Conor Murphy Podcast

SPEAKERS

Brett Scott

Brett Scott  00:01

All right, everybody here with me is Connor Murphy. As I said before, he’s got quite a unique background in the fitness industry. So Connor, thanks for coming on today. Yeah, as I said, he’s he’s got a background with CrossFit. He’s been to the CrossFit Games. He’s been the head trainer at Reebok world headquarters. He’s been a celebrity trainer. He works as a managing partner for big night fitness. This he’s got this was on waves thing going on. So clearly, you have such a unique path. So how did you get here, what, what brought you into this world of fitness in blending all these things together that is very visionary. And something most people probably haven’t thought about before.

00:45

It’s probably a it’s probably a multitude of things starting off that my parents were really into fitness. So my, my dad and my mom, were in the bodybuilding world, when I was growing up in young, and my dad used to manage gyms. And so we were always inside and out of gyms, my mother was, was a high level elite gymnast, and then did private training when we were growing up. So it was like, we’re always in and out of gyms. And then, you know, growing up wanting to play sports, and it was like, Hey, here’s, here’s the discipline needed. And here’s what you can do to enhance what you know, to get yourself ahead of everyone else that you’re competing against. So it was always in there, maybe not, maybe not doing everything the right way. But at least the the knowledge of, you’re going to need to put in work in order to here’s the input. And here’s the output. If you want the output, you got to have the input. And then when I was actually going through, I was previously in the Navy, so I enlisted in the Navy right out of high school. And I met a guy named William Bernard Callen, Billy Burnett, he was a prior Ranger who was going through the same training I was, and he was like, Yo, he’s like, You got to try this stuff out. There’s this, there’s this stuff called CrossFit. And I’m like, Alright, cool, what are we doing, and this guy could have been like, Hey, we’re gonna, we’re gonna go outside, and, you know, just do cartwheels, and it’s gonna make you fitter. And I would, I would have listened to anything. This guy said he was the coolest guy I knew. And the first workout were was pistols. This is a single leg squat. And then ring dips, which is dips on rings from straps. So essentially a frictionless plane. So it’s not quite as stable as doing on the parallel bars. And I was able to do some of these things that were that kind of came naturally to me, like a one legged squat. Sometimes people have to work towards the flexibility in the positioning to get there the strength to get out of the bottom of the squat. And I just so happened to kind of have those things in my back pocket to be able to perform this. And he was like, Oh, he’s like, you’re amazing at this. I’m like, alright, well, what’s our workout the next day? And that’s kind of how I got into CrossFit. I also had another one of our instructors, who I had asked, Hey, how do I, how do I get more work done, I want to, I want to be fitter and better prepared for the next steps of training. And he told me, he had crossed the.com. And so I had this instructor, instructor McKinney, who’s telling me to go to crossfit.com. Then I have Billy Burnett, who is like, you know, the most Alpha amazing person I’ve ever met. And like, Okay, here’s, here’s what I’m going to get into. So throughout training, that was something that was kind of utilized that word, CrossFit was thrown around a bit, this is in 2007 2008. And I probably, I incorporated it maybe one or two times a week, I’d look@crossfit.com They’d throw out a workout of the day, I knew nothing about what I was how it was supposed to look, right? It was, I didn’t understand stimulus of a workout like, Hey, here’s, here’s, here’s the adaptation we’re looking to get from the stimulus that is, and you know, there’d be a workout be grace, which is classic CrossFit workout, which is 30, clean and jerks for time. And the first time I did it, I could barely power clean and jerk 135 pounds. So it took me 27 minutes. And I was like, Cool, I did this workout. And then you know, you meet some athlete, and they’re like, oh, yeah, I actually did that one in five minutes. And you’re like, oh, oh, maybe it’d be scaling down to do that, and less weight. So it was like this whole learning journey. But I was so I was so inspired by trying new things, having every day be something that I may not be capable of. And I felt like I was just acquiring all these skills that were now coming in and could potentially come in handy in the job field I was going down. So that was where it kind of like the obsession part with with doing new things, and having new challenges rather than the typical, you know, sets and reps and movements that I was doing at the gym. And not to say that that wasn’t effective, but for how I was training. This was going to be the most effective methodology. And from there, I suffered an injury that that kept me from the took me out of my job field. And the only thing that I really knew outside of that was was doing CrossFit workouts. So I ended up the Navy actually paid for me to do my CrossFit level one certificate course. And so went to the course. And I’m like, Man, I can’t wait to show everyone how many skills I have, not realizing that that wasn’t the point of the course. And I went there and just had my mind blown by the professionalism, by the knowledge, and by really the ideology and methodology that they were teaching at this introductory course. And meanwhile, I think I know all this stuff about CrossFit, because I’ve been doing the workouts for the last three years. And it was like, wow, like, there is so much more to this. And it really kind of put the foundation together for what I was trying to build. And I remember after I did the course, I Yeah, it was it was old school. So like, you took a test at the end of it, they graded it. And then when you were leaving, you got this manila folder. And if you opened it up, and you had a sheet of paper in there, it was like You passed. If not, it was like, this is a participation, like you, you went through the course, but you didn’t pass. And I remember looking at this sheet of paper almost being a little bit lost, because of not being able to do the one thing I wanted to do in life in the military. And I had this sheet of paper, and I was like, You know what, this has done some really cool things for me. And the red shirts as seminar staff team members were, I mean, I was like, that would be that’s a goal of mine, I want to be able to do that job I want to give to other people, what they just gave to me, which was this inspiration, this hope, from like what we talked about earlier, that care, the empathy and the passion towards what they were doing. And from there, it’s just been, it’s just been in gear, CrossFit in all aspects of my life, and it looks different, you know, depending on what we’re doing, but I mean, it’s just, it’s just been locked in gear, and it has taken me to places that I could have never imagined.

Brett Scott  06:50

Yeah, you’ve kind of it all over you works in St. Thomas for a bit you came over here to Boston. So tell me about that. Like, how did CrossFit get you because I think for a lot of people and as I said, we have a lot of students and people that aspire to be in the fitness or physical therapy, worlds movement, professional worlds. We’re, as CrossFit brought you as far as your career goes, and, and such because you’ve gotten to quite a high level without having a formal education in, in the exercise science field. So how did you get there?

