We cover the sport of CrossFit from all angles. We talk with athletes, coaches and celebrities that compete and surround in the sport of CrossFit at all levels. We also bring you Breaking News, Human Interest Stories and report on the Methodology of CrossFit. We also use the methodology to make ourselves the fittest we can be.
I was born to kill it.
I was meant to win.
I am down and willing,
so I will find a way.
It took a minute,
now it didn't happen right away.
When it get hot in the kitchen,
you decide to stay.
That's how a winner's made.
What is going on, everybody?
Welcome to the Cloud Cell Media Podcast.
We're featuring the athletes
of the 2024 CrossFit Games Semifinals.
And with me today is Jacob Marlow.
What's going on, Jacob?
What's up?
So it's funny you're wearing that shirt.
Your coach has been on my show,
and he is now being
affectionately called Coach Krispy Kreme.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's an Einhorn CrossFit shirt,
correct?
yeah yeah closest uh
essential head laying
around yeah yeah um he
actually I think he lost
his now he has this
nickname and he doesn't
have the shirt to represent
anymore oh yeah yeah yeah I
never I never called him
coach krispy kreme I don't
know what I've called him
probably things that can't
air on tv or whatever but yeah maybe so
Uh, I,
before we get into like deep dive
CrossFit,
I got to ask you a question
about something I found on the internet.
That is your profile picture
on a game site.
Oh yeah.
That dude.
That's me when I was like 12
or 13 and I thought
baseball teams were cool
and Justin Bieber hair.
Yeah.
It looked like you were
preparing for a modeling career.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Those are family photos that
didn't take off.
There you go.
Yeah.
That's that's full blown, uh,
early Beaver hair, man.
Yeah.
I was rocking that till I was like 16.
Wow.
We got Corey in the house already.
Uh, I'd horn is Finkel.
You know that reference?
No, I wish I did.
So back in the day,
there was a movie with Jim
Carrey called Ace Ventura.
And there's a mystery in the movie.
And the mystery is revealed
that a female character
named Einhorn is also the
kicker for the Dolphins named Finkel.
Okay.
So he's like, Einhorn is Finkel.
Finkel is Einhorn.
Yeah, I've seen Ace Ventura.
I just didn't remember the
name was Einhorn.
Yeah, yeah.
And he also says baseball tees are cool.
Yeah, I didn't make them look cool,
though.
All right.
So I've been following your
career because last year we
followed Kelly Baker for the whole season,
and you guys were training
partners last year, right?
Yep, me and Kelly.
Yeah.
So how different is it this
year now that she's taken the year off?
Do you see her much in the gym?
It's definitely a lot different,
but not so much that she
took off the year.
We trained together every
day last year leading up,
but I was living in Houston at the time,
and now I'm back home.
in Beaumont with my parents for now.
Uh,
and so I've been lone wolf in it for
like the last year and a half.
So that that's been the
biggest change and me being
as social as I am.
It's been very hard, but no,
I definitely do miss
training with Kelly and Hattie.
Uh,
it's been way different than last year.
So it looked like from your Instagram,
you're doing a lot of garage workout.
Basically all I'm doing.
I'll go to Greater Heights
on the weekends.
That's Tristan's gym.
And then I have a membership
to a gym here in Beaumont
that I'll go like once a week.
But other than that,
it's all in the garage, all by myself.
And that's Beaumont, Texas, correct?
Yes.
I'm actually a little town
outside of Beaumont named Vider, Texas.
But most people don't know.
I don't know if you know Wad Zombie,
but he thought California,
he tries to get everybody to California.
Oh, no.
I'm a Texas boy.
Yeah.
Wad Zombie is one of the
best follows on Instagram.
He does a bunch of memes in
the CrossFit space.
Yeah.
I think I follow him.
Yeah.
So now you're doing all this
training alone.
Did I see footage of you at
Bill Leahy's place?
yes old billy so you
occasionally get out and
trade with some other
people yeah yeah I'll go
you know I've got little
hot spots of friends I'll
go to uh actually a lot of
people in louisiana I got
you know bill lahey my
buddy peyton gray and
aubrey uh up in north
louisiana bills my south
louisiana people so
kind of beaumont is I mean
we're my town vater is like
30 minutes from the
louisiana border so we're
basically louisiana well
this corey that's been
popping in he's he's from
that same area in louisiana
oh okay I call him my cajun
friend because you can't
understand a word he says
uh and he says it really
fast yeah that's how they
talk down there uh
But with Bill,
I had Tetlow on my first 75 interview.
