Misfit Podcast
Misfit Athletics provides information and programming to competitive Crossfit athletes of all levels.
Misfit Podcast
Keep. Showing. Up. w/ Paige Semenza - E.363
What happens when you're at the pinnacle of your sport and suddenly your body betrays you? Seven-time CrossFit Games athlete Paige Semenza takes us through her remarkable journey of injury, adaptation, and triumph that culminated in her best Games finish yet—despite training through debilitating back and shoulder injuries.
The conversation starts with Paige revealing the moment in April 2023 when she felt that dreaded "pop" in her back during a deficit deadlift, just weeks before semifinals. Rather than surrendering to circumstance, she and her coach completely reimagined her training, focusing exclusively on pain-free movements while bringing maximum intensity to whatever limited exercises she could perform. Remarkably, this approach carried her through qualifications and to a ninth-place finish at the Games.
Just as her back issues were resolving, Paige encountered a devastating rotator cuff injury that severely limited her ability to perform pressing movements and pulling gymnastics—cornerstones of competitive CrossFit. Through cortisone shots and modified preparation, she navigated a grueling schedule of competitions while her body was screaming for rest.
What makes this episode truly special is Paige's raw honesty about the mental toll of training through injury. "I felt like a different person," she confesses about competing at World Fitness Project while physically compromised. The rebuilding process that followed—focused on conventional strength movements and patient progression—reveals profound insights about fitness development that challenge the "more is better" approach.
Perhaps most inspiring is Paige's philosophy on consistency: "I'm going to give myself grace when I show up, and whatever I can give that day, I'm going to be proud of." This balanced approach has enabled her to maintain progress through immense challenges and eventually return stronger than before.
Whether you're a competitive athlete or someone navigating your own fitness setbacks, Paige's journey offers valuable lessons about adaptability, mental fortitude, and the power of showing up day after day—regardless of circumstances.
Ready to train like a Misfit? Our free trials are available on Strivee and Fitter for a limited time. Experience our programming and join our community of dedicated athletes working toward their own breakthroughs.
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We're all misfits, all right, you big, big bunch of misfits. You're a scrappy little misfit, just like me Biggest bunch of misfits I ever said either.
Speaker 2:Good morning, misfits. You are tuning into another episode of the Misfit Podcast. On today's episode we welcome a special guest, recurring guest. Seven-time crossfit games athlete, misfit athletics remote coach, more recently, misfit athletics programmer as well. Some of the torture that, uh, you put yourself through if you follow our programming is done by page, simenza page.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the show hi guys yeah that one seven time crossfit games attendee one time, ben smith one time yeah, pretty much any any echo bike piece that you guys have done in a met connor interval.
Speaker 2:Last phase was me yeah, that was an act drew picked me for all the echo bike piece. I'm like my brain is going crazy on these well, she doesn't like the Bike, so I figure it's like osmosis, she's putting the book under her pillow, it's true, and she will just automatically get better. At the Echo Bike You've been doing, we'll get to it, but you've been doing just a dash of Echo Bike, just a dash.
Speaker 3:A little bit.
Speaker 2:As usual, a little bit of housekeeping, a little bit of live chat and then we will get into the interview portion. On the housekeeping end, biggest thing is probably this is week one of phase zero and we have the free trials turned on. A lot of people have been asking for a free trial or a sample. I will always send you a sample of any of our programs if you reach out. But we've had it turned off for a while and it's going to turn off here in a few days. Um, but we've had it turned off for a while and it's going to turn off here in a few days. So if you want to try any of our programs on Strivee or Fitter, you have a couple of days left to get into the seven day free trial to test that out.
Speaker 2:Um just posting all of the workouts on social media and posting them, you know, sort of daily in the stories. Um has like interaction way up, which is fun. We're coming off of like people PRing their Texas method back squat and their strict press and their bench press of off season block two, really sort of dedicated strength portion there. But then we're coming in to obviously there's one rep max lifts which are less pertinent in a lot of ways to the sport as the conditioning tests, and we're getting a lot of PRs on the conditioning tests as well in phase zero, which is really to see shout out to you know what I actually have a very specific shout out that I want to do uh page.
Speaker 2:You know someone named ryan daniels yeah, I love ryan this is a great message. This is this is wait. Where did it go? Oh no, maybe he sent it to my personal account. Stand by, you guys want to talk about something while I find this we could talk about r Ryan Daniels. Yeah, tell me about Ryan Daniels.
Speaker 1:I love Ryan. He's so crazy. We always have a good story with Ryan.
Speaker 2:He's a character, right? I think I've had a couple of drinks and played cards with him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, him and Josh, another member at our gym. So Ryan is a member of our gym here and he follows Misfit, so he goes in the annex in our open gym area quite a bit. Just, there's always a story with him and usually it has to do with like doing something super inappropriate or saying something inappropriate.
Speaker 2:But it gives us all Misfit crew he does.
Speaker 1:He's so great, so it's like him and Wyatt are in the back and like in open gym quite a bit together, and leah, his wife, has started doing some of the gpp programming, so that's pretty fun too.
Speaker 2:A little bit of mystic family there so hunter ryan was the one where he sent in his one rep max and his five rep max back squat and we took a look at it and part of it was talking through very, very strong well, we'll find out when I mean what is it like?
Speaker 3:an egregious like 500 pound, five rep max or something are they?
Speaker 2:like the same. No, no, no, no, yeah, yeah, we were talking about the disparity between the two yes, yeah, okay all right. So message reads hey, drew, just wanted to give a quick thanks. I sent in that video about being able to do multiple reps real close to my one rep max back squat. Last year you did the video on fixing the back squat and it helped me realize I was very quad dominant. Your tips and some PT with McKenna got my knee feeling good for the first time in a while Just finished.
Speaker 2:Texas Method. My previous PR back in 2016 was set back in 2016 when I was 30. Set a lifetime PR by 30 pounds nine years later, so obviously.
Speaker 3:I can resonate here.
Speaker 2:I am also a joker 39 years old, I think I am and I sure as fuck am not setting any 30 pound PR. That's so awesome, so that's so cool. What up Nine years later, after being stuck at the same weight for all of those years in between, so not being able to essentially increase? Just wanted to say thanks for all you do and sharing your knowledge with all of us which video?
Speaker 3:do you know which video he's referencing? Is it the one that we did?
Speaker 2:you and I did a fix his back squat on the podcast like we talked through why is this happening?
Speaker 3:basically, that's right. Okay, yeah, that was him. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Got it and I don't like that. If that message was just the pleasantries, I would have shared it with Hunter and Kyle and Paige and been like this is really cool, so not the reason I'm bringing it up. While that part of it is nice the idea of how this ecosystem works and the way that we want it to work with the programming and then, hey, maybe I don't want a remote coach. I can't afford a remote coach. It's not a sustainable business model for us. That sort of thing. To have everybody do it you sending that video in you having those conversations in Discord, you listening to the podcast and putting that stuff into what you do is how this could go from. Yeah, it's a pretty good program. It's well thought out to like. I can make significant jumps in my progress year over year.
Speaker 2:So I bring that up to shout him out for taking the initiative to do so. And then the idea of this whole thing working the way that we want it to, and I think it's tough with, like back in the day there were less companies like you just went to one place for all of your information from us, that sort of thing, and now it's kind of dispersed into different places and someone who's newer to the program not knowing that they have access to us in those groups, that we will, you know. You know do some video review stuff or you know, give you advice or you know the community will answer your question for you, that sort of thing. Really, try to lean into that. Right, we're starting at phase zero, we're heading into phase one, we get to start this thing all over again and doing the program wrong will take you a certain distance and then doing it right and using the extra resources will take you a significantly further distance. So something that when we get an example of it, I think it's really important to share.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was super excited about testing his one rep this week, like when he saw that phase zero was coming. But, like you said, like we're always about like meeting us halfway, like we put the programming out there, put the resources out there. But Ryan also is following the programming. He's picking your brain, he's picking my brain and he's going to PT because he knows he has a little bit of like asymmetry that he needs to work through and some compensation work that he needs to work through. So I love it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I put the one rep max back squat on the heels of Texas Method very intentionally.
Speaker 2:It's like the first thing that I plugged in, I was, like people are really going to love the idea of like down and up. Once I could probably put a lot of weight on here. And that's another thing where, like, we're getting a lot of PRs rolling in through which sort of builds on the idea of us waxing poetically about how, like you might think it's a little bit leaning more towards muscle endurance, but people really getting their legs under them takes quite a bit of reps and you can improve your one rep max. So that's pretty fucking cool. Life chat hunter. What do you got for us?