07:26

Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting, too, because I always from the start, after I finished that course, I was like, I’ve got the ticket, I’ve got the knowledge. I know the mechanics, I know the points performance of these movements, I’m good. And the more I’ve grown, the more I realized, like I know nothing, you know, it’s like, the more you know, the more you know, nothing. And so at the time, at the time, I was transitioning out of the Navy, and there was a you know, there’s a there’s like a grace period where you have medical appointments, and there’s stuff you have to do. And I had kind of thrown my name in the hat for internship or part time coaching opportunities. And I was working at a gym. It’s called CrossFit PB at the time, and then it moved to San Diego athletics. But these, these two guys, Anders and and Brian, who both had both were very, very smart. Both had high level degrees in exercise science and in physiology, just kind of mentored under them, and coached and did workouts and then I ended up coaching at a gym. And then when I got out of the Navy, I had friends that were that had moved down to St. Thomas that were just having a ball. They weren’t fitness guys, they weren’t military guys. They were just really, really genuine and fun people to be around. And I was like, here we go, I sold everything I had. I went to St. Pat, I went to St. Thomas, I had my backpack, I had a sea bag, like a navy sea bag full of clothes, and I had a gun. And I was like, I’m gonna do like, I’m good to go here. And you know, I was doing CrossFit and like, Hey, maybe I can bring CrossFit down to the Virgin Islands down to St. Thomas, because there was no aspect of fitness down there. And when I mean no aspect of fitness, I mean, they had a couple of gyms that were just like your open gyms and that, you know, like open gym, you go in, some people are working out, but it’s this vacation down. And most of the money is made off of tourism. And there’s cruise ships that come in, and they unload 1000s of people off and then they bring 1000s of people back and then they go off to sea. And there’s people that are staying in hotels, and then there’s state side locals, people who have moved from the states to either work in tourism or do something on the island in St. Thomas is small, is 14 miles long by four miles wide. I mean, it’s it’s a relatively small place with a recorded 70 or 80,000 people on it. And I got down there and I was like you know what, I want to bring CrossFit here. And I had some connections with the Marriott down there. And we were going to start off I was just going to run these like quasi CrossFit classes for the people who were paying the resort fee that we’re staying at the house. Tell. So I was kind of working the hotel side of things. And then I was doing my own workouts on the beach. I mean, I had to stay fit. I first three days, I just drink rum and hung out with my buddies down there. And I’ve got like three of those days in me before. I’m like, I need to work out like I have to do it in order to feel better. And started picking up some more people that were just seeing me doing on the beach, hey, I want to join in, come on in. And then I had a woman, she approached me and she was like, Hey, I actually did CrossFit with this with this navy seal guy at his house. And I’m like, one, no one knows what CrossFit is, too. It’s very unlikely that some random guys and Navy SEAL who’s doing this, so I was like, you know, I’d love to meet this guy. So here I am, like, oh, man, I can’t wait to expose this guy and I, we are at a bar. Of course in St. Thomas, we’re at a bar one night. And in my friend Christie is like, Oh, this is the guy Chris. Like, look across the bar. And I see some guy who is like, you know, quiet, but just looks looks the part. I’m like, oh, yeah, this this guy’s probably when I go up to him. And we start chatting. And he asked me about like my background and, and I kind of talked to him. And I mean, this guy. This is me coming up about having like a very short career in the Navy. Kind of like pressing the guy being like, Oh, what did you do? And this guy was like, 16 years active duty eight years on dev group SEAL Team Six. I mean, this just like, the most badass dude. So we leave this conversation and I’m like, Man, this guy’s kind of a dick. And then he’s like, you know, same thing. He’s like, This guy’s a chump. But we had agreed to train the following morning, we were both having drinks. And it was kind of that test of like, Hey, if you say you’re gonna do something, are you gonna do it? So I show up at the house, his house, and he has all this equipment, I have no equipment, I’m just doing bodyweight stuff. And so we start chatting, and it’s like, here’s this Aikido workout we’re going to do, which CrossFit is a really unique thing. And remember, it’s remembrance of heroes who died in the line of duty, who did CrossFit, they do these Memorial workouts for them. And they’re usually a little bit longer workouts usually a little bit more of a grind, not quite as like shorter, high intensity, but in remembrance of that person. And that’s a really, really cool community thing. And there’s some guidelines about what has to be a hero workout. But so him and I go head to head on this workout, it was a long workout. And I think it’s like the very end we’re like sprinting towards the end right next to each other, like ended with a 200 meter run. But of course, in St. Thomas, there’s hills, finish the workout, we’re both exhausted, and we kind of like made eye contact. And there was this like, this like, Bro moment of like, Alright, let’s do this together. So him and his wife, they affiliated the house, we ended up getting a gym, we ended up having, like 160 members, and the most incredible community you can imagine. There was and I say this as not a euphemism, I say this, like, literally, there were classes where we had drug dealers, and federal agents working out together in the same class, it was like that, like the dynamic of you’d have, you’d have boat captain, you’d have a nanny, you’d have a Zumba instructor, you’d have someone who worked in finance. And you know, it was because of the the nature of St. Thomas, everyone’s background were different. But they had this one care. And it was fitness, it was it, they were improving the quality of their life through fitness. And through these difficult workouts, they had this shared suffering. And it just created this, this like cohesive group of people that were almost outsiders for everyone else. You know, everyone would always party and say, Thomas, but on a Sunday, like on a boat trip, and people like oh, we’re you know, we’re doing shots and people back, oh, I’m have CrossFit tomorrow morning. It was kind of this like, Oh, gross bit, oh, I’m healthy. But it was so cool that we had this group. And granted, we know, people would still go out and drink and party and do their thing. But it was, it was this care concern that they knew that their other friends, their gym buddies, were always going to show up, and they were going to be there. And how I describe the environment. I know, I’m like, I always get sucked into this, because it was such a unique thing that I was able to be a part of the environment that Chris and Jen, and one of our other coaches, Jared and myself got to create. So Chris are one.

14:12

You know, he’s the guy that I’m referencing, just, you know, went to Naval Academy, it was like, Oh, sure, I’ll try to be a seal and goes through and just does all these incredible things. Also can play the guitar and sing. He’s just one of those guys who like figures. So he’s like, I’m gonna go to Aigis and just, you know, play a little set for an hour if anyone wants to come. So we put it out for our gym members. And we had I’m not kidding 100 people show up at this beach bar to listen to Chris play, because that was the support that people had for each other. There was a there was like a walk. It was like a walk against gun violence. It was like a walk or run 5k And you’d get one person being like, Hey, I’m involved in this event. I’d like you to do it. And we just get this massive amount of people that were there for support. And it was I mean, that’s the community aspect of it. And that’s what But we were able to garner we were able to learn from each other because everyone cared so much about not only their own fitness, but then giving that to other people the same thing, what I thought at the level one, where I saw these people that were amazing in their own right, but their, their biggest passion was giving what they had the life changing experience that they had through really hard workouts and functional movement to other people and to others. And then we were able to kind of like, you know, Garner that and and do it the same and St. Thomas was amazing, hardest decision that I made, was leaving St Thomas to come to Reebok. And it was really to further my coaching journey and my journey as an athlete as well. And when I was approached with the situation, because Reebok is up, it was up in Canton, Massachusetts, we ended up building a new gym and new headquarters down in seaport where it is now. But at the time, I remember the opportunity presented itself, the first thing I did was I went to Chris and Jim, it’s like, Hey, here’s the opportunity I have now remember their exact words were, we cannot afford to lose you as a coach, but we cannot afford for you not to take this opportunity. And they were I mean amazingly supportive. They’re still some of my very best friends, I talked to Chris weekly, if not, you know, a few times a week. And you know, Jen, they have three, they have three boys. And when I was living with them, I was like literally the fourth son that they just they never wanted. But it was a it was a cool thing to have that support for me to be able to continue on. And, and throughout this journey, you know, we talked about not having any kind of like, traditional or official background in exercise, science, physiology, any of that stuff. As I’m going through, Chris is like, Hey, you’re gonna go take the CrossFit level two course. And you know, I’m coaching CrossFit for a few months, people are losing weight, people are getting stronger, people are getting fitter, they’re able to accomplish things they’ve never done, all of these good things are happening. And so it goes to me, oh, Connor, you’re doing a great job as a coach. Just like the level one, I go to level two. And I realize, oh, man, there’s so much more for me to learn. And they’re just focusing on the basics. They’re just focusing on Hey, know everything about these nine foundational movements. And from there, there’s going to be transferability to learn other things. But like, let’s not, let’s not major in the minors here. Like you’re a crossfit coach, you’re going to teach functional movement. But if you don’t know absolutely every point of performance about the air squat, What business do you have with the trying to coach someone through a snatch what business you have doing this stuff? And so it’s really just a focus back on the, on the mechanics. And I remember after day one, I was like, Am I good coach should I even be here because there’s the amount of not the knowledge gap between myself and the trainers was immense. And yet I’m still able to provide this product that’s helping people. So it got to the point where I realized there is no end goal you don’t ever know it all. And you should get access to any and all information you can. So able to to learn under both in person and through books and videos people like Kelly Surrett with with you know that with the books, supple leopard, and then in person learning from him with like the mobility, the movement stuff, with different exercise physiologists with doctors, with anyone that I could pick their brain to understand movement, the textbooks that I would have gotten in college and not paid attention to because I would have been too busy wanting to party or do whatever else people do in college like I would have been a problem in college if I would have gone after high school I would have been an issue. But I’m reading these textbooks, these these anatomy textbooks because I want to learn more. I want to know what people are talking about when the smart people are saying things. I want to know what they’re talking about before they dumb it down for me. You know, as we always say in in any good coach, you have to use the knowledge of an exercise physiologist, but the delivery of a kindergarten PE teacher. Because the people we’re teaching or coaching aren’t don’t know. And to be honest with you, they don’t really care either. If you can tell them a specific muscle that they need to activate or engage because of this stuff. They’re like, okay, cool. But if you tell someone to just press their knees out, and now they have more depth than their knees don’t hurt during their squat. Like that’s what they care about. Have that knowledge but to have the delivery of just making someone better, faster. And getting all that knowledge and having the opportunity to be in front of these people and learn from in my opinion, some of the best coaches in the world who have that ability to distill this large amount of information into small, palpable teaching progressions, has been the only reason why I’ve had success in that and constantly getting humbled for each level. It’s like, oh, I’m a good coach humbled. I’m getting good humbled and each level. And then, you know, with that kind of attitude that I had learned from other people at Reebok, some of my mentors like Austin mal Yola, and Denise Thomas, who are in the CrossFit world, led to my journey of actually getting to where That red shirt of getting on CrossFit seminar staff teaching the CrossFit level one and level two seminars, and continuing to learn not just from my peers at that, but also from the participants that are coming in. Because everyone has a different experience. And everyone has different knowledge base, and everyone has different ways to approach things. And that’s why some people gravitate towards some, some people gravitate towards others. But people being their authentic selves, you can beg, borrow and steal from them and realize that, like, if you just so stuck in your ways, it might work for some group of people. But if you’re able to be open, and humble, and check your ego at the door, there’s so much more to be learned not just about not just the knowledge of your craft, but about the delivery of your craft, how to how to be more personable to other people. So I I credit, everything that I know, to every one of my mentors, there’s nothing that has nothing to do with me has nothing to do with my formal education. It has to do with having mentors that were so unbelievably gracious with their time to be able to teach me and I just I steal their stuff I’d be I’ll give them credit twice afterwards, and then I just use it as my own. And, and it’s just been it’s been awesome from there.

