off the top of my head . One is

56:46

just like , if you've never done it before

56:48

, be prepared like it's

56:51

gonna be a challenge . It's just gonna be a mental

56:54

challenge . I loved listening to

56:56

Kevin and

56:58

Koda talk about their experience and

57:00

they all said , right , when they're in the middle of it , they're

57:02

always like why am I doing this , what

57:05

am I doing ? But then when you finish , you're like

57:07

that's why I do it and

57:09

I went through that same thing . So I understand that . Just

57:12

be prepared that it's gonna . It's going to challenge

57:15

you more than you probably ever been in challenging your life

57:17

. The second

57:19

thing is more practical . Another

57:21

thing that really helped me was

57:24

was when I figured out a rhythm

57:27

and routine to how to like

57:29

warm up

57:31

, cool down , warm back up and then

57:33

recovery and the recovery , the back to

57:35

back workouts . That was part

57:38

Out there , right , yeah , out there . Like

57:40

when you get out there , like figure out

57:42

how , what am I

57:44

gonna do , what's my rhythm

57:46

gonna be ? Where am I gonna warm up ? How am I gonna

57:48

warm up ? How am I gonna cool down and

57:50

just stick with that ? I didn't figure that until

57:52

after the second workout , and that's when things really turned

57:54

around .

57:56

Did you do something fancy like ice baths or anything

57:58

like that ?

57:59

Yeah , that was one of the coolest things is

58:01

they had three ice baths

58:03

out there , and one

58:06

of the things that was amazing is , as I got out there , I was like all

58:08

right , how much are these ? And they're like , oh , they're free . They

58:10

had free ice baths . We

58:12

would have paid . By the way , yeah , they

58:14

had free cold plunges , not ice

58:16

baths cold plunges throughout the whole weekend and

58:18

I took advantage of that like crazy . Had

58:21

you done it before ?

58:22

Yeah , yeah , mike's a big ice bath . Oh , you're a big ice bath

58:25

.

58:26

Yeah , strangely , but

58:28

yeah , I think I would . Once you

58:31

get out there , like what's your rhythm gonna be

58:33

? Find it quickly and just stick

58:35

with it , Cause that's really gonna help you to manage

58:37

the stress . That

58:39

was amazing to me was figuring out

58:41

how to manage the

58:43

mental stress of

58:46

the events .

58:49

That's like half the battle . Yeah , definitely , I mean

58:51

fitness . It takes fitness to get there

58:53

and then the mental slash routine

58:55

to do well out there .

58:57

Where are you ?

59:01

I'm not injured . Last year I was injured at this

59:03

time and I knew that was gonna be a really crappy

59:06

. Four to six months impact training , not

59:08

to quarter finals . Very

59:10

much looking forward to the open , very

59:13

much looking forward to quarter finals , which

59:15

I have got to . How do you feel about ?

59:17

what you did here .

