The Sevan Podcast - #202 - Mike Burgener

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

USA's Greatest Olympic Lifting Coach. Burgener Strength. The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Bam. I'll make everyone happy. you know bam i'll make everyone happy i mean i accuse people like you know like if they say if you say um like if the police say if they're trying to apprehend a suspect and they say or they pulled someone over and they're like caucasian female 35 i mean on some level i'm not even on some level they're being um sexist and colorist and so if on friday if on friday we are going to do the we're doing the top 10 of all time

crossfitters it's gonna it's gonna have to be in and we're going to be sexist because we're going to, no, no. Are we not? This top 10 list includes men and women together. Yeah. So that's not being sexist. But if we had a top 10 list of separated, that would be sexist. Not in a bad way. I know people think that's a bad word, but it's just. Well, we did the top 10 men and we did the top 10 women.

And now we're going to do a hybrid list. the top 10 women and and you know now we're going to do a hybrid list and it's understood that they're different competitions but um it's also kind of cool in the sport of crossfit that um you know that from the inception of it there have been pretty equal playing fields for the men and women good morning mike hey how you doing savon well um brian what were the allegations the allegations were that since you didn't automatically assume Tia was the greatest CrossFitter of all time, you were sexist. Is that the allegation? Pretty much. That's amazing.

You're not even allowed to talk about it or else you're a sexist. That's awesome. Mike, holy cow. This is one of the only guests that i um ever flaked on i double booked mike and emily abbott on the same day and because you're not sexist you went with emily no because i am that was not actually yeah you got that all backwards because i am sexist i went with emily mike i'm gonna change your um i'm gonna change this to your name so it's your instagram account what is your instagram account can you spell it out for me uh just mike bergener b-u-r-g-e-n-e-r mike bergener it fits it fits him perfectly yep mike bergener mike but but so guilty of saying mike

bergener a thousand times in my life so 2000 i probably say mike bergener more times than i should too your dad is pissed no he is pissed what uh what are the origins of that name? Swiss. Swiss and German. Does it mean anything? Strong like bull. I knew it. I thought it meant handsome lad, but whatever. Well, that too, but I'm a geezer, so shit, the handsome is gone. That eroded.

Hey, Mike, do you know Brian Friend? Hi, Brian. Hey, Mike. Yeah, I don't think we've ever met certainly i know your work though well i watch i stalk you guys anyway so i know you okay i feel bad for you having to do all this shit with savannah it makes me tougher it does now i gotta blow some sunshine up his butt because i i'm a real fan of Savant for this, for sure. But I love his wife and the kids and how he raises them. I think that's really amazing. So he's a good dude in spite of everybody telling me opposite of that. Trust your own judgment. I want to read something to you guys.

I don't mean to drag you guys into this bullshit but i have to read this at the beginning of the show uh this comes from the san joaquin county um school district this morning by sending your child to school today on or any scheduled vaccine clinic days you are giving implied consent to form of medical intervention people you cannot send your kids to public school anymore you this is from the san joaquin county schools that that you are basically when you send your kid to school on vaccine clinic days you're giving implied consent to form of medical intervention and it's got the the the whatever the coat of arms for the

san joaquin County School District. This is not cool, man. You can't be sending your kids to school and not know that like my kids aren't circumcised. I can't have them go and then come back circumcised because I gave them implied medical intervention. Insanity. Insanity. Do something to my kids. Mike mike have you ever had laser surgery have you ever thought about having laser surgery so you wouldn't have to wear glasses anymore oh these are just

readers i can't see i is that you savan i can't even tell no it is not but this is no i can see well i can see a gnat's ass from 100 yards, but I can't see reading at all. Oh, close up. Okay. And do you wear glasses besides those cheapy ones? No. I get them from Amazon for about two bucks a piece. I know you're the same generation as my mom.

My mom does that too. She likes the cheapies and then lay them all around the house. So like wherever she goes, there's just one to pick up. I've got a thousand of them all over the place. I bet you even have some in the trunk of your car. don't have a trunk i have a truck oh man shit so they're they're all over the place in my truck um this is a hard one for me to do because podcast for me to do because i did a podcast with mike when i was over at CrossFit Inc. And we really went through his timeline from insemination to his parents fornicating and making this young lad to the present. And it was quite thorough.

And it's quite fascinating. And yet I just feel like there's some things we still have to go back and touch on before we just shoot the shit. So I apologize for those of you who have listened to it and heard it. But it was several years ago. And I'm sure actually Mike and I have both forgotten. I'm a geezer. I forget everything. Mike, how many kids do you have? We have four children, three boys and a girl. And what are their names? Casey's the oldest and he's up there by you. He's in Monterey going to a Naval postgraduate school. He's in military officers, a lieutenant commander in the Navy.

Oh, wow. Bo is Bo's over in Portugal. He's my second son. Did he chase a girl over there? Did he chase a girl over there? He's got a wife over there and a baby. Wow. And is she is she a native of the there? He's got a wife over there and a baby. Wow. And is she a native of the land?

Yeah, she's Irish. And she was on our staff years ago. We were in Italy and I found her. And she's just a dynamo. She's outstanding. Comes from a very fit family. And her name is sophie cavanaugh now it's sophie bergener is she related to the cap the the coach cavanaugh the guy who coaches uh

connor no okay no everyone's named cavanaugh in ireland right there's like just about i think so okay and then uh my son cody lives in was Washington, DC. Well, in Alexandria, he's a firefighter down in Prince William County and he's married, married to, uh, Taylor and they're, um, they have a baby, just had a baby as well, Logan. And then I have, uh, my daughter Sage is a single mom and she lives, she lives about five miles from us. My, my mom told me yesterday that I should have your daughter on the show. She called her a real, I forget what the word she used. She's a fire breather.

Oh yeah. I think my, my mom said spit fire. And I go, what's that mean? She goes, just look her up. She's like, I follow her. She's like, you would really like her. Yeah, you would, you, you would really like her. She's a, Yeah, you would. You would really like her. She's, oh God, I have four children and three boys are not like me at all. But my daughter is more like me and has caused me more grief than anybody else. So Casey met an Irish woman, but lives in Portugal. No, no, that's Bo. Bo, sorry.

How does that happen? They met through CrossFit weightlifting. But why? How did they end up in Portugal? Like, why didn't they choose one of their home countries? Why aren't they in Ireland? Portugal is really an interesting place. I mean, it's first of all, they have a house or a condominium, three two-bath condo right on the ocean for 1500 bucks

wow i can take out i could take uh i don't know four couples out for dinner for less than 100 dollars wow that's really and it's a beautiful beautiful country and in 1500 is is that you pay that just in your property tax every month here in California? Oh, shit. It's crazy. I mean, here. But I mean, he was living here. Then she let her green card expire.

And you have three months to get it renewed. And she just forgot about it and went back to see her parents over in uh dublin and uh couldn't get back so they were living here in oceanside and uh hell they were paying three grand a month just for a uh you know a one-bedroom apartment that was about a half a mile from the beach um can you go there to Portugal? Oh, yeah. You can. I was just there about, oh, eight weeks ago or so. Wow, that's awesome.

In my mind, I'm such a, I guess I'm, I think of myself as a positive person, but I guess I'm just a negative Nancy. I just think of the whole planet as being locked down. That's awesome that you went there. Well, yeah, we had to do a lot of a lot of crap to get there but uh uh we went and it was uh i mean i've been there three or four times and i really like it what about the do they speak english very rarely uh some of them do um not all of them and that's i think that's one reason why I think they're, they would like to, uh,

they've tried to pick up the language. I think they would like to, uh, you know, they want to come back over here, obviously, but that's been a nightmare. Um,

they may go to France. You can't just marry an American dude and come over here. No, no, she, she was, they were here when they got married. Oh,

I mean, I mean, she's married to an American guy. She's been married. They've been married now for about a year and a half. They have a baby and he's an American citizen. He's going to. Oh, you know what they need to do, Mike? They just need to go to Mexico and just walk across the border.

That's what I told them. It's totally chill that way. It's totally. I mean, it's come to Mexico and I will come and get you. Yeah, that's the way. And it's a nice walk. It's a nice walk. It's a lot of natural landscape.

Go through a little bit of creeks and shit like that. But other than that, you can get across. Isn't that crazy? People can cross at the southern border, get a court date, and stay in the United States, but this dude, who's a contributing member to society, who has a dad in the country, who

has money, brothers and sisters, family, and he married this chick and he has a baby and he can't come here and participate? Well, he can. He comes over. In fact, he'll be here next weekend. But not with his chick not with her no she'll she'll stay uh sophie will have to stay there she can't she can't come over here i mean we're working on we've been working on it for like two years now and it's about 20

grand later jesus oh Aye, aye, aye. I know. Were you going to say something, Brian? One of my closest friends had a similar situation. His wife is Australian, and he was working there as a petroleum physicist, met her. And it was like a two- to three-year process. They got married, and then she was able to stay here for a certain amount of time, but she would have to leave for a certain amount of time. And it's not easy. Well, Blaine McConnell is married to the one of the Iceland chicks. I forget her name now, but she she actually competed in the Olympic Games and she was living here.