Brett Scott  21:14

So my first question is, did the federal agent know he was working out with a drug dealer in St. Thomas?

21:21

Oh, yeah, I mean, we’re talking we’re talking low level drug dealer on this one. These are these are like the, the small bags of weed. This guy just had like a drug bust of like 700 kilos of cocaine on a mega yacht. And they’re like they know about them. They actually need those guys to get the information for the big guys. So I mean, St. Thomas’s, like high school, like, everyone knows everything. And the rumors are terrible. Like, if you fart on Friday night, on Saturday morning, everyone heard that you shit your pants, like, it’s just like, it just gets worse. And it’s just, it’s an it’s amazing place. And it’s not for everyone. But everyone who’s like, Oh, it’s too small of an island. To me, I’m like, What are you trying to hide? Like, what? Because I love that it’s a small island. I love that when I go get my mail or I go get my coffee or I go, you know, take a friend to a bar that you have someone there who’s greeting you calling you by name, sending you the first round for free. Like, that’s cool. Like that’s a great community and aggressor.

Brett Scott  22:16

Yeah. So, with, with the CrossFit background you have and you know, as we were kind of talking beforehand, is there’s a lot people have to say about CrossFit. Oh, you’re gonna get hurt. Oh, you know, and there’s been a vast majority of differences I’ve seen in different CrossFit affiliates and gyms or boxes. So the big thing though, that’s interesting to me is like, you know, in my gym, and we try to separate like the weightlifting, powerlifting from like, our Gen pop training, and you know, 45 plus or so. But we have people that are scared to come in the gym sometimes because like, Oh, they’re intimidated by a snap, you know, people doing snatches and heavy deadlifts or whatever. But CrossFit has been something that’s been out there that more and more older people are seeing as like, Oh, hey, this can help me get rid of my diabetes, my osteoporosis, get me my life back and just keep up with my kids or whatever. So I think there’s something you know, and they say, CrossFit as a cult. All the time, you guys, you guys have that rap? Which, to some people might be a bad thing, but myself as a gym owner. There’s definitely something about that, that I want to have in my gym. So what is it about CrossFit, that just does something so different from everyone else with the environment, the community, how they get people to drastically change their habits and everything else? unlike no other fitness facility or affiliation or franchise that I’ve ever really seen before? That’s, you know, been going on now for what, how long is CrossFit around almost 20 years now?

24:11

I mean, the longer than that, from when Coach Glassman has been teaching the methodology that you know, he had from a from a science and physics base, and he’s a mathematician, he’s a math guy. If you have a conversation with him, you’re like, it takes you about four seconds before you’re like, okay, this person smart, this person is smarter than me. This person is smarter than most people. He’s incredibly smart about the program. But the first CrossFit workout came online in 2001. So I guess 22 years has there been online programming from crossfit.com?

Brett Scott  24:43

So yeah, what is it about all the environment everything that’s like just so different that gets people to change their lives like that?

24:50

So I’ll I’ll kind of answer this in two parts. And in the first part, especially at the cross at level, one seminar. There’s the Main thing or a big thing that we’re doing there is teaching our program. And what we do when teaching our programs actually dispel a lot of myths that are about CrossFit. And any, like preconceived notions of what you know, or what you don’t know about what CrossFit is. Because at its core, no one’s going to argue about CrossFit. No one is going to argue about what the program is, we talk about functionality and movements, people need to be able to pick something up off the floor, they need to be able to sit down into a chair and stand up freely, and they should be able to press something up and overhead. I don’t think anyone’s like, no, there’s some people that don’t need to do that. Right, everyone needs to do that stuff. And in in, in level one, we have the nine foundational movements. And what you focus on in that are the mechanics, the movement, you know, what is going to make this what what makes it functional, like the functionality of the movement, at orthopedic safety, and then muscular mechanical advantage. Those are the points performance that we stress, that that have all three of those things in mind. And it’s like if you teach someone how to squat, well, no one’s gonna get mad at that. It is the intensity part that maybe is in some of in some cases, dosed inappropriately, and some of the movements and some of that could lead to crazy people, right? Like, I’ve I’ve been there, I’ve posted stuff online, that’s dumb. But it’s fun, you know, you get to do that stuff. And then some people are like, Oh, no, this is dangerous. This is stupid stuff to do. And like, yes, some of it is, but that’s not like the core of CrossFit as constantly varied, functional movement at high intensity, people see high intensity, and they’re like, whoa, like 66 year old grandma doesn’t need to be high intensity. But what is high intensity? It is relative high intensity relative to what well, your physiological and psychological tolerances. What are you able to do? My mother, and my dad had been doing CrossFit now for 12 years. Yeah, there were in the bodybuilding world, and then it kind of came back to like, we need more functionality to live, my dad doesn’t need to be the most jacked human being anymore. However, he does need to sit down on the toilet stand up. And I’d like for him to be able to run 400 meters around a track like, that’d be pretty good quality of life. And so our intensities look different. My dad and I do the same workout almost every day. But the intensity is different. And we have an actual definition of intensity in CrossFit, which is a physics formula of work overtime, force times distance over time. And simplify it. It’s like, you know, how much does it weigh? How far did it move? How fast did it take you? And in layman’s terms, if you and I are going to do you know, one minute of air squats, we got to set the range of motion standards? What what does the standard have to be? So we can keep it consistent? And then, you know, how much do you weigh? How much do I weighed, whatever like that different stuff is, but if you perform 60, air squats in a minute, and I perform 30, we can do the power equation, and you can find that you will have a higher foot pound per minute power output than I had during that, because you did more reps than me. But we don’t have to go that far. Just to know that, hey, in 60 minutes, in one minute and 60 seconds of air squats, you are objectively fitter than I am because you performed 60 I performed 30. However, we may both be working at our physiological tolerances. At the peak of our relative intensity. My dad does the workout with likely significantly less weight, trying to fight for the same range of motion standards because we don’t want to give up range of motion. Right? At no point in time. Do you want to be like, Well, I used to press here. But now I can press the same way just to hear not Oh, no, no, we need this. I need the anatomical and natural end ranges from all of your joints. And we want to hold on to that because that’s going to be a key ingredient for quality of life. So that’s what CrossFit is program is. And when you look at the CrossFit Games, you know people like I saw that person do it, you know, 100, sweet Kippy Chiney over the Bari things, you know, yeah, relative to power output. He’s, you know, he or she’s very, very capable of that. And what when people come in the gym like, well, I can’t do a strict pull up but the kipping pull ups are for me and you’re like, is that cross its prescription? No, it’s not. And we don’t only do kipping pull ups and cross we’ll have strict pull ups with L set pull ups with all these different things. However, when you utilize the hip, you were able to generate more power therefore do more work over less time. In metabolic conditioning workouts. When you default to a kipping pull up you can do more work over less time. That’s not to say it doesn’t discredit anything else about a pull up about about going from a straight arm position to a chin over the bar. My dad is never going to do a kipping pull up. He’s like he’s what I call a muscle grinding cash badger or what some people refer to as a brick shithouse right. He just he’s been benching and doing curls his whole life. So his shoulders are really really tight. However my dad can do 15 strict pull ups. He’s 64 years old. Well, I’m worried about him. Falling down and not be Oh, I don’t need to give him life alert. He’s created over the last 10 years, this enormous capacity by doing functional movements at relative intensity, where, you know, he can’t overhead squat as much as he used to, when he was two years into CrossFit. Here, you’re probably overhead squat, 165 pounds. Now, he’s probably not going to go above 95 pounds and an overhead squat. But guess what, I’m not worried about him getting stuck on the couch. I’m not worried about his quality of life at 64 years old. He can do it. I mean, anything that we’re doing, we went down to Costa Rica a few months ago, a couple of my military buddies, some of my new CrossFit friends, everyone, we all go down there, and my parents are involved. They’re doing everything that we’re doing in their 60s, we’re doing pull up workouts on the beach, we’re just, you know, just broken out down there. That’s quality of living. That’s what CrossFit stresses at its core. CrossFit Games, some of the other stuff, some of the application that people put on it, you know, maybe the ignorant coaches like myself, when I first started, where I was like, intensity, you know, it’s like, can you pick up to 25, you can Google doing it 45 times. And people like, maybe the mechanics aren’t so good here, maybe you’re not following the charter that CrossFit puts out as mechanics, consistency, and then intensity. However, people aren’t made of porcelain. So you have the, you know, the dipshit idiot coaches, which I started off as sometimes so consider myself as having people do these movements that are inherently safe, even if in poor positions, right, I’ve yet to see a gym, I’ve yet to see a gym, anywhere, where every single person moves in a perfect fashion in every movement. It just, it just doesn’t happen. And nor have I see it in regular life. You know, it’s like when I’m like, alright, you know, at the end of this podcast, I’m not like okay. To move through, like our bodies, we can do some other things. And unfortunately, the prescription the program is so effective that people can administer it poorly and still see results. And that’s where CrossFit gets a bad rap. Now, sorry, I’ll step off my CrossFit soapbox, they’re no good. When I think when we go down that route, you’re like, Well, then why are there 14,000 CrossFit affiliates in the world? Why are there more CrossFit gyms than any other gym or discipline in the world?

