Mark Bell's Power Project - CrossFit can be AMAZING for fitness and Longevity - Katie Hogan || MBPP Ep. 927

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

In this Podcast Episode, Katie Hogan, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about the benefits of Crossfit when done responsibly. We also learned a lot about coaching kids and getting them into the habit of exercise and making better food choices. Follow Katie on IG: https://www.instagram.com/katiehogan777/   New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code PowerProject to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Better Fed Beef: https://betterfedbeef.com/pages/powerproject   ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin!   ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM   ➢ https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements!   ➢ https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off!   ➢ https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order!   ➢ https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   ➢ https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!   ➢ https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off!   ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en    Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

And I do think that there has to be a line drawn between CrossFit the sport and CrossFit the activity. I think people have this concept in their head that somebody just randomly goes and gets a certification and then they open up a gym and then they harm a lot of people. Every team we're on, no matter what the sport, all the parents come to us and they're just like, gosh, your kids are so athletic. How'd you do that? I was like, they've been lifting since they were five. Because you're not going to jump higher without more strength. And nutrition is a huge part of it.

This whatever bar has 10 grams of protein, and that's my protein for the day. And I'm like, oh my God. Is there any way you see parents trying to communicate things about food to girls or boys, but it ends up actually backfiring? Because then the comeback quiz quickly, like, well, everything in moderation. Okay, but if you can't have airing. Because then the comeback quiz quickly, like, well, everything in moderation. Okay. But if you can't have a conversation with your kid unless they're drinking Starbucks

juice. Yeah, moderation. You're 75 pounds overweight. And that's the thing. You need to define moderation because that is the most overused catch-all for I can do whatever the heck I want. Pepper, how's your family? How's it going? Today, we have Katie Hogan on the podcast, who is a former

competitor in CrossFit. She's the West Coast affiliate rep for CrossFit, and she also trains athletes and young athletes alike. We had a lot of conversation on this podcast, especially since on one of our last podcasts, we grilled the fuck out of CrossFit, so she came at us pretty hard. But if you guys are

enjoying the podcast overall, it'd be amazing on Spotify and Apple if you could give us a rating and a review, as that helps the podcast grow. And if you're watching us on YouTube, 44 or 45% of you guys are not subscribed, so go ahead and subscribe to the podcast and enjoy this episode with Katie Hogan.

Keep them around the gym, right? You occupy her. Instead of a tablet, you just hand her a kettlebell. She's doing cleans and snatches with it and stuff. them around the gym, right? You occupy her. Instead of a tablet, you just hand her a kettlebell. She's doing cleans and snatches with it and stuff. She loves the gym. That's crazy. I know. It's fun. How real is this mom brain thing? I think I have

a pretty good hold on it, but the girls will be like, where's my whatever? But you forgot our podcast. I know. But I don't know. I think I didn't. I never forgot about us. We're pretty important.

Oh, you guys aren't on the top of the list. Laundry. I don't. I never put it in my calendar. And then I looked back and I was like, oh, my God. Like we full on set a date. We've had people walk through the door and we're like, there's somebody here. That would have been way worse.

That would have been. I don't know. I think they're on par. We're like, let's lift these people up. No, Luis and Nicola coming here with all her bags. I don't know what you're talking about. What do you mean? I wasn't. I think it's happened more than once. Now I kind of just want to drop in. It's not just your fault. We're all guilty. We're all part of it. Next time I'm in the area, I'm like,

I'm just going to drop by and scare them. Be like, you guys, you said it was part two. This is so awkward. Yeah, we'd be like, oh, shit. They would just look right at scare them be like you guys you said it was part two this is so awkward yeah we would be like oh shit they would just look right at me and be like oh i'm sorry guys i would just own it you know i'd be like yep i messed up without actually knowing if i messed up or not so what in the hell you've been up to you have you have another like nothing you got uh you got three kids going on yeah you're chasing around all the time you You got a teenager, you got a two-year-old, and for a long time you were a CrossFit competitor. Yeah. And now you've been teaching and coaching CrossFit. And how has that been? It's great. I was coaching CrossFit since 2010, really. And

now since no longer having to focus on my own training, I've been doing a lot more. I programmed for a lot of people and I was coaching all day long, kind of one-on-one in my garage. And then I recently got hired by CrossFit full-time to do some work with the affiliates. And so that has taken me a little bit out of the gym. And so now instead of a bunch of one-on-one clients, I've kind of done small groups. So I have a lot of like two to three small groups every day. Usually it's like my mom's in the morning that I train. And then in the afternoon is usually when I get one to two groups of student athletes. And there's been some like massive changes in CrossFit in the last five, six years or so. Yes. And you're checking in with the affiliates. Are you like checking in to make

sure that they're kind of uniform in a way? Because I know like for a little while, there's probably some issues because CrossFit's popularity and the growth was crazy. And there could be CrossFit's like literally in the same like parking lot and stuff like that, right? And there still can be. That has not been regulated yet. That's something that's always being discussed, but there's not yet an exact answer. And I think it's because there's a lot of – that starts to get into this franchise model. And CrossFit is not a franchise model. They're affiliates. And so you – there will not be uniformity because you can run it however you'd like.

I see. On the other side, we realize that this realize that we can be harming someone by allowing the proximity to not have any regulation. So that's something where the legal department's like, where can we draw these lines to help without kind of crossing over to franchise model? And so my role is really just being a bridge of communication between CrossFit, the company, and CrossFit affiliates. Whereas in years past, they really didn't have a bridge of communication between CrossFit, the company, and CrossFit affiliates. Whereas in years past, they really didn't have a point of contact. You know, there wasn't like a hotline where you could call and talk about your gym and what's good, what's not.

So, you know, if they need business resources, I can point them in that direction. If they want to talk about, you know, coaches development, things like that, that's something I'm comfortable working with them on. But, yeah it's really just giving them access to the different tools we provide, answering questions and helping them. What was the rating that CrossFit got on our little chart that we did the other day? As a fitness or as a company? It was around a three.

I think one of the big even. Three out of what? Yeah, it was three. Three out of five. Three one of the big even three out of what yeah it's three three out of five out of five so yeah what we did is we uh we had a tier list and we rated it out of five for building muscle losing fat and then your longevity we gave it a three for building muscle three out of five a five for losing fat because all the metabolic shit and then a one for longevity why is that why would you give it a one just because we've seen so many people get busted up from it.

Oh, you see competitors. Yeah, yeah. But this is where you can, this is good conjecture from you, I think. I'm not busted up. Well, there you go. Unbusted. That's great.

Well, and as somebody that is speaking to all the different affiliates, I'm sure that's probably something that you're trying to make sure is okay because there's gymnastics and CrossFit and there's Olympic lifting, which in my opinion, those are things that are harder to learn as you get older. And there could be a high rate of injury, but I guess if it's coached correctly and people are scaling correctly, then we shouldn't really run into those issues.

Exactly. I completely agree with that. And I think you would agree having done now and kind of into the distance and marathon realm that one of the highest rate of injury sports out there is ultra marathon running. So, but does that mean everyone that's running is being reckless? You know, I don't think so. But you talk a lot about mechanics and ramping up and scaling. And if something doesn't feel right, make an adjustment to either the volume or your stride or anything, right? And so the same can be said for anything you're doing. And CrossFit falls into that category. The misconception that you get injured doing CrossFit is something that we are constantly trying to fight against and repair against. And I do think that there has to be a line drawn between CrossFit the sport and CrossFit the activity that keeps you fit, burns fat for longevity.

Because I got to be a part of a really cool experiment that Greg Glassman created at the CrossFit HQ in Scotts Valley. And this was 2019. I might have started just before that, but I came on board in 2019. And of course we had to pause during COVID. But it was essentially bringing everyone into the gym who considered themselves the least likely to ever step in a CrossFit gym. So we had people that needed to lose one to 200 pounds overweight.

We had people that had a whole laundry list of different issues and ailments and medications that they were on. Their doctors were like, if you are going to exercise, you need to be watched very carefully. We also had a whole, an entire class dedicated to 65 and older. We had a couple of 90-year-olds in that, 85-year-old, and these were self-described. I shouldn't and couldn't do CrossFit. And we're like, great, come on in. And myself and other seminar staff, CrossFit seminar staff members were in there coaching them, just like an everyday group class, but with obviously a very careful, watchful eye, progressions, lightweight, no weight, all sorts of things. And it was amazing. lose weight. The people that thought I could never do anything physical because of this issue or that. And even the people that are well into their older years, regaining ranges of motion, regaining stamina, you know, they're finding that they're able to stay on their feet longer throughout the day versus they were getting so tired. And so, and when we still, you know,

they would still come in sore or tired or whatever, but they're like, well, and you feel like i you know i always feel like i'm always hurting i'm 90 years old but they would prefer to be active and moving versus sitting around and doing nothing like they're gonna be in pain either way and they're like i want to at least be able to do something and so huge improvement in quality of life biggest thing I think that isn't on that chart, and I think you could put this in with running. If you're at the right people, you could put this in with powerlifting. You put this in with CrossFit for sure is like having that community aspect. And that I think was one of the biggest parts for those people. Having that group of all of the 65 and older, they just became the closest friends.

Class would end and they would just walk around the parking lot and keep chatting. It was a support network. They knew to show up because their other friends were going to be there. And that, wherever you can find that, I think we should include that in longevity, right? Because what's going to actually keep you going back to wherever you choose to train? Yeah. That's a to train? Yeah. That's a big one. Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. We're having fun with it. I'm choosing you. Give us an extra point. Yeah. But seriously, like what does, for example, like, you know, all the community stuff we do in terms of jujitsu and stuff, that is one reason why people love that.

Yeah. Because you develop friendships, but you're also doing something that you all love to do at the same time. And that's why I think CrossFit is a super fun thing. But one thing I'm actually curious about now is you mentioned the affiliates, right? Yeah. How does CrossFit make sure that or is there even like is there making sure that each gym is doing something similar if affiliates get the choice to do whatever they want is there any system there or you can just be a crossfit and you can do whatever the fuck you want in your box to an extent yes there isn't

really regulation on that I think that's something that we're haven't really had to go in and be like make sure you're doing crossFit because that's why people pay the affiliate fee to have the name CrossFit. So people know what they're coming in to get, but they also create other programs. Some people want to have like more of a bootcamp style or a, you know, kettlebells and no barbells, kettlebells and dumbbells only class or a, you know, all, all body weight movement classes. They have found what in their community is going to also get people excited. And some people don't want to use a barbell and so they're like i'm going to create a different or some people want the class to be shorter an hour is too long and some i feel

like an hour i can't even fit in all the skill development the warm-up the cool down you know i've sometimes feel cramped for time but some people want to come in get their sweat and go so all right 30 45 what's the sweet spot for your community? And so there are offerings like that at CrossFit all the time. You could have a yoga class, you could have all these different things. So it's not that you're not allowed to include other disciplines. It's more of what is going to serve your community. And for sure, somewhere in there is constantly varied functional movement at high intensity, and that's the CrossFit methodology. That's the CrossFit program.

Yeah. And somewhere in your offering is that. But I don't think we've ever had to regulate that. Like come in with the CrossFit place and be like, are you doing our workouts? You know, like you can, your program, the actual workouts themselves can be whatever you want. That's awesome. You can write them. You can get them from us.

You can get them from someone else. You can choose to eliminate certain movements entirely and not write them. You can get them from us. You can get them from someone else. You can choose to eliminate certain movements entirely and not teach them. Or you can use the whole gamut. No one's going to tell you that, oh, well, suddenly that's not CrossFit. Because you guys know. People don't do that? You've seen enough CrossFit. No?