59:19

Well , I got asked a lot are you gonna do well or

59:21

how do you think you're gonna do ? And I was like I could see myself

59:23

doing really well , winning , and I could see myself

59:26

coming in last place . And I've never felt that way

59:28

before , cause I just didn't know where

59:30

I was at fitness wise and I kind of ended up . I

59:32

ended up in 14th right and I was what

59:35

is that ? About a third of the way up the leaderboard

59:37

and that kind of is . That's just the truth

59:39

of where my fitness is . So

59:42

that was accurate . Yeah , I don't think I got screwed

59:44

. I don't like the machines . I

59:47

don't think that's why I didn't win . I really don't

59:49

. I'm just . I looked

59:51

at the guys at the top and I competed

59:53

with them before I beat them before and

59:55

when I was watching them I was like I

59:57

can't do what they do right now . Simply put

59:59

, you

1:00:02

know it's and I want to take a lot of that responsibility

1:00:04

myself . I'm not going to come up with any excuse of

1:00:06

like being sick or injured . I just

1:00:08

did not train well this whole year

1:00:10

. I didn't feel very fit going down

1:00:13

there compared to what I've been in the past , and

1:00:16

I do think I've lost some of my

1:00:18

mental edge . That's

1:00:20

part of why I've done well . I've always said

1:00:22

I'm not the most talented out there , but I can out tough

1:00:24

anyone , and I feel like I've lost some of that

1:00:26

kind of like swagger a little bit . Why Just

1:00:29

? I think life some stress . My

1:00:32

passion is still there for competing . I

1:00:35

think I train with more fear than I used to , which

1:00:38

at some point , I

1:00:40

always try to coach myself , because this is what I tell

1:00:42

other people At some point you're going

1:00:44

to have to accept risk because you've

1:00:46

gotten burned , yeah , and if

1:00:48

you can't accept risk , in my opinion

1:00:50

you shouldn't pursue this . And

1:00:53

that's honestly . You're not soft

1:00:55

, you're not a loser If you don't want to accept that risk

1:00:57

, it's just the fact because you really

1:01:00

do have to push your threshold . That's

1:01:02

what this training is . You

1:01:04

have to push against the threshold and

1:01:06

that means sometimes you're going to get tweaked or have

1:01:09

to be not afraid of getting tweaked , and I've

1:01:11

lost some of that . But

1:01:14

without talking to Ashley . I always I'm

1:01:16

teamwork with Ash , with everything we do and

1:01:18

every decision I make is through her . It's never

1:01:20

going to be without her knowing

1:01:23

or having a discussion about it , because

1:01:25

training to me it's

1:01:27

a lifestyle . It's not just showing

1:01:29

up and hoping for the best . So I have to make

1:01:31

adjustments to schedule coaching . I need to have

1:01:33

some discussions with coaches about that too

1:01:35

if I want to pursue it . But

1:01:37

I still want to pursue what I've been pursuing .

1:01:39

It sounds like you have more fire maybe both of you guys

1:01:42

for the open and for what's coming up

1:01:44

for the start of the next season .

1:01:45

I'm excited this guy being excited for the open , for sure

1:01:48

, yeah and just . But it also

1:01:50

made me think like how do I get there

1:01:52

successfully and ready

1:01:54

to go ?

1:01:54

If I had to make a plan for Mike , I would say

1:01:57

, yes , you can try to qualify for legends If the

1:01:59

body holds up . But I would do

1:02:01

what I'm doing is really keep an eye on

1:02:03

that 40 year old year where

1:02:05

you're in a new age group . Are you guys both a year away from that

1:02:07

? I think Mike , you turn 39 when April

1:02:10

, so Mike will be next year

1:02:12

will be Mike's last year in the 35

1:02:14

to 39 group . Yeah , for

1:02:16

both legends and CrossFit

1:02:19

. Yeah , I have two

1:02:21

years left in the 35 to 39 for CrossFit

1:02:23

, one year left in the 39

1:02:26

year old group for legends . Okay

1:02:28

. So what I really want to pursue right now , again

1:02:30

without finalizing

1:02:32

this , is , yeah , still

1:02:35

stay in the training competitive mindset . When you lose

1:02:37

, sometimes it either tells you like all right , I don't really care

1:02:39

, or you're kind of upset about it and it makes you want

1:02:42

to go . But , like Mike , you

1:02:44

sit on it for a few weeks because

1:02:46

I've seen this a lot People come back

1:02:48

from legends or a local competition and they're

1:02:50

so fired up , yeah , and then they

1:02:52

kind of lose the fire and then it's like they get

1:02:54

really upset with themselves . If you still feel

1:02:56

the fire in a month , then I think it's

1:02:58

time to go and honestly I've already talked

1:03:00

to Mike because I haven't had this in a long time

1:03:02

I would like to try and train with him , because

1:03:05

there's things he'll crush me in , there's things I'll crush him in , and

1:03:07

I think that's good for both of us . Keep

1:03:10

us accountable to it and

1:03:12

if we can make that work schedule wise , I

1:03:15

would love to go out there and beat

1:03:17

him for the second year in a row . I hate it

1:03:19

.