32:25

One because I think that glasses Coach Glassman loves the free market. So it doesn’t have to be a franchise, you don’t need investors and millions of dollars such that you would need for a 24 hour fitness, or a, you know, a Lifetime Fitness or whatever those are, you know, you can, you can do the cross at level one, you can apply for an affiliate license, you can open up your own gym in your garage, and you can start teaching five to 10 people, you own a gym, you’re now a gym owner. And then things organically expand from there. Where I think the community comes from is that naturally, when you do constantly varied functional movements at high intensity, the efforts are difficult. If I were to tell someone to do you know, any basic CrossFit workout, it’s going to get you out of breath. And it’s scalable for my grandma to get out of breath. And for Matt Fraser and Rich Froning, and all of my other buddies who are still competing and incredibly fit in CrossFit. And so when you have those hard workouts, they’re shared suffering, that’s one piece of it, too. Very rarely does someone open a successful CrossFit affiliate and I measure successful in clients getting results door staying open, a successful affiliate that hasn’t had a life changing experience from CrossFit that wants to give that to other people. It is the care component. Coach Glassman was asked, years and years ago, what are the three most important things to running an affiliate? He said, care, care, and care. If you give a shit about your members, you’re going to you’re going to one radiate that they’re going to know that it’s genuine care, to, you’re not going to sit in a sanitary way of I know everything, I’m just going to coach what I know now, you’re going to seek to do courses, there are courses and we encourage at the cross at level one and level two, to do more courses inside and outside of CrossFit and every level of discipline all over the fitness industry. I’ve done strongman courses powerlifting courses, I’ve done week long Olympic lifting courses, I’ve taken gymnastics courses all outside of CrossFit. Because I want to get I want to gain the knowledge of all of that stuff and learn how I can apply it to my members to get them moving better. Creating higher power output and safer positions. It’s a you know, in when you care if you don’t care, you’re not going to seek and do that stuff. You’re not going to remember people’s names. You know that’s that’s a that’s a big thing too. And this is going to be kind of a sidetrack thing but I hold true on the So, I’ve met a lot of people that say, Oh, I’m just not very good with names. And you’re okay. There are probably some people who are naturally better at remembering people’s names, and some people who aren’t. However, if I were to tell you, Hey, Brett, I’m going to give you $2 million. The end of today, if you remember everyone’s name that you meet, guess what you’re gonna remember every person’s name, and you’re gonna do everything in your head, like, Okay, so my podcast ever hears name is Peter, Peter, Peter Pan, Peter Pan, podcast, pod podcast, and like, you’re gonna, you’re gonna force yourself to do these things. And so when you care, and when you’re like, I’m going to remember everyone’s name, I’m going to know all this stuff. I’m going to know what their kids do. I’m going to know what their you know, I’m going to know. I’m going to ask, you know, I’m going to ask John, when he comes into class on Monday, how his son’s lacrosse game works, I remember him talking about that on Friday, that’s been pushed down from the top the entire time. The CrossFit level one the cross at level two, you’d think all these people want to do is talk about their own accomplishments, because they have been robust. All they want to do is ask one more question about you. And the care in that you can’t fake that. You can learn it for sure, but you can’t fake care. And when you’re doing hard workouts, it’s very rare that people are cutting corners. Everyone knows the person who you know, shaves a couple reps here or there and does anything everyone in the gym knows it. But for the most part. And we’ve talked about this on the podcast before, too, there’s a reason why and that probably imagine it’s the same with your gym with the same care that you bring in, stuff doesn’t go missing, someone leaves their cell phone or their wallet there. If they leave it there for 20 minutes, I’m not worried I could I’ve left my wallet for at the gym for a week. Because the people that are going there aren’t looking for the shortcut. Because they’re putting in very, very hard work. And I think that’s why a lot of people avoid CrossFit too, especially from other disciplines, is because they’re incredible at their disciplines. They’re really, really good Olympic lifters, power lifters, people in track. Because if you were to go to the track meet, and you’re like, Alright, let’s see who you know, who’s the baddest person here, you see the people running the for the 100. And these are the fastest people in the world at depending on the track meet. Or in the Olympics. This is the fastest people in the world. If you tell Usain Bolt, you’re going to run a marathon the next day, he is going to be woefully inadequate. And he’s going to look like he’s never ran before in his life. That’s what CrossFit does, but not just in one discipline of running in everything. And the workouts are difficult. And, you know, speaking of so when I when I referenced like the federal agent that was in the class, this is a real person. This is a real person. And for the conversation sake is name is Brian, we won’t say his last name. Brian is one of my best friends. Brian came in to do CrossFit. With it with another guy. It was it was the intro workout where he had finished his on ramp and he got to go in the class. It was like running and power cleans. I had a super lightweight on the bar. And he’s like, Oh, I could go heavier than this. Because there was another guy in the class and it was Dave Hatta. At the time, Dave, Hannah was 64 years old. And Dave is just a maniac. I mean, Dave just jacked little guy. He had 95 pounds on the bar, I had Brian who says unit of a person at 75 pounds on the bar. And I’m like, Hey, each rep. We’re just going to do singles on this. I know you see people stringing it together. But right now we’re just going to work on like the concentric part of this just like the contraction to get it to your shoulder. We can drop it now from there. That’s all you have rubber plates. You know, and he’s like, I’m whatever. And Dave dust them on this work as a four round workout at three rounds. Brian’s like sitting down against the wall, and he’s like, Oh, man. I’m like, Brian’s not going to come back. Because Brian has got dusted by a 64 year old and Brian’s never been beat at anything in his whole life. Next day, Brian, who doesn’t have an ego shows back up. I could show you pictures of Brian at the time. You’re like, Oh, that looks like a badass dude. And now we like that guys. That guy’s cut up like a Julianne salad by key looks like Like, like, Michelangelo came down himself and carved him out of marble, like, just but he was had the ability to drop his ego and come in and be bad at something to get good. And unfortunately, when some people have an ego, and they’re so unbelievably good at their specific discipline, which does I’m not knocking on any specialist at all, nor would I ever, but as far as general fitness, there’s more capacity to be gained. And if you if you can deadlift 1000 pounds, right if you’re Eddie Hall, and what Eddie’s like an anomaly because he’s actually done some CrossFit workouts he’s transferred over into that area. I mean, not like, you know, CrossFit workouts that are good for him. You know, he does, like, dirty, clean and jerks for time. And I remember seeing Kendrick Farris Olympic lifter do the workout Isabel for the first time, which is 30 snatches at 135 pounds. This guy can snatch like, what near 400 pounds. Yeah, unbelievable. And you like almost for the for like he doesn’t get the bar is so light, he doesn’t know what to do. And he finishes at like a good time for a decent CrossFit athlete, not an elite time for elite CrossFit athletes and like this is his modality, yet it’s outside of that 123 rep range. And he was supposed to do an interview afterwards, this is at the CrossFit Games. He went into his trailer afterwards was exhausted. But it’s cool to see someone that’s like, Hey, I’m really good in this specialty. But I’m going to try to do what CrossFit is pushing, which is his general physical preparedness for their definition of fitness, which is not just specialty, it’s just not it’s not, you know, specializing in one thing, it’s essentially being a generalist and everything. And so I think, I think like that, removing the ego from it’s so hard to have an ego in a CrossFit gym, because you can be top of the world one day and last place the next day. So with the care component from the coaches, and then people having to drop their egos, it’s so much it’s like, it’s like stripping the armor off of everyone, and then having them come together and be okay. It’s okay to suck. It’s okay to be bad at new things. You know, and that’s the variance piece of it, too. And that’s, that’s why I think that community is so, so incredible, by a few of those reasons.

Brett Scott  41:13

So, gotta see the same thing, especially with a Olympic lifting, like I love the sport. I’m a nerd I. I’m someone that loves to be humbled by different things and learn different things. And I got into it, because at the time I was dating a girl that was in strength and conditioning, and she worked in a gym that did that stuff all day, and we’d go workout together, and it would be like, she’d be crushing cleans and snatches, and I’m like, I can barely do this stuff was like, I need to get better at this. Like, I need to be better than her at this. I just and then I just I got addicted to it and went to the gym every day and fucking learn until well, now I own two, two Olympic weightlifting gyms and I’m traveling the world coaching it now. So that’s been a pretty cool journey of mine myself. But that’s amazing. Yeah, we, you know, you see a lot of people in powerlifting is cool, because what I love about powerlifting, much like CrossFit is anyone can come in and do that, or almost anyone come in and do that. And it’s like, just put your head down. And if you keep knocking your head against the wall, eventually you’re gonna break through it, and you’ll see progress. Right? Olympic lifting little more technical, more demands of the body physically. But we see a lot of people that could be very good weightlifters, especially. That just doesn’t click for them right up front. And like, yeah, I don’t want to do this. That’s like, keep trying, like, you’re getting better. You’re making progress. Like, yeah, there’s a girl in here snatching more than you right now, even though you can deadlift four times as much as her but like, you can get there. So do you guys. Do you see that in CrossFit too, like a lot of people come and go really fast. And it’s just do you think part of what’s made CrossFit so successful is it just kind of checks, checks the people out that have the ego, and the ones that that stay are the ones that don’t that love to be humbled?

