The Sevan Podcast - #428 - Jay Crouch, Rob Forte, Brian Friend

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Who comes up? Bam, we're live. Maybe it's me.

Maybe, bam, we're late. Yeah. $5 for being late. I'll take it. Should be late more often. Yeah. it should be late more often yeah Jay Crouch Rob Forte Brian friend I sent them the link like 30 seconds ago it's not their fault they're not here that's all 100 on me the podcast supposed to be at six 6 o'clock today and I was screwing around.

I moved it to 6.15. Damn, look how big Rob's head is. What? Rob, I was thinking... Uh-oh. Hi. Hi.

How are you? I'm good. How are you i'm good how are you i was just admiring the size of your head compared to jay's um i need to move back no no no stay oh you think if you move back it'll look small oh yeah yeah perspective what are you an artist or something you know that shit oh our connection is ass where are you guys where are you guys are you guys in australia the fuck is going on this is never gonna work where are you oh it's so bad the delay i feel like i'm talking like my relatives in beirut when i was like six years old go stand next to the router

or something. Okay, try. Please. Or maybe get off Wi-Fi and use cellular. I don't know. God, I don't know if I've ever talked to Rob. I was always kind of scared of you. I was thinking we have talked

yeah hey when YouTube gets this video they're gonna okay they're gonna put in so many ads because every time there's silence YouTube puts in an ad that's what happens that's how they do that I'm gonna have to go in there and erase them all.

Rob, I was thinking that you're kind of... Janikowski is like the new Rob Forte, huh? Am I even close in saying that? Is that better? Oh, yeah. Much better. Okay.

We're on Jay's phone now, so. And you were on a computer before? We're just connected to the Wi-Fi at the gym. Okay. Who's in the room with you? Some weird guy. That's my business partner. I'll tell him to shut up.

I'll shut up. Andre, shut up. No shut up andre shut up no he can talk he can talk hey rob are you the um are you the uh yana cot or is yana koski the new rob forte yana koski yeah the guy from finland like he wins all the swim events and people have hoped that he's going to win the games but he just he just can't Like he wins all the swim events and people have hoped that he's going to win the games, but he just, he just can't. I never won a swim event, but anyway.

What, what, but, oh, you weren't just, what did you win? There was some event. There was some, oh, thank God you're here, Brian. It was the running. Running. Yes. Ah. Yes. You were the runner.

Damn. I don't remember because the only thing anyone remembers about that workout is Rich Walk. Yeah, Rob. I think we actually passed a couple guys on the run. Hey, I was trying to act like I know shit about CrossFit, Brian. I go, hey, is Janikowski the new Rob Forte? And he goes, what do you mean? I go, you guys both won all the swim events, but you had no chance of winning the games.

But he's like, no, I didn't win swim events. I was like, fuck, we're off to a bad start. Yeah. I tried, no i didn't win some events i was like fuck we're off to a bad start yeah i tried but i didn't succeed that was con con was really good when i was when i was competing he'd always do well in those swim events i want to show you um a video that i saw of uh of jay it was posted a couple days ago yeah jay i'm about to fuck you up uh will you put caleb will you play that youtube video just a little bit of that in in the beginning maybe he was on alex tyson's podcast it maybe play like the first 30 seconds here listen listen this crazy shit trust that you know you're good overall and you might have to rewind it a little bit sorry where are we oh no here we go okay here we go sorry no you're good just. You might have to rewind it a little bit. Sorry, where are we? Oh, no, here we go. Okay, here we go.

Sorry. No, you're good. You just got to trust that you're good overall. And if you give your best effort in each event, you're going to come out in a good spot. Oh, no, fast forward a little more. Sorry, fast forward a little more. Crouch, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, mate.

It's an absolute pleasure to have you here. Okay, here we go. First time we met. I stood next to you and I just fasted for 21 days okay here we go a few weeks out from going to uh the fittest man in the world competition the crossfit games okay fast forward a little more you were huge which is nice um tell me about what it's like going to the other side of the world in america to compete with some of the fittest people in the world. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Growing up in the sport, you watch these guys compete,

look up to them, all that sort of stuff, and then you finally get there. Here we go. It's really cool. Here it comes. I suppose – oh, can we start again? I'll do it. What the fuck is that? I was thinking about what I already said.

You text me the other day and say, me and Rob are coming on your podcast. I do a little research. This is big time. I do a little research from two weeks ago. You can't even fucking get your tongue out of your mouth and you want to go big time with me and Brian? Who the fuck do you think you are? We can't race that a lot, huh? What? Say it again?

We can't race that a lot. No. That's what set me up there. Ladies and gentlemen, Jay Crouch, winner of the Torian Pro this year, same age as Justin Medeiros, the champ. Dude, everyone's like crazy impressed. Rob, are you impressed?

Very impressed. I've been impressed when I saw him for the first time, I think when he was 16 or 15. We did a development squad. It was him and two others that, real standouts in the group. He came to my gym when he was 17. He's just been improving at a crazy rate ever since.

Third place, second place, fourth place, third place, first place, fourth place, and Royce Dunn didn't make it. No, he's not it which is nuts who took second yeah look at those people there's a lot of good guys out there women too my goodness that's crazy um jay did you keep your head in the game the whole time were there any any dips

um jay did you keep your head in the game the whole time were there any any dips yeah no it was solid all weekend like the bigger the big focus was uh just running my own race and you know not having any expectations going in and um yeah it was yeah really solid all weekend and the main reason for that is in the past every event we've kind of both said it is like he's going to do really well, this is his thing, and he goes out way too hot and kind of hits a wall. So we're like, all right, we're going to dial that back a little. Even though it's a strong suit, we need to still hit a strategy. The one that we were kind of both didn't really talk much

about was the strongman Diane one. That was kind of his one to win but we didn't want to say that it's like just go out do it if it's there it's there if it's not it's not and he won it so it was definitely a different approach to last season and what we've previously done when you say that um you didn't want to say it did you guys both hold back and then afterwards be like i knew you were gonna win that and then you were like i knew i was gonna win that like that well we went out for breakfast even the sunday morning of it but we're both avoiding saying it i was like did it and we're like okay it's late we we both knew it was gonna happen i mean can you dad's

saying you better win this one my dad's telling me you better win this one. I'm like, shut up. We're just going to go out there and do our best? Caleb, will you pull that up again, Caleb, the leaderboard? Go ahead, Brian. There's certain athletes that when they see certain workouts, they know that, yeah, I have a chance to win this one or I should really win this one. And I'm not talking about doing well.

I'm talking about winning. This happened at the Magnus last week where i talked to a couple athletes after the fact and they're like yeah like we knew that that was when i could win yeah and that's what like last year at the torian pro the best like going in the workout that i thought was going to be my best was my worst so that's where we sort of uh went off because yeah he tacked it a little bit too hard it was a little bit too fired up and it just didn't pan out in the last round and people passing so it's just a little bit more relaxed approach a little bit more methodical and pays off just depends on the event really but yeah what are the movements can you open can you

open up that workout what were the movements? Can you open up that workout? What were the movements? How did you know you were going to do so well, let alone win? It was, like, I've always loved handstand push-ups, and the deficit was always going to be good for me as well. And it was just being smart on breaking them up and not falling apart. And, I mean, I like the strongman stuff as well. But, yeah.

