Double Edge Fitness
This podcast is dedicated to showcasing to our members and any of our listeners who are interested in how this northern Nevada gym operates. Our mission is to inspire others to bring health and wellness home to truly make a difference in the household with the ultimate goal of making Reno the healthiest city in the country.In this podcast, we will be talking about things that are on our mind and answering questions from our members and our listeners to provide a unique listening experience.
Double Edge Fitness
From Corporate Burnout to Fitness Revival: Coach Jason Niedzielski's Journey
Ever feel trapped in a life that looks successful on paper but is slowly draining your soul? Jason Nijilski's story might be exactly what you need to hear.
After spending 15 years climbing the corporate ladder in the wind energy industry, Jason made the life-altering decision to walk away from it all and pursue his passion for fitness coaching. Just three months into his new career at Double Edge CrossFit, disaster struck – a catastrophic injury during a routine back squat left him with all three adductor muscles completely torn from the bone. What followed wasn't just physical rehabilitation, but a profound mental and emotional journey through depression, anxiety, and ultimately, transformation.
Jason's candid conversation reveals the rarely discussed connection between serious physical injury and mental health struggles. "The link to depression and PTSD from an injury is something that needs to be talked about more," he explains, describing the dark moments when he couldn't even get into bed without his wife's assistance.
But this story isn't about limitation – it's about rebirth. Jason shares how this challenge became the catalyst for completely overhauling his approach to health. He eliminated alcohol entirely, transformed his nutrition, and embraced an intentional, whole-food lifestyle alongside his wife. The results speak for themselves: at age 43, he's lost 4% body fat and gained 3+ pounds of muscle in just four months.
From hunting his own meat to meal prepping strategies anyone can implement, Jason offers practical insights into sustainable health habits. He emphasizes the importance of objective data through regular body composition scans and blood work, and shares how these metrics have transformed his coaching approach.
Whether you're contemplating a major career change, recovering from injury, or simply seeking motivation to prioritize your health, this conversation offers both inspiration and practical strategies to transform your physical and mental wellbeing. Listen now and discover how adversity can become the doorway to your healthiest, most fulfilling life.
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all right, welcome to double edge podcast today. We can't do the damn thing without bringing jason in with some intro music there. It is people getting used to this sound, huh oh, I like it. It's, uh, it's cool jazz I gotta give you a little bit of.
Speaker 2:Oh, there we go. This reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld show where Kramer what did he find? Kramer found one of the talk show, like Tonight type show, like all like the backdrop for it. Yeah. And then he set up his whole house like that. So anytime anyone went in, just walked into his house, he'd be like oh hey, and he was always like hosting an episode of that show. I was like what was the show? Though?
Speaker 1:That was way before our time anyway, so Kind of I mean Seinfeld. There's a lot of memes that have been coming out like scrolling through the gram and it's made me kind of want to go to the beginning and like watch all the Seinfeld again, cause there's some classic one-liners in that.
Speaker 2:Oh so good. Uh, that's probably the most uh serial killer thing I do is, uh, I watched Seinfeld, first episode, the last episode, and then I just repeat it. Really. So if I can't watch, anything like if there's, if I don't, if I just start back over, and I've been doing that for three or four years.
Speaker 1:Really, so you've watched them all.
Speaker 2:Multiple times. Okay, it's probably the one thing, not the one thing, but my poor wife is what I'll just say she's not a Seinfeld fan. No, she is, but she, you know, burnt out on it. You know she walks in the room and it's like, oh, seinfeld's on again. It's like, yeah, it's a bad day, stressful day, stressful day, Stressful day.
Speaker 1:Stressful day my hip felt like it was going to explode. Today, yeah, exactly. No, I'm going to have episodes on here, episodes on there. I've never like watched the whole storyline. Okay, and there's so many good one-liners Like I kind of want to watch the whole storyline.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's pretty much the whole show.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, since it's a show about nothing. Yeah. So it's pretty much all one-liners. But it's amazing, it's good, it's.
Speaker 1:I'm going to get it. I'm pretty sure it's available on one of the platforms. Yeah. Netflix. Oh, it's straight up on Netflix.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's on Netflix right now All right?
Speaker 1:Well, there it is. I'm going to disappear into the abyss and watch Seinfeld.
Speaker 2:Come out funnier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my last show that I watched was what I just obsess about Landman on.
Speaker 2:Paramount, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay that. Landman on Paramount. Oh yeah, Okay that show was gnarly.
Speaker 2:That's what I heard. Yeah, I watched Billy Bob.
Speaker 1:Billy Bob Thornton yeah, and crazy. The oil industry. Yeah, you get the vibe that the whole show that that is how it's really like, Like that scandalous of an industry.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was in it. I was loosely in oil and gas for 15 years, so I was in the wind industry, but we were owned by like an asset management company that was in oil and gas.
Speaker 1:So I would say yeah, so let's take it back to that a little bit yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was in wind and I've seen his monologue about the wind industry. Okay, and without getting myself into doing trouble. I would kind of he's not completely, he's not completely not completely wrong not completely, um, he's not fully out of left field, but um yeah.
Speaker 2:So I spent 15 years in rope access. Um, I started off, you know, repelling off of wind turbines, um doing inspection mostly, uh, for the equipment, but got to go in the field and wash wind turbines by hand. They literally washed those by hand when we first started. Now there's machines and mechanisms that will power wash them much quicker, but it was literally with rags and Simple Green. We cleaned the wind turbines top to bottom, the outsides.
Speaker 1:My goodness, I didn't realize that, because the first time I met you was when I was training at Mayberry. We came over there yeah, I remember taking the trash out one day and you like asked me if I like work out at this place or whatever, and you're like, yeah, I do crossfit and stuff, and we'd cross paths over there yeah so it's kind of funny now, yeah, now you work and coach a double edge yeah, you're, you're may.
Speaker 2:Mayberry is right there by. Uh. It was right in the same complex where we did all our rope access training, so that was the building, I spent most of my career.
Speaker 1:Your adult life at this point.
Speaker 2:My adult life yeah, and so, yeah, it's funny that we cross paths at competitions and such. Until you know, fast forward to what? 15 years. And here I am now with you guys.
Speaker 1:How did you end up as a member at the gym?
Speaker 2:Joel Joel.
Speaker 1:Joel.
Speaker 2:I knew Joel way back when he first started CrossFit.
Speaker 1:Well, he was at Black. Yeah, he was at the same gym, Like Tiffany was there, so way back yeah.
Speaker 2:Tiffany was there, so I knew him there. And then they closed shop. They sold closed shop and when they closed the new owner moved the building and I didn't like where it was at. It was really inconvenient. So by then I knew enough people in the industry to like kind of pick out which gym and uh, joel hit me up and was like you need to be here, like this is the gym to be at.
Speaker 2:Uh just come and uh, um, come, do like a class with him. And so I did a class, um, and then he was having me do sub coaching yeah I remember that. So I'd help, joaquin, when you guys had the two coaches thing going on, and so I would do the lean classes, um, or I just walk around and do demos and stuff like that. So I was doing that for a while and then my job just became too uh, just too much, like it was very demanding.
Speaker 1:Yeah, once they got bought out and you moved up.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, they got bought out and so I got promoted and then, um, spent a lot of time on the road and, you know, I told you guys I was like, hey, I can't do this. So, you know, I just became a, you know, full fledged member and and uh was when I would be there, when I could, for a while. And then, uh, when you guys posted that you were looking for a part-time coach, um, my wife sent it to me not my wife at the time, um, but, uh, my fiance at the time, but anyway, she sent that to me, um, and said, you know, she knew what I was going through at work. And uh, not only that, but a lot of people sent it to me that are members that.
Speaker 2:I'm friends with and uh, it was like ha ha ha. And then then when I saw, you know, my wife later that night, she was like like we're, we're dialed, go, go talk to them. So uh, came and talked to you, I brought it up with Jake, you know, and Jake was like we weren't even thinking full time, but you know, we could, you know, um, and yeah, I met with you and fast forward to April 1st, so I've been here for just over a year now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, started on April 1st. Time flies by.
Speaker 2:Quit my job changed my life completely. Yeah, it's been a 20, I was thinking, cause you know we're going to do this podcast, so you start thinking about stuff and uh, 2024 was crazy for me. It was a crazy year, you know, uh, quit my job that I spent, you know, most of my adult life at, you know, and I'm climbing essentially the corporate ladder to get to like where I was and then realizing that that was sucking the soul out of you sucking the soul out of me.
Speaker 2:And uh, yeah, just completely leaving coming to work for you guys. And yeah, just completely leaving coming to work for you guys. Got married and then had my major injury.
Speaker 1:We'll get into that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll get into. But yeah, 2024, what a wild year. I mean completely. You know you go from being on an airplane every other week, or I mean before COVID it was almost every week, not quite, but a lot. And then COVID we weren't traveling, and then after COVID it was going back to once to twice a month to working with you guys and it was just such a drastic. At first it was hard.
Speaker 2:Very very hard, drastic change, but it was a good change and it was a change that needed to happen. And now everything's trending the right way as far as my fitness and health and mental health for sure and so I'm very close to probably being the fittest I've been since I started CrossFit. That's awesome, I'm just barely off those markers. But I mean, I started CrossFit when I was 30, you know so over a decade, we're 10 years yeah. Hell yeah.
Speaker 1:So to backtrack just a little bit, introduce the guest on today's podcast, Jason Nijilski. Yes, Sometimes we come up with the assumption, because chances are pretty much only double edge listeners listen to this, but maybe future people. And so Jason, one of our full-time coaches at Double Edge South. He also helps out at Midtown, so he gets between both from time to time. Mostly at South he coaches the evenings down there and, like you just said, he's been part of CrossFit for 10 years. How long have you been coaching? Pretty on and off, though like a big block of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I've probably been coaching on and off for 10 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as I say, I remember when we talked, you told me like I coached and did this job and it was just always kind of a part of your life, yeah, yeah. So today, jason, like all my coaches, I put out you know, you guys, let's get on the podcast, let's get people the opportunities to know you and, uh, share your stories and your history. Jason has pretty awesome like story and evolution. Like you just alluded to, 2024 was a very transformative One of those. One of those, uh, I don't want to say I don't want to call it a midlife crisis, but kind of like I want to change the direction of my life and I am miserable where I'm at right now and I want to not be miserable anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I mean a crisis. I would agree with that. It was headed towards a midlife crisis, but we, we stopped it. Yeah, right, we made the decisions as a family to change the direction, to avoid a crisis, you know, to avoid those mistakes or like very large life changing things that could be sometimes negative. Yeah, and yeah, we avoided it. For sure I don't know if we would have got the crisis, but something needed to give Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, yeah, you could tell you know internally with I remember you telling me like I get like my fitness and I'm used to being able to work out and work on my fitness and it's a big deal to me. I mean, you're a big outdoors guy and having, you know, general physical preparedness seem to be a big part of your life and with your job, you you're traveling. So much the craziness of what do you want to say? The corporate obligations of hitting numbers, regardless of, I guess, who you heard or what you got to do to get it done Right, you know, it's just all-consuming and, yeah, you're just burnt out.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The vibe I picked up and the fact that you know you're only able out yeah is what? The vibe I picked up and the fact that you know you're only able to get you know, workout in here and there and you weren't happy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it I mean physical activity is is, you know, in. In my opinion and I'm not a health care professional but physical activity is the first thing. You first step towards any sort of mental clarity, any sort of, you know, break from the insanity of those things. And it was huge to be able to work out consistently, to get some time to then head into the next part or phase of your day. Right, so you know you're up first thing in the morning, you're going through the hectic, stressful, you know you're maneuvering through the day, and then you get that. You know you're up first thing in the morning, You're going through the hectic, stressful, you know you're maneuvering through the day, and then you get that you know like hour to work out and you decompress and then you're ready to hit the next stage. Right, you have I don't have kids, but you know you have children or you have pets. Your spouse is the big one.