Speaker 3:been playing some good golf recently.
Speaker 3:That's the uh, that's the life chat surprise yeah just, uh, what appears to be out of temporarily out of the the doldrums of just sad, angry, irate golf dropped uh, first under par nine hole round. I was telling you and kyle about this yep on sunday, which was pretty cool. Should have been two under, but uh, we'll just, I'll leave it at that. It was one under and just one, one half-assed tap away from a perfectly clean scorecard, which would have been fucking pretty cool you get on all fours and tell it to go to its home yeah, I just screamed at it moved.
Speaker 3:It moved a little bit, but the wind was directly into my face so it didn't move at all. And then, uh, yes, bergy and I yesterday went out, uh played, shot pretty good, he shot 75, I shot 76 so we're we're continuing to cruise, cruise along handicaps trending back downward, which is nice, but, um, I don't know about, I don't know if I'm gonna see five by the end of the season. That's, that's pretty aggressive. We're at, we're at seven, eight, seven point eight, right now now are you.
Speaker 2:If you played with other people, would they consider you a sandbagger. Like what would they consider? How accurate would they say you a sandbagger? What would they consider? How accurate would they say you're? Because this is a hot topic.
Speaker 3:To be honest, if I were to be classified as one or the other, I would be more of the opposite, so a sandbagger, somebody who would deliberately only want to post poor scores so that they could play in like club events and get more strokes and win more money. Yeah, I am. I'm like the opposite. I despise, I hate the idea of posting a bad score because my handicap is going to go up and I learned that grand bagger is the inverse of sandbagger yeah, I didn't know what that term was uh grand bagger, grand bagger big old hand bagger
Speaker 3:last year I would say somebody might have been like irritated with me because I had enough of the skills that if I just strung together 18 decent holes I would shoot well under my handicap. And somebody would be fucking irritated about it. And I'm like I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm doing. Well enough to like like come back tomorrow and like well, you'll find the uh, the opposite end. But now I think my like my upper and lower limits are are narrowing a little bit. And yeah, no, I I'd say it like reflects accurately. But no, I'm the opposite. I would prefer to like not post a poor score, but I've had to, but like then that kind of artificially that like it's like I'd say like oh, I'm a five handicapped, like yeah, but you only post, yeah, 15 of the rounds that you play.
Speaker 2:So I am a little bit selective, I'll that's got more of a kale layman vibe to it yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I'll go out there and like say I'm not shooting. I've also posted a lot more 18 hole rounds this year versus last year was nine, yeah, and I was thinking about that.
Speaker 3:And it's like the, the, the, like the math on how they calculate your handicap is pretty, like I think it's as good as it can be for the, the system, but like it's so much easier to string like nine really good holes together than it is to string 18 holes together. I think that like, and it's just harder to harder to go from a 10 to a five than it is from a 25 to a you know 10.
Speaker 3:The beginner gains are diminishing for sure. Yeah, we're, we're, we're trending. We're trending up in the golf game. Clubs are no longer on facebook. Marketplace hunters in the bag feeling good about the sticks we got. Only perusing ebay like three times a day. So, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're in the. We're in the pocket here for for the rest of the season page, what you got for us mini golf back, not? Did you have you watched happy gilmore too page? I haven't watched it yet. I heard it's good though did you watch?
Speaker 3:it was great drew said it was bad, but drew's like standard for movies is like is it like interstellar or better? No, terrible. I'm even more of a snob than yeah I know I can't even tell you I couldn't think of a better movie than that. What?
Speaker 2:the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 1:I'm that I heard good things about it. I'll watch it. Eventually, the nostalgia has to be there. I think yeah.
Speaker 2:I think even if you were a golf fan maybe a low IQ golf fan you'd be okay, but I think you have to. For me, the nostalgia was there. I got some good chuckles. It was fun to watch, but it was fucking terrible.
Speaker 3:Do I got some good chuckles. It was fun to watch but it was fucking terrible. Do you know any golfers?
Speaker 1:Paige, are you familiar with big-name golfers? Yeah, if you say their names, I know who they are. My brother watches, but I don't really follow along at all. I just know that when it comes to the back nine and mini golf, I'm done, I'm terrible, so bad, I'm just cooked.
Speaker 2:I can't pay attention Exactly, I'm done, I'm terrible, so bad Just cooked. Yeah, I can't pay attention Exactly, you get me for like six holes on a mini golf course Maybe.
Speaker 1:I don't know, Life chat. I feel like every time I get a life chat I'm in the middle of a prep. So Yep.
Speaker 3:I'm in the middle of prepping for World Fitness.
Speaker 1:Project right now. You've been in hell week.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I do like it, though, like I, you know, probably not many people know, but I've basically, since I started CrossFit, I've coached and I've coached in affiliate and the last couple of years I've done it full time. And then this year I decided to take a step back from coaching and with the World Fitness Project and with the game season, I wanted to put all my marbles into that. So I finally, like you know, I made those changes earlier in the year and it was. It took some time to adjust but I finally feel like I'm kind of embracing the season that I'm in right now, like embracing an athlete life a bit more, and I know it's not going to last forever, so I'm kind of soaking it all in. But yeah, right now it's just I'm training.
Speaker 1:I have my remote clients that I work with, I do some of the programming for, for Misfit, and outside of that I'm just, you know, trying to spend some time with McKenna and Wyatt, some other friends, on weekends when there's free time. My birthday was last week, so over the weekend I invited people from our gym to go to a brewery and, yeah, spend some time by the pool, things like that, just to balance some of the stress, like when I was coaching also, I was like on my feet a lot, and then when it gets hot out, I'm on my feet and sweating a lot. So I feel like I have good balance right now, that's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it's. It's interesting to have the like. This is what you wanted, but then you still do have to get used to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a different lifestyle yeah, big adjustment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, not to like. Just, I mean, I feel like that's a good segue into a question Like what's the? What is the difference? What's what are like big differences between? Like cause a lot of. I got to imagine a lot of athletes most athletes probably are in your shoes where it's like I need to, like I am working a full-time job wherever that is and like I'm training when I have time, versus you've made the switch to like training is actually number one priority and like how's that? How has that lifestyle switch been for you? And what are like main differences between?
Speaker 1:what you're doing before and now.
Speaker 1:I mean, like I still am very much like a people person, Like I do like to put like people first. I love to help in the affiliate and I love to help just people get better in general. But, like I was also, I also still love competing and I still really enjoy that and it's it's still a work that I really, really love to do and I have the means to do it full time right now. So I just get to be on my feet a lot less. I, you know, like I think of being an affiliate like it doesn't feel like customer service, but like I always want to make sure people are having a good hour of their day and that's a lot of my energy used on other people, so I don't have to do that as much and give as much of myself to other people, which you know sounds selfish, but like where I'm at right now, that's like a good thing to put it on myself.
Speaker 1:But just really being on my feet a lot less helps.
Speaker 1:Like I can go have a training session and sweat everything out of me and then I can come home and actually like chill in the AC for a little bit before I want to go back and do another session and that's like otherwise I'm coaching, you know, two to four classes a day, or two to three classes a day, or in doing one-on-ones, and it's like I'm on my feet for additional hours and that in the heat gets like really, really tough and then sleep is bad. I've talked to Drew quite a bit, like even in the heat now, like my digestive system is a little off and like just trying to, like you know, figure out the balance for eating enough and all that which all that stuff matters. You know so. But I was also going through my injury with my shoulder for a while and that played a big part in my head space and again, like right now, I just feel like I have a really good balance, I'm pain free, which is night and day different in my headspace.
Speaker 2:And you had a day where we talked about this this is early in prep, so even lower volume where you said you didn't get out of the heat and you were just like I am not well. Yeah, we got like air conditioning yeah, air conditioning intervals when you're training, like that are so fucking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's like I feel like I can go harder in training right now and, even with having slightly lower volume prepping for a world fitness project, like I can give good intensity and good energy to what I'm doing. And I still coach two classes a week, so I still want to help people. I don't want to just put myself in a cave and like hide away, like I still want, you know, people to come out and talk to me and go talk to them and things like that I'm gonna hijack, uh, the last portion of life chat here real quick to ask the listeners a question.
Speaker 2:I had the idea I wanted to stream the games on Friday like live, and tell people like how do we think about these events and like that sort of thing Turns out. I'm not allowed to do that. That is like copyright infringement or something. But I can do a like like Rogan does fight companion, I can do a games companion. So you and I are watching the same thing at the same time, but we are. I'm fucking sitting in my office. You can't see the, the, you know the game stuff, but there's the chat and I can send the link out and invite people to like join me or whatever.
