Strength Coach Collective

Why Chris Spealler Ditched Traditional Fitness Programming

• twobrainbusiness@gmail.com • Season 1 • Episode 33

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Is performance in the gym the goal or simply a tool to live better in the outside world?

In today’s episode, eight-time CrossFit Games competitor and former CrossFit Seminar Staff member Chris Spealler discusses his evolution from high-intensity daily training to sustainable "Adventure Preparedness Programming."

Chris breaks down his 12-week programming blocks and explains why his gym, Park City Fit, focuses on serving adventure-loving athletes who want to better enjoy outdoor activities like skiing rather than compete in fitness.

He explains how to keep clients motivated long term, how to adjust coaching strategies as athletes’ needs evolve and why teaching fundamentals never goes out of style.

"Speal" also talks about what it takes to balance the demands of family, business and personal training, and he offers advice for coaches who want to build sustainable, fulfilling careers.

Links

Strength Coach Collective

0:30 - Programming from 2016 to now

8:44 - Handling transitions with members

19:24 - Benchmarks for progress

34:15 - Spealler’s program design

46:49 - Scaling for clients’ needs

SPEAKER_01:

Is performance in the gym the goal, or is it merely a tool to live better outside of the gym? Today I'm joined by eight-time CrossFit Games competitor and owner of Park City Fit, Chris Spieler, to talk about walking that line and what it means to be adventure ready. Welcome to the Strength Coach Collective, a podcast brought to you by Two Brain Business. We are here to help advance the strength and conditioning coaching community by bringing you a wide range of experts in the field. Join our group at strengthcoachcollective.com. Chris, dude, I'm stoked to have you, man. Thanks for doing this.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, thanks, Gary.

SPEAKER_01:

So let's do a quick recap on your back. I don't want to talk about what you're doing now, but to get to where we are now, we have to go where you are. So yeah, hit me with that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, gosh, I mean, you know, As far as the strength and conditioning world, I grew up playing sports, all that stuff. It was part of being prepared for sports and wrestled in college. Got out of college and did the ski bum thing in Park City, Utah. Was a bit lost with how to train and what I wanted to do and stumbled into this thing called CrossFit. I think it was fall of 2006. A buddy of mine in the Marines introduced me to it. Tried a workout, old school, man. Did the workout online. looked on crossfit.com on the old blog post uh it was cindy and i did it with terrible range of motion and uh i told my friend i was gonna try for six weeks and yeah and then that just carried on you know i ended up uh competing at the games from 2007 through 14 i didn't qualify in 13 i worked on seminar staff i think from 2008 to 2016 i was a flow master for them. Traveled around the world. I helped write the competitor's course, which has been refined, but at the time, myself, Matt Chan, Eric O'Connor, we wrote that. Traveled around the world and taught that, which was super cool. Helped out with some of the specialty seminars, or like the, what would they be called now? Maybe like the CEU type things. Yeah, and then stepped away from that in 2016, focused on running the gym and an online program, and really have been doing that since, primarily just focusing on emphasizing the in-person thing. We still have an online presence and invest in the people that are there, but I really have leaned into the in-person as online has gotten quite saturated and I'm not interested in trying to keep up with the social media on that side of things.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, totally. So what you're doing now, you're calling adventure preparedness programming, right? Yeah. And so the going from, tell me about that and then let's talk about kind of the evolutions from 2016 to now and how that's gotten where it is.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I think like from 2016 to 2018 or 1920, there wasn't much of a change in like training philosophy, things like that. I was still CrossFit through and through. And I really leaned into that heavily and did that with the gym as well. Really varied programming and most often high intensity pretty much every day, I would say. Yeah. And then as things kind of evolved, I think as I got a little bit older was part of this catalyst. And then also just conversations with people that I really respect. I've got a good friend of mine in Dallas. He owns a gym called BPR and he and I will bounce ideas off one another. His affiliate gym has been around for, you know, almost as long as ours, I think like 18 years or something like that. And so we've just kind of talked through what does this look like? Is this sustainable? How do we do it? And I I had sort of these ideas of creating a better way to program where it's not so-called scaling, because I think for a long time scaling, you know, by those definitions that we learned was, okay, we'll just lower the load, reduce the reps, lower the volume or the distance. And we kind of put these like big overarching themes that I still think have like a lot of questions to them. They're really great. But when we say like, oh, and it's like relative to the person's physiological and psychological tolerances, that's a great quote, but it doesn't have much guidance. You know, it's like, okay, like, what does that mean? And how does that play out? And so trying to kind of find a way to, what does that look like? Instead of offering scaled versions, we started offering versions that were less demanding. So that kind of fell into, all right, well, what movement patterns are less demanding? instead of a snatch, maybe we do a kettlebell swing. And if we tear it further down, instead of a kettlebell swing, we do an RDL. And if we tear it down, we're going to do a hip hinge hold. So maintaining still the integrity of the movement, but finding ways to make the movement demand more appropriate. So that kind of like bled into these ideas of, okay, well, what do we call that? And how do we write that? And I had ended up rebranding in 20 let's see in 2020 we you know we we went to just park city fit and then in 2022 i think 2023 we did kind of like a rebrand to more address the the people in park city and that's where a lot of this idea of adventure preparedness program came from because so many of our members they use the program as a means to an end they are none of them are interested in competing in functional fitness and by that i mean like i'm talking like the crossfit games i'm talking high rocks i'm talking like tough mudders like they're not interested in any of that they want to ski better they want to enjoy the trail run we have people that have been with us for literally you know almost since day one and for a gym that's been around for 18 years you know if someone started with you at 40 they're now 58. It's a big difference. So kind of navigating that has led us to this rebrand and also adjusting programming to say, hey, this is adventure preparedness program. That's what we do. And then we offer two different tiers that are less demanding. One being kind of just like a reduced movement demand and the other being more of like a recovery version. That's a long answer, Kenny. No,

SPEAKER_01:

that was a great answer. I mean, that's been my similar journey as well i feel like there was a very extended period of time where my entry into it was the gym was a means to an end and then all of a sudden the gym was the end like i would stop doing things outside of the gym because i was i didn't want to interfere with my workouts yeah no like i wouldn't trade that i enjoyed the heck out of that experience but then i as i got older and my members same same story we started realizing like well actually we forgot forgotten about what we got into this for

SPEAKER_00:

yeah

SPEAKER_01:

and now we're i don't want to be so sore or i don't want to ruin my thing i'm gonna be too sore to do something tomorrow and that was a kind of a big question mark for me it's like well wait why am i doing this again