Speaker 2:Right, taking your spouse is the big one right so, uh, you, you can't give to them without at least taking a break from everything and resetting, and then you're, you're back to like into that serving mode. Right, because you serve the ones you love, and so it you. If you don't find that balance, you're not going to get to those things and those things are going to suffer. Right, because you need the job, because that's a catalyst to success for the whole family yeah and so, yeah, not being able to work out, you know, was huge.
Speaker 2:And then I mean, amongst other things yeah, yeah, I mean that's what crossfit got me through I mean really some of the most difficult, stressful, painful parts of my life you know, because it's a positive outlet. Yep Right, so you know if you're going through any sort of breakup or divorce or any of these things that people go through as adults. You need a positive outlet and you can't turn to.
Speaker 2:You know nightlife and drinking and whatever Drugs, alcohol Drugs alcohol, because that's just a slippery slope and a spiral and it's just going to enhance your problems. But physical activity, strenuous exercise, weight lifting, all of these things they're positive and they bring you clarity versus sending you more into the fog, right? So, um, it's been a huge thing. It changed, it completely changed me I. It changed me early on, uh, with my lifestyle choices. Um, I always kind of had like a toe in the water still, you know, like to party and have fun and celebrate, um, but in 2025, like day one, I cut it all. So I haven't had a sip of alcohol uh, this year. Um, that back I did.
Speaker 2:My dad sold his business and retired and I had, we cheered, we toasted to a to a cocktail, but, um, yeah, nothing. No, no, real fast food, all that kind of just cut all. I was like 2025 is a year that I'd like fully commit, like get the toe out of the water right, like fully commit. So stage one was walking into a crossfit gym 10 years ago or 15 years ago, and then now we're at the next evolution this year with with making better, healthier habits that are like full encompassing now you're great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're taking like the next big hurdle that most people really struggle to see what the importance is of taking that hurdle. I'm trying to articulate this right, but it's like a lot of people live an 80% healthy life. Yeah Right, they worked out three to four days a week. They eat pretty healthy Monday through Friday, but as soon as, like, friday evening gets here through Saturday, it's like still drinks, with friends going out, getting shitty sleep. And you did all this positive work and then that, what is? If you had five good days out of seven, it's like a 70% grade. That's still a C grade. Coming back into Monday, you're just resetting yourself and I guess South Gym is becoming the incognito uh dry gym, since my brother doesn't drink anymore either. Uh, it's. It's super rad and the effects that you guys are going to feel both on your brain, your body and your performance is going to be insane.
Speaker 2:It's been huge yeah it, you know. Uh, last year, 2024, um, I started off the year with like I'm not going to drink after January 1st and see how long it goes. You know, I didn't really have a goal. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I went a while. I think it went, like you know pretty much, you know, three months maybe. Maybe, had a drink here or there, sprinkled in, type thing. And then, yeah, this year I was like we're done. We're done with that. Um, and not that I drink in excess, but I drink casually with friends and I drink socially um, but just that alone the effect it has.
Speaker 1:I mean as we get older, I mean now as you get older and as you get healthier yeah, as you get, yes, exactly as you get healthier like I had a couple drinks over Easter and my HRV and resting heart rate was dramatically changed off of. Like three drinks with my dad. Yeah, because I pretty much. I still have the occasional drink here and there, but I mean I'm pretty much non-alcoholic drinks only. And yeah, it's just mind-blowing, the healthier you get, how much poor food choices and just a couple cocktails I mean.
Speaker 1:Your body treats alcohol as poison. It turns into acetyl aldehyde first, which will kill you if your liver doesn't deal with it, and then it's seven empty calories after that. So my wife can get more weird and scientific on that breakdown. But at the end of the day, there is not one single positive metabolic function that can be gained from alcohol. Right, you're starving. These seven calories that you get out of it you're starving in the woods. It's not going to provide any sort of survival for you. Those calories aren't going to fuel you in any positive direction. And once people realize like it's not an add-to, it's a pure subtractor and if you can't like be so intentional with it like I'm having a drink with my dad on, they get away for the weekend. He's here on easter we're going to share a couple beers, yeah that was it right, you know, if it's not extremely intentional and like why did?
Speaker 1:why do it? Because you know, as I mean we're, as I forgot. How old are you? I know 43, a couple years older than me, but I mean it did seem like once the late 30s start hitting in 40 and not to mention getting healthier, eating better, fitter, like it's such a backtrack. It's like why even do this?
Speaker 2:yeah well, and you know back to you know, when we celebrated my dad's uh retirement, I had that, I had one cocktail right yeah and I told jake this I like I woke up at like 2 am and I thought I was having a heart attack.
Speaker 1:Yeah, heart just ripping, ripping.
Speaker 2:I had to get out of bed, go walk around the house and you always feel like you know, if you have a couple drinks, you might wake up in the middle of the night and you get bad sleep, all these things, and you might feel an elevated heart rate, like it wasn't to the point where I'm going to wake my wife up and be like, hey, this isn't good, but it was uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:I could feel it and I was very conscious of it and I was like this is, I'm over it and it's just because, just like you're saying, when you just like, when you add bad habits to your life, they're not as bad. When you start adding more and more healthy habits into your life, then that the effect of something negative is exponentially worse, whereas if you're like smoking and drinking and eating McDonald's, like, what's one more thing, what's one more beer, what's one more cheeseburger, it's not going to change you, it's not going to make you feel any worse, right?
Speaker 1:No, and your body is. The human body is an amazing organism. Like it is going to figure out how to adapt to this garbage to stay alive. Right, like it is going to figure out how to adapt to this garbage to stay alive. Right, the liver is an unreal organ that can just tolerate and deal with so much. It's the only organ in the body that can regenerate. Right, it's insane. It's insane and it can. You know, keep us going.
Speaker 1:But you're not going to live your optimal health span life putting in garbage food, alcohol, excess sugar, carbohydrates into your body with zero exercise and expect to feel good. And I, just, you go around society and you, like those people, don't even know what feeling good is right. And and, as you know, in the last year I've kind of hit this euphoric moment in my fitness and health and well-being that obviously you're feeling too. Yeah, that why would I go back? Right, like people ask me, like what's a cheap meal for you? And I don't know ribeye, and I might have a full baked potato that night. Like that's my cheap meal, yeah, and then I the baked potatoes, wrapped up in the sense of, like you know, had a lot of workouts and eat extra carbs. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like it's very intentional but I don't even think about I need this extra. What do you want to say Reward? Because I used to do that, Like if there was a time, me and Leo back in the day, if I won the workout of the day, like we would go and get ice cream. Okay.
Speaker 1:Like it was a reward centered deal, like that is not cool, right. And then weekends, back in the day, you know drinks this and that and start the cycle over and your late 20s, early 30s and kind of get away with it. But then and get away with it in a perspective of there's no visual manifestation.
Speaker 1:Yeah you're not and let. I wasn't as fit and as lean as I was then by any means of the stretch, but in my mind I was getting away with it. Now, if I would have got more blood work in my late 20s, early 30s, I might have shown a whole other picture.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I would love to. If I could somehow go back in time and grab me and be like dude who are you, I'd be like, don't worry about it, but I need to see something real quick.
Speaker 1:I need to check your blood. Yeah, let's take a look at the internals on this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they weren't. I mean, I used to smoke. Oh, I didn't know that I smoked for almost a decade. Yeah, I was a live fast, die. Young punk rock pedal to the metal.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean hair almost to my waist, like I was. Uh, I live fast. It was fun, it was a good time. I actually wouldn't trade it either, because it helped show me. You know, I'll never say I never got to do something, yeah, you know, and it taught me a lot of really valuable life lessons and in the end, I'm unscathed and I'm here right now making these choices.
Speaker 3:So it's kind of like you know you got away, you got away.
Speaker 2:You got lucky, I'm one of the lucky ones, I guess.
Speaker 1:And a lot of people. I mean my early years weren't exactly pure by any sense of the word, so I think a lot of people do that in their younger years. Yeah, I think it's normal, it's. At what point in our life do we say, hey, this isn't good, and unfortunately a lot of people aren't figuring that out. They're not making the changes and then all of a sudden, some sort of metabolic disease comes into their life and smacks them upside the head. You're on medications for the rest of your life to manage your diabetes, failing liver, whatever it might be. That could have been curtailed if we would have caught something. That's why the younger people in the gym I harp them on getting blood work, like I wish I would have. Yeah, like just once a year.
Speaker 2:Well, I think too, you know, not to go like to conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1:Hey, I love a little tinfoil.
Speaker 2:But I think that if you go, our parents generation or our grandparents generation could live what would be considered back then an unhealthy lifestyle for a lot longer in today's generation can't yeah because they are like the amount of poison given to kids that are going to be born, born right now, or the options.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm not talking food.
Speaker 3:I'm not going to go down into those other rabbit holes but food.
Speaker 2:and now you have generation after generation of microwaved like microwave meals okay and fast food.
Speaker 2:And then there's fast food that's like, pitched to you, that isn't it's the healthy fast food, it's just convenient, but it's healthy. Pitched to you, that isn't it's the healthy fast food, it's just convenient, but it's healthy. So you, if you really look at it, by the time you're the kids that are born now are 20 or one generation, or two generation. They have to catch it quicker than we did and, just like our parents, probably could have caught it in their 40s or 50s and be like hey, I, I need it.
Speaker 2:Yes, so that's my point. It has to be caught sooner by the younger generations, because the exposure is Starting at birth.
Speaker 1:In many ways, some of these baby formulas, some of the stuff that's given to kids right out the womb. It's insane how much garbage is put into these things.
Speaker 2:It's just like you can't buy anything without sugar. You're like, um, well, it's just like you can't buy, you know, anything without sugar. No, and you're like why are you adding sugar? That's not even a natural, isn't it mind-blowing?
Speaker 1:It's mind-blowing Because when we first I've mentioned this on here before but venturing to Claire's deal and looking at the additives, the colorings, the food stabilizers damn sugars, that is literally added to everything. Things that are already sweet naturally right. Five grams added sugar, right, why? Why, you know. And it some people say it's a preservative. Okay, salt's a good preservative. Or we don't need a six-month shelf life, correct?