Speaker 2:Friday there are three events. There's an 8 am with the, the run, the long run row workout event. Two is that wall walk, one with the crossovers, I think that's like out of like 11 ish, and then they haven't announced number three, which is close to 3 pm. My question is this is slide into the dms, go in telegram, whatever. Tell me if you guys want to do that like, if you're going to watch the games. Anyways, you're going to be in your fucking office. You want to hear me rant while we watch people run along the river for an hour. Let me know something. I just want to try out and see if it's fun, that sort of thing Because I have gone to the CrossFit Games, coached at the CrossFit Games, 12 years in a row and this is the first year that I won't be there and I'm like I kind of watch right.
Speaker 3:Like, and I'm like I gotta watch right. Like, don't I Gotta watch the games.
Speaker 2:I can't not watch the CrossFit games, so I'm gonna try that. So between now and Friday, I need to figure out how to do that. There's a live option in this thing that we use that like links right away and then that way I could invite people, because I do know how to do that. So if you see that Misfit Athletics is live on YouTube between now and Friday and I'm doing nothing on the screen, that's just me testing out and figuring out how to do it.
Speaker 3:So if you guys want to do that, you think that would be fun.
Speaker 2:Let me know, I'll also throw this in like a poll or something on Instagram. All right, paige, I think now is a really good time to tell the story of spring 2025. Spring, early summer, yuck, yuck tell the story of spring 2025 spring early and I think the beginning of the story is your back injury in 2023. What happened in 2023? And then spoiler alert you did better at the games than you ever had before.
Speaker 3:Oh my.
Speaker 2:God, what took place in 2023? How did you hurt your back? What was it like? Training for whatever events you had after that? I think that is the beginning of the origin story, to get us all the way to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's accurate. Oh gosh, so this was, I don't know April 2023. We were prepping for semifinals. Mckenna was following Misfit at this time, right.
Speaker 2:That was her first year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, she wasn't working with you yet or she was no.
Speaker 2:no, she was the first ever hatchet athlete to qualify for semifinals, which then convinced Brandon to do it and Lindsay to do it so kind of she started that trend.
Speaker 1:Well, for people that don't know, yeah, for people that don't know, mckenna and I are training partners here at home. So she started following Misfit, was following Mayhem before that switched over. We're like this would probably be a good idea. So we were prepping for that. I did some high volume wall ball ski workout and then I was following up with some strength work, doing some deficit deadlifts, and I went to pull a deadlift off the ground. I felt a pop in my back and it's something that I felt before.
Speaker 1:So I wasn't like too concerned because, well, I was like up and down, because there were moments, there were times where something like that has taken a week to recover and then there's times where it's taken six months to recover. So when a week went by and it wasn't better, I was like, oh no. So I was a little bit in trouble there, but that was like I think, five weeks before semifinals and I was working with Gabe at the time. So we talked a lot, I cried a lot, but we would just do anything that was pain free, and then it was literally give as much intensity to those things as I possibly could. So I even lowered the volume of training, but I really, really bought into what I was doing.
Speaker 1:So if it was, you know, a burpee workout, I was just. I was making myself hurt very badly in those workouts but I had to limit the amount that I was lifting barbells. I had to take it to a lot of tempo work, a lot of isometric holds, just kind of adapts and prepares for what's to come. And I was able to compete really well I was. I barely made it Like I made it. By what A point? Three points that year, yeah, yeah, um but I was.
Speaker 1:Pictures on the scorecard. I was able to get it done.
Speaker 2:So yes, you were.
Speaker 1:I gave everyone a heart attack but I was able to get it done. So, yes, you were, I gave everyone a heart attack but I was able to get it done. So then that year training for the games is very different. A lot of sled work. It went into a lot of like strongman stuff where I wasn't having to pull so heavy. But it was like kind of a blessing in disguise because a lot of the game stuff that year was like sandbag, like the heavy sandbag clean and things that like I could just get like that I can do well without hurting myself. So that year went pretty well and then it was. You know, try to recover a little bit after the games. Get a last minute invite to Rogue, which I took just to find out that they were going to announce a heavy deadlift, one rep max. But I think it was around that time that my PT, john and Drew kind of collaborated a little bit and figured out that like my squat mechanics were a big issue.
Speaker 2:It was Wadapalooza, it was the muscle up squat trio workout.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Watching you move through that and seeing your different variations of squat and being like holy shit, like I call it, the I refer to it as the human paperclip. She's essentially sitting so far back in her squat more of a vertical shin kind of squat, relying on the posterior chain a lot more and that at high rep and high weight is really gnarly on the low back, but it would present itself afterwards. So you would always do like we went back through, like when does your back hurt? And it's like when I deadlift, and it's like what else? And it's like I did a lot of squat cleans the day before fronts.
Speaker 2:you know that thing that created the paperclip idea that I'm talking about, where you then go to try and brace and your back's like had enough, please don't do this, that sort of thing. And yeah, that's one thing where, when you're trying to figure this stuff out, like where is it actually coming from? It's not because you were deadlifting, right? So like we have to look at it from that point of view. And then we, I think we figured out some stuff with your shoulder as well that way.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I was watching you in that workout and I was like I think I know, I think I know what's going on here, yeah, so all that to say, a lot of squat holds have been like. Squat holds have changed my, my movement drastically and it's changed the fact that I don't get like I don't feel the flare ups, I don't feel like, oh, this might be a bad day to do this movement. That kind of stuff doesn't really happen anymore, and recovery is a big part of that too. Each year you find out better ways to recover and need more recovery. But yeah, so a lot of things have happened, even in my personal life.
Speaker 1:In December that year, ben and I broke up. We split up and I moved out of his house and that was a very dark time. I moved home for a while, for about a month and a half, and then I ended up finding an apartment from a friend. But it was like all that happened and I was like I'm not competing, I'm not doing that, like I'm never going to compete again. I was too sad.
Speaker 1:And then, mckenna, I got the invite for Wadapalooza and I could do teams. So I was like let's get some misfits. And McKenna and Jenna Michelotti. At the time we did a team of three and like it gave me purpose to train again and to kind of like get my body moving because I hadn't been doing anything. I just took time off from pretty much everything except for coaching and working.
Speaker 1:But that happened. And then Wadapalalupe was an amazing time and I decided to buy into training with McKenna like full-time, and training with her meant getting up at 6 am and being at the gym because she has to be out by 9. So a lot of that, like my lifestyle changed with that and it I don't know. Every year I've bought in more to like the process and the lifestyle and it hasn't been like a sacrifice, it's been like a joy, it's been really fun, it's been really enjoyable. So you know, trying to go through the healing of a breakup, like we were together for three years. So it was a lot and I had to lean on a lot of people.
Speaker 2:It's hard to heal physically in that state too Like that's. That's one thing that I think you know there's. There's actual scientific research attached to it, but anyone who's been? Through an injury that is also in like a very stressful season of life. Like it's different, like yeah, like it really exacerbates the issue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really takes hold physically um, and with this sport, it's like you're constantly putting your body under stress, so you're kind of doubled down on cortisol.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, right, from both ends almost, yeah, physical and the mental side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but training with McKenna was like a true healing process in itself. Like her and I just really leaned on each other and you know she was, she still is on the come up with with competing and for me it gave me purpose to be like someone for her to look up to and for her to lean on in that and that gave me purpose and that made me want to train more as much as it made her want to train more. So like she's getting better, I'm getting better, like all around physically, emotionally, mentally, all of that. So fast forward to semifinals in 2024. Personal, ben and I decided to get back together and try it again. So that was like a very last minute thing right before semifinals, which I was okay with. Everybody else was like what's happening?
Speaker 2:we won't, we won't go deep into this, but hunter just her nose, gabe being told that at the briefing.
Speaker 3:Gabe's, not your therapist, gabe's. No one being told that at the athlete briefing.
Speaker 2:Now that we are on the other side of things in many ways. Honestly, all time memory for me. It was so fucking awkward I was fine.
Speaker 1:I was fine, gabe was not. Anyway, I was fine I was fine, gabe was not.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I was somewhere in between those two things.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I had a fantastic performance at semifinals. I finished eighth in the middle of the pack. But in that I want to say it was probably the legless rope climb workout where I got done. Sorry, can you guys hear me Please connect? Are you there?
