Ever glimpse behind the scenes of a grand CrossFit competition? Ever wonder how those grueling workouts come to be, and how the entire show is orchestrated? Join me for a conversation with Andrew & John , directors of The Meadowlands Classic, the Tri-States new elite individual CrossFit competition!
We dive into everything from how the idea for the competition manifested , to day of jitters and onto plans for 2024!
Ever glimpse behind the scenes of a grand CrossFit competition? Ever wonder how those grueling workouts come to be, and how the entire show is orchestrated? Join me for a conversation with Andrew & John , directors of The Meadowlands Classic, the Tri-States new elite individual CrossFit competition!
We dive into everything from how the idea for the competition manifested , to day of jitters and onto plans for 2024!
What up dogs? Welcome back to the Humvee Dog Barbell Podcast. I'm joined by the directors of the Betel Leads Classic. We have Andrew here and we have John. So what are the two different roles you guys feel like you have? Like, what does one person do versus the other person?
Speaker 2:I guess I would say I'm like head of operations. Operations Also handle anything like back end tech wise, any financials, anything that's outside of what would be considered like main stage. That's kind of my domain.
Speaker 1:So you're like back of the house, yeah back end entirely.
Speaker 3:Hell yeah.
Speaker 1:Andrew.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'm pretty much the creator of pain, creator of pain.
Speaker 1:I'm the administrator of pain, so you guys can all be ready for that out there. So, dude, speaking of that, we talked about working out beforehand. It was like what are we doing for Trader right now? And you said just a lot of pain. Are you doing anything special? Are you following any programming? Just doing class workouts, like what's it look like for you right now?
Speaker 3:I try to jump into class as much as possible. I think it's very important for coaches to take the classes. I'm sure you do that here, so, I try and do the workouts. I can't always do them because time is chasing things like that, but I follow sports. Specific power by Mike Verado. I've been with him for two years now and it's been pretty good so far.
Speaker 3:Yesterday he put me through a really hell type of workout and I like in overhead squats. So yeah, I'm pretty shocked from that. But other than that it's just doing his stuff and then my gym program which I create as well.
Speaker 1:When you signed up to work on with him, was there any goal in mind? Where you're like I want to train to get better for this, I want to train to go compete at this, or you're just like I want to follow programming and not have to think about it?
Speaker 3:It's a little bit of everything. My eventual goal is everyone. They have these aspirations. We get into the games. I would love to do that to some capacity, whether I'm old and the masters, if it's like when I'm, at this point, a little bit younger, I've always competed at a high level. I actually went to Drugs University nearby.
Speaker 1:Oh sweet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have a 17-year swimming background almost made up of the big trials, so I'm pretty used to competing at the high level. So I want to try and stay there as long as possible.
Speaker 1:Right, keep maximizing that and difficult to feel. What about you, john?
Speaker 2:As far as my background.
Speaker 1:No, as far as training right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean whatever and your program, that's pretty much it.
Speaker 1:That's the way to go about it. Dude, I'd like to do that.
Speaker 2:I guess I come more from a running background and I was a personal trainer in my earlier 20s, so I guess more bodybuilding regimens more than anything. But I discovered CrossFit. I think probably 2016 I discovered CrossFit and then just didn't work out, for whatever reasons. I think I went to two or three classes. They just didn't flow with the affiliate at the time. So it wasn't until Buddy of Mine from high school started coaching at his gym and then I reached out to him and said, hey, where's this new CrossFit gym?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And he's like, oh, it's in the next town, so it was a cool all drop in. I met Andrew Then we realized was my best friend, went to high school with him, so we wound up having a lot of common interests and mutual friends. Hell yeah. And then we just became buddies. I started I guess how long before I came a coach Probably like a year and a half, yeah, yeah, year and a half before.
Speaker 3:So that's how you guys know each other.
Speaker 1:You just came to the gym and then developed a relationship from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just mutual friends, that's pretty much it.
Speaker 1:That's cool, yeah, easy enough so you were a personal trainer young in your life. You've always been about working out. Have you always done that your whole life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so sports and fitness has always been a big part of my life.
Speaker 1:You were a runner before you said Runner.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I guess, if we take it back to high school days I mean captain of the track team, my junior year and then and senior year and then in high school I mean soccer team I was the captain senior year Then I didn't really want to pursue it after college, so instead I got really into bodybuilding, but that came from more or less like a. I was always like the smallest guy.
Speaker 1:That's what we all do when we first get to the gym, anyway. Biceps, triceps, bench.
Speaker 2:Just trying to get bigger. And then I hit I don't want to say like a peak, but there was a time when people really noticed that my body was changing because of all that time I was putting into it. So then people started asking me for help. So then, at about almost 19, I became a personal trainer. Hell yeah, and I did that while I was getting my associates. So I was training clients at a pretty high end gym. Once I got my associates I switched to my. I guess my second career would be IT.
Speaker 1:Is that where you are right?
Speaker 2:now. No, I'm on like my sixth iteration.
Speaker 1:I was going to say something about the way he was saying it. I was like I feel like you've got a couple of lives already. I'm a man of money. Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2:So it's funny because we talk about this all the time. I think I have ADHD on diagnosed right, self-diagnosed. I guess we could say Andrew says the same thing. So we actually, when we were thinking about business names like where the metal arts classic would be held on there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or DBA right. We named the business HyperFocused Because, for whatever reason, if we're not interested in it, we can't focus in it, but it's something that we're extremely passionate about it. Andrew and I can sit down and talk about it for like what feels like 15 minutes, and three hours goes by. I really like that, I mean the vibe is just coming off like right away we're not full opposites, but this is definitely a good collaboration. Like synergy, wise Hell. Yeah, that's what it's all about, right Like?
Speaker 1:synergy, because you need things to flow. You need a certain vibration to really be in tune with everything. So you told us that you were a swimmer before, like how did it evolve into? You trade other people, like where did that come from?