SPEAKER_00:

yeah

SPEAKER_01:

so

SPEAKER_00:

yeah and just kind of embracing that and that like you said like if that's a season that people are in that's totally fine like there's i don't think there's anything wrong with that i just think like forcing people into that or people doing that without asking the questions is kind of like a a disservice to them and also just us saying like hey we just don't serve that clientele like if someone's trying to come to us and we've had it happen yeah you know they come to us they maybe know my name from previous competition stuff and they don't really take the time to kind of read through their website or learn about our philosophy at this point in time they've honestly been like let down yeah like oh this just isn't hard enough or it's not enough volume where you don't lift enough or there's not enough intensity it's like well that's okay like you can go somewhere else it's just we just don't do that type of programming. So it just is what it is. Totally.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I mean, you made that sound fairly easy and confident. How, but that journey, how was that? Like, as far as making those transition, did you, cause I've had members disappointed as, as we've evolved, you know, as the programming has changed as things of, how did that go for you? It's probably

SPEAKER_00:

harder. It's, it is not easy. I know I was even just talking to a client a few minutes ago about how I still have these ideas. I'm an idea guy, so I got to be careful. You know, I like, that's like my thing, right? Putting the ball in the end zone, I got to find somebody else. Like you want 15 ideas, I am your guy. But having said that, I, you know, I am even, and I need to be careful because I think sometimes I look at a little bit myself and I think about, well, how do I feel? And I sometimes apply that to everybody must feel that way. And that's not always That's always true, right? But I'm sort of even at this point where we try to give our members education that you can't burn it down every day. You shouldn't burn it down every day. We want you to self-assess. We even have like posters hanging up in our gym on how to self-assess what questions you should ask yourself. If you have X amount of these questions that are in like the red, you should be doing the Stoke, which we call it. the Stoker Refresh versions. If you feel really good, you could do the APP, Adventure Preparedness Program. Those are different versions of that. And so we try to do that, we try to foster that. But when you have a gym that's been around for a long time, it's really hard for people to let go of that, wait, I'm still gonna benefit from this if I don't just crush myself? It's like, yeah, you will, actually. You might actually feel better and benefit more yeah and we're not eliminating intensity that's not the point i don't want to eliminate it it's valuable it's necessary it's a piece of improving people's fitness but we talked about it you know 20 years ago we would kind of joke around a little bit in our circles and say like hey do you think we'll be able to do this for 20 years 30 years and it was sort of this unknown and i say it's often on podcasts or conversations we know the answer now you can't yeah and that's okay it doesn't It doesn't mean that it's wrong or bad. It just means that, okay, how do we evolve this thing? What does it look like? And how do we take what we know has been so valuable and so good and life changing and change the course of the industry, frankly, right? But how do you take that good and keep it and then ask the questions of what do we do to evolve this thing to make it more sustainable, to help the person that is 48, 68, instead of you know 50 like how do I keep them in my gym how do I continue to serve them and we could have that answer be like well I just don't serve those people that could be your answer is like hey I don't run a facility that addresses that we're about performance and that means that like you know you're probably going to be limited to 20 to 35 years old and like we burn it down that's okay right but I'm just not that facility and I don't want to be that facility. So it's been a difficult journey because even now I'm trying to process through like, what do I do to make this more sustainable? You know, and like, how do I create these templates that sort of walk the line, right? Of like, hey, yes, it's still going to feel like what we used to do a little bit, but it's not. Yeah. Instead of just abandoning ship.

SPEAKER_01:

Totally.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's really, I'm just going to call it what it is. It's really hard to do that. Because when, in my experience, myself included, when left to our own demise, we will often resort back to, I'm going to burn it down. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yep. No, absolutely. Yeah. Cause I actually had the same conversation this morning with someone where I was like, man, I could easily be convinced to just do like compound lifts and row and swing kettlebells. Like that would probably achieve that, but it's going to be boring and it's not going to keep people around. And you know, there's a, that riding the line between novelty, intensity, excitement, and harkening back to some of the things that we love and skill development. There's a lot of good, which I'd actually like to, what are the goods that you want to try and retain?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, intensity is good, right? Just at the right frequency. So we know that that's good. I think often people need to be told to work harder in scenarios, right? And that's okay, but it needs to be allocated appropriately throughout the week or the training block. Compound movements are awesome. Weightlifting is awesome. What type of weightlifting? It's going to vary, right? Like power lifts versus Olympic lifts. What are your clients trying to achieve? Is it necessary to have one do squat snatches and muscle ups? Probably not. Are they valuable? Absolutely. Are they fun? Absolutely. Do we need to slap that on an entire community? No. So intensity, compound lifts, I think elements of variance are great when it comes to A couple of things, developing a broader base of fitness, even on a business side, keeping clients engaged and entertained with things. I think it's valuable. And, you know, just us as athletes, I think that's very, I think that's valuable. Tracking your progress, seeing what that is, you know, looking at loads, times, reps, things like that, and being able to look at that, super valuable. Coaching, right? Having a facility where actually coaching actually happens and people care about movement, movement quality. That's really valuable. All those things are, but I think some of the things that, and if I'm going down like the other rabbit hole, you can stop me, Kenny, but like, I think some of the things that I've learned that are more valuable is having specific lifting cycles that are a progressive overload. Yep. They're just more effective than varied lifts. It just is right. Like, so we program in nine to 12 week blocks with specific lifting days more, and it's a buzzword it's a buzzword for sure but more you want to call it aerobic work you want to call it zone two you want to call it recovery I don't care what you want to call it like but having more of that introduced into the programming I think is really valuable probably for two reasons when you think about like a facility like ours one for newer members that have zero base it helps them progress faster with building their conditioning base and two for those that want to burn it down all the time it acts as a recovery day

SPEAKER_01:

yeah on the latter point have you noticed that with my more competitive people that are trying to kind of adhere not adhere but evolve to the other side of the spectrum do you find that they have a hard time coming back down like i find that like they're like i'm like three two one go and they pin it i'm like wait we're for 45 minutes slow and they're like nope and they just ride that but I think it's such a good once we've worked through that and their physiological response to the onset of exercise is not burning sugar and trying to go ham it's been a really amazing thing if they can actually do it but it's it can be a challenge to get them to adhere to it because they're so used to it