Speaker 3:You're back? Yeah, we can hear you Paige.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I think it was in the middle of the legless rope climb workout where I got done and I went and got some PT work with John because he came for the whole weekend and I was like I just don't feel right in my right side, like my lat is really messed up, but it didn't affect me through the rest of the weekend and then afterwards, like trying to recover after semifinals and taking that week off was, like you know, trying to figure out if it's just I need rest or if there's something more. And it turns out there's something more. So I struggled with a rotator cuff issue since semifinals last year and I went through like two cortisone shots to get through the games to get through rogue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what was games prep like? So you came in. Another spoiler alert you came in ninth at the crossfit games last year. Also, all I ever talk about in this podcast how amazing semifinals were. The east semifinal you came in eighth at the east semifinal. You came in eighth at the east semifinal. You came in ninth at the crossfit games. If anyone wants to know how fucking stacked that field was yeah, that was that was like a moment in time that I will definitely remember.
Speaker 2:So year before we're sworn off barbells, heading into the crossfit games might be an issue. And then, what did you have to leave out of your training leading into the crossfit games? In most pressing and pulling and that includes gymnastics, that's not just barbells, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, barbell pulling was fine, it was I could clean.
Speaker 3:Is your back at 100 percent at this point too? Yeah, back was fine, ok, so back's fine. Now shoulders the issue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so any pulling gymnastics and any pressing of any sort gymnastics, barbell dumbbells, like all that stuff became really, really painful. And it wasn't until I got a cortisone shot at some point within games prep that I was like, ok, I can do these movements. But that wasn't until like maybe three weeks before the games.
Speaker 2:So really there wasn't much bias on pulling gymnastics at every level of competition that gets programmed by hq, so like that's obviously a very big deal, but how cool is it to?
Speaker 2:you're almost forced into the understanding the idea of gpp right yeah, like you want to believe it, you want to buy into it, but like an athlete that feels like they haven't done everything that they can to prepare. That's a tough place to be in mentally but you trusted that we were going to be able to kind of figure things out. And you know, one of the things that happened throughout this whole process we did a whole segment on it on the podcast a while back was your progression and running. Like, if you want to be good at the CrossFit games, you have to be a good runner and fully fast forward. You were a mid to bottom of the pack runner. Now you run nine minute fucking miles in your zone two by far the most jealous thing that I am of you Like.
Speaker 2:I like curse you. When I see your scores on Strivy, I'm like how is that possible? You're not even at the peak.
Speaker 3:Damn you, Semenza. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:And it's like's like.
Speaker 3:Well, at least I helped make that happen, but like fucking a.
Speaker 2:That would never happen. I could take I could get blood doping from a sherpa that lives on top of everest and I wouldn't run a fucking 959 mile for more than one mile for zone two. Sorry, yeah, well, it was a little bit of a tangent. Well, that's that I mean that was.
Speaker 1:That's a segue, because that was literally what I leaned into when I couldn't use my upper body.
Speaker 1:It was like, let's, let's run yeah and that was a lot of games prep, a lot of you know, still the grunt work, all the the usual stuff. But as someone who has, like who's had troubles with, like, performing on pulling gymnastics and pressing movements, like to not be able to do those things consistently, like really does take a hit at your confidence when you are at that, like at that stage and are ready to compete. It's like I don't know how this is gonna go, but I'm gonna do my best. So yeah, we had an MRI. There was a partial tear at one point through all that, but since it's been, that went away. But I mean I could keep going here. There's still so much more that's happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. So CrossFit Games 2024, again, just your ability to show your level of GPP. And that also leads me into kind of another piece of it with Rogue. So you hadn't done muscle-ups in I don't know how long before Rogue. Let's say you trained muscle-ups before Rogue. I mean like six months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably. Yeah, I didn't do them before the games.
Speaker 2:We talked about the movement itself before you. Like she literally this is in the warm-up area at rogue. She's getting ready to to compete at honestly, it's not better than the games. But like they condense the field down to a point where it's like like okay, if you were a straggler at the games, you can't come for the most part like that.
Speaker 2:It's just the final heat of games athletes and there's two parts to this that I think are really cool and I'm interested to hear your thoughts hunter on on if you feel this way. But the gpp element, this beautiful thing that affects everything else that's going to happen to you in training. Then this idea of either being a coach and coaching movement or buying into this like borderline obsession that I have with movement efficiency. She did a set of muscle ups to open that I felt like was the best set of muscle ups I'd ever seen her do and we were like laughing in the back. Same thing happened with snatch. We had like a couple of quick cues and you're just smoking the barbell. And that's one thing that I found with being really into coaching movement is it translates out on the floor at the gym in a movement that I haven't done in a while, and I don't know if you feel that way, hunter.
Speaker 2:But like it really translates for me and I could tell that it was translating for Paige.
Speaker 3:Well, there's like when you were just talking about that, paige, andrew, the stimulus thing, like and just GPP, all I could think about was caroline during covet right when it was just like the only thing that she, she had a couple of machines and, like you know, we gave her.
Speaker 3:Make sure she had a couple of like dumbbells and kettlebells and maybe a barbell, maybe even not, but like the amount of time that she spent just training energy systems with the movements that she had access to, as opposed to just like no, she didn't have rings to do muscle ups on and she didn't have, you know, don't have a pull upfit event. Like the fact that she was able to train the stimulus and maybe, and maybe even to a greater extent because, like, because of how efficient machines can be at like targeting a very specific energy system where instead of, like you know, you get a triplet of a machine, a high skill gymnastics movement and then a weightlifting movement, where there's an opportunity for that, to like, that, to fluctuate within the workout a little bit, the effectiveness of like machines and just having a smaller set of movements to like, train yourself on whether it's out of necessity or not, just like, and she I don't remember what, how she placed, but bottom line is that it didn't affect her performance, like, if anything, it made her fitter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like from an energy system perspective I mean she's all of 411 and three quarters and she was beating us on c2 bike pieces by the end, yeah, like it was insane, um, and she didn't lose, and she didn't lose a step at all in the movements that she wasn't able to train like you're gonna. Like anybody's gonna feel rusty, and I think to your point about movement efficiency. Like the biggest thing I can relate that to cause is is just like I think anybody who's played competitive sports, they and especially if you're like you really want to fucking get good at your sport. For me right now it's like I keep talking about golf, but that's how it is. It's like you train you, you, you want to get so much better at a very specific thing and you train it and you break down the component parts and you do drills and skills and stuff like that and like every once in a while it comes together but sometimes it doesn't, and you're just like what the fuck am I like? Am I? Is all of this just for not?
Speaker 3:You take a step back. You. You like, apply the same thing to homework, right, you study your ass off. You don't seem to get the concept. You take a step back, you step away from it for a couple hours. In the case of you know, in your case page, it's like maybe a couple of weeks, maybe even a couple of months, and then, like you go back to that movement and it's like that feels and looks better than any other time that I've been training this movement. You know two to five days a week consistently and all of a sudden I don't do it for a month and I feel exceptional about it. I don't know what the mechanism is for that. I think that's a super interesting thing because it applies.
Speaker 3:There's so many areas in life that it applies to, like there's a visualization element Um or just like a yeah and like a just a devil may care kind of vibe to it. Like when you go in like I haven't done, like this workout opens up with 15. Was this the muscle up? What was the workout? Was it the 15? And then the squat cleans or something like that.
Speaker 1:Echo bike muscle up, snatch shuttle run.
Speaker 3:Snatch. Okay, yeah, so like. Maybe part of it is like and you can answer this is it like just not having any sort of expectation or concept of what you might be capable of in the movement? So the only thing you have to go on is like very much how you feel in the moment. You pair that with adrenaline and you let her rip and all of a sudden it's like that's better than I've seen Paige do ever. Maybe. Yeah, I don't know what the mechanism is, but it's a you know. You just see it applied in so many areas of life, whether it's just like studying for something. You take a step back and then all of a sudden it clicks. It's a movement pattern thing. It's like I need to put a barbell down, I need to go go take a walk, I need to go do something completely unrelated to this. You let all that training kind of almost like like settle itself into your nervous system and then you come back and it's like holy shit, shit, like all of that work did in fact pay off.
Speaker 2:I wasn't sure when it was going to reveal itself and I at one point was unsure that it was ever going to, but it did, and there actually is a neurological pathway that has been studied and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna butcher it right now, but like there is research on exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, and I try out in the gym to tell people like it's time to stop. Like in 48 hours you're gonna feel a lot better about this. Yeah, you trying to see if you can make the pull-up bar become, I don't know transparent so that you can, your body can morph through it and you get a bar muscle up versus slamming your chest into it.
Speaker 3:And shaking the whole building. Yeah, just that point of diminishing returns the frustration, the physical exhaustion.