1:03:20

I don't know . I don't know where the smart

1:03:22

money is gonna be on that one , that one

1:03:24

. So this was his first

1:03:26

comfort , guys . No , I know , Trust me and I remember

1:03:29

when Mike came , when I talked to him like

1:03:31

three times and every time I talked

1:03:33

to you you were like I just wanna

1:03:35

go out . I'm like you sounded so hesitant

1:03:38

. You're like I just wanna see what this feels like . Yeah , if

1:03:40

it's not getting hurt . Yeah , and

1:03:42

to hear you now is

1:03:44

it blows my mind . It's very transformational

1:03:47

in terms of what you went through for those four days , so that's pretty

1:03:49

cool .

1:03:50

Yeah , and I think he's set up well for the sport

1:03:52

. I've told people for

1:03:54

over a year that Mike I think Mike is

1:03:56

as talented as an athlete as we had

1:03:58

here . He just doesn't have the experience and he doesn't

1:04:00

have the capacity yet and that takes a long time to

1:04:02

train . But he's

1:04:05

on his way up and I hope he sticks with it and

1:04:09

that's it . Anything else you wanna

1:04:11

add , mike , before we wrap it up ? Because we gotta get Karen's

1:04:13

gotta come in and get her open gym session . That's got .

1:04:18

No , I'm just really thankful to

1:04:21

you , Dave , for pushing me to do it and

1:04:23

you helped me a ton , Just

1:04:25

even like give me guidance and wisdom

1:04:27

on how to do it . Even like the rim of state in

1:04:30

grocery shopping and

1:04:33

the cool down . It was just cool to

1:04:35

hang with you , get to know you and

1:04:38

just my wife shout out to you Kari

1:04:41

, you came out , You're , honestly , you're probably

1:04:43

my biggest fan . You are my biggest fan . She's

1:04:46

the one pushing me more in this and

1:04:48

, honestly , also the people

1:04:51

, everyone who came out . I

1:04:53

have nothing to compare it to . So I just thought , oh , this is just

1:04:55

what we do , Like everyone's here .

1:04:56

It's great .

1:04:58

And I could totally see , like man , if

1:05:01

the Bison fans weren't out there , it'd

1:05:04

be a different deal . Even

1:05:06

just like not only just like the cheering as you're working out

1:05:08

, but as you finish , you

1:05:10

come out and everyone's there to greet you

1:05:12

and say great job , awesome

1:05:14

job in the workout , whereas if they're not

1:05:16

there , you get there and you're just like by yourself and

1:05:19

just standing there . So thanks to everyone

1:05:21

who came out and

1:05:23

yeah , I just yeah . My three

1:05:26

goals were have fun , not

1:05:28

gonna hurt and don't get last , and so

1:05:31

I did all three .

1:05:32

Yeah , I'll tell you which was great so . All

1:05:35

right . Well , thank you , bob and Joe , for another year at Legends . You

1:05:38

guys hit a home run with the venue program

1:05:41

. Let's just get those machines back , all right . No

1:05:44

, but this is a huge year for them 2024,

1:05:47

. I told them to their face . I'll say it to them on

1:05:50

this podcast we have your back . Bison's gonna support

1:05:52

you guys as much as we possibly can and

1:05:55

I hope we have an even bigger crew out

1:05:57

there for December 2024

1:05:59

Legends and maybe even get a couple of games

1:06:01

athletes in there at some point with the fields

1:06:03

expanding . So the open is coming

1:06:05

, guys , let's get it . Thank

1:06:08

you everybody for taking the time out of your day to

1:06:11

listen to the Herdfit podcast . Be

1:06:13

on the lookout for next week's episode .