Head Coach and founder of The Progrm, John Singleton

We are kicking off the season with an interview with John Singleton, coach to many elite CrossFit athletes. John and I talk about how he started out, his time as a budding Kung Fu martial artist, his discovery of CrossFit and his own competitive career, his transition into full time coaching, and how he came to live and work on the island of Mallorca in Spain. 

Min 1.25 - 3.00 John talks about his background, his degree in Osteopathy and his dyslexia. 
Min 3.00 - 5.00 His "Kill Bill" period, and where is the outfit now
Min 5.00 - 8.47 John's introduction to CrossFit 
Min 8.47 - 9.27 Rest day guilt 
Min 9.27 - 12.36 Life in China, what is was like pre-smartphones
Min 12.36 - 14.05 John's time as a competitive CrossFit athlete 
Min 14.05 - 17.07 His decision to stop competing and focus on coaching 
Min 17.07 -19.57  The decision to move to Mallorca and setting up his own gym 
Min 19.57 - 24.21 Setting up The Progrm training system, and his coaching style 
Min 24.21 - 26.01 Spotting potential in athletes
Min 26.01 - 27.43 Mindset, "Sacrifice" or "Decision" 
Min 27.43 - 29.31 Upcoming competitions and a typical training day for The Progrm athletes
Min 29.31 - 33.24 Why do another CrossFit podcast? 

We have an EIC offer for you. You can get a 10% discount on all of The Progrm courses or the Athlete Academy, just pop in the code EIC at the checkout to get the deal. Visit https://theprogrm.com/ and take a look at the COURSES and ACADEMY and make your pick!

You can find Vicki at https://www.instagram.com/vicmcleod/
The Progm at https://www.instagram.com/theprogrm/

Transcript

Unknown: 0:03

Your upcoming podcast features elite European CrossFit athletes, coaches and fans taking you behind the scenes of competitive CrossFit. We go inside the mindset of professional athletes, their training their lives, what drives them. What inspires to welcome to Europe is coming. Hey everyone, this is Episode One of the brand new podcast Europe is coming. I'm your host Vicky McLeod. We are kicking off the season with an interview with john Singleton, coached many elite CrossFit athletes, Jenna and I talked about how he started out his time as a budding kung fu martial artist, his discovery of CrossFit and his own competitive career, his transition into full time coaching, and how we came to live and work on the island of New Yorker in Spain. So let's get started with john Sue, who is the head honcho for the programme, and this is our introductory chat. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, where should we start? Should we start with who you are what you do? How did you start there? Yeah, yeah, I think it's, it's a good idea, like in essence, just to give some background as to, you know, how we got to this point, and why we're here. So for those people who don't know, my name is john Singleton. I founded the programme five or six years ago. And in essence, my full time 100% dedication is working with professional CrossFit athletes. And over the years, we've had varying levels of success, and only one of the most successful training programmes from Europe. We've taken close to 30 athletes to the CrossFit Games, which for those who imagine most people listening to this are aware of what the CrossFit Games are, but in essence, they are the World Championships of CrossFit. So the highest level of support. My my background before that, I actually have a master's degree in osteopathy, and I studied in London for that degree, and then prior to that, I was I actually hated school, had my demick career. I wanted to be outside doing things and I hated being in a classroom. I'm also dyslexic, and so I really really struggled with the the way that we were learning I think I struggled to contextualise it I struggle with that what kind of dyslexia do you have? I don't know what type there's lots of different types we do struggle to write read yes lots of different ones yes actually. So when I was school like dyslexia was it was kind of becoming a thing it hadn't been really you know, discovered yet is kind of saying learning I remember O's I really struggled like with like writing B's and DS P's and Q's switch stuff around switched around everything be muddled I really had a hard time like with grammar and where to put a full stop because I would write down my papers are saying the head no And so anyway, it was you know, at that time it started to become more normal that you know, you'd have people helping these people had dyslexia and various things but also you know, I was just I wanted to be outside training doing different things and it was kind of in that moment that I found Chinese martial arts and that was my my passion was from from an age early teens have done with schooling I didn't want to be there and so I was forced to go I would not go and just be training doing martial arts and and that actually took me to China. So I moved to China when I was 18. And I spent a year there in like, Kill Bill style. Yeah, you get the outfit. I did. You know, luckily This is pre social media really kind of mainstream photographic evidence there is but it's physical so it's well hidden. Maybe we could get into the Halloween costume. Yeah, exactly. I'm pretty sure still at my mom's house. I have the the old kind of like Chinese martial arts. So what what were Chinese martial arts consist of So it was kung fu like kind of classic style kung fu they have various fighting forms of kung fu as well over there and in China it kind of comes up a religion you know, you have like the main branch which is kung fu and it goes into like 1000s of different startups. But you know, I kind of lost slight kind of, I was very into the whole methodology, the theology of it and everything behind that. But then I then transferred over to to boxing, so I then boxed and it was actually in when I was boxing whilst I was studying as well and that's when I Trish transitioned over to CrossFit you know, basically I'd be boxing that's my training and you