The Sevan Podcast - #350 - Zack George

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

The story of how Zack George went from being a fat kid to the UK’s Fittest Man in 2020. He is an incredible person who is sharing his fitness journey with the world in hopes of inspiring others to make changes in their life. He is also a gym owner in the UK. Partners: https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://www.barbelljobs.com/ - WORLD'S #1 JOB BOARD FOR THE CROSSFIT COMMUNITY https://thesevanpodcast.com/ - OUR WEBSITE https://sogosnacks.com/ - SAVE15 coupon code - the snacks my kids eat - tell them Sevan sent you! 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

This episode is brought to you by Disney's Young Woman and the Sea, now streaming on Disney+. I've decided to swim the English Channel. A woman? I believe she'll die in that water. From producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Joachim Roening comes the must-see true story, Daisy Ridley. I go to England or die trying. Trudy, you don't have to do this. Don't let anyone take me out of the water, no matter what. Disney's Young Woman and the Sea.

Now streaming on Disney+. This episode is brought to you by PC Optimum. If you like a curated playlist, why not try a curated grocery list? With Swap and Save, the new feature in the PC Optimum app, you'll get PC Optimum's best price for your grocery items. Simply add products to your shopping list in the app, and it'll show you I'm looking forward to it. Bam, we're live Okay, let's just dig in

Stop pussyfooting around, you ready? I'm ready, let's do it Did Will Smith really slap Chris Rock? Unbelievable, innit? When I woke up this morning, I was like, what is going on in this world? They're just good actors, right? That's just for fun, right? That's to give us something

They just got three billion dollars worth of free publicity they're just messing with us yeah it's crazy but chris rock took it pretty well didn't he i don't know i can't is it real or not so you think it's real i think it's pretty real yeah like a very hard slap have you seen any I haven't seen any slow-mos of it. Have you seen any slow-mos of it? Yeah, slow-mos, memes, just so much. Okay, so it connects. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. Because Will Smith's a big boy. Yeah, he's a big dude, yeah.

And Chris Rock, he's got a little Prince in him. You know, do you remember Prince, the singer? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got a little Michael Jackson Prince in him, and Will Smith's got a little bit of the rock in him you know what i mean just you can hear the connection when it when it when it hits that it was a pretty hefty slap oh my goodness yeah crazy crazy morning and and all these people like i'm seeing that like we're consoling will smith consoling will smith how about poor ch? Yeah, there's a lot of people being divided down the line

if they're on Chris Rock's side or Will Smith's side. Yeah, I think it's very divided. I think you're allowed to say whatever you want when you're up there. Yeah, but it's a pretty harsh joke on his wife. You can see both sides of the story, I guess. What was the joke? Like she has some hair loss issues and he cracked a joke about her hair loss yeah basically yeah she's bald and um i think she's got alopecia i think it is

yeah he made a joke about that but okay let me let me ask you a question would you rather have a really tiny penis alopecia alopecia or live in kiev right now i'm gonna go with alopecia for the win yeah i'm there pretty much there already but no i think if it was will smith you'd probably wait to the to the break to say something you probably wouldn't do it live yeah yeah how about just wait out by his car afterwards oh those two poor guys i really like will smith too i mean i love him my favorite actor he's literally my favorite actor there's the well that let me cross that off who is your favorite actor that's one of my favorite questions um question i like um i like uh um who's the guy

who got accused for um hitting his wife and he's in all the um he's in all of the um pirate movies what's that guy's name uh johnny depp yeah i like i like anything johnny depp does anything denzel washington does and anything um leonardo no no no no the guy we were just talking about uh will smith will smith yeah yeah i just want to go yeah except for after us that was a terrible film i didn't see that and what's funny too okay i'll give you another one i can't watch pirates of the caribbean too after saying all that i just i'm just not a fan yeah i'm not i'm not a big fan of those anyway but i like pretty much anything will smith does apart from after earth and wild wild west that was a terrible film i didn't see that either that's really old

like 20 years old but but yeah, terrible. He was great as the Fresh Prince. How old are you, Zach? 31. Oh, okay. So you're very young, but you're old as dirt for a CrossFitter. Yeah, I've been doing CrossFit since I was 23, 24. So I feel like I've been doing it for a long time now.

I think when I saw the opening, it was my eighth year of my open i was like that's gone crazy quick let me see i uh i spent all last night on the assault bike um trolling you let's see let's see if i can usually i have someone who helps me i don't know where they are today your first open yeah when was it uh two is it say uh really enjoyed my first ever open i think it's too it says 2017 979th in the world for your first attempt that's crazy yeah but i had no idea what i was doing i think i attempted some of the 15 and 60s but i didn't submit any of my scores or all my scores. I think 2017 was the first year I did the full open and submitted all my scores. You're kind of the opposite of me. I would always sign up but then submit someone else's scores.

So we're a little bit different. You know what I'm going to do here? I'm going to change your name to your Instagram account. Is it at just the way it's spelled? Yeah, it's N-S-E-K and then George. You're competing hard in YouTube

with some little kid who trains dogs. Did you know that? The amount of people who tag me in dog stuff on Instagram is insane. He doesn't even spell his name like you. I didn't watch any of his videos. Is he English like you? No, he's American.

He spells Z-A-K. But the amount of people, oh, look how well my dog's learning to go to the toilet outside. I get so mad at it. It's crazy. But he's got a massive following. It's because you spell your name right and he spells his name wrong. Yeah, not many people spell my name right and he spells his name wrong yeah not many people spell my name right first time but yeah i get a lot of confusion with the others

at george in america um maybe it's just me but it's it's amazing to me that you're not more popular in the united states once i came across you i was like holy shit how did i not see this guy but i think the crossfit community is kind of like that there's all of these amazing like people just hidden in the nooks and crannies. Like another one of the guys is, um, you know, that guy, uh, they call him the fitness wizard. I don't even know his first name. You know who that is? The fittest wizard. Someone will put up his name. There's just all of these people out there. It's like, Holy cow. Like I was going through your Instagram. Um, what a great following you have and what a great bunch of sponsors you have.

You've really killed it. People have embraced the shit out of you. Yeah. I think it's a combination of, um, I'm a lot bigger than most CrossFitters. So when I'm on the, when I'm on the competition floor, I look like a bodybuilder on the floor. So I think I get a lot of attention due to that reason. Um reason I think I post all my workouts and most of my times on my Instagram. So I always try to help motivate people, get them into fitness. I think people like that side of me and how I don't hide a lot of the stuff I do. I just post it on social media for people to try or to see. So I think a combination of those two probably helped me along the years.

Do you know how tall you are and how much you weigh in american numbers in america metrics not in america i'm six foot whatever that is it and then um 98 kilos now but then when i'm in the off season i'll be about 101 um kilos so i think that's two is it 225 pounds. Yeah. Okay. Wow, that is big. Yeah. It's pretty heavy for CrossFit. I feel it in some of the first work at the course, the handstand press at one.

Wow, that was tough. Speaking of handstands, that was one of the cool things about your story. There's a lot of cool things about your story as I dig into it. But one of the cool things is that you took a weakness, handstand pushups, and you turned it into a strength. I think the manager at your gym was saying that in an interview. And that's sort of, I mean, that's one of the cornerstones of CrossFit, right? Yeah, 100%. It cost me the game spot in 2019. So I can't remember my finishes in the UK. I think there's roughly like first, second, first, third, and then 168th.

So it literally cost me, yeah, the game spot that time. So as soon as I did that work, I was like, right, I'd never want to be in this position again. And I did them pretty much four times a week for years on end. And they're good now. I think they're good now for my size, but it's still hard to keep up with the smaller dudes on movements like that. So it's not like a massive hole now, but I still want to get better with them.

I still want to be able to compete with the smaller guys at those sort of movements. Where is home for you, for those of us who are geographically illiterate? So England, a little place called Leicester. So bang in the Midlands of England. And that's west of London? North. North. Okay.

So it's around Birmingham, Nottingham. So it's pretty much bang in the center. How far from there? From London? Yeah, from London. On the train, 55 minutes. Driving, two and a half hours. Okay. Oh, is it considered a is it considered a suburb uh yeah parts of it yeah yeah so um you and you're and you're born there in in lond, born and raised in... I mean, sorry, in England.

Yeah, yeah. And your parents, are they born and raised in England? My mum was. My dad's from Guyana in South America. He moved over to here when he was 11. And what brought him there? How did he get there? So, crazy story, really.

His mum moved over to England just for a better life, but she couldn't afford to bring any of her kids over so i got my dad his two brothers and his sister so she moved over to england worked for a year then bit off enough money to bring her daughter over and then did it year by year to eventually bring all the kids over wow that's similar to my uh that's similar to my family story. My dad, my dad came over and then one by one brought over his, his eight, seven or eight brothers and sisters and then his parents and yeah, bring them over one by one. Yeah. It's crazy. And, um, yeah, so my dad grew up here.

It would have been a tough time because racism was quite a big thing back then. So yeah, he had a lot of stuff to deal with. Um year what year was that when he moved over yeah i don't know off the top of my head so he's 66 now he moved over when he was 11 okay which he must um there's a great movie i i want it's not vidal sassoon it's maybe it is Vidal Sassoon. It's one of the big, big haircut shampoo guys. And basically he, um, and he lived in London and his whole, it's, it's fascinating from an art perspective because he changed the way people cut hair. I guess when he started cutting hair, they would cut women's hair and then you would have to leave the hair like that for like weeks. Right. But he figured out, Hey, let's cut women's hair and then you would have to leave the hair like that for like weeks right but he figured out hey let's cut women's hair like men's hair basically and just

make it so they can wash it and just comb it and do it themselves every single day instead of have it to have it styled but basically he in but when he was in london he would cut hair by day and then hunt nazis by night it was it was it was a fascinating movie what made me think about that is that you talked about the racism it's funny when when I think of, when I think of the UK, I never think of, I don't know, for some reason that never pops in my head. I just think of beer.