Speaker 2:uh, and I think that's the big one. I think, um, but then how would the two parents work 90 hours a week?
Speaker 1:no, and I, it's just like looking socioeconomically and like opening up my lens to the whole dynamics of society. Right, I look at my wife and I and juggling two kids trying to live this totally whole food life with a child who has a chronic disease. It's a lot. It's a lot of work and you know cost of living, this and that. Like my wife and I, we both need to work and it is a lot of work and you know cost of living, this and that. Like my wife and I, we both need to work and it is a lot.
Speaker 1:And like I hear parents often heard a parent this morning you know you get done with sports at 7 o'clock at night, you know, and it's Chipotle. You know you try to get the healthier option at Chipotle but it's still Chipotle and I was like I get that man, it's just right now, at my juncture. It's ground beef and ferments. When we get home the kids eat it right. Well, I think you can still make a choice, but you have to be very mindful and engage in um doing this as a family right, exactly, and you know what you can start your meal.
Speaker 2:You can meal prep three nights worth of food each time you make it, you know if you're gonna make and I'll just say let's use spaghetti, that's a terrible example. Let's use spaghetti hey, if you're not making four nights worth like there you go, just reheat yeah like. So what effort does it take to cook two nights worth? So if you have time to cook one meal, yep out of the week, yep there's no reason why you don't throw two tri-tips on the barbecue 100.
Speaker 1:I did that on sunday yeah, easy I'm barbecuing, I'm gonna, I'm gonna cook an extra tri-tip. So we got meat for monday, tuesday that's what we did.
Speaker 2:We had, you know, a bunch of family over for easter. We did brunch. I cooked, like you know, three packs of bacon and I cooked, like you know I think we did like three dozen eggs, even though I know that we're not gonna like three dozen eggs, even though I know that we're not going to eat three dozen eggs, and we did four tri-tips because my wife and I were going to. You know, Steph and I are going to eat tri-tip every night.
Speaker 2:So if you can cook one meal, there's no reason why you couldn't cook it. Make it last three nights, and I don't, you know, I don't really care. If you have seven kids, like if you have a barbecue, buy a giant trigger, throw a whole pack of chicken it is doable when you prioritize it yeah, I mean, that's just it.
Speaker 2:You have to prioritize it and, and you know not to beat up on people that have families and don't have time. I mean, I really didn't. I would be using the same excuse when I had my job and I was working a ton um, and it wasn't until I had time to do really think about these things and had time. But then, if I zoom out, if you go to the grocery store one time and you spend two hours in there, you will find all the products that you can get that are healthy options, that don't have trash in them. Then the next time you go to the grocery store, it will take you 20 minutes. You need one or two trips where you just say hey, I'm going to go here to learn.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go here to learn. I'm going to go here to learn, exactly, and that's what we did.
Speaker 2:You know, steph has a lot of food allergies and so once I was able to you know work at the gym, I had more time on my hands. I said I'm going to dive into this and we're going to work with this, and it's only going to make me healthier and it's only going to make me healthier.
Speaker 2:So it's great, it's a win-win. And so, yeah, you spend. We would go to the grocery store and it was a pain in the ass a couple times, but then after that we just know what we're going to buy. So you just and you're out. It's the same thing, you're not, and there's healthy options for everything. If you need a bag of chips, if you need a bag of chips, if you need a bag of chips, there are options that are less worse. And you don't want to. Was it throw out good for bad or whatever? You know you don't want to. You know, uh, you know, perfect good works as well yeah, good does work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and my daughter's in remission now and you know we have some quote-unquote good things chips, for instance, like there are companies out there now I will say not everything's inexpensive by any means. You're gonna pay a little more for some of this, these products, but um, it's, it's an investment in your health. And, like you said, go to the grocery store. I remember the first couple times going after we got out of the hospital and uh, like I kind of had a small meltdown right, like what the fuck are we gonna do? Yeah, like this I can't buy, they can't get any snacks for the kids, can't get any of this stuff. And it was I don't know. It was like a moment. It was like frozen, like what do I do? And it came down to we buy whole food and we eat whole food.
Speaker 1:And then shopping got really really simple. Meal prepping got really really simple. Uh, cassie said, on the last little deal, like we try to make these fancy meals because there's foodies out there. And if you're a foodie, I applaud you. Like if you can, if you can slice and dice and cook up these amazing meals from three ingredients, I applaud you.
Speaker 1:But we're trying to make these fancy meals and like half the times the kids wouldn't. They would care less. It's gross, it looks weird, right, they don't even taste. It looks weird. And once we just simplified everything, you know my daughter will come home from a swim and walk to the fridge and grab the bowl of ground beef that's always in there. There's always a bowl, a couple pounds of ground beef. It's the easiest thing to cook on, to snack on, oh, and it's just always there and she'll grab that and just sit on the couch and eat it like a kid would grab a box of goldfish. And these habits I mean it's been over a year now of us as a family, like you and Steph as a family, and then it becomes really simple, yes, and it's no longer time consuming and it's no longer overwhelming time-consuming and it's no longer overwhelming.
Speaker 2:Yeah and um, but and that's the silver lining. Like that you can, that you know.
Speaker 1:I tell people it's like this only sucks for a couple months yep, and then you start it isn't even really, it's not even really, even a couple months, but no and if the whole house is on board, it makes it so much better.
Speaker 2:Well, that's I think it's I think it's imperative.
Speaker 1:That's the key to life I mean your partner.
Speaker 2:You have to choose a partner that's on board and you also have to be on board with your partner, and that has to be like from day one, and when that happens, these things are a lot easier.
Speaker 1:So much easier. I mean, I've gotten to the point in, I guess, my fitness and training career I have a real difficult time doing deep nutrition counseling with folks. If they're the person they live with their partner, their spouse, isn't on board, because I've seen it sabotage nearly 100 of the time, oh for sure. No, they'll go hard two, three months, maybe get six months and then it's over. Which is which?
Speaker 1:it's crazy, it's because you only sad that the the other person won't support and want to be a part of that journey, and it's typically. I'm not trying to pigeonhole the dudes, but you get middle-aged dudes get away with it from a looks point.
Speaker 1:They don't need to eat this way the spouse is trying to lose weight, feel good, or whatever. Make these life changes, because when women hit middle age, it does hit different than for men. Right, hormone disruption is, I think, a bigger struggle. I know it is. It's a bigger struggle for women Once you hit that perimenopausal, premenopausal phase and you start like, okay, let's clean up our food, let's start working out, let's do this, let's try these diet.
Speaker 1:And if the the other person is in on board, ah, it makes me so freaking mad. And like now, when a member comes and talks to me like if their spouse isn't a member of the gym, fine, bring them in. Like I will do this with both of you and they don't even need to be a member here. They get it for free because you're a member here. Because there will only be success in my experience if both people are on board. Be success in my experience if both people are on board and um, I've only had one couple who the person was not a spouse, was not a member, and who bought in to everything and it worked. That's good and um, but that's out of what? 20 years of training now?
Speaker 2:I don't get a lot of nutrition. I get, uh, nutrition questions I do from from members and I'll say are you ready to stop drinking? And they're like, well, I mean I just I don't drink a lot, I'm a social drinker and I go cool. Well, when you're done with that, we can, because that's the first time I cut, because that's the. I mean that is like instant results and you'll feel better. And, honestly, I take that to training, personal training too. Uh, if someone comes up and is saying you know like, hey, what should I work on this? Or I'm not getting where I want, I'm having a hard time, I go. How much are you drinking? First question I don't care how many push, I don't care how many thrusters you can do, I don't care what your snatches or what your time was on the workout last week or where you were on the leaderboard. I don't how much are you drinking, because you're undoing everything yep, and it's just you just don't know and we can drink casually.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying like I don't think people first off. If you told somebody, hey, yeah, I get your social drink, you don't drink that much for one month. I want you to write down everything that you drank or take a picture of it and then come talk to me. I bet you they would be shocked, they'd be shocked oh yeah like look at that. I mean, yeah, your social drinking, you have two or three drinks. Go out, do something else.
Speaker 1:Two or three drinks like all eight beers yeah, yeah and you're like, I mean, you might not have felt it, but you're a shit face I mean arguably the limit is one drink per week, like that's where you're going to see long-term, like there's the people that drink one drink per week versus people that don't drink, there's not a huge deviation. Once you start tapping two, three drinks per week Andrew Huberman was talking about this Right, it's deviations really start to dramatically increase and people don't think like two drinks a week is a lot?
Speaker 2:no, I don't think. I mean I, I even right now, I don't think that's a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and sure, alcohol concentration of certain drinks and this and that, um, but how many people like actually measure out a? You know a pour, right? I did it the first time, I think, in my life, like two weeks ago. Okay, okay, I'll have a whiskey with you, but I'm gonna measure one ounce, okay. Yeah, that ain't how much I usually pour. So you think you're having one drink and that you're typically two doing that three three drinks right there and um. It's so easy to mindlessly and unintentionally stack up those negative things. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I agree with you 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't want to beat up on people for drinking.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:But if someone is coming in and their performance let's use the leaderboard isn't where they want to be on the leaderboard. You shouldn't be drinking at all.
Speaker 1:If that is your goal the top that then alcohol needs to go away right now yeah, if your goal is to improve your physical fitness, cutting alcohol is going to be one of the biggest contributors to your recovery from training absolutely and to be able to train better right, so your training will improve and your recovery from the training will improve. So it's it's probably like an exponential equation, right? Obviously that's in correlation to how much you drink, right, and same thing with weight loss. In a lot of equations, I have had people cut alcohol for a long time Zero change in body composition, which is interesting, and I've had people cut alcohol and have massive changes in body composition. Same when it comes to sugar you have people cut sugar and typically when it comes to sugar, you have people cut sugar, and typically, when it comes to cutting sugar, I get the bigger changes in body composition. Yes, faster than alcohol, but I get the performance and recovery.
Speaker 1:So your work. So imagine doing both of those right. Right, you cut alcohol, your training improves, your recovery improves, your sleep improves, we'll get into anxiety and all that stuff. And then you cut sugar. So none of this simple excess carbohydrates blowing out your pancreas. Fat goes down, muscle goes up, prs go up, metcons get better, like everything gets better.
Speaker 2:I mean that's part of the reason why we're having this discussion right here. Is I sent you my my in body, yep, or?
Speaker 1:from yeah, you know, I'm in body every month yeah, uh.
Speaker 2:So on the first since I was, you know, uh, we made this decision to kind of change our food habits or going out habits, or going out to eat habits, all these things that we've been talking about I was like, well, we need to go do in body so we can track the progress of this. And you know, after month four, um, I've lost like almost four percent body fat. Uh, I've gained over three pounds of muscle and then I think I lost like four, three or four pounds of fat. So then my visceral fat's gone down like three points.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's huge, yeah, four months.
Speaker 2:Four months at 43.
Speaker 1:At age 43.
Speaker 2:So I'm putting on a pound of muscle a month, essentially, yeah, at 43. And all I did was I stopped drinking alcohol, I stopped, you know, going. We stopped going out pretty much you know we probably go out twice a month now, yeah and we changed what we eat and made a commitment to pretty much if we want red meat, we have to kill it. All right, so we have two elk in our freezer.