SPEAKER_00:

totally absolutely like super tough to do and I think the interesting thing too is like you you know, like, like those, those things in and of themselves aren't what I want to be either. You know what I mean? I don't want to be a gym that just does five days a week of lifting. I don't want to be a gym that just does zone two aerobic work and develop endurance athletes. So it's like, how do we take these things that we know? And I think it's sort of like this almost unknown territory again, because we're learning or trying to learn. Okay. We know these things are really valuable. Let's say from the cross right and we know they are they do work in the right dose and the right time and things like that right frequency but if we're trying to evolve this thing and make it better you are sort of in this uncharted territory because it's like well okay what does that look like because how do I introduce aerobic work into this or zone two and how do I introduce a lifting pattern does that fall into a six week microsite or a 10 week or sorry, a six day micro cycle or a 10 day micro cycle or like, what do I do with this? And how does it work together? And not just in a way that I might enjoy, but let's just be honest, that's going to keep people in my door that like this style of training. You know what I mean? So I do think there's a lot of unknown because typically you'll just hear these camps of like, it's like, it's like always, right? It's like, you know, well, kettlebell training is the best. So all I'm going to do is kettlebells every day. You know, well, zone two is the best. So I'm just going to like get my bike and I'm just going to turn it into zone two machine. Well, no, no, no, no. Like a hybrid athlete's the best. So I'm going to be like a good endurance runner, but still be able to back squat 500 pounds. But that means that like, I'm going to kind of miss this in between stuff. And so I think we're still in this sort of cool, difficult zone of like, what does this look like for today to make a really resilient athlete this it's a sustainable program that they can do for long, long, like decades, not just, not just years.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. I totally agree. That's one of the things I talked to you when I do consults. I'm like, look, I want you to live a life that you love for as long as you can. And that means being able to do cool stuff when you're 90. And that is, that's the conversation I tend to have with those people who want to burn it down. It's like, like you said, can you do this for 15 more years? Sometimes, you know, depending, sometimes their answer is yes. Yeah. Well, you're wrong. Well, But again, it's an interesting, like you said, it's super interesting to consider. What are some of your benchmarks? What are you looking for as assessments or benchmarks or things that you're marking for progress?

SPEAKER_00:

Gosh, that's a great question. Man, we've gone away. I would say arguably like almost non-existent for like your typical benchmarks that we used to do. Yeah, right. Kelly. And I'm not saying they're wrong or they're bad. Totally. Yeah, I

SPEAKER_01:

agree.

SPEAKER_00:

But part of the reason why I've done that is because we have people that have been with us for so long, they're honestly on the back half of the curve, myself included. And I think what happens is we kind of shoot ourselves in the foot because we sort of can present this program as like, well, hey, as long as your times are decreasing, your loads are increasing, you're doing it right and you're making progress. Eventually, though, that's not going to happen. It's just physiologically not not possible. I'm not going to clean 300 pounds ever again. I'm not going to snatch 230 again. I'm not going to do Fran in 205 again. I'm just not. And that's okay. And it doesn't mean that the program's not effective, right? Those elements can be effective. So what we've kind of done, and we do it for pretty much anybody new coming into the gym. I'm a really big fan of tracking lifts. So whatever cycle we're in, we're typically doing some kind of squat, hinge, or press, or pull, right? Whatever that is. So we might be testing a back squat, a deadlift. I don't program them a ton because I just think there's other ways to build that. It could be a bench press, a strict press, push press, whatever. So we test that generally every 12 weeks or so. And then when it comes to conditioning, we have new members come in. And most of our, I would say most of our members can still benefit from this. Some of the real fallbacks that we do, this will probably sound so not exciting. We like to do a goblet squat test to where if people can do 15 to 20 unbroken reps with no pauses at the bottom or the top, if they can do that with generally about half of their body weight, they're pretty capable to do other things that we're confident in, you know, like hang cleans, like more what we call like ballistic or dynamic movements, right? So we like the goblet squat test. I like to do single leg boxed step-ups see if they're relatively balanced I don't need them to be perfect but it's like hey if there's a big discrepancy there it's good to know that a pull-up do you have a pull-up or not a dip do you have a dip or not a single arm strict press are we really you know in balance on either side so that's kind of like the strength type pieces that we'll look at and then just like the old classic and it's not really valuable for me as like I don't mean say that like with arrogance, like, but like, it's not really going to be a great one for me to use to see if things would be like super effective, but just a 10 minute echo bike test, you know, me, I'm going to be like floating around within five to 10 calories of that, any given part of the season or the year. But for new members or new athletes that are coming in, they're learning what it is to have higher intensity efforts. It's really great because you can kind of watch them. You can learn if they're more aerobic or anaerobic because anaerobic people will kind of like the use that go out hot and then crash and then go up and down and up and down you can also see what their tolerance for hard work is and there's no technique behind it like a rower there's like an element of technique there where a bike you're just like you just grind you know like you do you yeah yeah um so those are honestly most often the benchmarks that we'll use and then we sometimes at the end of each 12-week block just throw in like a workout that we did along that cycle And if people want to compare, they can compare that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Hello. I mean, again, same, I was talking about this with Fran earlier and some of the things that I, that I do sort of miss was the, the buy-in of the, of the benchmarks with people. Like it was exciting. It's like, Oh, I did Fran in three minutes. Like, Holy crap. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

Name on the board.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. There was these like heralded benchmarks that were really like that, that got buy-in from people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. your, your, uh, conditioning is getting better too. So here we are.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And I mean, it, that too has like its shortcomings, right? You know, like, like I said, like me, it's, it's not, it's not a great test because it's, I'm so similar and I'm also not willing to like good capacity, but I'm also not willing to be like, Oh, can I take that from one 63 to one 80? Like, not really. Like, I don't really need to do that to be more capable outside the the gym. So I'm like, I'll just ride the bike hard for 10 minutes, whatever. So even those things have like their shortcomings. So it's, it's, what do you do to adapt that for if there's a client that, you know, maybe they, that they're in a similar position, maybe for them, like it should be a two mile run, right? Because they, they don't have that because the machine is very different, right? Machine based is really different than self-propelled with running. So it's like, maybe that should be that. And I think that's where it's really cool where we can kind of think creatively and put our coach's on and kind of figure out what does that look like for our clients