Of beer? Or pubs. Yeah. When I think of the UK, I just think of pubs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The English love a pub. It's not been a big thing of mine, but, but yeah, he had a, quite a tough upbringing, should I say. But yeah.

And then what's he do for a living? What's your dad do for a living? So my dad, so he came over. He obviously went to school, left school when he was 16, 17. And then he went into clothing manufacturing. Yeah, had nothing. And then, yeah, built a really successful business with my mom. And then did that and retired when he was 40.

Oh wow so your dad's an entrepreneur? Yes yeah yeah yeah yeah pretty amazing considering they literally had nothing when when they moved over. Hard worker doesn't know how to stop. Yeah very hard work and him and my mom they were they've been together since they were 13 um and I think they kept their relationship hidden for about 10 years because of the racial tension. Because your dad is, your dad, your dad's black and your mom's white. That's no good. That's no good. You can't do that. Yeah. 40, 50 years ago.

Yeah. Mom's parents weren't keen on it. My dad's parents weren't keen. So, um, yeah, they kept their relationship hidden for quite a long time. Hey, did they, did they ever come around? Did your grandparents ever come around yeah yeah all right fine yeah unfortunately it was a very nice happy ending oh that's awesome you know it's like that with the um any of the purebloods you know the jews don't want their kids marrying outside of the jews the armenians don't want them their kids marrying outside you know um probably you know maybe for different reasons maybe if you're white or if you're black you don't want it because of the of the skin color but within like being jewish or being armenian you know those families they they want you to marry within your and i'm i'm generalizing they want you to marry within your ethnicity pretty strongly too but then eventually you get old enough and they like they don't care so like my wife's mom she wanted her to marry a jew but then after like you get so old they're

like all right just marry anyone yeah that short armenian guy he'll do yeah yeah get him um and now now do your parents do your parents are you married no not married no i live with my girlfriend um it's still in leicester and then my parents still live where they live were you married no never married no oh i thought i thought i saw on your instagram you called so you refer to someone as your wifey oh yeah that's just like an english term oh okay or like yeah so you guys are like americans you use words that really don't mean what you're saying good i'm glad that i'm glad that happens over there too we have a lot of a lot of that going on here.

And when you saw your parents, did you see your parents struggle? Did you see your mom and dad like up late at night working hard? And did you see that? Yeah, my dad was never, wasn't home too much. He was working a lot. He was always traveling to around Europe for different things. So yeah, I definitely saw my dad working a lot of the time um my mum worked with him to a certain point but then she became a stay-at-home mum and she just looked after me and my sister um so I think that's one of the main reasons my dad retired so early is

because he was just working so much he was like what's the point in working so much if you can't enjoy it with your family enjoy what you've earned um so yeah he just decided he wanted to retire and have a bit more family a bit more quality of life rather than just working every single day did you feel did you feel for him when you would see him work like if you as a kid you remember being like man my dad's grinding um no no because i don't really i don't think you understand that as a kid i think you just you just think your dad's going to work and that's what every dad does you don't really see any other people's dads or how often they work so for me it was just just normal that my dad would be working a lot and my mom would be at home um it's not till you grow up

and you appreciate how hard he worked and what he did for the family and yeah the sacrifice he made but um yeah i think you you learn and you realize that as you get older when he retires when he's 40 does he does he start another business? Does an entrepreneur not be able to stay still? Yeah, he had a few properties and things like that, but he literally just wanted to, from having so many years of working constantly, I think he literally just wanted to enjoy it and have some quality family time for a couple of years. And he did that for 10, 15 years.

And now he's finally got himself back into a few more things because he was just getting too bored but yeah i think he enjoyed retirement for quite a long time and your parents are both very attractive you got yeah i'm there yeah and it could have gone bad for you because you have a pretty mom and a pretty dad and if if they had had an ugly kid it would have been all just messed up. Yeah, she looks really good for age. She's 66, so, yeah, she looks very good. And I saw some other pictures of her.

She used to look kind of punk rock, and now she looks more proper. Like when your dad first started dating her, she looked like she had a little Cyndi Lauper in her. Yeah, because they were both into fashion. She was kind of, she's like just dressed in crazy style. So, yeah, she's definitely someone that you'd walk down the street when she's younger, but like she'd be dressed pretty cool. But yeah, so I think that was part of the job. And do you have a sibling? Do you have a sister?

Yeah, my sister, she is seven years older than me. So when my mum was younger, she wanted a really big family. She always wanted like five to ten kids. Yeah, she wanted a really big family she always wanted like five to ten kids wow yeah she wanted a huge family uh she had my sister and then she had seven miscarriages and then then me um so why did she do what was there an explanation for the seven miscarriages no i don't know if there is a um explanation for it um or if there was obviously i didn't know if there is an explanation for it or if there was. Obviously, I didn't know. I never really kind of asked her, I don't think. But, yeah, seven miscarriages in between and then finally had me.

Man. Yeah, it took a big toll. My wife had a miscarriage. Then we had the first baby. Then we had – then she had another miscarriage. And that second one, like one really screwed her up. Yeah. Yeah, because she bled a lot.

Physically, it really – I hear about people – I always thought that if my wife had a miscarriage, it would be emotionally really tough on her. But this – I mean, of course, it was emotionally tough on her, but not compared to the physical. But seven is nuts. Yeah, and seven in a row as well. Yeah. And I was speaking to my mom actually a couple of weeks ago about it and um yeah and she never really said this but the last one really kind of messed up mentally and um yeah she went a bit off the off the not off the rails but mentally she really

struggled for about a good couple of months after that um just didn't want to get out of the house was just staying in bed all day um yeah, yeah, my wife's skin color changed. She turned yellow and did, I mean, it took her five months to be normal again. Yeah. It takes the body so much blood. Get back into, to sink and all the hormones to level out and things like that. Um, excuse me. Did she almost ever die from any of those?

Did you ever hear any stories where she was bleeding out or she had to be rushed to the hospital or anything like that? Uh, yeah, I think two of them were quite, were quite bad. quite bad there's a lot of blood loss um and they're all at different stages so obviously the further you get down the pregnancy that the harder it is um i think she had to give a stillbirth of one of them as well so yeah it wasn't it wasn't a nice um stretch of years that was um but i think that's one of the reasons me and my mom are so close now is because when she finally had me it was like a miracle that she could have another kid. Yeah. Do you still sleep in the bed with your, do you still sleep in the bed with your parents?

No, I just got out a couple of weeks ago. It's a big, big moment. I'm kind of joking, but this morning as I'm getting up to do the podcast, I look over in my bed and my wife's using my seven-year-old son as a pillow. I'm like, oh, this kid's damaged. is using my seven-year-old son as a pillow. I'm like, oh, this kid's damaged. This kid is going to be so damaged. And did you feel that as a child? Just incredible, just like attachment from your mom?

100%, yeah, massively. You must have loved that. Did you love that? Yeah, it was great. And yeah, I wouldn't change it for the world. It's definitely what contributed to me being a very overweight kid as well. So it had its good points and its bad points um because my mum would if i wanted so i used to eat horrendously when i was a

kid uh super overweight i used to have like bags of haribae every single day mcdonald's three or four times a week kfc twice a week but my mum would never say no um just because i think she just loved me so much that she didn't realize just saying yes to anything that i wanted is not going to be great for me um as you can see in that picture i can't remember how old i was there but i was complete opposite of the person i am now extremely lazy loved junk food didn't want to do any exercise um just wanted to eat junk food, didn't want to do any exercise. Um, just wanted to eat junk food all day. And, um, were you raised to avoid discomfort? What do you mean? Like my, like, I just feel like I was raised to avoid discomfort. Like my mom would say,

oh, that doesn't feel good. Or that's too hard. Or I just feel like that there were things like, and I grew up hating sweating. I hated sweating. Like even as a teenager, I hated sweating. Did you avoid, did you play sports? Did you avoid, like I avoided that stuff. If like we would do the presidential fitness exam and you'd have to run a mile, which was four laps, and I'd let all the kids lap me, so I only had to run three and then I'd come in.

Like did you do stuff like that? It's strange because I loved sport. I was always an extremely sporty kid. I was good at rugby, good at seven different sports. But I loved playing the sport. If you asked me to go for a walk or run outside of a sport environment, I'd be the laziest kid ever. Swimming is the only thing that I really avoided because I was too embarrassed of how I looked.

So I always kind of missed swimming swimming lessons always missed swimming um what do you mean you just put on a white t-shirt so that way when you jump in the water it sticks to your body and everyone really knows how fat you are and people know you you stand that even more because you're wearing a t-shirt and no one else is wearing one I was that jackass so yeah you just stand that even more so I always used to fake I was ill or something like that, um, to try and get our swimming lessons. So yeah,

within a sporting environment, I was, I was really enjoyed it, but outside that I was, uh, yeah, a very lazy kid. Hey,

look at this picture of you here. How old are you in that red and green shirt? So that was at Stony Gate. So I think that must've been about year eight. So probably would have been about 11 or 12, maybe. Hey, is that kid standing up next to you? Yes.