And now they they have a baby and she's been gone now for three or four years. They can't get back. I just thought you could marry someone. Like if you marry an American, you're good to go. Now, that happened in the Philippines in World War Two. All these Filipino gals got married to GIs and they came over and divorced them. They came over just to get American citizenship. So they really they've cracked down on that kind of stuff.

But I mean, Bo now, you know, he's an American citizen. He lives in Portugal and he has to leave every three months. You you you you were in the Marines. Yes. What years were you in the Marines? I was here. I was here. Sixty five to seventy five. But that wasn't all active duty that was uh a lot of it was reserve duty i was in the plc program for when i was at notre dame and so my actually active duty times in the marine corps where i actually served was 1970 to 75 and why did you sign what's plc and why did you sign? What's PLC and why did you sign up for that? Well, platoon leader course is what PLC stands for. And I don't know. I guess I watched too many John Wayne movies. I always loved being a Marine. And the Marine Corps was was had great uniforms. And, you know, I'm crazy anyway. So I felt like like that would be the branch of service for me.

So really, there was no, it's kind of like if you and I were 16-year-old boys and we were standing around throwing rocks at a stop sign and the cop came up to us and said, why are you doing that? We'd be like, we don't know. Yeah. 16-year-old boys. Did you sign for the Marines like that? Yeah. I don't know. Well, they were at Notre Dame and they came in with their uniforms on.

Of course, Vietnam was going hot and heavy uh and these guys were you know they were poster guys for the Marine Corps and they had their uniforms on and they all their medals and they were they were pilots and they had served two tours in Vietnam already and this was 1965 um and they just shit I went in they pulled me right by and best thing that ever happened to me someone said happy birthday tomorrow Mike

ooh raw is tomorrow the Marine Corps birthday it is wow how many years do you know 246 I think it is or 47 wow the Marine Corps has been around that long what year is it 2021 what's the math on that Uh, 246, I think it is, or 47.

Wow. The Marine Corps has been around that long. What year is it? It's 2021. What's the math on that? It's like the 1800s. Oh, 1770s. Ton taverns.

I think it's 1776. Nice. Um, did you get deployed? Uh, no, no. um did you get deployed uh no no i went in the marines were were out and uh out of vietnam in 71 so by the time that i was in doing my ocs and tbs and all that other stuff um you know the show was over for us now the army the air force and the Navy stayed in. But the Marines came home in 71. Did that stress your parents out? Yes. And then your kids paid you back?

Yeah. Listen, fucker. Yeah, it was. I have no Marines. My son, Bo, was in the Navy. Casey's in the Navy. And, of course, Cody doesn't he won't have he's firefighter so public service for him um someone wrote uh uh michaela wrote august 4th 1790 for the coast

guard yeah interesting i didn't even know there were boats in 1790 well they all have. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's awesome. Army, Navy. Of course, I always tell my army buddies and I love my army buddies, but I always tell them that army stands for aren't really Marines yet. Perfect. Let's see that. Let's see the anger in the comments. Mike, is there, there's, there's this, this like there's this belief amongst you know certain people like myself a younger version of me is like hey you're a man you're a human being push your body as hard as you can everyone should experience their strength to its maximum potential at some point in their life and now that i'm 49 i'm thinking maybe since maybe in the last 10 years i should have taken it a little easier with some of the CrossFit shit I tried.

Maybe I tweaked my – I have some back issues. It's like I wake up to every morning. Do you ever go back and think, oh, maybe I shouldn't have lifted that. I shouldn't have done that. Not in a regretful way. Not like you regret your life choices. But like, hey, there was a smarter way to do it. No, I worked my ass off and I kicked everyone's ass hard in my students. I expected everything

from them 100% all the time because I gave 100% all the time. That's one thing the Marine Corps taught me. You lead by example. So I would never ask my kids, my students, to do something that I wouldn't do. So if I asked them to run, when I first got out of the Marine Corps, I taught five PE classes and I ran with every PE class. We were taught to lead by example, and that's very important for us. I used to do that when i was coaching the varsity soccer teams i wouldn't uh i would never put them through a workout that that i wouldn't be willing to do and i made sure that they knew that absolutely and as you get older you can't do that so as i got older in my 60s i rode a bicycle while they ran

oh and they accepted that because of my age that point was i was just out i was out there with them and i still do i mean i still do 50 pull-ups a day you know i do my push-ups pull-ups i do i had a knee replacement done in uh april 29th and i'm squatting again uh if i didn't have bad shoulders i could still snatch and clean and jerk i mean i can snatch and clean jerk with a pvc pipe but that's about it you can do that you still have that explosive that twitch well i have great great explosiveness that's that's about the only thing you know i i was strong okay but my the whole point of olympic weightlifting i was extremely explosive and 510 i could dunk a basketball wow how old were you when you

ate your strongest most athletic 20 well i think at about 25 24 i clean and pressed 400 pounds wow i remember you talking about the the clean press. It's almost like a standing bench lift. It's an Olympic press. It's not a military press. But that was part of the lifts. Back then, the snatch, you had the clean and press, snatch, and clean and jerk. 400 pounds? Right. Where did you do that?

I did it at the Junior Nationals. That's now the American Open. But I'll always hold that record because of uh they eliminated the lift oh wow um is there video of that um i don't back then when i did that uh no i don't think there was any videos of it well there definitely wasn't video i guess film i guess there was no video for maybe film i i have a picture of I have a picture someplace. So they actually put that up on my courses. My my kids do that shit to me.

I have a big poster of me holding the weight right before I was president. Wow. Have you have the bars come a long way since then? Those were with steel plates. And did the and did the bar spin yeah oh yeah you had the york barbell was a great barbell and then of course there was a russian barbell that had very aggressive knurling that they used and it was terrible you had to use it but it everybody's coming back with scars on their throats and bleeding because of that barbell and uh but yeah york had a great barbell and uh elico wasn't as popular then i don't believe i don't i don't i don't

think i ever lifted with an elico bar until you know much later there was a company called uderholm uderholm had a pretty good bar i think alico bought them out years ago maybe in from the netherlands is that from uderholm probably i can't you know but we none of us except europe everything was in pounds in the united states everything was on uh iron plates uh and of course if we read when we got to read stuff from europe everything was in kilos uh and you know they they had pretty good bars but we had good bars at the national championships we had good bars but you know in training our our bars and plates were like they were just iron plates and you would lift a weight you'd have to hold it over your head and then

when you when the referee would give you the down signal then you would have to bring it down to your shoulders and then your thighs and then below the knees and once it was below the knees you could drop it insane you did that with 400 pounds yeah damn and it was crazy because what if you miss 400 pounds what am i going to do with it i'm going to drop it and you and you had to have seen that happen someone dropped oh yeah you'd see it all the time but there was i mean i can i can tell you that i've lifted in a weightlifting contest where i weighed in at noon and lifted at midnight weighed in at noon and lifted at midnight wow because you had you had three lifts and they'd give you fourth attempt if you were going for a national record um i was at the uc berkeley gym many uh many years ago when i just found crossfit i was probably 35

probably 35 with Carl. Yes. With Carl. And I was overhead squatting, uh, 175 pounds and I was in the cage and it was steel weights. And I think I was going for, I was going to trying to do 10 and on my 10th rep, I think I dropped it from overhead onto the ground and they came over and yelled at me pretty good. And what was, what was amazing is they told us that that was actually a basketball gymnasium we were in. And so dropping the weights wasn't allowed. But, I mean, of course, they had a floor on top of the basketball gymnasium anyway. Yeah, true. That we got in so much trouble there. Do you know Carl, Tall Carl?

He's like 6'6". Carl, what's his last name? Do you know his last name, Brian? Eggelman, something like that. Oh, Eggelman. He does whiteboard daily. Yeah, they're fromelman something. Oh, he does. He does whiteboard daily. Yeah. They're from Indiana.

Yeah. Yeah. He's good, dude. He is a good dude. Actually hit one of his drawings was just featured yesterday or the day before in the CrossFit end of day email. Oh, wow. And Mike, you would have loved it because it was, it was saying, this is red flags.

If you hear someone saying, well, I need more weight on the bar to move it. Well, yeah. No,l's been out here he's been out at my house and uh you know he's got my blessing he's a good dude yeah so i was working out in the gym at uc berkeley back then and i think he walked up to me and was like hey nutball what are you doing i go i'm doing crossfit he goes i try to do some of that too and then we basically worked right then we just worked out every day together for probably like I don't know four months yeah and we were a weird combo because he's six seven maybe and I'm five five maybe yeah he's a school teacher yeah now and but now he now he's a independently wealthy man his whole drawings thing is taken off and he's like he's doing doing it. He's living the dream. He's living the Mike Bergener dream.

I'm retired. How did you meet your wife, Mike? Oh God, that's a long story. But basically, uh, I played basketball with her dad when I was in the Marine Corps. He was a, uh, he was a neurosurgeon and, uh, he was on, he was a captain in the Navy and he was a captain in the Navy, and he was on the USS Sanctuary in Vietnam in 68. And so I met him at a racquetball court. He was coming out of the racquetball court, and I was going in. And I had my uniform on, and I had all my insignias, and I was parachute and scuba qualified.

insignias and all my, I was parachute and scuba qualified. And, uh, he saw that and, uh, uh, I saluted the hell out of him. He stopped me and wanted to start talking. So he struck up this relationship and we started playing racquetball every day. And one day he asked me if I wanted to go on a picnic. And I said, yeah, sure. I like a free meal and uh he says well i wanted to introduce you to my daughter and i'm going hell yes i'm a captain in the marine corps i can do that and uh so we went out went to the beach of course i went out and got all these fancy clothes because i was from southern illinois and i didn't know what the hell to do. So I got all this stuff, but this guy sold me a bill of goods. I had lime green pants, a zipper shirt that was silk, white patent leather shoes. And, uh, I want to see a picture of that too. If you ever asked her about it, she'll laugh her ass off because they came to pick me up at the racquetball court.