know i'd get caught or sweating over my eye or something and then obviously when I started seeing patients in my degree like the clinic tutors like no you can't can't broke up seeing patients through the black hole or cutting or they're just like that's not cool and so I had a friend at the time this is like 2000 16,007 you know, for CrossFit very early days and he was like he was like you know you're not fit you know, I'm fitting the new kind of you go thing and so we worked out together and it was the first time I trained with someone who also pushed hard in a different training context and I absolutely loved it having something to push against and we just love the the hard training because how will we that Yeah, 22 maybe 2223 and in your CrossFit back then this is in a row like 1415 years ago you know, like a long time ago there was no CrossFit gyms so it would be in a park and that style of training wasn't popular you know these days you go every gym has a CrossFit gym whatever it may be some kind of cross training functional fitness kind of thing. It was got a bit of it everyone's got a boo boo everyone's got a warble everyone has this hard kind of training and back then you know it wasn't it wasn't the fashion boxercise exams step Yeah. Yeah, but you know it's true it's like the 14 years ago this style of training not done like it was done in like boxing gyms or you know, really roar old school training though there are some guys in the in the US who are kind of moving into this style but CrossFit for me, it was really a emotion shift in the world whole load of training you know, I think it's gone well beyond the actual just the CrossFit gyms You know, its style of training changed, like the training world? The the change you Yeah, you know, I, I think I've always trained, the biggest change in my training was using weights. So like I always trained hard, I love training hard, the feeling, etc. Everything was done a bodyweight you know, so skipping push ups, running sprints, etc. But we didn't use weights and that transition of conditioning plus weights was the biggest change for me, like, I remember at the boxing gym. Because the boxing gym had weights, we don't really use them, they do grace and I do my boxing session and then do grace and kill myself along doing grace. That was quite transformative for me, and my training was the using an external object. How often were you training today? Or, yeah, the martial arts You know, this is another thing in martial arts, there's no rest, you know, we're in China, we'd have one restaurant, but really you do something every day and I was the mindset more is better, much better. And then CrossFit came in with the classic like three on one off which the old school was still on calm programming, we'd have three work three training days one rest day. Yeah. And that was another big change that I started having rest days, you know, which were you always admit you deal with? Yeah. 100% like you know, you were like you needed to be training doing things and then so like rest days route, another novelty to change the mindset again? Yeah. You know, diet was another big thing. So so you know, we're starting to look back that there were actually lots of things that got introduced in China. In China, like literally you're eating rice and vegetables. No meat was a luxury. It's just, it wasn't like a conscious choice. It was just what was available. Yeah. It wasn't that I was. It's just the martial arts in China are done for a poor section of the society. Because what tends to happen in China is if you can't afford to send your kids to school, the cheapest option is to send them to In essence, these martial arts groups are 10s, hundreds of 1000s of kids in China doing this. And basically it secures you with a military job or a job as bodyguard. And so they just train these kids to do martial arts. And that would get you into some kind of security or military work. But these kids are from poor farming, farming families, and parents to basically just afford enough to get them some kind of physical education to get latest job, otherwise they just get the farm etc. Going through, and what was your intention? When you went to China for the year? Why did you go just to improve to become what a martial artist, you know, I wanted to be a martial artist that was, you know, there's no, there are competitions but there's no like, that was just the life you know, a lot of these a lot of the Chinese martial arts, that's what they did until they're, you know, in their later years all the way through, you know, it was a career of varying China from like, five years old to until you die, their lifestyle, his lifestyle. And that's there was no real end goal, it was just to get better. But you know, it's hard times that no one spoke English that was struggled, there wouldn't have been Google Translate either. No, no, I mean, I do have a huge dictionary. You can even use that because it's all all in Yeah. And in cases, they used to have something called pinion, which is like a Roman ized version of the characters. So that's kind of how you get through the learning the characters with a single opinion, which is the romanized version of Yeah, of the language of Mandarin. Yeah. And anyway, you know, so there's no, I used to be able to use the phone once a week to go home. And I was the only time I'd ever speak English. And it was, yeah. It was like a 20 minute walk through the park through the streets to get to the one internet cafe to go to send emails. Every show, you know, you see the advice happen, in some ways, maybe for short periods. But But yeah, you know, I think the internet completely transformed things, you know, now if I was in China, you have complete access 24, seven, to the world. But back then, you know, the internet and this is like soup. This is like probably pushing 20 years ago. And I suppose those technological changes have occurred. Big time. Yeah. So you do boxing, you go through, you're introduced to CrossFit, you're