No, he's sitting on the bench in front. Okay, good. Absolute giant. You're lucky you didn't damage your body. You know what I mean by that? You're lucky you didn't. didn't damage your body you know what i mean by that you're lucky you didn't um there's a lot of people out there now who've gotten so obese that when they lose the weight their shit's all fucked up they're like you know like when a car gets totaled yeah like in the frame bends and they're

like you could still drive it sometimes but like your car will never be the same like you could you're you look like you're pretty close to doing that to yourself yeah especially if i would have stayed in the habits I was doing back then up to the age of like 18 19 that would have been yeah bad news um and I think my dad my dad recognized that and he was the one that said that pretty much you need to lose some weight um because if you carry on the path you're going you're not going to be you're not going to be very happy as you grow up and my mom being my mom she was like no it doesn't need to change he's perfect how he is but my dad was like the realist and he was like look come on we need we need to sort this out now because it's getting a bit out of control um did that put tension between your mom and your dad uh yeah i'm pretty

sure they had several arguments about it when i was younger uh my mom's saying he doesn't need to change i think my dad's saying he does he's getting too he's getting too big um and the the thing that really sparked it was he basically said i'll buy you a playstation 2 if you lose some weight so he bribed me into a shift in the pounds it's interesting you say that man that incentive thing so i have this thing with my kids that um my kid wanted he saw a hundred dollar bill and he wanted he saw a hundred dollar bill and he goes i want a hundred dollar bill i go easy just do a hundred workouts every time you do a workout just mark it on the uh on the board in the garage and you get a hundred dollar bill you know you you incentivize it yeah um when a kid gets when a kid gets fat

yeah it's interesting. Did anyone ever call you fat in your family? Like any of your sister, like be like, hey, fat boy or any of that shit? No, definitely not. Not in my family. At school, yeah, people would call me names a few times, but I was always very, I always got on with everyone at school. So I think that massively helped. I didn't really get bullied or anything like that i think go ahead the biggest um sort of thing in that department was when i used to play

different schools at rugby so you play in a school that no one knows you that's when you get a lot of people calling you fat and calling you all different names um because they don't know you are they don't know your personality they don't know how that affects you um so yeah when you play different teams at school that's when you probably get the most people calling your names but i never really had it too bad um in my own school or in my own family or anything like that um this picture down here with your arm around this dude with the red shirt um how old are you there so that was uh in mexico i reckon I was about 16, 17. So that's just probably after two years after I really started to get in shape

and really look after my nutrition, started training three or four times a week. And I think that was the transition from me going from the overweight kid to becoming the sporty kid and the guy who was into his fitness the most in the school. Yeah, and you can see I probably got into it a little bit too much.

I don't know. You look great. You look like just some dude who just kicks it on the beach and hits on girls. I like that lifestyle. How did you – so you were 11 years old or 12 years old when your dad said something? Yeah, 11, 12, yeah. And he said, right, we'll make a deal because I really wanted a PlayStation 2 at the time. He was like, I'll buy you a PlayStation 2 if you lose some weight over the course of the month.

If you do it, then at that month we'll go get a PlayStation 2. You can buy a game and then you've achieved it. How much did you weigh then? Do you know when he told you that? No, people always ask me. I can never remember how much it was. I can't remember how much I lost in that time um but I do you're big you're big you're a big kid you think you were 200 pounds you think you were 200 pounds no no no no I don't think so um but uh yeah so he basically said right we'll measure you now

we'll weigh you now in a month's time um we'll do it again and he left it up to me as well which is my dad's always good at that he didn't just say right now you're going to be in this you can be in this you're going to train this times a week he said look this is your if you want to do this you figure out how to do it um and i'll reward you at the end so i just basically said right if i'm having six mcdon McDonald's a week if I have two a week I'm pretty much gonna lose some weight so I just cut back on the junk food um didn't do any other exercise just literally cut back the junk food probably by 50 percent and then after the first month I remember I was really nervous um we had the tape measure out I lost a couple of inches

of my stomach lost some weight and my dad was like right amazing you've done it you did it on your own let's go buy your playstation 2 um i never remember going to toys r us just this absolute like mansion of toys everywhere got to choose the console got to choose my game dude toys r us was dope yeah it was literally the best like toy store when you're a kid it was just like yes yes um and yeah it felt great felt great to achieve something it was the first time where i'd like set a goal work towards it for a period of time and then achieve that goal and it was a really good feeling and i really enjoyed it um and then it wasn't till probably three or four years later we we went to an Anthony Robinson seminar. So I don't know if you... Is that Tony Robbins?

Yeah, yeah. Who's we? Sorry? Who's we? You said we went to a Tony Robbins, Anthony Robbins? All my family, mom, dad,

and then my sister, me and my sister. No shit. Yeah, yeah. And it was about 15 there. And I remember at the time that I really didn't want to go. I didn't know what it was about. Yeah, fuck that guy.

You're 15 years old. You should be at the beach partying. You want to go see Anthony Robbins? Talk to me. I just wanted to have a weekend with my mates. Yeah, throw rocks at cars and shit. Yeah. I wanted to go to this weekend.

I think it's going to be really good for the family. I was like, okay, yeah, okay yeah fine whatever so we went there and it was literally the biggest life-changing experience probably of my youth so he just blew you away he's amazing he said some shit that altered your course yeah it was unbelievable it's all about kind of motivation nutrition like wanting more from yourself um yeah it was just absolutely amazing we learned so much from the weekend and after that weekend it was the first time where I wanted to get in shape and kind of live the best life I can for myself I didn't really need anyone else to give me an external award I didn't need my dad to say look if you carry on this I'll reward you with this um I literally just wanted to do it for myself and we all came away as a family really wanted to learn about nutrition and and it's really kind of kicked us in a really good

direction and uh ever since then i like fell in love with fitness and yeah never looked back really was was your was your sister jealous of your yours and your mom's relationship no no we're all a really close family um super close so i'm really close to my sister really close to my dad. She probably treasured you too because she saw your mom go through all that shit. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, and I'm really close to my sister. And I remember loads of times we'd be at home and we'd paint,

we'd draw fake six-pack on my stomach and just all sorts of random stuff like that. But yeah, she's definitely not a jealous person at all. random stuff out but yeah she's definitely not a jealous person at all it's um it's hard for a dad um to see uh i mean i mean i guess i i guess i can only speak for myself but it's sometimes it's hard for me to see my wife i don't want to say baby she doesn't baby them let's say over nurture them yeah yes good over nurture them it yeah that's a good word over nurture them it's hard and and i guess your dad just showed a lot of restraint right yeah he could definitely he could definitely yeah say that say my mom was over nurturing me and he could see that and if he didn't step in then i don't know where i'd be today so it's a very important role that he did

but sometimes stepping in can be quite tough and like i said it would have caused a few arguments uh between mom and dad but both of them would would never change anything and it needed to happen i don't know if i'm old but your parents got hotter as they got older maybe that's just because i'm old and like my whole like my perspective has changed yeah they've uh yeah they've aged aged very well i. You must be proud of them. Yeah, hugely proud. People always ask me, who's your biggest inspiration? I always say my parents, just for what they've been through, how hard they've worked, what they've achieved.

They're great parents, really good business people. They've set so many examples for me that I've lived my life by. They're definitely my role models. I always tell people the greatest gifts your parents can give you is to be financially stable when they're older, because it would be so stressful if your parents were just like, if you had to worry about your own life and your parents' life, it would be so stressful. Yeah. They've done a really good job and they're. And, yeah, very fortunate to have such great parents.

There was one picture here that I – oh, yeah, I like this one. I know that – I'm sure that's not what's going on, but when I think of your story, I think of this picture. I picture – when I saw this, I was picturing myself as your dad. I'm sure your mom's, like, hugging you, but what it looks like is your dad's coming at you, and your mom's holding you back. Like, you and your dad are about to get into a fight. You know what I mean? Like, do you see that? I mean, I know that's not what's happening.

Yeah, I've never, ever looked at that picture and thought of that ever. But, but, but I feel, but when I saw this picture, I was like, yeah, sometimes this is how it feels with my boys. Like I need to come at them and give them some tough love. And you know what I mean? Shake them up a little bit. My wife's like, nah, nah, go easy mean shake them up a little bit my wife's like nah nah go easy on them and i'm like nah nah not go easy on them no this that that picture is um at regional 2018 so that just sums my parents up that's my mom running up to me probably crying her eyes out giving me a massive hug look you can't even put your arms down you're so just like look how swollen look. You can just see your forearms and be like, look at the pump you have.

It's crazy. Yeah, I get a massive, massively pump when I train. And then my dad just kind of walking over casually and just give me like a nod of approval. He's not giving you a nod of approval. He's like, hey, everyone, that's my boy. Look at my boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's so fucking proud of you.

Very, very proud nod. And then my mom. Yeah, mom's losing her shit and she's going mental and crying and hugging me. So you you. Well, I'm going to come back to to to losing the weight and cutting back on McDonald's and find out what the next step was to. So how did you do this year in the quarterfinals? Yeah, I think I did all right. I was 36. Considering the first two workouts were were not amazing for me um so it was the handstand press at one i knew that would be tough um like i said i've worked a lot on them over the years but i'm still kind of 98 kilos so i'm always going

to find those workouts pretty tricky um the second one pistol is always a very bad move for me i've got um a bad ankle that always gives me a lot of jit when i do um pistol work um and when i was injured last year with my hip pistol is another thing that really aggravates my hip but yeah got through them um i knew the workouts would progress and get better for me as i go through them and then the last three were a lot stronger finishes for me. So this quarterfinal stage for me, it doesn't matter where you qualify, you just got to get that top 60. And then it really, really matters at the semifinals.