Not at CrossFit. We're not saying that. Like none of those movements were invented by CrossFit. Never did they claim to be the inventor of exercise. Come on. Burpee was invented by CrossFit, we're not saying that. Like none of those movements were invented by CrossFit. Never did they claim to be the inventors of exercise. Come on, a burpee was invented by CrossFit. Like Greg Glassman never said like I'm inventing these movements. I'm inventing a stopwatch and measuring your weights. These things already existed, of course.

And so it's really just the pairing of them. Variance to me, I don't know about you guys, that was the biggest like awakening moment that I had. Like I understood functional movements. I'd already learned them in high school. Intensity made sense. I hadn't pushed myself to that place training by myself at like a 24-hour fitness. But I remembered that from training with a team in high school and college. And so that made sense that intensity would help get you results.

But the variance, like I watched via like the blog, I'm like, they're, they just did arms or they, they're pulling again. Like it didn't make sense to see, um, to look from the outside. And it wasn't until I got in and learned more about it, how like it looked random. And if you haven't done it, I think it looks random that's what people say right it looks random and that was my first impression having come from a personal training background and I knew at least a little bit about fitness at the time and I was I couldn't make sense of it and I was training for a marathon when I was wanting to start CrossFit and so my dad who was coaching me and through that training he's like let's wait until after the marathon and so

once it was done I had been stalking the blog for like three weeks and I finally was like I gotta try this thing it's I don't get it like what are they and it that's my big takeaway and so the biggest aha moment for me was understanding the idea of variance yeah which is very much conjugate and when I learned that from powerlifting right it's like if you're always doing a different version of it your body is always having to adapt, right? I think as a collegiate volleyball player, I got really good at doing volleyball. And so it didn't create – it wasn't – I could have trained for three hours in practice. I was sweating like crazy, but I wasn't necessarily – my body was really efficient at it.

I wasn't burning fat necessarily in the same way as if someone made me do something completely different, like threw me in the pool or something, right? So I think your body gets used to things. And that's why a lot of training systems figured out we need to vary. We need to change it up. On the target of what you're aiming for with CrossFit, if you are trying to compete at all, even if you're not super competitive and you're trying to go to the CrossFit games, you're just trying to put up some points on the scoreboard, um, in some of the, uh, the thing they do every year. What the hell is the open, the open, there we go. Uh, if you're just trying to like do better than you did last year in the open, the target is always moving

because the workouts change a little bit. Uh, they might be like similar in some ways, but there's some variation there. Right. Yeah. And so it, it allows you to, you know, still train the Olympic lift, still run, still condition, still do all these things. But you're going to have to be pretty well rounded. You can't really distance yourself from one. And this happens when you're training for anything. If you're training for a marathon, you'll actually find that you'll get extremely deconditioned in other areas because you're specializing yeah you'll you're specialized and then say i don't understand jiu-jitsu a ton but it kind of seems like you can get a little distracted by by doing match after match a little bit just because when you do a match you're trying to think about the points and stuff like that and you're you just

start to get into a whole different thing and you could start to kind of get injured and maybe you lift a little bit less because you're worried about how you're going to compete and so forth. And it just starts to turn into a different thing. But what I like about CrossFit is the fact that the actual game itself changes all the time. And we've never really seen that in sports before. Yeah.

Yeah. It's really, well, it depends on who you ask, but I think it can be really cool. I guess strongman has that element, right? Yes, definitely. Strongman, they change the environment a bit. Those are so similar, right?

I think there are more similarities than differences with how strongman competitions are. And I don't think, like at least on the World's Strongest Man, they don't know what they're walking into, right? Yeah. I mean, they know, but they generally know. Yeah. There's going to be a heavy lift. There's going to be something with pulling. But like the medleys and things like that, they're like, well, we'll see. And so in the same regard, you're training for, you know,

they say for the unknown and unknowable. And some people love that. And other people are like, that's infuriating. What I think of that is translate to like, we all have things we're naturally good at, right? You might not have a few years ago checked the box of running as something you're good at. But you physically had the capability to run. But because it was something you weren't doing, it was probably more of a weakness. So by spending time on it, you're filling in that hole. And it's no longer as much of a weakness as it was or maybe even now it's become a strength because of how much time you've put into it but you'll also likely see other areas maybe are now more of a weakness like how's your handstand walking and you're like i don't need that and that's fine because i would

agree but also like to be fair if we looked at everything that the body is capable of there's some things that we're going to be better at naturally there's some things that we're going to enjoy more and possibly then get better at it because we want to spend more time on it. And then there's things we're going to avoid. And as long as we're just honest about that, nobody needs to snatch or handstand walk if they don't want to. But if you want to do CrossFit, it's in your best interest to expose yourself at the very least to all these different things. I found as a fairly large female, at least in the CrossFit space, that gymnastics stuff, these body weight movements is what we call gymnastics, right? It's not cartwheels and backflips necessarily, but those were not my strength.

But I ended up really loving the time I spent working on them. I got to work with a lot of top level gymnastics coaches and learn how to balance on level gymnastics coaches and learn how to balance on my hands better and learn how to control the rings and do things like muscle ups and, and ring dips and all these things. So it's, you can, you can fight your weaknesses or you can kind of embrace them and learn a lot. Right. I feel like that that's what I watched from your journey with running. You know, you went to the best of the best, asked for help. Maybe there were times that it wasn't always the most fun, but you got better.

And then that's encouraging. Right. So. How's it like you getting better at gymnastics? Because that's one thing. Gymnastics and calisthenics is one thing that I don't think many people pay that much attention to. But I think it's one of the things that especially as you get older has so much carryover in terms of being able to manipulate your body weight. You don't realize like it's a lot of people that lift a lot of weight but then

you ask them to do some pull-ups or you even say hey bang out some push-ups and that ends up being a difficult thing for them right so how was getting better at that for you did it take more patience than you expected because it looks a little bit easy but it's not it's not and I like I said I'm for at least for CrossFit I am definitely on the larger side, you know, I'm five, nine and like 170. And when I was competing at my lightest, I probably cut down to like 165. And, and even then I was just like, I feel like I don't have enough meat on my bones, like fat on me to like last a three day competition. Like I really need to be on my nutrition. Um and that's just for me but it was it was a lot of taking one step forward and then two steps back because I would I would start to

make progress on something and then a gymnastics coach would be like um fundamentally your positions are not what they could be so while you did walk 20 feet on your handstand your body is that's not sustainable and you what you need is 300 feet so we need to go back and just get you on your handstand, your body is, that's not sustainable. And what you need is 300 feet. So we need to go back and just get you to an handstand hold on the wall and then, oh, come off the wall. We're going to have you lay on your stomach and try to create this position, pushing into the wall and now lay on your back and try to create the position. And so you're like, I'm not even in a handstand anymore. I thought I did so good, but. Got demoted. Yeah. Gymnastics is all about creating shapes with your body.

It's like watching gymnasts, male or female, you see that and you're just like, they are the masters of creating these shapes. You know, and I started to get, I realized that the boring stuff of hold a hollow body position, you know, work on my flexibility in my, you know, extension or arch position. on my flexibility in my, you know, extension or arch position, those, the huge carryover to things like muscle ups and things like toes to bar and handstand pushups, I couldn't believe it. So I was like, well, this isn't fair. I have longer arms than most of these girls and I weigh probably 30 or plus more than most of them. And, you know, this isn't, this isn't fair, right? Would want to always creep into my head, but you spend the time on it and you start to see improvements. And that, for me, was just like, all right, it works, you know. Once in a while, was there another girl that was maybe similar size where you're like, shit, she's getting it done?

There, oh, yeah, always. Yes, absolutely. There definitely were during. We tend to get in our own head and we set these boundaries. And then we watch someone else that kind of similar or maybe even heavier or something. And you're like, they're not complaining. I see that now. They're actually doing a lot better than me.

I see that now. I should just shut up. Yeah. I'll be like, oh, it's so hard fitting in workouts because I'm so busy and I have kids. Oh, wait. Everyone does. I have no excuse. You're like, they have four kids.

I'm like, fuck. I know. It's amazing. And then the things that I was more my strength, being stronger or more powerful, the smaller girls started getting good at that. And I was just like, oh, my God, I'm not even stronger than the little ones now. You're like, I need to get out. It's time. But I think people have this concept in their head that somebody just randomly goes and gets a certification and then they open up a gym and then they harm a lot of people because they're – everyone's trying to go super fast and they're trying to time everything and they're trying to do Fran and all these different workouts that you hear about. And I haven't really seen that to be true personally, being somebody that worked with the CrossFit staff and had an opportunity to go around the country and teach some powerlifting. That wasn't my experience.

My experience was more like I saw people in the CrossFit environments that would cling to certain things a little bit more so than others. And so the injury part of CrossFit kind of works itself out. You know, a 55-year-old guy who's 240 pounds stumbles into a CrossFit for whatever reason, and he finds a handful of things that he likes and that he's good at. And a lot of times those people are going to be shy to try gymnastics and to try things that they think are going to hurt them. And there's nobody standing there, you know, making sure that you do every, you know, particular movement, even if it hurts really bad. It's quite the opposite. And a lot of things are scaled. So if there's something in a workout, the coaches are, the coaches will explain to you, hey, you know, unfortunately, that's not for you for right now. You have to kind of scale back and do this and eventually we'll get you to this other, this other spot. But what I found to be really amazing about

CrossFit was the actual education of CrossFit I think is misunderstood a lot. I don't think people understand how hard some of those, they're like when you take like an online course and you have to like refreshers and stuff, that shit's really hard've actually helped friends i'll sit there i've been with friends before i think me and jesse might even been helping somebody at one point and we're like looking at each other like man that's a tough call i'm not sure what to fucking say about that and we were able to kind of work through some of it but you know it makes you go back and it makes you get there like you have to get the right answer. Eventually the videos are really well done. Like this is like an online thing that you do. And it's, it's like masterfully put together. Like you couldn't put together something. Uh,

you couldn't put together something better in my opinion. So when I saw some of that, I was like, man, I just don't think the public knows about the detail that's behind this, I think they maybe just thought, you know, some maniac made it up because he wanted to see people be able to, you know, run far, run fast and be able to lift heavy all at the same time. Yeah, I think there are a lot of misconceptions out there because intensity is the big thing that grabs people's eyes. And if you're seeing images from something like a competition, even if it's not the CrossFit Games, even if it's a local competition, maybe you're going to go and watch your 20-year-old kid do their first CrossFit competition and you're like, oh my God, why did he say that I could come and start doing these classes?

He's out of his mind. He's carrying a 150-pound sandbag up and down and then you see something like a yoke and then you see a barbell and someone's flinging themselves up 10 feet in the air on rings or whatever. You're right. That seems completely out of the realm of possibility. But the scaling component is exactly what you said. The knowledge that comes from taking a cross at level one, which I've had the privilege of teaching these courses since 2011. And so we don't teach like get them going fast and intensity as soon as you can we teach

mechanics first that's the charter like that one guy we were trying to talk to that one day we're like sir bend your knees remember that and i just gave up and i tried to send him to you and then we both just sent him to jesse eventually but this guy will not bend his knees for some reason on the good ham developer he could not, his brain stopped working. Like he had been a fairly normal guy the whole day. And then he was brain dead on the GLUTAM. It's a leg curl. It's a pull up for your lower body.

We were trying to go over every description that we could. Go see Jesse. What machine were you guys on? It was like on the GHR. The GLUTAM raise thingy. Yeah. And we were teaching GLUTAM raise, I think. And you're just like, bend your knees.

He was getting in. I think he was trying to get in. We were both, I was unsuccessful. And then she came over. She was unsuccessful. Then we're trying to coach him together. Then we send him to Jesse. He would not unlock his legs.