Speaker 2:In the mind, making a connection between the physical and the mental aspect of it, which is cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a lot of it is like putting trust in yourself, putting trust in what you've already done. And like I, as McKenna's going through her injury recovery right now, it's like and I have an athlete who had an injury, take him, take a step back for a week and he's like, am I going to lose everything? And I'm like the amount of times that I've had to start over in this sport and still excel year after year, like it's OK, like you're going to have setbacks. But like you, if you build the foundation underneath you. Like watching McKenna like she's already built such a strong foundation underneath her. She has all the tools as far as physical therapy and recovery that like she's going to like blast off from this at some point and like we've seen that in her pressing already, like that girl can press a brick house like the outer space I don't even know.
Speaker 2:You don't want to know.
Speaker 2:There's a reason, though there's a very specific reason why, you can rebound from that and why she is going to. You both share this. You both show up anyways, even if see, that's the thing people think they have to arrive at this next checkpoint with the like, perfect conditions and mindset, like that's one thing you've always done, you've been honest with me about this is where my headspace is at. At no point do you say I'm not fucking going in today, and this goes back to that. You know the story that we tell of everyone being like, be nice to yourself, take seven extra rest days a week and you'll feel fantastic, and you like, raised your hand at camp and we're like I just go do it anyways.
Speaker 2:And everyone else is like fuck, but like that is, it's not. The funny thing is you might take that as like oh, I just do it anyways. That's not what you're saying. You're saying I show up and just give it what I've got on that day. Anyways, I know that it's not a 10 out of 10. It might be a two out of 10, but I continue to show up and that you know.
Speaker 2:There's the whole you know, insert fucking Jocko Willink and David Goggins and all that shit, like that whole piece of momentum and discipline and everything but like if someone is going through this sort of deal and want to know what the number one advice would be from someone like you or McKenna whether you guys know it or not is just continue to show up like over and over and over.
Speaker 3:Can I and correct me if I'm wrong. This is all like to. It's all, it's not. It's not like doubling down, right, it's not like, okay, what I'm doing isn't like I'm not feeling great, I'm going to double down and work even harder. Right, it's more of like, because, like that, like there's a time and a place for that, but for the most part it's more like, hey, you just need to kind of trust and embrace the process. Right, keep doing what you're doing. It's OK that you're not at 100 percent. Every day, I tell we talk to affiliate athletes about this Like there's a.
Speaker 3:There's a difference between like I'm just going to continue to come to the gym every single day and, before I know it, I'm on 14 continuous days of training and it's like you're an idiot, like that's dumb, like, instead, like, maintain the consistency that you have and accept the fact that maybe on Tuesday, even if it's a wheelhouse workout for you, like you just didn't sleep great, you just don't feel great, you had a dog shit day at work, or maybe just for absolutely no reason, you don't have it in you.
Speaker 3:Like coming in and still like having something to focus on. Like it doesn't need to be a like I'm rolling around on the floor after the workout, sort of like or bust feeling. It's like, well, I can still. I can still do my five by five squat, and maybe it's not at the percentage that I need to, but I can instead focus on my bottom position. I can focus on speed through the lift. There's always something to focus on that can move the needle for you, whether or not you choose to do that or not, or just kind of, you know, on one end just double down and just continue to beat the shit out of yourself, which isn't good, or the opposite of just like. I'm going to be nice to myself. Take the 74th rest day in a row.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be nice to myself. Take the 74th rest day in a row. It's like chicken, I think. Yeah, like what you're saying is like it's not doubling down, it's actually quite the opposite. Like I'm not going to go in and try and work extra hard and like have that kind of like up for the feeling of like like it's.
Speaker 1:Actually I'm going to give myself grace when I go in and show up and whatever I can give that day I'm going to be proud of, because I still went and showed up. And that's not to say that's all the time, like there are seasons of life. I went through a breakup. It was really hard on me. Okay, I had a lot of grace in that time. I had to take a step back, but that's not.
Speaker 1:Like you know, I'm in a good place. I'm in a good place of balance right now, but I still have bad days and like, okay, I need to ease off the pressure a little bit so that I can still go in and show up and have a productive day. That's not to say I'm being easy on myself. Like you know, I still have a high expectation, but there has to be a balance of that somewhere and nobody else is going to give that to me except myself. Like I need to be able to give that to me because actually a lot of people are like sympathetic and empathetic and will give that to you when you're having a bad day, but like the showing up piece, I mean.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there's a place for that, for sure. Like it's not to say that, like there's never a place to say like hey, like, yeah, you like take the day, like, take the day to yourself. Like there is a place for that. That it's just if I think people tend to default to like what, like one extreme or the other, when it's like, well, it's like there is a middle ground of something that I can do and still be productive and, you know, just kind of trust that eventually I'll be out of this kind of like, this low point and and be on the back, on the way back up all right.
Speaker 2:So there's two parts to this story that we will at some point get to spring of 2025. We just covered quite a bit of it. And then the other side of it is. I'll use a shirt that we made last year the Misfit Athletics shirt for the CrossFit Games last year as the example.
Speaker 2:And I will attempt to set the tone by being somewhat vulnerable. We'll see how comfortable I am while I'm speaking. But there's this idea that I sort of wrapped my mind around last year. The shirt said work in the shadows, shine in the light, and basically the idea is, if Paige is willing to it's kind of like the 50-50 agreement, but in a different way If Paige is willing to work as hard as she does, with the level of recognition that she gets, I can also do that. I can also be okay with that. And the vulnerability piece would be I don't think that Misfit Athletics or myself receive the recognition that I should slash. We should for what we do in the space. But it's also my fault and, paige, it's also your fault in a certain way. Well, I'll let you speak to that yourself.
Speaker 2:You know, like last week, I've set up my fucking camera. I'm talking in, I'm talking to myself alone in my office about phase zero. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing right Like I don't know anything about marketing or advertising. I really know how to get people stronger, fitter, more skilled, talk them through mindset. You know these other pieces, and that's what I'm interested in, and I don't really need the validation enough to put myself in front of the camera more often to be like we're so cool, we're the best, like I.
Speaker 2:Just that's not really like a need of mine, but then can you really get pissed when you don't get the recognition, when you don't really put yourself out there in the way that other people do? So a little bit of a conundrum there. And 2025 season we talked through the financial ramifications of things like the World Fitness Project. You got a new agent. We talked about the idea of exposure and sponsorships.
Speaker 2:One of the reasons why you have done so well is because you have not been distracted at almost any point during this journey, right Second, 30th, 21st, 18th, 9th at the CrossFit Games.
Speaker 2:You have put the pursuit of excellence in the sport above all of these other things, above exposure, of always going to the Wadapalooza and the this and the that of filming yourself nonstop and editing and paying for people to come. You know just all these different pieces and a conversation that you and I had and a decision that you and I made before Mayhem, leading into all of the stuff that you did in that you know, month, month and a half period of time was why don't we see the other side of this? Yeah, let's just go do all the fucking things and kind of see how it goes, get more exposure, get your name out there a little bit more. So I guess the first question would be like how does that whole you know spiel resonate with you? And then how do you feel about kind of how it went and now that you're on the other side of it, yeah, I'm.
Speaker 1:I think that's why we work so well together is because I'm the same exact way Like I, I never had a passion for or never like found it easy to be able to like market myself on social media, things like that, and I never had a passion for or never like found it easy to be able to like market myself on social media, things like that, and I never found joy in doing that. So that was a big struggle. I'm like I really want to put this effort in but I don't know how. And again, like you said, like it became a distraction and I worked with an agent for a while and basically what we kept being like told was, like we're looking for younger athletes. It's like, yeah, okay, I'm 34. I get it, but, like I've had a good reputation all through my career. Like I've had I have the respect of other athletes. I just, you know, never I wasn't an opportunistic person to, like you know, reach out to brands or to try to, you know, go to this meeting or go to that dinner or whatever, and sometimes I didn't really even know about them.
Speaker 1:So I didn't get close with anybody in the sport except for, like, my circle, which is Misfit Athletics right, and it's like the more that it kept not working out.
Speaker 1:I was like getting more and more annoyed, like the more that it kept not working out.
Speaker 1:I was like getting more and more annoyed.
Speaker 1:And now I'm just like I feel like I'm back at a place where I'm like, yeah, I don't I don't know why, like I don't need that, like the money would be great, it would be awesome to be able to like just compete and have the financial stability behind it completely, but like it's never been necessary, like I've never needed it in the way that other people might you know. So yeah, I just I sucked at it too. That's a big part of it, and I think the pressure of putting that on myself, of like wanting it so badly, is like what also derailed me a bit. So, yeah, now I feel like I'm back at a place like ironically enough, me and McKenna just had this conversation yesterday of like, of like I don't need it, like it. I don't know why I put so much pressure on myself to want that, because you see everybody else having it and having success, and you know you play the comparison game, but like that's not my life though such a weird fucking vibe or it is that like the world is in, I guess?