So happy with my performance, body's feeling good. I'm ready to, yeah, ready to attack it for the semis now. Is the goal still to go to the games? 100%, yeah. That's always been the goal. Javi, you've been doing this so long now do you ever compare yourself to other years like oh i'm not giving it as much this year i'm giving i'm giving it more this year uh not really because i think my chances in my head my chances of really like

qualifying for the games started from 2019 so for me the years before that was all of like a learning curve i was developing an athlete I didn't I knew that I wanted to get to games eventually but I knew I wasn't ready at that time um so it wasn't like I was going through all those early years being disappointed because I'm not making the games or not getting as far as I wanted to um and then when I made regional 2018 after that I was like right the next year I believe I'm good enough to be to be a games athlete now um obviously now missing out in 2019 because the Hansen press was frustrating um 2020 qualified which is obviously amazing but then Covid hit so wasn't able to go and then injury last year um that last year was probably the most frustrating out of them three years because 2019 was just I hadn't worked

on Hanson Press so that was that was on me and I put my hands up and I've worked a lot on them since so that was my fault in my my programming 2020 obviously completely out of my control and nothing couldn't change that and then 2021 I felt good. I really was extremely motivated. I think a lot of the fire was in me because I missed out the year before. And then to have it just kind of taken away because of an injury that I've kind of been neglecting, that was kind of the hardest year for me, I think. What was the injury? It was called IT band syndrome, apparently.

So it's basically inflammation of your IT band. I don't have one of those. Only athletes have those. So basically I couldn't squat for about two, two and a half months. Couldn't do running, couldn't do any sort of heavy pulling from the floor. And I could feel it. I could feel something building up over the months leading up to the open. But because I was so determined and so annoyed from the year before, I just kind of ignored it.

So I was like, right, full steam ahead. Nothing's going to stop me. I'm making it this year. Yeah, yeah. And then the lift on the open, it was the clean, hand clean front squat jerk or something like was it i can't remember the exact workout um but it was the part a part b it started with the front squats gymnastic movement then thrusters and then it went front squats again a different gymnastic movements thrusters and you finish that work at a certain time and then you had um remaining time to find a heavy lift for the complex and i went in for the hand clean and just felt a massive sharp shoe pain from my hip down to my knee

and i was like that that didn't feel good at all um i was just hoping i'd be able to just brush it off and kind of come back in a couple of days but after about two days after that it still wasn't settling down i couldn't kind of get up the stairs properly where is the pain is it on your knee so on that picture so it's literally when it when it happened it was from the hip all the way down to the knee that whole it band was like a massive sharp shooting pain all the way down the leg and is that why i see people rolling on that when i see people using rollers on their side that's what they're rolling out that giant yeah it band which there's a kind of yeah some physios say you shouldn't roll it out some say you do um because it's a tendon apparently you know you're not supposed to to roll it too too much but um but

i was rolling it after i did it because it was just so painful um and then my physio yeah basically said sorry is that but you're gonna be you're not gonna be able to squat for two months doing this and i was like yeah thanks mate but i need to be ready for quarter finals so i need to kind of ignore that i need to get ready um so he was like right okay let's do everything we can and then let's see what the workouts come out and see how we handle it um so i was hoping in those three weeks that the quarterfinals weren't gonna be very leggy and then they came out and it was like four at max front squat there was that 180 pistols there was 120 war balls and i was like wow i just i don't think i'm gonna get through this um we warmed up we tried to do the front squat one first and i think i got to 70 kilos and i just i couldn't squat anymore

this was in 2021? Yeah. Okay. And then, yeah, I had to make the call that I was going to have to pull out because I don't think 70 kilos for a match front squat is going to get me very far. Hey, there's a question here I want to ask. Does this question even make sense? What kind of British accent is that? Are there different kinds? Yeah, it'd be less. It's just the Midlands.

So it's not like a Geordie accent from the north um yeah so it's just a midland wow i had no i had no idea i guess i did know i guess i've been around english people and they can tell where you're from in different parts oh yeah we could tell there's lots of accents in uk is there one that's called like cockney cockney yeah so that's down south so yeah my girlfriend's from so like london way i just like it because you get to say the word cock when you say it cockney one of my favorite words they use like apple and pears stairs app explain that to me say that again apple and pears i'm going up the apple and pears oh that's what it sounds like when they say I'm going up the stairs? Yeah, it's Cockney rhyme. So things like dog and bone is phone.

That's awesome. How do you have time for a girlfriend? I actually have a lot of time, to be fair, considering you're a full-time athlete. So you train for three or four hours a day, and then the rest of the day you're recovering, and you've got lots of spare time. So it's not like I've got a 9-to-5 job, and then I go to the gym, so you don't have really much time. So yeah, plenty of time in the day. How do your mom and your girlfriends get along?

Being that you had this mom who was – you were her everything. Is it weird? Is it weird having a girlfriend? Does she scrutinize him and put him under the magnifying glass she probably does but she i don't think she tells me and then after a couple of so maybe a year or so of of dating sam she was like is that i really like sam and then i know i've got the approval then right she didn't tell me she, she's kind of monitoring and sussing them out, but she definitely is. And my sister too. So it's not, that's awesome. So basically she just wants what's best for you.

She sees that you're happy. She wants you to be happy. It's not that she's, she's trying to get you from her or your time. She just wants to see her son happy. Yeah. That's what any parent wants is to see their, their children to be happy and successful in what they do. So, yeah. You know what's crazy about parenting is – I just thought of this as we were talking that out. When you go to Disneyland as a kid, you want to ride the rides, and that's how you get enjoyment. Yeah. But there's nothing more enjoyable than watching your kids ride the rides.

If you can get to that spot, it's bizarre. You can't even kind of explain it. Say it again. Yeah. I've got a niece and my sisters, I've got two nieces. My oldest niece is about six now and I can describe that with Christmas. So Christmas, when you're a kid, it's the best thing ever. You open all your presents, and amazing.

And then between the ages of, I don't know, 20 to the way I am now, Christmas becomes just another day. For me, it's more about family now. I couldn't care what presents I get. It's about seeing my family, seeing my cousins, all the people I don't see throughout the year. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze through security.

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But now I've had my nieces for the last couple of years. It's about literally at Christmas, I can't wait to just buy them so much presents. And watch them open it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, when I have kids, I know it's definitely going to be about them

and watching them enjoy Christmas. So, yes, I definitely see where you're coming from with that. Magnus, 20 burpees for that bullshit. 20 burpees. What's bigger, step on the legs or the legs? That's an easy question. No, quiet. You guys quiet.

No talking. No talking to the guests. No communicating with you. I wonder if all adults make that transition. Do you think there are some adults who never make that? Like it's still about them. You're 40 years old and life's still about you? Probably, yeah. I'm guessing there's some people out there still like that but um i find it hard how once you've had kids i know that's definitely gonna change something in me and it's my my

existence gonna be about making sure they're safe and making sure they get through life well it's funny as soon as i said that i thought of someone who's in their 60s who's still like that and they're miserable they're not. There's no happiness with that route. No. Yeah. You have to make yourself smaller and smaller as you get older and older until you disappear. And that's where all the happiness is. Yeah. Which which is pretty crazy coming from someone who has to work so hard on themselves. Right. Yeah. Like you being being a being an athlete you've definitely got to be selfish um you've got to say no to a lot of things you've got to make sure you're in your prime position to perform as well as you can and yeah you've got to be selfish um

but for me i know that this is a period of my life right now and it's not always going to be my life in 10 15 years time so I want to give it everything I've got now because I know when when I eventually have kids and they're older I want to be able to just I want to be able to say like I've achieved what I wanted to achieve and now I can sit back and just kind of nurture them and nurture them through life and I think it's important you go through that I think the parents that might be more inclined or might kind of spend more time themselves haven't really achieved what they want to achieve early in their life. I think if you're extremely happy and content of where you are and you've achieved what you want to achieve, you can easily transition over to bringing up kids and just giving your full attention towards them. Yeah.

kids and just giving your full attention towards them yeah yeah being when your dad approached you with um telling you you're too big could that have backfired uh yeah 100 but i think deep down i knew i wasn't happy the way i looked so it was more of a i think it was more of a, I think it was more of a relief that someone said something. Cause then that was going to lead to a change. Whereas I think if he wouldn't have said anything, I definitely wouldn't have said anything. My mom wouldn't have said anything. So he was the only person who was, who was going to say something.

And, um, yeah, I'm so glad he did, but it definitely could have. Did you cry? Did you cry? Uh,

I can't remember the exact time he said it. I probably would have done, because it's the realisation that you are not happy with how you look. It needs to change. It's a daunting thing to do when you're a kid as well. You're only 11, so you're not figuring everything out. You don't really know what your emotions feel like. I probably didn't know I was unhappy with the way I looked,

but there were certain situations. I always remember this one story where I was sitting downstairs with the family. I had my top off. I was happy with my top off around my family. And my dad's friends came over. I could see them coming down the drive. So I quickly ran upstairs to get a top.

And my dad pretty much brought me down and said, look, never be ashamed of how you look. You look fine the way you look. Keep your top off. And they're just going to come into the room. And I remember me like in hysterics, crying, thinking I can't let them see with my top off. And that was a very distinct moment in my memory that I've always remembered. And that's me being extremely unhappy with how I looked probably without realizing how unhappy I was.

So, yeah, I was in Malawi in this, in this crazy village. And, and I was hanging out there for a few days. And there was this kid that I had made friends with.

I think they might have the largest fresh freshwater lake in Africa there. Right. And I think I was on that lake and the village was on that lake. So as far as villages go, it was pretty prosperous. Yeah. But none of the homes there had electricity except for one with the where the village elder lived and i and um i remember i ended up buying this kid a bike in the village and it made him middle class because

he turned his bike into a taxi so then you would people you would sit on that back rack and he would and he would pedal dudes around and when i bought on the bike um he pedaled me around for like three days and showed me all over it was awesome yeah but those dudes always had their shirts off and they had the nicest bodies i had ever seen all the dudes in that in that village and and they were all fishermen they pulled nets so you could only imagine their biceps and their back, right? Their back. They pulled nets in the lake all fucking day. It was crazy, their bodies. And I was talking to one of the kids one time, or to one of the adults there one time.