And I think I almost was like, I was like mimicking it next to him, like a little flamingo. I'm like, if your leg is straight, it's not bent. And he's just staring at me and Mark. Like you bend your knee. And he could bend at the knee. But his feet were like were like in the like you're trying to kick your own butt he had no we were going yeah we were it was like we were speaking another language we're like you should go see jesse and then later at dinner he's like what was it with that guy we're like yeah we we threw him to you well jesse has an advantage because he hits people yes it's true he does

punch people he chooses violence most days yeah but for crossfit it's true he does choose violence a bunch of people he chooses violence most days yeah but for crossfit it's i think what people don't see and i don't want to talk too much about crossfit because if people are pulling their hair out listening like why she won't shut up about her crossfit but learn the mechanics and i think this should translate to anything like i'm guessing when you were running you're like i should start with 10 miles like hopefully you learn that running mechanics are an important foundation and then build consistency in those mechanics, meaning rep after rep, day after day. You know, you need to be coming into the gym regularly and exposing yourself to these movements, scaled, so that you build up some tolerance. And only then

are we going to say, cool, now this time I want you to try to push yourself for the next five minutes and we're going to see, then we're going to rest and cool, now this time I want you to try to push yourself for the next five minutes and we're going to see. Then we're going to rest and we're going to talk and then we'll try it for maybe another five. And that's how we want to introduce it to people. I'm curious about this. Do you think that when a specialist like an Olympic lifter, for example, Zach Zalander makes quite a few videos about this. I don't know if you know who he is. But when an Olympic lifter looks at people doing snatches and cleans and CrossFit, they're like, there's so many things wrong. But do you think that with some of these

movements, we love you Zach, but do you think that there is a good enough for most people to be able to do these movements with safety? They don't have to have the perfect Olympic lifting form, but they can be good enough and do it safely in CrossFit? Absolutely, because these are functional movements. This is how your body is designed to move. And here's the thing. I learned to snatch and clean and jerk when I was 14 years old in high school. And I didn't have an Olympic lifting coach teaching me.

I learned in like a chain link fence under the bleachers weight room at my high school. And the coach was a high level strength coach, but he did not have a background in Olympic lifting. And I learned to clean, I learned to jerk and I learned to snatch and I didn't die and I didn't injure myself. And I was able to play four years of collegiate athletics. So yeah, the benefit you're going to get is so much better. It's like watching your kids play a new sport and you're like, that's not how they do it in college. You look like an idiot you're like that was a really good serve attempt yeah but i don't think that's how i was supposed to look but you didn't your arm didn't fall off even though you know you're like she's using way

too much of her arm she should be using her hips she should be pushing through her legs she's not doing it right but and you're like well that's different like that's just. She's not doing it right. But, and you're like, well, that's different. Like that's just volleyball. That's not a barbell of your head. It's like, okay. But with respect to what an Olympian is lifting or even someone competing in Olympic weightlifting, what they're lifting relative to their capacity versus someone in CrossFit lifting, and they're lifting a 75 pound barbell for reps, you know, like I think you have to just look at the body. If that's a 90 year old doing it and it's their first week that's that's irresponsible that is an injury waiting to happen if it's a 20 year old and you have the relationship with them to tell them when drop the barbell what you're

doing with your shoulder is not okay but the clock's still going on my time no i'm not gonna let you do that you're a kid you may be able to you know tough it out right now that's ridiculous we're stripping the weight down you're gonna do empty bar or no no i can fix it all right show me too slow and controlled fine but like there's there's a ton of criticism about the olympic lifts in crossfit there's a great article that just came out by stefan roche on crossfit.com talking about this and debunking a lot of the misconceptions about how you should never do this because a lot of people in the strength space have have criticized crossfit for that over the years and just been like this is irresponsible and you're gonna get injured and stuff and it's not to say the injuries aren't happening but there's nowhere near the rate people are claiming like you're seeing way more injuries

in high school football you're seeing way more injuries in ultra running like it's just and that's i'm not trying to excuse it. But whenever we talk about injuries versus something being 100% safe, we have to look at the idea of is something even going to be effective? And if it is effective, is it going to be effective in a meaningful amount of time? There is nothing you guys are doing in the other room in the gym that's 100% safe. Because if it was 100% safe, I'm betting that it's going to be little to no effect, like you're not going to get any benefit. And if you were, how much time would you have to pour into it at that safety pace to get any result? It's not worth it. You need to push a little bit. And I think you guys both have

experienced this. Sometimes you have an injury, but then you don't throw the whole thing out. And so that's where I think we need better coaching. We need coaches to remember that just because they take their level one course and they spent 15 minutes learning the snatch with a PVC pipe, they are not masters. And it's better to go and take an Olympic lifting course. I went and took a USAW course. Coach Bergener teaches a course in weightlifting for CrossFit. The resources are out there. Go watch a bunch of hook grip videos. Just watch and learn. You can take online courses like you said and then give your members a chance to show consistency in good mechanics before you're like, all right, turn it up to 11, start the clock.

And then you're not going to see the injury rate. What's going on with your girls? all right, turn it up to 11, start the clock, you know, and then you're not going to see the injury rate. Yeah. What's going on with your girls? Are they still training like a bunch of lunatics? Yeah, well, training is— They're both like 15? They're 15, yep. They're sophomores.

Twins? Twins, yep. And they are—training is kind of on a pause because they're hardcore in two sports right now. So, like, club volleyball is sort of at its peak in the competitive. They've got a tournament this weekend where they're trying to qualify for nationals. And at the same time, softball for school season is right in the middle of their league and they're trying to make it to the postseason. So they are literally going from, you know, a three to five hour practice on the

weekend into Monday softball practice into another volleyball practice that night into Tuesday a game into Wednesday a volleyball and a softball part it's just like my calendar looks ridiculous so I'm still in charge of driving them to most of their places between Jesse and I and it's it's a little bit chaotic but they're managing well like just last night I had them in the Norma Tech boots. I was getting them on the Mark Pro, you know, like got to recover them so that they're able to perform. But they had to kind of take – they were doing a lot of training with Jesse and a little bit with me, and that's on pause. We'll ramp that back up in the summer when it will only be club softball.

No school sports during the summer, only club softball and the tail end of club volleyball. Was that just like a natural progression for them to be involved in a lot of sports and for them to, I mean, I've seen them like lift in the garage and stuff when I've been over your house. Next thing, like one of them shooting hoops and then I'm shooting hoops with them and then someone hits me in the head with like a volleyball or something. They're always super, super active. So has that been anything that was like discussed or you tried to expose them to it or kind of how did that come about? Yeah, I wasn't hoping us to be the crazy club parents that we became.

I blame the girls for that. Early on, we didn't have them on any teams. They just did CrossFit kids, you know, and then at the gym, they would kind of follow us around. They would wear Uncle Smelly's gangster wraps as like a – not a wrist wrap because they were tiny. They'd wear them as like a belt, as their weight belt. And they'd lift with me or they'd do workouts with some of the other girls at the gym like Jackie Perez and stuff. Since they were like six, seven years old? Yeah.

They did CrossFit kids I think when they were five and then kept with it, and they would do jiu-jitsu. They would do some private lessons with some of the Muay Thai fighters that were on the fight side for CrossFit CSA. I think one of your girls gave Quinn a bloody no. Really? Yeah, when they were really young, they were, like, all playing together, and Quinn probably did something that she probably shouldn't have. It probably got clipped for it, you know? Oh, this is awesome. Yeah.

This is more recent. But yeah, they're, yeah, so they've always been drawn to the gym. They grew up in the gym with their dad, you know? And so, and then when I came in the picture, I was always in the gym too. I was training to compete. So they were there with us a lot. We would pack up a big, one of those like six pack bags that had all the Tupperwares in it or whatever.

And we'd pack up all the food for the night and just pick them up from school and they'd come to the gym. They'd take a class or two, you know, between CrossFit and something on the fight side. And then they'd, you know, eat some dinner and then they'd play around with whoever was there and jump in on the adult classes. And, oh, it was great. So we actually got to get our little ones started in that. But yeah, so it was really just get them moving. And then in the summertime when school wasn't a factor and we had a much more free time, we would just put them in a bunch of camps. No team sports. We were just like, what do you want to do? And one of them was like, I want to do ice skating.

We're like, cool. You could do a five-day ice skating camp for like two, three hours a day. Or, you know, some of the camps are all day and you'd send them with a lunch. Or they'd be like, I want to do art. Great. You do an art camp. And they'd be like, I want to do art. Great. You do an art camp. And they got to do all different kinds of mediums. And then there are certain sport camps in the community center where you can learn flag football, soccer, softball, basketball.

And so we put them in all of them. We're like, let them try all the sports. And then see what you like. And your husband's just sitting back so happy because he reads every book you can possibly imagine on like training and training kids and stuff. And he's like, this is going to be so good for you. It's so true. And I swear having a foundation and they would do a lot of every year they did a gymnastics camp for a whole week and they loved that. Their foundation of just being an athlete without respect to any one sport is huge.

I know I grew up with a base of gymnastics and karate, basically. Like I just, I was in both of those at the same time and I had strength. I had strength for days. And so then it was like, okay, cool. Let's put a ball in her hand. Let's put a bat in her hand. Let's see what she can do. Let's have her run. And so having that foundation is something I always wanted for my kids and doing all all the different camps, also you're exposed to having to be coordinated and balanced and have agility in all these ways that you maybe haven't specifically trained for. So that was great. And they loved summer because they would get to try all these different things. Then it was around like eight or so that they wanted to be on their first team.

And we put them on like a community center basketball team. So that was like then I was just you know however this few weeks of the season and then not too long after that I started working at a job that was inside a volleyball club so they saw club volleyball and then it was all over they're like please put us on a team I think there were nine or ten and I was like I don't really want to and Jesse's like let's so I I came from volleyball I did club volleyball it's. And Jesse's like, let's. So I came from volleyball. I did club volleyball. It's very expensive.

It's very time consuming. And so those weren't their top reasons. Those were on my list, but the top, top reason, I didn't get into club volleyball. I didn't even know it was a thing until I was in high school. And everybody told me, that's too late. You're way too late. They told my parents, she's not going to make it as a volleyball player. She started too late. And so everyone starts their kids at like 10 or

11 in these club sports. And they're like, you have to. And what did I notice by the time I was in high school? Yes, I was way behind the curve. I was terrible at volleyball. And I got in by sheer athleticism. And they're like, yeah, you can stay on the team. You're the strongest one in the weight room. You know, you push everyone on the track in conditioning. So we'll keep you on the team, but you're not going to play. You're bad at volleyball. I was like, I'm on the team you're the strongest one in the weight room you know you push everyone on the track in conditioning so we'll keep you on the team but you're not gonna play you're bad at volleyball I was like he's I'm on the team I made it mom she's like but he said you're not playing I'm like I'm bad I shouldn't play um but by the end by graduation I wasn't I wasn't even peaking yet I was still on my way to peak and I was getting recruited and the girls that had been playing since they were 11 were burnt out. They were so sick of volleyball. And I was like,

this is amazing. Look, I can jump up this high and hit it like this. I was finally getting the fun. And so my fear was if we start our kids too early in any singular sport, they're going to burn out right when they're at their prime, you know? So that's why i was anti but so far no burnout we'll see yeah i'm gonna have to come back and tell you oh yeah we did we ruined them they're over it by senior year it's over yeah no it makes a lot of sense what you're saying like you know if you build that base of like body awareness athleticism what can't you do as you start getting a little bit older because your body is set up to you you have balance you can probably have finesse with a ball. You can figure that shit out in a few years. Exactly. There's absolutely, you have to specialize into certain

techniques. So you can't just rely on sheer grit to hit, you know, a softball, a fastball coming at you from, you know, in like varsity level or they're, they're playing like 16 and under. It's obviously, I'm not going to be able to stand up there with my athleticism and do what they can do. But like without that base, I mean, every team we're on, no matter what the sport, all the parents come to us and they're just like, gosh, your kids are so athletic. How'd you do that? I was like, they've been lifting since they were five.

