The Sevan Podcast - #66 - Colten Mertens

Episode Date: July 7, 2021

The Sevan Podcast EP 66 - Colten Mertens & Brian Friend @colten_mertens @sevanmatossian @brianfriendcrossfit The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Yeah, like I'm putting my belt on right now. Like Colton's on and I'm putting my belt on. For weightlifting? No, no, no, no.

Like so your pants don't fall down. I think he was doing something suspicious beforehand. Something below the camera. Colton, thanks for coming on, man. Yeah, absolutely. What time is it where you're at? Nine o'clock. Oh, that is a decent time.

It's 7 a.m. here. I'm in California, but I get up at 6 to start drinking coffee and make sure I'm not dead when you come on. Yeah. Yeah, I usually get up. I'm having iced coffee this morning. Oh, yeah? I just got some water and some chocolate milk over here.

Your schedule is insane. Do you know your schedule is insane, Colton? Yeah. Perfect. Perfect answer. So you don't know in St. Colton? Yeah. Perfect. Perfect answer. So you don't know or you do know? Yeah, I know. It was definitely a big consideration when I started training more with how I was going to work out with coming back home to the farm after I graduated last year. But, I mean, I did a little bit of that when I was still in school.

I come home for the summer and for Christmas break and whatnot. So I got a little bit of a taste of it, but I really ramped up my training and everything. And it was definitely a hard learning curve trying to figure out how to get it all to work and kind of how to keep my body together and keep my energy high for training with all the form work that I had to do and get just a big adjustment. But I've got it pretty well figured out now. You don't have it figured out. What are you talking about?

It must freak you out when you hear all these athletes talking about the most important piece is sleep. You do not sleep, my friend. I sleep pretty well most of the time yeah well there's a few times a week i had to get up pretty early at the farm um like we had to load pigs or something like that i'll be up at four but other than that like i sleep pretty well i i keep a pretty tight schedule you know it's one thing after another i don't have i don't do a lot. I don't waste much time.

I get down to the farm. I usually drink some carbs, eat a banana or something. Then I get right into training. Right from there, get done with training, eat, recovery, work, and bed. He just kind of slipped that in there. Hear that, Ryan? Load pigs. When you say load pigs, is that code for something?

It's not real pigs, is it? Yeah, it's real pigs. We have pigs in our farm. But before we go too much further, I want to point out something crazy, and I don't mean to steal Brian's thunder because this is really Brian's domain here. But you had two first, your finishes at the semifinals, you had two first place finishes, a third place finish and a third place finish. And I think the only other people who can say that in all of the semifinals that they performed as well as you is Cole Sager, who took first place, and Jason Hopper, who took first place. But yet you have a fifth-place finish because you have an 18th and a 12th.

But look at Saxon. Does he hit a 20th? He's a goal left. In the snatch. Ah. Okay. And what we're seeing here is there's no one else who qualified like you. It is, on one hand, it's indicative of someone who has the chance to win the games someday.

And on the other hand, it's also indicative of someone who has massive holes in their game. But either way, you're going to cause problems at the games um which is yeah well which is interesting and you and you see that you see that you know with some people who just show up at the games josh bridges cody anderson i'm sure brian can say more guys who show up at the games where it's like oh shit this guy's only going to finish 10 through 12 with the games but there's events he's going to be winning and just shaking up the leaderboard. Yeah, I think part of that is just... I just found your finishes fascinating. Yeah, well, going in, I knew that snatch was going to be a tough event for me.

I've really only been doing this for a few years, and I feel like one of the things That takes the longest to Kind of get to that elite level Is maybe the Olympic lifts For me it has been at least And it's just going to take more time For me to get my snatch numbers up there

And that's probably my weakest lift So that was a little bit unfortunate But I mean it's going to come up You have to train it and get better at it Just happened to be that one That was the one they chose for the max lift there. And so that was that. Then I took 18th in the wall ball workout.

Obviously, wall balls are pretty tough for me. But I've gotten a lot better at them lately. I think a year ago, I probably would have been bottom five in that event or maybe close to last. But definitely, I'm getting a lot better. It's just going to take some more time to clean up those weaknesses and fill in a lot of those holes but i think i've got a really good base capacity and fitness and uh you know i don't need a lot to hit one out of the park i just need a couple movements that are near my wheelhouse and i can send it and really do a lot of damage

on those ones now that that wall ball workout was a 30 pound wall ball i think there were 99 reps of it or something in the workout which was a lot but i was on the sideline for that one and i was kind of shocked because after the first round of the workout you and scott tetlow were in first and second place and i was like it's pretty like it's difficult it's usually it's unusual for the shortest athlete to win a heavy wall ball workout like that and i was like man either these guys are amazing at wall balls or they've started way too fast in this workout and everyone's gonna reel them back in did you think about that afterwards maybe i could have approached that one differently and done a little bit better maybe not top five but maybe improved on the 18th yeah for sure i think i did the first round unbroken and in training i've went unbroken a couple times or close to it when we practiced that workout.

So I knew on my best day I could get that one unbroken, but it just wasn't in the cards at that time. And really, I didn't really feel like playing it safe. I wanted to send it and see how well I could do, see where my wall bowls were really at compared to the field, because I've been working on it a lot. see where my wall balls are really at compared to the field because I've been working on it a lot. And then the GHDs in that event really wasn't an opportunity to make up much ground really. And I think I made up a little bit of ground on the D balls maybe. I was going touch and go on those for the most part, but it just wasn't enough to dig myself out of the hole I got in with the wall balls. But yeah, I think if I paced it a little differently, I maybe could have done better,

ball balls. But yeah, I think if I paced it a little differently, maybe I could have done better, but it's always easier looking back afterwards and you never, never know how it's going to feel going in. Brian, did you, did you dig around on Colton at all? Besides the numbers, did you look at any, like did you look at his interview with Arm & Hammer or have you, did you troll his Instagram by any chance?

I haven't watched any of his other interviews, but, I mean, I generally know about his home life, if you will, and then his competition history. He's so soft-spoken, but if you dig through in the few data points you could find you will see that from just the handful or dozen or so athletes that i've looked at um this year so far there's no one who's more confident than him did you on his instagram one night he did a thousand wall balls with a 30 pound ball he doesn't mince words he's always like like people be like what are you doing, Colton? Oh, I'm going to win the games. I'm here to win the games.

It's a singular focus. There's no like, and when I heard you ask that question, did you think you should have paced it better, it's a great question. He doesn't even care is what I'm getting from him. So there's some context to that. This guy just wants to, there's no option for Colton except to win. But what's so funny is listen to how soft-spoken he is on this podcast. I mean, like you'd almost think people are sleeping in his house.

Do you have a baby there, Colton? Why are you whispering? I don't know just kind of how I am, but there is kind of two seconds to me. I am a little bit soft-spoken, but I'm also very confident. Not a lot of people know that. I try not to be too arrogant, but I am definitely very confident. If you ask me, I'm going to tell you what I want to do in this sport, what my goals are.

I want to win the games. That's why I'm here, and I want to win events. I go into every event trying to win it. There's no interest for me in second place. So the context for asking about that particular workout was it was incredibly hot that day, hard to simulate that kind of environment in your training. It was in second workout coming up immediately after that, and now we know that he actually placed third on that workout and did very well.

So it wasn't a question, I don't think a question of could he do it capacity, but the bigger picture is he was five points away at the end of the weekend. When you look at it, he was five points away from third and only six points away from seventh. And that means there was a guy in six that was even closer than that, three points behind him. And only two of those four guys can make it to the games. And if you don't get to the games, you can't win the games. the games i don't you know it doesn't matter how good you are so if that risk of going out hot in that workout had cost him three more points four more points because he would have won on tiebreaker with two event wins and he wouldn't he would have had a fight through last chance qualifier which is a big question mark you know especially before we saw what it was

and he might not have had that opportunity where Where maybe, even though he wanted to test himself, even though he knew he could do it, if he just had a little bit more of a subtle approach, taking a 15th or a 12th on that workout instead of 18th, he'd be more comfortably into the games where he can pursue his ultimate goal. Does that make you feel defensive? Yeah, but the other side of that is... ...fuck you on here no matter what. Or does that make sense? No.