And, you know, her family saw me dressed like that. And they just started ribbing her and teasing her. And, oh, look what dad thinks of you and all this stuff. But we went to the beach. And, of course, when we went down to the beach, I took all that shit off and wore my bathing suit. Then it became a different story. And of course, we played football on the beach. And then the real kicker was when we all left, we went our separate ways.

The next day, I sent her mother a dozen roses. And did you do that because you knew right away that that was the, did you know that was the one? I knew that she was pretty darn cute, but she was eight years younger than I am. And of course I was a Marine. And of course Marines think anything in a skirt looks good. But she was, she was the one for me. I just had to convince her.

Was she even of age at the time? She was. Let me think here for a second. She was a student at Santa Barbara. You see Santa Barbara. Oh, wow. She was like 18 or 19. OK, so barely legal.

And and that was that. And you just started and that's you called her on a landline, so barely legal. And that was that. And you called her on a landline, a rotary phone. Yeah, pretty much. I'd go up there. Once we established that we were meant for each other, I'd go up to see her in Santa Barbara one weekend. Then she'd come down here a weekend. So every other weekend weekend we'd make that

trek and where were you stationed i was at camp pendleton shit that place has been around forever oh god but i was i was on my way overseas to okinawa and uh she really we were talking about getting married and i was going to stay in the Marine Corps for 30 years. Then she started thinking about her dad. He was in the Navy for 25 or 26 years and they moved all over the place. So she basically said, I really, I don't want to move like that. I like California. I want to stay in California. So I had a decision I had to make and her dad ended up getting me a job teaching at Fallbrook High School. So I decided to get out of the Marine Corps. Wow, and that's where you met Greg, basically.

I met Greg when I was teaching at Rancho Buena Vista High School. How close is that to Fallbrook High School? Close. It's in the same area. So I taught at Rancho Buena Vista High school or at the Fallbrook high school. Then I went back to Missouri for a year to be closer to my parents. And, uh, my wife hated that. Did you take her with you? Huh? Did you take her with you? Oh yeah. No, she, she went with me and we bought a house in Perryville, Missouri. And, but, uh, you know, she couldn't stand perryville and so after one year she uh she says hey let's let's move back to california and we had bought a house in the carlsbad california we didn't sell

it we kept it that was an important year for her though so she knew what that was an important year for her though so that she could appreciate yeah what that you know what that wasn't i guess well i mean perryville is a great town i loved it it's an agricultural community and one one day a farmer calls me up and he says coach my hogs got out of the pen can you bring your football team and help me round them up so i canceled football practice one day to go help some farmer round up his hogs that was the kind of community it was german catholic community but and that's where he met colton rurtons yeah well and my my wife she taught pe in that school and the boys gave her such a hard time because she should be home cooking cooking supper for her husband why didn't she like missouri she just didn't like the lifestyle

that was it was uh i mean this was in 79 and she really you know it was just a different environment back there i mean this was this is german catholic the the mother the wife is in the home and they keep just the way it was you know it's just it's different different time people ask me all the time why don't you leave california and i i almost feel bad telling them how good i have it here i understand their sentiment i completely understand their sentiment um but on the other hand i'm a couple miles from the beach i have a half acre i have a hundred fruit trees i got my little just my little world here yeah um but but like i was reading earlier like they're they say if you send your kids to school that that's that's consent to do medical intervention on my kid

which i hope it's not always like that but i i mean you know why haven't you left what i mean i i i think i know why i mean i've been to your house yeah well i've got a great great place and i'm you know but i'm 75 and i got two of my grandkids are here and i'm not going anyplace where am i going to go i love it here if i want to go someplace, I'll go travel to it. What do your grandkids call you? Pacha. Pacha. I'm Pacha. I like that.

And my wife is Nana. Who? Does Sage have two kids? Yes. And how old are they? Mikey is nine. And Charlie, who's my little girl, Charlotte Ray. Charlie is five. Charlie and and charla those are their names

charlotte raised their name we call her charlie okay um and and will sage just drop them off yeah oh you're a good man you're a good dude mike don't you do that with your mom i do but man so many so many grandparents like don't they don't they don't I mean I know it's a lot of work being around kids, but so many grandparents just don't do that. They just can't – they're not capable. And to be honest with you, I wouldn't trust my kids with most people. How old are you, Mike? 75? Well, my wife is a freaking saint. Yeah.

She's unbelievable. She is – she's much better than i am my my fuse is about that long and uh you know i'm good for about two hours and then i gotta get a hell out of dodge do they fuck with you do they know like you're the old guy to fuck with no they don't fuck with me they don't fuck with pacha they're not like okay let's go in the garage and see if we can get them riled up you know when you're young and you do that do you remember doing that when you're young fucking with old people you're like okay i'll get this dude no you didn't do that i just tell him that i carry a big freaking stick mike i got that kind of a question for you that um

you know obviously well i think only someone that is of your age or age range could really put in perspective someone sent me this thing the other day and it rang true for me because my grandfather worked for WGN for 40 plus years. And when he got to be in a 65, 66, they basically forced him out for some younger guys. And they, you know, they said, we appreciate your service, but it's just that time for you to move on. We're going younger. And this thing that was sent to me was about basically politicians. And they were saying, why in every field are elderly people, once they get 65, 70, kind of pushed out. But in the political world, that 65, 75 years old seems to be a lot of people that are making these major decisions. I think it's kind of, I'm curious kind of what you think, because I still consider you to be a expert and world leader in your field obviously you're in that same age range well can you give me some perspective on that

that's well first of all there should be term limits in my opinion you know i think that would take care of a lot of the crap that we're dealing with right now and we're about to get mike canceled watch this yeah and it just did you know just it's just my opinion, but term limits would alleviate a lot of the stuff that we're going through right now. But quite frankly, I wouldn't have any desire to work past 80 or 75. I mean, I retired at 62 and went to work for CrossFit. And I did a great job until, you know, and then all of a sudden that comes to a halt. We go to Burden of Strength, but Burden of Strength is run by my son. And he owns Burden of Strength. So it's not that, you know, I'm not a fan of politicians. Right. I don't. That's just the way I roll. But I think for me, there's two terms for the president. I think that should all be through Congress as well. You know, I mean, everybody should have two terms and then let's get some

fresh meat in there. Yeah. I mean, it's obviously the, the, the experience is valuable. And if you're only 35 years old, you can only have so much experience, but at some time I feel like it turns a corner and there's probably something in the middle that's more appropriate for people in that. They gotta be scared. What what are they gonna do if they lose their job decisions that affect me at 75 which is probably okay but it also affects my daughter who's 32 and my my family and it could affect them in a negative way and your and your grandkids exactly and uh anyway i you know don't even get me started on this shit i get him started get him well no i you know i just i was sitting here thinking about n7 said well you know i might

not drop off my kids with just any 70 year old person um but not most old people are fucking incapable most young people i wouldn't drop my kids off with anyone who couldn't pick them up and carry my mom can pick my kids up if the house catches on fire at 77 she goes to crossfit west with annie sakamoto five days a week she was on the cover of their website just two days ago right i might even have it here let's just yep i do you know now that i mentioned it you know because my mom's so cool i'm gonna do this i'm going to your mom is cool she's awesome share the screen i'm going to show you look at there's my mom uh doing uh crossfit right there this is just two days ago five sets five four three two one inclined bench press some dumbbell rows and this copenhagen

plank slide where you i don't like her touching the other members though. Um, but anyway, uh, yeah, I don't trust. Say that again. Your mother is what we call a mamba. M a M B a. What's that? Mother's against making bingo arms.

Ah, I like it. A mamba. And so like Stefan, you're not even a geezer in training yet. You're next year. You'll be a geezer in training. So we have age groups, right? 50 to 59 is a geezer in training yet. Next year, you'll be a geezer in training. So we have age groups, right? 50 to 59 is a geezer in training.

If you're 60 to 64, you're a geezer. 65 to 69, you're a super geezer. 70 to 74, you're a super stud geezer. And 75 plus, you're a day-to-day geezer. Oh, that's my mom. Can you be a girl and be a day-to-day geezer? No, my mom my mom can you be a girl and be a day-to-day geezer no she's just a studette she's uh she's uh she's the mamba back to being sexist different stuff but those are real like those are real terms that you use at your gym right with your friends and

stuff yeah because there's been some stuff on youtube i remember you guys talking about that yeah my gym is a two-car garage and you know since covid we i've really cut back on the olympic weightlifting letting letting people come in here but the geezers come in three days a week and the mom has come in twice a week and we have about 10 10 to 12 geezers that come in on monday wednesdays and fridays and the oldest geezer is 85 years old, actually 86 years old in November. And Mike Vaneo, who just had a knee replacement. And he's our, I mean, he's our day-to-day geezer that's a stud, Marine, former Marine. Mike, you kept your gym open for the geezers through the last two years?