They've been not playing sports like you guys since they were five and they just know how to move. And that's how I get a lot of clients. My kids are my advertisement. They're like, can you get my kid to jump like your kid? And I'm like, maybe. We'll see if she's willing to work hard. What are some things that you do to help with jumping?

Because I've seen some stuff on your Instagram where you have sometimes a kid with weight in their hand and they'll put the weight down and and they'll jump or something like that. How do you teach? Because I think a lot of times people say you can't coach like explosiveness, but you can coach it to some degree, right? Yeah. I think that's something I was naturally gifted with. And I think a background with my athleticism, I was able to be really jumpy and really fast. And so I get excited about that. I love trying to help people jump more. And the tricky thing is I think people misunderstand the use of plyometric training. And they think, okay, if I do X amount of jumps, then my quick twitch are going to improve and then I'm going to jump higher.

There's a little bit of that. I think science has shown there is some of that, but that is so not what I'm teaching them when we're doing plyometric stuff. But also someone that's playing volleyball is jumping quite a bit. They're jumping a ton. But guess what they're doing? They're usually jumping and landing in less than ideal form. So like go back to mechanics and then consistency.

They're consistently taking off and landing with poor technique. And then they're swinging at a volleyball, say, or even, you know, a softball without using anything in their middle. They're using just their arms. And so when you're teaching them how to control their body through space, single leg, two legs, throwing an object like a ball, holding a ball, letting go of it, and then jumping, you're getting them to understand the balance through their entire foot, how to generate power through their legs and their hips, and how that is going to translate into height in your vertical jump. And so it's not about like, oh, yeah, if we do a bunch of speed ladders,

then we're going to be fast. It's like if you're teaching them the way that their knees and ankles and feet should be moving those. But I don't want to waste time on that kind of stuff, speed ladders, whatever. We do a warmup, you know, they drag the sleds, they wear the hip circles. We do a little bit of shoulder stuff and then we get them doing some jumping and landing. And I try to mix it up for variety. And then not long after that, you know, we're at that point where maybe 20 minutes into their session

and now we're lifting because you're not going to jump higher without more strength. And most high school girls that I work with don't have enough strength. And so we're improving their mechanics first. So through that process, your body's feeling lighter, right? Yeah. And so and then we get their legs stronger and their hips stronger. Yeah. And I steal all this stuff.

I'm not inventing anything. I steal it all. And so she's a really tall athlete. She's a Division method right there. Yeah. And I steal all this stuff. I'm not inventing anything. I steal it all. And so she's a really tall athlete. She's a Division I going to be. She's a Division I commit going to play next year in New Hampshire. Squatting down, holding a med ball, and then releasing it as she jumps. Yeah, and getting – and you can tell that she's still working on her mechanics, like to generate power through her hips. Like it almost looks forced.

She's probably tall, right? She's very tall. She's like 6'3", 6'4". It's hard to organize all that. Yeah. And so exactly. And I always tease her. She's actually got a really small foot.

And I'm like, so that is going to throw your bounce off a little bit. So we've got to really teach her how to use her whole foot, push through it. And then what they get to do is a lot of sprints, short distance. Because with volleyball, if you want to get height out of your approach, you need speed in the lateral to take that into the vertical. And that's, I think, really missed by a lot of volleyball players. Like they just think they can have this sort of lackadaisical approach and then they're just going to jump out of the gym. And you can't have that from no speed first. So we're training speed, we're training strength in the legs and hips, and we're training just overall good mechanics. We're training strength in the legs and hips, and we're training just overall good mechanics.

So hopefully in that, we're preventing injury, mostly at the knees and ankles is what you see in volleyball. Some can't be avoided, right? Someone's going to step under the net, you roll your ankle, okay. But if we're using your feet and your ankles and teaching your knees how to stay in alignment with your hips and your feet, more than likely we're going to be able to avoid hopefully some of those big injuries. Power Project family, we talk about eating meat all the time on this podcast. Pause. Pause. But sometimes you might want to eat some different meat. Pause. You might want to eat duck, chicken, Japanese A5 Wagyu. You might want to change things up. That's why we've partnered with Good Life Proteins, which also has certified Piedmontese beef on their website. Now, all you have to do is head to goodlifeproteins.com and you can select build a box with all of the proteins that you want. Then you'll select subscribe and save to

save money on all of your meat. Pause. Enter code powerproject to save an extra 5% on any subscription you select. So if you want to get your beef every two weeks, you'll be able to save 25% on all of your meat. Again, that's goodlifeproteins.com. Links are in the description along with the podcast show notes. And nutrition is a huge part of it. I noticed at your household, there's like a lot of really good healthy food options. Like there's perfect bars around.

There's just easy access to a lot of things that taste good. I know your girls sometimes will bake and keep Jessie fat. Oh, my gosh. Make them fatter. They're the worst. But for the most part, there's like healthy things to reach for. Are these things that you end up discussing a lot with some of the kids that you're working with and stuff like that? Yeah.

I think nutrition for anyone can be a touchy subject. I think it's good. A lot of you guys and we try to normalize it and like this, we should, we should talk about this. We don't have to make it a judgmental thing. You don't have to feel guilty. But I do, I do tread the line very carefully when I talk with high school girls, because traditionally that's a, that's a group that can air towards disordered eating. And I don't have personal experience in that department, but I remember growing up in high school and being like, why is everybody so freaked out about everything they eat?

And come to find out, I was at a high school that had a ton of disordered eating, and friends of mine were going through that, and so I'm very conscious of it. I've had some clients that have gone through it in the past, and so it's definitely something that we discuss. But I try to keep it very, let's just educate. What's a protein? What kinds of fruits and vegetables do you like? Whole foods, what kind of things are in that category?

I try to leave out elimination and not really have that conversation. They know that, you know, what are they drinking? The Arizona tea and the gummy worms and the, you know, the chip bag of Doritos or whatever. They know those aren't ideal food options. That's high school right there. Right? Exactly. And so it's no surprise and they don't need me to be like,

you really should three bagels a day, maybe throw in an apple somewhere. And so I find it easier to just talk about adding things in. Where can we add a protein source? And then we talk about quantities of protein and they're shocked. They're like, yeah, I had this whatever bar has 10 grams of protein and that's my protein for the day. And I'm like, oh my God, this is like the amount you're off by, you would never believe. And so we talk about quantities. I don't have them counting their calories. I don't have them stressing about macro ratios yet. But just understanding these are macronutrients.

These are facts. We can talk about these without anyone feeling judged, right? That chip has mostly carbohydrates. It also has some fat in it. You know, the apple has carbohydrates. Like, let's just call things what they are. I used to play a game with my high school teams. I would go to the high schools and coach teams in the weight room,

mostly girls, but sometimes with boys. But I wouldn't, I don't think I played the game with the boys. The girls loved it. I put them into little groups, I don't know, five or six in a group. And I would just call out like a question. I'd be like, who, you know, they came into me after school.

So it's like three o'clock, 3.30. So they've had breakfast and lunch, hopefully, and maybe a snack in there. But what we'd find is many of them had not been eating enough food or ideal foods. But what we'd find is many of them had not been eating enough food or ideal foods. And so I'd be like, all right, you know, count how many people in your group have had a protein source. This is after all the educations happened for weeks. And so they're all adding it up and they're like, you know, there's five kids sitting there and

it's like, we had four proteins so far today. It's like, oh my God, okay. But what would happen is they would be excited to earn points against the other team you know if raise your hands if you've got a green vegetable or fruit sometime in today and so they're you know does the peas in my cup of noodles count no it does not okay what someone else is like i had kale the kale's worth two points right he's like so then i get calls from the parents and be like why does my kid want me to buy kale? And like, what is this about protein that I need to give them for breakfast? And I'm just like, well, it'd be a great idea if they're asking for it.

And so I would tell them like, or they'd be like, oh, my mom made this thing with that in it. And the other kids are like, that sounds good. And I'm like, you should get the recipe and give it to the other. And so like just them talking about what they're eating and normalizing it and giving them some context into why it matters. You're going to feel better if you come into me having eaten something other than gummy bears. And, you know, hopefully they start to see it in their performance. But high school is tricky. You have high schools, high schoolers, you know, influencing them and their choices in anything is very tricky.

Do you think that you didn't maybe go through those same eating disorders and stuff like that? Maybe I know you have brothers and you also were training for performance. Do you think some of that factored in there? Yeah, very likely. I also think I was a little bit behind the curve in terms of body awareness. I think just development developmentally, like I went through puberty and all like everyone else, but I just wasn't looking at everyone else's body and comparing it to mine. And I don't know if that was unique to me at my stage of development in

high school. Your parents were probably like, thank God. Yeah, but I wasn't doing the, you know, I look at my girls and they're beautiful and they're so social and they know so much about like what to wear and how to do their hair and I was just like I didn't know anything about that and I had two brothers and I was just like t-shirt and jeans like whatever like I didn't know how to you know dress myself up or look cute or look you know like I was I did not I don't think fit the mold of like high school and popularity and all that and my girls are very much their own people they're not trying to be the most popular kid at school or anything like that. They, they see right through a lot of that BS, but, but they are just a lot more self-aware than I ever was. So, um, like they

help dress me all the time. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't do my hair for me. Um, so I, I think part of it for me was that I think I skipped the disordered eating, uh, train possibly just because I was naive. I didn't really, I didn't realize that was, and I was exactly, I was absolutely focused on performance. I wanted to be the top athlete that I could. I wanted to get recruited. I wanted to play sports in college. So yeah, I was like, how do you do that?

You gotta eat protein? Okay, I'm gonna find protein. This is gonna sound a little bit odd, but since you've worked, you've seen a lot of kids deal with food stuff in high school is there any way you see parents trying to communicate things about food to girls or boys but it ends up actually backfiring like they're trying to be well-meaning they're trying to communicate a way to be healthier but it doesn't end up being that way like what are parents doing yeah i do i have a lot of parents come to me before they even try because they're scared.

They don't want to push their daughter or son, but usually it's daughter toward any kind of disordered eating. And they're very concerned. How can we talk? Can you talk about it with her? Others maybe are a little more harsh. Like you shouldn't eat that. I certainly hope they wouldn't comment on someone's body.

You know, like you shouldn't eat that. You're getting fat. I certainly hope that would never come out. I wouldn't comment on someone's body you know like you should need that you're getting fat I certainly hope that wouldn't ever come out I wouldn't want to hear that so I wouldn't and I'm sure the parents saying it wouldn't want to hear that so it's like you have to talk to your kids whatever age they are the way you'd want to be talked to you know respectfully and having a conversation instead of being told everything they're constantly being told that they're wrong

and this is how it has to be done and do it my way. And so I think, yes, it is something that the parent either avoids because they feel they're not confident themselves and in that subject matter and they don't have the answers. And so what voice should they have towards their kid? And I also do think that the words might not come out right. I've spent a lot of time reading parenting books ever since I became a parent. The girls were four and a half when I met them and it was a whirlwind.

So I immediately started reading books about each age and I read it all the way up through their 14 years old. I would read a book about the age they were on. And then now I'm reading a lot more about the earlier years because I've got a toddler. And it's all the same. You know, like how you communicate is really what it comes down to.