He'd straight there with Bill.
Man,
is it like a little boys club there at
Bill's house?
Yeah, kind of.
You know, when I go over there, it's...
It's almost like a, I don't know,
a little summer camp.
I'm staying in the bunk beds.
He's got his guest room.
Then we've got Bill in
another room and then Colin,
his roommate in another.
And then every session is at
least like five dudes.
So it's fun.
It's definitely a lot
different than what I'm used to.
Yeah.
How much better is the
training there when you're
with all the guys pushing
each other than it is like
in your garage every day?
Honestly, it's so much.
I can still get after it in
my garage alone,
but it's so much easier to
start when you've got two
to five other dudes ready
to get after it as well.
It can be very easy to waste
a lot of time by yourself,
but everybody it builds
kind of stays on it because
a lot of people are under
time constraint because
they got work or lunch
break or we just want to
hurry up so we can get more pieces in.
So it's a lot, a lot more fast pace.
Yeah.
So another thing I wanted to, uh,
to talk to you about is in
your edge at your place,
it appears like you have an
outdoor rig that you
handmade for rope climbs, muscles maybe.
Uh huh.
Yeah.
So I guess like a year and a half ago,
I don't even remember when
we did it about that time.
Uh,
when I moved back home, I was like,
all right, I've got all the equipment,
but I don't have a tall
enough ceiling in my garage.
So my dad knew my dad, mostly my dad.
Uh, we got like big 20 foot,
like six by six wooden posts, putting,
put them five foot into the ground,
four foot, uh,
cemented them in and then
got some bars and, uh, ropes and rings.
And then we've got the,
since the rope can't sit out there for,
uh,
you know, yeah, there it is.
It's just a rope.
Can't sit out there.
It'll get weathered.
We have like a, on a pulley system.
Um,
so I just pull it up and down when I
need it.
Wow.
And how, how, uh, when you're on that rig,
how much does it shake?
Honestly, not really.
Uh, this is the second rig we've built.
Uh, this one is wooden obviously, but we,
uh,
years ago probably four
years ago we built a uh
metal one my dad is super
handyman country boy and so
he welded together uh a
bunch of four by four
galvanized uh rods or poles
but uh yeah this one
doesn't really shake at all
uh had to adjust the rings
a little bit because I get
a little bit of sway but
Other than looking right
into the sun for a lot of
pretty much everything,
it's pretty sweet.
Corey Leonard says, wait, that's wood?
Yep.
Like six by six solid wood beams.
And he says yard fitness for the win.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Transitions get to,
they start to play a factor.
If I'm doing any kind of,
that's why I have a membership at that.
another gym CrossFit Belmont here in town,
just because there's some stuff that,
you know,
I can't really do heavy snatches
or cleans in the yard.
And if it's something fast,
I don't want to walk all
the way from our garage to the rig.
It kind of kills a workout,
but overall it's pretty solid.
So when I watched you last year,
it is obvious that you are
a power output athlete.
Like, put some weight on a barbell,
give you a rower.
You're in your comfort zone.
Yeah.
What have you done this
offseason to change that to
have better performances at semis?
um well we've done a ton of
long stuff so much running
long biking so much burpees
I've gotten tremendously
better at burpees I don't
really uh we just call them
struggle burpees uh I've
got plenty of clips of me
doing them but uh I've got
so much better at all that
stuff you know I think
there's still definitely
work to do on my running um but
I've gotten tremendously
better at all the other
body weight movements that
I've previously struggled with.
So I'm excited to do a
little bit better at that
stuff this year at semis.
Well,
you get to test the run right off the
bat.
Yeah, that one,
that one's going to be a ground and it's,
it's not on an air runner.
It's on the ground.
yeah I would say I'm a
little bit better at air
runner just because I'm so
heavy um and that's where I
spent all my off season
running which I'm now
learning maybe I should
have hit the track a little
bit more but uh you know
we're still gonna make do
get after it so when you
see an event like that
right it has all these 800
runs but it also has clean and jerks
And I've heard analysts say
that don't sleep on the clean and jerks.