Yeah, it definitely makes sense. There's definitely times when athletes go out too hot, and it costs them. It costs you a lot. You can go out there, you play with fire, you're going to get burned sometimes. But I kept the same mindset going into the thruster and running event, and I won that one pretty handily. And I kept the same mindset going into the ring muscle-up and sled push event, and I won that one pretty handily and I kept the same mindset going into the uh the uh ring muscle up and sled push event and I won that one too I I set paces that I knew were going to be really hard to keep I knew if I kept them I could probably win and uh you'll see

even on the event immediately after the wall balls we had that maybe it was a one minute break or something and then into the total bar and box stepover. I had the same mindset going into that one. And I went unbroken on all the total bar, both rounds. And it got me third, and it probably kept my season alive. So you take the good with the bad. I'll crash before I ever touch the brakes. Woo!

You've heard it. Colton, how long have you had a girlfriend? Almost two years. It would actually be our two-year anniversary a week from today, about six days. Did she court you or did you court her? Who pursued who first? Is that what you mean? By court? Yes, sir.

Yeah, I engaged the initial relationship, yeah. She was at CrossFit Kilo where I trained when I was in school. And I think it was maybe open gym or something. And she was there and we're just working on stuff. And that's kind of how we met. And then I slid to her DMs on Instagram and got her a phone number and Snapchat or whatever. And that's kind of how it started. So basically the old fashioned way you saw a girl, you found her attractive and you asked her out.

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Just look, I imagine that's how it's done in Iowa. You guys are from Iowa school. Yeah, we are in some ways. So are you born in Iowa? Mm-hmm. Yep, southeast Iowa.

And were you born on a farm? Yeah. So my dad and my uncle farm right now. They grow corn and soybeans. My uncle raises cows. My dad raises pigs. And they have a couple other side businesses also with the farm. My main role right now is taking care of the pigs.

I pretty much manage all the herds of pigs. That's kind of my job. And what's your mom do? My mom's retired now. She retired retired my dad and my mom aren't together so it's kind of a separate deal that's not yeah gotcha and is she still in iowa yep she lives uh maybe 30 minutes from here so town called like new london i live in hillsborough there's like 80 people in this town i think and you live with your Maybe 30 minutes from here or so. A town called New London. I live in Hillsboro. There's like 80 people in this town, I think.

And do you live with your... I live with my dad right now. Just to be close to the farm. Wow, and do you live with... Yeah. And how many people went to your high school? How many kids were in your high school? So I went to high school in Mount Pleasant. It's about 20, 25 minutes from where i live um i think in my graduating class there's

150 or so kids so it's a little bit bigger i live in a small town kind of okay that's not that small yeah okay and so you graduated from high school and then you went to college and you studied did you study finance is that what I heard you tell Armin? Yeah, I studied my degrees in business with an emphasis in finance from the University of Northern Iowa. And so you like numbers. Yeah, I like numbers. I like math. I like spreadsheets and all that stuff.

I think Brian could probably relate. And I also like farming and doing a lot of, uh, working on my hands. So it's nice that I can kind of use my finance background and my business background to, uh, kind of integrate that on the farm and use it with some stuff on the farm as well. And you're a voracious reader, like next level reader. Do you, do you ever, um, listen, do you always read or do you ever listen to audio books while you're a voracious reader, like next-level reader. Do you always read or do you ever listen to audiobooks while you're working? Yeah, I listen to a lot of audiobooks when I'm at the farm, actually, because I'm by myself working most of the time, most days.

And then I also listen to audiobooks, or this is when I will read. I was doing recovery work, so like stretching or like a massage gun, stuff like that. That's when I get most of my reading in. I've actually, since I graduated, I guess I graduated about 15 months ago, I've read 120 or 130 books since then. Holy cow. I have a lot of interest. Specific genre, or do you change it up?

I'll kind of stick with one genre for a while until I get sick of it, then I'll change. I was reading a lot of history for a while, then I read a lot of psychology and philosophy books, and I got a nutrition kick for a while. I just kind of jump around whatever's interesting me at the time. Dude, Brian, Armin asked him what his three favorite books are, and I can't remember what he said. But Armin's response was spot on.

He's like, holy shit. I mean, it was three completely different books. And the only one I had ever heard of, I think, was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, which also, by the way, I haven't read that in 20 years, but that book is amazing. It is amazing. Did you just read that recently? Yeah, I read it maybe a few months ago now. My friend Jace Hayacek recommended it to me.

It was really good. It's a short book. You can read it in a few hours probably, so I'd recommend it for sure. It took me more than a few hours, but I don't read a lot. You read more books since you graduated than I've read in my life, I think. Well, in school, like, I didn't do a lot of – Brian, going back to about his training in the heat – go ahead. Oh, well, like, in college, I didn't really have a lot of time. Sorry, Cole, we have a delay.

Any time it sounds like I'm interrupting, you just talk over me. Go, go. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, so in school, I didn't have a lot of time for, like, free reading. There's a lot of books and a lot of things that I was interested in, but, you know, like, here in college, pretty much all your free time goes to reading your textbooks and things like that. So I had quite a list for what I wanted to read when I graduated. So that's kind of why I read so many so quickly probably.

So you're born in this tiny town with 100 people. You live this farm life that I think most people listening probably can't even relate to or imagine. You deal with corn, pigs, cows. You're around the same people, it sounds like, just every single day. It sounds like you have a pretty ritualistic day. How did you get into sports? So you go to school. Who puts you in sports? I saw that you were a high school wrestler. What was your journey like getting into sports?

So growing up when I was really young, me and my brother were really active. He's a few years younger than me, but we were always playing sports together. I got into school, and I played football, basketball, and baseball growing up, probably through middle school. In middle school, I started wrestling, and from there, it was mainly just football and wrestling. After my freshman year of high school, I really gravitated toward wrestling, and that really became my passion, so I kind of went headfirst into that for the next three years and the goal is to win a state title so I was pretty involved in that and throughout the course of that learned a lot of really valuable things a lot of really good life lessons

and discipline and also had a couple of surgeries from injuries in wrestling and then ended up just kind of getting to a place where I was a little bit bored with the sport and looking for something different. And I think I remember seeing the CrossFit Games on TV one day when I was cleaning my room or something. I just kind of saw it at the TV on in the background, saw the CrossFit Games on TV and I sat down and just watched it for like 45 minutes because I thought it was pretty cool. And I decided someday I wanted to try that. I thought it was pretty cool.

I decided someday I wanted to try that. And so I was recovering from shoulder surgery after my senior year of high school. So I was in college and just starting to get back into being able to kind of do stuff. And then my second semester of college, I got cleared from the doctor to kind of start lifting weights and whatnot again. And that's when I signed up at CrossFit Kilo, January 2017. again and that's when I signed up at CrossFit Kilo, January 2017. A lot of people think that you can endure a lot of injuries in CrossFit. It sounds like you've had most of your injuries prior to CrossFit. Yeah, I definitely have had most of my injuries prior to CrossFit.

