The Sevan Podcast - #292 - Jedidiah Snelson

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

Jedidiah Snelson is a husband, father, CrossFit athlete, and six times participant in the adaptive games. He has been in a wheelchair since he experienced an injury during a motorcross race. He walks... us through his daily life and how he experiences life differently than how it might be perceived by the outside world. "The Sevan Podcast" T-Shirts https://asrx.com/collections/the-real-sevan-podcast-collection Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Watch this episode https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC59b5GwfJN9HY7uhhCW-ACw/videos?view=2&live_view=503 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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Starting point is 00:00:53 Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Bam, we're live. We did it. I used to be stressed out when the show started now now for some reason i get relaxed like holy shit i made it are you on vacation i i am so this is uh this is like our off season and so yeah um before the open starts here we we got it got away with the family that's awesome jedidia yes jedidia correct yeah um is it a hard name to say or is it just me it's it's not it's a hard name to read so when people people aren't sure how to like if it's jedidia or or jedidia or i get all kinds of things but one jedidia that's not hard to say once you know how to, like, if it's Jedidiah or Jadidia or I can get all kinds of things.
Starting point is 00:01:46 But Jedidiah, that's not hard to say once you know how to say it. I demand Matsuza appears. Ah, there you are. Hi, Matsuza. Hey, guys. What's going on? Good morning. I see a seagull over Jedidiah.
Starting point is 00:02:01 Jedidiah, are you covered? I saw a seagull fly over you. You're not going to get drilled. Yeah, no. I'm good. So I'm on the patio of our room. So I'm protected. All right.
Starting point is 00:02:12 Susie, you can be in the shadows if you want, or you can be up front. It's up to you, brother. All right. Maybe I'll do a little balance of both here. Just wanted to give my smile a face and a wave. give my smile a wave yeah jedediah popped up on the uh on my radar uh a bunch of people at um wadapalooza while we were covering that um courtesy of ancestral supplements um said uh hey you got to talk to this guy jedediah i got like a handful of dms and so then basically what i was doing um was just like dming as many
Starting point is 00:02:45 people as i could because i was trying to make the show cool right to have just like tons of people lined up just everywhere and jedediah was one of those people who slipped through the cracks um a ton of people slipped through the cracks and jedediah was uh nice enough not to take offense that he slipped through the cracks and circle back with us and come on during his vacation. No worries. That's a chaotic time during Wazza. So did you guys, so they had a, they had a massive rain delay, massive rain delay. My, my, my heart went out to Dylan, Kristen, the crew there, Matt O'Keefe, because I know that's stressful. You got all these little chickies in the nest barking, mommy, daddy, let's go, let's go, let's go.
Starting point is 00:03:27 What ended up happening to you guys? Did you guys get any priority? I mean, obviously, the I don't know what you call them, the pro guys. Yes. The guys with the big Instagram accounts got to go. Did anyone else get to go? Yeah. So we did get our last workout.
Starting point is 00:03:41 And I think that was more of a priority due to the fact that we had been last minute cut out of the run, swim, run because of logistics. So we were already down a workout. And so had they cut that workout too, it would have been awful. But we were very fortunate. They made it happen. And so we got back and got to complete our last workout. So they're basically were like, hey, okay. So let's go back to what you just said right there. Why did you guys get cut, we're like, Hey, okay. So wait, well, let's go
Starting point is 00:04:05 back to what you just said right there. Did you, why did you guys get cut out of the run swim run? Was that because of that debacle with the girl that they thought they lost in the water? No, it was before that they had just decided at the beginning of the weekend that due to logistics is all I was told. Um, I assume obviously the rowers they had this year with the assault, um, they don't come apart like a concept too. So we obviously could not use the rower. So we could have done like a run swim, which we've done in the past. But I don't know where exactly they were holding it and what the logistics of that was.
Starting point is 00:04:36 Because when they've had the off-site runs and swims, we've been able to participate, no problem. But when they have it off of bayside only, the ramp is too steep in the water for the seated athletes. And so I think just due to the size of everything this year in logistics, they just said, you know, we just, just to be safe, we're going to, we're going to bag this one. So what division do you compete in? So I compete. So there's technically two answers to that. So the easiest one is to say seated. I am a T12 paraplegic. And so I compete, so there's technically two answers to that. So the easiest one is to say seated. I am a T12 paraplegic, and so I compete from a wheelchair in the seated division. Now, most competitions nowadays have two seated divisions.
Starting point is 00:05:15 There is the seated one and the seated two, which is defined by with hip function or without hip function, meaning that you may have partial use of your legs or your hips, um, and be able to pull from those muscle groups and activate, or you're like me, you're a paraplegic where your legs do nothing but get in the way. Um, and so transitions, um, doing lifts, like it's just a complete, we have less muscle groups that we're able to pull from. And no age groups. No, no age groups. And what's the youngest you can be to compete in that? You know, I they haven't really defined that way.
Starting point is 00:05:54 I know. So like Josie Portal, she competes in the women's and she's competed at Guadalupalooza often. And the last time she's the same age as my daughter. Palooza often. And the last time she's the same age as my daughter. So the last time she was there, she wasn't able to make it this year, actually due to, um, school schedule and finals for her semester. But the last year she competed there, she was 11. So, um, so they haven't resolved. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, so tell me, how is it a competition, But it's separated by sex too, right? By your genitalia? Correct. Okay.
Starting point is 00:06:28 So then you, so it would be you with a bunch of other dudes who are seated, meaning you don't have use to your legs. This one isn't split by hip. How, and is there a winner? Yes. So it's like, fuck you. I don't care that you're 11. I'm you. I don't care that you're 11. I'm 32. I don't care if you're 75.
Starting point is 00:06:47 I'm whooping your ass. Yeah. So she does. I like it. I approve. Yeah. She holds her own. She's been, she holds her own.
Starting point is 00:06:55 In the scale division, she's been on the podium several times. What's the, what's the deal? Is it a, is it a sensitive group? Like, is there a really fucking strong, like, vernacular you're supposed to use and not deviate from it? No. No. Especially us that are this way,
Starting point is 00:07:12 because we're more outgoing and open to the real world. You know, we make jokes, and some people, like, are almost aghast at times, the things that we say, but it's just we're not sensitive. Like, life is, you know, it goes on, so get over it like do you know do you know pitbull raw yes he has that great joke where he asked uh you've probably heard it where he asked god for a giant penis or no he asked god for a penis that drags on the ground right yeah and uh so god removed his legs and uh holy shit what a great joke he's like be careful what you ask for man be careful
Starting point is 00:07:52 right right no it's it's true have you met him i have i've competed with zach multiple times in the past zach zach i always forget his name what did i call him pitbull i know how often does that happen nowadays we identify people by their instagram handles instead of their real name i do that all the time um susan can i see what what t12 is where that is yeah is that an input are all the vertebrae are important right jedediah you can't well yeah if one doesn't work then you know you're you're in some kind of condition like I am so is that is that in accidents is that you had some sort of accident yeah so I used to race motocross I raced 17 years
Starting point is 00:08:39 five years professionally as a minor league athlete and then was racing recreationally after I'd retired from pro racing and had an accident in the winter where i came down off of a steep downhill and got thrown off the track the problem was where i landed was it was during the winter and the ground even though they the track was a sand track and they drug it but where i got thrown was off the track and the ground was frozen two three inches deep frozen as i said yeah so it's basically like hitting concrete um is that is that one that broke right there is that a typical one that broke because it's kind of at the apex of that turn or yeah you tend to find like common injuries is like down like t t11 T12, and then it jumps kind of generally. Then you see either like between T3, T6, or then it's the neck, like the Cs. Those are kind of common, you know, more vulnerable points,
Starting point is 00:09:37 I would say. But I mean, I, you know, people get injuries at multiple different levels, depending on what kind of accident they had and where they get hit. So. So did any of your other vertebrae get damaged? No, not my vertebrae. Just everything else around my spine in that accident. You punctured a lung. I did. I punctured my lung. I broke several ribs. I shattered my sternum. I dislocated my shoulder and my left hip. And then that also sheared off the head of my femur. So yeah, I was a mess for a while. Wait, wait, wait, tell me about this sheared off the head of the femur thing. Yeah. So basically when my hip dislocated it, like you kind of like an apple, like if you slice it with a knife that basically sheared off a piece of the head of my femur and I had to have another surgery later to go in and reattach it. Why, why do that? If you don't have use your legs, why not just say,
Starting point is 00:10:29 fuck it? Well, because if, I mean, your body can still like your body still functions the same, even though I don't have mental control of it. Like it's like my articulate in there still has correct. Correct. Okay. And it's, it's And it's actually been a pain because now I have partial fusion of my hip on that side. I have a condition from having that injury and head trauma at the same time where there was like a scramble in my brain where it says – it tries to tell my body that my left hip is a broken bone. So it tries to constantly deposit calcium there to fuse it into one piece. And what were the implications of that you were saying there's pain there now no so there's a partial fusion so it gets real stiff so i literally have to stretch out my my left hip every day to keep it from trying to like solidify oh like those guys who can't bend their arms because they got like the buildup here. Correct.
Starting point is 00:11:25 Yeah, exactly. Crazy. Yeah. That's shattered sternum. Yeah. Yeah, that was painful for a while too. Does that just, that comes back together by itself? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:40 Yeah, it was a place where it didn't like, it didn't dislocate or dislodge. It just was all kinds of in pieces. And so it just killed itself. There's a video here that I want to show you that I pulled from Instagram account. Sorry, Susan, I'm taking your job for a second. Now, you guys, I'm going to play this and it's going to come quick. You're you're lifting overhead. yeah this is old school and i couldn't find the um exact clip by itself all right this this this this this okay i'm not going to play this quite yet um so describe to me what's going on here and do you ever make this mistake again i'm going to play the clip in a minute after after it happens once do you ever make this mistake again yeah uh occasionally not as often i'm actually so this was 140 pound bar uh-huh um and i was doing it was actually during one of the open workouts and it was i can't remember which one it was specifically this was a while ago this
Starting point is 00:12:40 was like 17 or 16 i think um and yeah so there was a max lift at the end and I just went, I just pulled it really hard or the snatch and I pulled it really hard. And once I got it overhead, I was just, there's too much leverage on the back. And so the chair flipped and yeah, my natural reaction. And the bad thing about the video is it looks like it hits my legs, but it actually hit the two front crossbars of the chair. Yeah, there it is yeah yeah yeah that's nuts um and and now in competitions or at least in other videos i see someone's holding your chair when you're going overhead yeah yeah i actually it's
Starting point is 00:13:18 actually funny now since i've kind of developed my technique i tend to more want to tip with a lighter bar than a than a um than a heavier bar and the reason is because it's more the the rebound so i i use my back and my core a lot to pull into a lift and so when i'm doing like high rep like from the lap i'll throw myself forward and then pop back in that momentum with the bar that has is more likely to throw me than than a heavy bar just because of the rebound and the inertia right right so that's scary that was that scary as shit when that happened uh yeah especially when i'm tossing 140 pound bar yeah and i hope it goes far enough to clear me. Another video, there's a whole bunch of these videos that make me really uncomfortable is when you go in the water, when you swim, right?