SPEAKER_01:

yeah for sure and i mean it's a weird it's a tricky thing to say but i also feel like i'm generally fit enough and that's again like i want to get better i want to get stronger but at the same time like the my my i do specialize a little bit throughout the year like i i hunt i ski i backpack i fish i do lots of different things and so for each of those seasons i'll lean a little bit in a different direction in a different direction. But so I think that what, and again, it's, it's such a, I feel blasphemous even saying this, my 25 year old self would probably kick my myself now in the teeth, but I feel like I'm generally fit enough where I can then specialize in each of those corners. So I don't feel the need to, to add three calories to that 10 minute at the salt bike test every time. Uh, I don't know. Do you feel the same as that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Right. Like it's like, and then like, because I think we've been down that road before is, well, if you feel that way and you see that as a result, like I'm not lacking in downhill mountain biking, dirt biking, skiing powder, keeping up with my kids, like those things are all just fine, right? Like I can do that well, I can do that confidently. So if that stuff's all in check outside of the gym, what kind of sacrifice am I going to have to make outside of the gym again to spend more time inside the gym to get that calorie count higher? And now, like I said, I don't think that really applies toward everybody. especially like our newer members that are coming in within the first year or two, man, they're probably going to be able to just like follow your routine and do it and see great progress. But for everybody, right? Like for everybody, it comes for us. The plateau, the backside of the bell curve, the maintenance phase rather than the gain phase. And it just, it's okay, right? Like it comes for us. all and it's okay so when it does instead of trying to just hang on by your fingernails and ruin yourself to keep these arbitrary numbers what if you just reframe that context of like what capacity do I need and what do I have and is it serving me well because that that's If you're not asking that question, I'm just gonna call it what it is, because it's the same thing for me. And really what's getting in the way is my ego. It's me. It's like, I don't like that I can't. Do I wish I could still basketball at 400? Yeah. I do wish that. Am I willing to sacrifice what I do now outside the gym to get back there?

SPEAKER_01:

Nope.

SPEAKER_00:

Not.

SPEAKER_01:

How do you communicate that with your long-term athletes at a certain point where they do hit that? They don't have anything to chase responsibly anymore. When you're like, hey, this is... this is kind of what it is. I think you should just keep, keep coming. Like that's a, it's an intricate balance of like, let's find something to, to, you know, some people just need something to, you need an incentive to, to do the thing. But oftentimes it's like, Hey, just keep coming. I think there's a, like a lack of appreciation of the value of continuing to participate in the program, put an effort, but you're not necessarily, you don't have a rabbit to chase. You're not trying to beat anybody on the whiteboard. You're not trying to PR anymore. you know, it's just a little bit of a, Hey, like just, I don't know. Do you find that that's a challenge or do you have any tips for working through that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And I think the person that does is probably better than anybody else's Matt Chan. So it's like that, like now, now we start to go into that. Okay. Now we're kind of turning the page and we're in a new chapter in life and I'm deciding that yes, I'm accepting. And I know that this training is really valuable, but I also know that like, I am no longer willing to, or in a position to, to continue to see these personal bests or make all these sacrifices to try to put five pounds on my snatch or whatever. So instead, where else can I find progression? Because what I've found is that's where I really, that's what I enjoy. I love seeing progress. So for me, there's typically like three places where I've found that and it gets to kind of play out relatively quickly because it's like I'm either a complete beginner or have some kind of background. One of those is dirt biking. Like I'm a very intermediate dirt biker. You know, like I'm not great. But if I ride enough, every time I ride, I'm like, oh, I'm a little better. Like I felt a little better. And then every year I used to sign up for the Idaho City 100 and we would just race, race, loosely based term, organized ride is what it was for us. And my goal was just to see if I could make the checkpoints. And each year I'd go up. It took me five years, but I did it. I was like, okay, cool. Like I met all the checkpoints and I got my little mug and I was like, that's right. You know, downhill mountain biking. I absolutely love it. Like, and if you want to talk about progression, holy crap, like that. So endless. And then it becomes like conversations of like, same thing. Like, well, how much risk are you willing to take in order to progress? Because as you get better, like risk increases, but even just like riding bikes in general, mountain biking, you, You can change that by going on different trails that challenge you more. You can ride the same trail differently. You can practice cornering or braking techniques or ride different types of bikes. I mean, there's so many ways for you to find progression in mountain biking. It's crazy to me. And then jujitsu, like that's one that kind of go in and out. The downside of that is like, it just beats you up. It's like the same thing. oh crap you know like i love this because i grew up wrestling and i want to progress in it and it's the same thing right it's like the whole like i'm going to stick around and get the extra stripe and now i'm going to get the belt and then i'm walking around i can't turn my freaking neck and you know my ribs popped out and like you know some 22 year old wants to choke me out because yeah you know i heard you were crossfit guy i'm like yeah yeah this is all the breaks bro yeah also like it could be your dad um so so those things i think, and Matt does a great job of this. He sort of like chooses these, it seems to be like these two events each year, which he trains for. And much like you can, he'll even bias his training toward that, but he never lets go of just general, you know, strength or capacity. You've seen him do things like the Leadville 100. He's done some cool kind of like mountain type triathlon type things. He's done tactical games, but he puts the effort into training for that thing even though it gets a little bit biased I personally like I don't have the time to do that right now but I think that's a great outstanding way for people that are like we're talking about in that position of well I know training is valuable but what's going to keep me going is well now I'm going to train in here in an effective way so I can still do all the stuff out there and that helps us regulate the end intensity in the gym that helps us keep track of our strength it helps us improve our endurance depending on what the event is

SPEAKER_01:

yeah yeah totally in the jiu-jitsu thing i do that for a thousand years or so and like the the point that i'll get to you with that is i actually ended up asking my myself the question like can i do this for the rest of my life and in the unfortunately the answer for me was no like i just said you know i i just it's just not worth it to me it's not with the with in the gym you certainly can do dumb stuff in the gym but you usually it's under my control, but like somebody else on the mat, like, my goodness, I've had some, some close calls. Luckily no surgeries as a result, but my gosh, like, so the point again is like, I think that question of, can I do this for the rest of my life is like, it becomes more and more important in your forties, fifties, sixties, et cetera. And I think we can learn. I think watching some of the guys I don't know own gyms, I asked them the same thing. And that's how I try and run the gym. It's like, Hey, can we do this for the rest of our lives? And if the answer is no, then I gotta, I gotta make some changes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, especially if that's your clientele.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, for sure. So what does program design look like for you? And that's a broad-ass question. I know you mentioned strength cycles and stuff, but talk me through how you're doing your program design for Adventure.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So we typically program, like I said, in 12-week blocks. Nine of those end up being the bulk of the program. And then we have generally one deload week and one test week. So obviously the deload week is sort of at the very end. The test week would be after the cycle. And then we'd go into a deload week and kind of reset and reorganize. So that's sort of like the basic structure of it. And then we look at events that we want to do in the gym that we think sound like fun. So for example, Chad, you know, Chad is coming up on Veterans Day. So we do a progression to work people toward Chad, because it's probably a bad idea to do a thousand step ups without any kind of preparation for that. So we do that once a week as a workout, but we create some variety. Like for example, this week was nine rounds. You did three push jerks heavy, and then 10 box step ups with no weight on a 15 calorie bike, but you added 10 step ups to each round. So people accumulated almost 500 box step ups over the course this kind of mixed modality workout. So we progress them along. We might have that event be something that we plan on our own in the summer. You know, maybe it's a bike ride or a trail run. Maybe people could do that with the CrossFit Open, whatever, you know, it doesn't matter. So we look at events and we kind of organize that and we typically progress toward that as well. We program, like I said, generally, we've actually shifted to, we program two dedicated strength days a week. Typically those always stay on monday and thursday generally you want about 48 hours between some kind of like good like raw lifting session where that's all they're doing we progress people on that i'm a huge fan uh even though people get bored with it of like a three-week progressive overload so we kind of like start people and then like work them up for three weeks with the same accessory week and our accessory work and then we change it do the same thing for three weeks change those movements so i'm a big fan of that but sometimes we'll do things like like a 20 rep back squat program or like we've done the old school Ed Cohen deadlift program. You know, like some stuff that's just like really good at building raw strength. So that's always on a Monday. The other lifting day typically kind of floats throughout the week, but that tends to be something that's either more technique oriented. Right now, we're just experimenting. We're calling it like a barbell endurance day. So it's supposed to be like lower intensity. And I'm trying to think of one we recently did. It was a 40 minute E mom where people did one clean and jerk. We do like an RPE six or seven and then three burpees over the bar. So they have a lot of time to rest, you know? So essentially they're doing like, you know, a little more than grace volume wise, but with heavier load and like way less intensity. So that's Thursday. And then the other roughly three days a week. So there you got these two strength days. One long duration day. That's Chad right now. And then that leaves us roughly three other days where we'll have more high intensity classic workouts. Some of those will feel very, very CrossFit oriented. Some of them will be interval workouts. Depending on what we've done elsewhere in the week, they might be loaded. They might be unloaded. Just your classic stuff that everyone's probably really familiar with on the other three days.

SPEAKER_01:

Love it. What about movement variation? Like what's in the repertoire of movements. Has that changed much over the... I mean, again, talking from CrossFit-heavy to now, what's in the bag, what's out of the bag, or has that changed?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I think pretty similar. We don't really program snatches much. We still do, but not a ton. We don't program a ton of handstand push-ups. You'll occasionally see them for those that have that capacity, but not a ton. Occasionally see handstand walking, but not a ton. We program probably one way, way more carries than, you know, we ever did back in the, you know, CrossFit days or whatever you want to call it. And then I would say that, like, we look at things that, like, just overarching movement patterns, squat, hinge, push, pull, lunge, and carry. Those are kind of the five things that will say, okay, what are we, are those introduced in the week? Which ones of those are we focused on more of a strength aspect? Which more of a speed aspect? How did the three days of intensity work in? And I'm telling you right now, bro, it takes me way longer to program like that. If you want me to program you a week of like, you know, burn it down workouts and have everyone be laying on the floor in a pile of goo, take me about seven minutes, dude. I got you. I give you a week of pain. A week of well thought out, like, okay, wait, if we did this on this day, I'm not sure that makes sense on that day what if i move it over here but that time and this total volume and if it's going to progress well that gets in the way of this squat day and the priorities here like way more thought way longer doing that

SPEAKER_01:

oh yeah same i know it's it is like you said yeah same but way more effective way more way fewer injuries way fewer burnout way fewer you know overall fatigue towards a certain movement yeah it's it's a lot better but it's a lot more work

SPEAKER_00:

yes yeah and i'm still trying to like okay how can i simplify this and make this better and you know we'll get there but right now it's like it takes some thought you know like you gotta write up the strength piece beforehand and then think about okay what accessory lifts do you do because we do accessory work with that and how do those interfere with the rest of the work and week and things like that so yeah you'll yeah it's uh it's challenging but it's worth

SPEAKER_01:

it it's yeah it is a hundred percent and again it sounds like you're retaining a lot of that like the well-rounded fitness thing is still the one the biggest thing i i have kept the questioning yeah like you said let's maybe i love like snatch is probably my favorite movement in

SPEAKER_00:

the

SPEAKER_01:

gym yeah but after watching it for the last 15 years of the general population come in and being like oh god this is gonna this was the bad why are we doing this again that question that why are we doing this just kind of it ended up washing that out a lot of stuff and we still do it usually you know once a week well usually just some sort of weightlifting thing once a week and it's just like okay cool that gives something something novel and something interesting for someone to work for but uh doing isabel is not on the not on the program anymore

SPEAKER_00:

yeah it was interesting we had like a really cool we've had some cool people come through town because park city we've got you know like the olympic center and stuff here and this might help people kind of like like come down you know for a second like because I think some of the stuff can be like emotional and sensitive and honestly like when I talk through this like like I love

SPEAKER_01:

CrossFit

SPEAKER_00:

I love the community CrossFit gave me so much and CrossFit affiliates are great for the most part the community is awesome the culture is great like and sadly and I'm not afraid to say this people might not like me for this I don't really mind but like people I think have tried to sort of do this in the past where like hey there's a better way But when they do that, they kind of bite the hand that fed them, or they just poo-poo. They're like, well, CrossFit's terrible. I'm like, well, really? Because you're still kind of doing aspects of it. You know what I mean? And I don't want people to think that at all. What I would love is to be a catalyst to say, hey, how can we make CrossFit affiliates better? Even though I am no longer a CrossFit affiliate, and I don't have that in my name and things like that, that's just a choice that we made. And that's a very personal choice. choice for every person. It's not a right or wrong thing, but like I would love, I would love to see the CrossFit community just make this massive like reboost and have new life breathed into it and have affiliates be well equipped to be like, you know what, like we've learned so much with our programming over the years and this is actually how we define CrossFit now and this is what programming looks like and this is why and this is how we measure it Because I used to say it at the end of every What Is Fitness lecture. Why do we do this? Because it's measurable, observable, and repeatable. And then here's the crux. And we would say, and if we find anything that works better, we're going to do it. But I don't think people made the effort to find anything that's better. And I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid to try to find it and be wrong. I could be wrong. But as of now, for an aging population, call whatever you want, and I would even argue someone that's in their 20s and does not care about competing in a fitness competition like the CrossFit Games, I believe that what I'm trying to do will serve people better over the long term. And so all that to be said, it's not poo-pooing it at all. I think it's like, gosh, I got way off on a tangent. No,