Right. And did you have a COVID outbreak there? No. Did anyone die from your gym open for the geezers through through the last two years right and um did you have a covid outbreak there no did anyone die from your gym no what the fuck because i'm training hard enough yeah we train we train pretty hard and and uh i mean it's like our our workouts are just you know they're crossfit workouts i mean we got if you saw some of the stuff the guys are doing, I mean, I don't sit up there on the board and draw a workout for them. But everybody's got their own workouts. And we might do a workout that says, okay, today we're going to do 500 repetitions. And what does that mean? Well, what can you do?

Because we got different scale of geese or something. I got one guy that weighs 300 pounds. And he's trying to, you know, he's coming down from like 350. And he's been down, quit coming to the gym. He got all the way down to 270. Wow. Quit coming to the gym. And now he's gained it all back.

But he's coming back now. So for him, we might have him do an hour on the concept two bike and then count the calories that he burns as the reps uh and then he can do ball slams using a 20 pound ball we have him slam it on the ground for every rep that he does that counts or every repetition counts as a rep so he's got to do 500 reps so he might burn 250 calories on the bike but he's still got 250 calories that he's got to do and so he might do push-ups i could still do pull-ups so i do pull-ups and push-ups and and squats and shit like that so today might be 500 days but you know 500 uh reps but uh friday might be a thousand reps

um do you make him park at the bottom of the driveway that guy the 300 pound guy yeah yeah are there ever mornings where you're like shit i wish i wasn't doing this i just want my space like like i have all these people here like what's going on no never because because you don't feel like you have to host them either i don't i don't charge it but but you also don't feel um you know like sometimes you have people at your house maybe you're beyond this because because i think at 49 i'm almost beyond this you feel like i used to feel obligated when i would have people at my house like to entertain them now i have no problem just sitting on my couch putting my feet up and turning the tv on and holding my phone and when they walk in the door i'm like hi help yourself to something to

drink and then i'd go back to what i'm doing yeah my wife and i when we're out of town we keep the gym open okay everybody didn't where you fit in they got the code to uh the gate uh you know we locked the house up but we have a bathroom that they have access to uh no i feel you know i feel better having people here when we're out of town than when not. There's a question here. It looks like a fun one that I think a lot of people will like to hear you answer. It has nothing to do with what we're talking about. Probably what most people who are tuned in want us to talk about.

They probably hate it that we're talking about family and politics. And I want to go back to politics. I want to see how you managed all the different thoughts in the gym during just this fucking social upheaval. But the question is from Tommy Rodriguez. Coach – or it says, Brian, will you ask Coach – and I'll ask you. Brian won't. Brian, can you ask Mike about what he said about Chandler during the Rogue last year? Is it better to leave him alone since he's so strong or help him with

his form god i hope i don't get my ass in trouble here but i hope you do i hope you do we need the ratings the money i make from this puts my kids through jujitsu say something crazy i i wish i had chandler with me all the time because chandler would would be if i if I could have him all the time, Chandler would be cleaning and jerking probably 420, somewhere in that neighborhood. He's just gifted, gifted, gifted. He is strong as hell, but his technique sucks so bad. It's amazing to me that he can lift the way he does.

Look, he's a warrior. He was in the Army. He's a freaking fire breather. And he's wrapped tight. He's one of the nicest young men I've ever seen. And one of the nicest bodies I've ever seen. Yeah, well, he's got that. He's got that going for him.

And in the real world, you've got to understand what I'm, my world, when I talk about Chandler. I'm not talking about Chandler as a CrossFitter. I'm an Olympic weightlifting coach. I don't know my ass about CrossFit. I know what Cindy is and I know what all that shit I and I'll work it. But for me, when I when I do my courses and I do my my thing, it's all about Olympic weightlifting. That's what I do. And so when I see Chandler, I want him. I want to take him and bring him here and I want to train him. But it's the juice isn't worth the squeeze for him.

I mean, he's got to snatch. He's got to clean and jerk and he's going to do that. But those are two lifts. But his form might also hurt his longevity, right? I mean, every time he lifts at least, you know, fucking peon baby like me. I just think, oh, shit, my shoulder would have just snapped off. Right. Well, that's genetics. He's got that.

He's got that genetic distribution that he's just he's just unbelievable. I mean, it's like Chandler. I would change if I had him for Olympic weightlifting. Rich Froning, I wouldn't. And what do you mean? Like that notorious early pull? You wouldn't mess with that. No, he he actually doesn't early pull it. He actually brings it in with his arms and then he explodes. I mean, if I would have gotten rich phoning when he was 15 or 16, it'd be a different point, but rich is rich. And he has so much explosion.

He is so gifted as an athlete. I'd leave his ass alone. I really hate to do this. what i'm about to do next how cool is rich rich is cool as hell it's nuts right i love it he is i just got back from there and uh i mean his family is so freaking amazing it's unbelievable uh yeah i i have so much respect for him and hillary and what they're building the dream that they're building and uh the he is so giving to everybody he's just an amazing person and his dad too and his mom man froning yeah the whole he's i mean he and i are know, we're geezers together.

So, I mean, we're good. We're good. I really like him too. Had that whole organization. Rory's down there now. I got to see Rory. You know, Tattoo Media. I mean, they're just, it's just, it's just a great.

Oh, that's right. The Gravats, the Gravats are. Jordan. Jordan and Paula live there too. They don't live in Cookville. They live close to Knoxville. They live in, I think it's Marysville or something like that. Yeah.

Those are good people. I know them for a long time. Man, Paula is a powerhouse. Yeah. What a, what a overachiever. And she's running her own business now, right? I have no idea. Yeah. What a what a overachiever. And she's running her own business now, right? I have no idea. I talk to it periodically, but they they moved down there for I believe for their daughter.

She was a big volleyball player. And so I think I think she ended up getting a scholarship, if I recall right. I worked with Jordan. Of course, I love Jordan. We're both in the same field. We both made videos. But I for all the uh that i worked with always at crossfit inc for those of you who don't know who paula gravata is i had crazy respect for her i mean she man i i can't i seriously thought at one point she could even be the ceo of the company i mean she can do anything yeah i heard she's underrated friends they yep you know they're they're that's just good people that's just good people there um now stefan is never going to stop smiling another rich running fans the thing is this i can't explain to you guys like there's a ton of great athletes out there there's a ton of champions out there if this

guy wasn't a champion he would still be so cool it's it's really fucking hard to explain um what it's like to be around rich and talk to him it's not a charisma that he that he has i mean come on he he will talk to anybody it doesn't he's not going to lend himself to well i'm just going to talk to the the podium i mean he talks to everybody you go to his gym and first of all he's swarmed if he comes walking in there, people come to Cookville just to see what's phony, and if he walks in there, he knows he's going to be in there for over an hour just taking pictures.

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And he does it. Yeah, and it's not like he likes it. I don't mean to say he dislikes it, but he's not an attention whore. The guy would stay at home and go between his living room, his gym, and gym and shoveling some buffalo shit the guy is like does not want to be bothered but yet but yeah it's nuts and his family i mean his kids are shit his kids are awesome too i'm going to tantalize you guys we are going to talk about ghee but before we talk about ghee we're gonna i have mike here so i'm gonna make him talk about what i want to talk about mike when all this shit goes down and there's all these opinions get

vaccinated not get vaccinated put up your blm sign don't put up your blm sign that just all this social upheaval um like like uh people asking mike bergener for his pronoun trying to be unbiased but jesus christ how i don't believe in respect or disrespect but that's fucking disrespectful to ask someone like mike his pronoun but um uh how do you manage that in your gym with differing opinions and thoughts and beliefs my my team right now of the 12 or 13 people here, there are 11 of us that are more towards the conservative side. And there's two of us that two of them that are not. They're more towards 10 o'clock on the left. They're not. There's no one far right and far left.

On the left, they're not. There's no one far right and far left. But what happens, we've got a couple of guys in the gym that that's all they want to talk about. And I just I have a I have a rule that, you know, if people are going to start getting upset talking about politics, you're not go talk outside or or don't come here until you get that shit over with, and then go talk about it. See, for me, I believe in the Constitution of the United States. I believe in the American flag, very strongly, and I believe everybody bleeds red. It's that freaking simple. I've held myself, it's the way I was raised. I held myself to that standard all the time. And, you know, so when people start violating that to either side too much, then, you know, it's not going to happen in my gym. you know,

it's not going to happen in my gym. When people start getting upset about it and it starts affecting other people, then I don't want, I want, I don't want to deal with that shit. And perfect example, my I'm, I'm more conservative and my wife's more liberal.

So, you know, that's just one of those things we don't, we'll talk about certain things. But then when it, when it comes to religion and politics, we pretty much stay out of that. When you say that you believe in the American flag, what does that mean? That just means that the United States of America is the most important country in the world to me. I think people what we've gone through in World War Two and World War One and, you know, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan. To me, I think the United States of America is the greatest country there is.