Starting point is 00:14:13 Yeah. Because every time I see you go in the water, I pretend, like I go into my head and I start pretending that's me, but my legs are tied together or something. Like they say, Sevan, jump in the pool. If you don't use your legs, we're going to electrocute you. I'll be like oh shit i mean how is that swimming with how much your legs weigh uh i don't know so i tend to have more density than others though just because of the fact that my legs are in constant spasm with my injury meaning that they don't shake necessarily all the time but they're constantly contracted um so the muscles are always tight and fighting me and so the downside is my legs fight me like whatever i'm doing they're not on the same team but with that constant contraction of the muscle
Starting point is 00:14:56 they keep some they keep more tone than others who are just still and don't do anything um so i have a good amount of weight. It must be crazy swimming with just, it's like having tentacles, I guess it's, but you can't control them. Like, yeah, it's not bad once you get comfortable because the good things is, is they're still right. So, so they, you know, it's more of that free float. Um, and as long as you keep a little, like you tread water fairly easy once you relax and and just you know swim normal it's just slower um but at first it's kind of like yeah well you got to get past that mind freak when i first learned how to swim without my legs because yeah and then i noticed that it will it appears that like you are become very confident you'll be swimming and then
Starting point is 00:15:42 you'll just rotate onto your back and take a break for a second. So I had to float on your back for a second and then flip back over. And I tend to swim, especially long distance and open water. I swim on my back and do a backstroke because the way my legs contract, they stay bend. And so if I stay on my stomach, it wants to drag me underneath and it's almost like pulling an anchor. But if I swim on my back, the water tends to like free flow underneath me and so i can stay on top easier and oh that's nice did you know the
Starting point is 00:16:11 backstroke before you got in your accident no i was not much of a swimmer at all so you're in a sport where your injury is not uncommon is that correct you were in a sport with motocross yeah uh yeah it's relatively not yes correct right i i think before um i want to say this in the most severe harshest way i can perfect um before people started spending making it american pastime to kill themselves and shoving poison in their mouths 24 hours a day um the leading cause of uh the leading use of prosthetics was was motorcycle people now it's people who drink too much coca cola it's fascinating it's fascinating i think for those of you who aren't following you drink too much coca-cola you get type 2 diabetes you lose blood flow to your
Starting point is 00:17:10 legs and your legs come off that that is the leading cause of amputation in the united states people who do it to themselves should my kids pay the price for that sorry okay i'll come back the silver lining is kov's helped with that just because the motorcycle industry dirt bikes what recreational vehicles are like booming with everybody got why is that good well when everybody got quarantined they wanted to get outside and be active again because they were sick of being stuck in their house and you could and at that time you could do it in social distance still so motorcycle sales utv sales all these just went skyrocketing because people wanted to get out so you think motorcycles will surpass type 2 diabetes now is the leading cause of prosthetics
Starting point is 00:17:53 i don't know hopefully because that means the numbers came way down but um we'll see at least people are on their bikes again i i just saw it again a couple days ago. The average – first, it was like 40% of the United States put on at least 29 pounds or more. Recently, I just heard that the average person in the United States in the last two years has put on 29 pounds. Wow. Yeah. And not like arms like you either. Not like arms like you. Yeah, that's sad.
Starting point is 00:18:24 Oh, it's brutal oh it's brutal it's brutal um so so um when you were riding did you know dudes who were in wheelchairs who used to ride yes yeah i do i have a couple close friends that were paralyzed and and what did you have any um is this nick Palladino, the child superstar who's now a young man? Yeah, I think it is. He said that it was him earlier on another one. Oh, that's cool. What's up, Nick? We had – this guy competed.
Starting point is 00:18:53 Do you know this guy, Jedediah Palladino? I might if I see a – I'm a face person, not a name person. He trained – I think he trained over at Mayhem with Angelo DiCicco. He hasn't been in the scene in a main person. So he trained, I think he trained over at mayhem with, um, uh, Angelo DeChico. He's a, he, he, he hasn't been in the scene in a few years. I guess he, he's killing it in the Twitch world now playing video games, but he was super crazy strong. He had a, you know, he had like, I think he had like a 300 pound snatch as a 16 year old boy. So I'm crazy like that. Yeah. Whoa. Um, what did you think about those guys what was who were in the wheelchairs from motorcycle accidents did did you give them much thought what was your perception
Starting point is 00:19:31 of that what were your feelings on that um how did you process that to be honest i didn't have much feeling because i've grown up where i just was extremely active outside. Accidents happen. It's just part of living life. And so I didn't, to be honest, at the time, think much of it. I know that I had a lot of, knowing what I know now, there's a lot of misperception as far as what they dealt with or went through. But yeah, I had a couple of friends that were in wheelchairs that I would hang out with at times and that were paralyzed due to racing. And it was just, that's who they were and life went on. But yeah, so like I said, I had a different perception as far as some of the stuff that they went through now that I've experienced it myself. But I think it also helped that,
Starting point is 00:20:18 you know, I would, like I said, I was involved in the sport for 17 years and at a high level, both as a, as an athlete and a strength and conditioning coach for a while. And, um, so when my accident happened, it was no surprise. It wasn't like, you know, it caught me out of left field. It's like, yeah, okay. I always knew this was a, you know, you don't think it's going to happen to you, but I knew it was an option or a potential. So when it happened, it did not take me by surprise. potential. So when it happened, it did not take me by surprise. And I had some other accidents prior in racing where I probably should have been paralyzed or dead, to be honest. So, yeah. When you say your, your person, some, some of your perceptions of,
Starting point is 00:20:55 of what it was like to go through it and anything stand out as an example. Yeah. The internal struggles, like people ask me, like, you know, what would you do if, you know, if you could have one thing back as far as what you've lost, most people would say, well, I'd love to have the function of my legs left. Honestly, I'd love to have bowel control and that kind of stuff. Some of the nerve pain that I deal with is more of a bigger issue than my legs not working. So that stuff that you just don't know until you say, you know, you think somebody is just sitting in a chair, they're just sitting in a chair comfortably. You don't realize that their hips are tight. Their nerves are just off the charts. Like everything is just in constant contraction and pain and, and you just
Starting point is 00:21:33 learn to deal with it. And so they're not making faces. They're constantly like, ah, you know, whatever, but because you just get used to it. And so you think from the outside, you just see them sitting there comfortably. They're not sitting comfortably. Right. Um, I had a friend, um, named, uh, Vern Martel. He was a Canadian, a professional arm wrestler, and he only had one arm. Amazing arm wrestler. Always made me nervous to see him arm wrestle.
Starting point is 00:22:00 Cause like, I always think, shit, what if his one arm gets injured? His shoulder out or something. Yeah. Um, but he would tell he, it was the first time, and this was maybe, I don't know, 20 years ago, he would tell me about phantom pains. He would basically tell me that where is that where his arms missing, that basically it feels like he's on fire. Yeah. And I was like, I could never get my head really wrapped around that. Um, is that something that you have also, you have phantom pains, even though you can't feel your legs, you feel your legs. The best way to describe it for me is, you know, when you like lay on your arm wrong
Starting point is 00:22:28 or you lay on your leg wrong and then you try to stand up and your legs asleep and it has that fuzziness that goes throughout the leg. So my legs have that 24-7. If they're uncomfortable, it gets extremely intense and at a very like high intensity, high vibration, very uncomfortable. If my legs are relaxed, it gets very subtle and harmonious. extremely intense and at a very like high intensity, high vibration, very uncomfortable. If my legs are relaxed, it gets very subtle and harmonious. So yeah, it's, but it's there 24 seven. Um, just that, that fuzziness. Where did you say you were again right now where you're sitting?
Starting point is 00:23:03 Like what country? Uh, Mexico or in Puerto Mor morales just outside of cancun and you and you flew there yes and and how is that so are do you just do you loathe plane rides is that does that shit just get fired up in the plane like i like yeah i do because the seats are uncomfortable my legs get super tight um just sitting there for that long and so i usually we've planned it at least for me especially with the spasms in my legs that when i always get to a place early and I just have a down day when we get there, where the next day I just pretty much chill, try and get out of my chair as much as I can lay in bed and just let my body kind of settle down. If you just want to get your like for for for me, I live in the comfort of my own home, and I have this garage. It looks like you have a garage where I can just go and just get away. And so yesterday was my fasting day.
Starting point is 00:23:52 I don't eat for 36 hours once a week. And so a couple times a day, I just go sit on the assault bike, and I just ride it for 10 minutes until sweat starts dribbling down, and then I just get off. You know what I mean? Get my heartbeat up. Yeah. And I do that a couple times times a day. What, um, what can you, what do you do? What's the go-to for a dude without legs? If you just, if you just want to get your heartbeat up and, but you know what I mean? But you don't want to work. You just want to get your heartbeat up,
Starting point is 00:24:16 feel a bead of sweat come down. What do you do? I have a commercial hand cycle for that. So it's just, it's like, it's like some spinning for somebody else right like having a spin bike i just get on it or like you talk about your salt bike and i just spin my arms out forward and backward for a little while and then um yeah just to get my heart rate my blood flowing and then i go through a stretching session very low impact on my shoulders and my elbows but cycles everything out it's the blood flowing and yeah can i can i see that suze yeah i'm getting it right now it's called a hand cycle yeah it's like literally the one i have i found at a at an old uh wholesale gym place they had it second hand and uh so mine's a little bit different um than that that's
Starting point is 00:24:58 actually a modern one mine is like literally from the 1980s it's a big commercial bulk thing the uh screen on it looks like an atari like it's it's pretty trippy but it works so that and that thing was just that thing's just bolted to a table right there yeah so mine's on an actual like you know um how they have these recumbent bikes where like at the gym where you sit on them and you're kind of sitting in a lounge chair and you're just pedaling your legs? Yeah. So mine's that way only with a hand cycle instead of the leg cycle. Roger. Do you actually have a hand cycle that you can ride around town with?