43:12

I think so. And I think that CrossFit has unique way of doing it, almost before someone walks in the gym. I think that when, because there’s not a lot of promotion for CrossFit, and each individual affiliate is ran on its own people will promote themselves. But the best promotion, in my opinion, the best promotion that you can do is take care of your members so much that all they can do is talk about how amazing their gym is. Because it’s the friends that are gonna make you got to come try it out. And once you’re when you’re humble enough, then you’ll do it. Because you know, what CrossFit is you’re like, well, what’s the workout gonna be like? Well, we don’t know if that’s the best part. And you’re like, Well, I don’t want to go into something where I don’t know what it’s gonna be. When I’m convincing people to tell them like, hey, come join me and train. And that’s the only way I can I can explain CrossFit to someone. Unless I have 45 minutes in a whiteboard. I cannot explain what CrossFit or what fitness is. Outside of that I can. But I’m like, hey, just come join me on Friday. You and I will work out. Well, what’s the workout? Well, I haven’t programmed it yet. Well, what if I can’t do it? Like, it’s universally scalable, you can do a version of it. But just know that there may be and it’s of course, funny with like, the, with, like, the sex side of things where it’s like, you may go in there and you’re gonna see a woman doing things that you’re not capable of, and using a heavier weight that you that you probably could do. However, your mechanics and consistency aren’t there yet. So we want to get you to that point. And so it is there’s like this pre humbling effect before getting someone in there. And I think why I think the efficacy of CrossFit is important for the general population and why it’s so called like, because of the overall health benefits that happen from it. And it’s very similar to a lot of different a lot of deer Front, you know, fitness disciplines. However in CrossFit, if if we’re referencing just for power lifters, I mean mean to get really good at powerlifting, it almost takes a sacrifice of not almost, but it’s going to take a sacrifice of other physiological adaptations. If you have a ton of cardio respiratory endurance, you’re going to need to lose some of that in order to gain a little bit more of your strength here, there’s, you know that this, it’s like the Madden stats, right? You have, you have cardio respiratory endurance, strength, stamina, flexibility, power, speed, accuracy, agility, balance, and coordination. It’s like those are our 10 physiological adaptations that you can get from performing fitness, CrossFit goals to elevate all of them. However, if your goal is to run a sub two hour marathon, the strength part is going to be at a minimum in the cardio respiratory endurance is going to be high, but really just specific to running. Just because you can run a two hour marathon doesn’t mean you’re going to be good at rowing doesn’t mean you have the muscular stamina to be good at rowing or you have like these other skills. And, and we always stress this, that that is not a knock towards specialist at all. You can put your lead Kip Jogi or Dennis kimetto, some of the fastest marathon runners in the world. Next, next to me running it, I’m going to run 400 meters as fast as I can, and they will be able to keep up with me. However, they can do that 100 more times afterwards, around a track to run a world record marathon, the distance between the Moon and Earth makes more sense to me than someone running a two hour marathon. It is unbelievable. However, you have to beg, borrow and steal from other disciplines. So you may not be capable of, you know, doing a muscle up out of a pool, or you may not be capable of, you know, carrying three kids and, you know, kicking up your groceries at one hand as you bring everyone into the house. And, and from the powerlifting side of it. We talked about, you know, some of the strongest guys in the world. It’s like, it is unbelievable, I fancy myself is relatively strong, you’d have to like triple my one rep max deadlift to get to the heaviest. Like it’s just unfathomable how strong people are. However, if you were going to have them run a 5k, you’d have to measure it with a sundial, right? And it’s not to say, Hey, you’re an idiot, is saying that you are so unbelievably disciplined and incredible at your discipline, that this is this is what’s become of it. However, for what most people want, isn’t that special than what most people need? Isn’t that specialization. If you haven’t worked out, you feel like shit, you’re 30% body fat or over, you know, you have all of your health markers are in the wrong direction. Running, rowing, lifting, gymnastics, all of that stuff are going to move your health markers from that sickness towards fitness faster than specifically do it in one discipline, or in one modality. And I think that’s why when people start to see those results from the GPP that’s why people want to stick with CrossFit.

Brett Scott  48:11

Absolutely, and I’ve heard the same before from a few different coaches. But it’s like, if you want to stay healthy, don’t compete, especially at weightlifting. powerlifting, one of these specif spas don’t

48:26

compete across it either. No, I don’t think that’s specific to that. Yeah, I was, I was broken. Yeah, after like the 2017 CrossFit Games. Now granted, I was capable of a lot. But it was like, every day was like my joints. It was like my, I was like, ah, you know, to like, try to be the fittest. Now, my quality of life is way better. I do one workout a day. Some of sometimes they’re four minutes long. Sometimes they’re 20, whatever it is. And then I leave the gym and I go live the rest of my life. But competing in anything I like, sorry to interrupt on that one. But don’t take CrossFit out of that. Because even though they look, you know and can perform anything, there’s a reason why they take two months off after a competitive season because it’s like mentally physically, it’s just draining.

Brett Scott  49:13

Yeah, for sure. So what did training for the CrossFit Games look like for you? Like, were you just doing that full time? Are you dedicated anything else? How many times how many hours a day? Were you working out? Because yeah, being on what we see on ESPN from those guys, and everything is it’s amazing. And there’s just so much that has to go into that. But also Yeah, like, how horrible do these guys feel and girls on a day to day basis that we don’t see or feel?

49:51

Yeah, and I think that answer has changed as time has gone on. In 2012. You could get to the CrossFit Games and still not really dial in your diet. it, you could still be a school teacher and then train afterwards for a couple hours a day and get there. Now, it’s got to be your full time job. I don’t know. And if it’s not your full time job, then you’re coaching CrossFit at a gym, or you’re managing a gym, or you’re running a gym, or you’re doing something that revolves around fitness. And some people can dabble and other things. But a good friend of mine, Pat vulner, went through school to be a physical therapist. And arbete started as a chiropractor. And after being in his practice, and still trying to compete, he had to step away from his practice, because he’s like, I don’t, he doesn’t have enough, because it’s not just the training piece of it. It’s not just the you know, the metabolic conditioning, the strength that yet it’s taking care of yourself. It is the amount of sleep time the sleep quality. Every top level athlete knows exactly how many macronutrients of protein, carbohydrate and fat that are going in their body every single day. The mobility and positioning work, the skill work, the amount of stuff that goes into it, it’s like, like, how do you be good at everything, you have to do everything all the time. And you have to manage it in a way that I still think people are trying to figure out what the best way to do that is. And you know, even guys like Matt Fraser, what are you just going to school with a, what was he like some sort of engineering, like aerospace engineering degree. And after he got that degree, he was like, Okay, I want to win the CrossFit Games. didn’t utilize it, he just trained, he just trained and focused on every aspect that he could to be the very best at that. And some people probably different than others, depending on pre existing injuries, what they’ve done before in their life, but not to say their bodies are broken, but they are completely exhausted and drained from being at that competitive level and putting your body through that to be an add an absolute peak. And, you know, at a at a low level competition. Sure you train once a day, and then you do it local competition. It’s super fun. You do well, you’re proud of your efforts. But when it becomes your lifestyle, that’s when that’s when the change happens. It’s all it’s all it is every every bit of your day as CrossFit Games, every thought you have.

Brett Scott  52:21

Yeah, it has to because even for me, like having been competitive, somewhat competitive in weightlifting. You know, looking back now and I took some time off, we open two gyms at once and had a lot going on in my personal life, too. So I was like, Okay, I’m gonna keep training, but like, I’m not being at that competitive level. knowing you’re training for something competitively that’s coming up, it’s a whole different mental game you have to be on it’s a whole different buy, and you have to have it’s more time more discipline, outside the gym. And then like, even for me now I’m like, Okay, how do I recover better? It’s like, okay, well, I have to like, still just to be good at one thing, train about two hours a day, maybe four times a week, I should be thrown some cardio in there for health. Once, once twice a week, I should be doing some I’ve actually have a rheumatoid disorder. So I should be doing some daily stretching, maybe some breathing stuff to bring me down, like, this is like four or five hours of my day, and I run through gyms, like it’s not gonna happen. It’s just, there’s no way for me to, to come back, at least at this point, and be competitive, I think at that level, not just in one thing, nevermind, all these other aspects of fitness that these guys are focusing on. So it’s just interesting to hear. So with that being said, I want to pick your brain a little bit on on that generalistic approach. And some things maybe we do or don’t disagree on. So you know, CrossFit gets a bad rap a lot from the hardcore weight lifters because, you know, the SNATCH and clean and jerk or technical movements that they say shouldn’t be done more than maybe five reps based on science. So and then we just, to me, at least, it seems like there’s been a vastly different experience people have at different gyms and everything else with different programming, and it’s like, what does that look like? Or what is the mindset of CrossFit to program something like a snatch for 20 reps or something like that? Because what I wonder is, do we have to do that? Is there a better way we can get the same training stimulus and adaptation by doing something maybe less invasive or less risky on someone?