And I'm also reading books on just communication in general with other people. And it's helping me so much with my kids. Like keep creating a safe space for them and allowing your truth to still be spoken. You don't need to hide it or cover it to keep the person comfortable. You still need to say what needs to be said, but they're going to either, you know, want to fight or flight reaction to what you say. And so they're either going to

be like, screw you mom and leave, or they're going to get emotional maybe. And that's kind of, curl up and close up and not say anything. So you don't want those things. So how can you have a dialogue, you know? And if, if it's having another person, a coach talk about it, that's great. I think the basics of just finding protein, carbohydrate, and fat, I think as a parent, leading by example, what foods do you stock in your house? What foods do you eat? You don't know anything about it, go get help. Read a book or two, ask for help, get a nutrition coach to work with you. I think the accountability alone of having a nutrition coach to look at what you've eaten and have the conversation with you. Could we add in some of this? Could we add in some of that? How did you

feel when you did eat that? Here are ways to prepare the food. I think those are the conversations we need to be having with ourselves first before we start preaching it to our kids. And I always tell parents like you, I encourage the parents like to grab a hold of their stuff. You need to get yourself right because your example is what they're going to leave with and they're going to take that into college. And if the way you bond with your kid is by taking them out for ice cream or a Starbucks or whatever, then when they're gone and you're not around, and that could be as soon as college or life happens and, you know, the kids are going to live life for a long period of time where the parents are no longer in that life. What makes them feel like home?

What makes them feel connected to mom or dad when I go get the frappuccino, when I go get ice cream, right? And now we've created this sort of, it's not exactly a reward, but it's this comfort. And I think those are the, can you just have time with your kid? Can you go on a walk? Can you whatever. It's not to say that we're not, my kids go to Starbucks. I have to set a hard limit because like we're spending way too much money on Starbucks.

But I don't want to loop that into like our time bonded means I take you to go get something to eat or drink. On the note of the Frappuccino real quick, I just, when you mentioned Frappuccino, I remembered my mom mainly raised me. My dad was kind of there. He left later. But I remember when I would spend time with him, the fun thing was going to Starbucks and getting an extra, extra large caramel Frappuccino with extra caramel. And I just-

A lot of X's in there. Oh yeah. Oh, fuck yeah. That was a calorie bomb. frappuccino with extra caramel. And I just, a lot of X's in there. Oh yeah. Oh fuck. Yeah. That was a calorie bomb. But it's funny because even after I was 16 and he wasn't there for a very long time, whenever I'd see a Starbucks, there'd be this thing in the back of my head. That's like caramel frappuccino. And like, I just kind of realized that right now. I'm like, damn, it's amazing. That went into my twenties when I was still drinking the extra, extra large caramel

frappuccinos and at a point I stopped because like that's not good for me yeah but I think it happens a lot on this show and he ends up gaining 10 pounds I'll be right back guys but I think it worked out though it worked out but like that's the thing like that was so unhealthy but for a long time I never really put together how unhealthy and how much of a sugar bomb that was until I was in my early 20s. When I started counting macros and shit, I'm like, this shit's bad for me. This is my whole week. It's gone.

And I think it's easy for us to look at that and then be like, well, great. Like, you know, it was fun when we on our own vacation and I got the kids ice cream. It's like, no, it's not that you can't ever do things with your family that involve food, right? When it's someone's birthday, usually there's a birthday cake or cupcakes involved. Fine. But it's more of like how much are you tying that time spent together to that? That's just the only thing to look at. Because then the comeback quiz quickly like, well, everything in moderation, you know, like, okay.

If you can't have a conversation with your kid unless they're drinking, you know, a Starbucks drink. Yeah, moderation. You're 75 pounds overweight. And that's the thing. You need to define moderation because that is the most overused catch-all for I can do whatever the heck I want. Like, I'm going to do a line of cocaine, everything in moderation, as long as it's just one line. It's not that bad. How bad am I going to be? line of cocaine, everything in moderation, as long as it's just one line. It's not that bad. How bad am I going to be?

Just to get through the day. I mean, I got responsibilities. It just helps me do them. I feel like we'll say things and people hear that and be like, well, that's like my thing. I go and take my kids to Starbucks. It's like, well, build a new tradition. Don't have to completely eliminate the one, but build a new one and replace some of that. And it takes a little extra energy, a little extra strength to prepare foods, pack them up.

And you go to these volleyball tournaments and I'm like, I've got enough energy to send everybody to the moon and back again. There's all these muffins and everything. Have you seen some of the spreads at volleyball? Yeah, it's wild. It's awful. When I played volleyball in club in high school, you just brought your own lunchbox. Like I brought Katie's food and I ate Katie's food and then played volleyball.

People are setting up tables and they're just putting like tons of food. Oh, it's unbelievable. And I remember- It's everywhere. And when I first started the girls in club volleyball, it was like the tables next to us, thankfully it wasn't our team because I was in charge of the food. I was like, I'm deciding what's getting brought. The tables next to us, the team next to us, they've got like the pink boxes of donuts for a kids' sporting tournament. And then guess what happens when they all go to warm up? The parents are eating some donuts.

I was just like, you do realize you're just sitting here for five hours or more and you think you're – okay. So my like – if there was one thing that I could fix, I feel like it's that culture. Like I really want to fix the nutrition culture of how we're feeding our kids at these tournaments and how the parents are completely derailing their own health and fitness because of the kids. They're on those hard ass benches for like five hours at a time. They don't move. It blows my mind. I'll like die.

I got to like sit up against the wall. Me too. I got to like walk. Me too. I'm like doing squats It blows my mind. I'll like die. I gotta like sit up against the wall. I gotta like walk. I'm like doing squats. I keep moving around. People are probably looking at me like I'm weird, but I'm like, I'm not sitting on those fucking benches for more than like 15 minutes. I don't sit. Jesse and I stand and it makes the other parents

so uncomfortable. Like I've had a dad, a dad almost yelled at me one time. I'm like stretching on the chair. He brought me like a camping chair after I refused it three times. And then there was like a turf spot. We were at like a spot over in like Redwood City and it was a nice indoor volleyball gym. And there was a whole turf area. And so I'm like, oh, it's perfect. My kids' games are here.

I start stretching. I started doing a little bit of sit on the floor, do a little this and that, a little couch stretch. And he comes over with his camping chair for the third time and sits it down next to me. He's like, please just sit down. And I'm like, I really don't want to. Like I was like it tightens up my hips. I don feel better when i sit i had to sit in the car here i'm gonna have to sit in the car back that's enough yeah that's all i need i i was like and it like made him uncomfortable that i wanted to stand or stretch on the ground and i'm like

i'm you know this is bad i'm starting to realize that with like these volleyball things and fucking even with church because yeah yo like when i when i was going to church as a kid my favorite thing was the costco muffins that's all i would think about like after church i'm gonna get the big chocolate one and then the macadamia one we got donuts after church that was our thing right you're so right you link all these these activities and they want you to stick around and like build the fellowship and hang out and guess what they have there's always sugar oh yeah i remember after church being like why is there always a cake it's someone's birthday it's a giant sheet cake and it was this garbagey safeway ones where i was just like oh it just tastes like

crisco or something every single time and then i you're right that that is huge yeah ptsd from church like i can smell the cheap coffee too. Right. Cheap coffee and like cake. There had to be like a Pavlovian response. Like the second the church ended and whatever was the final like prayer or song. And then you're like, my mouth's watering. I'm about to get some sugars because I did my church. It's like, this is not, this is, yeah, that's a good one. Planet Fitness.

This is all, it's all coming together. Maybe Planet Fitness, maybe they're onto something. Because people were dissing Pizza Mondays, but it gets people into the gym. It does get them in the door to eat pizza. Right? Pizza for breakfast. Power Project Family, how's it going? Now, we've talked about blood work

and getting your labs done on this podcast with many different guests as that's super important for understanding what's going on underneath the hood. That's why we've been partnered with Merrick Health for such a long time now, owned by Derek from More Plates, More Dates. With Merrick Health, you can get yourself the Power Project panel

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Again, that's at merrickhealth.com slash power project. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. What do you got going on over there, Andrew? I was curious if you've ever been able to help somebody with like a teenage girl, especially. I happen to have one that doesn't like to eat breakfast. When she wakes up, she's kind of like, I just like, I'm not hungry.

I do not like, almost like if I like forced her to eat like bacon and eggs or something, like it would make her nauseous. Have you ever helped anybody with that? Have you ever seen my husband get really angry? Because that's him every morning that he's home because he gets up early sometimes and leaves before the rest of us wake up. But that's him almost every morning that he's home because one of our daughters is exactly that. She's very in touch with what will upset her stomach. Like she is kind of a hair trigger in that regard. And so

she many times has forced breakfast and felt very nauseous. And it's been a bad day for her. So it drives him crazy that she won't eat breakfast because he knows she needs it. And he knows he's known her her whole life. Right. He knows her body type. She's she's very lean and lanky and she plays two sports. She needs a lot of energy, but she just doesn't do good with food before 10 a.m.

And so what I've started doing was just kind of resolve myself to like she – why would I force this on her? She's never once crashed and passed out. Quick, her blood sugar. Get to school. Give her something. Like never once. She's always performing at a high level in her sports at the end of the day. She starts eating her snacks and lunch at like 10 a.m. at school in class.

Most of the teachers thankfully let them eat during class, which is great. So she starts eating that and then by lunch she's halfway through. And then if she finishes that, she goes in the lunch line and gets more food. Then she comes home and she starts eating food. She crushes dinners. So I look at it like if I had a client that just wanted to skip breakfast, I would consider that, oh, it's like an intermittent fast. Like they just fast a little bit longer and I would have no problem with it. So why do we have a problem with it when it's our

kid? Well, they're teenagers. They're developing a little bit differently. They need different and more nutrients than maybe your average adult that's probably trying to lose some weight. need different and more nutrients than maybe your average adult that's probably trying to lose some weight. But with that regard, I've kind of just let her stay in her own lane, do it her way and not force it because something in her body is telling her that this isn't a good idea. And I don't want her getting in the habit of having to force food when she doesn't feel hungry. I don't think that's a good pattern to create. So more so I would be checking in with like, what time do you get hungry? And how do you feel? Are you irritable?

Are you really like falling asleep or really low energy or like almost getting lightheaded or dizzy? Those are factors where we need to start the food a little bit sooner. If there's nothing like that and they're like, no, I feel great. I just, it hits me at 10 o'clock. I'm right in the middle of science class and I, you know, grab a bite of my sandwich. Okay. If there's anything else like that was sounding unsafe or, you know, unsustainable, then definitely

be like, okay, let's try some things. What if it was just a sip of a protein shake? Not even the full thing, you know, sip a little bit now, sip a little bit at 9 o'clock, and then maybe finish it at 10 o'clock. Or, yeah, I would get creative and is there one kind of macronutrient that would sound good? Like maybe bacon and eggs doesn't sound good, but an apple does. It's like, well, that's not all. That's not balanced. Well, it's some food.

It's some energy, and that could last them until, you know, they're ready to eat their full lunch or whatever. So we've played around with that. She has really, I mean, thankfully her last play is over, but like her days were insane. They were longer than, you know, all of ours combined. Like I was like, dude, you're going to school at like seven and you get out at 10. Like this is weird. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, dude. That's what I was like. It was a musical, so they had to rehearse a lot but did she take a lot of food with her no and that's the frustrating part because they're like oh so and so is gonna have their parents donate food but it was always just costco pizza and so that's that's why i was like ah dude i have this one window where you're awake and we're all here like i gotta give you like something so like i would i would pack her food or like we would we would take her food. Yeah.