That builds up to quite a
bit of weight over the 50 reps.
Have you tested that?
Do you think that will even
it out a little bit for you?
I've tested it.
And to be honest,
it just made it more of a grind.
It wasn't...
Yeah, definitely don't sleep on them.
But I think that, you know,
the biggest part of this
workout is being good at running.
You know,
the cleaning jerks won't be a
saving grace.
But who knows?
I mean,
I have no idea what the rest of the
field is going to do.
But I think that one I'm
going to have to just focus
on making it hurt as much as I can.
So when you look at the
docket of the six events,
what's the one you're
looking forward to the most?
Probably snatch one.
You know, that's my favorite.
I'm super comfortable with the snatch.
That was my best event last year.
You know,
don't want to be a one trick pony,
but I'm still good at snatching.
So I feel confident about that.
When you see something like that,
that this is like the third
time now it's shown up at
this level of competition.
2016,
it was a regional event across the board.
2021, it was at West Coast Classic.
Now it shows up again.
And it's in this iconic stadium.
So not only do you get to do it,
and it's something people
have done through the years,
you get to do it at the
famous tennis stadium.
Does that mean a little bit extra to you?
Yeah, it'll be super cool.
So I guess I started CrossFit in like 2017,
18.
So I guess they were out of
the tennis stadium by then,
but it was like that was a
lot of the media that they
had at the time.
So seeing them, you know,
Rich and everybody at that stadium,
and now that we get to go back,
I'm super excited for.
And, you know, it'll –
definitely be I feel like
we're a little bit spoiled
our semi uh you know I
don't know where the other
ones are taking place but I
know ours is the coolest uh
arena so I'm stoked for
that yeah I don't I don't
know the international
locations very well but
like compared to knoxville
and not not dogging on
knoxville it's a nice arena
it's not iconic
yeah yeah I mean we could
this venue could be a dump
but the fact that it's
carson and that history has
already been made there
it's going to be awesome
yeah uh corey corey says uh
I'm so glad I get to do 10
cleaning jerks at 185 to
get a break from this
running jacob probably
Yeah.
Yeah.
Except my feet are going to be on that.
That was the worst part.
I've tested it.
I tested it once.
I did some intervals after
or yesterday or the day
before and my feet, they are on fire.
Yeah.
When I run,
like my feet swell a little bit.
And the first thing I want
to do when I stop running
is get my shoes off.
Yeah.
But for this,
you got to stop and do clean
and jerks with your feet on fire.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I saw a video of, uh,
I guess the semifinal this weekend,
their 800 meter run is like
inside zigzag between cones.
So I'm like, that should be fun.
Uh,
Well, you know,
who knows what ours is going to look like,
but I'm sure there will be
something more than just a straight there,
straight back.
So this is my prediction.
It may or may not.
So Boz was on barbell spin a
couple of nights or a week
ago and said that the run
at this tennis table is
going to be iconic.
Well,
there's nothing more iconic than the
berm run.
um and there's a tunnel from
the tennis stadium to the
soccer field and then you
can run run up those stairs
and do the berm run yeah
yeah I've heard yeah me and
uh a buddy were talking and
I don't I don't think we'll
be on the soccer stadium I
mean I guess we could but I
think they would have to
buy out two venues just to
use it for one event so
I don't know what they'll do.
It's so up in the air.
I mean, either way, it's going to be hard,
but I don't think we'll be
in the soccer stadium.
I feel like they'll probably have us run.
I haven't even looked at the setup,
but maybe in the parking lot.
I just don't see us getting
into two venues for,
unless they just let them use it.
And I figured they'd have to,
pay for that too you don't
know how much they're gonna
use it for equipment for uh
vendor village for yeah
types of things right so
maybe already in use
because there's a tunnel
between the two uh-huh that
you can like run through
yeah so it it is doable I
don't know it the parking
lot would not be iconic
yeah I think I think that
would be fun though running the berm um
would make it way harder
yeah the stairs would make
it so much harder yeah in
here in beaumont it's like
the flattest place on earth
we don't have any hills you
know the only stairs we
have is at the football
stadium at the high school
but other than that it's flat so
i want to talk about tristan
uh he's been doing some
shows with me lately we've
become really good friends
uh what's it like having
him as your coach um it's
fun I i think me and
tristan I was like one of
the first people on ascend
uh and we slowly just kind
of he slowly became my
coach I was doing other
people's programming at first when i
moved to houston to his gym
and well at first we were
competitors that's how we
met uh at a competition in
louisiana and then I moved
to his gym for school uh
was in that area I was
doing other people's
programming and slowly I
was like hey dude this
seems like a lot and I
don't have enough time and
so he would adjust it you
know every other day every
day and eventually when
ascend started and he joined uh
he asked me to come on and I
love working with them.