SPEAKER_01:

I could not. This is the first time we've met, but I'm in the exact same. I mean, almost the same. We dropped our affiliation, and again, personal choice what we what we do still looks a lot you walk into my gym people are going to call it a CrossFit gym and you know whether we we do not but there's so much magic that was able to happen but same same journey is just there was so much questioning for me that went on that kind of pulled me out of that to say hey I don't I think this is what I want to do and I want to I don't want to say my answer to be because CrossFit I want to say because this is my experience or this is what I've learned this is what I've borrowed from this other thing, so

SPEAKER_00:

that we're gonna do it this way. Yeah, and eventually, like, it becomes a disservice to people that are coming in. Totally. Yeah, that's happened to us. It's like, because of the assumption of, like, well, I thought you were a CrossFit gym, but this doesn't really feel like it. It's like, ah, you're kind of right. Like, some days do, but other days don't at all. So it's sort of like, I don't want people to be misled. But what I was gonna say is, like, if it disarms people a little bit, we had this guy come in. It was really cool. He was the Bob, the strength and conditioning coach for the Olympic bobsled team for Great Britain. And there are these monsters walking around, you know, like, 6'4", 275, like doing, lifting crazy amounts of weight. And they were getting to this different, like they were all had their own kind of individual program, but they were, you could tell they were like following, okay, like these guys are doing, all doing single leg box step ups. And these guys are all doing this. But when it came time for like explosive power with their hips, you saw some guys doing cleans. Some guys were doing snatches. Some were from the floor. Some were from the hang. Some were doing behind the neck stuff. And my buddy Doug, he walked over to this guy and he's like, hey, he's like, why are they doing different stuff? And the guy is so cool. He's like, well, my job is to make these guys as explosive and as powerful as possible. And for some of them, they're going to be able to develop that better because of their technique or their body type with a clean. And for others, it's going to be a behind the neck snatch grip push press. And for others, and it was kind of cool to be like, oh, so the per purpose has remained the same, but for each individual, he's finding the best way for them to be the most powerful athlete they can be. And some movements just either weren't effective or weren't safe or didn't favor their body type. And it's like, why, why can we not do that in our setting for our clientele on a daily basis?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's so a lot. It's actually, it brings it back around to what you said in the simple even when you bring it back down to movement patterns and the full expression of the movement pattern of the intent but that's also really hard for people to understand how to do as a coach and uh but at the same time it's like okay like again comes back to the crossword like the it's uh varies by degree not kind like it's really similar in that fashion to understand okay this is this is rx'd but not necessarily like this is this is the intent yeah right

SPEAKER_00:

It's just like this like arbitrary workout that I came up with and like take a goal time and like a good stimulus for like most people is going to work well, but it's like not everybody. Yeah. And so like, we don't, we don't call workouts RX. We don't even write weights on the board. We don't like, we just literally have to say, you know, whatever, you know, five deadlifts people like, what weight do I use? Like, well, you should always be able to get five, but it should be pretty heavy. Like, what is that? Like use 185 and someone else is like, well, I don't understand. And you're like, for you, it's 315. For you, it's 65. And they're like, well, but it's like, yeah, cool. And some people, it's like, well, I don't want you deadlifting. Like, I actually want you to pull from the blocks or I want you to, you know, and so this is what it becomes. Like, I got to know what I'm doing as a coach and I got to earn my keep. Like, I have to understand this beyond just like, hey, here's how we scale. I need to be thinking about, okay, like, this person is like, if hinge work really aggravates them, like, what do I need to do to assess that? Is hinging appropriate for them? How do I know if it aggravates them? And if it does, what do I do to accommodate that? Yeah, different variations of squats, different bars. That's where it can get so cool because it breathes some life, I think, back into people coaching. But it also, like, yeah, it's not necessarily the easy road. I don't think it's that either.

SPEAKER_01:

No, it's that hyper individualization even within the group. That's so, so good. I think it's just challenging. It just becomes really, you know, trying to dispel all the things in there. But again, I think that the nice part about that and what I try and educate my coaches on is like, hey, it actually is pretty simple. Just think about the movement pattern. What's the intent? What's the movement pattern? I don't know. Play around. Just try different stuff and

SPEAKER_00:

see how it goes. I don't know. My buddy Spencer at BPR and I, we even wrote up this. I think it might still be online. I'll have to see. We wrote up this big doc. We tried to run a seminar on it and stuff. It's just fell flat, but like we had a whole seminar and doc on movement function and demand. Like we went through all of it, squat, hinge, push, pull, and it just helps people break it down. And then we broke it down by also like, not just that, but movement demand. So we kind of went from least to most demanding where least demanding, if you think about like a hinge pattern would be an isometric hole. So step one is like isometric, right? hold my hip hinge, can I do that? And if we can do that, okay, cool. Well, now can I do that in a dynamic environment? Which dynamic, we just kind of said, well, can I move through that range of motion at control? So that would look more like a deadlift, right? Well, now can I add speed to that? And that would be more ballistic, which would be like a kettlebell swing or a hang clean, because decelerating weight is the most demanding thing we can do for our body. And so it's kind of the same thing. Instead of just like assigning a hang squat clean to someone it's like well we go back to that goblet squat test can they can they confidently like one can they confidently hold the bottom of the squat yeah well okay cool they can't well now can i do a squat with some reasonable capacity okay cool well now i can progress them to a hang clean safely and confidently and it's not to say that you can't teach them how to do a hang clean as they're learning with appropriate load like yeah for sure but you know that's different than you know cycling through 80 reps in a workout it you know 80 percent of their max. So it does take a little bit more effort, but if you kind of break it down in that movement function and demand, I think it pays dividends. And we even, it's funny though, like I don't have any problem being transparent. We even offer a program or a membership that does that for people. So we offer our members, we call it an elevated membership where for another hundred bucks a month, they can have an assigned coach that goes into true coach and takes the entire week of programming and modifies it for them based on movement demand function and any goals they have so if you were my client Kenny I'd be like hey what do you have coming up like I've got this hunt coming up so I want to make sure that long duration is a little bit more in play my low back bothers me when I do hinge work and we know that from assessment whatever and like I take the entire week of programming and I change that for you that's cool so then you go into the gym and you have that but I'm going to be straight up that sounds so cool doesn't it and like in my head i think why would everyone not be doing that guess how many people we have to do that not i bet