Speaker 1:I say watch out cattle fields. Yeah Well, we have two elk in our freezer I say watch out cattle fields.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we got two elk. I somehow pulled off a bull elk in 23 and a cow elk in 24. So we are stocked up.
Speaker 1:I just put in my tags.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always wait until like the last day. We're going to also be moving and like remodeling the house that we're buying. We're buying it from my parents, so we're going to remodel it and so we might be like mid not having a kitchen I got you, so I'm not sure yet if I'm going to put in for we'll put it in or just get the points, or if we'll put in and then turn in the tags for points.
Speaker 2:If we can't go, yeah, but we're still on the fence. But I always put in, like the last weekend before the close. I don't know why, it's just. It's just ritual. Hey, we got to hop on this weekend and do that, but yeah, I got lucky.
Speaker 1:So Bro, if I.
Speaker 2:Food went that way.
Speaker 1:I'd be starving if I had to own, if I could only eat what we killed. Well, we did get an antelope this year, but my hunting skills are still something to be developed.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean an antelope's going to feed, like if that was what you guys were going to rely on it's already gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we smoked that thing, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:They're surprisingly small.
Speaker 1:No, I think we got like maybe 60 pounds of meat out of it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, you shoot a great antelope. Okay, you shoot a monster and you walk up to it and you're like, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I was a cute little guy. It looked bigger in the binoculars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's like maybe a golden retriever.
Speaker 1:No, it is true, because when I quartered it out and took it in, they gave me my box of meat. I was like all right, but now I'm hoping to get an elk tag this year and we buy a cow or half a cow usually once a year too, and we'll do that you know, when we run out of meat, or probably this year, If we don't go hunting we'll have to buy a half cow and we'll go half cow.
Speaker 2:We're both eating a lot more too.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm eating like substantially more my whole house consumption, like we eat a lot and my kids are growing. But I mean, yeah, to your point, it's like you eat healthy. I don't know like I still eat a lot of food right and um, yeah, so in bodies, yep, crushing it four months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amazing progress, super psyched, super psyched. I encourage everyone to do it. I think it sends you on the right path because it it's printed. There's no truer form than how you're actually doing them right there.
Speaker 1:And it's kind of regardless of your goals. If your goal is just performance, like you want to see muscle gain, fat maintained, and to my failure as a gym owner and leader of the gym, it was always something. I mean, we've had these for years and I've never been like what do you want to say? Push promoted of it? And sadly, the number of our members that didn't even know we had body composition was an internal marketing embarrassment to me that I'm not even educating my members on what's available to them. You can get what places charge 50 bucks, I mean to get a dexa scan, I think 125. Yeah, and this is part of just being a member here. You can do the same time. You want right, get the data and it's objective, right data and you can adjust everything.
Speaker 1:Hard facts, yep, and it gives you a snapshot into what you're doing well or things going a little sideways. And it's so easy to let a year go by that complacency slip in and all of a sudden you've lost a little muscle. You've gained 10 pounds of fat. You're still working out. You know you're three, four days a week, but body's changing, life demands are changing. Maybe you let nutrition start slipping again, but you do this every three months. It's like, all right, I know what we're doing. We're eating Qdoba three nights a week right now. We need to stop this. We need to put this in check.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's going to tell you the information before you see, because once you start seeing it, the momentum is going that way. So if you're like, I look great, you're still like the way you look naked, but you've been slipping for a quarter, three months and you've been slipping. Well, if you're doing a regular in-body, it'll just you get a printout and you go oh yeah, okay, I am. But if you wait until you get physical signs that you're slipping, that's hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean when I got injured and I just kind of like let myself I don't know, I just ate like shit normally and I never ate really that great to begin with. So when I stopped being able to be physically active because I was injured and I was still eating like trash and you know, whatever. You know, I put on some weight and it was visible right.
Speaker 1:So now the path to get back. What was the top body fat percentage like 17, 18?
Speaker 2:No 19. 19.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're hitting the 20 percenter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was a 20 percenter and shoot, I could look up the number now, but it's trending right and I think yeah no, you showed me it's like 14.1 now. Yeah, so, and that's just. I mean there's no reason why it's not going to continue trending that way, because we're already we're four months in. These are habits now, Yep, and for both of us it's not even a temptation. Yeah Right, I mean it's nice to go out, but when you go out, you're buying-.
Speaker 1:You can still do pretty healthy stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, you are, and you're buying the scene, yeah and you're buying so it's nice to go out.
Speaker 1:You're buying a night off a cookie. Yes, you're buying a night off a cookie. You're buying time to have a conversation, versus, in our house, the hustle and bustle of the dishes and the kids and this and that we're buying to have a moment together. That's what we're paying for, but we can still order healthy food. It's really simple and you can still not get a dessert for everybody at the table and have four drinks each.
Speaker 2:Yeah, be cheap, that's expensive. Just be, you know, be tight on the pocketbook. Yeah, you'll be happy for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's pretty simple to do if you're intentional about it. Yeah so.
Speaker 2:I'm a big proponent, I wasn't before. There's a lot of like changes. Now that I'm seeing that I made these changes, now I can see the result, and so now I can not push it, but I can tell people like, hey, this really does work, like, go do it. And if you're not getting the result you want, then you need to switch something. Yeah, and that's it. Yep, and everybody's different, and what they need to eat, everybody's different. And yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 1:But like, let us, there's general rules that apply to everybody, and then there's nuance that applies to individuals and to your point. If it's not working, we should change everything Exactly. Something needs to change Exactly. So you got injured. Yes, I remember the text message from my brother. Right, I think Jason just killed himself himself, right, that he's dead? Uh, do what did he ask me? Do I? Did we need to call an ambulance? Or can't remember?
Speaker 2:he was uh, yeah, he was very worried actually that's what I saw, like your brother's like caregiving side, like he's a caregiver oh yeah, I saw that come out Like he was. I'm the one that's hurt and I'm looking at your brother and he's the one with like the real fear because he saw the whole thing and he thought that I broke my back and when I was saying it was my leg, he did not believe me. I don't think he believed me.
Speaker 2:I think he thought that there was some sort of neurological thing going on where, like I thought, my leg was hurting but really I broke my back and yeah, he was stressed and he kept saying like I'm going to call an ambulance and I was like don't call an ambulance. And he was like you need an ambulance and I was like don't call me, I'm going to call, like I'm going to call somebody who's like, well, you can't move and I, it was true, but I'm pretty bullheaded um with that. And you know I've raced bikes and I've had some real big falls, so I know what hurt feels like and I know not to move. And it's not the first time I've been on a stretcher. You know, like, riding my bike, I've been taken off the track. You know on a stretcher before, and so it's happened, but this was one that I couldn't walk away from, you know.
Speaker 1:So so you're in group class In group class. Crossfit is safe when done properly, but I will I will front load this that injuries happen If you're training the body and pushing your limitations. Things happen. I mean, I experienced one a couple weeks ago. I typically do something once a year that sends something a little sideways. So if you are training hard and you can choose your hard, you can either be hard chronic illness, sickness, sitting on the couch can't move, aches and pains or you're going to tweak something or, in Jason's case, rip things clean off the bone. Um, pushing the limitations of your body at times to pretend it doesn't happen. It it does in all types of training.
Speaker 2:Exactly and what it it essentially came down to from everybody I talked to PTs, right, multiple orthos doctors, you name it, you know kinesiology professors they all just said what the fuck, what you did, what you know, and couldn't get a straight answer on how it happened. But essentially I was back squatting in group class. Um well, I mean, we were doing like I think it was like 65, 70 percent, one rep max.
Speaker 2:we're doing sets of three that was threes it was threes and it was like my third set too. So like I'm warm, no reason to wait you've done any other times oh yeah, easy weight, you know moderately easy weight, right.
Speaker 2:So and I'm standing it up and, uh, I felt it essentially shred in my leg and once it shred it stopped. But then my leg gave out and I dropped. But I dropped still in the squat because I had the weight on my back. So I never like, like leaned one way, like it would have been better if somehow, like I fell back, yeah, and the weight went backwards. But like, so I never like, like leaned one way, like it would have been better if somehow, like I fell back, yeah, and the weight went backwards but it like folded you over.
Speaker 2:It folded me over and when the weight caught up with me hit me in the head, my head's bleeding, I hit my face, so my face is bleeding, and the impact toward the other two adductors. So I tore all three. So I tore, um, um, my first one leg gave out and when I landed, I landed in a squat. My feet were in a squat still, so it pushed me deeper than I should have gone. I'm still. There's still some resistance because my brain hasn't caught up with it. And it tore the other two and then, when it tore the other two, like I said, it folded me in half. My bar, the bar hits me in the head, I flip over and I'm laid out.
Speaker 2:I'm yelling obviously. And yeah, and then Jake comes running over Everybody music off Like ruin group class. You know everyone like goes home at this point they're like, oh, we're done like working out. Yeah, and was just there, you know, rolling around in pain and tried to sit up, almost passed out, laid back down. Then we tried to sit me up again and almost passed out. So I had to lay back down and then just couldn't move. And yeah, um, my dad came and got me and we went to the emergency room and, uh, went to rock express huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I went to rock Express. They were like your adductors are torn, you know they did. They grabbed my leg and they ran their hands through and there's nothing there. And you know I could I mean, once the swelling went down, you know I could run my hands through and I was like, wow, there's nothing, like you can't feel anything on my leg, it's just nothing there. So, yeah, so the three tore completely off full ruptured tears after the MRI and they retracted two millimeters and then the orthopedic surgeon said there's just no fix for this, like they're not going to retouch these and so they'll heal the wound, essentially will heal, but they're just not going to be attached anymore. That's the way it goes.
Speaker 1:So they tear off, they move down. That's all wounded. They just kind of heal where they're at. So are they still? You'd think I'd know this, but are they still going to be active? Yeah, I can flex them so you can still feel function. You probably got more mobility now. Huh, yeah, two millimeters to be exact, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, if you're tight there, probably even more. So this is like where you end up in this weird world where you think you're talking to professionals and they tell you weird things, where, like the, the person at the rock who I met with is telling me that, like, this is common for power lifters, they've seen this before. And then they say things like well, people and this really was told to me people will opt for this surgery. Then I talked to the surgeon and he's like absolutely not. That is the craziest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 3:Oh, like people will go to get this For better mobility For better mobility.
Speaker 2:People with tight hips.
Speaker 1:They'll opt to get their adductors cut from the pubic bone.