studying Is this the path? Do you suddenly become john the CrossFit coach or does it evolve through the years How did you migrate transition? My original intentions were becoming an athlete. So now I qualified through to European regionals. I've been a team as a few times and you know, I love training that's why i did i want i wanted to compete back then. So you know, we have to, you always have to itself back to when where the sport was, is in a very different place. And so you'd have this like hybrid coach athletes now. I think coaching via Chinese martial arts and so as young as well, like 1617 on coaching and so you know, it'd be a learning process of like, things were being discovered you know, you went from kipping pull ups to butterfly pull ups, weightlifting technique, you know, everything was as new world discovery. So as you're learning, you're helping other athletes, etc. So I was very much in his kind of hybrid athletes coach. And then I made a very conscious decision in 2014 to stop any competitive CrossFit. I was okay, I want to be involved in the sport. I'm not going to make it to games level. But I want to be involved in a sport I want to be helping others. How did you how did you come to the decision though? Did you just have just you just have a bad dream and wake up and think that's the it's not going to happen for me? Yeah, I knew that I wasn't good enough. You know, like I knew that I didn't have the potential to get to where the ultimate goal which is the games and individual athletes and you know, as a member is there's one distinct moment I was at competition in Spain, and as a famous Spanish Spanish after you buy them as a team, whose recently was that came to Team council stuff called Brian on this. And, you know, he was like, kind of 1617 at the time, probably. And I just beat him at the competition, right? And at that moment in time, I was probably like, mid 20s, something like that. And I was like, wow, you know, 1617 year olds are nipping at my heels. I'm Not necessarily where I want to be. And I always loved the coaching so it wasn't a hard transition. I was just like, but I loved the coaching and was very excited about that. And I realised that me being an individual athlete wasn't going to match my aspirations. And so that's one of the transition. So you didn't have any kind of feelings of disappointment or or any struggle with it. It was an easy decision to me it was an easy decision. Yes, it actually I didn't struggle with it that much more. I was like it felt right. It felt right and you know, it was like, I'd had you know, is by no means an illustrious career but you know, I qualified for was then European regionals. I've been on teams, both in Europe and in, in Latin America. So I felt like I'd had an experience. And also, ironically, I was always more dedicated as a coach than athletes. As an athlete, discipline of being two sessions a day doing these things is very hard work. And you need to be extremely consistent. And strangely, I found that I was more dedicated to my athletes than I was to myself. And that was an interesting one for me. So I was kind of happy to make that transition. And then, when I lived in Argentina for a period, and I was very involved with Toluca team, and kind of that point, red dots 2014, I went there as well. And I was kind of helping out with the team. And there's some great coaches there, and I was very inspired by them and what they were doing. I came back to the UK, not UK, sorry, came back to Spain. After Argentina. So at that point, I was so to help Rob, from cross in New Yorker, and there were a few other athletes that we were helping out. And then it starts to evolve of me helping athletes athletes reaching out and then the process kind of started rolling. The wheels got moving. Yeah. Why did you choose to live in Majorca? an ex girlfriend so I hate I brought you here love love will be here. And like a UK impression of New York was not good. Oh, no. I was on those people. Yeah, I would I want to go to New York. You know, like having zero desire. I had the same total view of milk before I came here the first time. Probably full of drunk people. But that's like a tiny, tiny part of the island. That's mega Lou. Yeah. And the Germans have got the same issue with Aaron out to the rest of the island is free to enjoy. Okay, wow, this place is incredible. Since I first came over, really not back and I've, I've travelled a lot. So I'm not lift anywhere else in the last like eight years or something. But I have been in different places for extended extended periods of time. So I think that's an important lie, you know, not necessarily lived here for eight years. But I've always this has always been the only place I've lived in the last eight years. Just for you with call home. Exactly. Yesterday without question. I have no desire to return. Okay. And we're we're actually recording this in your gym? Yeah. Yes. So we set a year old now some happy birthday. Yes, it is a year. June 1 is when we officially open soon, that we were supposed to open during COVID bit of a nightmare, obviously going through. So we're now in a box. And the box is actually focused far away from our athletes. world. We wanted to create something that helps wider community, you know, because we do believe this, you know, this is how longevity and all of these brilliant things that happened through training. And we wanted to be able to help people who aren't athletes, you know, it's like, I was very let me Yeah, exactly. People like me, you know, I'm not training anymore, like I used to. And so I wanted to help myself. I wanted to be able to help others. And that's why I was like, you know, to be quiet because obviously I'm surrounded by athletes. You know, when athletes go into the gym that Okay, let's put all this advanced stuff that is not going to be useful for general population. So we were quite strict at the start, and it's 90 people really see the benefits of community. Being in the gym here and being with