Kevin Jones | The Athletes of the 2024 Legends Masters CrossFit Games

We meet Kevin Jones as he heads off to the CrossFit Games in Birmingham Alabama.  What are his goals and aspirations with the competition side of CrossFit.

What is Clydesdale Media Podcast?

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.

Hey, hey, still.

Let's go.

I was born a killer.

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 it win us, man.

Stick a fork in the hater on my dick.

what's going on everybody

welcome to the Clydesdale

media podcast my name is

Scott Swartz from the

Clydesdale and we are

highlighting the athletes

of the 2024 Legends Masters

CrossFit Games and I'm so

honored to have with me

today Kevin Jones Kevin

what's going on what's

happening how you doing today

I'm good.

I'm good.

Make sure you like and

subscribe to the channel.

Hit that notifier.

We're doing a ton of these interviews.

And the only way you know

when they're happening is

to hit that little bell on

YouTube so that you know

they're coming up.

And we're just taking a

short break for the CrossFit Games,

and we'll be back at it on

the other side of that as well.

So, Kevin, we were talking beforehand.

You're an Indiana guy.

Yes, sir.

Born and raised in Indiana?

Yes, I was.

Always thought I was going

to get out of this place

and traveling around and

trying to look for my what

I perceived to have been my community.

I kind of recognized that I

liked traveling around.

And so I decided when I was

a little bit younger to

just kind of hunker down,

stay as a home base in

Indiana and just try to

travel around and see what

the world had going on out there and

little inexpensive here as

far as living is concerned.

I had a whole kind of

network built up around

myself as a business and

was fortunate enough to be

able to do a little bit of

traveling and just come

back and do what I had to

do for work and just

optimizing my perception of

like CrossFit is

as a whole, not just a sport.

And so coming into the sport was very,

like,

recognizing the methodology of the

sport was not at all what I

thought it did not end up

being what I thought it would be.

I thought it was going to be

just really light barbells and, you know,

flipping tires.

And I'd never thought I was

going to lift heavy weights again.

So but I liked the idea of

being a very well rounded

individual inside the gym

and trying to learn all the different

things there were to still

learn within a gym coming

from kind of a global gym background.

And, uh, the,

the life that I lived outside

of the gym was what I felt

very well-rounded.

And so it just kind of felt

like a perfect fit for me.

And so I integrated myself into it and now,

um, a little heavy on the, uh,

the sports side of CrossFit

rather than the entire

methodology of the well-rounded lifestyle,

I think.

So looking back through your

Instagram and some things I

found on the internet,

you've dabbled in weightlifting.

And you were telling me

before we went on the air

that when you lived in South Bend,

that you actually brought

CrossFit to a powerlifting gym.

Yeah.

So I kind of separated from

the CrossFit gym that I was

at when I was living in

South Bend and started

training on my own and

brought my equipment into CrossFit.

gym that was primarily a

powerlifting gym and uh it

was it was nice to kind of

have my little corner of a

gym um I had a training

partner that I trained with

but it was not a crossfit

gym at all we were doing

mayhem programming and uh

you know just very single

focus driven towards

qualifying for the games

last year is kind of what

brought upon getting that

set up and I had a little

bit of a mishap with a

video last year which kept

me from doing that so I had

a workout that I won and my

lockout looked like this

for my shoulder overhead my

elbows were out of the

picture and so that was a

big mishap last year but

Last year I was very focused

on qualifying for the

CrossFit Games and I was very fit.

This year I feel like I'm

kind of running on residual

fitness because the changes

that have come upon me

within the last year of

work and my living

situation as I moved from

South Bend over to Fort

Wayne and changed jobs.

I do not have the general

output that I used to have daily.

So

kind of everything has,

I've been very affected in

the gym and in my recovery

in that I'm used to having

a particular level of

output throughout my day

that kind of keeps me warm

and keeps my body kind of moving.

I don't have that same output now.

And when I did have that output,

I would go into the gym and

I would give it 100%.

I don't warm up.

I just go in and ready to be

a wrecking ball, go 100 miles an hour.

And I do that now and the

recovery is not so great

because I don't have that

general just movement throughout the day.

So my base isn't the same as it once was.

So I've got to start

learning to change my training,

change my diet.

There's a lot of changes

that are happening for me.

So it's been very interesting this year.

So Jay Burch, Judge Jumson,

would Kevin say that the

sport of CrossFit is

different than the training CrossFit?

I think so.

I have a little bit of

contempt for the sport of CrossFit.

