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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.
Stick a fork in a hater on
my dinner plate.
What is going on, everybody?
Welcome to the Clydesdale Media Podcast.
We're featuring the athletes
of the 2024 CrossFit Games semifinals.
And I'm so pumped to talk to
Paige Semenza today.
What's going on, Paige?
Not much.
How are you doing?
I'm good.
I'm good.
I had a bad cold yesterday.
It's starting to go away today.
So we're in recovery mode.
All right.
So we talked like last November.
Mm-hmm.
And it was right after Rogue.
And we had this conversation
about that you had to
decide what this year was
going to be for you and
either commit yes or commit no.
And you used Rogue as a barometer.
And obviously, because we're here,
you committed yes.
Yeah, I did.
Yeah, there was...
kind of a lot that happened
in my personal life since Rogue.
And it was really like,
it took a lot of figuring
out like what I wanted to do,
still stuff that can make
me pretty emotional.
So I won't get into details, but yeah,
I think this has been
honestly one of like the
clearest years I've had
mentally with training, with competing.
So there was a huge physical
setback last year with my back injury.
That was the huge question after Rogue.
you know,
being able to deadlift near
nearly 400 pounds at Rogue,
having not touched a
barbell for a long time before that,
that was kind of like, OK,
my body is still responding to training.
It still is in it.
So the physical side of it
was kind of there.
The mental side was where it was like,
you know, what is this year going to be?
What is it going to mean for me?
And through, you know, through December,
through January, February,
it was kind of figuring that out.
And just finding a different
meaning and purpose for this year,
you know, every year.
you're competing in CrossFit.
It's like, oh, we're competing again.
We're doing it again.
We're doing it again.
But it's not like that.
It's every year is different.
Every year has its own set of challenges,
its own set of rewards and losses.
And every year is different.
So it's never been the same.
And that's kind of the fun
part about it is you find a
lot of growth in
in those types of challenges,
in that unknown, in that uncertainty.
So yeah,
here we are again and feeling prepared.
Yeah, it's like, gosh, every time you talk,
I have like eight roads I
want to go down.
Whenever you're goal setting,
if you don't have the right why,
it just is never going to come, right?
Yeah.
And I thought that's what we
were kind of getting at
last November is you just
had to find your why for this season,
and it sounds like you have.
Yeah.
It's funny.
Just, you know,
yesterday I posted a story
of just going and doing a
zone two session and I
posted my playlist that I listened to.
And if I go back to last
year and I look at
playlists that were like, okay,
this is what gets me fired up.
This is what is motivating
for me right now.
This is what kind of gets me going.
The music is amazing.
a complete 180 from what I'm
listening to currently um
and it's like you just go
through different phases
right you just you get into
different likes and
dislikes and finding what
works and finding what doesn't work um
And that's kind of never ending, right?
That's just evolving as a human.
So it's kind of, you know,
just a small little example there.
But yeah, you know,
you learn a lot from last year.
You take those wins and you
build off them and you take
the losses and you use them
as lessons learned.
So it's just another year of doing that.
So last year,
one of my team members
interviewed you after one
of the events at, uh,
in Orlando and you would
kind of reveal it in that
moment that you were
dealing with a back injury and, um,
and that you were just,
you were just proud that
you were where you had a shot.
Right.
Yeah.
With everything that you're going through,
you go to the games and
it's your best finish ever.
Right.
Yep.
18.
Yeah, it was.
Yeah.
And then so that's how I got
off guard in November when you were like,
I need to take a step back
and just decide because you
have gotten better year
over year over year every
time you go to the games.
Yeah.
So health in the back is good now?
Yeah, it took a lot of time.
It took a lot of trial and
error figuring out what is
working and what isn't working as far as,
you know, just mechanics with movement.
I've had to kind of,
rewire my entire squat mechanics.
I ended up injuring myself
pulling a bar from the floor,
but what we've really come
to find out is that my
squatting seems to be the culprit.
I tend to be very posterior
chain dominant with my squats,
not using a ton of quads,
things like that.
So needing to sit more
upright in the squat,
not letting my shoulders
and my butt be so far away
from each other.
just so my low back wasn't
taking so much of a load from the weight.
And that's been a very slow process.
But every day I go in,
I make sure to really warm up my hips,
my back.
I sit in the bottom of a
squat daily for five
minutes or more every day.
And it's really,
really made a huge difference.
I get some physical therapy
done at least once a week.
So I really have just been
staying on top of it.
And what a difference
mentally it makes when you
can prep for semifinals the
way you're supposed to.
Being able to hit the
training pieces as they're written,
being able to hit the
volume at the right time,
and being able to do it feeling healthy.
Just mentally, it made me realize how...
like much of a dark place I
was in last year, having to, you know,
find these, you know,
having to figure out how to
train without hurting myself more.
And, you know,
just mentally and physically,
it was exhausting.