athletes as well. You're super busy guy. You're running. How many businesses do we carry? We have two companies But then they, they have kind of side branches as well, we have two main companies. The programme, the Agile training programme, which you set up many years ago, five or six, I can't remember the exact date does that take up most of your time, then yes, in and around that there's kind of two, there's the business side of things. But then there's also the coaching side of things, which I think the one thing that I make the distinction with professional CrossFit athletes, because that's an important distinction for me that the athletes that I work with it all in, you know, they, they literally, in essence, don't do anything else apart from training compete, and therefore, you know, they're dedicated their whole lives. So my dedication needs to match that as a coach. And so that's a big part of what I do, I still coach and I was with her guys this morning doing a swim session. We have, we have other coaches that we work with, but I'm still there to help assist the coach or, you know, we've changed it slightly but you know, running individual athletes through the sessions and so it's it's significant amount of work, just present work and and also dealing with the emotions of other competitive sports as well. Yeah, an average day for you must involve programming, supporting, helping with mindset, talking about nutrition, I mean, do you take all of those things on? Or do you farm out any of that to other people, a combination of both. So I think that I may have an overview role of the athlete. And if there's something that's I'm like, Okay, this specific area needs some work, will then go to a specialist in order to get the help. And so, you know, we're kind of directing the car a little bit and be like, Hey, you know, we're making these these improvements that we need, are we getting the results that we need? And if Yes, okay, let's keep doing that. What can we improve on? And if we're not, then we go, Okay, why are we not? A No? Am I the best person for this job? Yes, or no? If I'm not, then it's okay, then we need to find someone else who can step into that role. You know, like swimming, for example, I believe that for a CrossFit level, I could take most crossfitters to some form of additive swimming, you know, I'm i a great swim coach. No. So if so, for Jacqueline and, and Gabby, now they need to, I want to take them to a completely different level of swimming. And therefore, getting the help of a swimming coach on the island, good Renzo, who's extremely good. And therefore, in that instance, you know, he becomes a lead coach of the swimming and I'm there to you know, he's like, no, john will get me a towel. So, the people that you have your athletes that you have currently on the on the roster is Jacqueline dullstroom, Gabriella magala, who else and Christopher Ward, and Krista. So I, I cut down my athletes that I've worked with over the years, you know, in essence, previously, you could say that every athlete on the programme was my athlete. And then it's got less and less because we is a combination of things. One, I've now developed and got a great team coaches around me, so I'm not the only coach in the programme. And it just means that athletes get better attention, you know, the athletes who have made that commitment to come live on the island, I will commit to them. And the athletes who are living where they are, you know, we have a great team of coaches and support network to support them in their home environment. So you have quite a few elite athletes actually training where they are following your programme. Exactly. So it especially in Europe, we you know, we've we've had great results on a European level with we've had amazing results throughout the throughout the years. And that is thanks to kind of the support of our coaches as well. How do you spot potential for an athlete? When do they? Do they come to you? Or do you reach out to them? How does it work? If somebody is interested to train with you? Yeah, how'd you make that decision? Usually people will, will reach out. It was in different ways either people reach out, or we have athletes who are following the programme. And you know, we'll go to competitions with watch their growth, etc. And if they have the desire and we see the potential there, we will start developing that. And what would you say are the qualities that you look for In an athlete, there are physical qualities, the most arguably, you need a baseline of strength, but we are so you need a baseline strength and you know, that might just be raw strength but you need to be strong You don't need to have a good conditioning base, arguably the conditioning can be developed more than the strength we have kind of a greater potential to do that. And then you need the ability to learn new skills kind of technical developed. So as an overview, those kind of physical attributes that that we look for, then it's like we're good fit, you know, we have a certain style of training working of personalities. And you know if and I think this this kind of fits into the podcast and everything of our ethos, our brand, our way of working, you know, that's our style. So if the person is not going to fit with that style, then you know how to even if they have those physical talents, we might not be a good fit and therefore there's no point in Yeah. mindset is obviously a very important aspect of yes of this because it takes a lot of I hate that word sacrifice because it's not that's not the right. If you take the committed choice, yeah, from the pert from the athletes point of view, you put themselves into the position where they are training twice a day they have to maybe they've got a job as well there are lots of things that come into it that they have to really weigh up whether or not they can make those changes I think you're right i think the word sacrifice Heidi when you start looking at the sacrifices it's life becomes hard. So