Yeah, the separator was the deficit handstand push-ups. And for some people it was the last yoke carry. There was people that got there early like Matt McLeod but couldn't move the weight too well. So Matt was actually ahead of jay but jay passed him on that last uh yoke carry so um yeah apart from matt he was he was second best at the handstand push-ups but overall in this workout with the yoke carry in there he's able to pass matt at the end yeah what happened with mcleod there we were trying to figure out from watching if that was an equipment,

like mis-sizing or – Yeah, I think he had the yoke set up a little bit too low, and the bottom just kept hitting the ground. And I did hear you guys asking whether it was set the same for everyone. It wasn't. The athletes got to set it up and choose what height they wanted. He just made a mistake there. And when you do that, when you go out there to set it up and choose what height they wanted. He just made a mistake there. And when you do that, when you go out there to set it, Jay,

does Rob come out with you or do you recognize that exact same yoke or how do you know? No, in the Walmart area we set it up and they wrote it down on what I'm going to set it on out there. Okay, so you don't actually do it. They measure you and then someone sets yours to whatever. Yeah, exactly. go ahead rob uh yeah we'll just make sure he counted the holes that are exposed above the bar so he could double check that it was set at the right height when he walked out onto the floor so it was eight holes showing he counted eight holes so it's good to go uh so that's that's veteran shit right jay

like if you don't have a coach you just like trust the people who are setting up the equipment but rob's like dude still count the holes yeah exactly and i was like don't trust anyone to count anything you make sure you keep count with everything all the time so you know um because that's something you can uh dispute is the counting so you just make sure that you are on top of all that stuff so you don't leave it up to someone that loses concentration for a second 2020 i'm just showing off for Brian. 2020, you took 18th place, and it was virtual. You were a better athlete going into 2021, but you only took 22nd place. Yeah. Is that a kick in the balls?

Go ahead, Brian. Go ahead. The field was significantly better. Don't take the weight off his shoulders, Brian. Thank you, Brian. He got to do it at home. His mom and dad were there. They got to hold his hand.

Tell me about the difference. I mean, there's two questions here. Tell me about the difference, and are you better? Was 2021 Crouch better than 2020 and it's 22 even better because what's basically happening is we're seeing this whole field of youngsters come in i don't know if it was sprague told us or dallin but someone this past weekend says it's here oh i remember but someone said hey it's here the wave that people have thought about and talked about it's like finally here and and i think that you showed that at the torian you're handling your business down there so what's going on with you

in respect to these three years yeah compared to last year um obviously the stress of traveling with covid making the leap from australia as well and not having rob by my side you know like was pretty dull team when we're together um but honestly like it was well technically my first year in person at the games as an individual so it was almost like felt like my rookie year too um so yeah i feel like this year with the uh less stress of all the covid stuff and travel and having my sort so like my normal team by my side, I feel like I'll be able to put the pieces together. What will you change about the travel?

Oh, it was just, you know, less expensive. No, not as hectic with like being new with COVID testing, the quarantine on the way home, just the, and the financial sort of side of it too and when will you come will you come way early uh probably about 10 days and there'll be no jet lag when day one starts because that's brutal yeah it is and and those u those UFC fighters don't get – I know you follow the UFC pretty close too. The UFC fighters don't get much time. They just get like a couple days.

They're crazy. Yeah, they leave it really close. Jay, how many people will come with you for the games this year? My mom, dad, brother, and Rob. So four. Do you have any other athletes, Rob? Wait, not Matt? Nah, Matty's going to look after the dogs and hold down the four this time.

Hey, she's got LCQ. Oh, yeah, that's true. Can't count her out. Oh, that's right. I was pretty impressed with her, actually, at Torian. I think she may have even surprised herself. Yeah, she did, definitely. I'd say that was the best she's ever performed

at that stage. She was solid across the board. Even that last day, like she shouldn't have beaten the two girls, Jamie and Ali in those two events, but she did with a better strategy and just, yeah, she just performed so much better. and i think each day she gained more and more confidence and more and more belief and you could see that out in the floor um so yeah it'll be interesting to see how she goes in lcq um yeah to only miss out by four spots uh sorry four points which is two it had to be two positions because if they were tied, the count back would have gone to Ellie. But it was just one event, a little bit of a mistake, which is the second one, the legless rope climb one. Tia and Maddie lapped the whole field in that heat, so they'd lapped third.

She went a little bit too early on her last rope climb and just missed by like a quarter of inch some millimeters uh so yeah she just needed to take you know 10 seconds before jumping up that's all it was but then the judge made her do 11 rounds so she had to do an extra round but they resolved that and fixed all that issue but she went from a potential second to seventh in that event. But that's all it was. That was literally one mistake. It was a fairly big mistake that affected the end result. It's been pretty crazy. There have been a lot of really, really close competitions.

I don't know if anyone knows this, but everyone knows that Kelly Clark missed by one point this last week. But she was actually, it was a half a second in the legless rope climb workout behind another woman half a second faster and she makes it that's the margin sometimes tell me what tell me what happened again with maddie there she actually she on one of her rope climbs she she missed the top yeah and she got a no rep and if she if she would have actually which which and it was the 10th round yeah it was the 10th round so she got a no rep stood there went back up and then she got to the other end i was trying to yell out saying you're done but her judge is like you're going back so she did an 11th round yeah and she like missed out on that that little bit extra time like

sprinting to the finish line too but she thought that she was uh on her second last round but she was actually done so so they did take off her 11th round but she lost the seconds from sprinting thinking it was her yeah i argued that point that you know if she knew it was her last round she'd sprint to the finish it's not like she would take that long to get across the line but i don't think it affected the result. The next person wasn't close enough for her to drop another position or gain another position. So I think the way they fixed it was fine. It didn't affect the overall result.

It was more just that mistake on that 10th round of just not listening to your body and not, you know, taking that 10 seconds before jumping up because even if she took 20 seconds it might have been a third position instead of the seventh but that's part of learning you got to experience those things to then carry it on to the next competition like it's just a whole process of learning and adjusting but that's why i told her i'm like let's learn from that and carry that over to the next workout or that uh the rest of weekend, the one that you're probably going to have to carry that over to is the strongman Diane with the handstand push-ups.

Run your own race, listen to your body, go when you can go and not fail reps. And she executed that one perfectly. Look, did you see her finishes? Pull that up. Sorry, Caleb, One more time. I wonder if there was any other region, any other semifinal where someone with those finishes didn't qualify. Fifth, seventh, fifth, seventh, fourth, third. Well, it depends on how many qualifying spots there are. It's possible that the person second in Africa has finishes like that, but they finish second.

They just only get one spot. The person second in Africa has finishes like that, but they finish second. They just only get one spot. And likewise, her positions there might be more relative of a fourth or fifth place finisher or maybe even a third place finisher in North America. Yeah, it's crazy. Brian, is this just like screaming at you what you've been saying for the last couple of years when you see someone who performs like Madeline? Yeah, I mean, it's just I don't I don't think I need to say it much anymore. The numbers in the competition speak for themselves. And, you know, Australia used to have five, five spots or Oceania or Pacific, whatever

it was called, used to have five spots to the games. And I understand that they've given some to Asia. And so there's still five, but look at the relative attendance and performance of the athletes from what's now Oceania compared to Asia and tell me that uh that we shouldn't have um at least four spots for both the men and women you know three all three of the I mean two of the three guys that made the uh games from Oceania last year finished in the top uh 20 and um it seems pretty probable like I would bet on all six making it into the top 20 this year, three men and three women.