I tore my ACL, meniscus, labrum, and rotator cuff wrestling. And since I've been doing CrossFit, I really haven't had any major injuries like that that have come from CrossFit. I've torn a couple other things, but it was probably more farm-related than it was CrossFit-related. See, it's funny. People always think you're going to get hurt in CrossFit. hurt me across it have you reached out to any of the guys that have kind of come before you that are either you know successful wrestlers or have uh you know farming backgrounds not really i've been uh kind of trying to figure it out on my own and learning as i go um i think one of my big advantages that that I'm a pretty good learner and I'm not married to any of my ideas. I see some new information that I think is better and

I'll change and adapt and I really like learning and I have the mindset of trying to become the best at getting better. It's all about constant progress. I have the mindset of, say that great, that was a great one. The mindset of trying to become the best at getting better. Yeah, that's really, that's really well said. The, uh, the person in particular I have in mind is, um, is Marcus Hendren. You know, he fifth at his regional the the year that he had the most success at the games and i think he ended up taking six at the games that year our hard worker works on the farm and you know when you think about the crossfit games as compared to a lot of other competitions like the ability to endure and work hard for long

periods of time and like do it again and again and again matters because it's a long competition, grueling competition, more events than you'll see anywhere else. And when I saw that you did make it and that you just kind of barely got in through the qualification process, I was like, this might be an interesting scenario because you've done some other competitions. You've put yourself out there the last couple of years, but this will be your first chance to really see if any of that ability to go long and go hard over and over again can correlate

or translate to a high level of success at the games. I also think you're the best person who barely got in, by the way. I know that's subjective, but I don't think that there's anyone better than you who just barely got in. You're definitely someone to watch. Wait, you mean he's a nice guy or you mean the best CrossFitter? The best CrossFitter. Okay. The best CrossFitter.

I mean, I really like wins. I really like wins. I'm biased to that. It's subjective. I really like wins. I really like wins. I'm biased to that. It's subjective. I really like wins. I'm stuck on Brent Fikowski got in fifth, and he's got the fifth most wins in the history of lacrosse at games. Yeah.

This is an interesting point. Because Fikowski and I, we're at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Anytime you want to talk, Mr. Soft Spoken, you talk. So I'm the shortest athlete at the games. Fikowski and I, we're at the opposite end of the spectrum. Anytime you want to talk, Mr. Soft Spoken, you talk. So I'm the shortest athlete at the game, Fikowski's the tallest, and I think that's why we get so many wins because if something's in our wheelhouse a little bit, we have a big advantage, but if something's out of our wheelhouse, we have a big disadvantage. That's why we've got such a variance in our scores.

There's a lot of events that we can win, but there's a lot of events that are going to be damage control until we get those weaknesses fixed. So I think we share a little bit in common there, me and Fikowski. And in all fairness, Fikowski got two first places also, and a fourth. But you have two first places and two third places. And I know comparing apples to oranges just a little bit.

And Fikowski's old. And you are young. You're on the other end of the spectrum. And you know what else is interesting about you and Fikowski? Fikowski, I'm guessing, I haven't spoken with him, but I'm guessing he's a full-time athlete. You're a full-time farm boy. I bet you you sleep less in two days than Fikowski sleeps in one day. Well, you have to learn how to sleep faster.

When are you going to fix that? Yeah, when are you going to, and I'm making the presupposition that you need to fix it, so feel free to tell me to shut the fuck up, but when are you going to fix this sleep issue? Do you need a sponsor to fix that um well or would you not quit your job because you feel some sort of family loyalty to your dad and your and your uncle i definitely enjoy farming but um i'm getting to the point now where i'm making a little bit of money doing crossfit just from uh prize purses and all the events that i do and that's part of why i compete so much i need to get a little bit of money um if i make some money working at the farm too but um i try not to be

full time most of the year because i don't i want more time to train and sleep of course but um like right now i went to the farm a little bit this morning and uh did chores for a couple hours i'll go back and take care of a few more things after this and then today's supposed to be a light day at training so I'll train for a few hours but um like most days of the farm right now I can be in and out in three hours the last couple weeks are pretty busy because I had to wash a few pig barns so that takes a long time and it's just hard on your body but um like going forward yeah part of it like my dad being my boss helps, but it also I think hurts a little bit sometimes too. Because when I first graduated from school, I told him I

really want to do this CrossFit thing. I know I can be really good. And he pushed back a little bit. He's like, well, yeah, but you got to make a living. You better make a lot of money doing CrossFit. And I told him someday I might. Because we better make a lot of money doing crossfit i told him someday i might well because uh we were working a lot of hours at the farm and there's a lot of days i was working 12 15 16 17 hours at the farm and then trying to train and sleeping for a few hours but uh now i think i've got him pulled over a little bit to where he lets me kind of just do what needs to be done at the farm and doesn't like, give me a bunch of extra busy work. And it's like right now leading up to the games,

I take care of what needs to be done, and I focus on CrossFit. So I'm only at the farm two, three hours a day right now so I can get a lot more sleep. Yeah, there's, like, a lot of the year where I have to put in a lot of hours, but I think after this year that will change a little bit at least. And I am getting more sleep just as I kind of get my routine in place and everything. Has your dad seen you work out or seen you compete? He's never seen me compete in person. So part of us working at the farm is if I'm gone,

then he kind of, somebody has to take care of the chores at the farm. So that's usually him. When I'm off at competitions, he takes care of that. But he's seen me train once in a while. Who's going to come to the games with you? Well, my girlfriend and then Armin McCormick will be my coach. He's the owner of CrossFit Kilo up in Cedar Falls. And then I think there's quite a few people coming from Cedar Falls as well.

Armin has a lot of experience in the sport. Savan, if you're not familiar, he's taken a lot of teams to regionals and a couple to the games, I think. Yeah, I wasn't familiar, but in some of the videos I've seen of Colton working out, I saw the games placard with Armin's name on it. So I figured someone at the gym, I didn't realize that was his coach, but someone at the gym had been to the games. There was a video you posted where it's 101 degrees in your barn. You're working out 10 feet away from you.

Your dad's smoking chicken. There's other videos of you doing insane workouts at 1150 at night. I'm still just fascinated at what is going on here with you. You have a job, you have a girlfriend and you work out and you read. It almost seems like too many things like one of those has to go like you should only i think they said einstein only did three things um is it hard what you're doing or are you 23 and you don't even know you're just just filled with testosterone and desire and you're a creature of habit like like like let me know because from the outside it looks like what you're doing is completely insane. Like just next level. Like David Goggins shit. Like maybe even embarrassing David Goggins.

Or does it just seem normal to you? Well, it seems more normal now. But yeah, when I first started, and like I told people who I trained with or coached me, they're like, yeah, I'm going to move back to the farm and I'm going to get involved with the family farm. And I'm still going to train. I'm still going to train for the games. And nobody ever really said anything like, oh, you can't do that. But the looks on their face was always kind of funny. So they looked at me like, yeah, right. OK, kid, like all these guys are training full time and you're going to try and do this while you're also working full-time.

At first, it was really hard. My body was not used to that kind of schedule. It was not used to working outside all day and then training in the garage all evening. But at that point, you just had to make a choice. You either have to make life easier or you have to get tougher. And you mentioned the desire. I have a lot of desire to be the best in the sport. And I think a lot of the games, if they were put in my position, you probably wouldn't know who they are anymore because they would have quit. They would have made life easier.

But I decided to keep pushing through and decided to get tougher because there's a lot of times previously in my life where you have an obstacle and you think that you're not going to be able to do it. Like for me, I always think about cutting weight in wrestling. My junior year was a really tough weight cut. And I remember, so we had to weigh in usually twice a week, Thursday and Saturday, for a meet and a tournament. And every single Thursday, I tell myself, okay, this is the last time. I didn't think I could make the weight again. This is the last time this weekend at this tournament I'm going up a weight.