Speaker 2:Huh yeah, and I swear that was told Steph can confirm she's in the room. She's like that sounds weird. But I talked to a lot of professionals that were like what? No, we're not going to. I guess anything's possible yeah but so that's why you just get so much different information. But yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1:They did PT, they did PT, lots of PT, but during that whole deal I think it's interesting thought experiment, like I've trained through a lot of injuries. It's just, you know, growing up being an athlete, if you will, you get hurt and you can't just stop. And over the years I've learned a lot about myself, my body, very in tune with my body. My back injury was probably the worst chronic pain injury my left shoulder's, jacked up from years of wrestling and separated in football and never tore anything, but it's loose. It's loose and stiff. That sounds kind of what do you want to say? Oxymoron, oxymoron, but yeah, in some positions it's very stiff, like going overhead, and in some positions it's very stiff like going overhead, and then some positions very loose, like dips, right, so anything. Those two are just two dramatic positions for my shoulder and over the years with the back, the shoulder, those two in particular is my back, though that set me down, kind of a downrolled spiral of you know, if I didn't own a gym and had to figure it out for many aspects of my life, uh, it would have been very easy for me to quit. Back pain is something I sympathize with a lot because it affects you in every position of your life and eventually had to take ownership of. Have I really put in the work to try to fix this and make it better, started deep diving into hip mobility, hip strengthening and accepting that my hips were stiff and I really started working and training differently, along with, I think, dietary changes, reducing inflammation, all these other things, and for the most part I'm pretty much back pain-free, doing everything in fitness I love.
Speaker 1:And there's a few movements for me at this juncture that I have to be very mindful of squat snatching one of them, both shoulder, because my shoulder stiff in that overhead position. If I don't do things, textbook my stiff shoulder, that lack of mobility is going to be made up in my low back and I'll feel it uh heavy very fast back squats, front squats, squat cleans anything with speed on it. If I'm not textbook perfect, I feel it. So when I do those lifts, I'm just so intentional with them. Now I can still do them about to be so intentional with them, but what I'm getting at here is learning how to train through and around injuries.
Speaker 1:If I didn't do that, I don't even know where my health would be right now and during that time, I mean, I gained weight. I avoided so many different exercises. I'd work out two, maybe three days a week and it sucked, yeah. So I really sympathize with people who have injuries and injuries that lead to any kind of chronic pain, because it's such an easy thing to be derailed by. But if you're working with the right people and you learn your body, you can train through and around and overcome so much. Like stopping movement is probably one of the worst things you could do, and what opened up for me and you alluded to this is how crappy this was during kind of the heart of COVID too. My mental health, yeah, like blew up and like chronic levels of high anxiety, very anxious all the time. That led to depressive symptoms that my wife's like you need to get checked out. I think you need to look into going to therapy. Like you are not in a good place at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, that was something that you know I wanted to bring up and it's something that you, at least I never have heard. This is that the link to depression and PTSD from an injury, like a true, true, if you can identify an actual injury at that moment. That is something that needs to be talked about more and that needs to be more public information. And it seems to be like, when I talk to people who went through traumatic injuries, they all had had that too. So this is like a real thing.
Speaker 2:And when I was injured, I went through depression, I went through anxiety. I thought I started having all kinds of crazy thoughts, right, and that was one of the hardest parts was that, you know. You know, when I first got injured mentally, I was like I'm like this isn't going to get me down, I don't care how bad I'm hurt, right, we're going to push through this. And I came to the gym and I was like I'm going to bench, I'm going to do arms, I'm hurt, right, we're gonna push through this. And I came to the gym and I was like I'm gonna bench, I'm gonna do arms, I'm gonna get so strong on probarty and as soon as my leg is healed. We're gonna do this.
Speaker 2:And then I remember calling Steph like almost in tears, because I went to the and I couldn't. I couldn't lay down on the bench. I was like breathing in pain. I couldn't lay down. So you can't, okay, so I can't bench now. So now I can't do. Okay, so I can't bench now. So now I can't do this. And then I'd try other things and I was like I can't do it because I didn't realize that where that injury was, just because you're, I mean like unless I was going to sit and do curls. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That part of the body was going to engage itself.
Speaker 1:Your hips and low back are the center of all force generation for your entire body.
Speaker 2:Right, are the center of all fourth generation, for your entire body Right. And then I had a hernia in my abdomen from it as well, so I was dealing with that. So now you can't do core work and so it just destroyed me. And then I started spiraling and for months was like I wasn't like mentally. Well, you know what I mean. I could go to work, you know, no one would have known.
Speaker 1:You hit it for me pretty good. Obviously I'm the morning early guy and I'm mostly at Midtown. I don't see that much, but hit it pretty well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you do, you flip a switch or something, but then when there's always that time when you're alone. Oh, a hundred percent. And that's the worst time. That's the worst time thing from the doctor hey, you're gonna be in a lot of pain, but hey, you, just you know there is often a side effect attached to this trauma. Your body went to through and you're gonna go through like a chemical imbalance yeah and you're going to, you know there, or there's a possibility of it.
Speaker 2:So if that happens, call us talk to somebody you know, I'm pretty open with steph, so she knew the whole time what I, what I was going through. And she was like this is temporary.
Speaker 2:And you know, I wasn't even, I wasn't even depressed about the injury, I just became depressed yeah and you break that cycle and once you start moving again, you know and, and you can, you're like, you're like, okay, I'm moving again. So then your body starts feeling good because you're exercising, so like that's gonna help, right, and and you know, slowly but surely we, we got out of it. And you know, eventually I did and. And then you know it's like I have this conversation with her.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know, I haven't even, you know, I haven't like been bummed or bothered you, or like I've been sleeping and like blah, blah, blah, and she was like oh yeah, you're like night and day different, and it was. She was like it was as soon as they told you you could join group class and she was like as soon as you got cleared to run, that was when it all changed and it hurt. I mean, everything hurt, that's. We're not even talking about that. But like once pt was like hey, you can, we're gonna give you 100 clearance. That if you can monitor like a pain level of five to six, it never goes above that number. Yeah, you can do whatever you want okay so once I could start doing that.
Speaker 2:You got released, like it just took a couple days of moving, moving around and so, like you know, I'm always been high energy, so, um, that helped. But then you start going through. Then you go through another wave, because now you it hurts, so now you're aggravated. So I went through that whole phase where I avoided squatting, I avoided all these things, and so it wasn't until like really recently, like within like the last couple months, that I was like we're doing it all period, don't care how much it hurts, like fight through the pain. And then during chase's testing week, you know, I was able to backscot 320 pounds, which that in less than a year.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty psyched yeah, it's near the weight they folded you. So the men, it's, it's under or it's well over. Well, it's over, it's well over. Yeah. That is also the mental fortitude to approach something that set you back a year and, like in my brother's mind, killed you Right. Yeah, like that's a big mental barrier to get over.
Speaker 2:And then probably the release of like, ok, yeah yeah I can do this again well, and I, yeah, exactly, and I went into that testing day like, well, let's just see, let's, let's see if we can, like, let's, let's, let's back squat 200 pounds, like that's, let's get to 200 pounds, that's pretty cool, like you're gonna. And then over the next five weeks, you know, we'll retest, we'll see where we're at, but at least we'll be doing more squatting. And you're actually, jake came up to me and he like grabbed me by my shoulders and he goes today's of the day.
Speaker 2:He's like redemption redemption that's what he told me, and he just walked away and I was like, so I just kept creeping closer. Yeah, I got to. I hurt myself at 275, right, so I get the 265 and I squat it, no problem, easy. And uh like, well, I can't do 275. So I went like what, 271 and a quarters, I like only. Or 278, right, just a couple pounds over it. Got that and then kept pushing and then got to 320 and at 320 I was like, okay, like you have achieved something yeah, let's call it. Let's not get greedy.
Speaker 2:Let's not get greedy yeah so you know, and then I, during, uh, you know, um jake's recent phase where he had a sumo deadlifting, I had a lifetime pr okay yeah, I think I sumoed like 460 or 455.
Speaker 1:So we're headed yeah, action now and these are all well, that's it. Well, in the sumo day that's going to hit the adductors right. That's shown, things are functioning things are functioning.
Speaker 2:Um, it's the scar tissue, um, and they basically said you're going to tear it and then you know you're going to cause like the fractures, and as you stretch it and tear it, the scar tissue will eventually grow lengthwise, essentially right. And so once it does that, once you get the scar tissue to change direction, they said you should be pretty much pain-free, except for flare-ups. So now I just have to do it and put my head down and stretch really well and just grind it out and that's where we're at. But the in-body says it's working.
Speaker 1:No, it's working and I'm also seeing you on the old leaderboard, Jason's back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm feeling good.
Speaker 1:Feeling good. It's awesome, man. Yeah. Yeah, injuries are especially for you, I don't know. I mean for me. The way I deal with my anxiety in a massive way is two it's either training or alcohol. I can go down either one of those paths to an extreme. Obviously I know which one's theoretically better than the other. Most of my training injuries have come from overuse, injuries of me, over training, and a lot of that is correlated to me. Stress management, right, um. So when training's taken away, it is it sucks, right, I guess sucks, and it's such a battle for me, uh, to not turn to, you know, a couple drinks in the evening when you get home to have that de-stressor, to have that, whatever you know fix, when I didn't, wasn't able to get a workout in and the last you know couple years covered for me for all known reasons.
Speaker 1:Right, one of the most stressful times of my life I mean my daughter's deal was the most stressful time of my life. But when it's your kid, it's your kid, it's just the nature of that beast. But before that took place, I mean COVID years dealing with anxiety, alcohol, training, trying to train, hurt myself, and it became very visible to me how important exercise was from a anxiety management standpoint. And seeing that amongst members, like during covid years, like I have to get to the gym, I have to get gym, I have to work out, like I didn't realize how much engaging with people means to me and how much better my day is and so forth. So getting injured when things like that matter so much to you. You've brought up to me your anxiety and stuff and how important it is to get back to moving, getting back to training.
Speaker 2:Well, and I mean just a couple months before, I completely changed my life, quit my job. Now my job is fitness and my job is to coach people in fitness. My job is to be fit, yeah, be a leader in the space. To be a leader in the space, yes. And now you know, I can't get into bed without my wife helping me. I can't sit down without my wife helping me. I can't get up without my wife helping me. I can't move through the house. You know I have to. I'm just like, for days, was reliant on her. You know I can't. You know, we I would. I would roll over in bed by accident. And you know, before we go to bed, like she would have to, like, lift my leg up, put it in the bed, and then she would have to go around and swaddle me, essentially, so I couldn't move, and somehow I would still find a way to move, or my leg would, like your muscles, want to engage, so it would engage, and I mean I'd wake up all night screaming and jump up out of bed, right, so you're going through all of that, but in the back your mind is you quit your job to do this and three months in to your job, like now, like, how are you gonna go to work? Number one, how are you gonna train? You wanted all and. And then there's a selfish part because, like, you're like I wanted to, like how I had all these physical goals, that I was like you know, if I could do this, I would do x. You know like. And now you're like I can do this because I don't have the job, but I can't because I'm hurt, and I'm severely hurt, and it's you just spiral, just like, I'm sure, with work.