Speaker 3:So I'm from Jersey. When I swam in New Jersey for a club team Cougar a club team we did a lot of community work and we did a lot of specific work around special needs, kids with special needs the stove, yeah, and I really enjoyed that because I love helping kids in general, but especially kids that have a hard time either fitting in or have disabilities. They can't really do much.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So we were able to teach them how to swim and I fell in love with that. And then in college, kind of diving how I got into CrossFit. Like in college I was walking by one of the lacrosse guys that I was friendly with on my floor and they were watching the CrossFit game in the Richard Rowan. That was the one that Richard Rowan was climbing up the road.
Speaker 1:It fell.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I want to do that, but I don't want to fall no offense.
Speaker 1:but Shout out to Richard.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I was like, wow, that looks pretty cool. I would love to learn more about what that is. So I asked them what they were watching and they said CrossFit. So I started googling it. So CrossFitcom tried following some of the programming online programming. Back in the day, when the website was like Just comment on the website.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it was terrible. Oh man, that was a good time.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I started trying to do that and then I got in trouble with the conditioning coaches because they didn't want me doing that training in their gym. Eventually, senior year came and I was like you know, I'm just going to dive full into CrossFit. I actually went to CrossFit Love over here when it was like a thing.
Speaker 1:The OG one.
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and I met a bunch of people, really great people I'm still friends I was very close friends with, and you know they were like hey you should probably try and like compete. I'm like, well, why do I do that? And it was around the open.
Speaker 1:Is this before you get out of college or after?
Speaker 3:This was my senior year in college, where 2015, and that's when I did my first open.
Speaker 1:I did one workout and then the next year, when I had one full year of training and I love.
Speaker 3:I did my second open. I completely destroyed my hands. I think it was a barb muscle ups. It was either that is some sort of muscle, either that or rings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I went to my, my internship and I was like dude, I can't type.
Speaker 3:Oh my hands are destroyed.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And they're like what are you doing? But yeah, from this long story short, from there I ended up training with them, with the regional team. For a while. I was alternate on the team, that all happened and I went to 215 215. I took a job in New York, moved back up here, trained across the steam for a while, coached there for a little bit and then eventually opened up my own and, yeah, there's a wrap.
Speaker 1:Well, what was your mindset like on the way to open your own gym, you know like do you feel prepared for that? Had that ever been a thought, that you want to do something like that before? Did you ever feel business minded? Yeah, when I was at love.
Speaker 3:when I first started coaching, it was kind of like very informal. The owner was like dude, I need to coach, you want to coach?
Speaker 1:Right, you could work out here for free. Yeah, sure.
Speaker 3:He's like these are rules. Just get your L1 and you're good to go. So I did that and I was like Dan, this is pretty cool. Like I would love to own a gym, like if I could do it, why not? So then you know. Props to Jason Khalifa. That's how I learned about like the business of CrossFit.
Speaker 1:Follow NC Fit and all those things.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Did you listen to Barbell Shrugged back in the day?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Barbell Shrugged. Yeah, same thing, bro. This is a fitness with Jason Khalifa and I think it's coffee with Khalifa. I listened to a lot of Barbell Shrugged, Ben Bergeron, read a lot of books, Alex Hamosi, all that stuff. So all of that helped me with developing kind of like how I wanted the gym to run as a business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, going to so many different gyms.
Speaker 3:I knew exactly what I wanted, what I didn't want, and yeah, so far so good Survived the pandemic. So I think it was pretty good.
Speaker 1:We were kind of talking about this out there before with the business acumen side and like. So you took that upon yourself to do it on your own right, To learn about how to actually operate a gym, you know. So what about you? Like, in your six life iteration there, when did you start thinking about business operating things? How did you get to the point where you'd be the operating manager for a battle?
Speaker 2:against Kind of early.
Speaker 2:I mean so I always like to tell people at first business. So I think I must have been like eight when my dad so my dad used to be a diamond setter in the city for over 25 years. Then 9-11 happened. He felt like he should step away from the city, from the city life, and he became an entrepreneur himself. But when he was working in the city he would always walk through Chinatown and he would buy me those little things he would throw on the ground. They'd pop, you know, he'd give them to kids.
Speaker 2:So my dad would give me them and he would say, take this to school and sell it for 50 cents. So that's kind of how I started earning my own money as a kid. Of course you're not like, obviously, making a ton of money but, the concept of making money. That and when I was a kid, me and my friends would go shovel houses when it snowed so we would earn money. We wouldn't have like set prices.
Speaker 1:We'd pay us whatever we did, Whatever. After we do the job, Kids don't do that shit anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah and you know it's sad because I don't see it anymore, but yeah, so that's kind of how my life kind of kicked off. As far as business endeavors, Even in high school I used to sell candy like out of a lunch box. The teachers used to think that I Like needed buddy or something no no, no, they thought I had books in there.
Speaker 1:Like, really, I just had like airheads Rice Krispies and like you would come to me and I would sell some candy there in school.
Speaker 2:And then eventually the principal came up to me and was like hey, I know what you're doing, and like you can't do that because it's taking away money from the cafeteria. But like I should suspend you, but I'm not going to because I respect your entrepreneurship. And you know, we kind of just left that at that. But I guess, like different iterations In high school I was a barber. I used to call people's hair for money.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's why we say I'll cut your money, I mean I'll cut your hair. You ever cut your own hair?
Speaker 2:I have. Yeah, I do mainly shape ups, my own shape ups. But what else? I was a personal trainer. I worked in IT. I have a degree in, I have an associate's in IT. I have a bachelor's in information excuse me in business analytics the cool thing and. I'm always happy to share this, but it took me seven years to graduate college.
Speaker 2:I did three years with my associates. It took a one year gap yeah, one year gap here, and then it took me another three years to get my bachelor's, and the only reason is because it always worked, yeah you grind it through the whole thing Every time, yeah, and it's hard for me to like to focus on things that necessarily I wasn't really entirely interested in yeah.