Rob, how close is Jay to the glass ceiling? Is he going to get better? Are we going to see some really crazy stuff? He surprises me every year. Like through the offseason, I was at a stage where I'm like, all right, let's go. Let's get your ass into gear. We need to kind of get moving.

And then a few weeks later, he's just doing so much better than I thought he would. I'm like, okay, I'll shut up. What he's doing is working. So he doesn't train super high volume. We focus more on intensity and moving well and all those sorts of things and not just trying to absolutely smash it. That works well for him.

Like each year he's just getting stronger and better. You can see it in his results. They're a little bit more consistent. The lifting, like whenever a lifting event would come up, he's like, oh, I've got to try and keep up with the strong boys. So I'm like, you're now a strong boy, so you don't have to try and keep up anymore. So there's a lot of things that he's doing that he hasn't done before.

But our approach this year is going to be a little bit more chill, a little bit more go out there, maximise the points, do your best. It's not go out there and try and win every event because I think it just doesn't work. You put extra pressure on yourself. I tell him, like, if it's there, it's there. If it's not, it's not. You know as soon as you start the event, you're like, okay,

I'm feeling good and I'm up the front. Or you just either maybe it's damage control and you're just trying to maximise the points for each event. That approach is what we had at Torian and his worst finish was a fourth. So it was a lot better like yeah just seeing his improvement in the gym it's crazy it's to pass what i've done by a long shot but i still you know i hear what i hear you guys saying is two things that are you know super super valuable if you're able to do them and and one is that you're able to string

together years of consistency you know and and you see other athletes and some of them are really good and still have good performances like this, but every other year they're missing, you know, a month to three months recovering from some injury. And it's probably from overtraining and just things that stack up over time. And so if you're able to find a balance where you can continuously improve and stay healthy for year after year, those are the type of athletes that are able to make the you know the consistent improvements that that jay is showing that he can do yeah definitely um yeah i think we can we obviously need to and will increase the volume for the games because that's just a different animal um torian there's not much volume at all at the semifinal level.

Like their training day is worse than that. Their second day was complex and then three two-minute intervals. So six minutes of work, four minutes of rest in that workout. And I see these people, what they're eating during those competitions all this sugar and crap to get through a weekend because they need the carbs and energy and i'm like have a look at exactly what you need to get through you don't need to be consuming that crap maybe at the games level we do but not at that stage so like what specifically rob i heard um in uh in the great uh and riveting interview with alex tyson uh rob forte said that he eats uh baby food are you cool with the baby food

nah his mom makes it too yeah it is a good interview by the way i'm just busting your balls about the beginning it is a good interview i listened to the whole thing uh so so so at the were you okay with him doing baby food and then what would be different at the games and what what tell us what the shit is that you saw people eating oh they're just cereal just crap like lollies gatorade just sugar yeah it's pro pro inflammatory is you know you spike your energy and then it drops down like for in my opinion you don't need to when would you use that like the last day of the games when do you use that well there's a lot more volume and it is harder to consume you know good quality foods to get that much uh that amount

of calories in that you do need for that volume but for a semi-final or what torian um required of the athletes you didn't need that you can just do what you would normally do normal day normal training day um and yeah you just you're sitting around most of the day waiting that's why they're getting tired it's not the actual work itself that's the hardest part um jay you know where you're at right there's and there's like i i don't know what the benchmarks are you know for a professional crossfitter but let's say you know how fast you can run a mile you know how much you can clean and jerk you know these metrics and you have an idea of where the guys who just keep rotating at the podium you kind of know their metrics too right uh the fukowskis the pat velners the madaris these these guys who are at the top when you and rob are putting a training plan together do you do you ever look at that

do you ever just like lay out like okay here for instance let's do a mock look at the 2020 games. And this is what Justin Medeiros did. What can we do to make it so that you can beat him in all of these workouts? Is there ever anything that you do, or does it strictly stay in your own game at all times for your training? He doesn't need to beat him on every workout. He just needs one more point at the end of the weekend. Right, right, right. I might not be describing it right, but do you know what I'm saying? What part of it is comparing yourself to the other guys?

Because it sounds like when I hear Rob talk, like Rob just trusts the process, man. Like that there is just a steady climb and it's not pushed too hard. It sounds like maybe even Rob, I'm reading into it, but his biggest concern is he doesn't want to break you or hurt you or burn you out. Yeah. Yeah, no, I do understand what you're saying. I mean, like definitely running my own race and, you know, doing what works best for me.

But I feel like what I learned most last year was that the guys, those top guys, they attack every workout, you know, as if they haven't done anything that day. Like I just noticed like it's almost like they're fresh. They just go in and they send it every workout and do what they got to do. That was the hardest part that I found was, you know, you start feeling sorry for yourself and you're tired. And, yeah, so that's what I feel like I'm going to do um that was the hardest part that i found was you know you start feeling sorry for yourself and you're tired um and yeah so that's what i feel like i'm gonna do this year work on that that's the hardest what does that look like what does that look like when you see

that they look fresh what do you mean uh you know we could be on our like third workout for the day and we got the last one in the coliseum and i'm just like you know oh i gotta go out there and wall walks ready to go and you can see that and they really want it and they're very confident what they're doing um and yeah i just feel like i didn't show that last year seven this is why and i think this is what rob is about to say this is why it's important to have a deep enough test for all the athletes because it's the thing that's tested at the games that separates the best from the rest and it's your ability to endure mentally and physically test after test after test day after day after day it's not six minutes on a Saturday and eight

minutes on a Sunday and 23 minutes on a Friday all All of these guys can do that. And that's why, you know, the preparation has to be different for semifinal than the games, but the best guys at the games recover better and perform better when they rebound better from bad performances physically or mentally. And at 23, what Jay is saying is it's more mental than physical form. Yeah. I'd argue that it's emotional as well emotional managing your emotions and having someone there to pick you back up when you do have those downs which he didn't really have that last year it's kind of on his own and stuck in his own head um so that

that's the part that a lot of people at home miss or don't see at the games is how hard it is physically and mentally and emotionally. Like it is gruelling. It's a tough weekend and you do have to bring a lot of energy to each effort and each event and it's easier said than done. But you do need to have, well, unless you've got a lot of experience you do need to kind of have someone there to to tell you what to do in your warm-up because you don't feel like warming up anymore you don't feel like going out there anymore and it's having someone there to fire you up and get you back into the game and ready for each and every event so So that's an aspect or part that a lot of people don't see

from watching it. And, yeah, an example of that last year is, you know, that thing is like the 500-metre sprint or something. I, like, did terrible and went in after that and I was like, you know, fuck this, I'm over CrossFit. Wow, wow. And then the next workout was the thruster wall walk and that was like in the coliseum i like i was like in a lining i'm ready to go out i'm like oh i don't

i don't want to do this like what am i doing and then i go out there do my thing as my best finish of the weekend you finish and you you go back in your life okay that's what i do this is you know he's like i'm back i like that's what i mean that's so up and down i like them mostly just like what the fuck yeah it's like golf is like that you have like seven bad holes all of a sudden you make a birdie like the best sport ever i i i think i saw twice Tia implement this past weekend. For example, the rope climb. And there was one other one where Brooke got stuck on the ropes. And when she crossed the finish line, Tia didn't even give Brooke a second to like mope.