Speaker 2:You know my dad was a small business owner, so I've seen it. You know I've seen the economy highs and lows. We, we lived in the house. So my dad lived and died by the, the housing market. Yeah Right, cause he was an HVAC. So I've seen it, I was, I grew up in the house. So I totally empathize with you. And when you get to those points and if you can't go to, there's no outlet and you just, you just spiral, you just spiral. So yeah, and then you can turn to negative things. You know, like drinking Luckily for me, drinking I've always been like the good time person. I was like the fun, like I drank to have fun. When I drank. I thought I was fun. I don't know you could ask people, maybe I wasn't, but I thought I was. But so I never was drawn to it as a stress release because it would compound so bad in my head that I just kind of always stayed away from it. I was like it's Friday, let's party, you know what I mean so.
Speaker 1:I had those times, but it definitely became a crutch, like turning to alcohol as a way to batten down the anxiety. Then, when you can't train and you have alcohol and then sleep's messed up, anxiety would be 10 points higher the next day, Right, and it's like, okay, maybe I get a little workout in, feel better, happy with myself, get home a little anxious, this and that. You know what's going to happen today in the world it's going to shut down the gym again. Whatever will go through my brain, right? Oh, we're just going to have a drink, Two drinks, maybe three. Then you know, inflammatory markers, probably well, it's not, probably they do go up.
Speaker 1:So back's already pissed off. Get to a point. My son, two years old, maybe. I couldn't pick him up off the ground Because of your back. Yeah, yeah, you hid your shit pretty well. There was times in the gym I would be walking around with a TENS unit on my hip just so I could move in the gym. Nobody knew. Yeah, it was nerve pain down my leg and I couldn't pick them up off the ground. Yeah, so I own this CrossFit gym. I'm supposed to be a leader in the health and fitness space. Yeah.
Speaker 1:This stuff's so good for you, but I'm in pain all the fucking time. Oh, yeah, can't get out of bed. Tie my shoes, need to think about getting out of bed Right, going to wake up in pain Takes me 30 minutes an hour to start moving. I'd say, okay, okay, we can move. And that compounded so heavily psychologically and I just got so fed up with it that, like you said, if it's not working, you need to make a change. And I was probably 37 years old at this point, started doing what I could more often, avoided the things that hurt it more often. Things were going better, starting to feel good.
Speaker 1:Got into that 75 hard chapter of my life where I quit drinking for almost 18 months. 15 months Didn't have one drop. It was like the continuation of the 75 hard. And it proved to my wife that I don't need alcohol and that was before COVID Right, that I don't need to drink to have fun.
Speaker 1:And COVID years came, some of that stuff started coming back, those habits, wife told me. You know, I think you need to get help. It's okay, go talk to somebody, offload this stuff. And once you start, offload this stuff and once you start, once I started fixing my back in a real meaningful way and making progress in the gym, along with therapy, going to therapy and then cleaning up the diet. Everything started getting really, really good. Then the thing with claire Obviously that sucked, but then the whole diet, everything leveled up A whole other level and it's like, once you start feeling this good, performing this good, I feel 20 years younger right now and the hurdles, the life experiences of the past, I think, made me makes me a much better coach today. Right, so my whole story about my selfishly self here is coming back to you being, you know, upset. I'm in this space, I'm a coach. Now I'm a leader and you go through these things. Now I'm a leader and you go through these things and I think it gives you so much more I guess empathy
Speaker 1:understanding people. Training through injuries gives you knowledge and empowerment to help people through these injuries, like my confidence and knowledge of helping people with back injuries and helping people with spinal stuff as a trainer exponentially different today than it was five years ago. Right, and a lot of that is because of me and my injuries with it, and there's just so much power to be gained there as a coach going through some of these. Not so what do you want to say? Colorful, these colorful chapters of our lives where you know they think the trainer just always fade, always eats, perfect.
Speaker 3:Always does this, always doesn't have stress, or that they know everything. Know everything.
Speaker 1:That's the best it's like no, we're humans too, right, and you know, I think experience and I know I don't want everybody to go through injuries and chronic anxiety that leads to depression and drinking and all these things by any means of the stretch Right, but I do think it gives us. I don't know, obviously I'm religious and I think God puts these challenges in our path through our life. These challenges in our path through our life and if you have a service mindset, these things, overcoming these obstacles in your own life, helps you become a better coach, mentor, supporter, to help other people through various challenges that be impacting them.
Speaker 2:I mean, I mean exactly, and this is was something that was wanted to bring up is? You know, when I left my job, one of the things I told myself was and and I meant it, but you can mean something but not mean it at the same time, and in that what I?
Speaker 2:what I'm saying is that I was like I want to, I want to give back and I want to help people, and this is something I know about and this, for me, has brought me so much mental health and help when I was depressed, or the things I went through in my life in my past. You know those roadblocks. What got you through? Well, it was going to go into the gym and meeting and hanging out with people and like-minded individuals that were like positive and they were giving us better their life.
Speaker 2:Yes, and hanging out with those people got me through these hard times, so that that's your, that's your outlet. So you know, I leave this corporate job where you're in this space and you're really like take, take, take for them so you can take, take, take for you. And you're worried about your success and your promotion and how much you make. And you know, at at the same time, you know I'm not saying that I wasn't also looking out for people, but I felt as though I had spent my career selfishly, self-serving, I'd help somebody. But then, obviously, if I'm helping somebody, then they're going to help me down the road, right, and I'm going to get these promotions, I'm going to make this much money, I'm going to buy these things, blah, blah, blah. And when I left, one of the reasons why I was like I want to help people and when I left, one of the reasons why I was like I want to help people and the first thing I did when I started coaching was I started hitting everything harder versus learning to coach and help people. And now I get hurt.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that came back to me because I have a lot of time to think when you're hurt is like well, you did this to help people and it's not about your journey, it's about helping people. So go, go, fucking help some people. Like go help your members, go, get better at coaching, interact with them. Stop thinking about yourself Like you don't need to be the you know the fittest at the gym because you're a coach. You need to be the helpful. Yeah, because that's what you told yourself. So you said you wanted to do it, but you, and you wanted to do it, but you wanted to do x first and now, like you said, is it god, is it karma, is it what something said?
Speaker 2:you weren't holding true to your promise you made to yourself, or this idea, and we're gonna, you know I'm gonna hold you to it and you're gonna do it, and that was one huge chapter during that was like stop thinking about yourself and go coach and go do a good job and when people have questions, help them and look people in the eyes and care about the members, which you should be doing either anyway. Right, when you take that job on, you should be doing that anyways, but do it at a higher level. And you know that was a huge thing to get through. Was just thinking like you did this to, like you wanted to give back to the community. You can't go give back to the community right now and then you're gonna get better.
Speaker 2:You're gonna get better in the meantime yeah but you just sit there crying about yourself or you help people, and so that was one very helpful thing. But you know, once you can do both, then you're really riding that rocket right yeah, it's a, it's a double-edged sword.
Speaker 1:I mean it's so cliche but, um, you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. I do believe in that Like if I'm not healthy for myself, I can't be there as well for my wife, my kids, my gym community. Like if I'm constantly over here fighting these demons, not taking care of my mental health, my physical health, sure I can mask that for a while, and I did. Sure I can mask that for a while and that it and do the job you know, help people the best that I can. I guess in that state I'm not going to pretend that for 20 years I've done it perfectly all the time because I have not.
Speaker 1:It's easy to let everything else kind of push you down. You're not giving your best service attitude outward In that I've wanted this gym to burn down. Right, the small business owner life. Sometimes it's just like the stress and burden some days of you know the bills the state just implemented, this new deal, this new tax, whatever, whatever, whatever. Right, there's some bullshit and I hate to circle the dead horse of COVID, but there are still things coming up that were influenced by that time of life and it's just like what the fuck Right?
Speaker 1:Like why All we want to do is help people live a healthy, fit lifestyle and be able to pay our bills, to keep the ball rolling, to keep helping people. Yeah, and I had a moment in the last, you know, probably about two years ago that God obviously wants me to be in this position, because there's been so many times as things should have been shut down and it wasn't, Something would happen. To allow you know things to keep going, allow you know things to keep going. Yeah, and wrapping my brain around what you just said our job here is to serve and help others live the best life possible.
Speaker 2:Correct, and this is the way we know how to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's proven by science to be one of the most effective ways to help people with their mental health, their physical health, relationships. People who work out and are healthy and fit tend to perform better at work. Productivity goes up. Like everything gets better yeah, like literally everything in your life gets better when you're taking care of your health and fitness. Um, on the flip side, I guess, if you train five hours yeah five hours a day and this and that you can also avoid your family and, yeah, you can use it as escape.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah exactly, but in general, what I've witnessed, everything, that's everything.
Speaker 1:You become too obsessive about something and, like I know, the perception is, I train all the time. What did you tell me? What was one of your hot takes? Like Derek would be a serial killer if he didn't get to train, or something.
Speaker 2:If you didn't own a gym, you'd be a serial killer. You know, I just said that to Arthur as a joke on the side.
Speaker 1:And then he you know, I just said that to Arthur as a joke on the side, and he really put me on the spot and made me say it, he did.
Speaker 1:I think those videos come out in A yeah, do they. Yeah, hot, take on everything. But I mean my training bucket is one and a half hours a day, right, and I've gone through periods of my life where even owning this gym where I might work out two hours a week, two classes a week, some weeks don't work out and in the last couple years I made the commitment to myself that this is a no option excuse. It's an hour and a half. That is my training block. I can fit group class and any extras I want in there. Extra might be a sauna, extra might be a bicep pump and blocking that timeout has been a massive deal for me for my mental health.
Speaker 1:Right Like it is a time that's not influenced by schedule change outside of my kids. You know kids get sick or this or that, but man, there are still days that happen or I don't get my workout. It's not the end of the world, but it's not a lot, but it's consistent and I say that's probably the biggest change that I've made, both for my physical mental health and evolving my own fitness is just making that kind of a non-negotiable for me that this is my time, this is when I work out, that's it and doing that for me and making that commitment to myself is for me. It's made me a better coach. It's made me a better father, better wife, a better husband I mean better to my wife that's fine, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:However, you roll with school.
Speaker 1:And granted, I know I'm the gym owner, but anybody makes that commitment to just you know. This one hour a day Right has such a big impact on all these other aspects of my life, how can you say no to that? It's one of the most positive self-improvement things you can do for every aspect of your life, and if that's the message that I can help get out there and then also facilitate inside these walls, that's my drive now.
Speaker 2:Yeah and it's cool. I mean you end up screaming with the members when they get a PR. You know what I mean People hitting weight loss goals. You tell somebody like on these testing days, you tell someone like one little insignificant thing to that they did. You know like, hey, your knee did x or kind of pulled this way, whatever it is right. You tell them like one thing you know and and sometimes you don't have to tell them something other than like, just go fucking do it.
Speaker 2:Yep, just go fucking do it yep and believe they get it, and that is super rewarding as a coach to get to share that moment with the members too. That, like man, I've watched that person work so hard and then they got it today and that was pretty badass, so it's super rewarding.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, as well, so to get to be part of that it's like, hey, come in, you should do this, it's good for you. But then they do, and then you get to share that moment and then everything became worth it. It's like I'm in the right place, I'm doing the right thing right now.