Speaker 2:So going to school like many people not wasn't like my main priority. Making money is my main priority. Right Through that we just kind of figured out well, how can I make more money? After college I started working for Broadway as an analytics. Then after that, bro, you've been all over this funny yeah. So then after that the pandemic happened and I got bored and I moved into a new apartment and in that apartment I needed a desk. So I built myself a desk because I was a house music producer. You became a carpenter?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I built.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I became a carpenter and I started a Kickstarter and I was building a custom producer desk for people all over the US and I was shipping them. So I started this Kickstarter to raise money so I can get my own facility and get out of my parents' garage Hell yeah. So I raised $12,000 in three weeks and then I signed the lease, got into a space and then, obviously, this was during the pandemic. I was going to say it was still that time, yeah, still that time. This was 2020. Right, I got to space and then what happened was that the interest rates kept dropping in the houses, right? So then people obviously started modeling their homes. They started building cabinets, and the same material that I was using for wood is the same material that we use in cabinets. So price off, yeah. And then there was a supply and chain issue. So people are outbidding me for the material.
Speaker 1:So they're one person versus a corporation. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean talking about like they have deep pockets and multiple companies are now bidding against a pallet of wood, Like I just can't get my hands on it. They call that shit lumber wars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, literally.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, I remember that one. So then I had to convert my business and in the warehouse that I already had I had a 3500 square foot warehouse where I was making these desk. I converted into a production studio, so now I was creating custom sets for music videos and commercials, and then I sold that business May 4th this year, 2023.
Speaker 1:So I have like everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then now here's a new business. So talk about you know, in August we kind of you know kicked us out and spoke about it, and by November. You know we tested the concept and now we're here, Got a crack, yeah yeah, got one more thing in the works. But that's to me like personally trying to also figure out how Andrew and I can team up on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but yeah, it's kind of zero entrepreneur just trying to throw things to the wall and see what's going on Like as people like after they tell a story like that, like you know, where did you, where did you get that boldness to do that stuff? But it sounds like you got it from your dad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, my dad, my mom's more conservative, I'm more like my dad's, more risk adverse. Yeah, so, like I said, bold, you know? Yeah, so, yeah, I would definitely say I got it from my father.
Speaker 1:My father is very street smart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I get his street smart from him. My mom is a Chesar masters, my sister also has a master's from Columbia, so they went to school route. Yeah, they went to school route. But you know, I have experience, obviously, you know, in corporate and I kind of have their mindset as far as that goes, as far as being like super organized, because my dad owns a construction company now, so it's literally all over the place but the man hustles like crazy.
Speaker 2:So I got like the hustle and I got like the other side where the organization yeah, very good computers too, so tech wise solid.
Speaker 1:Back to the fitness side of it. Right, andrew, tell me you do the CrossFit Open. What's the first like in person live competition, you see, like whether it's a local event, big event. What's the first one that you can remember going to?
Speaker 3:There was one in CrossFit South Philly, I think it was called. I don't know if that's OBA.
Speaker 1:I think that was the first one that I competed in.
Speaker 3:And that was when I was at Love and I think that was a team workout and there was another one that's always gonna stick out my head. It's really funny. It was with Caroline Dardini Cheers. I lost touch with her, but, caroline, if she's listening to this, I miss you, so she was a really good athlete, she was basically like six at regionals left just missed the games and I was like hey, caroline, like I have regionals too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, seriously.
Speaker 3:RIP. But I was like, hey, I don't want to compete, like I think I'm maybe close to a good cardio level as you are, and then we did a workout and he absolutely smoked me. I'm so sorry Been there. We did like a 30 pound medicine ball it was wall balls and running and dude. She was like at least 400 meters in front of me and there's a photo of us where I'm like dying in the back. She's chilling, Just hanging out in front.
Speaker 1:Been there. There was one time.
Speaker 3:You remember when Chandler was up here?
Speaker 1:Would he still live in the area Because he went to 205.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we were doing. I forget what workout it was. I had a lot of gymnastics in the beginning and like a long ass run I'm like, all right, this dude is huge.
Speaker 1:He probably can't run that well, and at that time I didn't know Chandler's background was like. That he was him.
Speaker 3:Like Chandler's shit.
Speaker 1:Right, he was him. I knew who he was and I was like oh, this is cool.
Speaker 3:I'm working out with Chandler, but I didn't realize how good he was at cardio stuff so we go out for the run. I'm like all right, first 400 meters to keep it up with him, Then he just like disappears. All right, bye man.
Speaker 1:See you later yeah.
Speaker 3:So that same gut feeling like damn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like that, like like embarrassment's, like the word, you know, I think the when we did Murph.
Speaker 2:I think my first mile. First of all, I died in Murph. It took me like forever to get out. But I was super proud because I was on a my first mile though I was on an empty stomach. I mean it was bad. I woke up maybe like 15 minutes and then I didn't even get a chance to stretch. You went did it. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure I got what is it? I'm pretty sure I got wrapped, though I was out for 10 days.
Speaker 1:I didn't go to the hospital. I got a job. Yeah, that I remember. Did you wear a vest? Yeah, yeah, you got wrapped up.
Speaker 2:I did my first mile it was like almost sub seven to kick it off, but it was just a general yeah and I just love to run Right, so the rest of the workout was awful.
Speaker 3:But yeah, it took me like. It took me like an hour 10 after that.
Speaker 2:I got like 20 pull ups in and I was like oh no.
Speaker 1:Did you do an up partition? Or did you break it up?
Speaker 2:No, what. What did you do?
Speaker 1:Like did you do the straight hundred or did you do the?
Speaker 2:best. Yeah, yeah, not like 10, 20. Yeah, that's the yeah, yeah, just straight through.