So that's why after Rogue, it was like,
I really just needed to take time to
figure out if I can get
healthy or if this was
gonna be another year of
battling this mysterious
back issue that I can't
quite seem to figure out
yet or haven't found the
solutions to yet.
So fortunately, we've been really able to
you know, figure it out.
And it's been, it's been really awesome.
It's been a lot of fun
getting to train with a
healthy body and just the right mindset.
So it's been a really good prep.
I mean, I've talked to you several times.
It just feels like there's a
weight off your shoulders this season.
Yeah.
You just seem different right now.
Yeah, I think a lot with my personal life.
I've had to make some changes.
I've had to make some big changes.
So I think that has a lot to do with it.
Yeah,
just trying to approach everything in
a way that doesn't set me back even more.
Just continuing to...
I have a note with like my
goals and you know, what are my purposes?
Like,
what is my purpose of training and
competing this year?
I have a note and I, I read that.
pretty much every day.
Um, and it just helps me get aligned with,
okay, what, what do I need to do today to,
uh, give my best, you know,
bring my best self to the day.
Um,
some days are way better than others
and I still have days that I struggle.
Um, but yeah, I,
there's been a lot personal
life wise that I have
been trying to grow through
um and just be a better
person so whether that's in
an or out of the gym uh my
back injury I think has
really coming out of that I
think um I can just see
things a lot more clearly I
can I'm a lot more
self-aware with how I approach
training how I approach
people at the gym um so
yeah it's it's been I I'd
say a good six seven months
of growth um yeah so yeah
why and I'm I'm not trying
to dive into your personal
life and I'm not I've had
12 back procedures so I
understand back pain
yeah like it is it is
debilitating it is
depressing like very in a
very bad mindset and it is
it is tough to get out and
yeah like yeah you are not
a good it's hard to be a
good person when you have
back it is and it's you
know sometimes it just takes something
to kind of snap you out of it.
So that's kind of where I was at.
I made a lot of changes with training.
I now have a great training partner,
and we train together
nearly pretty much every day.
So I've had to make some big changes.
I get up at 6 a.m.
We're in there for a good
three hours together.
Her name is McKenna Enslin.
She'll be training.
She'll be at semifinals this year as well.
So this will be her second year.
But we go to the same gym
and she's a coach there.
I'm a coach there.
We've become great friends.
She follows Misfit Athletics.
So we have...
I'd say something that's
pretty special that not a
lot of people have as far
as training partners and, you know,
friends.
So I'm grateful to have her
and she's a full-time physical therapist.
So she's in for work at 10 a.m.
Monday through Friday.
So our time to train is in the morning.
And a big change for me was
getting up to go train with her at 6 a.m.
And last year I struggled to
want to get out of bed at seven.
Like,
you know,
now I'm getting up at five consistently.
So that was a huge change.
Um, and it's been incredible.
Like I, I,
there's been no downside to it at all.
You know, that's awesome for you.
Yeah.
So you,
you mentioned misfits and one thing is,
you know, that's,
that's a group that's been
very loyal to you and you to them.
Um,
And when I was at the games last year,
I sat with Draw Your Dagger
and those guys, and they love you.
They're awesome.
What is that relationship with Lake,
and how much support do
they give you through the season?
Yeah.
So, um,
I've been with Misfits since 2018
and I remember applying for
the remote coaching
application and I put on
there that I wanted to make
the games and I had like
just signed up right before, uh,
regional.
So it was like right in for
regional prep is right after the open.
And, um,
Yeah, like it was at that time,
it was a long shot.
And I was signed up with
Gabe and Gabe was kind of
just getting out of like
the full time Misfit Athletics.
He just started a full time
job in cancer research.
He has two kids.
He has a family at home.
So I think, you know,
there's a lot of
adjustments there for him
as well when I first signed up.
And he works with our Masters athletes.
So I was his only individual at the time.
And
crazy enough that year I
qualified and just every
year since it's been, um,
getting to know each other
a little bit more and a
little bit more and a little bit more.
Um,
and I've developed a really great
relationship with Gabe, my coach, uh,
and with, uh, Drew and Sherb and, uh,
Jen and Ted.
And, you know, they're just,
they're this small little family and, uh,
Believe it or not,
like a lot of them have a
few of them have known each
other since high school.
So like they're in and of
themselves are very small
core group of friends
who've been doing this for a long time.
So you just kind of like.
you just either fit in or you don't,
you just get along with them or you don't,
or, you know,
that's kind of how I think
it is for any training camp.
It's like, you got to find your fit.
Um,
and I was lucky enough that the first
one was my fit.
So, um, now Gabe is like a, you know, he,
I can go to him about anything.
I,
talk to him about more of like, you know,
personal life things and
things outside of CrossFit
than I do with CrossFit because, you know,
a lot of the outside stuff
has such an impact on what
we do in the gym.
And he was so helpful when
it came to making a lot of
these bigger transitions this past year.