But I'm just like, man, like I'm explaining to her like, you know, you got to get some energy. You got to get some fuel for your long day. Yeah. But she just sees it as like, well, I'm not hungry. I don't need to eat. Therefore, I don't need fuel. I'm like, but it's your whole day, though. Like we got to start making up because I know options that are available to you later are not going to be that great, even though they taste good. Yeah, I would definitely like prioritize that lunch break because all the kids have a lunch,

right? And hopefully she's not having to be practicing for the play during that lunch. She can sit with her friends and be like, we got to get you food during that time. You know, and early on when the girls were in elementary school, we made it a priority. Like when you're at lunch, you're eating your food. You're not going to play, you know, and you have have to finish your food. And so, um, that's hopefully their habit. But yeah, I would play around with like, what, what kind of calories can you eat and feel good at lunch? Um, you know, is it, is it more like a hot meal and you should

order it at the school lunch line? Or is it more like you can pack it, have it in your backpack? Um, but a variety, the girls bring like each like a giant gallon-sized bag just filled with food. Awesome. You know, from fruits to snacks to jerky to, you know, a thing of popcorn to whatever, and they're just eating all day long. So it's great. But, yeah, that is a tricky one. I want them to trust their bodies.

So that's hard for me to – but, again, that's where Jesse and I differ a little bit. He gets really irritated and always is offering to make her a food of some kind. Sometimes she'll eat breakfast, but it's more like your daughter. It's very rare. Your girls are like, we don't want to be powerlifters, Dad. Let it go. But it's funny that her sister wants the same breakfast. It doesn't matter if it's 5.30 a.m. and she's getting up for a tournament or it's a weekend at home. She always wants that same same breakfast. I don't, it doesn't matter if it's 5 30 AM and she's getting up for a tournament or it's, you know, um, a weekend at home. She always wants that same

giant breakfast. And so I make that every morning for her, but her sister won't eat. Uh, was it difficult for you? Um, cause at some time, you know, we, we sometimes get attached to the sport that we play. You were a volleyball player. You played in college. Was that really hard to like no longer be an athlete and then try to find something different? Yeah, it was devastating. I'm sure you guys have experienced that each at your own points in life. It was awful. I remember the moment the last game ended. I was like dry heaving on the court. I was so like beside myself because I had already resolved myself. I wasn't going to go play in Europe, which is a lot of volleyball players in college do that they continue

some people continue to play it for fun and pick up some club thing but it's just different right? I had the best team and we had the best season and so it was just like I have to hang my hat on that and I miss it all the time and my girls play it and I'm just like oh I just want to go out there

is it awkward if the mom asks to jump in on practice? They're like, oh, you're old. Get out of here. I'm like, ah, but I can jump higher than a lot of you. Just destroying 15-year-olds. When I worked at the volleyball club several years ago, they were like, hey, we need another person. I'm like, I'll jump in. And I totally did.

And I would rock some 16-year-old's world. They're like, well, you're not even tall. And I'm like, yeah, but I'm stronger than you. And clearly I'm smarter than you too. I was not even that great of a volleyball player. I played Division II, but I was good enough to beat up on some high school kids. That made you feel good.

It made me feel really good. But I miss that. Like I miss that side. I've never felt that same feeling in CrossFit as I did in volleyball. And I actually got a little bit like, I don't know what, about CrossFit at one point. Like I was like, oh my God, all we ever do is just exercise. We never like actually play a sport. And like my other CrossFit friends were making fun of me.

They were just like, you need to like go through a ball or something. I think that kind of happened with you with the bodybuilding and powerlifting, right? You wanted to move around more, right? You've got to do something. Yeah, you've got to put it to use. So I miss that. I really wish. And you can't, the YMCA is not going to cut it for volleyball. If you've been on any kind of a competitive sport

and then you go try to play the rec version of it, you're just like, oh my God. Isn't there a movie like Ben Stiller? Doesn't he just absolutely like, absolutely crush? Does he crush some kid or some woman with the ball? Yeah, meet the fuckers. Yeah. Bring that clip up.

That's amazing. I'll look for it. But no, because they're, like, they're all having water polo or something. Yeah, they're playing volleyball in the pool. And they're all, like, the other sister. He hits her in the face. Yeah, but they're, like, getting super competitive. They're like, dude, step up, fucker.

Like, what the hell are you doing? And then so finally he gets all crazy and he explodes her face. And they're like, dude, what are you doing? Calm down. This is just a family game. Calm down. That was me. Was there anything like, I mean, CrossFit didn't get that itch.

Was there anything that has been able to get that itch for you? Or it's just like now you coach and you. I miss something. i need something like i don't know what it is i don't have any interest in coaching volleyball but i feel like that's the closest i could get because if you coach volleyball you inevitably have to jump into the drills sometimes i just want no part in coaching sports because then i have to listen to parents and i just i want i want nothing to do with sports parents having been one myself i want nothing to do with their opinions about it.

So I don't know how to get that back. I mean, I've done things like I did an event. Pickleball? I know, right? I've heard that's a thing. But I tried like the Highland Games one time. That was really fun. But it just felt like I was doing some skills.

So that felt like competing in that regard. But I don't know. I'm open for ideas. Recreational volleyball. No, it sucks. It's terrible. It's co-ed. Oh, my God.

So here's me. I'm playing with a bunch of 16 year olds. And they're like, you know, they're like getting mad at him. Come on. It's coming up next. I'll throw it out there. Great scene. But jujitsu is pretty fucking fun.

Oh, yeah. In the competitive sense, too. Oh, there we go. Bopping on some 15-year-old kid. Oh, all the blood. That was random. What's wrong the blood. That was random. What do you do? What's wrong with you?

Jumps in the water. That's great. Oh, God. And then what about transitioning out from CrossFit? Yeah. Kind of recognizing like, ah, man, I don't know. I don't really want to do this at this level anymore. I know you still do a lot of workouts and stuff.

Yeah. I wasn't that I was over the competing side of it. I was over all the training. I was seven hours a day in the gym to train. And I think that's average. I don't think that's not trying to show off or anything for a CrossFit game. I know. But seven hours of training?

Like a seven-hour training session? Yeah, but that includes a food break in the middle. It's not as bad as you think. She's trying to justify seven hours of training. Well, you know. I could have left at any time, guys. I wanted to be there. I promise.

It's seven hours of being in the gym. But some of that time is, you know, you're warming up, you're stretching, you're mobilizing, you're writing your workout down. You're in between sets of this or that. You're setting up for the next one. There's plenty of downtime. So it's certainly not seven hours of effort. But it was just such a drain to commit that much time. And sometimes it was two sessions. Sometimes it was like the morning session and then the afternoon session. And going back for that second one was just like, you're going back in the gym.

It's like two or three o'clock. There's nobody there. And you're like re-taping your hands and you're just like, this is awful. So I think for me, it was really tough because I was caught between, I want to be a competitor. I love the feeling of being out on the floor. I hated the feeling of training by myself constantly. If I would have had people, maybe it would have been different. I didn't have people. So I was by myself and it was just mind numbing, but I loved the feeling of competing. So that was keeping me going. And my goals of getting back to the games were keeping me going. But the whole time I'm training, I'm thinking about my kids.

And I'm like, this is time I could be volunteering in the classroom. This is time that I could be picking them up from school and making them a snack. This is time that I could be hearing about their day, helping with their homework. And I've always wanted to be a mom my whole life. That never wavered. And as soon as I met Jesse, I was like, now, I'm ready now. Like those are, I want those to be my kids, you know, and we obviously became a family and I got to live that truth. And so any time away from them was very hard for me. And I would be conflicted. I would be in the middle of a workout and my head would kind of flash to like them. And so I was not good at being selfish. And I think when you're a

competitor, you have to be, and that's not meant to be a dig on anyone that is a competitor. Like you're so selfish. It's like, you have to be, you have to be selfish about your, your time, your, your energy, your, where you spend it, your recovery time, your everything. And I was just giving too much time to myself. And I knew I wanted to have more kids. And I was just like, well, if I'm doing this, I don't have time to do that. So ultimately, um, that's why it won out.

I, I still miss being on the floor and like passing someone and being like, yeah, I'm better than you. But that was the best feeling ever. Yeah. Now you have a two year old, so you can't really do much of anything.

Nope. Pretty much nothing. I don't even know how I'm here right now. Um, she's with somebody, but yeah, it's, crazy it's been awesome super fun but your parents live close by right yes thankfully my parents are a short drive and my dad is like my every morning my dad comes over right about the time the girls get out the door to school and he's with our daughter with uh with bb with beatrix from like 8 30 until 12 30 um so they have like the closest bond it's

so awesome and um then jesse comes home and he takes care of like putting her down for nap and then i'm usually around i'm either in the garage coaching or i'm on phone with crossfit gyms or whatever and um then once she wakes up from nap, I sometimes have a parent come back. Usually my mom will come back and watch her in the afternoon while I'm coaching my after school kids, my athletes. And then they my mom will leave and I'm usually on until Jesse gets home around 7, 730. So I get to be around and see her all day, but I definitely get help. Thank goodness. You had some complications when you had her?

Like what happened? Because I remember you just had like a really rough time. I remember seeing you afterwards and stuff. And I was like, oh, man, it kind of sucks. My friend is pretty jacked up. Yeah, I didn't look like myself when I saw you guys after that. Yeah, and the pregnancy was great. I loved being pregnant.

And it was during COVID. So we had – Jesse was home constantly because the pregnancy was great. I loved being pregnant and it was during COVID. So we had, Jesse was home constantly because the gym was locked down. So he would be making me and the girls gourmet meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I remember he was losing his mind. He was like, I need to be doing something. He walked so much. He like walked marathons worth of walking. He was, he did great. But yeah, so the pregnancy was great because I was no stress. I was no travel. Like usually I travel for seminar staff. Um, nothing like that. I was able to train every day I had on my clients. So I just worked that in. And then, um, yeah, I mean, she was like a few, she was five days or so overdue, which, um, is pretty normal. And so it was time to go in and

have her. And I was super excited and, um, labor and everything went fine. And so it was time to go in and have her and I was super excited and labor and everything went fine. My whole plan was to just have her naturally, which is not meant to be like a show off thing. My mom had me and my brothers all natural. So I was like, okay, it's just like a thing you do. Your body is meant to do this. But we told the doctors like, hey, whatever needs to happen, do the thing that keeps everybody safe. But so going through the whole labor and delivery was fairly smooth maybe i've blocked some of it out but for me like i was like it was very hard and uncomfortable but it was within the realm of possibility never once was i

like oh no like we need help like i was just like i read a lot of books on it i was prepared did the whole thing the baby seems fucking wild to me, by the way. It is. It's so weird. I mean, even the whole experience of her like in my stomach, the girls were like right there like, oh, my God, what is she doing? Like the shape of my belly would be like contorted. It would be like it's not always like a round thing. It would all of a sudden be like splayed out.

And they're like, which part's which? I was like, I don't know. And then they'd feel something move. So it was really cool for the girls to get to witness that um transformation it was the coolest thing i loved being pregnant i thought it was amazing and then having her was super cool like as i'm like pushing her out the doctor was like okay reach down and grab her and i'm like what like what does that even mean and he's like literally and then the nurses like took my arms and put them like between my legs and i put my arms my hands under my daughter's like armpits and pulled her out of it onto me and it was the freaking coolest i swear like wow yeah i know so i'm really gonna pass out

but no it was the coolest thing because i didn't know that was a thing and i told my parents that they're like that's not a thing that's so awesome but yeah like i pushed her enough out and they're like just pull her out i was like like this and then she was she was there and that was the coolest thing ever and then unfortunately for us that thing started to change so um and i found I found out later that there's so many different things that can go wrong. And I read about a lot of them. And obviously, one of them being hemorrhaging. You know, women can bleed a lot and not stop.