Speaker 1:That's tough bro. I was going to ask you did you keep your love from running from earlier in your life? Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:And it's tough for me in the spring because I have so many allergies, dude. But yeah, as soon as I feel like the weather gets super nice at night time, yeah, I'm outside and like I really make an effort, like real, we'll finish class and like immediately after I'll hit like three miles go back stretch, you know.
Speaker 3:I'm just trying to enjoy the I'll say because I work from home you know because.
Speaker 2:I do a full time job, which should probably say that Same yeah. So you know, whatever I get a chance to go out. I try to get advantage of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's dope, so let's keep going with the competitions, man. So what's like the next, the next big thing? You see, how do you did? You go to waterpalooza Like what was the next big comp you go to?
Speaker 3:I went, so I also coached a few athletes individually at my gym and I went to go see one of them at the Masters Fitness Collective, nice. They're pretty good there. The next one that I think I want to go to is waterpalooza. So I'm trying to figure out like slides and lodging and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:If not, I think the next big one is probably going to be the games. Nice You're going to be going to this past year is awesome, oh you went to the games this year, yeah, I'll probably.
Speaker 2:I'll probably go back to semis this year. Oh, semis, yeah, yeah, yeah, I went to semis last year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I went to waterpalooza last year. It is a really fun experience. If you do, you got to get tickets quick and get definitely get the VIP ticket. Yeah you have to especially last year. Well, I worked it last year. I judged it.
Speaker 1:How was that? It's a lot of work. I will tell you that, from organizing, you kind of know like what goes on and like just imagine, like what your judges went through Waterpalooza. It's a lot of work. And I was on the main stage, I worked Flagler, so we were out there from six in the morning until eight at night. That's right. Like with the elicits and stuff like that. I mean I would definitely go there and get the VIP one, because the Flagler just sells out, like it's a festival with people forget about, like it's not just the competition, like. So you can buy a ticket and not get into the main stage unless you get the VIP one.
Speaker 2:Got it.
Speaker 1:Yes, because like there's three stages and then there's vendors and shit like that, it's a festival going on. Like they have events going on outside of where the main chits happening at the end of the night. The first night, when they were doing the partner one, they had partner and individual Fucking. Like I wasn't judging that one, I got the heat off for the last heat and like they weren't about to let you back into the stadium until I showed my judges badge. It was that packed out. I looked outside of it because they make you like walk around to go through the other entrance and it's literally just four lines and they're all just circling around the stage. So many people.
Speaker 1:So yeah, get a VIP ticket. You could go sit next to Brook Wells and fucking out, try and read you guys a jet like that, so that you know that gets worth it. You know if you, if you want to invest that money. So what if it was a embassy like where do you start getting inspiration to run the battle at classic, where what's the first thing you guys can like pay down?
Speaker 2:to like where started? I could answer this one because I mean, we talked about it for a while, but I think I initiated the conversation like for the middle class, no.
Speaker 1:There's a headshake at the end.
Speaker 2:In my head. I initiated and so in New Jersey there was. There's a local competition that happens every year. Typically it's it was the first one I did and Nine away yeah, shout out to him from the nine away. He runs a yeah, he runs a solid comp on. You know, it's my first comp.
Speaker 2:I think I came in like fourth and like intermediate or I don't know what you call the scale. Intermediate was my very first comp and everybody kept saying, oh, this is like one of the best comps in Jersey, like he runs it so smooth, right, everybody there had this like cool vibe, you know, versus. You know I went to some other comps later in the year where I competed in and it wasn't the same experience and it's like you start thinking, I guess, from like a business perspective, like why, what's the difference between this comp and the other comps that I did, or someone wants to, andrew has done, that I've gone to, or semis, right, you just start thinking about it from like a science perspective, right, but so that means so. I messaged them and I said, hey, when, when you guys starting to sign people up, like one signups opening?
Speaker 2:and they're like we're not doing it this year and I was like torn because I was like looking forward to it all year to like to retest where I am right. So then I was pretty upset. So I went to Andrew's office and I was like dude, they're not doing it this year. Like I'm pissed and whatever he's. Like oh, really he's.
Speaker 2:And I was like fuck it, let's do our own hell yeah, and then we just kind of like looked at each other and he just like shook hands, like in the moment, and like all right, cool, like I'll start thinking of brand names and we'll start thinking of a concept.
Speaker 3:That's how I went right and then we Andrew always goes with the flow, so he's just like, yeah, I'm down, yeah, I know you think about it for a while.
Speaker 2:But it was that moment where it's like I went to this room I said we're doing this, yeah, we're gonna do this. So for me, me saying that we're gonna do this, that means that, like, I'm not only like emotionally and physically gonna be involved in the project, but I'm financially gonna be involved in the project as well.
Speaker 2:I'm committed now I'm, yeah, we're committed, and the reason why I say financially is because the turnaround time for a project like that, yeah, like it's gonna be hard to find funding for like the undertaking that we were gonna do, knowing that, you know, it wasn't like the world's biggest, like competition.
Speaker 1:But we started to get a venue, yeah, no, I'm in three, four months.
Speaker 2:We had 11 weeks, yeah. So we yeah. So you know he found a location. We went that same day to go look at it. Then I think we went, we thought about it, we went back like the next day, like we went 50-50 on the deposits and like you need to be started finding just partners. And we're like all right, we gotta find sponsors. And try to figure out like okay, how do we run a break even project, like and try and grow a brand like right out the gate, right, and you got 11 weeks to do it. So it's like all we thought about for 11 weeks while also managing our full-time jobs.
Speaker 1:Right, that's part of it. And he has his gym and he has to do all the programming for it two full-time jobs, yeah, practically almost three full-time job plus that one. So you know we had a lot, and I'm sure you work to sit down and just have a full-time job, and I was there too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean again I have the luxury of working from home, so I also have like a sick ass workstation because, as you know, I used to build desks. I have like a 48 inch curved monitor yeah, and I have like monitor stacked on top of that.