54:52

Yeah, and I think that that’s probably something that as that I will leave in, like take credit for that is done and administered poor only enough to for that opinion to be 100% valid. Right? If you see someone in the gym who really has no business, snatch, you know, for instance, we can talk about the workout Isabel, which is workout I mentioned earlier, which is 30 snatches for time, but it’s a it is a either muscle power or it can be a full snatch. It is just get a bar from the ground to overhead. And yeah, I mean, there’s some people that have that don’t have the understanding or mechanics or technique or flexibility to safely hold a bar overhead with their arms locked out and not be an extension of their spine. Do those people should those people still be doing the workout? In my opinion? Yes. However, you can dumb down a snatch as simple as taking a PVC from mid Shin standing and putting it over your head. Now, some people like you know, in the Olympic lifting world are just like, oh my gosh, that coach just taught the snatch to a brand new person in five minutes. And it’s like, yeah, right. But you know, it’s it is an infinitely, in my opinion, and probably yours as well. Clean and Jerk in and snatch are infinitely definable skills. You’re never like, My technique is perfect. My strength is perfect. I win an Olympic lifting. Like there’s so so many just minor minor minor minor minor details that that you can do and improve upon to get better. And I kind of look that way at a lot of different things. However, what most for most people most time in most circumstances, you can safely bring a PVC pipe for your mentioned overhead. And you can learn a couple of things about the snatch. Hey, today on the snatch, hey mom today on the snatch. What you’re going to do is you’re going to keep that PVC pipe as close to your body as possible. We’re gonna just focus on bar path right now. Cool. She’s been in her arms early. She’s turning it around. It’s like you know, it’s her lockout is okay. But hey, we’re just focusing on that. Is my mom in a relatively safe position? actually lifting a PVC pipe from ground overhead life’s gonna demand that ever right of bending down to grab something. Is she learning how to perfect the snatch? No, but she’s improving. Now the next time I’m like, Alright, mom on this one. I know last time we worked on keeping the barcos on this on these sets of snatches, all you’re gonna focus on is when you stand all the way up before you pull overhead, your arms have to be straight. That’s it. So you’re going to stand and then pull, keep your arms long. And once you can squeeze your butt, then you push and pull overhead. Okay, cool. Thanks, Connor. All right. You know, maybe we have a training or practice bar. Granted, she’s able to move in safe positions. That’s the progression that should happen when teaching someone a movement. However, if you have someone who has a capacity to, you know, overhead, so they have good positioning, and they have a capacity to overhead squat a lot of weight there in them in good positions, then maybe you’re giving that person more technical coaching. So if I have a class full of 10 people, and I have my mom who’s over here, the PVC pipe, as we’re building up for our workout is we’re going over the mechanics, I’m having everyone warm up their PVC pipe, I’m spending a little bit more time with my beginner athletes, keep it close to all this stuff. Athletes who have done it before, but they’re warming up, they’re going through the burden of warm up, they’re going through all the positioning fantastic. Then his weight starts to get heavier, kind of moving in the middle ground help and coach people, I saw my beginners with super lightweight over there just you know, doing you know, I’m like, hey, it’s not like put your hands at your snatch position. There’s not you know, people that bring their hands in real narrow or start off at a sumo stance and you’re like, What are you doing over here. But then as it starts to get heavier, I’m working more towards the athletes who are working closer to their physiological limits who are working closer to where those margins of air are a lot smaller, and the risk of injury is a little bit higher. Now for those people, maybe we’re working on actually, the dip under after they clear the knees, what’s actually happening about getting their torso vertical, so that when they’re extending the bar is not coming around, and you know, whatever, whatever the focus point is for that person for that group and class. In that scenario, you can be like, Well, yeah, it’s you everyone can learn the snatch. And then now we’re going to do 30 for time. So here’s where threshold training comes in. If, you know, for instance, like you, we talked about with Kendrick FERS, the probably the worst snatches he’s ever done in his life where reps 20 of 30 threw is because he’s exhausted, right? His his body is not used to the adaptation. You know, we say the breadth of the adaptation correlates to the breadth of the stimulus. If he’s not training in that way, he’s not going to be prepared for that. And but if you are preparing for that, and you’re at a weight for instance, you know, Chandra, Ferris didn’t get injured after doing that workout. He was just exhausted, because relative to his one rep max, that’s a suit For super lightweight, he could round his back on the pole, bend his arms early reverse, curl the ball around and press it out, he’s going to still be in a relatively safe position. Now I’m not going to have my mom do that at 135, no, heck no. But at that, there’s that learning curve of where is this going to break down reps, one through five, I want to look picture perfect. At some point through 30, there should be some minor mechanical errors as you get exhausted. Now my job as a coach is to be able to slow down my athlete if I have to, or correct them in that in the positioning, arms bend a little bit early, keep your arms straight, then jump up, pull great little bit soft punch harder after you jump, I want you to catch with that locked out whatever the simple coaching cue is in order to improve that. And then that’s where they’re going to garner that adaptation because intensity reduction, if it’s 30, for time, the faster you do it, the higher the intensity, the higher the power output, the faster you’re going to get results. Now you have to be you have to have the mechanics, you have to have the consistency in order for me to turn the knob up on that intensity, you have to have the capability, you have to be able to put yourself you have to be able to be capable of being in a shitty position with that weight. Even if I don’t want you to be there. That’s the weight we were like, yeah, 3030 snatches for time has been a benchmark workout. And I’ve yet to see anyone have any sort of signal, maybe at least in the affiliates, where smart people have helped me out any kind of injury that that’s coming from that because of the load that’s on the bar. I mean, it’s kind of the same as if you’re doing, you’re doing 90 to 95% work, and you have to hit you know, doubles, and you hit one. And then on the 15 second mark, you hit another one, that second one is going to feel a whole lot heavier. Because if you can talk about from a, you know, from a bio energetic standpoint of your phosphagen pathway, not being fully recovered before you hit, you know, it’s like, there’s all that stuff, or it’s just like, you’re more tired. And so you’re gonna maybe rely on technique more, which is why we’re hitting those doubles. So then we refreshed it and you’re able to, like have that capacity. So it’s, it’s all kind of in the same, it’s just the application of it can be applied very poorly, which I’ve seen, I’ve seen done at affiliates, I’ve seen done by in my opinion, pretty dang good coaches that have just overseen or overstepped, or perhaps had 20 people in a class and weren’t able to check in or do their job accordingly. Because they didn’t plan properly for what it was going to look like if they had 20 people in the class, when you have one person who you know, has just had ACL surgery, and you have another person who has XYZ and it’s like, if you don’t prepare for that, yeah, you’re gonna you’re gonna show up with your tail tucked. But I think that, yeah, go ahead.

Brett Scott  1:02:46

No, that’s kind of what I was getting to was like, Yes, we have all these things. And maybe you know, that’s what you understand as a coach now with your time and experience in it. But part of what I love about this podcast is trying to help people advocate for themselves and find the right things to best optimally help them in their health and fitness. So what should someone look for when they’re going into a CrossFit gym as far as the coaching is concerned? And are our coaches actually retaining this information when they come out of courses? Because, you know, we can all learn from the best. But when we’re young, and we’re naive, and we don’t know what we don’t know yet. There’s definitely things I do differently than I did five years ago, or even last year, or, you know, a couple of months ago, I’m still learning things as we as we fail. So just for people out there to know like, what, how does that work in CrossFit in? It’s probably not perfectly refined yet, as CrossFit is still growing and new coaches are coming in and out. But I guess as a as a coach, what is what are the things people should know? And as people looking to do CrossFit, what what should they be on the lookout for?