Starting point is 00:25:36 No, I don't. Yeah. They're expensive. That's the biggest thing is all the extra equipment is so expensive. So if I wanted to get one, it's anywhere from three to ten thousand dollars. Right. I guess one of the reasons also is all the stuff that the vast majority of people use. The price just comes down. The more and more people die. Right. That die. The more and more people buy like a flat screens TV now are six dollars at Best Buy.
Starting point is 00:26:02 Right. When before they were six thousand dollars and no one buys hand cycles right so like the cost is exorbitant i would be and that's not necessarily true it's more from a from the insurance and the liability from being deemed medical equipment or medical and so there's all these extra things where it shouldn't cost that much but it does because of you know anything deemed medical then the price goes up triple so crazy yeah hey is there um you you oh that's interesting i remember seeing greg glassman had um you know he had polio as a kid even though he could cycle he could ride a a regular bike like a like a madman he would he would clip in and just ride but he had a hand cycle he had a home in arizona he still has a home in arizona and there
Starting point is 00:26:51 was a hand cycle in there do do do non-disabled people use hand cycles non-able-bodied yeah does your wife use your hand cycle no um no she's got her spin bike. No, she's got her spin bike. So, I mean, imagine there's, you know, situations for therapy or whatnot, if people have elbow injuries or shoulder injuries, and they're trying to rebuild just like deconstructive surgery or whatever, where they'd use a hand bike. How old was your daughter when you got hurt? She was five. Did that fuck her up? Uh, yes. Um, she is extremely mature for her age. Um, and I attribute a lot of it to the trauma that she went through. Um, she was actually at the track with me that day. My, my wife, who is an event producer, uh, was actually helping another friend who's a wedding
Starting point is 00:27:45 planner who got short-staffed help with the wedding. So she was gone. So the daughter went to the track with me that day. And thankfully, I had friends that were very on point that as soon as I had my accident and they knew what was going on, they grabbed her and they put her in one of the camping trailers with some other young kids so that she didn't actually physically see it um but she knew stuff was going on and then when she got home you know obviously all of a sudden dad couldn't walk and uh life was very different after that how long after your crash did you show up at home a month a week uh so i was in the re i was in the hospital for just about three months holy shit hey dude jetted i i bought my kid a one i'm 49 right my kids my kids know i'm old they know something's wrong like they got a fucked up dad right they're like uh how come the other dads don't look like
Starting point is 00:28:39 you and and like and when we're out people be like oh nice grandkids it's fucked up it's fucked up but anyway i mean not for me i feel i'm cool with it i feel bad for sure i like no one wants the old dad but um uh they my son my son's seven and i have another two sons who are five and they have a one wheel it's this do you know what it is yeah it's like a segue with one wheel okay yeah so so if i get on it they'll start crying because i think you're gonna hurt yourself yes sir crying yeah crying if i do anything like that that looks like it's like remotely like um when we go to the skate park i go into all the bowls and i clean up i pick up all the cans and and like i don't want any bottle caps just all the shit you know those kids throw down in there and my kids get concerned
Starting point is 00:29:28 that like i'm not going to be able to get out i'm like dude like you see me do a million pull-ups in the garage what are you tripping right you think i'm gonna get trapped in the pool yeah it's nuts it's fucking so i can only imagine the trauma um it had on your daughter like that really when you crashed did you think about her like oh shit where the fuck's my daughter well no because i was out of it i mean i i suffered a major tbi and so i was out for several minutes and when i came to there's there's bits and pieces i remember but outside of that I was out of it so um I you know I went through initial reaction that's funny like motocrossers we're not normal people we're built a different way and there's this thing when we have an accident where you know the paramedics and
Starting point is 00:30:15 everybody will come over and we're like no like I'm fine just get away from me leave me alone give me a second I'll be fine and I kept doing that I kept fighting everybody they're trying to strap me to a board and I'm like I'm fine get away Get away. Like, and granted, I'm not in my right mind. Right. And so finally one of the, the volunteer, the EM, the firefighters that were there, cause there's a fire station close to that track. They always respond first. So one of the firefighters like stood up, finally goes fine, everybody get away. And so everybody backed off and he said, okay, go ahead. So I sat there for a second and then I was like, oh shit, I can't move my legs. And so it just hit me.
Starting point is 00:30:49 And so then I was like, okay, go ahead. Then I was like, okay, yeah, obviously I need this today. But I've had moments where I'm like, I'm fine, I'm fine. I push them off and then I finally get up and grab the dirt bike and go. But yeah, which, you know, may not be the greatest thing, but it happens. that's it when i when i used to skateboard way back when and i would do it at a competitive level you would fall you would take a bad fall and everybody's first initial reaction just to jump up and be like okay i'm good everything's working and stuff like that so was that that was the reason why you're pushing everybody like give me space i could pop up and
Starting point is 00:31:20 then you realize oh fuck yeah i didn't acknowledge on me that my legs weren't working um i was just more focused on everybody trying to swarm me and yeah because i've had like you said i've had moments where i just pop up and go and i had one race where i took a bad spill and they were they thought i'd broken my neck because the way my helmet snapped and i got up and i jumped back on the track and it didn't didn't realize it until i hit the next jump that i broke my collar bone my arm went up and i was like oh and so i just like tossed realize it until i hit the next jump that i broke my collarbone my arm went up and i was like oh and so i just like tossed the bike and i'm like yep nope i'm not good what a crazy sport yeah my my nephews do that i have three nephews who in texas who race motocross yep actually two one of them just stopped i'm so i I hate to say this, but I'm so glad. I mean, I like watching them. Don't get me wrong. But but it gets a bad rap.
Starting point is 00:32:09 It's it's very so it's small, right? It's a very small percentage sport. And so it looks like there's a lot more energy injuries than there really is. When you actually do the statistics and look at it statistically, the percentage of injuries versus other sports is actually very low. The problem is, is when there are injuries, they tend to be more severe. And because it's so small, it has this microscope on it that makes it look worse than it is. At the CrossFit Games one year, they had this guy, he was a stunt rider. And it was in, this was in Carson.
Starting point is 00:32:44 And he would go off these giant ramps, these huge ramps. I don't know if you remember, it was in the in carson and he was and he would go off these giant ramps these huge ramps i don't know if you remember it was in the soccer stadium and he would do these backflips and shit and just crazy shit and it's so different to see i i couldn't even watch like because i watch that shit on tv i'm like oh this is really cool this is fun in person it's it's absolutely like i mean but it's so it was so intense the guy was safe he was killing it it landed every jump it was a miracle but it's so intense it's just like gymnastics it's all timing and flow so i trained so like i said i worked when i retired from racing at first for 12 years and then for those years on a very high level, I worked as a strength and conditioning coach. And one of the athletes I trained was a, um, a freestyle snowmobile rider for winter X games.
Starting point is 00:33:31 And so, yeah, you think about doing that on a, on a motorcycle, think about a 400 pound snowmobile and backflipping it and doing tricks off of it while you're backflipping and whatnot. And you think these guys are just like nailing the throttle and ripping it and hoping for the best, but they're not like, it's all a timing. Like we would do stuff. And I was like, you know, and it was breaking it down. I was like, okay, that flip was too slow. Your timing was off. You need to speed it up a little bit so that you can pull this other trick with it. And it's just, it's very gymnastics and head position and body position and everything. It's, it's, it's no different than your elite gymnast it's interesting you say that because my nephews are great at gymnastics great yeah yeah just
Starting point is 00:34:10 physical just young men who are just physical specimens they can do it all yeah yeah that's nuts and they and they they have really um shared with me the importance of endurance in motocross too that it's just crazy, crazy intense. Yeah. They're basically they're not motorcycle training is pretty intense also. I think it was 2005, uh, Pittsburgh, uh, medical, uh, center at university of Pittsburgh medical center did a study and they took all these, pulled all these different athletes from different professional sports and put
Starting point is 00:34:41 them through this conditioning test and motorcycle motocross at that time was deemed the most physically demanding sport. It was deemed the second most cardiovascular demanding sport, second to soccer. But yeah, it's people don't realize a lot. You know, we hear the comments all the time, like, well, you're just sitting on a dirt bike. You're not really doing anything. The bike's doing the work. That could be farther from the truth. Like the G, you're you're pulling g's um with inertia and force and you know and then the high impact of all these bumps and on your joints and everything and then yeah and then controlling the 200 and you know 10 pound bike or whatever it's there's a lot to it yeah a lot of very high demanding core yeah it's super physical i've i've ridden a dirt bike in very short amounts
Starting point is 00:35:27 and stuff and i find myself just being super tense on it the whole time too it's probably just because i'm terrified but you know it's like you're trying to like hold on to it maneuver it and you're just everything is just tight and you get off and you're trying to open up your hands afterwards because it's like yeah so anybody who says that it's not it's the bike doing the work clearly it's no experience it's really interesting since the work clearly. It's no experience. It's really interesting since I've gotten into CrossFit now that the correlation and my past in motocross has helped me so much in CrossFit because like I told you, motocross and dirt bike kids are built so differently. And one of the things in where our perception is different is the amount of suffering that we can endure you know and so you talk about like holding on to a barbell and going through anything like one of our in the
Starting point is 00:36:11 wheelwod games one of the workouts we did was seven minutes of just uh clean and press um and our bar weight was 75 pounds and so i mean you think about that just clean and press for seven minutes and the amount of suffering that you endure during a workout like that. And where a lot of guys are like, my forearms are blown up. I have got to let go of the bar. You correlate that to what I used to do in motocross. I used to race two 35-minute motos outdoor in 100-plus degree weather with an hour break in between. And you get 15 minutes into a moto, and if you have an incident or whatever where your forearms lock up and they're pumped up and you can't hardly hang on the initial reaction is not oh i need to stop i need to take a
Starting point is 00:36:50 break like you just go up you know this freaking sucks but i'm just gonna have it's just gonna be 25 20 minutes of hell that i'm just gonna have to endure and do the best i can do like stopping is not a thought or a perception in any way and And so you just go, you just suffer through it. And so when I got to CrossFit, I found like the amount of suffering that I can do versus others that don't have that background is mentally is, is, uh, it's, it's unique. Yeah. That's awesome. I rode a snowmobile once with a bunch of these guys who are trackers and hunters. They must think I'm the biggest pussy. They they had like we went out like on 10 snowmobiles and i kept having to stop because it wasn't a throttle like this it was a thumb throttle yeah yeah my thumb would just get exhausted
Starting point is 00:37:32 like what are you doing i'm like my thumb's done okay i i hate snowmobiles so i hated them um well your your first instagram post you you don't have use of your legs in your very first Instagram post. Did you erase everything before then or did you not start Instagram until then? No, Instagram, I didn't have it until then. I was, yeah. And what year was your accident? 2014. Okay.