Speaker 2:So I'm like multitasking this entire time. But that's kind of how the agreement for the project came together. But Andrew and I, we see a lot of things eye-to-eye like from just, I guess, like from a business perspective, so it kind of works out. We're both passionate. I'm not saying this right out the gate. I'm not as passionate about CrossFit the same way that he is yeah, we're, because he's that's where the synergy comes in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you're like ten years in right he's like ten years in like really like two years in, yeah, so it's just different, but I'm I'm very passionate about fitness as a whole and I'm very passionate about business as a whole yeah and the two mix really well. And then obviously partnerships are very tough, but when you can see eye-to-eye with a partner, it works out good yeah, also like very good at different things yeah, you know, and it's not that there's one.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm not good at technical, I'm just gonna say it out there, but like you know, it's not, but you said before there's a lot of synergy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah this thing, it works. I'm not gonna try and make a website right, I did my Squarespace thing for the gym.
Speaker 3:I hired someone else to do a website for us and maintain everything else yeah. John created that entire website himself. Like that in like two hours. Yeah, yeah, the website's definitely off, shit, hell yeah cool, so you know a lot of that and just put it out there, like to pull something off like that. It does cost like a decent amount of money. Yeah, luckily we were able to like put a lot of all of our own money yeah, into this.
Speaker 3:So that's why for us, it's like a bigger competition is even more impressive to us. I mean, we hope everyone thinks that it was impressive. Our surveys came by a pretty positive, so you know seeing how all that came to fruition. On on the 11 weeks yeah you know, after being laughed at, after being said that, oh, you need like X amount of time to do this.
Speaker 3:You know, we're like bro, they don't know who we are, we could do it yeah because we're both very determined people too you know, we said that at the closing, like we made this happen, we want to provide the best northeast competition possible, because that's what we're talking about later in the show. But you know.
Speaker 1:Just divine. So I have a question. You were talking about crossfit 808. That was not a way. So was that in an affiliate?
Speaker 2:was that in a door on yet, but was?
Speaker 1:a competition in an affiliate. Yeah so so, but you guys are playing it something way better than that. Like, where did that come from? You're like I want to. I want to provide this like the same level of comp they had. I want to do it bigger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, shout out to him again. But the they have like 95 people that go to that comp every year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they have a lot. Yeah, they the sound on to this. Yeah and um.
Speaker 2:And it's, it runs on time and I think so that's like the biggest thing. What was your initial question? Sorry, just like what?
Speaker 1:why'd you guys what I've taken even? Bigger go, go into the sports complex.
Speaker 2:Um Well, I mean, I think the main reason is cuz you're this digit just that. No, I think it's cuz Andrew Jim just can't hold it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we don't have the Lease, I'm not allowed to. Yeah, yeah, that was one thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's. That's one thing I think, um, I don't know, I think we're just like I so. Well, we kind of have the same like the vision just big.
Speaker 3:No, I think, I think we just my bro, Look we, we need something like regionals in northeast right. Ben Bergeron used to do ECC, right. I don't really know what happened to that. Um, he's just pulling across it.
Speaker 1:That's what it's all this yeah it's a whole another pocket. Yeah, he just pull out across it.
Speaker 3:Um, I was telling John, like, bro, we, if we're renting out something like this, we might as well just go big and then try yeah that's, that's what other. Yeah, right, you know, yeah, grass roots, water pools, remember that, bro. Yeah, that thing was like a stage and like not even a stage.
Speaker 1:It was a bunch of like it baby mats and barbells and people broke.
Speaker 3:People would literally walking between.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's awesome video. It allowed it to become what it is today, you know, because people keep going back and they still have those memories and they're like oh, this is like a local thing, it's just really big.
Speaker 2:You know that's when you say because when we announced the metal and classic, I got a bunch of the DMs from people saying, oh, I'm so glad to see it come back to the metal hands. I'm like when was it ever in the metal hands? Yeah, I never knew that, asked Andrew, he had no idea. Yeah, and then it, like Google, started, you know, doing some searching, it was called yeah, it was called mayhem at the metal Happened at MetLife, like in the stadium.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't even know if it was called MetLife.
Speaker 2:It might have been.
Speaker 1:Stadium.
Speaker 2:Still, they changed it like yeah, yeah, it might have been still a giant stadium, but and I found out more about it I found out the guy who was organizing it. He has an organization, I think it's called run for Rob, and it was a charity organization, but at the time he used to work at MetLife, so they gave him the field on a. Sunday, yeah, and then the competition went so like it was a fun competition. It was not the best organized, but people had a really good time.
Speaker 1:So they cut it out, but they ruined the field and they had to never do it again.
Speaker 2:Yeah so, bro, I'm good.
Speaker 3:Thanks. One thing that I think 908 does very well, is they really? Make the athletes feel special. Yeah, they Pretty sure that they say their names.
Speaker 2:You cheat.
Speaker 3:They, the judges, are super nice. Yeah, that's really important.
Speaker 2:They're all members of their gym too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're all members, you know, it's a good community feel. So when we were doing this, I'm like bro. One of the things we have to make sure we do is make sure we get these athletes To feel like this is like their games, you know yeah, like this is like a legit cross-fielder. This isn't like a no offense to local competitions, but it's not run out of a gym.
Speaker 1:Everybody's highlighted too, yeah.
Speaker 3:You're performing like you're at the cross-fielder games, yeah yeah. I want you to find that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we wanted people to train for it. I think the other big thing is we wanted people to feel like I Feel like a lot of like local comps. You know, after doing that away it definitely did not feel like that and I know it. But another competition that I did after that it feels like almost like a money grab. I don't know if you have local comps, run competitions. It almost feels like. So you wanted people to feel like, oh, this is gonna, there's gonna be a, a massive prize at the end, whether it was cash or whether it was actual prizes from our sponsors or podium contributors. So we wanted people to go max effort. So that's why I think it was so important, like you know, that we try and get the best prize for everybody and, in addition to that, off of them like impressive money, because I feel like that legitimizes what you're doing right, because money talks right. That's the truth. Also, feel like Making things look professional is Just as important as the competition competition itself because it makes it professional.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like the signage is so important. Right, having the website is so important, running the Instagram and keeping it up to up to date, answering emails and answering Messages like in a timely matter right, so important. And I think the only reason why we were able to do that is because Most crossfit gym or competitions that happen are also run by the owner, right.