Just like personally,

my internal dialogue is

that the sport of CrossFit

it's very privileged to be

able to compete at the

sport of CrossFit because

it takes a lot of time.

And it really is about how

much time you can devote to

the sport of CrossFit.

For me, you know,

there might be other people.

I feel like I'm more of a

talent than somebody who

has more talent than,

like actual putting in the work.

I don't feel like I'm putting in the work.

And I think a lot of people

probably feel that way that

are competitive.

They don't feel like they're

putting in enough work.

But I feel like I don't put

in enough work to be the

best of the best.

And I feel like it's a gross

privilege to be able to put

in enough work

to do what it takes to be at

the top of the field in

CrossFit as a sport.

But what I perceive the

methodology to be across a lifestyle,

I think if you're too

integrated into the sport,

then you may be kind of

lacking elsewhere.

And that that's just for me.

That's not maybe not for everybody,

but I feel that sport is kind of like

The sport of CrossFit in

life is kind of like being

a good weightlifter in

CrossFit versus maybe being

just good at weightlifting

and not good at gymnastics, right?

So I feel like it's a huge

privilege to be able to be

Training to compete at the

sport of CrossFit and to be

able to compete with the

best of the best.

It is a privilege.

So I'm honored to be able to

be in a position to be doing this,

but I don't think that it

is for everybody for sure.

I think one general theme

that I've gotten through

these interviews is that

every athlete feels torn in

the master's division

because you have other obligations,

whether it be children,

whether it be a job, whether, you know,

a profession of some sort,

everybody feels torn.

And I've been told like,

it almost makes you feel

like you're average at

everything because you don't,

you can't focus on any one

thing because as you get older,

you just have different obligations.

You can't do this as your career.

For sure.

Yeah.

And that's kind of like with the field,

I feel like where the field

that's going to the masters

games as incredible as the

best of the best that are

going to be there are,

I like to think of it as a

representation of what's

possible within a aging body,

within a community that's united, um,

So I like to look at it as a whole,

and I'm really looking

forward to just going and

having like this year in particular,

just trying to enjoy myself,

trying to make friends,

trying to build upon the

community I already have.

You know, I've got

at least five or six buddies

that I'm going to be

competing with in my

division alone and I know

other people that'll be

there in other divisions

that I've built

relationships with that are

lifelong lasting

relationships daily

communication relationships

um with a lot of people

that'll be there so the the

relationships the um you

know the community that's

what it's all about and uh

In consideration of this

particular interview,

I do not have children,

but I can imagine if I did,

my focus would be trying to

use this as a place to set

an example for the kids,

because that's what it's all about.

When I was a kid,

if I had this kind of

structure and this kind of discipline,

as a part of my lifestyle growing up,

or even within view of my

lifestyle growing up, you know,

it would have made such an impact.

And, you know,

I'd like to be able to be

inspirational to somebody

who has the world left to offer.

So I'm going to jump in.

Jay Birch has a follow-up

question to his question.

As with that said,

what percentage of your

training is centered around strength?

you're from your Instagram.

You're a strong, strong dude.

Yeah.

So I am,

I'm very strong and that's kind of

like my, that's my, um, ace in the hole,

you know, like I have the ability on in,

in the world scale to be a top five, um,

athlete at anything that's

got a one rep max or that's

low volume gymnastics and

high volume barbell.

So I'm very, I enjoy the barbell.

I've always been very strong.

My

my clean in particular I

have very good technique

with my clean my snatch not

so much but as far as a

percentage based I

generally like to start a

training session with

squatting cleaning a heavy

barbell I just like to get

started that way as my

warm-up for the workout and uh and it's

it's kind of taken over from my actual,

what I perceive to be fitness.

There was a time when I

thought like I never wanted

to be slower than a six minute mile.

And now that I'm training on

the track again,

I'm realizing like I've

kind of fallen way off of

what was my once upon a

time kind of like benchmark for, okay,

I'm fit.

Uh, I don't have that.

My, my mile time is slowing down,

I think so quite a bit from

when I was a kid.

um but my clean is kind of

like my claim to fame so uh

so I i spend about an

hour's worth of slow

warm-up into a squat in a

weightlifting session and

then my metcons with the

mayhem programming that we

do I really like the

interval training so super

high output rest recover

super high output

Those are my jams right now.

I'm not in a I'm the

heaviest I've been in a long time.

My lifestyle has changed to

to make it very difficult

for me to mitigate that.

And I haven't prioritized that so much.