Saturday would come, I'd make the weight again. All right, but this is the last time. Thursday I'm going up. And that continued for months. You know, we have a long wrestling season, about four months long. But I ended up making the weight all season and I was a different person at the end of that season than I was when I started mentally and afterwards it was I was on like this high for several weeks when the season got over

because I did it I did something I did not think I could do was make the weight all season and it was a really tough weight cut. Then after that, I kind of got this mindset of like, it doesn't matter what it is. Um, if it's possible that I can do it, it doesn't matter how hard it is. I can do it. If I put my mind to it, I just don't quit. And, uh, so I took that same mindset when I come back, came back home to farm and was on kind of this horrendous schedule. And, uh, my body was getting beat down. My mind was getting beat down. And there's a lot of times where I was questioning myself

and thinking about quitting and wondering if it was really even possible to kind of do this and still compete with those games athletes. But I think I got a lot tougher mentally and physically, and I think that's something that I have over everybody else when it comes to the games. You know, you have this four- competition and you're up early and you're competing all day. You're going to be not on your own schedule. Your body's going to be beat down. But for me, that's what it is every day. And I've adjusted my nutrition and my recovery work and my mind and my body to deal with all that. So when I get to the games and I get to

these multi-day competitions, you know, usually that's the toughest thing those guys experience all year physically and for me it's actually kind of a load off from what I do day to day. I think that's a big advantage that I have going in. Now I'm still getting a lot better. I've gotten a lot better this year that I've been home on the farm. I think I can definitely continue that and just keep trying to be the best at getting better. There's this workout, and I have to say I read it wrong, but you tell me. There's a workout you did where you ran a mile. Well, after some weightlifting, you ran a mile, you rode a mile, you rode the echo bike a mile, and you did that for 10 rounds. Did you do that?

Yeah. I think it might have been a Saturday. It was really, really hot out. I probably should have done that workout. But I started off, I didn't know what I was going to do for that workout. I knew I wanted to do something long, something cardio. So I decided I would just start running and kind of see what I came up with. And I got about 400 meters in and I just kind of came up with the idea.

I was going to do 10 rounds of a mile on a mile on a mile or whatever it was. And I kind of stuck with that and, um, I felt good through like four or five rounds but after that it got really really tough just with the heat and everything too getting really dizzy and I was pretty sick afterwards actually but I got it done and I do I do kind of I don't know I think I think every few months you need to do something to remind yourself that you're a bad motherfucker you can do stuff like that. So that was one of those. Same with the 1,000 wall balls at 30 pounds workout that I did in the shed a couple of winters ago.

I just bought a rogue 30-pound wall ball, and that was the first workout I did with it that night. And they do something at Kilo called the mental toughness camp, or maybe it's called the competitoritor's Camp or something like that. But basically this is what Armin did. The first year he qualified for the Games as an individual in 2011, I think. But the first year he did it, it was one workout every hour for 24 hours. He did it by himself. And Armin, he's a Marine, and he's a pretty tough guy, obviously.

And Arman, he's a Marine, and he's a pretty tough guy, obviously. So he kind of developed that and just turned it into the Kilo Mental Toughness Camp. And he said something I did a few times with him. We started doing it as a team, where basically you're doing, you're basically working out for 24 hours straight. We always did it in the winter. It was always February. So it was great building that mental toughness and then I got home and I couldn't come back to the camp a couple times so I decided to do some other things to keep your mind tough so that was a thousand

wall balls, that was a ten round workout and I've done a marathon before and every once in a while I think you have to do something like that to keep yourself sharp. Every once in a while, I think you have to do something like that to keep yourself sharp. Colton, the games often test running at a lot bigger capacity than pretty much any other competition. And it also usually tests swimming, which is rarely tested at any of the qualifying stages for the games. Maybe in some off-season events, you can get it.

Are those things that you're confident in, something that you're working on like where are you at with those two implements yeah i've been working a lot on running um i run nearly every day right now and i have been for a few months so i've gotten a lot better at that obviously being 5'4 185 pounds i'm not like the best runner naturally but it's uh something I've been working on a lot and I've gotten a lot better. I'm excited to see how I stack up with the games with all the running events. Last year at the games I know it was a little bit of an odd year,

but I think they had 12 events and 4 of them had running in them. So it was definitely prevalent at the games last year. I know Dave likes to run. So I'm excited to see how I stack up there and swim in. I've been getting a lot of volume in on swimming. And I just started learning how to actually swim a few years ago

when we were getting ready for the games in 2018 on my team. And that's the end of Dubai. We had a couple of swimming events. Those were actually my best events. That's just because I got beat real bad in all the other ones. But, um, so yeah, I'm, I'm a decent swimmer. I don't know how I would stack up at the games. I don't know where everybody else is at, but I've been swimming a lot and running a lot

because I know those are going to be there. And I know those aren't things I'm naturally great at. So I've been trying to get a lot better at those. What about this paddleboard? Have you ever been on a paddleboard before? I'm having trouble seeing a paddleboard in Iowa. Yeah, not a lot of that around here. I'm sure I'll figure it out and adapt quickly. I'm sure you will too.

How do your friends describe you like like like when when the guys at the gym cut up on you like what's the theme what's the uh what's the how do people see you your friends your girlfriend your the guys at the gym the people at the gym do they see you as soft-spoken and chill? Until they get to know me, probably, yeah. I like to get pretty rowdy, too, once you get to know me when we're not kind of in the game season. But, yeah, first I'm pretty soft-spoken, but once you get to know me, I can get pretty rowdy. I like to have some fun.

Did you win that state title that you wanted in high school? No, got second. I was undefeated until the state finals. Do you know the kid? I know his name, but I don't know him. Oh, wow. And you were wrestling, was that your your senior year what weight were you wrestling

so my senior year i wrestled at 145 pounds my freshman year was at 106 i took a couple jumps in between it's actually like 102 pounds my freshman year that wasn't big enough for the weight weight. Wow. So you're 23 now. So in the last five years you put on 40 pounds. Yeah, I got done with, uh, so I always stayed pretty lean. Um, in high school, I didn't want to build up a lot of fat for wrestling. And then, um, I would just cut the weight. But so I ended high school like 10 pounds heavier than when I wrestled at, I did 155 when I got to kilo and I gained 30 pounds since then. And then since then I've been kind of stagnant. I haven't really gained much weight in the past couple of years. Yeah, I was 102 pounds my freshman year and then 155 my senior year.

And now I'm 185, two're two inches so so more like 30 pounds you what you grew two inches yeah in that time wow so you um so you never had a growth spurt like I never had a growth spurt you just always steadily grew and then you were done yep pretty much and how tall are you you're five five five four five four you're trying to bait me into saying I was five five Savan yeah that's it's a little bit a little bit good job you figured me out um it's it's a trip because people I remember being in high school and all my friends went through growth spurts. But I knew because my dad was 5'5". I was like, shit, I'm not going to have one of those.

I'm not going to have one of those. My dad's like 6'2". All my uncles are over 6 feet tall. My grandpa's over 6 foot tall. But my great-grandpa is short, kind of built like me. Oh, interesting. And, Oh, interesting. And how tall is,

how tall is your mom? She's five, six. So there was this time when I thought that the, that there was the era of short guys being in the CrossFit games was over. Like that was just because the sport was immature. It's over. They'll never be in there ever again.

And here you are at 5'4", but maybe you're not a small guy. Because I'm trying to think the heaviest Josh Bridges maybe weighed at the CrossFit games. I think I'm a lot heavier than he was. Yeah, like way heavier, right? I mean, I think the first year Spieler competed in the games, he's 142 pounds. Yeah, I don't think that would happen. We want to know about the last year he competed in the games,

and I still don't think he was over 165. No, no, Spieler, I agree. I don't think he was over 150, to be honest. Yeah, you might be right. Why are you doing this? Why have you won? What makes you competitive? Like, going back to when you were little.

Like, what are you doing? Why push yourself this hard? Why push yourself that hard in wrestling? Do you know what's inside of you that you need to scratch? I've actually been thinking about this kind of a lot lately. And I don't really know. I just know just some things you want them and you know you want them. Before I even started CrossFit, I wanted to win the games.