Speaker 1:They're there, yet I should split it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they're super busy, like Andrew's, handling three different things all at once, you know. So, the fact that it's like I take that off and he gets to just focus on the things that he's good at and I get to now Be the best communicator I can be for the athletes, for the spectators, for the, the sponsors right. I think that's like another reason as to why we're able to take it to where it is now in the short amount of time.
Speaker 3:Also like we. One of the things both agreed on was, you know, we got to make this very unique. So making up with Kurt. Miller out of South Mountain CrossFit, south Mountain Community Fitness like.
Speaker 1:He has a company called.
Speaker 3:Rubik's Fitness and I've always done Kurt's. Competitions are always really fun.
Speaker 1:The Commonwealth yeah super tough workouts.
Speaker 3:So I was like Kurt, what do you, what do you think about like being Equipment, like donor, I guess, so that we can use the equipment?
Speaker 1:right for the poor yeah.
Speaker 3:No one knew what a boroslut was. You can't buy it. No one has it, it's only curd and like maybe three of his friends. Yeah and luckily, I have a good relationship with him, so I was able to say, hey, man, we just need like 15 slides. You think you make that happen? Yeah, 100% hell yeah, so that was a cool unique piece and other unique stuff that we did, was we did event bonuses, you know like. No competition at least to my knowledge, does event bonuses when a workout win something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, besides, I did, yeah, yeah something that's with the CrossFit LLC, you know right.
Speaker 2:What you take on that. Actually, I mentioned, like when you I guess, I heard about the event bonuses. Did you feel like that was a cool twist?
Speaker 1:I didn't hear about the event bonuses beforehand. Right now I knew about prize money. I mean, I like it.
Speaker 2:Is that good enough for you, though I like money for I mean, I'm not going to semi-finals.
Speaker 1:You know, I go out to a crossfit competition and, like you know, I'm gonna place middle of the pack. If there's regular dudes out there, if there's elite dudes out there, then I'm gonna place like towards the bottom. You know, like that's how it would be. Um, my take on it. I think it's awesome. I mean, if you're, if that's the competition you're running, then frickin it makes sense. And it's also you're like okay, I may not be able to go win this, this whole thing, but like I'm gonna go push it. It draws up the intensity, you know. So people don't take off for workouts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think also like Behind that idea was you could win one event, lose the rest of three, not podium, but at least one half your money right, and I think that is like.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's just something super cool, you know, yeah, and also I think that's like you know you go into these events and you know you don't know what the competition is gonna look like, right, necessarily. So I think if you, in your mind, as an athlete, you're like as long as I can win one event like to me that's a big win, right and at least I'm getting something for it, right?
Speaker 1:You see, you see games athletes like after when they're doing their recap. They're like. I knew this is my event to win and I push myself to go out and win it yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So they're like they're like I do.
Speaker 1:This is my event either win or lose. And I went out and I made myself win it, you know. So. Then, like I can come out there and they can do that. They're like alright, this workout is literally like a softball pitch for me, as long as I crush it, you know. So I'm gonna make myself go do that, and those can be really fun, like events to be a part of, you know.
Speaker 2:The other thing that we well, andrew and I are really big on Nuts yeah, yeah, details Is we're huge on, but, like athlete, experience is so important. I'm sure people hear this all the time, but I Think where people work competitions and we're not even talking about small, I'm talking about more, even larger competitions where they miss outside of water balloons. They miss a lot of where, no, no, where they miss.
Speaker 2:No, but this is what what was really well and they figured it out, and this is what other big comps can't figure out is how do you get more spectators other than not including CrossFit right, because obviously they're the mecca of it, like?
Speaker 1:how do you get?
Speaker 2:spectators to your event Because you know that aren't there for to support their friends and family or athletes, right yeah, that Is something that we're trying to also solve, and this year we had we had quite a few people who were there that weren't Supporting, you know, friends or family.
Speaker 1:They were just interested in watching to see across the event, because I saw the stream this year.
Speaker 2:They saw it on ESPN plus. So you know, how do you get those People who want to get exposed to CrossFit to come, and all that has to do with just proper marketing. But it's also like, how come water balloons can do it? Why can't like another competition each?
Speaker 1:I can tell you that well, no, it's a beach, yeah, but I think it's. Have you been a water? Have you been a water blizzard?
Speaker 2:I have not, but I've been to but I've been to ultra, I've been to Miami music week, so it's the same reason why people go there.
Speaker 1:Yeah because, like the, you guys are talking about details before, like as a judge, by the card they would give me it's a scorecard would read different than what was on Instagram and that would read different. They will was up on the projector screen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they would be like all over the place you know, we, when we were looking at locations for 2024. It's like we're taking that into consideration too, because I'd rather pay more than to have to Reorganize the entire event. So, yeah, so there's just a lot of decision-making that goes into like, I guess you know, like when it rains yeah you know, we want to take that consideration also. Location we also Well, we're picking locations. We also don't want people to spend a ton of money on lodging.
Speaker 2:Yeah so we try to be. Yeah, we're thinking about people's pockets as well, it's not, you're gonna draw it a big crowd. Yeah, well, we're also trying to think about areas. Like you know, it's gotta be near an international airport, because next year our plans we believe that people are gonna come in from all over the world. Yeah, come to our event. So you know, there's a lot of, I guess, variables that we're considering when, like, picking a location for next year.