SPEAKER_01:

yeah i can not many 10

SPEAKER_00:

yeah eight to ten you know out of 160 that's crazy to me yeah like but maybe part of it is that they think they have it's not valuable enough because they can kind of do it on their own and get by. But point being is like, there's ways to be creative for you as an athlete, a gym owner, some of the programs for the gym to think about, okay, what does this look like and how do we do it in a group setting? I wouldn't put yourself in a box and feel like it has to look one way or another. I just start to get creative about what does that look like for your community? What's effective for it?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Again, that's, I love the, like just who the avatar is and you got to attract, you got to say, okay, this this is who we serve, this is what we're trying to get them to do, and then your program should align with that, which sounds so basic, but I don't know how well it's being done, often because people aren't willing to question some of those things. Again, not question CrossFit necessarily, but just questioning and having confidence in who they're serving and what they're doing and how it's serving them.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and it's tricky. We're in a position, too, where it's like, how do we get more members? If what we offer is so great And it's such a great deal. Why am I not bursting at the seams? You know what I mean? Because I can say that. And I believe that. I believe that what we do is better than anybody else in our area. I know it's not for everyone. You know, I know some people are like, you know, I'll never convince someone that they're not going to get big just because they're lifting a barbell. You know, I can tell you that, but I'm not trying to make you bulky, you know? And like, I can't, I can't fix that. Right. And yes, you might put on muscle and yes the scale might not move and you know like i can't fix that but if people are willing to try it's like well why aren't more people coming to us and if there's this big emphasis in the industry now with influencers and all this garbage in the fitness world that you see but people talk about the importance of strength it's like well we know how to get people strong and like not to be mean but the pink dumbbells and it ain't gonna gonna cut it at some point like for someone coming off the couch great but at some point it's just not gonna help people get strong and and that's like i'm okay to let them know that in a caring loving way it's like we'll have to yeah so to that point it's like know who you serve but then it becomes then how do you reach them oh man that's a whole other ball of wax right there buddy

SPEAKER_01:

it is i know but i still like that's what gets me up in the morning still right like i've been doing not quite as long as you but hold on 13 years and I still wake up and I want to be I want to be super confident in what we're delivering I still striving to be the best and I'm still striving knowing how many people that we aren't serving because I know what we can do and I think yeah while it is frustrating it's still I still for whatever reason love pushing that rock up the hill yeah you know what I mean I don't know and I I'm not sure if it's an echo chamber where I just my sphere of influence I like what you said. Everybody's talking about strength. Everybody's talking about zone two. Everyone's talking about functional this, that, and the

SPEAKER_00:

other. Yeah, shocker, right? I should get hours of sleep and eat real food. It's going to be this life-changing thing. Listen to me, and I'll charge you$100,000 a year to write you a program. It's like, come on. Everybody's just talking about the same thing and repackaging it with a different wrap and a different bow. I'm like, bro. Sorry, I get a little jaded. I'm like, really? Come on, guys. Let's all just call it what it is right you know whether you do that with staring at sun for the first 15 minutes or not like that cool i don't know but sleep matters yeah check the email got it like reduce stress now the the question i think becomes then like well cool we know it's up a how yeah sure what what are you doing the other 23 hours of the day and this is i think the next step and again where kind of my buddy spencer has gone with it with bpr is like he even does stuff where it's like further down the scope of sort of like the psychological side and saying like well hey if you like you're a complex system so yeah like training is important but what are the other 23 hours of your day look like and how do you navigate that what does that look like and having deeper conversations with these clients which is just like another expression of that and but yeah if we don't figure out how to do that stuff it's like I don't know. How are we helping people? How are we really serving them? Because I just care about that whole person approach too, right? I really do. I really care about that. But it's a tough nut to crack because people have to be willing, right? And sometimes willing just means they have to be willing to say life is stressful. Work is hard. Things are tough. And then we have to be able to say, okay, Kenny, like, I get that dude like you don't even have to share with me what's going on but i can tell you're stressed and that means that today like i need you to chill

SPEAKER_01:

now

SPEAKER_00:

i need this hour of your day to fill your cup and not take it away and the next person that comes and they're just like bouncing off the walls like you're in a great mood i could tell things are good you know but how do you do that like that's that next layer of coaching and care and giving people space i think that's what wakes me up me up in the morning is like everybody's so different and they're going through stuff we all have stuff and the gym if we can make it a place yeah they're working out but let's be honest people there's only so many combinations of squats burpees thrusters pull-ups that you can do before you have to come to terms with like i value this enough that i'm willing to grind it out and enjoy the monotony yeah that's just the reality and so then how do we look at that other side of the person and say hey what is the hour we're doing in here making that better and how because that's a deeper question man and like everybody yeah I mean that is hard and then becomes the crux of it feels real personal as a business owner and then it feels like it really stings when people leave that much more

SPEAKER_01:

I wish I yeah I feel I mean every single individual I feel like I either failed them or whatever so it still hasn't gone away you know after all these years and how many people we have in the gym and how many people have come to the doors I was actually just looking at you know it's a quarterly thing I'll look at who who's left in the year and you want to check in with them you go through that list and you get this little like sting like oh man like that's a there's some people in there i really feel like i let down yeah i don't know

SPEAKER_00:

it's hard it's really hard and there's this weird side of it too where like i get it though like i my job is to provide a service for these people to give them a result and at the end of the day that's my job and while yes i have friends in the gym a lot of them are like all of them they're clients they're not really people that I call at one in the morning if stuff's hitting the fan and so I have to separate that right and understand that they have stuff and there might be reasons that they leave that I can't answer but then if you go back to what we're talking about like we look at it more than just like teaching people how to dead lifting it strong but looking at them as the whole person when I get to know them more and they get to know me more and becomes more personal. And when things are more personal, people are often more willing to share their opinions. And it's like, well, I thank you for your opinion, but I'm the one that's on the hook for the mortgage. I'm not going to carry Aviator Nation sweatpants. We can't do that right now. Yeah, right? And so if people are gym owners, you guys get it. I don't know. Maybe it's just an encouragement to us to keep fighting the good fight, man, right? Because maybe that's the... Maybe that means we're doing it right, is that you feel that tension. You feel that, how do I navigate

SPEAKER_01:

that?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know. Maybe it's all wrong. No, I don't think so. I

SPEAKER_01:

think that's a great, I think it's a peek behind the curtain to, I think gym owners oftentimes get on the island and they think that the only ones having these struggles and feeling these ways and that they, again, fighting the good fight and feeling like they're, I think we focus on the negative sometimes. We focus on the people that leave and not the 150 that are still in the gym. But still, I think it's a good authentic look to realize, yeah, hey, this is tough. This is not an easy thing to operate.