He was talking about how he wanted to move to the United States. And I started thinking, man, in the United States, people will buy a house and take a 30-year loan, work every day from when they're 30 to when they're 60 to pay off that house and then they own that house and then their life's over or it could be over especially if they didn't take care of themselves and it's like the dream yeah yeah but but but really and and i don't i don't mean to not be thankful for all the stuff that I have, but really the dream if you're a man is to do what Rich Froning does. Just never put on your shirt.

Just to never fucking put on your shirt. It really is. Now at 50 years old, I'm like, that is the – there's nothing – I mean, isn't that great? Just never having to put on your shirt? Yeah. It's amazing how life comes around when i was a kid i never wanted to be seen with my top on top off ever pretty much eight percent of my day my tops off yeah it's uh yeah it's it's like a chore to put on your shirt it's like there's nothing better than to break your first sweat and take your clothes off and work out right right? Yeah, it's a great feeling.

Well, if you go to a commercial gym just for a change and you have to train with your top on, this feels so weird. Have you been kicked out of a gym with your shirt off? No, I wouldn't take my top off in a gym outside of CrossFit Box. I don't even take my shirt off when I'm at home. Imagine how you are as an 11-year-old boy be i have to be so i have to be hurt you know what i mean i have to be 40 minutes into a workout that i wish i would have never started before i take my shirt off i have to like not be me there's always people in the gym where you know they're either extremely hot or they're in a very deep hole if they've got that top off yeah yeah i'd be that guy yeah you're just like you're trying

to lighten the squat even by one white shirt make those hands down press it's a bit lighter yeah um the years that you are you happy even the years you don't go to the games, are you hard on yourself? I'm a super laid back guy and I think I overcome setbacks quite well. So like 2019, I was super bummed out for a couple of days after that. And I remember that was week three and I still had two weeks left. And I remember thinking, right, my games are gone for this year. There's nowhere I can recover from coming 168th. But I very quickly said, right, I want to do so well in these last two events that people know it was only that one event that cost me the game spot.

And I came back and I got a first and a second. So I very quickly had a sulk for a couple of days, but then turned it around and wanted to make a big finish to that Open. Same with 2020, when I found out that was a very long process of not knowing if I was going to the Games or not. I was national champ for the UK, but then also top 30 in the world. So I kind of qualified both ways. So at the start, I was thinking, right, national champs aren't going, but I'm still top 30 in the world so I kind of qualified both ways so at the start I was thinking right national

champs aren't going but I'm still top 30 in the open so hopefully I still get to go through that way um and then it went from 30 to only the top 20 going through to the online stage so I was like I was five spots out so um again I was I remember very very clearly i was having a dinner with with sam and we specifically said right no phones tonight let's just enjoy each other's company yeah and um my phone was going mental just like absolutely ping ping ping ping ping and i was like i need to have a look at this i don't know what's going on and it was people um finding out that i wasn't going to the games because they're only taking the top 20 and you were on suicide watch they're like are you okay zach are you okay i wasn't i wasn't as bad as the people around me the people around me yeah they were fuming

and i was like well it's out of my control if i get arsy and upset about it then that's not going to change situation is what it is they've made their choice um that's it but yeah I remember people around me were going mental like there must be something we can do like blah blah um and again after a couple days of just letting it all digest I was like right I've probably got three months of the year back where I would just be purely focusing on training for the games so let's let's go crush some things let's I wrote a book um about my journey and um about goal setting things like that um we did a lot of work for sponsors so I just try and turn any setback into a positive and um try and turn it around and not just dwell on what's happened because that's not going to

change anything that's not going to change situation. That's not going to change the situation. So, yeah, just try and put it behind me and look forward and set new goals for that year. And then at the end of 2020, I could look back and say, look, we've achieved X, Y, and Z all because I didn't go to the Games. And it makes it less painful that I didn't get to compete. Yeah. Is your gym successful? Yeah. Yeah. We have a great community. Um,

that's one of the best things about, about a CrossFit box and what separates CrossFit itself from any other types of fitness in my eyes is the community that the box brings. Um, like the quarterfinals when I've got all the people around me, I have like a guy called Ben who basically takes every bit of stress out of my, the blonde dude I see in the videos. He's your friend and manager of the gym or no?

Uh, so no, we're not my manager. No, James, we've got, um, Dan Wagner.

He probably see a lot in the videos. Um, he's my training partner. Um, my business partners, harm eat. And then Ben is a blonde dude blonde hair um and he basically looks after all my like filming making sure all the standards are being met making sure

the layout's proper right he'll read all the information given by crossfit to make sure we hit every standard going ah you need one of those guys who the pressure on him yeah 100 there's just so many kind of things that crossfit put out there that can easily like trip you up or like it's like the um the handstand presser one you're not allowed you weren't allowed to wear um gymnastic grips for the lunges okay so like little tips that if you're holding two dumbbells for a lot of reps for lunges if you wear your gymnastic grips they act as like a hook so it just relieves your grip a little bit better but he spotted that and said like you can't wear gymnastic grips which is those little things where i probably wouldn't have noticed if it was just because i'm thinking about how i'm going to perform this workout what i'm going to do what's

my strategy um so it's great having someone like that um And he helps massively. So, yeah, I think any athlete who does the Open, does quarterfinals, knows it's a team effort. It's not just you who's putting in the work. There's a lot of people around you that help you achieve what you achieve. And the name of the gym is B-Fitter. It's called CrossFit BFG. So it stands for Big Friendly Giant. Oh, yes, like the movie like the book yeah yeah it's it's it

man that's one of those movies that might even be better than the book there's actually two versions have you seen both versions of bfg uh i've not seen the new one no oh it's so good it's crazy it's a technological miracle my kids watch it i actually the first time i saw that greg glassman actually pulled me aside and said hey you got to watch this movie and we watched it together and i was like holy cow you're right it's a technological miracle yeah i'll have to give it a watch yeah it's nuts so you in the reason why i ask and do you have a modeling career an active modeling career uh no i've done i do a lot of shoots for sponsors um so like my protein or g-shock um things like that but yeah i've never been in like a like a fashion model or anything like that are you still

um a sponsored by g-shock yeah what a crazy brand i mean that is like that's such an amazing brand yeah it's it's um i don't know if i've got any pictures of when i was a kid yeah picture you brought up when i was uh wearing the snapback and the poolside i think i was wearing a g-shock then yeah and how how long have they been a sponsor uh two years now i think yeah the congratulations here's where i was going with that i want you appear to have a lot of um and don't i want to come back and circle around to harm meat, too. He's a he's a he's a trippy cat. I got some questions about this guy.

How do you meet? How does anyone get a hard meat in their life? You have it looks like you have really good sponsors. It looks like you have a very good family. Looks like you have an amazing girlfriend. It looks like you have a successful, family. It looks like you have an amazing girlfriend. It looks like you have a successful, fun gym. You're extremely good looking. I wonder if this mitigates – you have a good life, right? And some people might be like, well, inside I'm really hurting. But you're not.

We're really seeing – Zach George is like you're enjoying your time on planet Earth. Yeah, 100%. I'm very much kind of open. I say I feel. Yeah, you're crazy open. You're crazy open. Other people think that they're open. You're crazy open.

Yeah, I hope that's a good thing. Yeah, it's an amazing thing. It sets you free. Yeah. You glide because of it. I think that's why a lot of people have really enjoyed my story and enjoyed supporting me over the years because i am i am what you see so i'm exactly the same um to anyone you could be a celebrity you could be someone i've met for the first time

i'm just exactly the same to anyone i speak to um so i think that really came out in 2018. So at the regionals, I basically went to the regionals just wanting to have an awesome time. And it was a bad strategy as an athlete wanting to place well. But I changed it for the world because I just had the best time with all my family and friends. That's when I did the floss on the floor. You know, the floss dance. So I just did that after every event. And that just went viral and people just caught on it and loved it. I remember there's a very, like, famous story.

Do you know Will Kane? He's a good British athlete. I don't. Is he a CrossFitter or some other discipline? He's a CrossFitter, yeah. He's been to regionals probably six, seven times. So this is my first year at regionals. I was next to Lane of Will Kane.

He's been to regionals probably four times before. And it was the I don't know if you remember the workout, the ring muscle-up handstand ramp and pistol workout. It was the first year they brought in the handstand ramp. And so the workout was 12 ring muscle-ups. You did the handstand ramp okay and so the workout was yeah 12 ring muscle-ups you did the handstand ramp up the ramp down the stairs then you had

another ramp you went up the stairs down the ramp and then you there is and then you did uh x amount of pistols and then you did the handstand ramp back and then you did the ring ring muscle-ups it was three rounds so i initially thought the workout was rings handstand ramp do your pistols and then run back to the rings so you didn't do the handstand walks on the way back yeah and I couldn't even do a handstand ramp anyway so the workout was bad for me at the start and I remember standing next to Will and again I'm super laid back I'm like hey Will um are you gonna run back are you gonna walk back from the pistols and he's like what do you mean and he's like well do you know when he's on your pistols are you

gonna run back or use it as a rest and he's like dude you've got a handstand ramp back as well this workout instantly got twice as hard and then they're like three two one go and then the workout starts so that just sums up my like regionals of just having a blast and yeah just just absolutely loving it um you met you met dave you have you have a lot of good photos with a lot of cool people in there you met dave castro how was that yeah that was awesome that was at uh event at wit a couple years ago that was that was super cool um yeah i had a brief chat with with him. Yeah, that was a really good experience to meet someone in that level of the sport. Did you get a good impression from him?

Yeah. Yeah, I spoke to him for maybe 30 seconds. We did a workout. I think it was 20... He didn't do one of these. You went to shake his hand, and he went like this. He didn't do that to you?