Like she just grabbed her and hugged her and had a big smile waiting for her. And the camera's catching that. like, like she just grabbed her and hugged her and had a big smile waiting for her and no, and the camera's catching that and no sign that I'm going to reflect or mirror any of your drama. This isn't the time or the place. I just, I thought, wow, that's some world-class like, excuse me, Rob, emotional support, you know, just grabbed her. you know, just grabbed her. Yeah, that stuff's really important. I try to do a conscious effort to do that throughout a weekend when I'm coaching. But when it's time to just chill and, you know,

we sit down and recover between events, it's lighthearted, having general conversations. We're not talking about the workouts. You know, just give them a chance to actually chill out and not be switched on all the time. we're not talking about the workouts you know just give him a chance to actually chill out to not be switched on all the time and then when it's time to focus and you know go out and perform we're talking about the workouts we're getting super focused we're getting fired up i'll tell him specifically this workout you can get fired up you can have a bit of adrenaline this workout

we need a calm approach we're going to go out be a little bit more methodical you know just managing your energy and managing how you actually uh go out on the floor um that's definitely a conscious thing that i'm doing um for him and yeah you see it paying off like i see other athletes just going out there with super high adrenaline, super fired up, and it's a 20-minute workout. I'm like, what are you doing? You're going to burn out in two seconds.

And that's exactly what happens. You can just see it by how they're carrying themselves or the energy that they're carrying. You said that that's one of the things you've been working on is throttling back, not coming out hot. What does that look like? And do you ever feel, is that, um, you know, two minutes in and there's four guys ahead of you. Do you start to panic ever? Like, Oh shit. Oh shit.

They're getting ahead of me. They're picking up the kettlebells. I'm still in the pool bar. Um, yeah, yes and no. Like, again, it depends on the workout, but, uh, uh, again, it depends on the workout. But, yeah, I feel an example of that in the first workout at Torian was, you know, the King Arthur. It was like you go out, muscle up, run, come back and do it the other way. And that's exactly what happened. Like a few guys went away from me and I knew that it wasn't one

in that first part. So, yeah, it definitely depends on the workout. Jay does have good situational awareness so he can see what the other athletes are doing and we'll be able to pick up on where he can improve during a workout or during an event and make those tweaks because that's something we always work on in training that being focused on what you're doing but also picking up on what other athletes are doing so you can make improvements during an event like you might transition slow on something or see

someone's you know finishing a rep ahead of you each round you're like why are they finishing a rep ahead i need to speed up a little bit so having that situational awareness is also important so yeah there's workouts where you kind of need to block all that stuff out and do you but most of them at their level where it's not much the the limiting factor is not muscular endurance they can kind of pick up on little areas or where they can improve. So he does have that, and he does do it, even though he probably doesn't think he does. But, yeah, he does.

The crowd at Torian. Nuts, right? Crazy. It was a cool event, yeah. Triple decker, all right? Crazy. It was a cool event. Yeah. Triple Decker, all filled. Yeah. Flames and flames, confetti.

All this shit. It was, it was really cool. The commentating was great. Got pit Malone. I don't know who the dude was, but when we watched from home, it was great. Yeah. Yeah. He was, they were smooth.

Yeah. It felt like you were in the living room with your friends. Yeah, it was great to watch. I could only imagine. Was it deafening in there, like when they would scream, like the games? Oh, it was definitely loud, that's for sure. That's for sure. Like the one year I was at Madison or two years, I can't remember, but I was inside that Coliseum.

And at some point it would get so loud, like it hurt. Yeah, I think. You're just sensitive. I'm so old. 5,000 people. There were 5,000 people in there? Yeah. Yeah, 5,000 or 6,000, something like that, yeah.

In that interview with them alex you said that you give a lot of that credit to tia i didn't even think of that is that what's going on there is there some great australian hype around her i mean there should be yeah definitely like she she's a like superstar i suppose in the space now but um yeah definitely that was a big factor and i think that all the covid um restrictions here all eased now so people aren't scared to travel and, yeah, it was crazy. Well, in terms of that crowd, during the last heat and the women's event on that interval one,

there was an air horn that needed to go off. You couldn't hear the air horn. You couldn't hear it. In the first round, there was women still going after the round had finished because the judges didn't hear it, the athletes didn't hear it. Awesome. It was really loud. I love it.

I love it. That's a good kind of air. I like those kind of airs. That's awesome. Do you think that gives you an advantage at the games? Was there anything you needed to do to adapt to that, to all of that noise, all of that crowd? Or can any athlete just start feeding off of that?

Is it easy? Yeah, I think, yeah, everyone definitely feeds off it. So, yeah, same as what I was talking about before or some events, I'm like, you know, take it all in. Use the energy from the crowd, especially for that complex. Like if you need it, get the crowd to you up and um hit that first lift because they they warm up they stand around for 15 20 minutes then they got to go out and they've only got three attempts so to get the crowd behind you to g you up makes the weight feel a lot lighter so you

definitely use it when you can um rob do you believe in jay more than ever can you see him winning the crossfit games one year yeah i definitely think think he has all the the physical tools and the mental tools to do it um yeah there's no reason why i couldn't he's got you know he's really good at um sprinting lifting all those things and he's also really good at the endurance side of things. For me personally, it was just longer stuff and I had to work super hard on the other end. I find it's rare to find athletes with both ends of that spectrum and it's just going to take a little bit more, you know, experience and a little bit more hunger, a little bit more belief

because then that will carry over into that next training season um because it's the training that does it it's not showing up on the weekend and doing it it's you know the things i'm telling him you kind of need to experience it to for it to fully sink in on how to do things or why you should be uh doing certain things in training like they're just words sometimes to to the athlete when they make that mistake and actually experience it then it actually sinks in and then they're motivated to make those changes and do it so a little bit more more lessons a bit more experience yeah he'll definitely definitely uh be shaking shaking shaking up towards the top. We talked about this before.

That first Instagram post on your Instagram account, Mr. J. Crouch, is with you and Rob Forte and Chad McKay. It's a great picture. It's cool. I'm guessing at some point you had the dream to go to the CrossFit Games, and I'm guessing it didn't take long for that dream to get replaced with winning them. Is that true?

Yeah. No, definitely. Definitely. What do your parents say? What kind of feedback are you getting from your friends and family after winning the Tourian? Yeah. My family loves it.