And that's the flag that I really hold to my chest. One thousand percent. I pull up to my kids elementary school the other day. It's a home school where the kid's supposed to go to school two days a week but we don't send them there for those two days we just keep keep them at home and you can look on my instagram how hard i push my kids they get plenty of education anyway so i get there and they got the american flag and then underneath it they have the gay pride flag and so i'm wondering why do they have the gay pride flag and i and i and i inquire about

it and it's about equity and equality well i grew up in the bay area and i went to all the gay pride parades and the erotic exotic ball and i loved going to that shit and i loved seeing like the gay dudes like what like with the big old titties and their dicks out and like walking each other around and trap one guy would be walking another guy with a leash and it was crazy just sex and drinking and i loved that shit I was like 16 to 25. I did that shit with my friends. I love living next to the city, but the gay flag had nothing to do with equality. It had to do with the kind of genitalia you wanted pushed in your face, whether you want it to be your own or the opposite. And so when I see this flag in my

elementary school, I know it's a sex flag because that's what all those events are about. That's what gay means. It's about – just like that's what straight means. So I'm like thinking to myself, hey, I'm perfectly okay with there being an equality flag at my elementary school but not a sex flag. Like put the sex flag on your own garage door. You like dick or you like vagina based on – I'm all for that. Party on, man. Really enjoy and

embrace life love those people but not at my kids elementary school why not have an equality flag flag equality flag equality flag and someone says to me hey dipshit the american flag is the equality flag i was like thank you yeah yeah thank you. Yeah. Yeah. That's no shit. The American flag is the equality flag. But the gay flag does not belong at my kids. I don't want my kids saying to me, what is that flag?

I don't talk to him about being straight. Why would I talk to him about being gay? Yeah. His penis will discover all that out for him. No, I had a, you know, of course, everything's different now but back in the day my uh my uncle was gay and i loved that man i didn't give a shit if he was gay now my dad hated it you know my dad was born in 1915 he thought that was the weirdest thing in the world but i didn't give a shit one way or the other and he took he took my wife and i up when we got married took us up to san francisco and we went to a couple gay nightclubs and and guys were performing and and uh girls and i didn't give a shit i thought it was i thought

it was great entertainment and i don't give a shit yeah and i also understand why it offends i love what you said about that american flag. That is the equality flag. And I understand there needs to be a movement, and I understand why it freaks people out, and I understand why it makes people feel uncomfortable. Change is hard. I get it. And probably being gay isn't probably the easiest path to choose either, and I have tons of compassion for that, but not at the cost of kids. No. kids no just like i don't have it just like i don't just like i don't i'm not my kid isn't going to get an injection to save mike bergner's life because he's 75 or save my mom's life who's 77 sorry just not doing it right fuck that's all and that's your choice yeah yes you know you have that choice and that's why we you know mike bergner does 50 pull-ups a day he's he's handling his

business yeah do you really do that yeah i did 50 yesterday i i rode the assault bike for 10 minutes yesterday and then i did 50 pull-ups and do you do onesies no i do uh usually fives i got to fit i did first 15 unbroken and then i did onesies and i and i used split grip yesterday i normally don't use split grip do you you ever use that? No. What do you do? Overhand grip. All of them. Every time. Every time.

On my 70th birthday, I did 355 pull-ups in one hour. Damn. I'm going to try that. I do this thing with my son, Mike, where we go in there and we just take turns. We go, we do maybe like once a week, we do do 100 pull-ups, but we just do onesies. We take turns. Yeah, that's great. One-on-one, yeah.

Yeah, that's awesome. Is that even Olympic lifting what Guy is doing? How come I – did you see that guy at the games? The Chandler? No, Guy. Guillermo Mayeros. No. The Brazilian kid. Oh, yeah. yeah no i i did not i wish i had you haven't seen that video of him i well i've seen i've seen him lift yeah it how come i don't

recognize that as olympic lifting what what the hell is going on like like doesn't it's nuts well the things i've seen he looks pretty pretty good. Yeah, that's what I mean, beyond good. Well, because, okay. It's so fast, the angles, his hand placement. It looks like a stick figure drawing. It doesn't look like a human should be able to do that. Well, and he's tall, too, isn't he? He's like 6'3 or so. No, he looks tall.

He's actually, I don't think, Brian, do you know how tall he is? He's 5'9 or 10, probably. No way. Yeah, he just looks tall. He's actually, I don't think, Brian, do you know how tall he is? He's 5'9 or 10 probably. No way. Yeah, he just looks tall as shit. I know. I was shocked too. Yeah, I thought he was tall. No, I've watched him lift.

I haven't seen him snatch. I've just seen the clean and jerk, but hell, I'd adopt him right now. Let's see if I can. Are you on your phone or your computer? I'm on my phone. Oh, so you probably wouldn't be able to see it if i pulled it up anyway well i saw your picture of your mom oh let me see if i can pull up the um let me see if i can pull up this video geese mike he wasn't out in uh cookville still while you were there was he i didn't see him yeah i think he's i think he might have gone back to south America for a little while.

See, I went in on a Friday, and I usually go over there Friday evening, and then Saturday, Sunday, and then I left on Monday. Okay, let me see if I can share this on the screen here. But this guy's a beast. His technique is a lot better than Chandler's. Ouch. Oh, no. Hey, I love Chandler, but I want to give his ass a hard time, too.

But, you know, Mike, you'll, of course, know this. Like, the positions that he gets into, not everyone can get in those positions. That's great. Look at that. There's a starting position right there. I mean, I'm not going to critique the guy, but that starting position, I was thinking that he was like six, three because of that starting position. Oh man, that's perfect. Look at this. Holy shit.

That's exactly the way that I would evaluate that. And hell that's given, that's just amazing. Look at this. Look at that explosion. Look at the vertical hips. Look at the pull under. Shit, that fires me up, Stefan. Jesus Christ, man. It fires me up that you said try to say my name.

Look at that. This guy's an animal. I really like him. But the technique that he's got there, that whole double knee bend that he's got, that explosiveness, right? Keep going. There. Look at that. Look at his hips.

His hips are vertical. There is no banging the bar off his hips. That bar is a gnat's ass away from his chest. It's in the area of the base. It's absolutely amazing. He pulling elbows higher than the wrist, wrist higher than the bar. Now watch what he does here.

He punches the living shit out of it. Look at that. Jesus. It's amazing. I really like this guy. I guess. I've only seen two of his lifts. That's, I mean, I saw the one at the games on, on film like this guy I guess I've only seen two of his lifts I saw the one at the games on film

like this and then I saw one that he did in Austin I guess he had an Olympic lifting coach at his gym who was like some Brazilian Olympian guy who got a hold of him well I'll tell you what you can see it

I mean that technique you know I Who is like some Brazilian Olympian guy who got a hold of him. Well, I'll tell you what, if you can see it. I mean, that's that technique. You know, I used to grade my kids on a 10 point grading system based on what I see that slow motion. I'd give that a 10. Wow. How often do you give out tens? Very not very often. Rich would get about a four.

Why don't you leave him alone? Oh, alone oh shit yes i'd leave his ass alone you know what you say about rich froning you know when he snatches like that everybody's saying well what are you going to say to that guy i'm going to say good job rich yeah i think leave those guys alone i think one of my favorite rich froning snatches was at the invitational the last i think it was the last year he did it and one of the guys rich froning snatches was at the invitational the last i think it was the last year he did it and one of the guys had to do the clean and jerk one had to do the snatch and he was like it just looked like he was like there's no way i'm not doing at least 300 pounds here and he just did it he's he is such a stud man i mean i'm not only is he a stud he's a good person that's what i like Why did you go out there?

I do my burden of strength courses. But I thought your kids are doing that. Well, they are. But what happened? Bo owns the business, Burden of Strength. But, you know, it's my curriculum. So he pays me a stipend. He pays me 10% of the profits to use my curriculum.

He pays me 10% of the profits to use my curriculum. But the courses that I do, I do them at Mayhem and I do it at Invictus. So in those courses, I get 80% and Bo and his wife get 10% each. But I have to pay all my expenses on those. So Cookville is in Tennessee in the United States and Invictus is in San Diego, California in the United States. That's correct. And, and, uh, you, you, why do you still do them? Well, Cookville, I just, I just did two at Cookville and, uh, or I mean this last weekend

in Cookville and I had 55 people there. And, but why do you do them? Why don't you just chill, stay home? Because I don't want to ask my wife for money. Gotcha. Gotcha. So my wife and I have a real unique way of doing things. You know, any money that I make on my own, I get to keep.

Otherwise, she's got everything. keep otherwise she's she's got everything um mike um one of the greatest gifts i think kids can give their parents is to be healthy oh sorry one of the greatest gifts parents can give their kids is to be healthy and then also be financially um uh stable like i'm so happy my parent my mom's 77 my dad's 80 and i'm so they're financially stable and they're healthy. And I just think that takes so much stress off of me. It's like, it's nuts. What do you have any thoughts on that? You know, she when we first got married, we ended up buying a house and started investing. You know, my school teacher's salary was and her salary was not that much. But every time we got a raise, we put half of the raise into an investment. And, you know, then God, Stefan, you know better than me, but I was blessed with CrossFit. Oh, my God. I mean, I probably would still, I would have retired in 1970 or when

I was 73 years old because that my goal was retirement. I wanted to pay off my house. So because of CrossFit, I was able to pay off my house early. My wife was able to, uh, you know, retire early and, uh, we made good investments and my kids never have to, they'll never have to take care of me. And just so you know, when people say, when he says he retired, that means he started working the hardest he's ever worked in his life, but he loved his job. Right. I mean, I mean, but I love it. Yeah. It's unbelievable. I'm not working. He exploded onto the scene and, um, in 15 years ago and hasn't stopped. Right.