But so it's my own fault.

But the the high body weight,

gymnastic endurance

workouts are just not as

good as they once were for me.

Whereas when I came into CrossFit,

that was my biggest thing.

I kind of stepped away from

heavy weightlifting.

But I've always just been a very strong,

very strong athlete.

So I'm not too concerned

with losing that while I

try to hit the track to do

running workouts for the next month.

So this is not your first

time to the CrossFit Games.

You qualified in 2018 and went that year.

What was that experience like,

and how are you going to

change this year's –

this year's event and for you personally?

For me personally, well, the event itself,

as far as how much I enjoy the workouts,

that's going to be dictated

by the programming.

So the programming may kind of affect me.

I'm not the most

well-rounded athlete right now.

So I'm really hoping we get

some heavy barbells and we

don't have a workout with

500 toes to bar or 500

burpee box jump overs,

or 1,000 box step ups, for that matter.

But so the programming is

going to dictate how much

real fun I'm able to have.

But I'm going to try to

separate myself from the

programming and enjoy the experience.

Knowing in 2018,

it was a little

underwhelming how much

attention was given to our divisions.

And this year,

it's just totally focused on us.

So that is,

I'm looking forward to see how

that feels different.

I've been to Masters competitions.

I've been to, you know,

competitions that are

before there were Masters divisions.

And I don't, well, I don't know,

with Granite Games,

did Granite Games have Masters divisions?

I'm not sure.

But I've done all,

I've done all the competitions.

And I'm really curious to

see how this one's going to

be run and how the

competitors are going to show up.

I really hope that everybody

tries to have a good time

and treats it kind of like Wadapalooza,

like we're all here to just

have a good time and do our best.

But I'm sure there's going

to be Terminators out there

that are just ready to

just single-minded, just wreck shop,

and that's okay too.

But I'm looking to try to

smile out there and just do my best.

I think what's cool about

the Masters Division is

everybody's trying to win.

You don't go to a

competition just to do it.

You put a lot of work in to get there.

Most of these athletes have.

But yet the camaraderie and

the support from one

another is unmatched at any

other competition I've been to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we're kind of like a

class that's going to stick together for.

Right.

For the rest of the for the

for the rest of the every

the entire rest of our lives.

I mean, everybody in my division right now,

I know I know another 10,

15 guys that had they

focused on it could probably have

would have beat me in the qualification.

I'm coming in in 40th right now.

So I got nowhere to go but up.

So I got not a whole lot of that.

That's a nice place to be.

Actually,

I was a little distraught

initially as to where I was

going to fall if I was even

going to fall inside the cut line.

But that's a nice place for me to be.

So about that 40th, because they took 40.

So you were the last guy in.

Yeah.

How was that two and a half

week wait for them to

finalize the leaderboard?

Oh, it's always frustrating.

The leaderboard process is

always so frustrating.

And, you know, it's hard to...

whether or not you really

care everybody cares

whether they're going to

make it right but um I

don't feel I'm able to

compete for the podium

right now which that's a

tough place to be because

last year I felt like I was

able to compete for the

podium and uh so that made

it very a little easier in

if I don't make the cut

line that's okay right but

we've gotta keep each other honest.

And I feel that I'm able to

go out there and I can win events.

I'm able to win events.

So from that perspective,

I wanna show up and I want

to force somebody else to

try to beat me at a clean ladder, right?

So in that regard,

like I wanted to be there

because I felt like I have

something to offer this competition.

And whether you – this isn't

your – so what you're

telling me is this isn't

the most prepared you've

been going into a season.

No.

But yet when you finish the

semifinals and you're in 40th place,

now you have a taste that

you could be going to the

games even not at your best.

And at that point, you had to want it,

right?

So then that

two-and-a-half-week wait is just brutal.

It is.

It is.

is and and you know there's

a lot of uh there's a lot

of screwy stuff going on on

the leaderboard with you

know knowing that people

might be doing things that

are less than um less than

we expect out of them you

know right now so just

knowing that it could be a

very different leaderboard

under a lot of other circumstances,

that does make it difficult.

It makes it difficult for a

lot of people that are just

outside the cusp.

I've got people that are

just as well deserved to be

there as anyone else that

are sitting right outside the cut line.

And it's very, it's very difficult to see.