No, luckily not. I think I'd just finished a workout, so I was feeling pretty pumped so um yeah it was 21 59 dumbo snaps burpees over dumbbell it's when they did like the the the pre-workout before the open i think it was um and then he was like oh well done dude you crushed that um it was a very brief chat and yeah it was a great experience um have you ever met noah yeah noah i've met noah a couple of times yeah really cool dude really like noah yeah have Yeah, it was a great experience. Have you ever met Noah? Yeah, Noah. I've met Noah a couple of times.

Yeah, really cool dude. Really like Noah. Yeah, have you trained with him? No. No, never got to train with him. I'd love to. But we've spoken on social media a few times. But yeah, he's someone I've looked up to as an athlete for many years.

And he's someone I watched at the games before I got into it. So yeah, it's cool to be able to to compete alongside those those dudes because you're kind of cut from the same cloth as him he's got a lot of the same vibe you got he's he's easy as shit to hang with yeah really cool he's really cool yeah just super chilled out it would be great to compete with him because his movement speed would just be literally triple mine it's just be able to oh wow hard to keep up yeah there was something you said that made me um that made uh something you said that reminded me of no i can't remember exactly what it was but you do you ever plan on coming to the

states to do any training or yeah i'd love to it's obviously not been able to travel for the last couple of years but it's definitely something that i wanted to do and i would love to there's there's a couple of um american dudes that i speak to on on social media that i'd love to just go out for a couple of weeks and just just hang with them and see how they train and just kind of get out you sort of your normal training training bubble would be awesome yeah i think that whole um uh training think tank group yeah there's some there's just some great guys in there yeah i think that's where i'm very different as well because i program for myself ah i'm not part of like a training program or so at things like quarterfinals you really feel it

because you've got no one to balance workout scores of you have no idea i literally have no idea what anyone else is doing because I just do it for myself. So you definitely feel that sometimes when you're doing the, like these sort of like qualification rounds is that you've got, you've got no one really to bounce, no really good scores to bounce off to see if you've got a good time or not. I heard you. I heard you talking about that.

So obviously we know some of the people who've programmed for themselves in the past, we know Rich Froning program for himself. We know Matt Fraser programmed for himself. Is that why – well, let me say one more thing. And then I heard you say in an interview that it's really important – one of the things that's really important about you programming for yourself is you being honest with yourself and talking to yourself. And one of the things you talked about is, is that, you know, you can clean, um, you can not do cleans for a while and clean 300 pounds. No problem. Like it, it doesn't go away, but if you don't train your muscle ups on the regular at the regiment that, you know, you need to, those will go away. Um, but, but what other reasons are there? Why don't you get a coach? Do you feel in, in, do you ever feel like you're being dishonest with yourself? No, cause I've, I've got such a good such a good strong team around me um it's not like i don't listen to anyone i've got people um like my training partner he works for he's worked for british weightlifting now works for british

athletics so he's got a very good understanding of of training and adaptation and what you need to do strength and conditioning things that and i've got probably three or four people around me like that who are um very good in their fields like my And I've got probably three or four people around me like that who are very good in their field. I've got a swimming coach. So I have coaching areas of CrossFit that I know nothing about, which do help. But I just really love programming. I love fitness, gymnastics.

That's what I love doing pretty much all the time. And like you said, lifting for me is never really a priority for me it's more about getting as mobile as I can and making my technique as good as possible because like I said if if I don't lift for two months I know I'll always be able to power clean 160 no matter what I've just got that natural strength whereas if I don't do strict time to impress it for a month my my max will probably drop down to 15 20 so um i've got a very good stand in my body but then i've got a very good team around me that i listen to for different areas as well so yeah again it's a big team effort it's not just like i've got my blinkers

on i only listen to what i program it's kind of like miko also you know he would um and i saw you you met miko salo also when we went out and visited him in Finland, the only place he could have a rower was in the closet. And he punished himself there. He would go into that closet filled to the gills with old antiques, and he would close the door and row in there for an hour on the reg. Miko said that always sticks to the head. It was something about you should never lie on

your back after like an animal only lies in its back when it's dead or something yeah saying that yeah yeah yeah he said that when i went and filmed him out in cook or not cookville when i went and filmed him out in um uh in finland what was the name of his town ushi sushi whatever uh yeah he said that he told us i never lie down yeah yeah and i'm like well that's bullshit the best part for me working out is lying down and watching my breath but okay that's why you go to the games and i don't that's always that's always a phrase that sticks in my mind but they're the videos that i just got hooked on when i got into crossfit so i found crossfit in 2013 um so i massively binge watched like 2012 11 10 9 all those crossfit games era um so you've

got your cleapers obviously dan bailey bridges like thrown in um mika salo and just all the old school like graham holmberg holmberg he was a savage yeah yeah so it just i kind of grew up that's like my early years of crossfit and that's what i grew up watching and it's amazing now you've got young kids who are out the box and i train with regularly and they don't know about that that sort of years of crossfit because you're now getting the new generation coming through and uh yeah it makes you feel old in the sport when you when you say those names and some of the young kids don't know don't know who they are i remember carrie peterson and i walked into graham holmberg's gym one time and he's like oh and we're like hey graham can we film you make a video and he goes yeah what do you want me to do and i can't remember if it was

myself or carrie we go double fran and it was kind of like hard to even say that to someone right especially back then it was like hard to say it's like almost like you hate them, right? Yeah. And he goes, okay. And he set up the bar and just demolished it. We were like, I was like, oh my God, this guy is out of control. And every time we went out there, he would do something crazy like that for us for video. Yeah.

And he was, he was so cool. All those guys would. Yeah. All those guys back in the day, Miko would do crazy shit. Rich would do all sorts of crazy shit for us. um he would do it with the with his team too elijah muhammad would be there and he'd be doing crazy shit yeah yeah i remember the videos of of them in that i can't remember what gym it was but tennessee tech yeah tennessee tech easy we're

just coming up um and like the difference from then to now is just crazy. That was getting into it, wasn't it? It was nuts. It was a crazy time. I think most, well, yeah, it was a crazy time. I wonder if, and even when we would visit Rob Orlando, he would do, all the guys back then would do crazy. He was strong. Yeah, crazy.

And mad stuff. Do you have a, is there an exit strategy? Is there a plan for – do you have plans now to have kids at some point? Do you have plans to train athletes to go to the games? Do you – like what is your – do you have plans to help? I mean what's also I love about your Instagram is especially early on, there's tons of weight loss stories. You can tell that you really care about people and there's tons. It's just full of transformational stories.

What is the plan post CrossFit or do you just stay in it forever? Do you just pull, you know, start doing masters when you're 35? Yeah. So I want to like at the minute, I'm making a lot of sacrifices to get to the games. And over the next few years, I want to compete and I still want to compete to a high level but I won't necessarily make the sacrifice I'm now to do that I'll probably like having kids now would be would be tough a tough stage while still trying to get to the games whereas over the next couple years I want to I want to definitely have kids so maybe having a

couple months of sleepless nights I'm not going to be as annoyed about it because I know that's part of the process whereas if that happens now I know I'll be thinking right I'm not getting my recovery this is going to affect my training I'll be having these sort of mental thoughts so yeah I want to kind of a real big year this year real big year next year um and then start to to have a family and start to raise some kids. I think I always love the business side, not just in fitness and anything. So I want to get into property a lot more. That's something I really want to kind of delve into.

And yeah, just do as much work for sponsors as I can. And I think do a few more competitions that are going to be more fun so maybe do some more like team stuff just stuff that you can do with your box and just get a couple of guys from the gyms hey there's this competition that's cool in in Spain should we go have a holiday and do this competition I think I don't really want to do that now because I know that's gonna that's gonna upset my training leading up right to the games and lead to. So you don't really want to do that stuff now, but I think it would be really cool in a couple of years to be able to do those things and not worry about it's going to have a detriment effect to, to my training season. So I think, yeah,

just be a bit more lighthearted with it all and be a bit more flexible and do a few other things that are probably I'm saying no to right now. Do you have any stress around or any thoughts on what's going on with civilization as a whole? I don't know exactly what it's like in the UK but I'm guessing it's pretty fucked up because you're a western country like we are we're going through like a whole

revamping of civilization here in the United States it's like the dumbest people ever are in charge right now and so it's causing the smarter people I think to wake up and be like okay shit we'll go do some shit and by me by i mean dumbest i mean dishonest and illogical like like like like no like we like we have women competing in men's sports in the united states

and there there at least needs to be a civil discussion about it there needs to be like some ex like you can't just do it there has to be some like all the people who have daughters i just wonder like hey what are they thinking now you know what i mean like yeah it's like there's a very small minority that's kind of like running away with with with the direction civilization is going and it's like whoa whoa whoa you need to chill out did you feel that and you and then you have the war over there kind of close to you too those people fighting in the ukraine yeah it's always great i think it is you've got to you've got to be aware what's going on um and you've got to know what's going on and have your your thoughts your understanding of what's happening but then i also think you can't let it bog you

down and you can't let you kind of rule your your mental headspace i think if you if you can be a part of me and you know you can make a change then great do it um but if you're in a position where what you say or what you think is not going to have effect on anything then try not to let it take too much headspace up just be aware of what's going on around you be aware of what what people are going through around the world but don't let it kind of get you down every single day because that's not going to change anything. That's not going to change the outcome of anything. I think as long as your family is safe

and you're bringing them up to how you think they should be thinking, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're sounding very wise. You're sounding very wise. Educate them and you tell them what's going on. You tell them both sides of the story and you talk to them and you say, what do you think about this?