And I never even did it, but I decided because I had offers to wrestle in college, so I turned them down because I wanted to start CrossFit. I never even did a CrossFit workout before, because I had offers to wrestle in college, but I turned them down because I wanted to start CrossFit. I never even did a CrossFit workout before. I've never even been to a CrossFit gym, but I knew it's what I wanted, and I just feel like it was something inside of me. I really wanted to do it, and I don't know what it is about wanting to be the fittest or wanting to be the best, but it just really lights me up and really gets me going, the best but it just really really lights me up and really gets me going and um the feeling i have with competing and thinking about winning those competitions is not something i can really describe i just know it's like i want it just like you want to breathe it's just something i

i don't really know how else to describe it it's really i really like i really like to compete i don't really know why. I want it like you want to breathe. Going back to what you said about you want to be the best at being the best, it reminds me, I was answering some questions the other day similar to that, and basically I was explaining to someone that not only do you have to have good habits, but one of your habits has to be to be refining your habits. And it kind of fits along that same thought. And so I get that.

Like you can't just have good habits. One of your habits has to be to be looking at your habits to keep refining them and make them better. Let me ask you some questions. Do you feel like you're when i talk to people who are excelling at this sport there always seems to be something underlying like some hole i i don't want to say some hole they're trying to feel it fill because that sounds so negative but you know like there was some loss like you find out that both their cousins were in car accidents and they died when they were little, you know, and that really lit the fire in them, like not to waste their life. Or the last podcast

I did with Jason Kalipa was his senior year and his principal was speaking to the whole high school and he made some insinuation that Jason wasn't smart, right? And that Jason's like, what the fuck, right? In front of your whole high school at your graduation. And so you hear these stories. Is there and the easy one to be to pick to say about you would be like, hey, his whole life, everyone told him he couldn't do it because he's only five, four. Right. To go straight to the short guy thing. Is there anything like that? That is that it?

That's it. That's exactly it. There's nothing that gets me more motivated when people think i can't do something you know um right so so it is kind of like like a fuck you i'm gonna prove you wrong um it's a little bit like uh i was texting you guys yesterday about what brian said uh he had me picked 11th for the Granite Games. I don't really take that stuff personal. I know in reality, like objectively, from where you guys are sitting,

that's probably a good place to put me, like based on my achievements and everything like that and what you see me do in the past. And I understood that, and I understand, like, you have to pick five people to go you have to pick one person to win and everybody else should be unhappy well like uh even that should be unhappy it's just what it is if you pick a winner you had to pick losers and I don't take that stuff I understand that's not personal but I um I like to kind of manufacture it like it is

personal and um it's like I know 11th um it's probably a good objective place to put me there. But just the things I know about myself, it's like these people, they don't know me. They've never met another person like me. And that really motivates me to kind of show them no hard feelings, O'Brien. Where should I put you for the games, then? First. Everybody going to games should say that. I'll give you a little...

Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this, Brian. Is he going to win an event at the games? Yeah, I think so. I think he's probably... I haven't seen any of the events except for part of one, but I would guess you could win somewhere between one and three events at the Games this year. When I'm evaluating the athletes, and I wanted to ask you about this anyway, Colton, in the past couple of years, people like you who have just kind of entered the scene since 2018. In 2018, you did a team competition, so you've really been doing individual 2019, 2020, and the seasons were just weird.

They were different, and half of the competitions, or more than half the competitions that I have relevant data for you on, are online qualifiers. You qualified online both years for Rogue Invitational, which you have to be exceptional to do because they only take a small number of athletes. And you were middle of the pack at Rogue both of those years, one in person, one online. You won a couple events. You're both online. You did great in the Open and the quarterfinals this year, both online. And I look at your live competition performances at Mayhem Granite Games in Dubai, and they were underwhelming. So I was sitting

here saying, man, I know this guy can be really good in certain events. He's had a great resume online recently, but I've yet to see him excel in a live competition. Now I have a different data point, and now I can evaluate you with a little bit more information. Yes.

I wonder what you're going to use. Part of my success for the online stuff comes from, obviously, the programming. And online events is different than in person. Like, you don't see a lot of running and swimming. And we never even saw rope clams before until this year. You see a lot. I can't hear him. No, me neither. Damn.

I know. I was really looking forward to that answer, actually. Hey, Colton. Can you hear us? Something happened to our connection. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to stop this for a second. Hold on. Oh, maybe his earpiece is dead.

I'm going to stop this and hang up and everyone log back in one more time, okay? Oh, maybe he hit his mute button. Oh, yeah, he's muted. You're muted, Colton. Okay, I think I hit the button on these things here. But, yeah, so what was the last thing you guys heard me say? It was in reference to how you're – Brian having different data points for you in regards to your performance.

And now he has the semifinals and he has a new data point yeah so I got performed better on online qualifiers because of the programming is usually a little bit different like it seems like we have a lot of they always like to do thrusters and burpees and chest bar for a lot of the qualifiers and then we get to the in-person events and we test things that we can't test online. And those things are usually just kind of out of my wheelhouse and things that I'm not great at yet. And, you know, like rope climbs and running and swimming and things like that.

You don't see a lot of them in the qualifiers. You see a lot more, at least from my perspective, it seems like you see more gymnastics and the bodyweight stuff on qualifiers, almost like more open style programming. And I excel at a lot of that stuff. So I think part of that discrepancy, just those holes in my game show up more often in person than they do online.

And it just takes time to get better at those things. I've been doing this for a few years. Obviously, you know... Did you try to get into the Atlas Games knowing that you're just better on the online stuff and that might be your best chance to get to the games this year? Or did you want to challenge yourself in the live setting? Yeah, so they gave us... CrossFit gave us a form we had to fill out

and we put on there. So you have the four options for North America and we numbered them 1, 2, 3, 4. Atlas Games was my fourth choice, so the one I wanted least. Because I didn't want to go to the games through an online format and then just have that in the back of my mind. And also I have other people talking about like, oh, he's there because he crushes online stuff. He can't perform in person. You know, I wanted to, for myself and for others, go to an in-person event and show that I can do it in person as well and show that I've been working on a lot of those weaknesses and that I'm making a lot of progress there. Will you guys hold on one second?

Hold on one second. Sorry. Yeah, fucked up. You didn't know I could sound any better than I already do. Sorry, we had to take a quick break. We had a little technical hiccup. The bad news is that we get complaints about the podcast. The good news is it's one that can be fixed.

It's not about myself or Brian. It's about our internet. It's our one steady, steady complaint. Let's go. Brian, did you want to respond to that? If not, I'm going to say something about him getting better. No, I commend him for wanting to do that in the live setting. I mean, if your goal is to win the games,

you have to know that you can compete against guys that have that similar goal in a setting that's not the most comfortable for you. So I think that's great. And I'm super happy that you did that. I mean, if you had come through the Atlas Games, I probably wouldn't have had the same respect for you as an athlete and appreciation for how much you have improved that I have now having the opportunity not just to watch you,

but to be there and actually see you move and see you compete and see you attack workouts. So as an analyst and as a fan of the sport, when I'm going to the games, now I have a different expectation of what you can do based on something I've already seen. Explain that to me for a second, Brian. Are you suggesting like Vellner, Adler, Cornier? No, no, no. Oh, no. Okay.

No, no. I'm saying that in the case of Colton Mertens, I haven't had a chance to see him in a live competition recently. Okay. I know he's great online. Now I know that he can be great in person too. Colton, do you have a lot of friends? Yeah, I have a lot of friends.

I don't see him a ton right now. I mean, I kind of feel bad saying no to going out and getting beers all the time or whatever because I really don't have any free time. I go to the farm. I train. I do my recovery work, and I go to bed. I clock work every day. But yeah, I got plans made for after the games. When do you see your girlfriend? Well, she's doing an internship right now in Cedar Rapids. And she's also really into CrossFit, and she coaches CrossFit. So we hang out a lot, training, into CrossFit. She coaches CrossFit.

We hang out a lot training doing CrossFit. Sorry, you guys don't know where Cedar Rapids is. It's just like an hour from where I am. She comes down on weekends and stuff where I go up there and train on weekends once in a while. She's going to move in when she gets her internship done.