But there are lots of different causes for that. And the hardest thing for us is that we didn't know what we didn't know. And we didn't know what things to ask. And then to Jesse's credit, the things that did get asked didn't get taken seriously enough. And that's when later down the line, he almost like punched a hole in the wall at home. But essentially, after she was born, everything was fine. But they deliver the afterbirth and there was some issues with that. So they I don't want to get everyone gross out.

But anyway, that they did that part. They assisted with that. So I don't want to get everyone grossed out. But anyway, they did that part. They assisted with that. And then we didn't know why, but I started being in excruciating pain. Like I was feeling the pain of labor, right? They call it contractions where your uterus is trying to do the job of expanding or to get everything down

so that your uterus is now contracting to close back up. And that was feeling like the absolute worst pain ever. And with contractions, it hurts and then it stops hurting. And then it comes back, right? And it hurts and then it stops hurting. Like anytime you've ever seen like a movie, there's like, okay, here comes another one or whatever. So that I dealt with during the having of the baby.

And then afterward, that pain came back, but it never stopped. There was no pause. And so totally natural birth and all of a sudden I was like curled in a ball on the bed holding on to the side rail of the hospital bed and I was just like moaning to Jesse I was just like I can't I can't so he's like can you give her some meds they're like oh yeah so they gave me some pain meds and I was like when are they gonna give me the pain meds and he's like you've had them for an hour and I'm like I need more like I can't they're like she just delivered this baby like totally fine and now she can barely speak and I'm just

constant like guttural sounds in excruciating pain and I guess there weren't enough people that were like this is a red flag this is not good um anyway essentially what's happening is I was bleeding inside and it was all clotting up. And so a doctor ended up having to remove all those clots. And so I lost a great deal of blood and was very white. And when I saw Mark like a day after having her, I was very pale. Like my resting heart rate was like 115. Damn. It's typically under 60.

is typically under 60 um my um hemoglobin when pre-pregnancy was like 13 point something during pregnancy was 11 something which is very common and then after that it was at like a five something and they then the after it was white as a ghost like i would push on my pads of my fingers and nothing would they would just be white they wouldn't like go back to pink um and so jesse at one point asked the doctor who was going to discharge us um should she get some blood like i watched them pull out like a giant thing of clots like should she does she maybe need some blood well she stood up and walked to the bathroom she stood up and brushed her teeth. Do you want to go home?

I was like, yeah, I want to go home. All right. She's going, you know, and they signed the paper. And so, you know, a day or so later, we called my doctor and my doctor was not there at the delivery because it was the middle of the night and it wasn't his shift. It was, and so he's like, what are you? I was like, should I still be taking like an iron supplement? know they told the nurses said I should ask you and he's like why would you take an iron supplement I was like oh I don't know there was some blood loss so he opens

up my file and he's like I don't want to alarm you but you need to go to the ER right now like your your hemoglobin's out of five six or whatever it was he's he's like, if you bleed now, there's no more of you left. Like you can't, you know. And so anyway, the next morning I went up and I got two things of blood in the ER. I think that brought me back to like a nine. And then it was about a week later at home, totally normal, everything fine. I hadn't even started walking yet, like outside. They told me you need to take a month off. Could you like eat and stuff or was it kind of? I could eat. You saw me like I

would stand for a little bit and then I had to sit in a chair. So that after getting the blood, I was a little bit better, but I was still not able to go upstairs really for another several days. So I think it was like a week or so before I could go upstairs without going, you know, like if I got up and walked about 10 feet to the bathroom, my resting heart rate would jump up to like 135. Like I was out of breath to walk to the bathroom. It was the weirdest feeling. And my heart would just feel, I could feel it pounding. I'm like, what's going on? It's a very weak feeling that I was not used to. And then, yeah, I was just home with the girls jesse was back at the gym at that point because it was like late 2020 and like october the girls were still doing home school or at school

remotely or whatever and um i was like holding our baby and all of a sudden i felt something that was not right and so i set her down in the crib and i ran in the bathroom and there was just blood and so i ran upstairs not ran ran, I walked cause I had no run in me, but I walked upstairs cause I didn't want the girls to see. I was scared to scare them. And I just yelled at them like to watch the baby. And, um, I just like went into the shower and it was just like, yeah, it was a scary amount. And so I called Jesse first and then my mom and they both started coming home or, and are coming over. And then I called my doctor and they're like, he's like, you need to go to the hospital immediately. So I basically sat in the upstairs bathroom bleeding for 10 minutes until Jesse and my mom came.

And I just kind of like wrapped myself in a towel and my mom drove me to the ER. And it was COVID, right? So that was pretty effed up they're like your mom can't come in and i'm like yes she can she's coming in and so she literally pulled into the front of the er and like left her car there you're like you don't know my mom i know she's busting through these doors we're going in and so we went in the thing and they're like okay what's they're checking you in like normal or whatever and i'm like i'm i need to the thing and they're like, okay, what's the thing? They're checking you in like normal or whatever. And I'm like, I need to, you know, and they're like, oh, yeah, wow, this is not good. Anyway, my mom stayed with me.

And they found out, finally they took an ultrasound and realized there were still things in there that needed to come out. And that was your body's flushing it out with blood. And so I needed to have a surgery that would remove what was left in there. Very routine and common surgery. But the fact that none of that was checked for or anything was really scary. And, you know, the way the doctor and Jesse say it is basically anyone that's not Katie Hogan, like that had the size I had and the, you know, whatever. Thankfully, the fitness I had, I was able to go through that, get more blood again, and all was well. But super scary scary i know it really traumatized my family and

everyone but i talked about it with another woman and she's like i had that exact same thing happen i'm like what what like i didn't know that was a thing is it a cop it's it's fairly uncommon it's uncommon and yet it's common enough that like someone in my circle you know it's like a mom i coached her daughter she's like that happened to me i'm like what so but she had five children happened one time i don't know i keep asking my doctor i'm like why didn't this happen why didn't this happen and he's just like he was pissed because he wasn't there and he's like all of these things should have happened i don't understand it so uh it was a it was really rough having gone everything gone so great and then it was a huge turn and really scary. And thankfully, it was an easy fix in the sense that like they put me under. I did the surgery and then everything was fine and has been since.

And then, yeah, then they filled me up with more blood, which is really, really felt much better after that. Heart rate went back down to normal. And anyway, I feel like super gruesome. People might not want to hear all that. i'm sorry if anyone's feeling lightheaded but um yeah it was it was not what i expected and then uh what about like getting back into training and stuff did that take like a really long time or was it like you know two three months that later you were fine i think part of it was the physical and i didn't trust my body as much and part of it was it's just's just hard to do that with a baby. Like, even though my parents were around, I didn't want to abuse that and make them stay all day. So I'd be like, okay, she's down for a nap. I'll do a little something in the garage. And then, oh, she woke up, you know, I guess I'll put this away later. And then I think one of the early workouts I did was there's a hero, a CrossFit hero workout called Chad.

It's a big fundraiser for veterans' mental health awareness. And it's in honor of Chad Wilkinson. Anyway, it's 1,000 step-ups. I don't know if you guys have seen this one. I feel like you guys would love this. 1,000 step-ups wearing a weight vest. So it's a 20-inch, maybe 24-inch box. I can't remember.

20-inch for girls, Richard. Maybe 20-inch for everyone. And you do 1,000 24-inch box. I can't remember. 20-inch for girls, maybe 20-inch for everyone. And you do 1,000 step-ups for time wearing a weight vest. And so I was like still recovering and not needing that. But I was like, I'll do 500 wearing my baby. And I'll just step up to a 12-inch box. So I strapped her on to like the front carrier and I did and got her all sweaty. But I did. That was one of my early workouts back was just 500 steps up a little 12 inch box. And that felt really good. I felt alive,

you know, to be able to participate in something that other people were doing. Power Project family, if you're trying to increase your muscle mass, if you're trying to lose body fat, if you're trying to stick to nutrition plan, if you're trying to get fit, pretty much if there's anything you're trying to do for your health, we know that sleep is the biggest determining factor to help you get from point A to point B. That's why we've been sleeping on 8C mattresses for probably more than two years now. And the main reason is the technology behind the Pod Pro. Now, the Pod Pro is like the Tesla of beds. It will change its temperature based off of how you're sleeping during the night.

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Got anything else over there, Andrew? Yeah. We both have toddlers about the same age. You've had pretty good practice with the twins. So, like, moving forward with, you know, making exercise and diet as a, you know, just lifestyle. Like, that's just normal, right? But is there anything else that you plan on implementing with, I guess, your third go around this? Because, you know, like for me, it's so cool that like my son doesn't know what candy is, you know, so it's like, OK, cool. I got like that box checked off.

Like we're doing pretty good there. YouTube, he knows exists. It's like, oh, I missed one there. So I don't know. Is there anything that you think you might want to like maybe do more or even less of with your baby now moving forward? Make her a super baby, like turn into a superhuman. Well, we're just trying to, I think, show her the practices that we do. Like every night she goes upstairs with Jesse to take a bath in our bath and she rolls her feet out on like one of the, you know, Kelly Sturette mobility

balls. And like, it's the cutest thing but it's also like that's to her normal and i remember the girls you know in their little nightgowns would come in our room every night and they would roll out on something you know because that's what we'd be doing we i was broken trying to be a competitor jesse was still trying to compete in powerlifting and we'd both be rolling out and stretching so they'd come in and do it too so i love that a little bit of family bonding and that that's normal. You know, we haven't started talking to her about what protein is, but that was early on with the girls. I remember my parents watched them for a weekend when they were like five and they were like,

well, we were getting out the Eggo waffles, but they were like, we need to have protein first. I was like, that's right, mom, they need protein first. And so they'd feed them eggs and then they could have an Eggo waffle. So yeah, just kind of introducing that information early so that she's aware of it, so she knows what things are and can make choices. It's tough, though. It's hard out there. Like when I get frustrated with the girls, the older girls, I realize they have a lot of challenges that I didn't have to face, you know. And the phone, you know, that's a real thing. We're trying to keep phones out of her hands as long as we can but it's a part of life they're going to need to know how to use it so

like we joked about the moderation thing if i could just teach how to control and balance that as if right that's what we're all trying to do on ourselves that's what we're trying to teach our clients to do but um control how much of anything, whether it's candy, phone, whatever. Don't be afraid of it, but also realize that you don't feel at your best when you're doing those things. So, yeah, we just try to bring her along on all the things that we're already doing. And she sees her big sister. So I have a leg up because she sees them active and playing sports sports and she just wants to go run and jump and throw a ball. And so that's kind of fun.

That's awesome. And then so this next question, I'm like probably going to regret even asking. No, because like, you know, I want to help out my wife with our with our toddler as well. I'm like, oh, I got so much stuff going on. Like last night, I didn't finish working till like 10 because of what I was doing for yesterday's podcast. But then I think about someone like Jesse Burdick and it's like, well shit, he has to be places and he's there a lot. So I'm sure he does a lot for you. So like, what are some of the things that he does for you that you really appreciate? And maybe there's some things that like I can start doing for my wife as well,

because I feel like she does so much with our son. She's at home with him all day long. And I'm like, I, you know, I get home and I get like the fun stuff, you know, like I get to play with him and I get that.