Speaker 2:we are the three experts on this topic. We're actually going to do another follow-up episode.
Speaker 3:Yeah, on how to market yourself on social media effectively. Fuck Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:It just sucks. Hunter's grumpy Tuesday would be fucking.
Speaker 1:Again. I talked to McKenna about it yesterday and I'm like Drew could make me do more things. Drew could have a contract that says I need do this, this and this and have these obligations, and I've always appreciated that. You never force that to happen. Like you, let me be and like let it just happen organically, and I think that's also part of why there's been so much success and it's not hard for me to want to like talk about Misfit Athletics or the fact that I'm a Misfit athlete or the fact that I've been with Misfit since 2018.
Speaker 2:There are reasons that that's happened and like I wouldn't change it so important to me that creating other ones that aren't important to me feels so disingenuine.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like that give a shit factor and the like. Hey, like we are in pursuit of something here to then be like, but also like, make sure you do a TikTok dance every Wednesday, like you know what I mean. So so for me, I've also had to let go of that right Like like I could put it in the contract.
Speaker 2:I'm not spending any so for me, I've also had to let go of that right. I could put it in the contract. I'm not spending any more fucking time. I've been promoted. I am the head of media now at Misfit Athletics as well. I am not spending any more fucking time on social media, counting pages, posts and those are things that you have to kind of come to grips with, and maybe if I was working with someone that didn't check those other boxes, it would be like, man, you better fucking be good at selling the program, because this might not be worth it for me. But like I just don't think that that kind of person would ever be a good fit for us and what we do and for you know what I mean. Like I think that that relationship wouldn't work anyways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. I think, of past misfits like Kenzie, she's always someone that's kept it real right. I feel like that's just kind of who we have in our arsenal in our culture here. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:So you did Mayhem at mid-April, beginning of April, roughly.
Speaker 1:End. Beginning of April. Beginning of April. Beginning of April.
Speaker 2:That was also a continuation of no gymnastics or press, basically, and what was interesting about that was your fitness level was like at a place that we are used to, but the movements you hadn't done in a field that that's again sort of like a row, condensed in that way, like you're going to have basically up and down, up and down sort of a thing. So you do that competition.
Speaker 1:You got prp right after that yeah, is that right literally the next day?
Speaker 2:yeah, so then we have this weird chunk of time where it's like I have to recover and let the inflammation, you know, kind of do its work and go in there. But it was straight into essentially straight into online semifinals and then online semifinals, and then online semifinals led into the following week. Was World Fitness Project correct?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:World Fitness Project was the first time that I ever saw you with the body language and, honestly, work capacity of essentially like a different person and in your mind, the way that it felt to go through that, to to make your way through all of those things so kind of crammed together, like what do you think it was that made you sort of feel that way? There was it just like I can't train on a normal schedule, like what? Like what led to you feeling that way at WFP?
Speaker 1:Probably a lot of things, probably more of emotional stress than, like, the physical stress.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I think like also like not having done movements and not feeling like I can move, like pain freely, like all that stuff starts to add up and it starts to play in your mind of like I'm not good enough, I can't keep up with these people, like I just don't feel like I felt like a different person.
Speaker 1:I felt like I even look like a different person. But it was earlier in the year, in February, where I took a step back from coaching and like that that was really hard, like I, you know you could say it was kind of like I was grieving that like, even though it felt like the right choice for me, like physically and mentally, it still took time to adjust and I like it was still so fresh that, like when things were going poorly, competing, that kind of stuff would also bottle up in my mind and I would think about it. So I was like kind of a compounding thing of like I'm not competing, well, I'm grieving this thing. And now they're both kind of like butting heads and, and I don't know what, what's coming first and what's affecting me more, but either way, they were both affecting me physically. So, yeah, like I, I felt like shit at water at a world's fitness project. I felt like shit at online semifinals, like I just knew that I wasn't myself.
Speaker 2:And there was a. You know you have a superpower that is in large part how you've been able to do what you do, and you were explaining the exact opposite of that superpower. Yeah, like, let's say, hunter and Paige do a workout together out there in the gym and it's like wheelhouse for Hunter.
Speaker 1:And he's like close to her right.
Speaker 2:It's Tuesday, it's october. Hunter feels real good about himself. Hunter decides to make a comeback to competitive crossfit and they do a similar workout together on a competition after one day, one wheelhouse day and page beats him by like eight minutes.
Speaker 2:like you've been you've always been that person who brings something else to the competitive setting right. Yeah, like you train to improve, you buy into the idea of the stimulus. It's not always race, race, race every second. I think we've been leaning more into this concept in this prep, which has been going really well, but you are essentially explaining what is one huge element of what makes Paige the competitor she is.
Speaker 3:Gone.
Speaker 2:Like not there with you and now that you have come out, the other side of it, like how are you feeling about your training right now and your headspace and your fitness level compared to what probably felt a lot different.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it took probably about seven to eight weeks for the PRP to really like, take hold and be like, wow, I don't wake up thinking about this, I don't wake up feeling achy. We took some time off after World Fitness Project, maybe like the rest of the month, I think and then we went through like a rebuilding phase. So just like conventional strength movements and just bitch work was basically all I did.
Speaker 1:Three zone, two sessions a day or a week, excuse me, Hell yeah, and like I just again like, instead of doubling down and putting more pressure on myself, I like allowed myself to take a step back and just be like, just do what's in front of you, do what's on paper, and like give it the best I have each day and again, you know, still really really good days and a couple of bad days. But like I put the intensity into that stuff and it was very low volume and it just started like each day you know you kind of brick by brick, you build and it was like, oh, my confidence is starting to come back, I'm starting to feel my legs underneath me again and I think just that kind of slow like on into this prep really set the tone for me and really like set me up for success, to be like, okay, I can do two conditioning pieces a day, I can do two lifts, I can add an extra piece this day and again, being pain-free and waking up and not having that has been such a huge difference in my headspace and has allowed me to more so embrace where I'm at. So it's been really fun. Like I'll go into the gym, you know, on a Saturday, and McKenna and Wyatt are in there.
Speaker 1:We're goofing around Like there's just there's laughs and there's like lightness in the air again and she's still going through her recovery with her injury and again she's having a lot of positives with it. So it's just like we can feed off that and we're not doing the same training pieces but we both know what we're after and, like you just feed off that and it's just like it's such a good culture for us to have and, yeah, just like that lightness in the air, I think is really what it's been. And then the extra communication with you has been really, really helpful. So like just the small notes in my training and then giving you feedback and being able to be like man, I felt really good on this piece and just like I don't know small responses that just go a long way of like I feel like I have momentum and I'm going to run with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've, you're. It's funny. You're like buy in an attitude and in like I'm believing in myself again is cool to watch because it's increasing as the volume increases. So, like normally as a coach, you're like trying to control the enthusiasm during the low volume period and then you become more of a therapist as we get closer to Hell Week. And yours has been inverse because it's like it's almost like you're remembering who you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I feel like I hit. I hit a pretty low point. Like I think I'll think back to 2021, when I missed out on qualifying for Atlas Games by one snatch and I was like so disappointed and I'm like I'm going all in and like I remember that feeling. I remember what it was like to be like all right, I'm going to have a little bit more discipline this go around. It's almost like. It's almost like when you have a bad relationship and you're like how do I do better in the next one? Like, how do I have a better relationship? How do I be a better person? And that's how I feel with prep every single time Like there are things that you know you didn't execute well on.
Speaker 1:How can I be better at those things in the next prep? And that's kind of like the mindset that I've taken into this with World Fitness Project and I, you know I want to, I want to be ready to show up and like it feels different because it's not the games. Like I I can sit here and like I texted you yesterday, I'm like I know, I know I should be out there, like I know I belong out there and I'm going to miss that, but like I still want to take advantage of every opportunity that I get and even as I'm getting older, like I still feel like I am getting fitter and stronger, even from last year and from the year before, and like it's really cool, it's really, yeah, it's really cool to say that when, like, people are like, oh, you're going to be a master's athlete next year, what are you going to do? I'm going to show up and see what happens on the leaderboard. So, even like Carolyn Prevost like she just turned master.
Speaker 1:She's masters for two years now, and yeah, I was going to say man, yeah, like she's still a fantastic athlete. So, yeah, we're going to show up.