Then I think if you live like that, then I think you're doing pretty well. I think there's a lot of people out there that get in. It is obviously sad what's going on. It's crazy the stage the world's going in. But just thinking about it every single day or being bogged down on the new watch the news every single day it's not going to be good for your mental health and that's going to spill over to your family's mental health and that's not going to be good um so i think you've got to be aware what's going on but then you've also got to live your life and

you've got to yeah you've just got to you've got to keep your heads up yeah it's interesting um if the state of affairs in the world are making it so you're hugging your kids or your family or your friends or you're loving on your family less than then you're fucking up yeah 100 okay stop stop paying like like you're not contributing to that mess over there at least the bare minimum is that you should be spreading love amongst your cohort that's kind of how i heard what you said. Yeah. Do you handle your, handle your village? Yeah, exactly. Get your family unit tight, get them healthy,

get them mentally strong and then, and then start worrying about what's going on. And if you can make a change and great, think about the ways you can make a change, but just make sure you're tight, tight knit unit, kind of self safe, healthy, and yeah and mentally strong. When you were a boy and you started losing weight, do you remember the moment when you started liking your body more? Like you're like, oh my God, I'm going to go to the pool today and take off my shirt.

Yeah, 100%. I remember it very well. I remember me and my mom went shopping for a whole new wardrobe because all my clothes didn't fit anymore. Oh, that's awesome yeah that was a very vivid moment um and i always remember there was a stage of about a year at school where i went from being the overweight kid to now the sporty kid who ate very well had the best body and i really enjoyed that transition of people seeing me going from the overweight kid to now the healthy kid and um yeah it was a really nice experience to go through but yeah the one moment that really sticks in my head is 100 percent

uh going shopping for new clothes because all my clothes were too uh too big it's interesting i there's this there's this belief that you shouldn't like people for superficial reasons. But I couldn't disagree more with that. I think that it's not the only reason why you should like people. But why would – if you're married to the wisest, smartest, kindest man in the world, but he's 150 pounds overweight and smokes cigarettes, fuck that. Like, fuck that. Like, fuck that. Like, he's going to – when he dies at – when you wheel him around and have to wipe his ass from when he's 55 to 65, he's going to make you miserable, and he obviously doesn't care about you enough to take care of himself to be a good example for you.

And I think that you – it sounds like you were rewarded by the love and adoration of your peers as you lost weight and became more physically capable around them you became more attractive to them you probably became more confident were you always nice did you ever go through an asshole stage did you ever get stuck up like oh look at me now no definitely no that's not not who i am always kind of well grounded and yeah never used. And would you reach out to the kid? Would you try to help the other kids who you saw were going through what you were, what you went through? Yeah. I'd always be the one who kind of stick up for people.

If I see someone picking on someone, then I'll always be the one that kind of stand up and say, look, stop doing that. Yeah. If you saw me picking on some fat kid, you'd be like, Hey, nose, pipe down over there. Yeah. A hundred percent. So come come on let's leave it out now um but yeah i think that's definitely what helped me get into personal training because

me being going through that journey of weight loss and knowing how it feels to be overweight kid and not enjoying your body to how it feels when you've lost the weight is a great feeling so i think that's what led me going into personal training. So I wanted to, I wanted to help as many people as I could and get, give as many people that experience that I've had. You know, most men go into personal training to meet women. I'm convinced 99.999%. They just have that stigma.

100%. I mean, I think, I mean, that's why Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook. He's it's, it's not even like a joke. Like that's why.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the, that's the, what's the film even like a joke. That's why. Yeah, yeah. What's the film? Social Network. Yeah, because to hopefully get laid. Do you remember the first girls liking you as you changed? Do you remember getting attention from girls and being like, what, is that girl okay?

Has she not seen me? Are you feeling all right? Yeah. No, I can't remember the exact time it would have been no um but yeah no not really um are you um being that you were a chunky kid are you if girls hit on you are you oblivious to it are you very sensitive to it um i don't know i don't think i kind of just kind of i am how i am with everyone so that might be betrayed of you might be flirting with someone or i don't know but you can always tell if someone's kind of interesting you when when you're going into school you always obviously people talk you know if a girl likes you or not

i think as you get older you just you settle down with people and that becomes less of a thing doesn't it but yeah when you're i don't does it i don't know like you hang out in an environment that's like i mean it's just beautiful people running around in pheromones and just shit i mean the even the ugly people in the gym are attractive i I mean, to the outside world. I ask because when you have kind of low self-esteem, low self-esteem isn't the, that's not the exact word. It's more specific than that. But when you don't find yourself attractive, you can't even fathom other people finding you attractive.

You know what I mean? You're just kind of like, why would anyone want to put their hands on this body? There definitely would have been a shift or a difference of how women would have been a shift or a difference of how how women would have seen me definitely but i don't remember it as and man and man and man and yeah and man yeah yeah do you get hit on by a lot of men i get the weirdest thing i get on social media is for armpit pictures oh wow i wonder if that means i'm gay i'm

into armpits too not dudes armpits but i'm always fascinated by the girls aren't this whole section on on cross-fitting women's bodies crazy because i'm just not used to seeing the lats you know what i mean and just all that even after 15 years of being in it wow so dudes like looking at your armpits yeah really strange yeah i'm not into dudes' armpits. Yeah. That might be good. Strange. Yeah.

Well, I think that that's a testament to how good looking you are. If you're just like sort of good looking, just girls like you. If you're like really good looking, then dudes like you. You kind of transcend the whole – you transcend it all. Yeah. Did your gym get closed, and how did you deal with that yeah kind of walk me through the whole the covid um shit yeah our gym was closed for oh i can't remember we had so many in and outs of lockdowns um probably closed for probably best part of the year and then. How did you survive that? So we were really fortunate in the UK.

We got grants from the government. So they gave us grants. If you're in hospitality or retail, you got grants, which kind of covered all your rent. You got business rates relief, which is really helpful as well. So I think if we didn't have any of that support, it would have been like so many gyms when the business would have closed down. So you guys did the same thing we did.

You just printed, your government printed shitloads of money. Yeah, massively. Yeah. And then we did online Zoom classes. So I don't actually coach, but we've got two coaches, two, three coaches and Harmeet. And we did Zoom classes for people as well. So we had a good core of people who stayed with us and paid for the membership all the way through. And that massively helped as well so we had a good core people who stayed with us and paid for the memberships all the way through and that massively helped as well and then we just put zoom classes on for the members to do whilst they're at home do you have to pay that money back that you got from your government

no no we'll be paying it back in taxes at some point yeah but for sure right not directly the grants back no yeah that's amazing and was it frustrating for you like like did you ever get angry or did were you chill not really just more yeah just more frustration of that we went into lockdown for a long period of time then we came out and then we closed again and we probably did that i think two or three times maybe um closing the gym open up again um but it was a frustrating time for everyone um everyone was feeling the same it was a very rare occasion where the whole world was going through the same thing um so you just had to kind of pull together and get through it all together in the u.s a lot of people pushed back

but when i see what's going on in like australia or the uk or canada i feel like i and i have no truth to this except the media i feel like less people push back like there's more of a um acceptance from big brother do you think that that's true that the uk was more accepting of the rules um yeah i think i think in the uk yeah we kind of we follow them definitely to start with um i think everyone did because it was just like, it was all like, oh my God, what's going on? But then I think as the months went on, then it was a year, year and a half,

people, you definitely saw more people. This guy doesn't think I'm telling the truth. He says, no, not true. Good, that makes me happy. I'm glad I'm wrong. I think you definitely saw more people who were like, no, we're not listening to this anymore because it's been a year and a half now and we're still in the same position. So I think at the

start, everyone was like, yeah, okay, let's, we need to do this. But then as you went through the time, I think definitely people were sort of kind of saying, Hey, no, like, I don't think we're going to take that advice. Um, so yeah, you definitely saw as, as the time went on we we would have we you know we have police officers and people who were stepping up who would who would make videos and be like hey i'm not arresting anyone for this this and this fuck it's against yeah it's against our constitution did you have like no what are your police they're called bobbies did you have any like people like start doing that uh no definitely no never that's the first I've heard of that. Yeah, okay, see? See, look it.

So it is true. See? See? Now what? He's saying no, not true. Yeah, he's saying he lives in London and a lot of people were pushing back. Yeah. I don't think you have to be anti-vaccine to not want the injection, by the way.

I think that's propaganda. Oh, that's true. Yeah, there was a lot of anti-vaccine marches in in london that's for sure yeah i don't i i think you cannot i think i can i i cannot want to be raped and not be anti-sex i love sex but i just don't want to be uh held down in a in in dry humped i prefer to be dry a lot of people's had that standpoint i think they weren't specifically anti-vaxxers they just yeah enough research for them to want this vaccine and i think that got blurred lines between being an anti-vaxxer and then just not wanting this specific one yeah and it was extremely frustrating to hear boris johnson tell the people of your country and the world that they're better it's too hard to

lose weight and exercise and they're better off getting the shot you did you hear him say that yeah um he should be taken out to uh i don't know trafalgar square and put in one of those things with the wood where they put your head and your hands through and let people throw tomatoes at you cannot tell you cannot tell people not to work out this is yeah when it when it had to communicate this is fucking nuts yeah this is this is absolutely i mean we come up from uh there was a time you know not even that long ago where people were working out all day every day by that i mean getting food water yeah you know just basic survival skills big importance to life and people's health and mental health yeah huge crazy right yeah crazy mental um you don't have any tattoos

no tattoos no i've always yeah me neither what's wrong with us i just i'm just scared i wouldn't i wouldn't enjoy it in years to come and i'd want to get rid of it you know what i'm thinking about doing is if my kids do anything stupid like get like like a big old piercing in their ear or one in their nose or they get i'm gonna do something crazy too like like like um if i can't i'm gonna get no i'm gonna get like thug life tattooed on my stomach and a fucking teardrop if they do something stupid i'll match your shit okay i'm gonna get a fucking dick tattooed on my forehead because no one wants their parents doing dumb shit right yeah so if they like if my kid comes home and he's like does something dumb then i'm like okay i'm gonna match

you you're gonna put one of those big old earrings gauges okay me too i'll pierce my fucking tongue and tie a chain from it to the tip of my penis you know that i think that's what i'm waiting for yeah so no do you think maybe you would get one when you were 70 i was thinking when i was 70 no no not for me i think it'd have to be extremely meaningful for me to get a tattoo that's not gonna not gonna outdate or i'm not gonna go off it um what about um those fake tattoos just like do you ever do those like on halloween like like i used to them as a kid yeah but like it's fancy dresses those fake tattoos? Just like, do you ever do those like on Halloween? Like, like as a kid? Yeah. We're like fancy dresses, have fake tattoos everywhere.