Starting point is 00:38:01 And you were, why were you strength and conditioning coach? How did you, how did you, you you strength and conditioning coach? How did you, how did you, you went to school for that? What, why did you do that? Um, experience. Um, I had just built myself as an athlete. And so even as a racer, like I was not a natural ability, fast guy, like I said, I was a minor league athlete and I only got to the level that I did because of my strength and conditioning that I had built for myself. I was the guy that, um, I wasn't going to have the super fast lap times. I wasn't going to be fast out of the gate. But what people saw is I never fell off. Like my lap time never changed. And so often towards the
Starting point is 00:38:33 end of the race, I would just start picking guys off. And so I was known for that. I had a couple friends that were at a high level. One of those friends that I used to race with and train with all the time that was quite a bit younger than myself, got a ride with one of those friends that I used to race with and train with all the time that was quite a bit younger than myself got a ride with one of the factories and they required him to bring a trainer with him and so he just he hit me up and said hey will you come be my trainer and so that's how I got into that and I had actually trained some guys on the side just helping them out before that and so yeah so that got me on to the to the end of the major leagues or the factory level. And so I started and then from there I built a reputation working with him and started training other guys. And so it was really experience. It was funny. Sometimes I would have these interviews with new riders.
Starting point is 00:39:14 And on this side, they're they're talking to this guy. He's like, well, I have, you know, this kinesiology degree and a major in sports science and, you know, all this. And they're like, OK. And they're like, what's your background what's your background i'm like well i raced for 17 years five professionally um i did this i worked with this writer and this is the results they got i was like okay so you get it i want you yeah yeah right uh it's um i worked at a home for disabled adults for five years where they lived at the home adults with like down syndrome autism and it was like the same I'm in the five years I worked there there were eight adults there who lived there and I would maybe two or three change so it was the
Starting point is 00:39:55 same adults but when I started there I was the lowest guy in the totem pole making seven bucks an hour when I finished I was running the house I I had 20 people working for me and not a single professional, meaning someone with a psychology degree, whether it was a bachelor's, master's or a PhD would ever last more than a couple of weeks because the working with that population, as opposed to just being book smart on it, not even in the same world. It required such a serious level of discipline of acknowledging people and not their behaviors that if you didn't have that discipline or that level of awareness of yourself, then you're screwed. They would eat you alive. Yeah. It's more about reading the individual.
Starting point is 00:40:41 Yes. Yes. Yes. It's so interesting like that um i was just listening to a doctor speak the other day i was so happy to hear them say this doctors are not there they they are horrible at giving people risk assessment or risk management that is not their fucking job their job is to say hey um you have a um you have the flu and these are the possible cures for it vitamin c seems to work the best um you know what this seems to work the worst you choose i have a i have i have individuals that you know that reach out to me on instagram or whatever and i'll have questions and they're like well you know i see you doing this or that and i asked my doctor about it and they said no you can't do that
Starting point is 00:41:26 and I'm like yeah my doctor said the same thing you know everything that we do in CrossFit we're not supposed to do um so yeah it's crazy I appreciate their insight I appreciate like um uh seven so I could give you a story so I was I was in, I was in India and I was in a slum that had 2 million people and people can't even imagine that a slum with 2 million people anyway. And there's slums that are clean, but, but, but basically everything's made out of cardboard and mud, but everything's organized and clean. And I'm there and I'm filming and I take a step backwards and I step on a dog and it bites me. And I'm there with some people and the doctor in the slum, the head doctor of the slum says, hey, we have a massive rabies problem in India.
Starting point is 00:42:15 You need to start the rabies protocol right away. And the guy who I'm there for working with, Vitamin Angels, Howard Schiffer, we were there taking vitamin A to malnourished children. guy who i'm there for working with vitamin angels howard schiffer we were there taking vitamin a to malnourished children and and i was making a documentary and he says to me uh yeah you better we got to start the protocol and i'm like whoa whoa hold on a second i go uh um uh you're saying rabies is a major problem in india he goes yeah how long you been a doctor in this in this area in this slum and he goes 13 years like okay and um how many uh rabies cases have you seen in 13 years he goes uh zero right uh that don't make sense yeah okay so but i went to harvard and they told me that my slum is right yeah dude dude yeah come on man you just give me
Starting point is 00:43:11 give me the fucking numbers and let me do the math for myself i'm like like give me like give me the numbers and and of course i was of course i was fine totally my fault too i stepped on the dog i saw the dog was sleeping and then i was filming i was like whatever you do don't step on that dog when you were how many laps into your race were you when you had your accident uh it was the second lap and did you anything weird about that day anything that made you have a premonition possibly that something might go um wrong um no not to that effect i mean it was any fight with your mom your dad your girlfriend no we shouldn't have been racing no my wife had more of a premonition than i did um she had the wedding the night before and she was supposed to help clean up all the next day
Starting point is 00:43:59 and she got up in the morning and just had this uneasy feeling she was up in mccall idaho which is about two and a half hours away and she just just looked at the, the, um, the gal she was helping. And she said, I don't know why, but I got to get out of here. She said, I'm sorry to leave you high and dry, but I just had this feeling. I need to go home. She thought it was our daughter. She was worried that something had happened to our daughter. And that's what she had these feelings. And so she took off and then yeah as soon as she got and you have to drive through the mountains so she didn't have cell phone service for a couple hours and as soon as she got into cell phone service one of her friends had left her a message
Starting point is 00:44:32 yeah you need to come to the hospital something's happened to jed um yeah um you you your your wife goes in there and it's obviously you're hurt and it's about you. But but but how does she deal with that? Like her fucking dude is broken. Like how he was awesome. She was awesome. Yes. She my parents. My parents obviously grew up with me in the way I was.
Starting point is 00:44:56 So they were very experienced. But she took control of the situation. And, you know, the way she she had the right people around me that I needed. Even, even the fact that she kicked out my, my mom because she knew she would be emotional and it would affect me. So she's like, you need to not be here right now. She brought in the right people. There was one situation where at first they were going to, for my hip, they were going to take me to Salt Lake, kind of a funny story. And, and my dad is, is very much of the mindset of you, like doctors have an education, but they don't know everything. And so
Starting point is 00:45:31 you don't take everything they say to heart, like you kind of take it with a grain of salt. And so he was worried that he was just going to, that the doctors were just going to push my wife around and what needed to be done with me. But I was supposed to have this hip surgery and they were going to take me to Salt Lake because they said nobody in Boise could do it. And then all of a sudden they started prepping me for this surgery and they said, okay, we're going to go ahead and do the surgery on this hip. And my wife was like, whoa, you said that you couldn't do this before. She said, literally, she said, I don't want a half-assed procedure done here. Like, and the doctor said, well, no, we thought it was his pelvis at first, but it turns out it's just his hip socket so we can fix it. And she was like, okay.
Starting point is 00:46:11 But just the fact that she, like, took charge and didn't just be like, oh, okay, I guess you're going to do it. Like, so, yeah, she was awesome. My dad had this E. coli infection. This is like 15 years ago ago and he was in the hospital and they and and basically they couldn't um it started getting really bad his fever was crazy they took him into the hospital he started having to spend the night there they couldn't grow it in a culture they couldn't like figure out what the fuck it was they couldn't give him an antibiotic to fix it and it started getting really really scary and then finally after being there i don't
Starting point is 00:46:44 know he was there for a lot of days, like seven or 13 days some. They figured out what it was. And there was someone else on the East Coast. They found a doctor on the East Coast who had the same situation there with a client. And whatever protocol they followed, they figured it out. And they did it to my dad, and he was better. That was also on a side note, one of the things where I asked the doctor, hey, should my dad change his diet? Is there anything he should be eating while he has this infection that would help mitigate the infection?
Starting point is 00:47:11 The doctor was like, no, absolutely not. It's not food-related at all. Fucking idiot. Anyway, so – Take your apple juice. What? Yeah, here's your apple juice. Shut up.
Starting point is 00:47:21 Put a teaspoon of sugar in it. Enjoy. apple juice shut up put a teaspoon of sugar in it enjoy um and so i so about a year later my dad got the same infection again and i took him to the hospital and they start this process of like trying to figure out what it is and i stopped the doctor i'm like have you checked his record and he goes no i'm like well will you go check his record and see what this has happened before and they went and checked his medical record like oh shit it's this it's this again but they were gonna just take us down the fucking whole path again. And I'm not blaming them, but like you have to be proactive and conscious at the hospital.
Starting point is 00:47:52 Yep. A hundred percent. It's the prison system. You'll just get in the revolving door and they'll never let you go. Yeah. So you got to be. Yeah, you got to be proactive. So you got to be, yeah, you got to be proactive. Um, so when you, when you, when, where does CrossFit, um, and, and Jedediah's life, um, intersect? Uh, fairly quickly. So I actually
Starting point is 00:48:14 started doing CrossFit in October of that same year that I got hurt in January. So about 10 months later. Um, but I had started doing physical training in July of that year and putting my own workouts together. You showed some clips of those very early workouts where I was doing like the presses on the irrigation boxes and stuff like that. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling winning, which beats even the 27th best feeling saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Enjoy the number one feeling winning in an exciting live dealer studio exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated.
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Starting point is 00:49:23 Just need a nice place to settle in? Enjoy your room upgrade. Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. Fortunately, I had that fitness background, but I was trying to figure stuff out from a wheelchair.