I mean, it's like,
we're basically like brothers, you know,
he was, well,
I would say more like older brother,
little brother, uh, kind of thing,
but we're very similar.
Like we like to have a
reason behind what we're doing.
We both think pretty logically and, uh,
you know, we get along super well.
Like it was a supernatural
friendship made over time.
Like now it's probably been,
probably coaching me for at
least two two and a half
years something like that
and we've known each other
for like three three and a
half um but I couldn't
imagine anybody else
coaching me at this point
he's he's a really good
dude uh so I noticed above
your head there's a like a
whole plate with baseballs
is that your former life
yeah yeah all the stuff in
the background I just I
didn't have anywhere else
better to do it uh uh yeah
that's that's sorry when it
came to athletics is that
what you were a baseball
player yeah yeah I was a
catcher back in little
league and like my first
two years of high school
then I quit to do crossfit
what what how did you find
crossfit and how did you
know you were really good at it
Well, first time I heard of it,
my aunt actually did it.
And, you know,
at first I always thought it
was like running and kettlebell swings.
And I was like, I'm not doing that.
That's for girls.
I just thought it was dumb.
I don't know what it was.
But then, you know, I was like 16 or so,
bored one night on Netflix.
And I watched one of the documentaries,
you know, seeing...
like Rich Froning, you know, Matt,
Josh Bridges.
I was like, dude, they're jacked.
I want to be like that.
Uh,
so I watched like all the documentaries
that night.
And then the next morning I
showed up to my CrossFit
gym at like 4 30 in the
morning for their class and
started from there.
And that's,
I did the 4 30 class for like
my whole first year.
Looking back, I don't know how I did it.
Wow.
and and at what point did
you know you could be good
enough to compete on the
highest level oh you know
hard question uh I didn't
really start with the
intention of competing I
just wanted to get jacked
and still waiting on that uh but
Uh, you know, I just slowly kept, you know,
I enjoyed the training aspect.
I thought it was fun.
You know, I was in high school for,
from like my first two,
two and a half years of doing it.
So I just enjoyed the grind, you know,
going in, having fun, uh,
and slowly just started doing local comps,
you know, then bigger comps,
like fittest experience, uh,
did well at those and just, you know,
kept getting after it.
And eventually the goal was like,
all right, well,
You know,
I'm doing well at these local comps.
Let's go to, you know,
a regional or a semi or whatever.
So it was just, you know,
and after a certain point, I was like,
I'm decent at it.
You know, maybe, you know,
I liked it because my
mindset was always the one
that works the hardest, you know,
does the best.
So I've always, I don't know.
Okay.
Well,
another hard thing you've done is you
got married recently.
Yeah, like a week and a half ago.
So honeymoon is in Carson?
Yes.
So got married May 4th and
then going to compete at semis.
And then from there,
we're going on our honeymoon after.
So there you are, newly married.
uh it was uh it looked like
it was a big big wedding oh
I think there was maybe
less than 200 people there
um it was all our family's
house they have a you know
a lot of big nice lands
pretty out there that was
in the backyard uh they've
got like a huge field out
there so did the ceremony
in that field and then had
a uh the reception under
all these trees wrapped in lights
it was better than we both expected.
Not that we expected it to be bad.
We were just, you know,
we both talked about it
after and we were like, whoa,
that was way better than
what we imagined.
Uh, why zombie says,
please don't tell me your
honeymoon is in LA.
No, uh, place called Catalina Island,
which I think it's off the
coast of California.
I know we got to take like
hour and a half boat ride to get there.
Um, looks cool.