They've been doing it pretty much the whole time that i have as well so um yeah they feed off it they love it they want to know everything that's going on and uh yeah very very supportive is it a different is it a different feeling or confidence or anything you know last week last year you were within one point of winning and it's like you know whatever i made the games i was right there with the best guys this year you won it you beat every single guy does that how much of an effect does that have on the next you know six weeks leading into the big show yeah oh no it was awesome to uh to win it after last year losing by one point um and yeah it does give me heaps of confidence like i was

saying to rob after like i feel like yeah i'm getting at that point now, that next step, you know, that next level. So, yeah, the confidence in my training as well is going to be a big thing. And I'm just excited. And I'm excited to have Rob by my side this year and put all the pieces of the puzzle together and get a good finish. Yeah, I mean, I think it's's pretty valuable resource to have someone like that i've been doing a little bit of uh of tracking some athletes this year rob because a lot of the athletes that you kind of

came up in the sport with in the early 2010 to 15 range a lot of them have like retired or semi retired this year but a lot of them are also still really good and they've managed to put together you know whether it's in the elite division or some of them in also still really good and they've managed to put together you know whether it's in the elite division or some of them in the master's division now a decade of pretty consistent fitness and you know your fitness doesn't seem to have dipped off too much even though some of your focuses have uh and i just don't think that many you know young athletes have access to someone with this experience you have in terms of of doing that over a long period of time yeah and i keep a

close eye on what the current athletes are doing as well and can kind of pick up on little finer details um just from doing it for so long you like you there's a lot of things that people would miss that you know i can kind of pick up on and carry or just talk about with jay Jay and trying to get him, you know, squared away on some ideas. But, yeah, I'm still training as normal but a little less volume nowadays. Just workload is a lot higher so I don't have as much time to dedicate towards training but I still think it's important for me. I'm a competitive person. I kind of need that competitive outlet whether it's just for me. Like I'm a competitive person. I want that.

I kind of need that competitive outlet, whether it's just day-to-day training. Still do the Open every quarterfinals. But then that's it. Like the quarterfinals for me is normally my CrossFit Games. And the age group, I wasn't really interested in doing it. There was an opportunity to go away for a weekend. So I did that instead. I love it.

A little balance. Jay, is it, is it, do you, have you, I, last time I talked to you that you, you and Ricky hadn't spoken much. You guys weren't friends. Did that change over the weekend at all? Yeah, definitely. Oh, that makes me so happy to hear that tell me about that because here's what i'm thinking i'm thinking it's good it's good

to have a homeboy like that like someone who there's a lot of energy around him he's fierce you know he's not fucking around i just think it's good i think that you guys could get some good synergy and and baden brown's a good dude too it seems like it's like a like a um almost like a senior you know what i mean like a guy who's got kids and who could help everyone keep their head on straight but can you tell me about your relationship with ricky like how it developed over the weekend yeah no it's cool like you know nothing nothing against him at all i didn't do anything to me so um yeah it was awesome to yeah hang out with them boys. Like all Aussie boys are awesome. Like everyone's good mates.

So we get along with everyone. But, yeah, it was cool. It was cool to see how he went about it. And him and his brother seemed like they got a good thing going. And you competed with Benny, right, Rob? Yeah. Yeah, I competed with both of them over the years. I think Ricky did the 2016 and 17 regionals and obviously the 17 games.

And then Ben was a few years during those few years as well, like a little bit early on, I think 14, 15, 16, thereabouts. So, yeah, I've competed with both of them. We've gone on Reebok sites together. So I know them a lot better than Jay. Jay actually hadn't met either of them in person. But, yeah, like Jay said, everyone's pretty cool, warm-up areas. It's a bit of shit-talking, a bit of banty-eye around.

Yeah, everyone wasn't taking it too seriously which that's what i purposely said to him let's not have that serious approach because you just you know if you get too competitive in that setting just in the warm-up area you're kind of just wasting your energy and and i said it's actually going to fuel athletes so we don't want to we don't want to fuel athletes we don't want to give them motivation to beat you you can just go and do that out on the floor is there is going back to making a plan is there is there a plan um like this year make the podium or this year get top 10 or this year get top 15 or is it is it and why make those plans why not just always just do the best you can what are your thoughts going to the crossfit games going to

madison this year yeah like um i feel like there's always you know a number that you want in the back of your mind um but yeah again like just going offi, you know, we just need to take it one event at a time, run our own race, come up with our own plans and then I suppose you are where you are at the end of the weekend. But, yeah. Yeah, you can have these numbers and stuff in your head or whatever, but you literally cannot control what the other competitors do. So you don't, it's something you're focusing on that you

have no control over except for your effort and your preparation what you do how you execute all those things that's the main focus it's not i i do keep an eye out on what other guys are doing and i was especially doing that for Maddie and the other girls because I knew the girls she needed to beat and I knew, I guess, their strengths and their weaknesses, her strengths and her weaknesses compared to those. So I know, like, going into Tori, we can be a little bit more strategic because of who she's competing against or who she's fighting

against for the top spot. So we can tweak her training accordingly to bridge that gap between her strengths, their strengths and her weaknesses and vice versa, try and increase her strengths compared to one of their weaknesses and nearly paid off. But at the Games, everyone's pretty good at everything and it's a little bit harder to do that. But, yeah, we can chase numbers knowing what the top guys are doing

and try and do that in the training as well. I would think being in the Torium Pro that as a woman, I mean, just the headspace you need I mean it's just brutal right you know Tia's there it's like shit Jamie Simmons is there Ellie's there and Maddie's been to the game four times right yeah

yeah it's crazy would you say that she what is her mindset like going in there? Does she really want to win? Does she believe she can win, she can beat these girls? I mean, her stature is small, right? She's smaller than these ladies. Yeah, she's small.

Yeah, her going in, she was not sure, which I think was almost better for her. She kind of took the pressure off because she wasn't expecting to do super well. I know for sure she did a lot better than she expected. So she didn't go in there expecting to win. She didn't really – I don't think she expected to be as close as she was. But every – She was kind of the only thing that kept the females interesting, to be honest. She was the only – I mean, she was the – I mean, for me.

Jamie was in third place for a while. Yeah, they kept swapping spots, like Allie, Jamie, Maddie, and I think Bailey Rogers as well. So there was a few of them swapping around, which made that third spot interesting. Obviously, Tia and Cara are both hard to beat. So it was between those girls who's going to get that third spot interesting obviously tia and cara both hard to beat so it was between those girls who's going to get that third spot and you know every after every event i'm like maddie you you deserve to be there you're still there you're still in the fight every event

i'd say look end of day two you're still there you deserve to be there like just just kept reinforcing that um yeah i think after torian that's gonna be like motivate her a little bit more in her training get that belief and work a little bit harder um do the things that she needs to do be motivated to do that stuff and um also does rob have a neck yes it's here no no don't listen to him rob doesn't know what a neck is he hasn't seen his neck since he's in 14. thank you for asking a pretty big trap one piece of mess i lost lost my train of thought well how we're talking about maddie and whether and how hard it is to be in that region. What about you, Jay? Is it hard going home?

Like what's the emotion like? You made it. And are you like, hey, don't come home tonight? Or are you more thoughtful and caring than that? Yeah, I suppose, yeah, we both support each other, which is really good. And we sort of put that aside and I sort of let Rob fill that role, obviously. Like it's not for me to say after, you know, like a debrief, all that sort of stuff.