Starting point is 00:49:42 And so I started looking for videos and whatnot, and I found YouTube videos of Kevin and, um, and then Stoudy with wheel wad. And when I found those, because my initial reaction was, I knew I was self-aware enough that when I got injured, I knew that to keep a positive mental health, I had to find something else to channel my competitiveness into. And so I was going to get into downhill mountain bike racing. Um, but I knew I had to rebuild myself in order to do that. So that was kind of, wait, wait, wait, wait. So sorry.
Starting point is 00:50:13 How would you do that without legs? Um, so they have, there's, there's two different styles of bikes. It's either like a tricycle load of the ground or like a quad, um, bike and, uh, yeah, full suspension and they do yeah my wife has always told me like you broke your back and i understand and we move on with like however you go and you break your neck i'm putting you in a home yeah so she dissuaded you from the downhill biking racing well it just i fell in love with crossfit so i started using crossfit and then that was in the end of 14 and then 15 wheelwad decided to adapt the open and we were i mean it
Starting point is 00:50:50 was very rudimentary we were doing it on a spreadsheet and but stouty was running it and so i got involved in that and i did that but as soon as i did that first open it was like oh yeah this is where i'm supposed to be this is my my sport. Does WheelWod have a website? Yeah. Uh-huh. Just WheelWod.com. And tell me what is WheelWod? So WheelWod is basically CrossFit for the adaptive world. They were the ones that initially started a formal platform.
Starting point is 00:51:21 There were others that were adaptive that were doing CrossFit before that, including Stoudy, but then he created WhaleWOD to get others involved and really launch a platform where we could promote this and get more adaptives involved and really grow this side of the sport. And it's not just for sitters. I saw like someone was jumping right with one arm yeah essentially this point there's 11 divisions um but eight eight main divisions and then 11 with the you know so the eight main would be like seated upper but then if you wanted then there's subcategories of like seated with hip seated without hit upper with two points of contact upper with one point of contact where it breaks down that way. When do you become, when, when do you become like,
Starting point is 00:52:07 so you're a competitor. So it's like, it's pretty fucking obvious. When do you become annoyed with the fact that it's supposed to be this? I don't know what the word is. You're a competitor, and you want this to be a serious competition. And there's some people who might see it as like, hey, this is some sort of just things for people to go who don't move like other people. Is there any point where you're like, hey, there's too many fucking divisions? Like sorry we're not doing that one there's only one of you we're not doing the three toes missing division and one eye like no yeah that's that's
Starting point is 00:52:55 some of it and are people cool like do they get that like i'm thinking of my and i think about the transgender community all the time for that i'm thinking of myself like if if i'm a dude if let's say i wanted to transition to a woman i would then fucking like be like okay i'm in a really small percentage and i'm gonna stay away from sports i mean easy for me to say my life's fucking easy i don't have that i'm just a fucking knucklehead with a dick but i would like i wouldn't want to like like when are you like okay there can't be the the no arm blind division Like, when are you like, okay, there can't be the no arm blind division? Yeah, it's so you, you either pick one, right? So are you going to be in the vision division? Are you going to be in the amputee division? Like, there is some of that where there's multiple
Starting point is 00:53:38 and they're like, okay, well, you just need to fit the one that or is it neurological? And that's why you only really have use of one arm. So are in the neural in the um you know neuromuscular division or are you in the amputee and it just it's it it comes down to your ability right and what's your true ability and how do you define what your ability is because that's the one thing that we try to that's and the sport has it's still extremely small right i mean extremely small but it's gotten big enough that in 2020 is when they started separating these divisions where now there's two seated divisions because there was enough seated athletes that it got to be where, you know, I'm constantly getting beat, but it's by guys with, with use of their hips. So it's like, are we truly measuring fitness or are we measuring ability? And so that's where that started to kind of – if there was enough numbers in certain situations, they started to divide because we really want to test fitness here.
Starting point is 00:54:33 We don't want to test ability. And then some of the competition – Say that last sentence again, Jedediah. We want to test – say that last sentence. We want to test fitness. We don't want to test ability. Yes, yes. Okay. say that last we want to test fitness we don't want to test ability yes yes okay and and it's
Starting point is 00:54:46 not a uh correct me if i'm wrong and it's not a fucking charity no no and that's one of the things that i really try and push um and that's why i don't know if you've noticed like so i've had some interaction with some games athletes and trying to educate the public and to be to be honest i'm trying to educate crossfit because i think be, to be honest, I'm trying to educate CrossFit because I think there are several at CrossFit HQ that don't have a clue what we're doing. And they think we're a charity or they think that we're scaled athletes that are just trying to do our best. And it's hard because our sport is still very small, right? It's like the numbers are very small, very, very small, not just, not just the, not just the, your division, but the whole entire thing is small. Yeah. And it's just spread out really
Starting point is 00:55:27 wide, but it's tiny. Exactly. Exactly. And, and so while the numbers are small, the percentages are the same. Um, you know, what do you mean by that? What do you mean by the top, the top 1%, um, we are elite athletes, the way we train and the work we put in is no different. I'm no different ability-wise as far as measuring fitness than Justin or Noah or Bethany, these other games athletes that I've worked with. The work I put in and what I can do physically fitness-wise, I'm no different than they are. And that's not to take anything away from them and their capabilities are mine. It's just different. You know, I've had I've had interaction with Noah where I've had him do seated workouts. I've had I had Justin come over to my garage
Starting point is 00:56:15 because we live in the same city. And he went through a full seated session. And afterwards, he was like, he couldn't touch my time for the workout. And he was like, that was brutal. He was like, I thought, you know, he had 150 meters skier. And that's where he really was like blown away. He's like 150 meters is nothing. Right. But his pace fell off 10 seconds in doing 150 meters. And he was like, holy crap.
Starting point is 00:56:39 Because he can't use his legs. Right. Right. And even just the range of motion was different because he has to go out around the chair with the ski right and so he's activating his delts more than he would if he was standing and he's like they blew up and so it's but it's the same right like if i started walking tomorrow i'm not all of a sudden going to be a games athlete because now i have to train in a completely different way um it's just different. And that's really the message that I'm trying to say. Like,
Starting point is 00:57:05 yes, we may be small, but what we do at the top is the same. Like, you know, there's this phrase, adaptive is not equal to scaling. And it's trying to really send that home that there may only be a few of us in each division that are capable of that. But what we do is gnarly for who we are i watched justin do say say that afterwards too he was talking about it on an interview with the people a lot of clues and you could genuinely tell like his whole perspective of everything was completely changed after doing doing that stuff with you yeah and that's why i wanted to get him involved at wadapalooza because he had already i'd already put him through a full workout session at home. So I knew he got it. It wasn't like, Oh, Hey, good for you. It was like, Oh, these guys are legit. And you're going to want to watch this and be a part of it.
Starting point is 00:57:53 And what's interesting too, is after he did your workout, he's fitter. Meaning the example would be jumping pull-ups. Um, just because you can do 60 unbroken pull-ups doesn't mean that if you did a really hard jumping pull-up workout, you wouldn't be fitter. Jumping pull-ups are fucking a beast of their own. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, a hundred percent. Well, it's just like people underestimated the wall walk when it came out last year. Right. Like, Oh, well, that's lame. It's like, yeah, I, I knew it from the minute I heard it. Like, yeah, you do those in this type of workout that's gonna blow you up and and people
Starting point is 00:58:28 were humbled like have you seen go ahead i was just gonna say just because it's a simple movement doesn't mean it's not tough in the right context right um have you seen wheelchair tennis at the highest level? Uh-huh. It's fucking nuts. Yeah. Yeah, the chair skills involved in that, both them and basketball players, like the ability to maneuver in their chairs and manipulate a chair the way they can is, my hat's off to those guys because I would get owned. Yeah, I watched wheelchair tennis for the first time i can't remember uh it was wherever jovich played last and it was on before he came out and they get two bounces and it is absolutely nuts i want to get one of those dudes on the podcast it is some
Starting point is 00:59:16 crazy crazy uh it i honestly i've no i've really no interest in, in sports without, um, able-bodied people until I saw that. But, but I would have never watched that if I wasn't waiting for the main guys to come on. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And to give a lot of pollute, like, I have no interest in watching the old people work out or the, or the non-able-bodied people work out. But then like, I watched someone like i watched someone like um uh logan aldridge a couple years ago i just happened to catch him at water watching some footage of water palooza and i watch him work out and i'm like holy shit yeah like this is worth watching this is nuts yeah um and there is that there are those two sides to the sport right there's there's someone like
Starting point is 01:00:02 justin who everyone wants to watch but then there's there's people who would be in chairs who are doing trying to think of the exact way you worded it but basically you're at the top of your game of anyone in a chair whether they're able-bodied or not they can't do what you can do unless they unless they get to the top of that kind that that sport i wonder is it important that people respect it is it important that people like i i don't i it's not it's not so much it's important they respect it it's important that they understand it so they import what we're trying to build yeah it's the thing is how did crossfit grow right like people have different opinions but
Starting point is 01:00:41 and mine might be skewed because i have a sports background, but sports is what drives attraction to certain methodologies or certain things, right? Like the NFL, football didn't grow to what it was without the NFL and people watching it and wanting to emulate it. Whether they ever get to that level or not, that's essentially what drives them is wanting to be like those guys that are the lead of that sport crossfit was no different when the games really started to get attention that's what grew crossfit because people wanted to emulate what those top high level individuals were doing and so my main thing is if people understand it and understand what we're doing and we can get more on those stages and have that kind of appearance then it will grow the sport and it will grow the health benefits and the health factor of just getting more people in the gym, because maybe they don't ever get to that competition level,
Starting point is 01:01:32 but they want to emulate it. And so it's what drives them to want to get in the gym. Hey, are there any able-bodied people who compete in, and not in, in like the wheel, like in the wheel division? no could you could you no you're not allowed um that was like if they found out your legs work they'd be like uh yeah that was
Starting point is 01:01:52 some of the misunderstanding with the open last year they had people that had like knee surgeries or whatnot and so they couldn't do it so they joined our divisions and trying to compete like there was one time that was insane on the first workout and i started looking and it was yeah a gentleman they had knee surgery and he thought well i'll just do the seated division this year and it was like but they sifted through it you know and they weed them weeded them out it was just a misunderstanding yeah i'm not hating on it i'm not yeah i think yeah i'm not hating on it i think think it's – hey, God, as weird as it sounds, I wonder if that's what it takes to push that – to push to make that – if you wanted to make that mainstream, you'd have to make that concession. It's weird certain sports. Like for me, some years I enjoy the women's competition more in CrossFit, and some years I enjoy the women's competition more in CrossFit and some years I enjoy the men's competition more. And the last couple of years I've enjoyed the women's competition more track and field. Like when I see it in the Olympics, I like watching the women a little bit
Starting point is 01:02:52 more than the men. I don't know why. Um, basketball, I enjoy the men more. Um, if I watch basketball, I enjoy men's basketball more than women. It's, it's, it's interesting. I use that as the example. Um, uh, so it's, it's So it's interesting what you would need to do. I hear what you're saying about it being respected or at least understood, not respected, but understood. But it would be interesting to see. I would be curious what it would take to draw more eyeballs to it. Are there any what's the biggest what do you call it? Non-abled sport in the world, like sport with, uh, non-abled bodies. Is that what you call it? I'm trying to use your adaptive or whatever.
