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.