So I feel like, yeah, we're really good at just sort of, yeah, separating that. Yeah, I askay some questions sometimes about maddie's training but it's like yeah do you guys live together jay you and maddie yeah yeah yeah that's intense are you guys on the same training schedule yeah oh see look at there's the poll does rob have a neck okay look at the votes pouring in uh please vote now uh don't don't try to like be nice just be honest honest everyone wants honesty but seven it's kind of crazy um this is the third time that either uh someone who's uh done really

really well at their semi-final has had a brother or a significant other that's been in the next spot out. Happened to the Jukic brothers. It happened to, obviously, Jay and Maddie. And then it just happened this past weekend with Bailey Rayl and Tyler Christoffel. Oh, yeah. And it's just one of those things where you're, like, so happy because you've seen the year's work pay off. And at the same time, you're heartbroken for the person that you love that's just barely missed out did you see what happened to Tyler

Christofal Jay? yeah I did I was feeling it's basically what happened to Matt McCloud on Strongman's Diane it was just that timing that when it happened is the worst possible time it wasn't like he had like a fail

it was fucking just just fucking nose dived into the ground and imploded i mean i think he dropped the bar at least twice right and the last time was just a mental error um what's an athlete thinking when that happens is any part of you just want to run out of the stadium yeah like climb into bed and pull the covers over your head? We spoke about this yesterday. It's like almost I feel like you're so close, and it just probably turns into panic, and you stop thinking. Yeah. I've had it happen to me at regionals before.

Did it happen to you or something like that, Rob? Like a horror movie like that? I was in first from day one all the way through to the final event. I think it was 2015. And it was 18 or it was maybe 15 ring muscle-ups, and then it was a squat clean ladder, like the weights increased over five bars. I got a no rep on my muscle-ups, you know, freaked out.

I didn't really freak out. I just got pissed off at the judge. Little argument. Jumped back up, did my last rep rep i should have just stayed up there and kept going try to rush through the bars got spat out the back of the second bar and then i that's when i told myself settle the fuck down and just finish the event where i got caught up in the hype of you know ben and khan and all those guys there There was a few of them, I think Kevin Manuel, they all needed to literally win that event to qualify for the Games. I could see them all getting G'd up when we all lined up, and I'm like, yeah, let's fucking go.

I got caught up in it too, but I didn't need to do that. And I came second. Khan did really well in that workout. I got like 26th or something. Just shit the bed, and I got second overall, and I hated that second place medal. And for two weeks, I was playing that workout through my head, just so pissed off at myself.

Wow. This is where, like, the genius of programming comes in because you can look at at least three workout three final workouts so far this year and i might be forgetting some of them but you have the the squat snatches at the end of the syndicate workout and some of those guys you could tell like they should hit that that weight routinely but it was just nice caleb you know but it demands a lot of execution at the end of the workout you had the overhead squats in the lowlands, and you saw some guys, like the guys that made it to the games were the guys that composed themselves and hit a set of 10. And the guys that missed out were the guys that panicked

or didn't have the ability to do it at the end of the weekend. And then the overhead lunge, another very demanding position. And what I just think about is the difference between the guys that just missed it. And then I watched Jason Hopper, another young guy, and it wasn't until he hit his last squat snatch stood it up looked at his judge confirmed that it was a good rep that he smiled he dropped the bar and he knew that the job was done yeah yeah i i totally agree like there's people in positions where they need to risk it all and then there's yeah if you're towards the top with a bit of a buffer you don't need to get caught up in that but you also you still need to go otherwise you will there's that fine balance because that's why the the previous years i kind of cruised through the the previous year i remember

it was me and brandon really close uh and i kind of cruised through the last event and he nearly beat me so then this next year i had the opposite approach like i'm gonna go out hot and then turned out a lot worse and then the third year i learned my lesson and kind of found that middle ground um so yeah i think little little things like that through my experience i can pass on to him and keep him a little bit more cool-headed and focused. Like I'd say that last event at Torian was similar. Like if you're in a bit of a panic and trip up on your double-unders, that's it.

You're pretty much done because it was a 1K row, 100 double-unders, 10 deadlifts. There's no real room for error. Everyone can – everyone's going to come off the row similar. If you trip on those double-unders, lose a bit of focus, you're going to come off the row similar, if you trip on those double unders, lose a bit of focus you're going to lose positions I think Roy's tripped two or three

times on his double unders on that event, that was his worst finish You finished in Australia, Jay you finished last year, you won the Open Yeah last year I won the Open. Yeah. Last year I won the Open and the Quarters

and then lost by one point. He was calling. He was going to do the clean sweep. Oh, no. Sorry. You won in 2022. Is that what you're saying? No.

We talked about this year. This year I won the Open and I come second in quarters. Oh, okay. Okay. One point as well. One point to Ricky and then, yeah, first. Is that important to you to win the Open? No, but I just put my best effort into every workout that i do we we were doing it you do a

full week of training and he's doing it on friday um so it was with you know it get released midday here and you do it friday evening with with the rest of the gym so it wasn't like we're prioritizing it but yeah he he just kills that stuff but it was really well really well in those open style workouts um in an am rap 20 minute 15 minute am rap could just go all day that work capacity is really good just when it's basic stuff it's got that ability to just start fast and hold it the whole time. Do you have any other dudes who are like your main training partners? We got the affiliate team. They're all pretty good.

They any good? They going to the games? No, no. That doesn't mean they're not good. Come on on they suck no the top teams over there are actually pretty good yeah no it's more um just yeah having the people who are keen to do all the work with me um and that are a good a good vibe but uh yeah it's mainly rob it's kind of like you and uh i'm maddie of like you and Maddie versus Justin and Ellie.

Yeah, it's looking like that, isn't it? I was trying to – It's how rumors start. It's how rumors start. Sorry, I had a little bit. Hey, did that guy who's in the room with you when we started the show, did he ask what's he yelling about like I was yelling? I don't know.

He was just he was just laughing at your uh comparison then oh good all right i'm trying to let that slide but it just keeps popping up my head that he thinks i'm yelling start yelling i am not on trt i'm not i'm not on trt no but but but we're gonna have a ton of guests who are. Oh, my God. I have some exciting stuff to tell you guys. When Alex Tyson, is that his name, from the Find Me, Find Space podcast? Yeah. Found Space. Found Space.

Finding Space. Caleb, pull it up. It's Finding Space. I'm going to put $5 against Rob and Jay that it's Finding Space. Found Space is the company, but I think it's probably called Finding Space. The podcast. Okay. And he says to you, how's the camaraderie with the men?

No, he says, how's the camaraderie at the – Can we do that again? We're both right. We're both right. We're both right. He says, he says, how's the camaraderie? And you say with the men, it's great. Yeah. I get a little light bulb in my head.

How about with the women? Women. How is it with the women? Yeah, it's good. it's good as well. Hey, it's like that at the games too. It's like that at the games too. It's like, do the men even know that? Like when you guys are all corralled and you're looking at the women,

are you laughing at them? Like, God, you catty bitches. Damn. Can't you guys just get along? Yeah. It's definitely quieter in the warm-up area yeah with the women it was it was still pretty it was fine it was no bitchiness i didn't see any that torrent comparison to women and men just the guys would just you know there's more banter and joking around and stuff.

There's a bit more of that. A lot of shit talking. Like Newbury had his crop top on in the warm-up area, and his coach comes up to me and goes, go up to Newbury and tell him what the fuck are you wearing. I just want to see his reaction. I'm like, okay, I'll go and do it. I noticed the crop top.

Is he going there to win? No, no, he hardly trained. He was scared of some of the workouts, how sore he was going to be the next day. I was chatting to him. He did really well. I'm just going to pace the shit out of it. And he actually did pretty well in the workouts. But you could tell in some of the events the lack of training.