SPEAKER_00:

No. Tough for me, too. Like, right here. People sometimes are like, oh, but you crossfit games. Like, bro, no one knows. No one cares. I've had people walk in the gym and be like, hey. And it doesn't matter, but I've had people walk in the gym and be like, yeah, kind of like peacocking a little bit. You ever see anybody in a crossfit game? It's like, yeah we have you know how many people the hot couple I don't know this is like no one knows you know it's like and that's fine it doesn't it doesn't matter right so it's like it's just it is I and I I think it's so healthy to talk about it in an environment like this like dude I've been stuck at a like a critical mass of about 150 to 160 for, I bet you, 10 years. That's crazy to me. Here's the thing. I need to figure that out. I legit have to figure that out. How do I get 50 more members or generate more revenue in the gym? Because if I don't treat it like a business and I don't run it like that, it's not going to be here in another decade for everyone to enjoy. And so it's like, Own it. You know what I mean? I think we have to own that struggle as people. And those that are more successful, great. What's working? How is that working? Why? Is it the demographic that you're in? And by demographic, I mean, is it just purely the population that you have? Is it the age group that is in your area? Is it the amount of people? Is it something that you're doing that much better marketing or programming that I'm just completely oblivious to? Is it a little bit of luck? Lightning in a bottle. All those things I think are just really important as affiliate owners at least to sort of take some ownership up, man. I have no problem letting people know the difficulty that it's been to run the gym. None. I'd pull back the curtain. Frankly, for us, we were fortunate enough to build our building, right? And I'll just shoot people straight. This is probably way off topic. No, I love it. It's great. But like a big reason why we're able to continue doing what we're doing is not because of the revenue that Jim brings in. It's because the business supports the investment of the building because the building is increasing its revenue. Oh, sure. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So the building is the investment. It's not the business financially. Guess what? The only way that we were able to build the building is by the grace of God. And I was fortunate enough to compete and I did it all wrong. I did all wrong, but every sponsor dollar that I ever made, I saved with my wife. We put into a bank account and we use that to put down as a down payment on the

SPEAKER_01:

bill.

SPEAKER_00:

I would not have been able to do that had I just run an affiliate. I wouldn't have had the money. I couldn't have done it. And maybe that's because I'm a less savvy business owner. I don't have a good understanding of that. I didn't go to school for that, right? So I'm sure there are people that could do a million times better than me. But just if it's encouraging to those of you guys that are listening, like I know the struggle and sometimes when things appear to be like, Oh my gosh, you know, like this building or they must have 600 people in the gym. Not always, man. There's a lot of different ways that people got there.

SPEAKER_01:

Dude. I am so appreciative of the authenticity of it because I mentor 40 different gym owners through two brain. And I, I have this conversation daily about people assuming something assuming they are the ones floundering they're the only ones floundering or they they don't understand how somebody did the thing and i'm like well this is this is how they did this i know i because i work with them i know how they did the thing this is how it worked and we all have different stories we all have different journeys and again i i think that that's that's a there's a little bit of a i don't know if it's a peacock whatever it is in this in the industry where we have we kind of have to put the best foot or the best face forward because That's just, you know, we got to be the shining example, but behind the scenes, it's, it's trickier than that. And I think it's really important for, it's like fitness, right? I think the same story, like where somebody's like, I've had good genetics. That's my backstory. You know, I would just kind of walked in, I did my muscle, I did a muscle up, like at my third try. It wasn't because I like did the program, but that's my story. It's not wrong or right or indifferent. That's just how I got there. So it doesn't mean that anybody's worse or better. We're all just walking a different path, but it's all still challenging. And I think that that's the, I don't know. I think it's good for people to know that stuff because they feel less isolated in their own journeys.

SPEAKER_00:

For sure. And then like, even like deeper layer for business owners, it's like they're same thing, just like fitness, right? It's like, there has to be a crossroads where we have to decide like, am I in or am

SPEAKER_01:

I

SPEAKER_00:

out? It just has to be like, gosh, because if you, if you're running a business to try to have it take care of like your family and you and like the goal of a business is to generate profit. Like, it needs to generate a profit because if it doesn't, like it's not going to be there for anybody to enjoy, right? And so how do we do that? And how do we do that with, like we said, you know, the right kind of programming and investing in the people and the right coaches and the right pay scale and the right membership fee and the right amenities and like, holy complexity, right? But I don't know, just encouragement to these guys that are out there, like gym owners, Maybe there is a time where you're like, I'm out. Maybe there's a time where you're like, I'm in and I need to buckle down and I need to like do these things because this is what's going to make the difference. That's going to be really hard. But I think it's just like anything, right? We can kind of either fall. I know to my default is like, oh, wait, wait, wait. I'm not going to ask the question. I'm just going to work harder. I'm just going to put my head down and work harder. You need to do more. I can do more. Is it more really making a difference? I don't know. So instead of just putting your head down and kind of hiding from that question, ask yourself the question, right? Are we really setting ourselves up for success? Are we not? Do I have the right people on my team? Am I doing the right programming? Am I marketing right? Do I need to work on my leadership? Bro, I have tons of shortcomings. Tons, right? But I just think it's so important to ask those questions. What's my exit strategy? strategy

SPEAKER_01:

yeah yeah

SPEAKER_00:

what's that like how do i retire off this thing yeah all also important

SPEAKER_01:

anyway dude that's great man i uh i know you gotta run i gotta get going but i could do this all day long i appreciate the heck out of the conversation about program design about your journey your experiences now like this has been fantastic so thank you so much yeah as always thank you for listening to find more about adventure preparedness programming go to parkcityfit.com and don't forget to join our group at strength coach collective dot com.