I don't have to be the one that's like fighting with him at like, you know, 11, 12 o'clock home, bro. Well, well, well,

well, making a sandwich. No, but like what I'm saying is like i get the fun stuff and she gets some of like the harder work you know what i mean so i don't know i guess yeah what's some of the things that he does that like really like you're like damn thank you jesse is like and one of i i don't know how he does it he is so meant to be a dad like i if i let myself i could get really emotional about it right now because he is just freaking amazing at

it like you've seen it Mark you know the girls really well and obviously you know Jesse really well so you've seen it in action but also like watching it from beginning with with Beatrix has been the coolest thing because they have so many moments that I am not even a part of right and like he has built in these routines that are their time. And sometimes it's because I'm out of town, which is not a lot, but if I'm out of town, it's they built their routine for that. But he does the bedtime routine, meaning as soon as she's done, like with the last, you know, the last dinner and we do a little bit of milk before bed and then she, it's time to go upstairs to do her bath and that's dad takes over

from then on and so they walk upstairs together they roll out their feet together they you know he gets her into the bath when he's gone and i have to do the bedtime routine she tells me at every corner what i'm doing wrong daddy doesn't do that no daddy does this um do you have to get the back scratcher because daddy says let me back scratch our back no you didn't call out all my bones you didn't say what all my muscles were and i'm like okay and these are your hip flexors no not hip flexors yet like i do it all wrong and jesse's like yeah i realized that i've set everyone up for failure because no one can replicate they have like a thousand inside jokes and yeah and then we turn and we look at the mirror and we say hi to mirror b and like i was just like i can't even you need to get home and do your routine again so like

they set up then they go into the bedroom and he has seven books probably 10 10 books lined up and they read each of the 10 books in a certain order and like holy moly plus if you ever like listening i should record what in when he sits on the side of the bath and she's obviously in the bath. And so his feet are in and he's just kind of and we've got little like foam letters. He's doing like he's taught her the entire ABCs. He's like reading shit from like Descartes and stuff. She's two. He's teaching her how to spell.

He's teaching her how like word sounds going together. His parents were both teachers, our teachers. His mom's a kindergarten teacher. He's teaching her how to like letter recognition, right? And it's unbelievable. Then, you know, after dinner, they go on a barefoot walk, you know, in the morning when he's home in the morning, which isn't a lot. He used to take her on a lizard hunt. They'd go walk around and look for lizards.

So he builds in all these little things that are like special bonding moments. And it's freaking amazing and then i feel like wow all i do is like play with her in the living room like i'm so no fun i'm out of town like teaching a seminar and i get a picture of them out at the cafe we went to breakfast and selfie and i'm like i you never take me to breakfast you're like it's so it's just so anyway obviously he has a leg up because he's gone through it once before, but it's amazing. So what I would say is find what your strengths are and really lean in on that kind of a thing. He's naturally a teacher, like whether he wants to admit or not, he's a coach, but like it's in his DNA.

He wants to educate. He wants to teach. And so he always wants to read with her and he always wants to work on whatever numbers, letters, whatever skill. And then, like I said, like just doing the things that he likes to do, going on walks, doing these things. When it comes to helping me, obviously those things are helpful because it gives me time. But he's a great cook. And so he's always the one shopping for the food and mostly preparing the food now i do a little bit more of it but he'll plan out like this is what we're gonna

have this week and so i'll do it i know he'll plan out a weekly menu like he doesn't write it down but he like when he shops at costco he's like this is gonna we're gonna do mexican tonight and we're gonna have this and this then we're gonna do this i told you guys i was regretting asking this question no jesse's fucking super dead. I need to learn from his ass. Yeah. So he used to shop Costco and now he just does it all on Instacart. And so he's like, this would be burgers and hot dogs night. This would be this night.

And so, yeah. And he'll be like, we'll come home at lunchtime and we'll have lunch and talk a little bit. And then I'll be like, this is what I was thinking for dinner. Because we're not going to see him until 730. So, I mean, if we didn't put it in the crock pot it's not going to be ready then i'm going to be the one to kind of prepare it which is the easy part right he thought it through he got it all ready i'm not surprised he thinks about food all day yeah exactly and that way it's ready when the girls need it when it's between practice or after a game or whatever so yeah um if you need tips i feel like jesse he's like yeah no he was he was

helping us with like the apps and stuff that you guys were using like as far as like is the baby hungry does he need to be changed or is he tired like damn that's it he's like yep it's one of those three and i'm like thank you it was super helpful the apps were helpful for sure you do think you wouldn't need to keep track of that kind of thing but then you realized oh yeah there's a lot of stuff that you're trying to remember in mom brain, apparently. You can forget podcasts. You can forget if you've changed a diaper in the last six hours. So, yeah.

All right. I think we can bring CrossFit up a little bit. What do you guys think? 3.5 or 4? Can we bring it up? I think she made some good cases for today. I think the longevity one gets a bump. Yeah, the longevity thing was good.

Yeah, the longevity thing. It's like we really railed CrossFit on the longevity, right? bump. Yeah, the longevity thing was good. Yeah, the longevity thing. It's like we really railed CrossFit on the longevity, right? It shouldn't be at one. All in the way you think about it. It's because, like you said, you know a lot of competitors that are not wanting to be in it anymore. You know, out of everything we talked about, I think CrossFit was the only thing that got a one for longevity. We had Olympic lifting at two. What did we have sex at?

Sex was at five. We had to create more people. Are there a lot of Olympic weightlifters well into their 60s and 70s? A lot? Maybe. I don't know. It seems like that sport hurts a lot. I don't know. And there's more community

of the CrossFit, so she's right. It has to have a higher longevity score. Community makes it. That's all I know you think of longevity. 1.1? No, 3.1. I'm only at a 3.5. What was the overall winner of best things? What did you say? It was natural bodybuilding.

Let me explain. Natural bodybuilding, because we had normal bodybuilding, but we put that – And rucking was high, right? Rucking was – Walking slash rucking. It was up there too. Yeah.

But I mean it builds muscle. It loses fat. And like you see a lot of old healthy natural bodybuilders that don't use drugs. Yeah. No, I get that. And it's – if you're not taking it to extremes, right, you're not going to beat up any one joint to the point where yeah i think you're never going to see somebody that has like a really like a really amazing physique that you really appreciate where they're like yeah i ruck that's all i do is ruck that was my argument you know what i mean like i wonder what if they did yeah you could do a lot of it you could make like calves right but

sometimes like uh sometimes some people that like surf right right? Like if you kind of only surf, but surfing, beach volleyball, those are like things that probably kind of selected you as we've talked about before too, you know, it's a tough call. Don't see many chunky surfers. No.

What about just like lifting weights in general? Cause you got involved in weights at such a young age. What about just kind of selling weights to women in general? Oh, my gosh. That's the formula I want. Your mom works out, right? She lifts, right? She's kind of taking a pause with some injuries,

but she's really excited to come back. And your dad, he does like pull-ups and stuff, right? Yeah, he loves that. I got to get him back in. He's spent all his time with the baby, so now I got to get him back training with Jesse again. But, yeah, like that's it. Like your arms still look fucking awesome. Thanks but yeah like that's that's it if i can get your arms

to look fucking awesome thanks that's i think that's more nutrition than anything it's hard for me to lose muscle mass even when i was depleted of blood i still was like i got so much muscle mass for high school and college and then i decided to get into running and i was like i'm just gonna run i'm not gonna lift any weights and this is way before I got so much muscle mass for high school and college, and then I decided to get into running. And I was like, I'm just going to run. I'm not going to lift any weights. And this was way before CrossFit. And none of my circumferences went down.

I still had big legs, like big through my back, big arms. I was like, okay, I guess this is just my muscle mass. Even if all I do is run long distances. But yeah, getting more women involved in any kind of training. Because I call what I do with my clients CrossFit, like my, my moms that I train, but I also really make it like accessible. I don't want them afraid of it. And we really don't do overhead squats and snatches. We do dumbbell snatches, but their shoulder mobility sucks. So I have no interest in getting them into those positions. I've done with PVC pipe a little bit of overhead squat.

And even that, sometimes they'll feel like a pinch or this and that. So it's like we're not there yet. So like literally we're CrossFit without snatching. And I love teaching and having athletes do the snatch. But their posture sucks. And it's just not worth it. So I dangle the carrot. I show them what it is. And we're going to get there eventually.

In the meantime, we're going to use the dumbbell instead and whatever. They kind of like lifting heavy? They do. Swinging heavier kettlebells and things like that? They really do. And so for me, I want to get more of them. Everyone is so quick to hand me money to train their kid. Middle schoolers, middle school kids.

And I'm like, yeah, but like also you, right? Like I'm like looking at the parents, like you guys should be doing this too. Like there was one couple where I was training their daughter and then the husband and wife were like, they kind of, and you always, you see it coming before they ask. Like they're kind of like dancing around. Like they'll be like, well, you're, you know, you're just so fit or you must train all the time. I'm like, nope, I really don't. Well, you just must've been born that way. I'm like, nope, that's a cop out. That's not fair. But you don't need as much time as you think.

And if you watch what you're eating, it will last you a really long time, you know, how you look. And you should come in and train. And I got the husband and wife and the daughter. And the husband totally to the 180 started watching his foods or all of this. And like I bumped into him at a volleyball game and he looks amazing he's just like you know because i stopped training him um the last several months but like that is what he needed to get back on track and so i'm like i want that for the everyday person like that is who i'm interested in i love training the volleyball

athletes it's so fun but i want their parents and that message i am i i need to find a way to get that out i want the it to be normal to stand and watch your kids volleyball game and then go on a walk instead of sitting and eating or eating the garbage food and feeding it to your kids like this has to stop and so i i'm trying to find that line so if you guys ever have you know the magic formula between I always tell Jesse this I was like I know this isn't meant to sound arrogant I have a lot I can work on with my body but I don't want to discourage or act like a know-it-all or act like push people away because I'm the weirdo that goes to the hotel gym when we fly in for the volleyball tournament. And everyone else is at the bar.

I'm like, the next night I went and had a drink with them at the bar. And then we all went to dinner. I'm hanging out with the parents too. But then the next morning I'm going to get up at 5 and go to the CrossFit gym down the street and do a workout. And I'm the weirdo. Nobody says that. But I also think, oh, yeah, you had to go work out, you know? I'm like, you could come with me, you know?

And so I don't know how to say it without condescending or acting like I'm right, you're wrong. I look great, you look bad. Cause these aren't true statements, but I feel like there's a judgmental aspect to me saying, hey, come to the not dark side. What would it be? Come into the light. It's very hard. I want to inspire. I want to help. Obviously, I would love to have them as clients, but even just like changing of behaviors that has no benefit to me, I want to spread that.

And I just don't know the best way to do it. How can people work out with you? They hit you up on Instagram or something like that? Yeah, my Instagram is katiehogan777. I pretty much just post random videos of my kids and occasionally me working out. Yeah, I've got anyone that messages me. Sometimes I have remote clients, but usually it's people that are in the area. I'm in Pleasanton, California. So awesome.

Andrew, take us on out of here, buddy. Hey, absolutely. Thank you everybody for checking out today's episode. Please drop those comments down below. Let us know what you guys think about this conversation.

Hit that like button and subscribe as well. Follow the podcast at MB power project all over the place. My Instagram is at, I am Andrew Z and SEMA. Where are you at? And SEMA ending on the screen, YouTube and intimate union on TikTok and Twitter is the seven, seven,

seven means something. A seven was my numberinyang on Instagram, YouTube, and yinyang on TikTok and Twitter. Is the 777 mean something? A seven was my number in college and high school. Oh, okay, cool. Well, Katie, where can people find you again? Yeah, katiehogan777 at Instagram, probably easiest. All right. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weak.

This week is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.