And so it makes you,

it makes me want to show up

and do my best and to really be able to

I don't want anybody else to

feel like they should have

been there or they would have beat me.

though they they can beat me

in particular events but I

i don't want to show

disrespect to the athletes

that didn't make it by not

showing up the best that I

can from this point on and

so I'm I'm just doing my

best to uh to try to show

up and to win events

there's there's events I

can win and I want those

ones there's events I'm

going to get my butt kicked

at and I'm going to get my

butt kicked in some regards

but um yeah it changes it

changes the focus for sure

In a long weekend,

winning 100 points in an

event is massive.

If you win an event,

that gives you so much

buffer to the other events, right?

And if you can win two,

there's people that won't

finish the weekend with 200 points.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know,

just middling throughout the weekend.

It's a crazy dynamic with 40

people on the leaderboard.

This is the first year the

Masters will have that.

Like it's been 10 or 20.

And so you don't get a lot

of fluctuation because

nobody can fall too far.

But you can this year.

For sure.

Yeah,

it's going to be the leaderboard is

going to be interesting.

I've dabbled with the idea of,

I've got some friends that

try not to look at the

leaderboard at all.

I've dabbled at,

would I be capable of doing that?

It'd be nice to not look at

the leaderboard and just go

out and give it your best.

I'm sure that I won't be able to do that.

But yeah,

the amount of athletes there and

everybody that's going to

be there has got...

there's a lot of people that

are amazing at everything,

but there's going to be, you know,

everybody's also got one

punch power at a particular

workout and you just don't

know what's going to happen.

So I've kind of,

my focus in when I know

that I don't have the

ability to be training to

be a hundred percent

well-rounded is that strength.

I want that one punch knockout in the,

in a, you know,

weightlifting workout

deadlift and double unders

and handstand walking or

something or you know one

rep max clean I want that

one punch power because uh

when when that 5k and 5k

run 1k swim comes up I'm

I'm gonna be having a rough

time compared to those athletes

Yeah.

Jay Burch asks, off topic,

but what is that pick on

your CrossFit profile?

Chicken and a donut?

Oh, yeah.

It's like, yeah,

chicken and waffles type

thing with a donut on there.

There was some meal that I

had that I thought would

just be kind of a funny thing.

That was years ago.

I thought it would be a

funny thing to be on a CrossFit profile.

Yeah.

Chicken and waffles is one

of my guilty pleasures.

Oh man.

It's been, it's been a long time, but yeah,

it's amazing.

Well, speaking of that,

it appears that like how

you get your relaxation and

your decompression is to travel.

Um,

your Instagram is full of like really

cool pics and really cool places.

Um,

what is your bucket list place to visit

that?

I have not been correct.

Um,

Constantinople, Istanbul.

I've not been to Istanbul.

So I'd really like to go there.

Um, spend a little bit of time.

Uh,

a lot of my trips to Europe revolve

around Prague.

I love Prague.

It's my favorite place in the world.

Um, got a lot of friends there.

And so I'll try to start or

end a trip there.

Um, but yeah, Istanbul is,

is high on the list.

And, uh,

Yeah, I mean,

there's a lot outside of that,

but that one jumps out.

For some reason, I want to go to Krakow,

Poland,

just because it's so Gothic from

the pictures that I've seen.

I like the extreme Gothic architecture.

But I've not, yeah, there's, I mean,

everywhere.

I want to see everything at some point.

Yeah, I've seen pictures from London.

I've seen pictures from

either Central or South America.

You know, lots of Europe.

It's really cool that you get to do that.

And you can tell it's

definitely a love in your life.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's been a while.

The 2020 thing kind of changed everything.

Life just got super busy for me.

And right now,

my current work situation

involves a lot of travel.

So travel doesn't sound so fun to me.

I'm not really able to

separate myself from work

like I have been in the past.

And I also have two dogs now

that are my best little buddies.

And I have a tough time

thinking about being away for three weeks,

you know,

so which is kind of the way that

I would like to do it generally.

So I've considered at some

point doing like a

getting a mobile home kind

of thing to travel around

and be able to take them

with me and go on kind of

North American excursions to see natural.

I like cities.

I like walkable old cities.

I like kind of super historic, you know,

like the Chichen Itza type stuff.

But walking the cities of

Prague and London and those

kind of things, those are the best.

Jaber asks, any urge to go to Antarctica?

I have the urge to know

exactly what's going on in Antarctica.

But I don't really want to

go there outside of

learning what's really

happening down there.

There's something happening down there.

So what kind of dogs do you have?

Standard poodles.

So a lot of my time.

Um, so you,

you told me before we went on air, you,

you took a new job,

you moved to Fort Wayne.