He's still going to Cook. When you go to Cookville, how do you get there? Do you fly? Oh, yeah. And what do you fly? What airline? Southwest. They have a nonstop to Nashville.

You don't spoil yourself and fly first class? No. I do if I'm going overseas. If I'm going to portugal i fly business class or if i go to europe i'm flying business class it's not hard to go back to coach no well i i try to i try to get sign on early and i try to go to row 14 row 14 it's got longer seats or longer leg room wow you do travel a lot holy shit

Mike this is none of my business how much did you make when you first started working at Fallbrook High in 1970 1976 was my first year 1975 was my first year at Fallbrook and I made 2121,000.

For the year? For the year. Baller. And, wow, $21,000 a year. And I took a job in Perryville, Missouri as a head football coach, and I made $16,000. Oh, so the year you were in, and that was all the money you got that year? No, because my wife got a job too. That's one reason why we moved because

they hired both me and her so we went from $21,000 to $31,000. Do you still have your house there? No. You sold it. Do you think about what you're going to leave your kids?

No, I'm going to spend everything. You are? Yeah. Did you ever think you wanted to leave something for your kids? My wife, we are very giving to our kids, but they've never asked us for anything. We do it because we want to. Of course. My kids have never asked us for a dime.

Ever. We're very proud of that. We're proud of them because they're making it on their own. I've asked my mom for a lot of shit. I can't say that well we just you know it's not that we wouldn't give it to them if they asked but they it never asked right um uh if you're listening um bergner kids um ask for some shit uh because this guy's gonna spend it all they're not gonna get it ask for some now like tomorrow um i want to leave some

shit for my kids i want to leave a house for each of my kids. Well, they'll get that. Right. I mean, we've got two houses. I mean, we bought a house. We have our home, but we bought a house about five miles from us and Sage rents it from us. Oh, that's awesome. She doesn't live there free.

I mean, we put a nice down payment on it. Our payment is about two nice down payment on it. Our payment is about two grand a month on it. And that'll be, that's in our, that's in our trust. And, uh, I mean, shit, it's hell. It's already gone up about, I mean, I've already made about two, you know, $200,000 on that damn house. I know real estate in California, right? Do your kids get along? Oh all four of them yeah they're really they're really close congratulations i i also i didn't um my kids are still young five uh four and seven um but when i

see the three of them getting along it is probably the highlight of my day every day. I can't really fucking explain it. And like, so this morning they got up and I just see them immediately go into the, into the playroom and just start playing together. And I, it's a, there's something magical about your kids getting along,

huh? Yeah. I mean, seriously, if you see them, I mean, they, you know,

they've had their pissing contest and shit like that. But for the most part, it's so gratifying as a dad that the kids all love each other. And, you know, they got their own lives and their own journeys that they're following. And they all accept each other. How often, like these days, do they all end each other how often do how often like these days do they all end up in the same physical location it's really hard especially with bo now because he's in portugal even though he comes he'll be here next weekend and we'll have he won't he'll be in dc next weekend uh for a level two course and sage is going out there cody is there and bow there so three out of the four will be there

uh so they they try to get together a lot but to have all four of them together is really hard the last time we did that was in thanksgiving last year no that's good and that was in new orleans that's where casey was living. And he was stationed in Mandeville, Louisiana. And so we all got together at Thanksgiving there. So that was cool. There's a comment here. It says, so wait, he got his master's in strength and conditioning at Kentucky and then moved and got a job as a school teacher? Meaning like, I think this person is suggesting you were overqualified.

No doubt. But I didn't care. That's, you know, I mean, I'd probably still be in the Marine Corps if I hadn't become a school teacher and a coach. And I probably would have never found CrossFit had I not been a school teacher and a coach. Can you tell us that story about how you and Greg met? Sure. So I was at Rancho Buena Vista High School and I was the junior national or junior world team coach for

the women's team in weightlifting. And so we had a weightlifting team called Team Southern California. And so in order to make money to help these kids travel, I would do courses for USA Weightlifting to raise money. So USA Weightlifting's level one coaching course or their club level coaching course is something that I would do. And I would do it maybe five, six, seven times a year. five, six, seven times a year. And every time that I would do a course, my weightlifting team would make anywhere from $500 to $2,500 for doing a course. So as Greg got going, I didn't even know who Greg was. As Greg got going, he called USA Weightlifting and said he wanted to do a club coaches course for his athletes and his coaches you know that was annie sakamoto and you know all that group uh and they said well contact mike bergner

down at rancho because he's in california so oh really that's the way and what year was this oh shit this was like 2005 i I think. So imagine this. I never heard that detail of the story. So if that person who answered the phone at USA Weightlifting, because I guess this is before emails, if they would have said contact Joe Schmo at this other place, it would have been Joe Schmo. Well, they did it because I was in California. And they thought, okay thought okay well you're in california bergner's doing all the courses and i was the only guy in california and you're not even close to greg at that point i mean that that's 400 miles 300 miles from santa cruz right

well so greg came down and he brought all these athletes within the you know all these guys can you tell me about the call before you go there does he does he he calls he personally calls you yeah can you and and you you answered the phone or your wife do you remember any of the details of that he just called and said he wanted to do a course and i said okay when you want to do it and he gave me a date and i said okay how many athletes are you bringing because i wouldn't do a course unless it had 10 athletes. Okay. And so he brought down, I think he brought down like 20 or so. And, and, um, you know, they walked into the gym with all their dogs and Lauren and, uh,

Blake and his entourage. Yes. And, uh, Tony, buddy, Tony, buddy in there. Yes. And, uh, Tony, buddy, Tony, buddy in there. Yes.

Uh, Nicole Carroll. Yes. Was Dave on the scene yet? No. Okay. Greg Amundson. Yes.

That's a great story in itself. Cause Greg Amundson and, and, and Josh Everett went head to head at your event. Yeah. That's awesome. I mean, there's so many great stories. Was Josh doing a split snatch for you?

Yes. Josh was the guy that could only squat snatch 95 kilos. And I said, okay, well, this is bullshit. You're not going to embarrass me by snatching 95 kilos. So we switched him over to the split and he snatched 120 kilos almost immediately. Wow. Wait, that was, it was your idea for him to split snake? Oh yeah.

Oh my God. That's, that's crazy. I just thought he was like, he just figured that out on his own. No. Damn. No, he was, in fact, Josh was, I mean, he's a great athlete, but he played football in Ohio and, uh, uh, he's a great athlete, but he played football in Ohio and he was a strength coach. I think when I met him, he might have been an intern at UCLA, I believe.

Him and Stephon Roche, both. And then he came down and started lifting at Mike's gym. He would come down on Saturdays. My gym on saturdays were like unbelievable and we had like 20 30 people in that gym on saturdays alone the same gym you're in now mike's gym at that house at that same house you're at now yeah um what year was that that was saying was 2005, 2006. Because, I mean, Greg came down, he brought all those guys,

and then he started telling me about the black box theory and started telling me about this thing that he was going to do with the military and the first responders and the firefighters and shit like that. And I thought that was great. And so after the course was over with, he, you know, went back to Santa Cruz. And I think two weeks later, he called me up and he said that there was a guy out at Golden, Colorado, that wanted him to come out and do a seminar on CrossFit. And he wanted, he really liked what I did.

So he said, would you mind coming out and doing a three-hour presentation with these guys? And the seminar and the people that this guy was bringing in were Navy SEALs, Marine Force recon, police officers, firefighters, the whole gamut. So I said, yeah, sure. He says, well, I'll pay your way out there, but I can't pay you. I said, that's all right. I don't really care. So he paid my way out.