I am. I get the when Conor McGregor fights, you can go online. It's a little expensive, but for 40 bucks, you can buy the whole Conor McGregor kit. And I put it on my boy or like I last week I did on my on my old seven year old. I did the whole Tupac kid on him like and it stays for like a week. And then I take him to the beach and he's got thug life and all the Tupac tattoos and guns. That's definitely something I would have done as a kid. Oh, dude.

You would look great with the Tupac kid. You should look it up. You would look amazing. We'll do that for the next one. Do you still have the PlayStation 2? No, that's long gone now, I afraid one ps5 now isn't it so i don't have a playstation anymore but yeah yeah who has time for that do you play video games no i've not played them since i was 17 16 17 it's just something i kind of yeah just grew out of i

think yeah i don't do video games either ufc fighters do video games yeah the people just watch people play video games on youtube it's crazy yeah great you know who i'm gonna have on do you know who nick paladino is no he used to he used to train with uh matt fraser he was that teen that had like a 300 pound snatch oh the super strong guy yeah yeah and now i think he's become a twitch star do you know what twitch is it's so people watch people play video games I think he's become a Twitch star. Do you know what Twitch is? It's so people watch people play video games. Yeah. So he's coming on the show. I can't wait to see how you go from being a CrossFitter to a Twitch star. Yeah, that'd be very interesting. You have an agent. People can't contact you directly. They have to go through Jamie. Yeah, James.

James. James. Yeah, super, super close to James. He's been a manager for maybe two years now. And it's amazing to have someone in your corner that you trust so wholly and you can trust with him to handle all your affairs. And, yeah, it's great. And, yeah, super close to me. He's like a big brother. Did you find him?

Or did he find you? He approached me after Strength and Depth in 2019. And, yeah, gotten well ever since. Does he have any other clients, crossfitting clients? Yeah, he has loads. So that's his thing. Does he have any non-crossfitting clients? Yeah, he has some musicians as well.

So he has like a broad range of people on his roster, which is nice. Not just like in the CrossFit space. Yeah. You need that. So you can get into like free concerts and shit. You want an agent who has like a NASCAR guy, F1 CrossFitter. So he's like, Oh, do you want to come to the, to the guns and roses concert? Come on. Yeah. I'm just going to quickly get my charger. Cause my battery's running low. I know you're going to pee. It's okay. You're allowed to pee on this show.

Go ahead. I'm getting my charger. One sec. Go. Yes, yes. Get it. You guys, stop with the bats. We don't do bats. There is no Andrew Hiller is not here. He's not allowed to watch the show anymore. I texted him last night and said, you're not allowed to watch my show. And I had you two block his IP.

Do not stop with the bats. We don't do bats. He said he had three magic. Did he? I was already looking at the next question. I wasn't giving it my. No, no. Musicians. I heard musicians. Musicians. We need bats. He said he had three magic. Did he? I was already looking at the next question. I wasn't giving it my. No, no. Musicians. I heard musicians.

Musicians. I heard musicians. Someone needs three teardrop tattoos. I almost can't even handle my beard anymore, let alone a tattoo. We're back. You had asthma as a kid and allergies. allergies yeah i'm allergic to so many things that shit's not gone no uh i have like like training induced asthma now not yeah massively do you wheeze like like you train and then you'll you'll we you'll hear a little whistle when you

breathe yeah yeah if i'm around like like i'm really allergic to like dogs cats um horses so if i'm around any sort of dog for quite a while then i go to train i get like big asthmatic simpsons um lurch to all different types of nuts penicillin um hay fever prawns shellfish just loads of stuff wow yeah let's go this goes on what um what what is anyone is your mom jewish jewish no yeah no okay why i just heard you say no shellfish when i think of no shellfish i just think of jews i don't think jews are allowed to eat shellfish or they're not allowed to eat shit that if if it was they got like something like they're not allowed to eat shit that walks on the bottom of the ocean i think my wife's jewish yeah you didn't know that no yeah well there you go yeah

learn something every day you maybe you are jewish and you don't know it that's their way maybe maybe you are yeah um i want to talk about the tony robbins seminar really quick one more time what you went to the tony robbins seminar and they talk about nutrition there? Yeah, it was all sorts. So there was like different sections. So one was like motivation. One was like just general like mental health and just general health. Another one was nutrition.

And I think it was called something empowering the soul within or something like that and it ended the whole weekend ended and walking on um during the walk on like hot coals so the whole weekend was building up to that event at the end and that was like the big finale that everyone did um and i just remember it was such a such a life-changing experience and we were there for three days i think it was at the exxon arena in birmingham and there were long days or like nine to five every day and there was hundreds and hundreds of people there and it was such a empowering weekend and um yeah it was what really kickstart us our kind of our family family health kick and we got home chucked away all the junk food yeah a lot less junk food then but i was still having like crisps and chocolates in

the week. And yeah, we all just went on a massive health kick. And it was, yeah, it was a great experience. And I wonder if your parents did that, if that was a component of helping you specifically. I think it was was it was for everyone that wasn't specifically just for me it was my dad knew he wanted to go on it because it'd be good for him it'd be great for my sister great for me great for my mom and um yes it wasn't just me who benefited from that weekend the whole family came away with a new perspective on life and

i'm wanting more from from each other um, and it was such a great experience. And then you can, my sister went on to do several other courses. I think she went to America and did like a more intense week with him and I think it was only about 10 other people. So yeah, it was a massive life-changing experience. Did you ever smoke weed? No, I've never smoked, ever. No, you never smoked nicotine either? No. Did you ever smoke weed? No, I've never smoked, ever. No, did you ever smoke nicotine either?

No. Did you ever chew? No. Oh, no, yeah. I mean, you think you would chew? Horrible. I was thinking about smoking weed the other day. I drove by a dispensary, and I thought it said, it was like, it's by my house.

It says Artist Coalition, Cann cannabis artists coalition or something. And then I was like, huh, I wonder if I could go in there if I was just an artist but I didn't smoke cannabis. Or do you have to do both? And then I started thinking – I don't – the coolest – I don't know anyone who makes it in the top ten coolest people I know who's addicted to alcohol or marijuana. Like, I don't know any, like, I know a lot of people smoke marijuana, like a lot of people. And I don't mean this as like a dig at them. Yeah. But the coolest people I know are straight.

Yeah. I mean, maybe they used to smoke. Like, I don't know anyone who smokes 10 times a day who I'm like, man, I really like that dude. I wish I was like him. Yeah. There's never something that's been in my circle of friends or family really. So it's not really something I've come across or has ever been in my sort of path of being friends with a lot of people who smoke that sort of stuff. So, yeah.

I find addiction unattractive. Yeah. Well, yeah. And I don't find very many things unattractive. I don't even find obesity unattractive, which would yeah and i don't find very many things unattractive i don't even find obesity unattractive which is kind of weird wow but but but but but but i guess i guess i find the addiction to food is unattractive yeah i think it depends on the level of addiction i think everyone's slightly addicted to certain things for For sure. How intense that addiction is. For sure.

But yeah. Do you ever do the, do you ever get up at night? It's 10 or you go, you come home, you're done working out and you're like, nope, it's 10 o'clock.

Like you think you're going to bed and you're like, nope, I'm going back to the gym and I'm going to run five miles on. No, nope. I just literally, I have my training times, I have my crew that I train with,

and as soon as I'm at the gym at home, I try and kind of get away from that sort of gym environment because that's what you're with, that's what you're doing the majority of the day. I think now, especially this time of the season, when I'm getting home, I'm making sure I'm using my Hypervolt and things like that to speed up my recovery. But I never really have the urge to go back to the gym and do more because that would be detrimental as well to your training as well.

You have your structured training plan for that day. You do it, you take it off, and then anything extra, you're kind of just hindering what you're gonna do the next day um so yeah just get home just try to relax watch the tv and just yeah make sure recovery is as best as possible i agree coffee is addictive it's one of the it's one of the most frustrating things if i don't drink coffee i have a headache so every time i try to quit coffee i have to like um because i try to wean myself off yeah i have to wean myself i have to go down to one cup then half a cup then a quarter cup and then i still yeah i agree it's unattractive uh yes but paper street coffee yes paper street coffee of course that's the coffee i drink

zach i really appreciate um you coming on and let me uh around in your brain letting us ask questions it's been awesome it's amazing how quick an hour and a half goes that's what I tell my wife she goes that was only two minutes I go nah that was an hour and a half I'm not interviewing her it's something else we do but she always claims it's only two minutes I'm like nah nah nah that was an hour and a half

tell your team thank you. If you don't follow Zach George, you should. It's a very uplifting account. He's extremely positive. Man, and you're such a good role model. Thanks for being you, and thanks for sharing your wisdom on the show today. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me on. Yeah, and maybe we'll talk soon. Yeah, maybe we'll talk again soon. Do you like to come on? Yeah, love it. Okay. Should get a crew on. Yeah, I'm always looking for new people to discuss things.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. All right, man. I'll be in touch. I'll stay in touch. Okay. All right. See ya.