Speaker 1:This is where I should be 100% and there's instances that happen each and every week. That just draws me back to that this person hit this goal. This person hit this goal. This person. You know this pain is gone Right, and one of my favorite things to do coaching-wise is modify workouts and adjust things. Helping people train around injuries Right and seeing people overcome injuries, come back from injuries and thrive is yeah.
Speaker 1:That makes me so happy. For sure Makes me so happy. And then, obviously, the weight loss goals, the PRs and all the good fitness things that come. It's just there's no. Like I tell people I'm just going to keep coaching until I die. Right, it's like, why wouldn't I? I get to help people, I get to be around healthy, fit people all the time that care about their health and long-term health and fitness and have an environment that you know keeps me healthy. Right, like it's all good.
Speaker 2:It's all good things. I mean, it sounds like at some point you realized the gym was a blessing, not a burden.
Speaker 1:Yep, and that's how I have to frame it. Even when it's difficult month, or you know a couple of members quit over this or that or it's like, okay, god, you know, we're still going to change lives, we're still going to change lives, and to reframe that like the blessing versus the burden, uh, is something I have to do often, but I definitely very intentional about it now and I coach coaching between both gyms every week. I interact with tremendous amount of members now on a regular basis, and the shift that happened in COVID, putting me back into coaching more and what do you want to say? Managing less uh, was probably one of the biggest blessings for my coaching career long-term and in many ways, it saved me. Yeah, those interactions with people, yeah and um, inspired me to get my shit together and figure my health out, to be the person for our community.
Speaker 1:You know, and that's another reason in this different new chapter of my life, I'm very transparent about all my health stuff. Right, like. This is why I chose to go down the path of TRT. This is why I do all this blood work. This is why I do all this stuff, because I just want to be super open, super transparent, in the hopes that it helps guide other people to make good decisions when it comes to all this stuff and show what's possible. Yeah, show what's possible, yeah. Show what's available Right To. Not. What do you want to say? Be ashamed or scared of optimizing your body for your age? You know, I think a lot of that goes on in the fitness and fitness space and coaching space. I know there's a lot of trainers out there that will say it till they're blue in the face that they don't use any performance enhancing drugs. Who do?
Speaker 1:Um, and even in the just hormone health space, being um transparent as a coach was I questioned if I was going to be or not. Right, because it's a health thing, I can keep it private, it's HIPAA. But me, as a coach and somebody that wants to engage with people's health, it's like I made the decision, like I'm going to be very transparent about this and I'm going to talk about my journey with it, to give realistic expectations and middle-aged men. You don't need to feel like shit, right, and I'm not giving this as a free pass to just TRT fixes everything. It doesn't. But when you're looking at all the things anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation, the gym and if you got and you're doing the diet, you've cut the alcohol and I did all this before going down that road.
Speaker 1:Me as a coach just wants to truly help people thrive and I think in the longevity health span space. These are all conversations that I think I'm rambling now, but I think it's important in this new chapter of coaching for me to focus on all the other stuff outside of just. You know fitness, performance, you know the whole health picture of what everything looks like and the performance comes with it. It's cool.
Speaker 2:Well, you've been diving into a lot of different stuff, getting away from maybe just barbell talk into to other avenues, which I mean you have to evolve, you have to constantly be learning. You're always a student, right, so those things are important. And how far past teaching people to snatch and like, how, like, you're gonna get to a point where you're tapped, yeah, of what, how you can you know. So you have to broaden that, right. And so I mean you've gone down the blood work, the, the nutrition. I mean both my wife came in have done blood work this year, right, and you know we're seeing your wife and and we're part of that now and we're doing regular blood work and and keeping an eye on that, and that you know you were a big proponent of pushing that. And then not only that, but then you gave every member an option. Here you go, here's an option to do it.
Speaker 1:It's right, you, you come here every day, you know I mean so like I can't make it any more convenient exactly and it's definitely an evolution.
Speaker 2:it needs to happen if we're, if we're not evolving, we're just doing the same thing over and over and over again. First off, off, it's boring, yeah, and it becomes like monotonous, yeah, so you know you got to beat that one away, but no, I think it's been good and I think it's helpful. Are had blood work done, um, because for health reasons that they're having fellow health issues and found out that you know their, their, their t levels were to the point where our like they were could be like clinically depressed, you know, and they're like, yeah, hey, and you know they've had conversation with me and I'm like, do what you got to do. That is unacceptable. Like you are in a place where, like, you're a potential candidate for a lot of bad things. So, yeah, like too low is bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, too high is bad, right um you know, and there's a difference between walking around with quadruple. You know the the level that four digits yeah, exactly. Um, and you know, just trying to get to to a healthy, healthy balance. I mean, people are out taking ssri is, like you know, candy and that's yeah, that is not good. No, so it's like you know not good and you still have to put in the work.
Speaker 1:This is the thing it does not grt alone isn't going to do a damn thing, not a damn thing.
Speaker 2:It's going to put you back to being where, like, maybe the person you're sitting across from somewhere is at just walking around at life. Yeah, I mean, you can abuse it like anything else. But if you're not abusing it, you're just trying to get back to like a normal point. You still have to do the work and you know what are abusing it.
Speaker 1:You have to get to the work, so you're not getting out, you can you can make a load you know testosterone, and if you don't do anything, I mean all you're gonna do is puff up and it's not gonna make the work, and it's not gonna make the work easier no, no, work still has to take place. Work still has to take place, like yeah you're getting a little maybe advantage here.
Speaker 2:there there's some advantages, for sure, uh, if you're on the upside, but you still have to do the work.
Speaker 1:Still got to do the work. But people that are you know our lives. I mean probably some of my behavior is in my 20s. I mean cutting weight for years of wrestling in my developmental years could have gutted my endocrine system. I mean I'd go days without eating and cutting weight and not drinking water to make weight Like two and sometimes three days Right. And doing that when you're 16, 17 years old developmental years, like who knows the endocrinologist surmised I could have had a huge influence.
Speaker 1:I don't know what my blood work was in my early 20s. I never did it Right, so I don't know like where, and I think all men 20s get baseline numbers Right. So I don't know like where, and I think all men 20s get baseline numbers Right. Like when you're feeling like you're at a great spot in life, body feels good. Get some numbers Because these your blood work's going to change as you age Right, both hormonal and I mean your non-hormone blood work, if you will. And having those numbers in your younger years gives you baseline of where you were, what's acceptable for decline.
Speaker 1:So if I was in my 20s and say my um testosterone was 300, then what? 40, maintaining 300? Well, that was a milestone achievement, right, right, well and um. You know I didn't start testing my testosterone. I was 35 somewhere in there, right, somewhere around Jackson's. He's seven now, so 33 maybe, and um, you know I had a handful of tests that were in the high two hundreds. So I'm in the low three hundreds and although that's in the BS range, but it's not in the range of a health, you know, pretty healthy 30 year old, right and um, but then I wasn't having necessarily the symptoms and there's some lifestyle stuff that definitely could still be cleaned up right, but how many?
Speaker 2:I mean how much? How much does that buy you?
Speaker 1:uh, for some people it depends on the lifestyle, right Like, still drinking. Sleep is the single most important thing when it comes to testosterone production, right, like, if you're not getting quality sleep. Second to that is good strength training and fitness, like. Those are the two things. So you need to stress the body. Your body's going to create testosterone to heal. Sleeping is one of the biggest places that takes place, right? So, new kid, two gyms, sleep was kind of fucked, so all that was kind of going on then.
Speaker 1:So, not knowing my blood work in my 20s, potentially, you know, maybe I was in the seven, eight hundreds in my 20s. I have no idea, I don't think. So. Thinking back, based on how I felt it a lot of times, um, the last time I remember feeling really, really good, training wise and like for a season, was my junior, senior year of wrestling. But my senior year is when I went up a weight class and I didn't have to cut weight as much, and I mean my junior year. I stayed the same weight for my junior and senior year and those when I didn't have to cut as much weight. That's when I felt much better.
Speaker 1:Kind of makes sense, right, right, but cleaning up your lifestyle. I've seen people go from. I've seen a couple people in the gym be in the high 200s, 300s and quit drinking and get their sleep dialed and, you know, maybe stop overtraining Right. Increasing their protein, increasing their goddamn carbohydrates. Carbohydrates have been bastardized because of weight loss associated with them, but when it comes to training and performance and recovery, it's a big deal to eat them. Get back up in the five, six, seven hundreds. I'm feeling great. I mean, that's huge.
Speaker 2:So it's a big swing. I mean, figure out how you'd feel, but if you're going out Friday night, drinking, waking up like shit on Saturday.
Speaker 1:But because you can get away with it, you come and train hard, get a hard workout in, go eat some shit food, maybe sleep like shit again back to a stressful job on Monday and a lot of that. What I've seen is folks younger in their 30s training really hard still, but the outside isn't great, and then people that are in a really heavy caloric deficit, testosterone numbers can go through the absolute floor right like in a big way oh, yeah and um, if you're in a caloric deficit for too long, expect your testosterone, your hormones get whacked up.
Speaker 1:So what do you do? You increase your calories again, start eating a little more food and you start feeling better. You start training better and weight falls off because you're more anabolic. Now, right, and you weren't losing weight at this 700,000 calorie a day deficit. Now we increase your calories to a healthy number. You're eating more consistently, you're sleeping better. You're healthy number. You're eating more consistently, you're sleeping better, you're recovering better, you're training better. Everything's getting better. Your endocrine system's getting better and your testosterone goes up.
Speaker 1:Another big one that my wife brought to my attention is undiagnosed sleep apnea. Oh yeah, people have sleep apnea for this, that or the other reason. If it goes undiagnosed too long again affecting your sleep, undiagnosed too long again affecting your sleep. But oxygen falls through the floor. You get the sleep apnea fixed and you know if it's lifestyle. You need to lose weight or get fitter, various things but you correct the sleep apnea. Uh, hormones rebalance fantastically and you feel awesome again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's why I I get kind of weird about people just walking into a clinic. A clinic will find any reason to give you testosterone, like, oh you're low, don't even talk about lifestyle, don't even talk about the potential for sleep apnea. They don't even talk about the potential that it could make you sterile. So if you're in your 30s, I had a younger person in the gym who has a job that they literally kind of hand out testosterone at and they never mentioned to him once that it could make it sterile. Sterile like he's, like that's something I kind of should know. I haven't had kids yet. We want to have kids. Yeah, it's like yeah, bro, how long have you been on it? Yeah, you might want to check that out right.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that brings up a actually really good topic though, um, and it's the the need for people also need to take the driver's seat for their own fitness and take responsibility for it. That's like one of the biggest things I see is that people put their their entire fitness journey into the hands of someone else and they take zero ownership of it, and that's that's a huge. That's a huge topic. Um, I was listening to Froning's podcast this week and he had Mark Bell. Have you listened to that one?
Speaker 1:I haven't. I haven't queued up, though.