Speaker 1:But you always want to play for like more people to be able to do your event, then, like you're even thinking of right, you want to over plan, you know well, yeah, well, I think, our models over communication.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we and I said this in our very first email like we are athletes ourselves, you know, as organizers, we strive for the best athlete experience been their experience, spectator experience but, most importantly, like we made a commitment that we would over communicate not only to us as partners, but To the athletes. Yeah, try to make sure that we send out emails, if not every other day, then at least once a week right. Let you know anything that's new. We even did like the Q&A leading up to the competition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you want to like solve all the problems that you saw before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to answer any question you might have. You mean we obviously, with my background from the product, the studio production business, like I, have connections with Video producers, so we did just a run through of how the workout should look and then obviously during Q&A, andrew was able to make like a CAD drawing of how the actual for would be laid out for layout. Yeah, you know able to update the website for all the information on there, kind of explain it.
Speaker 1:Put the standards like in detail, not like three bullets that say this, this, this is a way, and like, you know what a thruster is, you know yeah so we try to make sure that.
Speaker 2:You know, majority of the Questions were kind of taking care of and Andrew did a great job putting that together because I have. I Just. I just make it look nice, that's right.
Speaker 3:That's his buck, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I have this couple of like last few questions for you guys. Right, we're coming like close to the end for both of you, like we'll go in reverse. Was there a time period, like over that 11 weeks, where you were like, fuck, we're at over our heads? Did you ever feel like like reverse course? Or were you full, full steam ahead the whole time?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:John laughed a little bit over here.
Speaker 3:Keep going well, I don't. There could be many reasons why he's laughing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like One day he came into my office and I'm just, I'm like half dead, like six am.
Speaker 3:He's always saying yeah, you good like, yeah, well, we're two days out of like. Hell, yeah, yeah, I remember that when there's like a lot of pressure that I love pressure.
Speaker 1:Right, actually that's your flow state, right like you get it today. Yeah, it's super calm, yeah.
Speaker 3:What the fuck is wrong with you.
Speaker 1:I was on fire in my head. You're just slow walking through.
Speaker 3:I'm just like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, oh my god, what about you? Do you freak out about it?
Speaker 2:Um, no, I think you like you know it's more anxiety more than anything. I was pretty confident because I know we did like our homework Leading up to it, but then it's like first year jitters. We've never done it at that.
Speaker 1:We've never organized anything.
Speaker 2:We we barely and this is funny, I hope this builds confidence to anybody who's thinking about doing a competition is the only competition we ever did was like this half-assed in-house competition. Oh yeah, that is, jim, you're like the members. Now. I was in like I was like, yeah, I'll help you, and we kind of just did that. So to go from like in-house competition only to you know, 40,000 square feet and like 165 athletes and 18 on-site vendors and 12 podium sponsors, you know all within, I think we did that in less than one year. It has to be like nine months so and then we do the in-house competition. So between June and November, five months to go from never have a running a competition to doing like a little in-house one To doing like a full-blown, scaled one. Right is, if that's not encouraging to people who like want to take that jump like this Is a message that if you believe that you have the skills to do so, then you should do it and the backing because it's not cheap.
Speaker 2:You know it's possible. You just got to work, yeah, and you gotta put people in charge.
Speaker 3:Like you mentioned.
Speaker 2:Manny. Yeah, like Before we start this competition, I told Andrews if we got to get someone to take that, that weight off of you, yeah, they need to be the best. I was like I know the guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's like. I got the guy many Yabbaris.
Speaker 2:They're perfect, yeah, and it worked out like awesome. Yeah, we found them. I mean, I don't think Without them we would have been able to run as smoothly as we. We could also like shout the.
Speaker 1:MCs the MCs were so great. Yeah, came from.
Speaker 2:I figure which.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 2:And we met as a part and I think that was the first calm he did where he was like a MCL like. Yeah and I ran up to him like dude, do our calm. Yeah yeah, we figured it out. Yeah, and then also he met Bella Martin at the Masters. What is it Masters?
Speaker 3:I was at the LSK 10th Assured someone I was talking to, brad, he's the guy, the guy for the US, yeah, and he's like I was talking about the competition and being a vendor. We were putting sponsor means like yeah, you know, and then we have Bella here. That's actually an MC and she's also a great athlete. I'm like, oh, when they come to New York and she's like yeah sure.
Speaker 1:I'm like.
Speaker 3:So, um, yeah, it was pretty pretty casual. Yeah, they're great people too. She saved our ass.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't want to say she saved their ass, but she, no, she saved her. She, uh, she really like Took her years of experience because we started. When we started the comp it was supposed to kick off at 8 30. Yeah, and like there was nobody lined up, like five minutes went by and she knew no three. I mean three minutes went by. She came out of of the field at the main stage.
Speaker 2:Went into the athlete corral, yeah, and was like we're gonna run on time for the rest of this competition. We have to make up for this time now.
Speaker 1:It's gonna happen.
Speaker 2:So we need to figure out who needs to be here right now and, like all you, like all the athletes, let's go. Yeah, I'm on the stage.
Speaker 1:She had the experience to know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just like let's get it going because we're gonna run on time. Um, so she really kind of Kicked the competition like the the urgency, that, okay, we need to stay the schedule. Right um, and I don't think, you know, and I literally saw this right in front of me and like for me, it's like I don't know what To have done in that moment, right other than oh well, the athletes have to be great, she's just like let's go, let's do this, yeah, yeah you know, I was hyped.
Speaker 2:Everybody at that moment like eyes lit up, like oh, like shit, we're doing this. Yeah, time to go. Yeah, yeah, um. And then after that it was like we first we caught up and then the entire competition for the rest of the day ran on time and it ended literally, yeah, literally, like yeah. We had the podium sponsor, I mean podium ceremony, ending at 6 30. It ended literally at 6 30, you know like oh one, yeah like like on the, because we saw the seconds it turned it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:We're like 6, 30, oh one. Yeah, oh my god, I can't believe like we actually like finished this competition on, like on time. It's a great feel. Um, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So super, super smooth after the first like I asked you a question about, about, like nervousness. I was cool until 8 am when that happened. Yeah dude 8 am 8, 30, dude everything everything happens. I was like oh my god, this is gonna be a fail.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I was like we need to go into hypojib.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you though our gym, or I should say your gym it's full of just professionals everybody there step up. No, but everybody there is like their jobs, to their careers, like they just under pressure. Yeah, they were cool, calm and collected.