Speaker 2:What was it like to on your end? Because we had to make the decision not to do syndicate, which would have been the 47th competition in 48 days and at that point it was like a lot of like, oh well, so-and-so is not, even not going to be there.
Speaker 2:This person is there, Like it's only two spots. But when you look at the names you're like, hey, you know, you know, let me out there, coach, like that kind of thing. How did it feel in the moment? And then sort of during and after, to essentially watch that go by, sort of during and after to essentially watch that go by.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like, you know, when I took the step back from coaching. It's like I know it's the right decision. It doesn't feel good, but I know it's the right decision.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:In the moment you're like man, like what ifs kind of pop into your head what if I go, what if I come in first on this event, like some of the events I really liked, but it was like I also know that my body is not in a space to compete again Like I just I knew I needed the break, so it you know the bittersweet feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, hunter you got anything for us Any questions, any thoughts?
Speaker 3:I'm listening. When did you, when did you feel like you made, like the the turnaround page, like you alluded to in 2021, when you missed the, you, you, you missed qualifying by like a snatch to atlas games. And then you like like I'm all in and then like what about this year? Like where was the turnaround point for you to like really dig back into training and like feel good about it? Probably during like leading into, like I'm getting after hell week, the inverse, yeah Well.
Speaker 1:I, uh, like I've had, you know, quite a few talks with Drew of like you know just where I'm at, where my, where, my head is like, where, but like one of the things that I was like I almost wanted to say, but I also didn't want to like make it a concrete thing. It was like I don't want to compete out world fitness project too, like that was kind of a thought that was like in the back of my head, but I'm like I still had the what ifs. What if you go there and you compete and you do well? What if you buy into the, the?
Speaker 1:training again this, uh, no, no, no, For like this upcoming, upcoming August, like I, and then we started doing like that little mini off season phase of rebuilding and like then I was really starting to feel good again and I'm like, okay, the what ifs started coming up, like the positive what ifs of like what if I go and what if I show up. So I never said anything and I was just like I'm going to go into this prep and I'm going to, you know, stay in communication with Drew as far as, like, how the volume feels and how my body's feeling and how my headspace is responding, and if it wasn't getting better, I would say something. And if it is getting better, which it has been like drastically again, I will let him know that and then, like, let him kind of dictate, like, okay, we're going to do hellish week and we're going to up the volume on certain days.
Speaker 2:And it's been a really good balance. So but yeah, it was kind of shortly after World Fitness Project. The amount of different things, especially with, like a novice to intermediate athlete that you need to get them better at, can muddy the waters of the program a little bit.
Speaker 2:But also, if we don't do all these things and check these boxes and get enough exposure, that can also be a problem ups pressing sandbag climbs sandbag like, just like the movement tracker shrinking, knowing how easy it is to for us to move the needle in a program like that, comparative to, you know, the one where there's so many movements, it feels good to do because one it's fun to write. But like part of why it's fun to write is I know this is going to work for her. I know that if I give her a chance in the right pocket to to like like part of why it's fun to write is I know this is going to work for her.
Speaker 2:I know that if I give her a chance in the right pocket to to like like one of the ones was power clean, like I'm like, it doesn't add up that pages like power clean, power snatch isn't where certain other things are. Oh, we're just gonna, we're gonna, you know, force this basically.
Speaker 2:And then last week you hit uh 220 for a double correct on power clean yeah and you know just literally me writing almost every week like you need to finish your pull and pull under the bar one of the two usually like it does it's not gonna. We gotta bring this together but, just having those things in there and then using them as runway, I think is super fun and um, I mean, hunter, you've seen, the program.
Speaker 3:It's so much easier to write a program with constraints like that.
Speaker 2:It's like this is what we have to do.
Speaker 3:Easy done. I'll find 18 ways to fuck you up with these four movements, don't worry.
Speaker 1:I think what I appreciate, though, too, is you didn't feel like there was some grand programming thing that needed to happen. It's actually very simple, like you could almost say mundane, like it was a lot of the same stuff week after week, but like the linear progressions, the just the simplicity of it, of like I don't know, I just I appreciate that because it's like it doesn't need to be complicated, it doesn't need to be overdone. You just have to be ready to be like all right, I'm going to, I know I'm going to power clean every week. Okay, I'm going to accept that, but I do like power cleans now. So yeah.
Speaker 2:So when we're talking about just to give people some insight on on your prep for WFP, it's interesting because this in this season you have to do like four competition preps. So it's like do I have an off season? Do I have the moments like the one that we just had, where I get to, you know, kind of slow down a little bit and work on specific things and for me it's like we're not going to do a true semifinals level or games level prep four times a year. Like that is 100% not a good idea. Honestly, wouldn't be a good idea for anyone. So trying to navigate through that and you've always been an athlete where, as we get into like the peak of the volume, we've made some adjustments to the volume there because there's, like you sort of show that point of diminishing return in real time. Yeah, as other athletes delay it, they have that mental breakdown a week after hell week and like you're mid-hell week and you're like, hey, excuse me, this is fucking too much.
Speaker 2:Um so trying to figure out that sweet spot, and I now have three levels of prep have games prep, semi-fin prep and then whatever the fuck one wrong is below that. But like again, it just it's going to prove the point that you know the more is better is just you know, wrong and Hunter, you know, is in there as well because it's the Masters games.
Speaker 2:prep is essentially an adaptation that is built off of your UFP prep and I remember saying to you I actually don't think the volume is going to be like that far off. I don't know that you have specific instances with different ages or how many hours somebody can train that sort of thing, but I just like the idea of that when we are talking about the fact that, like, if it seems like too much or it seems gimmicky, it probably is yeah kind of an important.
Speaker 3:Well I was just gonna say like the fact that the same program, as like pages fp prep serves as like, at the very least, a very like an 80 solution for masters games.
Speaker 3:Prep is more just like a reflection that like the effort that the athlete puts in and the their ability to execute on the program is more important than this like weird fucking undulating periodized program that like ebbs and flows and peaks and you know whatever at these specific times that might look good on paper but don't necessarily reflect like on the very specific athlete that it's meant to serve, and to just like the week to week, month to month changes that an athlete goes through, whether it's physical, mental or both. And it's like it all comes down to how the athlete chooses to execute and how the coach, you know, is able to manipulate what the athlete has to give and like what they need to give in order to like be as prepared for it as possible and on a long enough time horizon, like if it doesn't work, I'm fucking fired, and I love that part of my job right, yeah like a fucking copy and paste where we don't iterate, first and foremost would just be boring, like I would probably quit, so I'd fire myself.
Speaker 2:But if you have, like you know, if pages, if page started in eighth and ended in 32nd on this journey, at some point she would have been like, hey, I'm thinking, you know, I like you, but we got to change this shit up here. So like that part of it is helpful, because if we didn't have that feedback, that'd be too much of what you were talking about, hunter, the theorizing of this perfect thing happening.
Speaker 3:That would just be like, well, what looks good on the wall here or in the in the spreadsheet, and it's like that makes sense, but like, does it actually? How does it play out in reality?
Speaker 2:and execution, and it's fucking man, like I love it and I want to do more content related to it. But it is fucking complicated, the way that the sport works, and it's unlike any other thing. Like I really just like trying to draw a correlation between, like okay, you need to be amazing at all these different things, but most of them won't even show up that you practice for. Oh, by the way, there is essentially no practice. You literally just do the sport all the fucking time, yeah, and then you do it again when you compete, like really kind of fascinating.
Speaker 3:But again, and trying to make the sport separate entities in order to get better. The sport doesn't work, so you have to do the sport that you're going to compete in.
Speaker 2:It is weird some young drew on my shoulder. Still just wants segmented training to work. So bad because I can I can make it so pretty and so progressive and then you go do CrossFit and you're not that good at it and it's like fuck.
Speaker 1:I kind of get a cool perspective though, because I'm a remote athlete of yours. I'm a remote coach for Misfit Athletics and I also get to see a lot of remote coaching that you do for McKenna. So it's like I see how you can individualize things so much, but then, like McKenna and I can still get together and do some training pieces because, like the main thing with that is we're after stimulus, so like we can go and get after it.
Speaker 1:But it is cool because it's like her and I are in two different seasons of training right now but, like I don't know, I get to just see the differences but I also get to see so much of so many of the similarities and also like she is progressing on certain things that's really helping her gain momentum, and then I'm progressing on other things that are helping me gain momentum, but like we're both kind of headed in the same direction, right. Like I don't know. It's just kind of a cool perspective to see. And then for myself, I have like two athletes that are getting ready to prep for something, so like I also get to change a lot of the dynamic in their training as well. It's kind of cool.