She's going to move in with you on the farm? Yep. Oh, that's cool. And your dad's okay with that? Yeah, he don't mind. And will this be the first girl that's moved into the house with you? Yeah. I lived with some other girl in college for a little bit, but yeah, that'd be the first one moving in with me

down here. And you get along great with your dad? Yeah, we get along pretty well. I mean, not always perfect, but that's just like any father and son. But I think we have a pretty good relationship.

We hardly ever fight about much, really. It's pretty good. I'm trying to figure out what it's like. It's so foreign to me, the farm life, right? Any farms around here that anyone I know who has like a farm, it's kind of like a faux farm, meaning they do it for themselves or you know what I mean? They have a vegetable garden in the backyard. How big is this farm? So I think we grow about 400 or so acres of corn and soybeans.

And my uncle's got a herd of cows. We've got eight herds of pigs. We raise about 15,000 pigs a year. That's my dad and I. Wow. Give me some details about loading pigs. How far is this from your house? How do you load them and where are you taking them?

And how big are they? So I live about 10 minutes from the farm. So loading pigs is when we take the pigs to market. So once a herd kind of gets to where you've got enough pigs that are at market weight, which is around 280 to 300 pounds, we'll load them up in a trailer and take them to a Tyson plant. So you kind of have to sort out the biggest ones and chase them onto a trailer. And how do you – so it's like a trailer like you would see like that you would put cars on like it's an open trailer like with like a fence around it like with a ramp um so it's like the same size as

like i guess a normal trailer you would see being pulled by a semi like uh same size as those kind of big enclosed storage ones but it's uh it's kind of like made out of steel it's got um it's got a bunch of ventilation in it and they just kind of hang out on there, and they take a nap while we drive them up to market. And how many of them get on there? How many do you load on there? It depends based on like if the pigs are heavier, it would take a few less, or if it's really hot out, we won't put as many on there.

So it just kind of depends on different variables and stuff like that. And do you ever load pigs on there that are too small and they send them back? They're like, yo, what's up? No. So, yes, basically the way it works with Tyson is if they're not within, like, a target range, they just won't give you as much money for the pig. And do you just eyeball the pig? You're like, yep, you're 280 for sure.

Get on. Yep, we go through and go through the herd and you just kind of look at which ones are the biggest and you get pretty good at it after a while. And we have like a pink marker. We spray them with it so and we have like a pink marker we spray them with it so that they have like a pink line on their back and then those are the ones that we'll sort out and chase onto the trailer and so you breed the pigs on the farm also

no we just we get them when they're weaned so they're about 15 pounds when they come to us. Wow. I'm trying to think. I guess I'm trying to think the last time I saw a pig. I was going to say it's been years, but that's not true because Dave has pigs on his farm. I wouldn't call it what Dave has a farm. He has pigs on there. I guess it's more like a ranch. I don't even know why he has pigs on there i think yeah exactly i

think basically uh this story could be wrong but he bought a pig for his daughter and then that pig had babies so now he just has now he's got a problem and i think it's had babies twice i think he's had two litter pigs and here in california you go on Craigslist and give them to people who want them as pets. Colton, have you ever sustained an injury from a pig? Yeah, for sure. They get big and they don't realize that they're that big and they still want to kind of play and be a little bit rambunctious. I guess the way they play is they just kind of run around. I don't know how else you really play if you're a pig.

I guess the way they play is they'll run. They just kind of run around. I don't know how else you really play if you're a pig, but they run around. They get a little bit rambunctious, and they run into the side of your leg or something. It can definitely hurt. I haven't had any serious major injuries, but pigs running into the side of my legs or stepping on my feet has been inconveniences, but nothing like major. Do you see yourself, let's say you get a little more success. No, let me rephrase that.

You're about to get a little bit more success in CrossFit. Do you see yourself staying on the farm? And if you see yourself leaving the farm, do you feel that maybe that will be breaking the sort of cycle of success you're having? Basically, are you going to get too soft? If you got off the farm, would you get too soft and not be able to maintain this badass lifestyle, this basically putting yourself under stress? Yeah. You know, it was kind of funny. So when I would come home for the summer and farm and train just here in my garage during school,

I always come back to Kilo, and it was kind of when I was first starting out, and I felt like I would get a lot better when I left, and I'd start beating people that I wouldn't beat during the school year. I feel like it took a lot of big jumps, so I think in a way it does help me with my fitness adaptation. I think also being outside in the heat a lot, and I train outside in the heat all the time. I don't have any AC in my garage or anything. I don't know if there's something to that kind of heat adaptation as well. It's kind of like elevation training, but it definitely gets very hot and humid here in Iowa. And as far as leaving the farm, I don't think I would ever really leave it fully.

I'm at the point now where I'm pulling back quite a bit because I get paid by the hour to work on the farm, and I basically do as little as I can to get by for the moment until I save up enough money for a house this next summer and make some money from CrossFit. I make pretty much as much money competing now as I do farming. It's definitely getting a lot better, but I don't think I would ever leave the farm entirely. I would just do less and spend less hours there.

Do you feel like you're letting your dad down at all by doing that? Is that emotionally hard? No, they'd be fine if I left. They probably had to hire a few people to replace me, but they'd be fine. They'd get by. They'd have to hire two dudes who are six feet tall to replace you. Exactly. There are two dudes who are six feet tall at the replacement.

Exactly. You know, that thing you were saying about working on the farm can sometimes be a positive. It reminds me of my college soccer team. Our average GPA was an entire one grade point higher during season than out of season because half the guys, once they didn't have something that was occupying their time, they filled it with nonsense and they lost focus and discipline in all other areas. And then they'd come back around next year when season was on and we had less time, they spent it more appropriately. It's always been something I'm curious about because Fikowski, he was working full-time and doing pretty well at the games. He stopped working

full-time. Now also the game season happened to change at that same time and he had less success at the games. Now he's invested full-time. The season's back to what it was, so I'm curious to see how that will affect him. But you look at Vellner, he's always gone to school and worked and still had success in CrossFit. Then you look at Fraser and he was working.

I mean, he was at school and doing CrossFit and doing well. He stopped doing school when he finished, spent all his time on CrossFit and did even better. I think that there's no one formula that's going to work best for everybody. I think the way Frazier did it was the absolute best way for him to do it, but I don't think that's the best way necessarily for somebody like me or for Valner. And I think there is something where you can get a little bit soft if you're sleeping in every day. And then you get up, you sip on your coffee and nibble on a bagel, stroll over to the gym, and then train with your crew or whatever.

I think there's something, some value to having a little bit of an edge there. And I'm also somebody who really likes to stay busy. I don't like laying around or kind of having downtime. to stay busy. I don't like laying around or kind of having downtime. So even like at school, when say we'd have like a deload week of training or a really light week, I would really struggle with that because I'd get so bored and really get down mentally because I didn't have anything to do. I'd get down from my schoolwork and I couldn't train. So I was like, well, now what do I do? So I like staying busy. And I think it's a good situation for me. And it's worked out well so far.

Did someone nickname you Muscle Hamster? Chase Ingram. Yeah. I think that that nickname was already taken i think there was a young lady who trained with um um katrin doter uh i wish i could remember her name tori dyson tori yes yes yes has she reached out to you and told you to stop using that nickname it's already taken no i'm not sure if it's uh it's so desirable that she wants me to stop using it. But it was funny. You think she's handing it off to you.

She's happy you're taking it. There's been some good nicknames, but I personally liked Tommy's Neck Curtains Mertens one because that one's unique to him. That is good. The last time I gave someone some advice, I gave Noah some advice on Instagram. And the thin-skinned folk, they'll say it in the most nice way I can, got their panties in a twist. But I'm going to give you some advice, too.

I looked through your photos, and you are an extremely um i'm going to sound like you're like my dad right now um you're an extremely handsome man like almost model quality um with a short haircut um you kind of have a little bit of brad pitt in you and uh now you um look like um now you look like a farm boy. So I suggest before you go to the CrossFit Games, you get a pair of clippers, and you shave off that beautiful mullet of yours. I'm surprised. I could be wrong.