It, it messed up your training schedule.

Yeah.

Is, is,

is the next thing after the games

to figure out how to

balance the new job with

your training schedule and

figure out how to get back

to a more well-rounded athlete?

Uh,

I would prefer to say a more

well-rounded life.

My inner athlete is going to

be best served by my lowest

stress situation.

So I think that has played a

big factor in my personal

ability to maintain the

level of health that I have is

mitigating stress throughout

my life and recognizing

stress factors that are

incoming and trying to

mitigate those has been

kind of like a super high priority.

So if I can learn to

navigate the new stresses

that I have in my life,

it's going to make me a better athlete.

I think that's an amen from

all of us in this world.

Getting rid of those outside

stresses is key for all of us,

athlete or not.

When are you getting to Birmingham?

Are you going in early that

week or are you taking anybody with you?

Yeah.

I have not yet booked my travel.

I should probably do that.

I think I'm gonna come in on

Tuesday night.

I'm kind of affected by I'm

glad I a recent trip I did

just kind of jetlag the heck out of me.

And I have been getting more like,

I get that kind of edema

thing that happens in the air.

Start I've been, you know,

in just changes.

That's something that's been

happening to me is like my feet swell,

stuff like that.

So

I think I was planning on

just coming in on Wednesday,

but I think I'm going to

come in on Tuesday and give

myself that extra day.

At least it'll be the one,

just the one way trip to get there.

I'm used to kind of these,

the work that I do now,

I've got round trips where I'll be,

you know,

flying out on Monday night and

coming home on Tuesday night.

And that round trip just

kind of like rolling really messes me up.

So, yeah.

I don't anticipate the jet

lag to be as bad as what

I'm used to dealing with as

far as getting back to

training after a round trip.

But I think I'm going to

come in on Tuesday night

and then just kind of do a

little bit of movement on

Wednesday and we'll see

what the workouts that we

have in store are.

I'm not one to like stay

warm or need to like do a

bunch of training the day before.

But that's the kind of thing

I need to learn to change.

I just did a competition

this weekend that was a

team comp kind of local

thing at our gym and

literally didn't warm up at all.

Jumped into the first

workout and kind of

strained my groin a little bit.

So I got to warm up, got to stay active.

So I'm going to come in on

Tuesday and try to get a

little movement in on Wednesday instead.

Yeah, that edema thing is nuts.

I get that as well when I fly.

And I'm flying to the games this week,

and the whole first 24

hours is just getting that

fluid off my body, get moving around,

get your skin elevated,

and just recover from the flight.

But I'm a lot older than you.

How old are you?

I'm 54.

Wow, I would not have guessed.

Well, thanks.

CrossFit's an amazing thing, isn't it?

Yeah.

What about yourself?

When are you getting into Birmingham?

Are you going there, I'd imagine?

We're going to be down there.

We're going to film a

behind-the-scenes documentary.

That week,

we got permission to have all

access in the warm-up area

and the corrals and to just

film the chats,

the camaraderie that goes

on back there with all the athletes.

So Ellie Hiller and myself

will be filming that,

and we're going to have

some videographers out on

the floor getting some of

the action there,

and we're going to put it

together as a multiple-part documentary.

Thanks.

So we're coming in.

I think I'm leaving here on Tuesday night,

probably stop.

I'm driving, probably halfway,

and I will come in

Wednesday morning and get

everything set up, show up for check-in,

get some of that documented, and then,

yeah, be there all weekend.

Well, I will see you down there.

You don't happen to have any

insight into the workouts yet, do you?

I know nothing, man.

It's, it's a start.

Like it's,

these people are so busy that

are running this thing.

Just getting like a text

through and a response is, is tough.

So I don't know anything really at all.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're looking forward to, uh, like I said,

I'm, uh, you had Josh Boonstra on here.

I watched his interview and he's,

he's part of a chat group

that we've got together that kind of,

we help keep each other on track.

And, uh, so we want to make sure,

Any kind of insight we get,

we're communicating it so

everybody's got the info

and there's no insider trading going on.

Yeah.

Got to stop these leaks in CrossFit.

It needs to be a fair playing field.

For sure.

Um, so Kevin,

so thank you so much for doing this.

Really can't wait to meet

you in person down there

and document the weekend.

Everybody in the chat.

Thank you for being here.

You guys make this show what it is.

Don't forget to like,

and subscribe to the

channel and we'll see

everybody here next time on

the Clydesdale media podcast.

Appreciate it.

Bye guys.