Starting point is 01:03:33 Yeah. Okay. Um, uh, that's a good question. I don't, I don't know. I would guess basketball or, or wheelchair rugby, um, would be, would be my be my guess but i i honestly don't know i mean there's you know there's a there's a high level of paralympians and you know multiple different paralympic sports and so but basketball is one of those so yeah i i would guess basketball or um or wheelchair rugby is probably the biggest one of those two could you ever have prosthetics or
Starting point is 01:04:09 you can't because you're hip no i well i i wouldn't need them i couldn't i couldn't um i couldn't make them work exactly okay okay okay and and why keep the legs then uh blood flow ah um yeah no reason to fuck with the like like because it's still you want to keep the piping all consistent with just the way the regular human body would work yep yep um i thought you were going to say something else like fuck that would you get rid of your legs and i would be like no i hear you well yeah you never know what's going to happen down the road right there are guys that randomly, yeah, you never know what's going to happen down the road, right? There are guys that randomly, like, you know, you never know what God has in store. That's right.
Starting point is 01:04:54 What is your, what is your, do they drug test you guys? CrossFit did at the games last year with the three divisions that competed there, I know. They did? Yeah. Has anyone popped yet in the adaptive class? That's when you guys will know you've made it. So there was one, but the guy had a TUE. However, he had an agreement because it was a prescribed thing because of his disability.
Starting point is 01:05:25 And I don't know what it was a prescribed thing because of his disability that he had. And I don't know what it was or I know any of the details. That's basically as much as I've heard and know. So it is a little bit more of a unique, touchy thing because of disabilities. People have required medications or whatnot that they have to take for their condition. But because of their disability, it doesn't give them any, any advantage. It's literally trying to maintain, you know, a sustainable homeostasis for them. So. Yeah. Um, do you do outreach to people who, um, have, who are, who are now going through like a guy who got hit, let's say he was in a car accident yesterday. And then they'll be like, hey, Jedediah, we talked to this guy.
Starting point is 01:06:09 Will you visit this guy in the hospital or do you do that? Yep. Yep. 100 percent. Is there a protocol you use or you just wing it based on. It's usually a DM through Instagram and somebody tells me their story and I can relate to them. And sometimes I reach out and it's just a hey, I'm here for you. If you need anybody or have any questions. And sometimes it's more relatable. And so it's like, Hey, you know, I understand what you're going through. Here's some things that, you know, it just depends on the individual and the situation. And what's the, what's the lowest you've been? Have you ever thought about ending your life? No, I've honestly been I've honestly been very accepting of this just because it's a long story.
Starting point is 01:06:51 But you talk about, you know, Zach and what he said is like, well, be careful what you pray for. Well, I had this situation that I have a deep faith and I had, you know, I had been going through this situation where I was struggling with my faith. And I had I was asking for opportunity to to show audacious faith. It had to do with the whole study I was going through. And so I started praying for these opportunities to have audacious faith, which is basically to say that that I wanted to show a faith that of something that would blow people's minds, that they were like, that's not physically capable or that there's, that's not, you know, if you think of things on an earthly presence, you just don't think that's possible, but, but God has more power than we have. So I started praying for that opportunity. And so when I got paralyzed, I instantly knew
Starting point is 01:07:37 that I don't think God caused my accident, but I, but he gave me the opportunity to use it to show a day's faith. So honestly, I was accepting an okay of my accident right away where I was like, okay, this is my opportunity. This is where God wants me. And that's what I'm going to do. In fact, it got to the point to where at times it frustrated me where people were like, you know, you just need to stay positive. You need to believe that you can walk again. If you keep working at this, you're going to be you're going to be OK. You know that there was this idea that success was going to be like, if I could if I could keep this mentality of I will walk again one day. And to be honest, that freaking pissed me off because I was like, no, I was like, God put me in a wheelchair for a reason. I know I'm going to do great things and show that whether I can walk in again or not, that's not end all of end all it's what i do with my life with whatever happens to me that's the end all of end all and so that's kind of been my mission hey that's some fucking asshole shit to say to someone was that was that were those people in a wheelchair who told you that they better no
Starting point is 01:08:42 no it was it was people that had someone like fuck you that? They better have. No, no. It was people that had that. That's some crazy shit to tell someone. Like, fuck you. Fuck you. But their intentions were right, right? They were trying to keep me motivated and a positive attitude. It's like, hey, just because you feel uncomfortable, don't project that shit onto me. How about you just shut the fuck up and let me just deal with this?
Starting point is 01:09:00 I mean, if you had that attitude, you're like, dude, I'm going to walk no matter what again. I would get behind it. But I wouldn't present that to you and project that onto you it's your trip it's your fucking trip yeah it's crazy they're almost like setting up for success um tell me so i faith is a really interesting word. Yeah. My words, not yours, but you're saying at some point in your life, your faith was waning. When I think of my faith, it's weird. It doesn't work like that.
Starting point is 01:09:41 It's not even built on anything. It just is. I can't see it waning or growing. I mean, sometimes I become aware of it, like hyper aware of it. What do you mean that like you felt like you needed it to be tested? Is that what happened to Job? He had his faith tested. Is that that's what that whole story is? Hundred percent. OK, I think it was. Yeah, it was. God, I just want to say right now, God, please do not test mine. I'm good.
Starting point is 01:10:06 It was, it was more, it was more like, what's my role? Like, why, why do I, what am I doing with this? And, and what purpose am I serving type situation? Right. Right. And I wanted to be more than I thought I could be. Right. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:10:22 Since your accident, do you feel more fulfilled in that duty now than you ever did before? 100%. 100%. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, because that was the question I was going to have about the mental side of it
Starting point is 01:10:33 and acceptance and obviously we landed on that without asking the question, but the answer you gave was anything way better than I could imagine you would have said. That's really cool.
Starting point is 01:10:47 Drew, please do not interrupt our conversation when it's something so beautiful and deep oh you want to buy a shirt never mind feel free to interrupt all you want this is a large i always wear a large i cannot i got i got big old titties and i got and i got and i got broad shoulders and i can't and i'm kind of chubby and i can't have this shit shit making me look like I'm a C-cup. My boys are always like, God, why do you have such big boobs? And I just can't. You don't want this medium? No.
Starting point is 01:11:12 I mean, if I'm really sucked down, if I can get down to 150, which is like – I don't know if I'll ever do that again. Yes, I would do it just because it would make my arms look bigger. But if you're 5'8", 185, I think you're large. Yeah, that would probably work larger large i'm right now i'm i'm 55 and about 170 i yes barbelljobs.com get a job get a job um is is your is your is your wife when when you married when you married your wife was um or when you met your wife were you guys did you guys have the same faith the same belief the same were you on the same page with with your god yes was that a prerequisite um i don't know that it was a prerequisite but it definitely makes um makes life easier if you know we have the same mindset yeah and we wouldn't We wouldn't have made it through this with two different mindsets, you know.
Starting point is 01:12:08 Oh. Yep. And because it's a test of her faith, too. It's a test. She's being tested also. Just as much as I am. And that's another thing people don't see or realize, that, you know, it impacted her and has affected her life just as much as it has mine if not i just keep i just keep thinking about your daughter just like yeah just just like it um i mean in the end obviously of course it'll make her a stronger
Starting point is 01:12:35 person and five's not a bad age for that to happen six seven eight nine although every year you went up further it would i think it would have been more traumatic. Sure. And your mom, how did your mom handle it? And your dad? They were pretty good because I have a history, right? Like, so I made my first trip. I was a crazy, reckless kid. And so the amount of trips I made to the emergency room, I mean, outside of even motocross racing,ross racing like you know there was a time where my mom was taking me to the emergency room i don't even remember for what it's probably a concussion or something where the nurse looked at her and
Starting point is 01:13:13 said you realize he you had him here exactly one year ago to date my mom was like okay makes sense sounds about right like you got a punch card for your visits they're like oh one morning this next visit's free exactly exactly so it was not a shock that this type of thing happened to me in my life my wife always jokes that i'm a cat right and that i've literally i've had i can account for times i should have been dead already and so yeah i'm i'm i'm on life eight or nine right now and and i'm sure you've thought before how you would feel if this happened to your daughter. Yeah. Yeah. And how would you feel? It would be worse. It would be worse than if it happened to you. Right. I mean, can you imagine what your parents went through? Correct. Correct. I even think about the situation of my spouse.
Starting point is 01:14:08 You know, like, you know, would I rather my wife be in this situation and I take care of her? And knowing what I go through, I would just rather it be me. Yeah. Isn't that fascinating? It's not what you would think prior to the accident. Right. Right. Right.
Starting point is 01:14:23 Right. Right. to the accident right you know right right right right and and um uh wow i i don't think the world works like this but think of it like you know i mean there could be i don't know now i'm getting weird but an alternate reality where this happened to your daughter and you prayed to the heavens and said god please reverse this and make it happen to me, says your wish is my command and your daughter's rewind the shit. Now it's you. I mean, if you think of it like that, like, yeah, no, duh, this has to happen to me. This can't happen to my wife, my mom, my dad, or my daughter. Yeah. I cannot allow this. Yeah. And, um, as you get older, do you see yourself – how do you see this? Like I see – how old are you? You're 42?