It sort of showed through. He did a triathlon or something, right, recently? Yeah, he's been doing a lot of triathlon training. But I know he's focused a lot on the business side of things and trying to put training off to the side a little bit have you guys met rob whittaker yes you did oh i asked you that jay last time wow you could be like his stunt double almost rob or rob yeah where'd you meet him so he uh he was a reebok athlete so we went to reebok summit in bali together and we did a couple

of things that some fitness shows he's a cool dude um loves i remember him saying he loves to just sit in his hotel room, play video games when he's not training. Like, yeah, he's a good dude. He's a fun dude. I thought it was interesting. He was, like, scared of weird stuff, like things in the dark. He said a couple of remarks. I'm like, you're one of the best fighters in the world, baddest dudes, and you're one of the the best fighters in the world baddest dudes and

you're scared of that shit hey he he he might be i mean if israel wasn't around he might be the greatest 185 pound fighter it's really a shame because he i mean what he did to yoel romero no other man was ever is not even israel was going do that. No one was ever going to do that. Don't you agree? 100%. He's so good to watch. I watched him fight in person a couple of times. Just his intensity, it's really entertaining, good to watch.

First one, I was in Melbourne. It was the Ronda Rousey fight where she got knocked out. The crowd was just crazy. I think it was over 50,000 people or something like that. And his foot stomps and just his intensity during that fight, it was really good to watch. That's what made me a fan of him from day one. Just every flight's awesome to watch.

He's always working hard and his intensity is really high his video game shit is weird whenever you see him on those behind the scenes he's always playing video games i'm always like what is going on yeah were you gonna say something brian sorry oh uh not not about that not about rob whittaker. And how about Volkanovski? Have you met him? No. We've hung out with Jimmy Crute.

Oh, yeah. With the Reebok Summits. Yeah, he's really cool too. We had a wrestle with him too. It was three on one. Wrestling on the beach. It was me, Jay, and Zeke versus Jimmy. I was too scared.

I just kept running. Yeah, that's smart. Don't mess around with that, dude. Took me down once. Once. Did you wrestle in high school, Rob? No, I wrestled in my lounge room with my brother and my mom, my dad, whatever I could get my hands on, really.

Jay, when you text me, what were you thinking? You know, just drunk or what? You just think you're drunk. Text me. No, Rob messaged me as well. He's like, we should go have a good chat with Savannah. Awesome. Made it happen.

I'm trying to be on my best behavior. I watched a little bit of the last podcast that you were on and I was quite cantankerous. I was like, okay, I need to chill out this time. You went off on some tangents that time. I did. I did. I mean, I'm trying to be real. I'm trying to be really good to my, uh, my brethren in Australia. And I'm excited to see you compete i think you are um i think you're a much needed uh prospect coming out of australia how how is your health

yeah no pretty well you've been doing this since you've been 13. i got little niggles on me elbow and stuff, but we'll be good to go. Just like tennis elbow, that kind of stuff, or something serious, like it's going to snap backwards like Brooks? No, not me. Probably playing too much disc golf. Do you do disc golf, Jay? No, it looks pretty fun.

I've seen a video you put up the other day, Brian. It looked good. I'll come play some disc golf with you when I come over. Has it got anything to do with normal golf? Oh, I'm terrible at normal golf. No, it's like frisbee, isn't it? We're not allowed to say that word, by the way, in the United States. Yeah, that's just like another word for like a small little injury we we have rule we have rules we're burning books in my country hey if we go to the leaderboard for this 22 crossfit games

has it populated yet no you can't even choose it oh maybe you can't i think it i think there was one oh yeah okay here it's Okay. It is populating. Wow. Brian, have you had a chance to look? Do you think Jay Crouch will be in the top 20 this year at the end of the week? I do. Do you think he'll be in the top? That's the only question I'm going to answer.

15. Damn. I want to take that one back. Do you think he'll be in the top? That's the only question I'm going to answer. 15. Damn, I want to take that one back. Do you think he'll be in the top 15? Let's see. I mean, I'll put my rankings out 1 through 40 once the field is set and, you know, a day or two before the games. And we'll do a show on it, I'm sure.

But go ahead. Well, I'm just looking. Like, as I look at this, I see the other young guns who are coming. Like, what did you think of this Tudor Magda kid, Jay? Yeah, impressive as well. He's pretty savage, right? Look, the games field is going to be brutal. It always is.

It's full of good guys. But you see a lot of people that you think are good, and they're finishing 25 and below because there's all these intangible things that Rob and Jay have been talking about throughout the show that you can't. It's very, very rare to find someone who gets there year one or even year two and is able to manage the stress, the emotions, the different times that you have to work out, the recovery between them, the unfortunate things that happen. There's tons of little things like that. The preparation before it.

How early do you get there? Where are you staying? Are you eating correctly? And you learn those things over time. Jay's has an advantage in this sense that he's been doing it for a while already at a fairly young age, and like we talked about, he has someone like Rob in his corner, which is a huge advantage. Huge. Do you think he's going to finish higher than Jason Hopper?

Rob, something I've been wondering about, and actually either of you guys can answer this question. How big of an advantage do you think it is to go in week one for the semifinals? Big advantage. Yeah, it's a pretty decent advantage because you can have that week off, get stuck into game training a little

bit earlier. And for us, just sorting accommodation, flights flights all of those things that makes it easier as well because the later we leave it the less availability there is and more the cost of it goes up as well um just you know i looked at flights coming out when we booked a accommodation together and looked at flights. The internal flight from LA to Madison was more expensive than from Melbourne to LA or from Australia to LA and back.

So just sorting out all those things, the financial side and squaring all that stuff away, it makes it easier to have that time and maybe do a fundraising event or things like that. In terms of the actual physical side, I don't know. It is what it is. I don't really think too much about that stuff personally. Yeah, I guess it was kind of an unfair question because i could have just asked if it was an advantage or not some people might say that you know if you if you have too long of a period of time to prepare for the games that you could overdo it yeah yeah i think

just i said to him we'll just get back into a structure after a week and kind of, you know, just business as usual, not build it up too much as this great thing. Or, again, we don't want to break him before we even get there. You know, we can slowly increase the volume over that period of time. So I guess having more time to do that is an advantage. And I guess the athletes in the LCQ, the maddie it's an advantage because she has a little bit more time to get back into training prepare those in week four do not have to turn around pretty quickly yeah that's it i mean it's just you know and it's one thing you guys are in a

a continent where there's only one semi-final but i like i look at europe and it's a 50 50 draw you either get week one or week four. That's a huge difference. Yeah. I actually thought it would be week two because last year, well, week one, week one. But we're week one again. I thought it would rotate, to be fair, but it didn't rotate.

Let me tell you some of the people you're going to beat. You're going to beat Will Morad, Cole Grieshaber, Moritz Fabig, Oldus Ubenix, Enrico Zanoni, sorry, Baden. Baden Brown, Cole Sager,

Keelan Henry, Spencer Pancik. So that's eight dudes right there that are on the list. And we don't even have all the dudes on here. Sorry, guys. Sorry, guys. If I said your name, I'm sorry. You can come over to my house for dinner. Yeah, we're just looking at that list before.

How did Will Morad get in there? Isn't he a senior citizen? Oh, no, he's only 33 holy cow well uh who who who's the next guy coming up are there any other dudes in um australia where you're like oh this is the next guy oh here we go look at we got another poll thanks to caleb does jay crouch beat jason hopper 74 and you're in hop%. And you're in Hopper country. You're in Hopper country. This is blasphemy.