I could be wrong. Maybe there's a – maybe – I'm surprised it's coming from you, Siobhan, because your kids had long hair for such a long time. They did. They did. They did. They were kind of going for the samurai look, though. They were going for that samurai beach boy look. The only good thing I heard about your mullet was that it protects your neck from getting sunburned.

And I always appreciate a functional haircut. and I always appreciate a functional haircut. But you look like such a – you look so young with your head shaved and you look so like just rugged and manly. And now you look like you belong on the back of a pickup truck with pigs and a shotgun, which maybe – I mean shit. Maybe Tyson is about to give you a huge sponsorship and they want the mullet. So who am I? I'm no agent.

Do you have an agent? No, just me. I do it all. You're a one-man show. So you have a coach but no agent. Would you consider Armand your coach? Yep, absolutely. And does he give you programming?

Yep, so he puts out programming for kind of like, I guess it started out just like people at Kilo who wanted to compete, just their competitors' programming. And then Luke Schaefer, who was at the Games last year, he was a Kilo athlete from Sierra Falls. He does the Kilo training programming now that people can buy and whatnot. So I do, like all my lifting and stuff comes from Armand, and then I kind of pick through the workouts that they have. And then I also do my own workouts. Just because I feel like I definitely

need something individualized just to help fill in the holes in my game. Like there's no program out there that's going to program wall balls as often as I need to do wall balls. So I just kind of take care of that myself. And like, like let's say that the first workout for the day that they've got programmed is like thrusters and chest bars.. Then the second one is like burpees, enhancing pushups. Like I'm not going to do both of those. I'll sub in like a rowing wall workout for one of them. There's no reason for me to do those type of movements that often when my time is better spent getting better at the things that I am not as good at. Is there anyone at the games that you're interested in meeting, getting to know?

I don't know. I've met a few of them just from competitions here and there, like the Rogue Invitational and Dubai and Mayhem and whatnot. But I don't know if there's anybody I necessarily want to meet. They're just competitors. But the one guy that I like, I really like Cole Sager, actually. He's a pretty nice guy in person. He kind of talked to me a little bit when I was at Rogue my first year

and had a little bit of wisdom for me and stuff. So I really appreciate him and seeing him at competitions and seeing him do well. Yeah, he is exceedingly nice and polite. I agree. Which is funny. I'm not usually into that. I wanted to ask him about You're not usually into that? Is that what you said?

No, it kind of comes off fake a lot of times to me. They do it on social media or interviews or whatever. But Cole, he's a pretty good dude, I think. I have to meet him in person. Both Cole, Sager, and Noel Olsen, I think they're pretty unique in that regard. They might seem that super, super nice kind of guy, and that's just how they are. But when the competition, when 3-2-1-go happens, like like a flip switch for those guys and they turn into a fierce competitor on the floor

it's i don't think that that that drastic of a of a switch that they have is something that you can teach or fake yeah i agree i did you think noah has that switch you think noah has that switch oh yeah i mean definitely i see it in cole um and but noah is pretty um i feel like he's i don't see i don't see the multiple sides to to noah and it is interesting that some people find his kindness um cheesy um and i remember one year at the games he said he showed up at the games and i'm like hey you seem different this year and he goes yeah i mean i'm trying to take the games more seriously based on the criticism i've been getting and then halfway through the games he's um he wasn't doing well he's all fuck this i'm dropping the serious shit i'm going back to me being playful and jovial and and i was like yeah that's who you are i just watch him the 10 seconds before an event starts and you see it i wanted to golden i want to ask you about when you when you got into

reading all that nutrition literature you said you went on a little bit of a nutrition kick and later on you said that you you know you said you went on a little bit of a nutrition kick, and then later on you said that you're always open to learning. I was curious because I would assume that someone who's got the background you have with wrestling where you have to be conscious of your weight all the time, and then obviously CrossFit or fueling your body for the kind of volume you want to do is critical. During that time when you were reading through all that nutrition stuff, the reason I usually don't do that is because it's overwhelming for me. Like, I feel like I already know pretty much what I want to do. But was there anything that you picked up on there that really transformed or changed the way that you approach the nutrition side of trying

to achieve the goals you have now? Yeah. So one of the big changes I made was I started cutting out more carbs and introducing more fat into my macros. I think that helped make a big difference. I think everyone's body is a little bit different and probably runs better on different probably macro percentages. But I found a little bit higher fat diet helps me. And also just kind of the timing that I get my macros in. helps me and also just kind of the timing that I get my macros in. And, uh, I don't know, I think ever since I've kind of increased my, so I read a lot of books, I started getting into a kind of area of like saturated fat and, um, sugar and, uh, kind of the studies behind it and maybe the validity or have those studies and stuff like that. And so I decided to introduce more animal

fats into my diet and I found that's, uh, helped a lot. It's a little bit, um, not really a mainstream and not, uh, maybe the conventional knowledge. People think saturated fats, uh, not so good for you. And they think, um, like, uh, fast from grains and vegetables a little bit better, but, um, I read some books that said said otherwise so i decided to try it out and that's been working pretty well for me that's a seek that's a key too is you have to try it for yourself and and give it give it a fair shot and you know have it have enough of a insight okay i know how i feel eating this way i'm gonna try this make this one change for a month or two see if i notice anything different and i completely agree agree that, you know, the same, if you and I made the same change, we might not both like it or see the same kind of results out of it.

But if I don't try it for myself, it's hard to know. Yeah. It's a hard kind of area to really figure things out because there's so many studies that are conflicting. And I think part of that maybe it's just because everyone's body is a little bit different. Everybody probably needs their own kind of setup, what works best for them. Colton, how did that post do when you pushed the bale of hay? Was that a successful post for you?

I don't know. I haven't really looked i see it has 30 has 37 comments it was five posts ago that's probably sounds like more comments were you pushing the bale of hay in front of the camera yeah i think it did well i'm all i'm yes man i'm full of i'm full of all sorts of advice for you today. I'd love to see you doing more farm stuff, even stage shit. You know what I mean? Like even throwing a bale of hay onto the back of a truck. Just doing – I mean you have such a great opportunity. It's such a crazy – it really is – and I think Armin drove this home too.

It really is unfathomable, the schedule you're keeping and the kind of work you do. I mean, there's a difference between Vellner going to school all day and Fikowski going to school and Camille going to school and Fraser going to school versus what you're doing. You went to school and now you're working this incredibly difficult job in temperatures that are over 100 degrees and then you're coming home late at night in training.

And me just personally, on a personal level, I'd love to just see more of your day. So that's my two cents as a former media director of CrossFit Inc. during its explosive growth from 2007 to 2018. So, and I won't even charge you for that. Just from the bottom of my heart or top of my heart. Well, I think you're actually, you're right. You're definitely right.

And I make a lot of good points and I agree, but it's just really hard for me to kind of take the time to do that stuff with how busy I am and always kind of being by myself. Maybe when Allie gets over here and she moves in, she can help me out with that a little bit. But, yeah, I agree. I don't post nearly as much as a lot of athletes do, but I think I don't really have a lot of free time.

I don't like messing around with the camera very much to kind of get that stuff taken care of. I just kind of want to get the work done, and social media is a very far second in my priorities right now but uh you definitely make a good point maybe i should uh put a little more work into that or have somebody help me out and and and don't change anything because you're doing great by the way i mean is the screen on your iphone broken nope damn i mean can't you see that brian his screen on his iphone should definitely be broken with Nope. Damn.

I mean, can't you see that, Brian? His screen on his iPhone should definitely be broken with some tape on it and shit. He works on a farm and he's got a mullet. I understand that, yeah. But no, I like taking good care of my stuff. I'm actually probably the opposite of what you think. I'm a pig farmer, but I'm super clean. My room's always been really clean, even in college. I take hygiene really seriously.