Speaker 2:It is and shout out to McKenna because she just did a power clean variation of pennies and she did it in a very competitive time, which I think probably like there's a sigh of relief maybe relating to like I got to go run like mixed with muscle ups and you know cleans and things of that nature, so that's pretty fucking cool Seeing that pop up over there on Strivy.
Speaker 1:I got to watch her do Cleo yesterday. Woof, so fun.
Speaker 3:What was her time, Dude?
Speaker 1:she is a queen, she has the, she has the official record.
Speaker 2:Uh, she beat was her time, dude, she is, she has the. She has the official record. Uh, should be jesse smith by one second I'm impressed with jesse smith second, that's so imagine, though, if you were married to chandler, how much machine work you'd have to do.
Speaker 1:No, I know, but still, people don't want to know chandler's time.
Speaker 2:Let me, yeah, I'm gonna ruin what was what you do?
Speaker 3:what were their times?
Speaker 2:so mckenna was 3405, that I. Is that correct? Yeah and I think jesse was 3406. So crazy piece of um another of fuck, I lost my train of thought, because I'm trying to look this up and talk at the same time.
Speaker 1:You guys keep going I don't know what to say happening.
Speaker 2:Uh, chandler was 24, 48, yeah, we've seen.
Speaker 3:We've seen a. There is a spread. Let's just say that as much as a 2x spread on times in this one fucking workout I had one of my athletes.
Speaker 1:She's young college girl, she's like I saw they posted sub 35 as a challenge and she's like I don't know if that was for like an elite athlete, but I went for it and I'm too embarrassed to share my time.
Speaker 2:Last year, or January 19th 2025, kyle Moline 2654. That is fucking very impressive If he beats it this year. How many calories is it?
Speaker 3:480. What's that? It's 480 calories, right? Maybe probably.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is it three?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yep 480. I was just trying to think if I could crack 30.
Speaker 2:I think Chandler told me that he was over 400 Watts on the echo bike the whole time and I just think that that specific machine capacity is something that other people don't have. So your general capacity and your capacity on those other two machines could get you only so far, probably that 26 to 27 minute range. But if you want to, you either need to be a freak doing something you know, weird outlier on like the skier or something like that would be another example.
Speaker 1:But McKenna. Mckenna's like recovery row was fast and she's like I just needed to push the echo bike more. That was her exact thing. Was the echo bike man, it's.
Speaker 2:it's that that no man's land of that level of resistance is weird.
Speaker 2:It's a mentally you don't you almost don't feel like you're doing anything Like I feel like I don't know why, but every other machine I feel like I have this like specific task, and on the echo bike I feel like don't be a fucking baby is the only. I don't even know what I'm doing with my body. It's just looking at it and being like fucking Erica would be holding 66 RPMs and if I can't do that at my size, I don't know if I can live with myself. You know what I mean. So like, like that's.
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's such a weird experience that that machine, in relation to all the other machines, it's fucking.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what I'd hold. I'd be sad girl on it though.
Speaker 3:Have you done it? You haven't done it yet.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:She always gets to skip phase zero. She's either doing the games or like, please like, post games. Cleo would be really good, yeah, I would.
Speaker 1:I'll do it for, like prep for the next one. Make that a test.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're not next one, make that a test. Yeah, yeah, you're not, it's, you're gonna do it, for sure yeah all right, what a journey we took.
Speaker 2:What a journey we took um 2025. I was telling, hunter, before you joined page, that now felt like the right time to go over it, because there's a level of perspective that comes from being on the outside looking into something right, yeah, like I'm removed from this place mentally, physically, I can look back at it and feel a certain way about it yeah, I think if you asked me any sooner I'd probably cry about it.
Speaker 1:So there's that too, fuck I mean, that's fine I got, I'll get a little scenty in here yeah, I I um somewhere.
Speaker 2:You know, if I ever had to apply for a job somewhere, on my resume I could put that I'm really good at handling people crying after they are. Crossfit. It's definitely on. Just make that one bullet point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you cry, I will be fine.
Speaker 3:Handles criers well.
Speaker 1:Me and McKenna talk about it.
Speaker 3:That's the line that I put on my resume. Yours is handles criers extremely well, mine is I will be fine. If you cry, you can cry, I'll be fine.
Speaker 1:And I always, like Drew will ask me like how are you doing? And I'll be like, start letting it all out, I can't help it.
Speaker 2:Listen, we talked about this on a previous podcast, hunter. You and I talked about it a little bit. The little boys crying during sports, that is. Those memories are etched in my brain where it's like I can't be judgmental about this, like I cried blow in the wrong way while I was pitching in little league, and I would start crying I cried so much in sports.
Speaker 3:I remember crying when I was on the pitcher's mound and my dad was the umpire.
Speaker 2:I swear to god, I was throwing pipe bombs straight down the middle and I was getting you and I I think you and I had an oddly similar experience.
Speaker 3:That was, that was like fuck, that was was in, that was in the zone and it was just no ball. I started crying not a good time, yeah. So all I'm saying is.
Speaker 2:It'd be very judgmental of me to not handle it well when I think back to all of my sports crying All right.
Speaker 2:I think that was a great podcast. I think there's a lot of nuggets in there for people to sort of relate to something that they've been through personally or something that they're going through. And my final thoughts is just that idea of my athletes that move the needle further and faster than other ones all continue to show up. They have the same or similar emotional reactions as you do. They go through the injuries, they go through all this different stuff, but there's something in them that allows them to continue to show up in whatever state it is, and it's my job to adapt to those moments, those periods of time. But that's the common denominator here is I'm going to keep walking my ass back out there and doing the thing, and I think that probably resonates with both of you, because I consider you two to be the authority on that topic. Like we've joked around hunters, you know people ask at the gym why hunters so fit, and it's like I, something like I've been to the gym five times a week for 17 years or something like just something bonkers.
Speaker 2:And it's like I mean, have you done that? Like, can you ask that question and be mad about it? And if you haven't done that, it's definitely two of the two of the people that I would want to you know, learn from and talk to about that. But I think that's my biggest takeaway from all this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think and it's a good reminder for like to hear Paige's story and then to just kind of understand that everybody goes through that some form or fashion. The timing is never perfect on it. As a matter of fact, it's almost always the worst possible timing for one way, for one reason or another, and there's just a lot to be said about. I think, too, it probably has a lot to do with like something as small as like the routine. Right, you get into a funk, you don't want to do anything, and then you start changing around your routine, say like, oh, I'm not going to go to the gym, I'm not going to do the things that I would normally do, because I can't give them you know the effort level or put up the score that is to my standard. And instead of and instead of saying well, no, I'm going to go in and do the best I can and try to maintain some semblance of normalcy in my, in the things that I can control, people waver off into like, well, now you're not only stressed and you're not only upset about your performance or going through personal shit, but now you're not only stressed and you're not only upset about your performance or going through personal shit. But now you're also changing, like your routine. You're changing the things that you normally do and maybe you're causing more, even more, stress.
Speaker 3:So I think there's a lot to be said for like it's okay, you don't have to. Like the expectation can't be that you go to the gym every day with your A game. Like that's just statistically unrealistic. But there is something to be said about going to the gym with your C plus game and saying I can still get something out of this, or just the fact that I'm here doing the things that I need to and, you know, checking the box. I hesitate to say that a little bit, but there is value in that. Yeah, and eventually you'll come out the other side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd piggy value in that. Yeah, and eventually you'll come out the other side. Yeah, I piggyback off that. It's the. You know, when you feel the pressure of like I need to double down and work harder, like you can still work hard, but give yourself that grace, like you know, take a step back, just be in the present moment and give the effort that you have.
Speaker 3:So yeah Hardest, relative to what you've you've got on that day.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly Beautiful. Thanks, paige, you're welcome, we do it.
Speaker 3:We did it.
Speaker 2:Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Misfit podcast. Just a little reminder the free trials are on on Strivee and Fitter, but only for a couple of days, so make sure that you head there if you want to try out our programming for free. Phase zero is a real doozy. Had some people this week be like if Clio is a representation of the next five weeks, I'm going to die. I put it first on purpose. It's all downhill After Clio. You'll be fine.
Speaker 3:Probably the cube tests are super easy. Mount.
Speaker 2:Doom's pretty easy. 50 cal sprints are easy.
Speaker 1:Pretty easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you guys are good. King Larry's pretty easy, so you can head to the link in bio on our Instagram and suffer along with the rest of the misfits. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next week Later. We're all misfits, all right, you big, big bunch of misfits.
Speaker 1:You're a scrappy little misfit just like me Biggest bunch of misfits I've ever seen either.