Speaker 2:It's, it's pretty good, it's all right. Um, but it was funny because what they were talking about is when he, when Mark Bell, started seeing CrossFit people come in and you know the west side and want to get stronger because they're trying to get better. You know they're looking at what CrossFit is and then Froney's talking about. You know, basically they just freestyled everything, trying to win the games, right, there wasn't like now it's very structured, but it just reminded me of when I first started, because that was those were the years like the first year. Froning one was like the first year I started crossfit, right, so it was just like that. For, like people entering the crossfit space on saturdays, we just made shit up, yep, like just completely made it up. And you know, when I wanted to get good at power cleans, I was like screw it. I came in on a Saturday for months and I would do a 60-minute email with five power cleans on the minute for 60 minutes, 60 minutes.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was so obsessed.
Speaker 2:So obsessed.
Speaker 2:I would just do power cleans, just stand there, and then I was like, wow, that worked. So then I was like, well, that's what I want to learn how to power snatch better. So I just do power snatches for 60 minutes straight and we were just freestyling Like do I suggest doing that? No, but it was cool when it was new because we were just making it up, and now it's really cool because now there's like true, provable methods there were. I mean, strength training has existed forever, right? So yeah, the conjugate method or whatever you want to follow. Olympic weightlifters have followed methods, but crossfit was kind of like this hodgepodge, like mix of everything.
Speaker 2:So no one knew what to get like. What do you really want to get good at? And focus on first what? What? Like if I'm stronger, will I be better in the metcon, or do I want to have longer endurance to be better, and then will that make me stronger? And so you're just like mixing, mixing this potion up, and that's the one thing I see a lack in in crossfit people. This now they've come on later. They don't have that like freestyle mentality where they're like I'm going to go in the back and I'm going to do power climbs for 60 minutes. Screw it, my hands are going to be bleeding. I don't care.
Speaker 2:You know I'm going to do like this. Oh, Miko Sayo says that he rows for an hour in the dark in a closet. I'm going to go in my garage and I'm going to turn the light off. Oh yeah, I'm going to set a timer and I'm going to row. You know what I mean. I'm going to row with no music in the dark and row for an hour and see how far I went.
Speaker 2:Yep, I remember that one, that was that crazy shit that we were doing, and I just wish more people would do that and you know, like take more ownership of how they approach a workout and how they enter the gym and how they train and let us help perfect that or make it better. But not give half, like not give them to like here you go, like do this and you'll become great Cause they won't because they didn't earn it or that. So I just wish that would be the one thing if I could see is more buy-in for for people Like you're saying well, they didn't tell me that if I start taking testosterone at this age and I'm running around with crazy elevated levels, I could do that. It's like well, did you read about it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you at the very least Google.
Speaker 2:Google, yeah.
Speaker 1:Nope, it's going to make me feel better and stronger. I mean, let's just to you know, make me feel better and stronger. And, um, I mean, let's just be honest, people do it for physique also Heck yeah, they get in a big way.
Speaker 1:So, um, taking personal responsibility for your health outcomes comes in many fashions from training, right, if you have a hole in your fitness and you want to fix the hole in your fitness and I mean I'm not going to recommend 300 power cleans in a session to get better at 300 power cleans there's optimal, uh, recoverable volume that you can do to do this. But, uh, to Jason's point, putting in the little extra work to plug the holes in your fitness. And taking self advocacy yeah, and in your self advocacy that doesn't mean we are resources to help in that process. Yeah, you can come and talk to us like, hey, I'm tired of not being able to get a muscle up, what should I do extra or this or that, and we're here to help guide that. But taking personal responsibility If I'm not losing weight, maybe it's something I'm eating, because 100% of the time, if you're not having body composition change, it's related to what you're eating.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, the calorie equation is 100% hard factual data that if you're not losing body weight, there is a calorie equation. Ozempics proved it. Right, because you no longer get hungry. So now you don't eat and you lose weight. Right, that's what the glp1 does, right, okay, so it's like people that tell me oh, I don't need anything at all and I'm not losing weight, you're full of shit well, well, I agree with that 100.
Speaker 2:I also will say people think they do x x many. You do X X many times and they don't. People say I had one candy bar. I'm like, okay, cool, Take a picture of everything you put in your mouth for a week and then I'll end up with 35 pictures of candy bars. I'm like well, you had 35. They're like how why? Don't you tell me, these are the pictures.
Speaker 1:Multiple studies that show people crazy like 30%, 35%, underestimate how much food they eat. Right right, I don't eat very much, or they?
Speaker 2:were good, so they give themselves a treat. But then Saturday you gave yourself 12 treats. I can see them right here I'm looking at these. Were all treats? No, they weren't. That was breakfast. That ain't normal breakfast, yeah. Or that ain't normal breakfast, yeah, that ain't normal dinner so taking self-advocacy and personal responsibility, working with us coaches.
Speaker 1:we're here to help with that and guide that, but ultimately it's like, when it comes to your internal health, your blood work, nobody can force you to get blood work and to look at these objective markers. Yep in body, in body like. These things are very powerful tools, and then they're better than the leaderboard. Oh yeah, do we want to get in the leaderboard today or save that for another time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can save that for another time. I will say it's very good and can be very bad, but I still think you need that. You need it. It's a good driver.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it. I mean just quick and dirty. It's a very powerful tool, but if you're getting on there to compete against the person next to you or the person on the leaderboard, like, you're missing the whole point of long-term health Correct, like, okay, let's say, for instance, instance, I start losing being at the bottom of the leaderboard every day.
Speaker 1:me as a coach in this gym, I'm fucking pumped when people beat me because one I know I'm at peak fitness for myself and you beat me, you're putting in the damn work and that's fucking awesome right and this like I'm a small fish in the scope of fitness, I mean, I believe the members of double edge are in top one percent of society, all members here, um, and if you are in here like you're pushing the top of our leaderboard, if you will and let me tell you guys, there's some people that don't post that would be at the top every day.
Speaker 1:You just don't know, who they are for sure, for sure, um, because they they don't for this, that or the other reason. And they're older, right, which is, I think, also funny and cool. But it is a good gauge. It's a good metric. I emphatically think it's important to track your workouts. It's objective data. Track your strength. If you're not training on percentages for a long period of time and curious on why you're not pr-ing, like that's why you're not pr-ing, you're not tracking and building upon the data to pr and um, it's. It's just a nice little objective benchmark to kind of see where you're at right and how you're doing and this and that. And you know when it comes to holes in my fitness, if I'm close to a listen, a wall walk workout, I'm pumped. Either she had a bad day or I had a really good day, right, right it's good.
Speaker 2:It it breeds healthy competition. It also, you know, breeds unhealthy competition, but nonetheless, um, I think it's a necessary tool and I would I would be upset to see something like that go. I know people talk about, well, just get rid of it, and I'm like, no, don't do that, because you know what. It's kind of cool if you can. There's a leaderboard talk right here. It's kind of cool when you beat certain people if you end up beating them you're like man, alright.
Speaker 2:And then when someone beats you, you're like that's how, and then you text them. You you're like, well, that's how, and then you text them, and then you.
Speaker 1:Obviously, it's only because they're on TRT or they cheated.
Speaker 2:Well, it's fun to like go. And then they're like oh well, these were my. And then you text them and they're like these are my splits. And you're like, well, okay, you were hauling ass.
Speaker 1:I was not hauling ass there, I think it's a very powerful, healthy tool and, honestly, I think if you're having emotional discourse about it, it's a good thought experiment for self reflection like why is this such a big deal to me? I know the people that cheat on workouts and I know this and that whatever shit doesn't bother me at all.
Speaker 1:Obviously, as a coach, leader of the gym, I think it's important for me to show that I, as a coach and leader of the gym, I think it's important for me to show that I do the workouts because I do do the workouts Believe in the product. If I didn't believe in the product, I'd have to change the product because that would be counterproductive to all things. But yeah, circling back around, this is a nice long conversation with Jason. We tapped a lot of topics here, finished off on the old leaderboard there, but out of this whole thing I feel like shit that I didn't know how deeply you're struggling with that injury. Yeah, you're still coaching every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a really funny weird walk. I learned how to walk without.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I knew it was bothering you and I knew it was going to be like not an overnight recovery deal. But damn bro, you buried that. Like I can bury some shit. Yeah, you buried some shit, yeah. And I'm super like I'm even more pumped about your results and the path you're on now because, like now, understanding the full scope, of the injury and what you've gone through in the darkness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to now back to these back squat numbers, body weight, going down the health and nutrition path. You and steph are both on, bro. This is exciting times. It's good this is good stuff this is the best I felt in a long time I need to get out of the morning hours once in a while. I'm coming in the evenings. Yeah, see you at south yeah, see chase over here, like I do not get out of the morning hours.
Speaker 2:once in a while, I'm coming in the evenings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, see you at South See. Chase over here Like I do not get out. Let's just be honest. I wake up at 3.30 in the morning and by the time 3, 4 rolls around and kids' sports starts, I'm gassed.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's you know, I pride myself in not letting people know when things are bothering me. But also, you know, maybe we just need to get together once a month and have a coach's throwdown.
Speaker 1:Coach's throwdown. Who else was talking to me about that? Because I'd be down to do that and we could bring back some of the OG where we just throw random shit, monster mash.
Speaker 2:Yeah, monster mash it.
Speaker 1:Those are always fun. I think they're a blast. I mean, they're extremely 60 minutes of hell. Yep, unintentional training, but just totally it's. Uh, what do you want to say? Mental strength building experiment and um, it's fun it's just fun.
Speaker 2:Fun and it's fun to get you know that group that you don't see. You know, I sometimes I feel like you know, jake and I were over there. It's me and jake, you know what I mean. And there's a lot, like a lot, of people down here and we don't really see them, and you guys come over in the morning but you guys are gone by the time we show up, you know, and then we closed down the gym and so it's cool. It would be cool for all of us to, and you guys are doing the same thing here and so, yeah, cool to see all of us get in the same room and throw down and, you know, do some like chest pounding, and it's like you know some ego.
Speaker 1:You're all healed up. You know, I think my adductor we're gonna test her pretty good this weekend at the tactical games. But if I'm paralyzed for the next two weeks, we know why. Yeah, but uh, yeah, we're, but I think we're back to training pretty regularly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's nothing I can't do now. It's just my leg. Endurance isn't great yet and my strength you know my repeatable strength is pretty not great, so yeah, that muscle memory is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you weren't out that long. It bounced back. It's already bouncing back.
Speaker 2:It's bouncing back. Yeah, Hell, yeah. So we'll get there. We're almost there. All right, bro Cool, this is cool. Yeah, man Thanks.
Speaker 1:Covered. A lot of stuff Might generate those that's you know. Listen on. This is hour 50 minutes. Baby, there we go, and the camera didn't even freeze up Perfect perfect sweet alright, homie. Alright, dude. See you guys on the next one again. Jason's coaching at Night at the South. Jimmy wanna get to know him better feel free to go on hang out with him and um, yeah, love you guys.
Speaker 2:Cue in you got outro music.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, there we go, it's the same vibe until I I figured out how to upload them to this I just gotta guess, figured out how to upload them to this. I just got to, I guess, figure out how to make one. Oh yeah, there we go. All right, everybody, have a wonderful, wonderful day.