Starting point is 01:15:12 Yeah. As you get older, how do you see yourself – do you find it more important to take care of your body more than ever because you need these two more than ever? Yeah, 100%. more than ever because you need these two more than ever. Yeah. A hundred percent. Well, and it's just, I mean, it's, it's decided from being a, you know, you think about it in terms of able body and being a games athlete and the
Starting point is 01:15:34 physical things that you can do compared to others, but you know, that's going to go away someday. Right. And you're going to live more of a normal life. And so like some of the things that I get away with and some of the things that I do from a wheelchair, you know, situations like being here in Mexico, like there is no such thing as an accessible room in Mexico. Like I'm using a freaking patio chair for a shower chair. situations that I maneuver and can get away with because of my fitness, there's a realization that that won't last forever and that we either have to like cater our travel and what we do more to
Starting point is 01:16:14 accessible situations. Or, you know, one of my favorite memories was the year after my accident, we took a cruise to Alaska and you start looking at the excursions on the different things and the accessible ones are extremely lame. I mean, you know, it's a, it's a three hour train ride. It's a, you know, it's like, I just sat on a plane or sat on a boat. Why do I want to sit on a train for three hours? Like stuff like that. And I was like, I don't want to do any of that. And then we went to a, we were in Ketchikan and we went to a discovery center and there was like a film on the bush pilots, like a 15 minute documentary. And I watched that and I looked at my wife and I said, that's what I want to do. Oh yeah. I saw you in the plane. Yeah. And so we went down there and it's not accessible,
Starting point is 01:16:59 right? So we just started talking to pilots. Hey, would you take me up on a plane if I could get into it? Well, we were not really built, you know, finally, I found this one plane that was just a couple. It's him and his wife. And he said, if you can get on the plane, I'll take you. It's a water plane, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so we get on the dock and it's a two foot drop down to the platoon. It's a foot and a half from there over to the ladder. And it's just this little metal ladder to get up into the thing. And we're like, okay, how are we going to do this? And I said, do you load cargo on the plane? And he said, yeah. And I said, what do you use to load cargo? And he says, well, I have this ramp. I said, get the ramp. And so I lowered myself onto the dock and I just literally climbed up, scooted up this ramp into the plane. And yeah, and that was one
Starting point is 01:17:43 of the best things ever. you know that was not accessible but because of what i do fitness wise and my abilities like i made it work and so things like that i i haven't been to disneyland but every for the last like 10 years people who go there tell me seven you better not go there your head's gonna explode and the reason why they say that is because there's just people in fucking wheelchairs everywhere who are not yeah and scooters because not because um they've had a motorcycle accident but because they've spent too much time in the buffet line which is just insane to me and i wonder if um in the in the aggregate and the big picture if those people are making your plight more difficult or easier because on one hand, it makes the world a little more wheelchair accessible.
Starting point is 01:18:26 But on the other hand, it makes people like think that if you're in a wheelchair, like, like the vast majority of people I see in handicapped spots are obese. Yeah. And I don't accept that. I don't, I, I don't accept that at all. I don't make things easier for people because it makes, it makes the world codependent. My biggest thing perception wise is it bothers me to be lumped with those people yeah because i'm like i use the handicapped spot because i need the extra spot space to get my wheelchair out i don't mind pushing my ass across the parking lot from the
Starting point is 01:18:57 back you'd be able to open but i can't i can't open my door if i park back there what's your excuse like you need to park in the back and start walking yeah what should be in the back doesn't it right do you know are you familiar with kyle maynard uh-uh you know who that is he um he used to own a crossfit gym he has um he has no arms and no legs extremely fit he was a wrestler. He even had an MMA fight. But one of the things he said, which I thought was fascinating, I've told this story a bunch of times, but I just love it so much. He spoke at Wounded Warriors, and he gets up in front of them,
Starting point is 01:19:37 and it's a room full of dudes with missing body parts, right? Legs and eyes and hands and feet and just everything missing, right? And it looks like a bunch of mr potato heads and uh that the cat got and uh he says i feel sorry for you guys and the room gets quiet he goes because i was born like this i don't know any better but to have that shit taken away from you man that must suck and it was it's such a uh it's no one else could ever say that to them right sure no one it's a dude with no arms and no legs saying he feels sorry for you and i'm like wow holy shit what like a powerful moment like yeah you should
Starting point is 01:20:21 look the dude up he's a great guy he's so awesome yeah yeah he's a great guy um so so so as you get old so we all head to decrepitude right whether you're um uh no matter what we all head to decrepitude but but yours at 70 because you don't have legs like you were saying your shit might get a little more difficult than mine. Right. Um, so do you start, do you have an exit strategy for how hard you're pushing your body now at all? Like, cause I have kids and I'm like, Hey, like I need to, I can't be like throwing my back out doing heavy deadlifts ever again, the rest of my life. It's definitely, uh, my training, um, has tailored because of my age and because of my prior abuse of my body with motocross and, you know, what my shoulders have already been through and whatnot. CrossFit definitely helps me maintain health.
Starting point is 01:21:15 There's this idea of others that are ignorant to the sport, you know, but have abused your, they've been in wheelchairs and they've abused their shoulders over life because there's this idea that, you know, they, a lot of the stuff they do, they do unconditioned and they do cold. And, and so they put this extreme wear and tear pulling themselves up into big pickups or, you know, different stuff like that on their body. And so they pay for it later. But the difference is with CrossFit, it's there, there's a whole system to it, right? Like you proper warming up proper, you know, their proper maintenance to where you're, you're, you're taking the right steps along with that load to condition your body to handle it. But, you know, you get to a certain point where volume wise and from prior scar tissue injuries and tendonitis where I've had to like, and just recovery abilities, you know,
Starting point is 01:22:05 I've had to like, and just recovery abilities, you know, it's, it's, my program looks more like, you know, Samantha Briggs now, um, where, you know, I, I do only so much and, and then I have to take more breaks, um, within my training cycle and whatnot to be able to maintain the load, uh, without just flaring up tendonitis or, or other things that way. Um, can you, um, do you, did I i send you the email suza with the videos from his instagram do you see the one with the there's there's one that says um the 100 pound d ball do you are do you still mess around with muscle ups jedediah yeah you do man that's not that's nuts you do those on your shoulders. Do you see the 100-pound D-ball?
Starting point is 01:22:48 I can pull it up if you can, Sousa. I got it. Yeah, just taking a second to load here. This is – I mean, you do this so easy. I don't even know how you're doing this. I mess around with D-balls a lot, and this is nuts. Do you know what I'm talking about where Where you're rolling a hundred pound D ball. You're like,
Starting point is 01:23:08 is that really hard? You make that look so easy. Um, it's just like anything else. It's just practice and, um, you know, learning a lot of it is core. Um,
Starting point is 01:23:19 I've really focused on building my core, like especially a lot of, uh, wheel athletes, like they do it. core, like, especially a lot of, uh, wheel athletes, like they do it. Um, they, they rely on their arms too much, even with their lifts and stuff. And I really like, okay, how many muscle groups do I have? And how many muscle groups can I incorporate in one movement? And, um, just taking the time to as much as I can build all those, you know,
Starting point is 01:23:43 really build my core. And I think motocross again, helped me with that because, because motocross was so core dependent that I understood that the strength, the more I can strengthen my core, both front and back, the better I can be at a lot of different things. So you're contracting your stomach there. You're consciously contracting your stomach muscles in your core. The biggest thing I'm, the biggest thing I'm struggling with is, is you can can't really tell but that's a tapered driveway yeah so you notice like i keep i keep rolling every time i try to pick it up and i lose my balance um another another fascinating move that that i liked were um were these uh
Starting point is 01:24:21 uh this i think it's the florida chair with the vest do you see that one suit oh yeah yeah this is nuts this is nuts do you see that florida chair with the vest on yes hold i love your expression on your face in this one like oh shit that was hard is that a like yeah it's a very gymnastics uh it's like doing muscle-ups with a with a vest or heavy weight how often do you practice this right here um or do you not even have to practice this is this just your everyday life is this happening no it's no because that's a high transfer and especially for me because of my few step, I normally transition into my chair differently, more from a front point where I get over the chair and then swing my hips. I push up and swing my hips into it. So doing it from this type of position is extremely hard for me because my hip fights me. It's kind of like using your arm to jump up and then your other arm to pull at the same time yeah yeah and trying to swing your hips yeah and and what's to stop
Starting point is 01:25:32 that chair from coming back over on you what's keeping that chair down uh it's the it's um like that wheelie bar in the front yeah it's proportions where the the weight, it's stable because of how the wheels are dispersed. Yeah, it's nuts. So when you wake up in the morning, you roll out of bed and you go to the floor or do you go straight to it into a chair? So I go, I transition into, I had a therapy table built. So it's a table with a memory foam top that has vinyl stretched over it. And it's like a three by six. And I do like all my stretching and everything from that.
Starting point is 01:26:14 No, but, but I mean, I'm just trying to figure out your routine in the morning. Like you wake up, you're in bed. Yeah. I get up and I just run over to the bathroom or I turn on the coffee machine. Yeah. Like you, you get out and you get into a chair you go onto the floor i get into my chair but from there my first stop is my therapy table to stretch out because i got extremely tight laying in bed all night just right away
Starting point is 01:26:36 yeah yeah i i i wonder i bet you most people don't do that who are in your situation. I don't know. They probably just deal with fucking the tightness and just slowly their life becomes more and more fucked up. Yeah. I mean, whether you're able-bodied or not. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, just like people just not taking care of their body. Well, thank you for coming on.
Starting point is 01:27:08 It was great talking to you. Congratulations. Yeah, my pleasure. Who's the fittest seated guy in the world? So in the without hip division, that would be me. In the with hip division, that would be Tommy Osga, who is an incredible athlete. Tommy Osga. And did you incredible athlete. Tommy Osga. And did you get that title at the games?