A lot of hiking, uh,
paddle boarding you know
very cool yeah we're
excited and then the the
last thing I just wanted to
ask you is is it I went
back to your instagram and
it looked like you are a
physical therapy assistant
are you practicing that or
are you just training to be an athlete
yes uh yep I see I do home
health so I go to people's
houses uh you know whether
they pretty much are
homebound so they can't
they either don't have a
car to get somewhere but
most of the time it's just
because they're not
physically able to get out
of the house and go to an
outpatient facility uh or
at least not easily uh so
yeah I i technically I'm
full time uh but I see
about 30 patients a week so
I probably work 25,
30 hours a week around there, maybe 35.
But it's nice because it's super flexible.
You know,
I usually don't start my work day
till like 10 a.m.
And then I'll finish by four or five.
So usually I can get some
training in before and after.
But yeah,
I've been I graduated in May last year,
so.
Started in August, so I've been doing it,
I don't know, maybe eight months or so,
however long that's been.
Is it,
is it easy to get time off for these
things like to go compete?
Yes.
Uh, yeah, the people I'm with are awesome.
You know, they.
are very accommodating for all the trips.
You know,
I've been super busy lately with
wedding and now semis and then honeymoon.
So it's nice because we just
kind of shift our patients
around to other therapists
and we could cover for each other.
So it is.
It's really nice.
Is were you ever a coach?
No.
Okay.
Yeah,
because a lot of times there's a
correlation between
coaching and wanting to
help people and then doing
something in the medical field.
I was just trying to go down that road.
Well, that's really cool, man.
Yeah.
A real rewarding job.
Yeah.
In my setting, home health,
you don't see as much
progress with patients as
you maybe would with
outpatient physical therapy.
But
you you still do you know I
have a lot of patients that
I'll be seeing for you know
months at a time uh and
they'll make a lot of
progress you know a lot of
my patients are it's pretty
much 70 plus you know I
have a few allies that are
younger for whatever reason
but a lot of them are older
um my favorite ones are the
90 plus year olds they're
always hilarious um
I always have something wild
to say because at that age,
you just don't care anymore.
Yeah.
No filter at all at that point.
Yeah.
So last question,
you're going into semis this year.
What is your realistic goal
of where you want to place?
Realistic.
The goal is to be, you know,
the goal is to do as good as we can do.
So,
what that is.
Not sure yet.
We'll find out, but, uh, I would love,
I'd be happy if I could get
very close to a qualifying spot, you know,
within three or four spots of qualifying,
if not qualifying.
Um,
but I know we got some good guys there
and it's going to be a grind, uh,
to qualify.
So, you know,
the goal is to be upper pack
better than last year, but, uh,
Yeah,
mostly the goal is just to give it
all in every workout and
feel proud of my effort afterwards.
I guess I have one follow-up, and that is,
I talked to an athlete yesterday, he said,
that first event with the
800-meter run and the clean and jerk,
you're going to be in the tennis stadium.
And he said,
it's going to take everything
I can not to blow up
because I'm going to want
to go out hot in that setting,
in that event.
Are you going to feel the
same nerves that you've got
to kind of pull in the reins,
make sure you go at your pace?
Yeah.
I mean, that's with every workout,
no matter the competition,
at least for me.
You know, the adrenaline.
competitiveness, uh, you feel like you're,
you know, I always said,
I feel like I get like, you know,
25% fitter when I compete
just because I'm willing to like die then,
you know, slow down.
But, uh, I think for that workout,
I'm definitely going to
have to hold my horses,
not blow up because I will
explode if I go out too fast.
Um, so, but I'm pretty good at, uh,
Yeah, coach said top 15,
so that's on the record.
That's top 15.
Interesting.
Tristan Patrick is in the chats now.
Yeah,
I actually don't think I told him I
was doing this.
Well, I don't think I told him one time.
Yeah.
All good, man.
Well,
I want to thank you so much for
jumping on with me, Jacob,
this early in the morning.
And I apologize for the cold,
but we fought through it.
We got it done.
And good luck in a week and
a half there in Carson, California.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Thanks for having me on.
Tristan said no, you did not.
Yeah, my bad.
with that thank you to
everybody in the chat
you've made this a blast
and we will see everybody
next time on which is
actually just in about a
half an hour uh spencer
pancheck will be with us at
10 a.m eastern time we'll
see everybody back there
then thank you and uh join
us next time on the
gladstone media podcast bye guys