And my kids and I had a couple athletes at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. They came down and helped out. And so I'll never forget this. But so I walk in this place and Greg's there and this guy has 50 first responders and he charged every athlete that attended that course $500. And so that guy made $25,000 but he paid Greg eight and I can remember of course this is just me talking but I can remember looking at Greg's face and it was like, fuck him. This will never happen again. And so we went home and about a week or two later, he called me up and he said, we're going to start doing our own seminars in Santa Cruz once a month. We're going to have 60 that are going to be allowed in and we're going to charge them a thousand bucks and he says we

want you to be part of it we want you to teach what you taught in golden and i said sounds great to me he says what are you going to charge me i said hell coach i make 200 doing this shit i don't pay me what you want so i every month I'd ride my motorcycle up to Santa Cruz. And first time I went up there, you know, I did my three hour gig. He gave me an envelope and I put it in the back of my pocket and continued coaching. pocket and continued coaching hell i'd forgotten about the damn envelope later that night i went to you know went to uh my motel room that he paid for and opened up the envelope and there were 15 100 bills in it about had a heart attack for god's sake you know used to do a weekend course for 200 bucks and he paid you 1500 for three hours 1500 bucks he was he was

the most generous man that i'd ever been around him and lauren both i mean they were they were incredible and uh if i mean he took care of me and i i did him did him once once a month and he took care of me and then a year later later, he says, I'm going to start. We're going to go a different direction. We're going to go two-day seminars, and we're going to drop the third day. So we want you to do your own courses. So he allowed me to set up a business and schedule my own courses. He collected all the money, and uh uh but i got they paid me

70 percent and uh they took 30 percent and that's the way it started yeah it's it's it's so uh interesting it's probably not talked about very much or even enough. It is truly incredible how many people probably have a very similar story to yours of how it's unreal of how generous he is. It, and then also on the other hand, I'd like to say that notice how Mike went out there to Colorado, even though he, Greg told him he wasn't going to pay him that so many people also have that story with greg

where when you started it really was the wild west it was get in where you fit in everything was so informal yet so fucking real and so many present people really wanting the best tell me about that crew if you could that walks into your what was that at rancho buena vista high school where these 20 people and the dogs and greg and the posse rolled in it was and um what did you think about this had you ever seen a group of older people by older i mean in their 20s and 30s who were that fit before like what was your first impression was olympic style weightlifting so you know i mean i thought anybody that did 30 snatches and 30 can jerks were crazy okay that was just stupid

in my opinion but i mean he was doing the course and and uh you know and then he started he started talking to me about the black box you know know, and what was the black box? Black box was a hopper that he put, uh, in his early days, he would talk about putting, uh, you know, a hundred exercises in the hopper. And he said that, you know, his whole point was, you know, you're not, you're not, you're specializing to not be special. And he'd say, yeah, the, the, the the the triathlete could do you know he wants the bike the run the swim but the true crossfitter the true guy that he's getting ready for combat in the military and firefighting that guy is going to do 10 exercises and the and

the the triathlete's going to win three, but the true guy is going to win seven. So it's about total fitness for him. On a side note, Dina McCarthy says, coach, you're not supposed to let everyone know about row 14. He's fucking – there's no controlling this guy. He's fucking out of control. He's out of control. And then – so back in the the day i think things have changed josh everett wasn't a very talkative man at all and that's an understatement he he did not talk um and yet you

met him there and somehow you exchanged phone numbers with them in in uh it started up what's turned into quite the charming long-term relationship, right? Yeah. No, Josh and I have been, him and his family, it's like, Josh came down way before CrossFit even started. Oh, he did? Yeah. He wasn't, no, Josh was a member of my weightlifting team. Oh, shit. Okay.

Sorry, I didn't know that. I missed that part. Yeah. Yeah. No, he had been with me for two or three years and, you know, he was, uh, him and Stefan both, but then they both came down to help me coach that, that time that Greg came. So we had my, I mean, my whole family was there. I mean, you know, Kate, now Casey probably wasn't there, but Bo and Sage and, uh, Josh Everett, uh, Amy and I, and Greg, uh, Amy and I, and i then greg everett uh and amy everett now uh they were all there helping coach that uh that first course with greg oh you know i've never met greg everett you know that that isn't that weird yeah he's a hell of a coach i know i need i should get him on the show yeah you should he He's amazing. I've heard so much good things about him. Mike, how old did you say you are? 75?

Yeah. Tell me about Josh Everett. I don't mean to put you on the spot. Josh Everett. But you've seen him go literally – he was a fucking seedling, and now he's a fucking forest of a man. I mean the transformation he's a fucking forest of a man. I mean, the transformation he's gone through is nuts, right? Well, I mean, I'll tell you what. I should say it's growth.

It's not even transformation. It's just growth. The thing about him as a man raising his family is just like you. What you do with your kids and the way you raise your kids is just like Mary and Josh. Yeah. They are an amazing, amazing parents. Just absolutely amazing. Yeah.

And Josh wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful. I mean, he really wouldn't. But he's become more outgoing, more talkative. The glue that holds that marriage together so strongly is is mary she's she's incredible yeah i when i made every second counts is when i got to spend a lot of time with him and he was um extremely extremely introverted and then um and then we were we were filming a scene at the track and he started crying he was talking about the passing of his father, and he started crying. And that in itself was like crazy, right, that he showed that on film. And then afterwards, he texts me, and he goes, and this was even more amazing.

He texts me and said, oh, I bet you you guys are so happy that you got that scene of me crying. And it showed like this self-awareness and this joking and this side of him that I hadn't seen in all in all the filming and now when i see him it's just like i don't want to say he's changed he's just really um uh he i i i just think it's just remarkable how how much he gives i guess to his kids but also to the world now from being such a from an introvert to now i would never i don't even think of him as an introvert and i I love seeing him on social media. And I love the fact that he's sharing himself with the world. He is, you know, he's a, he's a strength coach for the SEAL teams. I didn't know that. Yeah. And, and he is, um, God, I mean, he lost his dad when his dad was 52. And I like to think that I became his second dad. You know, it was like the love that I have for that kid. I mean, and and to watch him grow.

I mean, here's a guy that he's I don't even know what he is, 50, maybe. I don't know what he is, but his house is bought and paid for. Yeah, he's smart. Him and Mary both are very, you know, frugal. They're very fiscal, responsible. They've got just watching those kids the way the things that they do. Yeah, those are some he's he's worked hard to make those are some powerful children powerful yes yes uh james hobart has chimed in um uh are you familiar who james hobart is he's that pretty guy who hangs out with rich froning back in

the day oh i got some great stories about james hobar he says brian get some tips for the hitch pool in your snatch what's a hitch pool brian you gotta be shitting me you do a hitch well you know james um i would love to hear the stories about james first of all but at the games james um very generously offered to coach me on Olympic lifting a little bit, and he wrote me a program, and I did it. But not once did he ever mention to me anything about the hitch pull. Instead, he waited until there was a public platform to embarrass me in front of the best Olympic lifting coach in the United States.

Thanks, James. So you didn't even know that until just now, Brian? No, he's never asked me. He's never told me about it. What is a hitch pull? Oh, God, it's the ugliest damn first of all it's illegal you can't do a hitch pole if the bar i mean never mind i i'm not gonna embarrass you no no i want to hear it educate them pretend like brian's not here let's embarrass me it's like you bring the bar up and then you stop

the bar is not supposed to stop you. The bar's not supposed to stop. It's not supposed to go lower. So it's more like a hang snatch? It's like pulling it off the ground and then stopping to do a hang snatch? Pretty much. Okay. That will probably explain why I can hang snatch as much as I snatch. Well, that's bullshit, Brian.

That should never happen. I'd never let you hang snatch again.. I'd never let you hang snatch again. And I'd never let you power snatch again. And you've been consistent with that. I've heard you give that advice to a ton of people. I do. You can never do a power clean again. I want to only squat.

No. What's the difference between a snatch and a power snatch and a snatch? A snatch is nothing more than and a power snatch and a snatch a snatch i mean a a uh a snatch is nothing more than a missed power snatch say that again say that again i gotta get my head wrapped around that a snatch is nothing more than a missed power snatch okay so the the, everything's exactly the same. The pull is exactly the same. The difference is the weight on the bars is lighter, so I can receive it at a higher level. The pull is the same. The receiving position is the same.

I generate my force against the ground the same. ground the same but then when my feet start sliding out they come off the ground my generation of force now changes from the ground to the bar i can't pull a barbell up if i'm my feet are off the ground so the con the concept is i explode i drive the bar create an acceleration and elevation on the barbell but when i pull myself under bar, my feet are sliding out to receive it in that squatting position. Well, the energy source becomes the barbell then. And so then that's what speeds me up underneath the bar. Oh, it's fixed. The changing of energy sources.

oh it's fixed the changing of energy sources and so when people start pulling the barbell up we have a saying we say that when the arms bend the power ends and that's why i don't say anything to rich because his arms bend to pull the bar in they're not bent to pull the bar up he still has got one incredible, incredible leg drive. In fact, if you took pull out of the vocabulary, it would probably be smart. You just call it the leg drive because you're trying to create absolute as much velocity on the barbell with your legs, with your feet against the ground as you can. with your feet against the ground as you can. On a similar note, I was 20 some odd years old and I had never had a pull-up in my life. And I was in my backyard at college

and my buddy was a, my roommate was a crazy juice head bodybuilder, just strong, beautiful dude, all jacked on roids. And we were in the backyard one day, high as fuck and he's like hey do a pull-up over there and i'm like i can't and he goes go hang from there and he grabbed his hands under my lats he goes hey dipshit stop pulling and contract this muscle

and he grabbed my lats and i did a pull-up and i'm like holy shit and i thought i was so confused my whole life i thought i was supposed to pull myself up because it's called a pull-up. He's like, no. And then from there, I became obsessed with pull-ups. That's the best exercise you can do for your upper body. Is it? Yep. I believe that. That's why I do them.

If I could only do one exercise for the upper body, it'd be pull-ups. And if I could only do one exercise for the lower body, it'd be walking lunges. Do you do walking lunges? Hell yes. Why walking? Why not stationary? Well, because I want to create everyday life. I walk.

I'm going to walk. I'm going to walk forever. So I'm going to walk in lunges. I know, but are they better than stationary lunges? I think they are for me. They are for me. Stationary lunges, I think they are for me. They are for me. I stationary lunges. I mean, I want to travel.