Starting point is 01:27:30 Wheelwod Games. Wheelwod Games. They did not have any division for us other than the Open. Does that piss you off, or are you cool with that? There was some therapy to just accepting it and and um moving on but um will watt has done an incredible job of creating a a true test of fitness for us and um so yeah that's awesome did you see that changing um does the game not in the next few years to be honest yeah i i don't think it's room i think it's uh i think honestly it's it's a education thing it's it's uh really understanding and being able
Starting point is 01:28:13 to build a true test i don't think they want to half-ass it um and so i think they're more reserved to really do it until they know they can do it right the games people the crossfit games yeah that makes sense that makes sense um from my from the years i worked at crossfit if when crossfit doesn't do something it's strictly a reason like at least when i was there it's very much they they want to make everyone happy it's just all it's like what you said they want to do everything right and it's just resources right so it's so hard. It's so interesting, too. You sound so sober and kind about it. Getting upset at those people or when I see people, like so many people, I hear this protest. The documentaries are making money. They should pay the athletes.
Starting point is 01:28:58 The Nobles should be giving the athletes money for T-shirts. Just the approach, it's like, dude, it's not like that. This perception, it's like dude like it's not like that that this this perception it's all just people here this perception that there's this corporate juggernaut that's like taking advantage of people or hurting people or like man like if you if you saw how hard heber and marzen work on these documentaries you would say no no people you would say the athletes it's just perspective you would say the athletes should be giving them money. Right. Right. Not fucking them sharing the money. Fucking he has to leave his fucking kids to fucking travel around the world to film your ass workout.
Starting point is 01:29:32 Well, what they've done to show light and education on the sport overall is huge. It's just like when that documentary came out on Netflix for F1, you know, the drive to survive and what it did for that sport. Yeah. The more people that understand it and are educated, like that's what they've done for crossfit is they've given that kind of behind the scenes light on it to where more people understand it and have a better education on it now and so they're more into it yeah and speaking along those lines real quick before we take off here i own a uh i own a crossfit gym and um also for for others as well is there anything that i should be thinking about to making the gym um more open because it's already accessible. I have the ramps, I have all the,
Starting point is 01:30:09 I don't call them the bathroom. I have the desk as situated, the front desk situated. So it's, it's accessible, but is there anything else that myself or other gyms should be thinking about to make sure that we're accessible for any seated athletes that want to come into the gym or just anybody in general? I think, I think outside of being accessible, I think it's just understanding the resources and just knowing. So when somebody comes in, you're not hesitant to be like, uh, I hope I can help you. Like if there's not answers that if there's things that you don't know, like wheel rod myself, like there's individuals that are great resources and we want to see the sport grow. So we're more than happy to answer any questions or guide you because every person is different, right? There's a T12. You can't just look at me and go, oh, well, this T12 does this.
Starting point is 01:30:53 And it's like, well, yeah, but it took me five years to get there. And this is where I started. So you're not going to know that until you just start working with them. And then you're not sure you ask somebody, right? And so it's just just it's just really being open and understanding what the resources are to reach out to. Awesome. Thank you. And I'd say this to anyone who is like whatever, whether you're 200. Thanks, Sam. That's fucking crazy. Thank you so much. You don't even I don't think you guys realize how much the money helps, by the way. I need to do a whole episode on that um uh um it's very generous um if you're 100 pounds overweight or you're in a wheelchair or you're fucking blind or you're old and you go to a gym
Starting point is 01:31:32 and it doesn't feel like a right fit or they're not like just call them out on it be like hey i don't feel comfortable here and then and then see if they're like oh i'm so sorry that's fucked up like i was just tripping like people like people trip people don't like it's okay that someone trips on you if you're in a wheelchair if you're fat or you're old give them a chance to unfuck themselves be like hey it's cool like i know i know i have one leg and i'm 70 but like work with me work with me make it work you have to break the ice too but if they still can't get their fucking head wrapped around you switch gyms it's okay this able-bodied individuals do that do that say that again yes i said able-bodied individuals do that. Say that again? Yes. I said able-bodied individuals do that.
Starting point is 01:32:06 You either fit in here or you don't. And then you find out where you do fit in. Yes. So don't use that as an excuse to stop. The community, the people who do CrossFit, the vast majority of them are overachievers, perfectionists, people who take personal accountability and personal responsibility and, and, and they will want to go out of their way to, um, they'll be up for the challenge of working with you. If they're not no big deal, move on to the next one. No one gives a shit. That's the hardest thing you have to understand. I may be tripping when I walk in the
Starting point is 01:32:40 gym and I'm like, Whoa, who's this dude in the wheelchair next to me working out? The second it's three, two, one, go, nobody's tripping. And when the workout's over, nobody's tripping. Everyone's like high-fiving, happy. The tripping is so short. No one cares after the go. And then you'll never have to do that again. You just have to get through it once. And the next time I see Jedediah in my gym, I won't be tripping on who's this dude in the wheelchair. I'll just walk over and be like, what's up, dude? Let's get it today. And he'll do the same to me through it once and the next time i see jedediah in my gym i won't be tripping on who's this dude in the wheelchair i'll just walk over a minute what's up dude let's get it today and he'll do the same to me and it's done yeah and i think that's one of the things that i think people in my situation under underestimate is the um not only the the physical health benefits but the mental health benefits of getting involved in crossfit and the social aspect that a lot of these individuals like my in my situation don't have in their life. They live very isolated and
Starting point is 01:33:30 don't have that kind of supportive community. And when you get involved in CrossFit, that's huge for mental health is to have that kind of community to be able to, that outlet to socially rely on. You know, that's interesting too. You are, you're the guy who, if you're the guy who walks around in the wheelchair all day, you have to know that the whole fucking world is projecting onto you some sort of like fucking bullshit pity story. That poor guy. I wonder what happened. That's the guy in a wheelchair. And people avoid what they don't know. You go to a CrossFit gym and you're just normal. Yeah, maybe not the first day, maybe not the second day, but after probably second day, as soon as people work out with you, you know, and that's got to be great for your mental health because you are normal. And it's just people are confused by your fucking chair or your prosthetic or whatever it is. And you need to be around people who would like could give two shits.
Starting point is 01:34:18 They just want to beat you in a workout. 100%. 100%. Yeah, it's a huge it's a non seen the projection of other human beings. Yeah. Yeah. You must always feel like you especially being kind of as gregarious as you are. You're probably like breaking through that wall with people just fucking by the dozens every day.
Starting point is 01:34:40 Huh? Like you have to be extra break that ice and be like, hey, look, I'm just have to get them over there like not discomfort but it's um the unknown of your wheelchair correct yeah well and there's been people that yeah and it's just that's an education one of my favorite stories was the original crossfit um box that i used to attend um the owner's son who was like eight or nine at the time um frank told me a story where they were in the grocery store with his son and his son's buddy. So his son's name is Charlie, and Charlie had a buddy there. And they're in the grocery store, and they see a guy in this wheelchair.
Starting point is 01:35:15 And Charlie's buddy goes, oh, man, that's sad. I feel bad for that guy. And mind you, this is after attending the CrossFit gym for a year where he's around me every day. And Charlie looks at his buddy and goes, why? He can do anything we can do. Yeah. And it was just as, and Frank thought that was the best because it was just this whole different perception of what other people thought of people in a wheelchair because of what he experienced with me every day in the gym.
Starting point is 01:35:39 It's like, I don't do anything different than anybody else. Like, just live life. Like I don't do anything different than anybody else. Like just live life. That kind of feigned kindness or caring is something in the last five or six years of my life that I've really, really transcended. I don't mean to be mean, but feeling sorry for someone is like one of the worst things you could do to another human being. It is, it is extremely malicious. It is extremely malicious. There's, there was a, I have kids and we were at the beach, I don't know, six months ago. And there was a guy sitting there and he only had one leg and he was like 30. And my kids were just staring at him, staring at
Starting point is 01:36:22 him, staring at him. And I'm at him and i'm finally i'm like hey dude you've crossed the mark of staring now you got to go over and talk to him yeah older boys like what i'm like go it's like you're tripping on he's missing a leg right he's like yeah that's awesome and my son went over there and he's like well you know like you know and it's the same with dogs like when they say see a three-legged dog they're like yeah like dude just go ask the owner what happened like it's like no one want no one's no one's avoiding no one no one thinks it's weird except everyone the guy doesn't think it's weird it's his life right exactly and if he does if you go over and ask him what happened he tells you to fuck off so what then you just fuck off he's not going he's going to be so happy that you said hey
Starting point is 01:37:04 what happened where's your leg i mean you're a fucking kid you've seen no one without a leg yeah 100 100 all right thank you so much for talking jenna you're always welcome if there's ever time you just want to like uh come on and shoot the shit or if you got an event coming up you want to promote i i i want to like start making this podcast so like people can come on like for 15 like we have uh nikki rodriguez coming on we've had him on like three or four times like for 15, like we have a Nikki Rodriguez coming on. We've had him on like three or four times. He's a jujitsu guy. We have him come on tomorrow just for like 30 minutes to talk about just where
Starting point is 01:37:30 he's at. So if there's ever a time you want to come on to shoot me, shoot me a text. One quick thing that I will plug is we are in the process of, I'm going to be shooting a small docu series through the CrossFit open this year with some, with some other individuals. I'm going to start with Justin. We're going to do what we were talking about, about the adaptive is not scaling and different perceptions and trying to educate more about what we do as high level elite adaptive athletes and getting into some of the strategies of the workouts and how
Starting point is 01:37:59 we break them, talking about the stimulus matching the able body and whatnot. And then I'm going to finalize it with the last week. I did it last year, but I'm going to head down to, uh, I know you have them on tomorrow to Justin Kotler and the underdog athletics crew. And we're going to complete the last week of the open with them. And we're going to shoot it and put this docu series on my YouTube channel. And I know Justin's going to have some on his YouTube channel as well. So I would just suggest that people keep an eye on my YouTube channel and my Instagram for that to come out. Cause I think it'll be, I think it'll be interesting. Yeah, that's cool. I'm glad well so i just suggest that people keep an eye on my youtube channel and my instagram for that to come out because i think it'll be i think it'll be interesting yeah that's cool i'm glad
Starting point is 01:38:29 you're getting that kind of star power too hey is delugos over there at underdog do you know yeah i got that yeah yeah tell him i said hi he doesn't know i will tell him i said hi he's yeah he's been off and being at wadapalooza and i was just fascinated with how big he is he's a yeah he's a good dude yeah yes he is all right yeah 100 all right thank you guys thank you have fun in mexico i will thank you it looks beautiful okay thanks bye and we're off

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