Did you take a shower before the podcast? I know you put in a couple hours of work on the farm this morning. Did you shower or just change your shirt? What's the deal? Yeah, I changed clothes when I got done with chores this morning. Didn't want to smell like a pig and look all disheveled. Hey, I'm even looking at – I have your Instagram open in the window next to me right now. And even your picture that you have in your – I don't know what kind of machine you're on.

That's not an assault bike, is it? But even look at your hair in that picture. That was the beginning of the mullet. That's a, that's a nice cut. That was the beginning of the mullet. That was like the first few weeks. I was starting to grow it along.

Your, your CrossFit total, a 525 pound back squat, a 235 pound shoulder press. Ins insane, by the way, just insane, and a 520-pound deadlift for a total of 1280. When you see that, are you happy with that? Yeah. Are you happy with that? Yeah, I mean, that would have, if you put that into the games,

it would have been a pretty good score. But I don't like to say, like, oh, I did this in training, and it would have placed whatever at this competition, because you can never replicate competition. But, yeah, I feel like my numbers for powerlifting and the CrossFit total are definitely better compared to other athletes than my Olympic lifting. And that's just because I started lifting in high school for football and wrestling, so I've just been doing those movements a lot longer.

And I really only started Olympic lifting a few years ago, so it's just taking me a little bit of time to catch up there. But yeah, I would have definitely been happier to see a back squat at the Granite Games than a snatch, which is, you know, of course, the Olympic lifts are kind of king as far as one-rep maxes go in competitions, as they probably should be. But it's just something I need to keep getting better at. Hey, Brian, what do you think about the – sorry, go ahead, Brian. I was going to ask you, though, if you could tie this into after – is that normal that normal that back squat deadlift a back squat of 525 and a deadlift of 520 like is that normal no no you usually would expect the um deadlift to be higher than the back squat but

the uh it's kind of weird the deadlift says i think the deadlift is an outlier relative to a lot of other lifts like sometimes there's guys that are amazing at deadlift that aren't that good at other strength implements and vice versa um but i also you know we know that there'll be some kind of strength test at the games and if you're looking at what's you know kind of been tested already this year it's a crap shoot i mean if a lot of the semifinals had snatching, but Dave didn't program the semifinals, and I don't know that he's going to say, like, oh, most of them tested that, so we'll test it there. He might say, oh, we didn't test a heavy snatch in the online qualifier, so that's still a fair shot. But we also saw a three-rep max deadlift in the last-chance qualifier, but that's only two guys,

so deadlifting could come back. We had a front squat test. Could we see a back squat test? Could we see an overhead squat test? Who knows what we're going to see? And I am kind of always kind of curious. There was that second CrossFit total. Like we've tested the CrossFit total three times at the games now. Maybe they're going to test the second version of the CrossFit total this year. So I think there's a huge question mark in terms of what strength element will be tested. But if I was picking one, I'd probably choose the clean and jerk because we haven't seen it at all this competition season as a heavy lift. Brian has spoken. Yeah, with my back squat, I guess it's got mostly to do with my anatomy. I have really short arms and a long torso and short legs.

So short legs help with the squat. But then it kind of backfires on the deadlift. People who have really long arms and a short torso seem to be outliers in the deadlift. But then I kind of got really short arms and a long torso. So I think that's just kind of part of that. You said you got two injuries in high school. One of them was a knee injury and the other one was a shoulder injury. Were those your fault?

Meaning, did you put yourself in a compromised position? How did those happen? What are your thoughts on those injuries? Well, the knee, the ACL and meniscus was at districts my sophomore year of wrestling. So districts is like the last step before the state championships. And I was in the first match, and I just, my toe, I was in my stance, just moving in my stance, and my toe just got stuck on the mat, and my knee bent outwards, and it was just kind of a strange accident like that.

And then my shoulder, I don't know exactly when it happened, but I think it was from one of my shots. I had a really good outside sweep single, and that's a lot of contact with your shoulder into the other person's kind of thigh or their knee. a lot of contact with your shoulder into the other person's kind of thigh or their knee. So I think maybe that's a repetitive move. Maybe it did my shoulder, but I can't remember a specific time from when my shoulder actually got hurt. But I think those are just things that come along with sport or wrestling, that combat sport. You put yourself in a lot of precarious positions, and really it's just kind of luck. in a lot of precarious positions, and really it's just kind of luck. Can you beat Justin Medeiros in a wrestling match?

I can beat everybody in a wrestling match. Line them up at the games. We'll have a tournament afterwards. No weight classes. I'm secretly hoping that there's one event at the games where it ends up that Mertens and Medeiros are in the same heat battling for the event win or something like that, and it's mullet versus mullet. I think everyone wants that. That's why I can't cut my hair now, Siobhan. Have you spoke to him?

People have become attached to it. I never spoke to him. Forget those people. You haven't spoke to him. Have you spoken with any of the other rookies have you spoken with uh we had taylor self on here and we had jason hopper on here have you spoken with either of them nope haven't spoken with anybody really not outside of my area has any okay so no one's reached out to you. You guys don't, like, DM each other. They haven't talked shit to you.

Jason Hopper hasn't told you to stay home, don't bother coming, nothing like that. No, maybe they're scared to say something like that to me. I don't know. They probably are. When will you show up in Madison? What day will you show up at um when will you show up in madison what day will you show up i think the 25th is when i'm gonna get there sunday i think we have to check in on monday get there okay and it starts on the 28th okay and is it going to be how do you do in hotel rooms will you sleep well

yeah i'll probably sleep fine and that's kind of part of why i want to get there a little bit early give myself an extra day to kind of adjust to that hotel room and uh get used to that environment but i think i'll sleep fine it'll be all right i'm not too concerned about it colton i often speculate that that the 48 hours before competition is the most difficult for the athletes because, as you've said already, you like to stay busy, you like to have stuff to do, and in that time period you're like, man, but I want to be fresh for the competition. What do you like to do in the day or two before competition

so that you're not going crazy mentally or you still have – I don't know, how do you spend that time? not going crazy mentally or you still have – I don't know. How do you spend that time? I didn't hear a word Brian said. He broke up so bad. Did you hear any of that, Colton? No, not really. Damn.

Okay, well, I was asking what do you usually do in the 48 hours before a competition because I think that's a tough time for athletes who like to always have something going on. Damn. Okay, well, I was asking what do you usually do in the 48 hours before a competition? Because I think that's a tough time for athletes who like to always have something going on. Yeah, I preferably would find something in the area to kind of go do and occupy your time because you're really not going to spend a lot of time training. Kind of do my normal recovery work, make sure I've got plenty of food prepped, and just get organized for the competition, get your kind of gear and your clothing and everything organized and kind of plan out like your wake-up times and stuff like that. And it's pretty chill, not doing a whole lot.

You get a sweat in. But, yeah, keep everything mostly the same as you can. The more you can keep everything kind of normal, the better. And the more you can keep everything kind of normal, the better. Colton, probably my last question. Do you enjoy this? I know you enjoy it. Well, it sounds like you enjoy the training.

It sounds like you enjoy the competition. You thrive under the pressure. You enjoy what you're doing with your life, pushing your body hard. But how about this part of it, the podcast part and talking to people? Do you enjoy this part? Well, it's been a little bit tough. I'm kind of more of an introverted person, so I get to know people. And I guess I'm not really used to talking to people all that often anymore because I work at the farm alone all day with the pigs,

and I train alone as well in my garage. But I've done a few interviews now and I don't know. It's all right. It's fun. I like talking to you guys and answering questions, letting people get to know me. Sometimes I've been trying to get better at not being so, I guess, being a little bit more outgoing, trying to be a little more outgoing, I guess. Cool. Well, I enjoyed talking to you and thanks for taking the call. Brian, do you want to say anything to him besides good luck and I'll see you in Madison? No, I think it's great. I think it's great to have you at the games this year.

I was excited that you did make it because I like having guys there that can win events, that can mix it up, that have the confidence you have. So I'm super excited for it. Thanks. Thanks, guys. I appreciate talking to you, and it's been fun. Good to know you guys as well.