1:04:04

That’s such a good question. And it’s one that, you know, I don’t know, if I have an exact answer to, I can tell you what I would look for. And the first thing is that when I’m looking at the gym, right, every gym has to have a website. Some of them just have like a Facebook site, but every gym in order to be an affiliate has to have a website. And a lot of times the coaches are listed on there. I would look for not, not the coach that has the most amount of credentials, right credentials can be great, but just like you said, how much information that is actually being written and honestly, when you see someone with like 30, like, how much did they really take out of each one of these courses? What I look for, for CrossFit specifically, is I would look for someone who has the actual certification in CrossFit. So the CrossFit level three, be a certified CrossFit trainer. The reason why is that they’ve had to take the level one, which is an introductory course, they’ve had to take the level two In, which is not an introductory course it is actually you are getting feedback, there’s there’s a next level of methodology. But then you’re getting feedback on your ability to coach your peers. And that’s why it’s such a difficult course, is you’re you’re in there and on the on on day two, you are expected to take your group of people and teach them one of the nine foundational movements, and teach it as well as you can and what our job as the as a staff member to do is to actually coach you on your teaching, not necessarily fix people’s movement, which is more the level one course. But to teach at that. And then after a certain amount of coaching hours, then you have to take the actual certification, which is I believe, 160 questions to for our tests, one of the most robust fitness test that I’ve taken, I’ve done the ACSM, the NSCA, the American Council of exercise, I’ve done a lot of those, when I was really getting into fitness and working out. This one was really, really robust, specific to CrossFit. So I would look for that first because you can’t accidentally get the level three in, you’ve really got to care, and you really got to want to get it you don’t have to. But you really have to want to separate yourself. So that’s the first thing I would look forward because it shows a few different things. One, the education level, but to the care part of being humble enough to go through the other things. And not just that, but as you kind of you know, you wrote this down on the sheet we were talking about, but is, is technical knowledge more important or is like the personality part more important. And it’s such a hard thing to answer because, of course your will bowl far. But I can tell you, and this is now with my new role, we highlight a lot of trainers in the Boston area, and trainers in every discipline of fitness. And the people who have the most amount of people showing up for their classes and that are obsessed and that are doing everything. And not to reference anything about technical knowledge are the people that these people want to be around. It’s the it’s the bubbly personality, it’s the care, it’s the hanging out afterwards, it is the oh my gosh, thank you so much for coming, it means so much to me, it is the genuine and authentic conversations and interactions that they are having. That’s where they’re seeing the success. However, if you can have that, and then continue to build that technical knowledge, that’s when you’re going to optimize yourself as a coach. But I would say being this, this side of it as personality, somebody you want to be around is more important. And it’s like hurt so much to say because you’re like, like, I don’t want to say this isn’t important. But that’s more important, because you could be the most technical, knowledgeable, unbelievable, you know, just genius mind. But if you’re boring, and no one wants to be around you or your person, you’re not gonna have any clients, you’re gonna be able to help anyone because no one wants to be around you. If you’re gonna be giving life changing results to someone, you know, you better figure out how to get people in the doors of your gym, or how to get them to stay there. But that relating back to the part of your question is, I would look for that cross at level three. And then I would go try out a gym. And don’t Don’t be like, hey, you know, here’s a CrossFit gym near me. This is my gym. Go in there, see how they treat you. Look at how clean their bathrooms are going, how much they care about their facility. Look how well other people are moving, don’t go in there and watch someone coach a class. If you see someone who’s moving around and talking to everyone and, and just trying their best, I’d go to that gym. Because if they’re not perfect, they’re at least humble enough to not either overload you, or they’re going to learn, you know how to appropriately dose that. But it’s the person who’s like, oh, yeah, this is the gym who’s drinking their coffee during the workout brief or on their phone or doing that avoid that gym like a plague. Because that person doesn’t give a shit.

Brett Scott  1:08:52

Pretty simple. I think for people too. It’s like, there’s differences in CrossFit gyms, it’s just because you went to one probably, in may have might have had a bad experience. And just like going out to eat like, play Go. I’m not doing that because I you know, people don’t want to go to physical therapy because they’ve had experience. They’ve had a bad experience. And we’re like, Well, did you go out to eat before and have a bad experience? Yeah. Well, did you go to another restaurant and have a good one? Yeah. Okay, like maybe it’s not physical therapy. It’s the physical therapy place you went to and had a bad experience. So I just want to remind people of that

1:09:29

your similarly was much better than mine about the restaurants then line with churches and stuff because I feel like people will say here religion that I am, I’m gonna steal that from you and be like, you know, is eating out bad? No, it’s pretty good. Can you go somewhere and not enjoy it? Yeah. Can you go somewhere and not enjoy it that other people enjoy? Yeah, you can’t you have to feel figuring out what you like. I like that one. Again. I’ll give you credit twice when I repeated to other people and then after that I’m stealing it as my own.

Brett Scott  1:09:57

Cool um, What else did I have here? I guess. Yeah, I guess, going back to what you, I was listening to one of your other podcasts before. And something that really rings true about just like giving a shit and caring and having the personality for those people out there that want to be good coaches alike. So I’ve had three coaches come in my doors that were had their master’s in exercise, physiology, kinesiology, sports, performance, what have you. They’re all CSCs certified, they’ve all got this collegiate background. And coming into the private sector, there’s a difference of what you need for that personnel. Because we’re Gen pop, we’re trying to have fun with people, we also have competitive athletes and things too. But like when I’m in my office, and I’m maybe working on a patient on my computer, and I just hear crickets out on the training floor. I’m a very concerned business owner that no one’s having fun. And I’ll give my girl Julie here a lot of credit, we we brought Julia in eight months ago, and like she knew nothing. But she wanted to learn she’s a student, you could tell she just had a knack for people skills and caring. And like, she’s the best thing that came into our gym because members love her like, I mean, off the bat like, and she knew she didn’t know a lot. But she’s put a lot of work and effort into learning more. And she takes initiative on things. And his dot dove into a lot of continuing ed for herself. And it’s paid her a lot of dividends. So something I think people need to realize is Yeah, going to the coach that just has the most accolades on their thing doesn’t always mean as much as the experience in the following someone has and the rapport those people can build with you.

1:11:47

Hello, Julia.

1:11:48

Yeah, yeah. That’s what keeps people coming back. And having a good time, too.

1:11:54

For sure. I mean, you can go speak about like, even like the same restaurant experience, you can go to a place that has the nicest plates, the nicest decor, the nicest, the best food and ever, and your server can ruin that experience for you. But you can get someone who knows nothing about any of the food, they could be going there reading the specials off of a list. They could be going, I don’t know the answer to that. But I will find the answer to that and going back, but just genuinely caring about you. And you’re gonna be like, that person’s amazing. Because they were humble in their approach. And at some point in time, they’re gonna learn, you can teach, you’re gonna learn all the other stuff. That’s really difficult to teach the other side.

Brett Scott  1:12:36

That’s a huge thing, too, is we see this a lot with like newer coaches that want to know everything and are afraid to make mistakes, and they’ll just start spewing things out and making things up were like, for everyone looking for a gym and a good coach. If you ask someone a hard question, and they don’t know, they should tell you, Hey, I don’t know, I still do this. You know, I’ve got a seven year doctorate. I’ve done the residencies everything else and like, plants, I was like, Yeah, I have no idea. I’m gonna have to like, go look this up. Let me shoot you an email after you know, I’ll follow up with you. What have you. And like, because I think people have a lot more respect for that, when you could just be humble enough to say you don’t know. And you’re gonna go find out for them and show that you care. That goes a long way in the coaching world. For people. That’s a great point. Yeah, well, you made it, I just highlighted it. You make you know,

1:13:31

using a sound better. I feel like I feel like I like like, come up with these ideas. And then you like really refine it, you put the bow on it. And then I’m just going to take that product afterwards. So love to do more of these. I’ll give you do a back and forth.

Brett Scott  1:13:42

Yeah, I’ll have to come on your show. At some point. We can talk training. I would love that. Yeah, do you have to wrap up here soon? Actually, there’s a lot more we have to talk about. So we would love to get you back for a second episode here. Yeah, anything else you wanted to add? Connor?

1:14:03

It was interesting because you had mentioned like the one on the waves thing. And you know, it’s a company that still technically exists. We are second Cruise was was shut down by our cruise line because of COVID and 2020. But that was one of those things that kind of led into what I’m good at. And it isn’t necessary, I think obviously, like the technical coaching side of things throughout time. But also like that, that ability and want to have fun, that was taking fitness and putting fun on it. And I think that’s what’s kind of brought me to what where everything is today. Whether it’s the celebrity training side of it, whether it’s, you know, nightclub fitness, whether it is you know, throwing charity workout slash parties for fitness, like, that’s the main thing. It’s like giving people something that they want to go To not something that they need to go to, like people will need to go to the gym. But what can you do to make them want to go to the gym? Can you take Can you can you take down all the seriousness of the gym a little bit to get a little bit more participation, maybe that person is not going to receive see results quite as fast. But if you’re gonna get them to have a little bit more fun in the gym, it’s like, is that better? Is that optimal? I don’t know if the answer is right or wrong, but I’ve, but so far in my career and where I’m at now. I’ve seen a lot of success from it. And it may or may be the anomaly. I may just have had the right connections and people willing to vouch for me, but that’s kind of what it’s about is, it’s it’s having fun, it’s creating a good atmosphere. And, you know, like what you just said, it’s like, knowing what you know, knowing what you don’t know. Yeah,

Brett Scott  1:15:48

yeah, we can. We’ll have you back because I want to talk more about Big Night fitness was on waves, all these other things you’ve kind of been doing, talking about. Connors, a celebrity trainer, too. So I want to know more about all that stuff, too. And just to put the bow on this one too. For people doing fitness, like maybe CrossFit isn’t for you. But finding what you’re going to do. So someone actually asked me this the other day of, hey, she has a meet coming up. And it’s like, Hey, I gotta start cutting weight. Should I start walking or running more? I was like, Well, which one? Are you going to do more? Because they’re both good. But as far as exercise goes, like walking has plenty of health benefits, sodas running. But if you’re getting on a treadmill running for 10 minutes, and having a horrible experience with it isn’t as good as you getting out and walking. If you can walk 30 minutes, the one you can enjoy more than you can repeatedly do is probably gonna be the one that’s better for you. Maybe that is CrossFit. Maybe it’s not maybe it’s Barry’s Bootcamp. Maybe it’s architect fitness, I don’t know. But just something people need to keep in mind too, with like choosing and exercising like you shouldn’t. Yes, you need to go to the gym. But you should also want to find something that you want to go to day in day out to some caliber.