you're constantly looking at sacrificing something in order to do this so well. You know, can we can we reframe that mindset to actually have the opportunity to do this I want to do this I want to compete. But I think that's an important distinction. It's like if you view everything in your life as being sacrifice being an athlete, there's going to be a hard journey Yeah. Realistically everything is your perspective on the situation you know, different people's views on uncertain things are ultimately what determines their actions on on that so I think having those mindset attributes are very important here we don't necessarily distinguish between that is some we look to creating a sports a sporting environment, but quite often with the athletes that get this level that they start working with the they already have the drive the desire, they have those things in place otherwise they wouldn't have got to that point and then you know with facilitating they are in a comfortable environment in order to do what they enjoy doing. So given all the perfect things been put together, how do we feel that how do you feel that your efforts are going to fare over the next competitions? We've got Madrid coming we've got rogue you've got to buy and you've got guys competing at all of those and has Everybody ready? Yes, you know, we we now choose to select our competitions quite carefully because of the stress on the athletes and you know, that's that's what we do we have long off periods of the games and we're building back up now for the competitive offseason. So what kind of what would a typical day training day for these guys look like? So we take a typical day ripes the gym nine o'clock, they'll go through some kind of warmup routine that they will have an outtake quite a long time possibly around now. They will then do that that first training session and you know we're probably looking at like three hour window now where they're training to have a break similar thing to the afternoon. And that's the day he does in essence it's like in the gym they're probably in the gym say eight hours or so but as the rest of their rest periods, etc. But they're basically working nine to five just training their bodies. Yeah. So the the point of this podcast is to talk to those guys. Yeah, so I'm hoping that our next interview will be with Gabby or with jack or crystal whoever is available first. And are there any questions that you think I should ask them on? So I think a lot of people just are interested as to say what makes someone tick and what is why Why do this? No Yeah, me Why, why coach why why do those things and i think that i think the podcast to me holds two desires first is that, you know, we can get exposure to European athletes and show our qualities and our culture And, and the second is so that people can learn, understand, maybe pick up things that help people on their journey and their competitive vehicle competitive CrossFit career or able to kind of extract some analogies and apply that to their day to day life. So I think that holds the purpose of why we're doing this. And I just think it's important, you know, that the people get to know, know yourself, and me Yes. Yeah. But I think it's important because you know, because you, you obviously came to me regarding the podcast, this my brilliant idea. I'm very proud of it, and I explain why I'm proud of it. Because I love CrossFit. I love the sport. I love doing CrossFit. I've been doing it since 2016, through various injury, but I still enjoy it. I love the community, I love the feeling of the death. I love the social aspects of it, I love training hard with my friends, I love the payoffs. I love all of that stuff. And I completely empathise with people like Jacqueline and Gabby when I see them pushing themselves to the limits, because I push myself to my limits. And I just love the idea of knowing more about them and more about what makes them tick. Last year, we got the as my job, my my regular job, apart from chatting to you is to write and photograph events in the Orca, and and work for different businesses. And last year, and previous to that as well. I've got to photograph a lot of CrossFit athletes. Last was it last September? We did the online. Yes, September 2020. Yeah, so September 2020, when all of the top, this is top 20 athletes. So top 30 athletes got two heads, or how to compete online in the not to the CrossFit Games year, if that makes sense. Yeah. And I was taking pitches for that weekend with Gabby, I watched her push herself to her limits there and watch all the dramas the emotions, and was really impressed with the incredible pressure that she found herself under and how she coped with that. And then again, just gone in June time when we did this online semifinals. So those girls here, that was again, another incredible experience, I have so much respect for these people and what they choose to do, and I am excited to get to talk to more of them. Yeah. Yeah, I think that, you know, this is this is the kind of crucial part and hopefully we, you know, we get to get an insight into the minds of European crossfitters. You know, because I am lucky enough that I spent my whole life with, with competitive CrossFit athletes from from around the world, you know, America, Australia, wherever it may be. And there's something unique in the European mindsets that I really hope that we can. We can expose and, you know, start to hopefully get it as it is to get exposure to that and allow it to grow and develop. Bring it on. Yeah, let's do it. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe for the next edition, which will be a review of the Madrid CrossFit championship with john. Coming up in future episodes, we're going to have exclusive interviews with some of the world's best athletes. I can't wait. Until then. Thanks a lot. And goodbye. Don't miss the next episode. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts your app is coming is the programme production and hosted by Vicki McLeod.