I mean, I'll go down to beach and walk and I'll do walking lunges for, you know, 10 reps each leg. Well, where do you put your hand? Where do you put your hands? Or down by my side.

Um, I, I'm trying to, I saw Josh Everett back in 2008 doing lunges. I'm trying to remember where he put his hands but it was oh he puts them behind his head like this yeah there's i mean you can do that the the problem with there's not a problem but when you do walk in lunges you got to remember that you got to create a base you don't want to walk the tightrope you got to create a base so

when i teach walking lunges and in my humble opinion, almost all athletes, football players, basketball players, volleyball players, water polo athletes, it doesn't matter. One of the first exercises, the best exercise they can do for their legs and their lower body is the walking lunge. but when you do the walking lunge, you got to step. If I'm stepping with my right leg, I want to step to one o'clock 1300. And if I step with my left leg, I'm going to step to 1100. So the, I want to create a base. Most people have trouble with lunges because they, they walk to tight rope and they have no balance.

Oh, I like that. I like, I like what you said thousands of lunges will be done in the next week because of what you're saying right now. I swear to God. Tens of thousands. the two pvc pods okay now they can assist themselves to get up if they have to because what i'm really after is i really want that that knee can be over the toe a little bit but i'm looking for the back leg being bent the torso being straight up and down and being balanced when i step and then i step i drive forward when i step with the other leg. And the best exercise that I could do is I can have a barbell do that exercise. And every time I step, I press the barbell overhead. From the bottom position? Yes. No, you, as you, as you step, the barbell's on your back. As you step, you step and press. And then when you recover,

as you're recovering, you bring the barbell on your back and then you step and press. And then when you recover, as you're recovering, you bring the barbell on your back and then you step and press with the other leg. Where can I see video of that? Is there video of that? If I have a split lifter, that split lifter, that becomes his overhead squat in the beginning, which is part of the Bergner warmup. I got a question for you, Mike. People ask me this all the time about the split jerk is it um practical to practice with both legs forward no only if you're an athlete if you want to do it like it's it's it's like the split clean or you know if i'm doing walking lunges i'm working both legs i want to do both legs but if i'm dialed into the olympic list and i'm a right-legged jerker if i'm a right-legged

splitter and the snatch or the clean i only use that dominant leg and then i use walking lunges to you know as part of my training program do you still get sore i can't if i haven't done my walking lunges long enough now if i went out because I had my knee replaced six months ago, if I went out right now and did a heavy set of walking lunges, my hamstrings and glutes would be extremely on fire. Yeah, my ass is broken every time I do lunges. A week later, two weeks later, I'd be fine. Where do you put the weight when you do weighted walking lunges?

I put it on my back with a barbell. Or if my shoulders are bad and I can't do that, then I just hold dumbbells. So you'll put a 45-pound bar on your back and do walking lunges? Yeah. And do you push it up also? Yeah. Damn. I'm now doing lunges as I'm working.

Of course. I know. I know. I'm going to do lunges today too. Isn't that funny? All right. I got a great exercise for you while you're doing lunges. Okay.

Tell me. All right. So you got two dumbbells in your hand and i'm walking first step i step out with the right leg so as i'm stepping out with the right leg i curl the left dumbbell okay then i step bringing it back and then the next step i step with the left leg, but I curl the right dumbbell. I like it. So I'm opposite. On the way back, I step and curl both dumbbells. Okay.

So that's over and back. The next set over, I use two dumbbells and I press the weight overhead while I'm in the lunge. So I clean it, get in the lunge. I step or I'm in the lunge and I press the dumbbells overhead. And I can use both arms or I can just use one arm. So if I step with my right and curl with my left, I'm here. So then when I do the press, I'll do the press with the right. So I'm going to curl press and then I'm going to curl press while I'm in that

down position. Or if I'm Logan Aldridge, I just use the same arm every time. Yeah. Have you ever worked with him? No. I just saw a video of him the other day, do a 502-pound deadlift.

The dude has one arm. I know. He's crazy. It's amazing. And he doesn't even look juiced up or nothing. I mean, he's got a beautiful body. Don't get me wrong, but he just looks like a movie actor. Yeah, yeah.

You were talking about pull-ups being one of the best exercises, you know, you know what exercise I, well, what I did with my kids and I'm so adamant about this is I hung ring rings have always hung in our house. And since they were the first time Avi stood up, he crawled underneath some rings. He grabbed them. He's probably eight or nine or 10 months old and he pulled himself up and he not pulled himself up, but just hung from the rings. He grabbed them. He's probably eight or nine or 10 months old. And he pulled himself up and he not pulled himself up, but just hung from the rings. And my kids every day hang from rings and their hands and their cores are so strong and they have so much awareness in their hands and in their core, because the second your feet come off the ground, you know, your legs kind of pop in front of you and you get that, that core stimulus.

And your legs kind of pop in front of you, and you get that core stimulus. And I didn't know this at the time, but the byproduct of having such strong hands that you're confident in gives a kid so much confidence. Once my kids grab something, a fence, another kid, anything, it's game on. You got to have the strong hands. Yeah, it's nuts. Yeah, I mean, that grip strength is critical. And I'll tell you what, if you grab somebody – that somebody that's why i like jujitsu so much and wrestling i mean wrestling jujitsu i mean those hands you get that guy on the ground you got strong hands he's toast yeah it's amazing it's so neglected and yet and yet you don't even have to think about building them when you hang

rings in your house as a kid because the kid will just be it's like it's like what's there's that story of the guy who picked up the calf every day right from it's like that every day they just get heavier and heavier so it's just a harder and harder workout progressive overload is what it's called progressive overload yeah it's nuts hang rings in your house people it's the best thing you can do for your kids seriously that's right in the living room yep they don't think it's work i mean shit step on the only time that i've ever seen your kid and i love this about you the only time i've ever seen your kid upset while they're playing that i've seen on video is when you made him throw left-handed yeah that was the best thing that you could do for that kid and they both they all now can they all now do that they can throw right

and left-handed and kick right and left-footed absolutely yeah that's good for the head that's good for the mind that's you know that those that what's that thing called in between the right and left brains i mean it's it crosses over i mean it's amazing what that does for their their intelligence um i i saw on your instagram this thing called the erg desk yeah from uh ice age mick yeah tell me about that thing is that thing cool oh it's unbelievable and so you just so you basically do you have an erg in your house i got i've got two ergs and i've got two erg desks so i'll get out and I'll ride the Erg. And when I was recovering for my knee, I'd ride that thing an hour every day.

Because it enhanced my range of motion for my knee. And so while the Erg desk fits right on the handlebars. And so I'd sit out there and answer emails or phone calls or whatever while i was working out you ever drip sweat you ever drip sweat into your keyboard probably i mean i don't i try not to yeah that that thing looks that thing looked really cool why do you do the erg instead of the assault bike i hate the assault bike how come because i can't use the erg on it oh the erg desk on it i use i was raised on the schwinn airdyne okay and so i'm a big schwinn airdyne fan but they did away with the way the schwinn airdyne

was made years ago yeah the new ones are ass yeah they're they suck uh i have an assault bike that i actually gave to sage she has it in her house but but but as much as i want one of those concept two bikes i just feel like if i'm gonna sit on there i might as well get the full body workout i might as well get my arms in so i write that no doubt about it. The erg is, if truth be known, the reason I hate that assault bike is I can burn more calories doing the same work on the Schwinn. Wait, why? How? Because the monitors aren't linked. So I'm totally mind-screwing myself. So I'm not going to do the assault bike because if i ride it for an hour i'm burning 300 calories but if i ride the schwinn for

an hour at the same level i'm burning 400 calories gotcha gotcha gotcha so i mean that's you do that that's just you heard it mike bergner is not perfect he too has a brain he has to deal with. We didn't even cover much and we have to go. We got to do this again, Mike. Did you have fun? I had fun. I always have fun with you, Siobhan. Thanks for doing this. Brian, do you want to ask him any questions before we let this guy go?

Before we let me go to the bathroom? No, I think it's really good. Um, you know, I think, uh, it's good for people to hear, hear from him about just perspective on life and, and lifting. And, you know, I feel like there's a good, a good change. It's happening for a lot of people where they're understanding that it's okay and healthy to lift for a long time. And it's, but there aren't a lot of people who've been lifting weights for 50, 60, 70 years like Mike has. And there,

you can see that, yeah, he's got some injuries here and there or whatever, but overall he's strong and capable because of it. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. Now we work hard.

I, I had some good role models as I was growing up as well. So I'm good. Those stories, you could go search back in the archives and find them. Cause when you guys talked last time, you definitely told about some of those men that were influences early in your life.

Right. Seven, you must drink a lot of water. So I woke up this morning, I had a cup of coffee, then I had a pint of water and now I'm having a second cup of coffee. So you're drinking coffee again. Good job.

I am. I made it two months. My life's, my life's better with coffee. Oh, water and now i'm having a second cup of coffee so you're drinking coffee again good job i am i i made it two months my life's my life's better with coffee oh shit okay hold on hold on i gotta tell my wife something she's leaving the house i am coming all right mike i love you hey i'm gonna bug your i'm gonna bug your daughter will you put in a good word for me yep she'll love to do it for you she's your fan i mean she loves you too savannah okay cool and thanks for having me