1:17:10

Yeah, and I think when gyms create communities like that, it kind of it it holds on to those passions a little bit longer. You know, it’s not every day, I’ve wanted to go to the gym. But when I have other people that are relying on me and I know that there’s like that community aspect. Sometimes the community aspect is what’s bringing me through my workouts. Sometimes the last thing I want to do is go to the gym to backtrack, lunches and deadlifts, which is what we did this morning. But knowing that I had three other people that were super stoked to be there, like you use their you know, use their motivation to continue going through and, and I don’t think it has to be like, hey, cross, it’s not for you. Or hey, Arctic fitness is a few it’s like, try it out. Give it a go. I would rather have someone do CrossFit one day a week being like it’s my one it’s my Friday class, and then do other things that they’re enjoying or loving then have them not do it at all. For sure. It’s like you know, try it out try different gyms I always encourage people to do new things. And that’s that’s kind of big night fitness is it’s like all highlight anyone you want to come in? And if and if you think you’re just it’d be a little bit tough to do Olympic weightlifting at the grand or Big Night Live, however, completely out of the question. Yeah, I mean, I’ve had I’ve had, you know, Chad Vaughn, doing Olympic lifting seminars with PVC pipes on the, you know, on the pool deck of a cruise ship. So, you know, you never know, you never know what’s in the cards. So yeah, but I love it. I’m gonna come by your gym for sure. I’d be happy to come back on here. We’d love to have you on my podcast, but definitely want to come by and you can you mean, there’s a lot I can learn from you that will help me in CrossFit. So

Brett Scott  1:18:48

Oh, yeah. This is definitely informative, too, for me of like, I guess I didn’t have a great idea of where what lens CrossFit was looking through completely. And I definitely have gained more respect for that just through this conversation here of like, okay, that all makes sense. And maybe application wise, we don’t always see it to that perfect piece. But the way you’ve stated it and laid it out for me, it makes sense. And there’s a lot of respect for have for it. Sometimes, you know, it gets hit on a lot. But like, I’ll end with a closing story here is like two years ago, I’ll never forget this is I had a woman come in. She was probably 250 pounds. She’d already lost 80 pounds. She’d never worked out a day in her life. She was a computer programmer, sat at a desk and was a gamer her whole life. And she was like, Hey, I just lost 80 pounds. I’ve been doing CrossFit but I keep getting hurt and this and that. But I started doing this I’ve lost this weight. I’m no longer diabetic. I finally bonded with my son who I haven’t been able to bond with as we’re doing this, he’s lost 100 pounds. And he was like 15. She’s like, but I need to, I need PT to get back to CrossFit. And, you know, her movement was so poor and everything, but she wanted to keep doing this. And like, we just went to. I had we went out on the train floor, because my office and in the gym are in the same space. So I got her out on the floor, and I’m teaching this lady just how to snatch less bad, right? How to Stop cranking on her shoulders and snap and things out of place. And Dan, who’s one of my better Olympic lifters who’s he’s actually like my OG lifter, he’s like, looking at me, like, have you lost your fucking mind? What are you doing with this lady? Like, this is who you’re trying to put on the weightlifting team now. And he’s like, looking at me, and I know what he’s thinking. And he comes over to me afterwards, like, bro, like, what are you doing? Like, this lady has no business doing this. He’s like, no, she does. And this is why like, this was such a life changing thing for her. And I told him, he’s like, Oh, wow, like, that’s amazing. And it really is, and like, that’s the cool part of like, seeing that with someone working through them with it, and getting them back there as a really rewarding experience. So it must be cool to be in that and definitely something. You know, I’m still trying to be a weightlifter over here. But I’m veering away from that. So maybe I’ll try some. I do want to learn more about CrossFit. I just I need to get my body a little more limber and mobile these days. So

1:21:28

we’ll do here’s what we’ll do when I’ll come to your gym. We will do an Olympic lifting CrossFit workout you can you can choose from if it’s going to be Grace 30. Clean interest for time is about 30 snatches for time at 135. And it doesn’t have to be a certain time. Or you can take as much time as you want during it. Because there’s so many different there’s a workout Randy, which is 75 snatches for time at 75 pounds. And you’re like, you’re like, I’m an Olympic lifter, that’s gonna be easy. And then, like 30, when your legs are straight when you’re going down to the deadlift. Because your quads are so exhausted, you’re like, well, now I’m just doing kettlebell swings of this thing. Yes, it’s fun to see but obviously dosed appropriately, right? Sometimes people give a little too much too soon, too fast, because they either want to see the results, or they don’t know better for positioning. So I think we can all learn a lot from each other, especially with how technically complex these Olympic Lifts are. So so much respect for you and everything that you’re doing with that. And there’s definitely times where I’m like, we should have once a week and a lot of gyms do this, they have Olympic lifting specialists come in and teach these classes. Yeah, for people that want to get better at that, because then you can increase your loading and you can create increase your power output, and then overall, get a lot more fitness gains across the table because you’re able to move better.

Brett Scott  1:22:44

Yeah, absolutely. That’s what we do a lot with the PT side. It’s like, oh, you PR Yeah, your ankle moves better. Your shoulder moves better, whatever. It’s like, yeah, like,

1:22:52

straight lines are straight lines or strong lines, right? Yeah.

Brett Scott  1:22:56

So what do you put up for numbers? Connor here on the snatch, clean and jerk?

1:23:00

Oh, gosh. I mean, how much do I weigh? I mean, yes. Does Matter, like

1:23:09

the most I’ve ever snatched 275. And I’ve been able to hit that pretty consistent. Oh, well,

1:23:14

we’re talking to kilos here, pal. Oh, gosh.

1:23:19

I’ll get the calculator you shouldn’t know. You should know. CrossFitters can’t do kilo math. There was actually really funny. One of the open announcements was overseas, and they loaded the bar up with kilos. And no one knew until after the workout that it was the wrong weight on the bar. So the scores of these girls who just did the Open Workout didn’t count was terrible.

Brett Scott  1:23:36

So that’s a 125. Snatch. That’s, that’s pretty impressive.

1:23:39

And then 325 is the most I’ve clean and jerk. Now granted, I’ve cleaned more than that. And granted, I’ve been hurt more than that. But But nothing’s together. That’s I mean, that’s, that’s the stars aligning for me.

Brett Scott  1:23:53

Okay, you get some good numbers there, pal. So I’ll definitely be slower than you on this workout. Especially since I don’t do CrossFit. But that’s alright.

1:24:02

I was gonna say what’s your 5k time?

1:24:07

45 minutes? No, I don’t like walking

1:24:14

5k like 5k on a bike 5k in a car.

Brett Scott  1:24:19

I’d walk to 5k Every day, I just want to run it every day. So I don’t know. So then thank you for coming.

1:24:27

I was gonna say maybe that’s the inner the introduction to cross it when you walk your 5k your time and then the next time all you have to do is get a little bit faster and then we know that we’re getting fitter. Maybe you just have to run last 10 steps.

Brett Scott  1:24:38

Maybe that’s a good point or the first 10 and then I’ll just slow down after that.

1:24:43

Thank you so much for having me on. It’s been great having conversation with you. I love how you can kind of generalize and more so like get like more of a thesis out of the stuff that I’m saying and kind of say it back to me to make sense. So appreciate everything, man.

1:24:56

Yeah, part of where can people find you?

1:25:00

If you are looking for me on social media, personally it is at Connor T Murphy, co n o r t mu RPh why the company is at Big Night fitness. That’s big ni GHD and then fitness. And then I also have some other accounts, big night training, which is a lot of the celebrity training that we’re doing some of the artists and then professional athletes that I work with that I work with, on there, so really any of those channels, please feel free to DM me, send me an email, any of that stuff. If people have any questions, I’ll always get back to you. It may not be at that very, very moment. But if you send me a message, I’ll always get back to you and give you as much help as I can. With anything with any guidance that I that I have that is in my you know, province of things to give feedback on.

Brett Scott  1:25:49

Cool, thanks for coming on, and we’ll definitely have you back. So hope you all enjoyed this and I have no idea who’s coming on for our next episode yet so stay tuned.