You're in Hopper country. Let's put up a Colton Mertens. Who wins, Colton Mertens or Jay Crouch? God, I hope Colton goes to the game. Jay, you got no chance. Everyone in this chat loves Colton Mertens. Yeah, up and coming, you know, youin he had a he had a real good showing uh i think he had i think the last day just didn't really go his way um yeah but he was uh definitely a standout this year i'm going over there like okay so there's there's there's a lot

of good guys is crossfit still growing in australia you think we're going to see stronger and stronger guys and girls coming out of there yeah yeah there's definitely yeah that younger field like you guys said it's it's almost here for sure you can tell everyone is excited about the competitions again and coming out of you know covid lockdowns all of that the vibe and the aftertorium, there's another event that's just come out back, which is down under CrossFit Championships. Everyone's excited to be doing that. You know, I think the competition scene has got back to where it was pre-COVID and everyone's excited.

So I think just that alone, you'll see more and more young athletes hungry to be on those stages at Torian and Down Under and those sorts of events. How did you survive? How did your affiliates survive, Rob, two years of that? Just hiring out equipment and doing online stuff as best as we could. That was the main thing that the hard part was yeah just keeping people motivated and keeping those numbers enough

to keep our staff employed too like it was it was really hard last year was the hardest because there was less support from the government and in the way of grants and stuff like that. But we got through. Scary? Yeah, it was scary when it first came out. That's when all this CrossFit training and what I've done at the Games has helped me. CrossFit does prepare you for life. There's that worry, there's that doubt, which always shows up,

but it's like it's another challenge i'll just take it as it comes that was my approach it's like it is scary it's unknown don't know what's coming but i'm confident i can handle whatever comes my way and that was kind of my approach just take it day by day week by week and be resourceful, do the best I can to serve our member base and not just give up and give up on them because I know they needed it as well. But, yeah, it was definitely hard. Did learn a lot. All that emotional side that I was talking about,

I learned a lot through COVID. And it definitely helps with me helping an athlete like Jay because, you know, there's worry, there's doubt, there's all that crap that you make up in your head that gets in the way, like we're getting in our own way a lot of the time, and there was a lot of that for everybody through that period. How about having an athlete like jay in your gym is that is that a blessing or is it a curse does it take away from like your ability to work with the affiliate work with the the layman the common man someone like wiki uh it's good like everyone gets excited about that

um yeah it's good it invigorates it invigorates the good yeah people like he trains in the class with people that's something people probably don't know about how we run it it's he's doing the same similar stuff to what everybody else is doing so he jumps into the 410 class every day and he's training alongside our gym members and then we've got another space next door where he does the rest of his training but uh part a and b is done with everybody else inside of the gym and then the rest of his training is done with a smaller group of athletes like he said our affiliate team um i haven't been able to jump into that stuff as much but maddie's in there you know he he's part of the gym part of the community so is maddie and we try and encourage them to to be involved as well um as much as possible it is hard sometimes when you're super

focused on what you're doing and it can kind of come across like a little bit of arrogance or you know they're not taking other people into consideration. But like when you walk in the gym with your J first shirt, it's a little weird. So there's that part. And I understand people will take it that way. But that's just part of it. Like, I'm not going to push them out because of it. You know, you're always going to have people, you know, perceiving things in a certain way or complaining about something like you can't do anything about that

it's not all peace and love in australia like it is what okay the fuck are you guys get the fuck out of here my show doctor up those numbers caleb doctor um jay does any part of you um have uh like you feel like you're missing out when you see these athletes traveling around the united states and you know you see they go to the froning camp someone dips in and trains with adam and uh um justin and then they go up and see matt or they're down you got this crew matt torres down in florida and just james sprague looks so fun to train with and you're with Mr. Personality here

Rob Forte is any part of you ever just like oh shit how come I can't like why does my country have to be like an island over here and do you have any plans do you have any plans to come and do any of that rent a VW bus and tour the gyms in the country or is it like

fuck you look it we got Cara and Tia eat a dick yeah no like oh the training side of things definitely not not a problem at all you know it's been uh pretty dialed in since i first joined up here um but i'd say obviously the opportunity with um sponsors all that sort of side of thing is a big difference. And I suppose if the opportunity come up, you know, maybe look at that in the future. You're not curious, like just what's going on in that barn at Mayhem, like you and Rob just want to go over there maybe for a week or two, see like. Yeah, I mean, it'd be cool to do something that would be open to do for sure but but but you're not jonesing for it if you if you're you love where you're at you you're getting

it yeah for sure yeah it's cool it's cool has anyone from the states come and train with you has anyone from or from around the world come and train with you not even just the states people yeah for caskey's being here um who else is that oh yeah i think so castro's been in my gym i'm sorry he's not that great but uh i wonder if that's gonna i wonder if that's gonna happen more and more i mean it really is far We're really far from you. Yeah. Or you're really far from us. Yeah.

Yeah. I was listening to the last show, and Brian was talking on the show about all the clean air you have there versus here. So, shit, maybe you have an advantage there. Well, yeah. It's just turned winter, so you might not want to come here yeah that's the best part about going to the games you miss out a few weeks back at home get some summer will it change your plans if you win versus if you um don't win i mean depending on when or depending on how well you do how long you stay in the states

or is it like finish the games and go home or do you stick around the plan is yeah finish and come home and uh I mean I'd like to stay longer but we'll see UFC 275 my buddy Jack Dela Madalena is fighting. Have you guys met him yet? No. You know who he is, though, right? He's one of you. Yeah.

He's one of you. Oh, I'm so excited. He's been on the show a couple times. I can't wait to see him fight. That's on June 11th, 7 p.m. Is that Iskall? Say that again? Israel Adesanya Scott?m. Is that Iskai? Say that again? Israel out of Sanyiska?

No. You know what's funny is I did think that was Israel's car, but it's not. It's Glover and Yuri Projatska. Okay. Who do you think is going to win that? I mean, Yuri's a freak. Yeah, I think Yuri's going to be pretty impressive that one.

He better hope it doesn't go to the ground. Yeah, sure. The stand-up's crazy. Yeah, the stand-up is crazy. Well, thank you for coming on. I think we did a pretty good job. Ryan, is there

anything you'd like to finish with? Tell us what place he's going to take at the Games. Not yet. I'll wait to see the rest of the field rounded out. But, you know, it was super fun watching you compete out there. I think just in general, the fitness level in Australia and New Zealand is very high and very competitive. And to, you know, continuously come through out of that region is nothing to scoff at.

And I think, you know, you're on track to have pretty good games this year, hopefully. So I'm excited to see what you can do. Top 15, is that what you said, Brian? I'm sorry. Are you doing your show live at Madison, Sivan? I have no idea. Everything is just kind of like... Madison, I thought it looked good on you. I'm sorry? Oh, yeah. Thank you.

I don't think I think maybe I'll just sit here in my in my little office. But who knows? Little office six months ago, you're calling it a palatial estate. It is. I'm trying to be humble. I'm trying to be I'm turned a new leaf. Okay.

Thanks, guys, for coming on. Uh, Mr. Uh, C Beaver. Thank you, Brian. You're the man.