Speaker 2:Everybody and I should say, like part of the reason why we had such success with the metals classic is because we made it a rule that our athletes could not compete In our competition. Yeah, I feel like it would be a conflict of interest, um, but we encouraged everybody to volunteer. Yeah, um, and I think because of that you know it goes back to why I crossed it so good, which is community. It's like we had this understanding and this energy between all of us as, uh, as members To you know, have the same interests, like everybody wants to see um Andrew be successful in the competition.
Speaker 2:They obviously want to see the metal, on its classic, do really well and continue to grow and they want to see, like all the work that I put into it as well, you know all together yeah so we all had the same goal as a gym. Yeah, I really worked out.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So at the end here, dudes, this is the last question I ask everybody with having such a successful event and you're already going on like a marketing tour to grow for next year Like, what are you hungry for now?
Speaker 2:Tour. What are we doing?
Speaker 1:a tour- Well, I mean, you're talking to some people, you're doing some things out there. I see the post there. You got some about 2024 and now it's been coming up. Yeah, might be traveling to a new city. I like, I like it got some things happening. So, andrew, what are you hungry for? What do you want to see for metal lance classic 2024?
Speaker 3:Uh, definitely more athletes. Um, you know we we're going to keep pushing the limits on making it unique. We're not going to reinvent the wheel in terms of, like, new movements or whatever CrossFit competitions are trying to do Um, I'm going to stay true to crossfit routes, but we want to see more engagement, more people have fun, right? That's the main reason why we do this. We want everyone to have fun. We want all athletes in crossfit going all the way from Scaled intermediate to elite.
Speaker 3:Hell yeah, a place that they can compete and they can feel like they're all seen. You know, a lot of intermediate scale athletes don't think that they have enough competitions. A lot of elite athletes like games athletes Also don't think that they have a competition that they can compete in because people say it's not fair. Quote unquote when, well, I don't feel that way. I think one should be competing under the same umbrella. Right, because that's the most inspiring thing about crossfit. Right, like I could be working out, for example, nice to channel it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm going to get smoked, but you know what? It's a pretty cool experience and that'll encourage me to continue my crossfit journey, hell yeah, and that's you know.
Speaker 1:For me that's the bottom line.
Speaker 3:That's why, like I'm, so heavily invested into this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you mentioned the elite part. Uh, one of the one of the elite athletes who is a games athlete I'm not gonna say which one, um, but Uh, they message me and they let me know, like, oh, thank you so much for putting this together, because a lot of times they feel. That they're not welcomed at competitions and we made it obvious from the beginning that, like that's exactly who we're targeting. So I think next year, like, more people are going to be uh, hope so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'll be on people's calendar, you know, because it is that weird gap between In what was it right before?
Speaker 2:the right before water glue is at the qualifiers and you know it's more.
Speaker 1:I think that's becoming the the uh competition season, though it's after legends, qualifiers too. Yeah, I think about if you're looking at like different age groups. But, like I talked to a lia biller last week who's from the stress area and we talked about, like, when's the off season, when's the competition season?
Speaker 1:and she said, well, after the games, unless you have major holes to fill, then that period between, like September to February, you either train and try to go win some money, you know, get your name out there a little bit more, get ready for the next season, or you're trading super hard and you're, you know, trying to fill in those holes that we talked about for the open.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she actually inquired with a colleague of ours to find out about our competition.
Speaker 1:So actually I did message her.
Speaker 2:I invited her, but unfortunately just uh wasn't gonna work out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she moved with a freaking Nevada. Yeah, she moved yeah.
Speaker 2:I heard about her jeep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so she moved to Nevada. She had to get the hitch put on so she could drag the, drag the trailer and bring her air runner. You know she, she went to train with uh Sean Sweeney, cross the call. But, cowboy, it's dope dude. I mean, like I really admire people that are like Taken under, like a fitness entrepreneur or something like that. Like uh john, did you tell us what what you want to see for next year? You said more elites. Is that? Is that what you want to see?
Speaker 2:Um well, so I we have like a way bigger vision. You know we'd like to take it, not on tour like the metal lines classic on tour.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we'd like to do more like a road to the metal lands like leading up to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like qualifiers, competitions outside smaller places.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're thinking about possibly, uh, going to one of the big northeast, as they call it, uh, mega polis I think that's how they oh, yeah, how they describe it, which is, you know either, philly, boston, obviously, we're in, like, the new york region already.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and then there's baltimore, and there's dc.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the zitral area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're trying to.
Speaker 2:Uh, now we're looking into one of those cities. Uh, what's our best market? Yeah, um, and then how can we convert those that market into now being committed into coming in november? Yeah um, in you know, in november we already have slated uh Two days. I don't know if you knew this part.
Speaker 1:I saw. I saw number nine thing, 10.
Speaker 2:It works out great because, um, it takes you veterans day on monday. You know next year's a leap year, so veterans this year was on saturday. Yeah um, and then on monday will be the 11th, so it's like a three-day weekend, just like my Monday weekend or something. So the competition will be the ninth in the 10th, 11th. Hopefully people have off and we plan on offering, um, hopefully, the most money on the east coast outside of water for lusa.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's kind of what we have slated and um what else. I don't know the qualifiers. I think we're still talking about. Yeah, we're exploring.
Speaker 1:We won't even go into that part, you know, leave that out of there. Yeah, all right, dogs, you heard it here first. Next year we got the most prize money offered on the east coast, besides a lot of falooza coming at you. This has been the bettoland classics directors here, andrew with john dogs, we're getting out of here. Peace.