So yeah,
my relationship with them has been
uh awesome it's it's I feel
just as close to them as I
do with uh our gym like my
owners here um you know
they're also just great
friends um and I would
again not many people can
say that um I also coach
for misfit athletics I'm a
remote coach um so you know
they're more than just a
training company to me they
they're people that you
know hopefully I can stick
around with for a little
while longer even when I'm done competing
Well,
a lot of people put out shirts this
time of year to get support for semis,
and you have one of the coolest.
Thanks.
I thought that – I think
Drew came up with the logo.
But, yeah, it's pretty sweet.
I'd say it's – I mean, maybe,
I'm just throwing it out there,
a little nod to Taylor
Swift since I think like
four of six of our athletes
are Taylor Swift fans.
I don't know.
Okay.
So, yeah.
So the design is so cool with the snake.
I mean,
the snakes are the one thing I am
deathly afraid of.
It is really cool.
Yeah, I don't love them.
I definitely don't love them either.
But I think it speaks to
exactly what we're trying
to get across here.
So yeah, I'm pretty excited.
It was a decision between
white font or black.
And I was like, oh,
I don't know what to go with.
I know the white will stick out way more.
And Drew was like, yeah,
white will be more visible.
Black says you're there to
make a statement.
And I was like, okay, black it is.
So we're coming to compete.
Yeah, we're coming to compete.
Yeah.
Are they still available?
I don't believe so.
You can check on the website,
but I think it was just pre-sale.
So last I heard that ended on the 9th.
But I can always find out.
Yeah.
And they're a collector's item now.
Yeah, it is.
It is fun to see like year after year,
there's a different shirt and it's,
it's really cool when you
can walk into the gym and
almost every day,
at least one person has a
Semenza or an insulin shirt on.
So it's cool that, you know, our gym rep,
you know, supports us in that way.
And we get to represent both
our gym and Misfit athletics.
And, um,
Yeah,
it's a special feeling when you walk
in and you see people wearing your shirt.
So Wadzomi says,
black feels more like a tattoo,
much better.
That's a good point.
Make it permanent.
Make it stick.
Yeah.
So this year,
the events have been released way early.
Does that hurt training when
you know what the movements are?
No, I don't think so.
It'll be cool to see some of
the nuances figured out
with this first weekend.
Obviously,
the run is going to be different
for every venue.
I feel bad for this.
I think it's the Asia region,
a bunch of zigzags.
That's going to be tough.
But it'll be figure out what
the handstand walk is,
what are the little things
that we need to know ahead of time.
I'll definitely be sick of
these movements after semifinals.
So right now training is
it's still a mix and match of everything.
It's still variety,
but making sure that we hit
the stimulus of what these
workouts are going to feel like.
So I know that you said
before we got on the air
that you were out running this morning.
So did you get a chance to
see Europe or were you busy
doing your own thing?
No, I didn't watch.
We were at the gym this morning.
So I only live like five minutes away,
but I don't typically watch
any of the events or
regions going until maybe
in the evening when I'm
just kind of hanging out at home.
I don't like to get too caught up in it.
Okay.
Yeah.
You couldn't see much
because they're not live streaming it.
So it's with like an iPhone
up in the stands.
Um, so you can,
so in Europe you can see
that the clean and jerks
and you run out the door
and you see them come back in the door.
Yeah,
I have a feeling that's what it'll be
like in Knoxville.
Like this is where we were back in 22.
So it is a cool venue.
I really love the feel of it.
I think it has a lot more of
like an intimate feel than Orlando had.
But I have a feeling it will
take it like outside the
venue and around.
It won't be easy to see.
Yeah, from being there a couple of years,
there's no room inside for sure.
like they can even do the as
cory put it in the chat the
dmvq line that but there
are like loading docks
right out where the finish
line is behind that okay
open up those like big
garage doors and you can go
right there okay I yeah I
don't fully remember like
what it looked like
You know,
we were only in the warm-up area.
The warm-up area was pretty small,
which is fine.
I mean,
day three will be pretty nice that
it's just individuals.
So it shouldn't be too bad.
Yeah.
And your cat has made his appearance.
Yeah, she has.
So...
So, yeah, I,
I don't know if I learned
anything watching because
of what you can and can't see.
Yeah.
And I mean, like, you know,
you can test that workout multiple times,
but if your run is a bunch of zigzags,
obviously your, uh,
your pacings are going to be different,
you know?
So, um,
you could still get the feel of it.
You could still, you know, figure out,
you know,
where you kind of hit the
bottleneck of the workout, but.
Ultimately, you kind of have to,
it's one of those where you
got to wait and see what it looks like.
Yeah.
Which is fine.
Some, some women did some touch and goes,
some didn't.
Spicy.
Some people waited till the
last round to do the touch and go.
Yeah.
And that seemed to be like
what paid off more than
trying to do it earlier.
Yeah.
In the thing.
So that's about it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've talked with other
athletes that this set of
workouts are as classic
CrossFit as it gets.
You can drop them into 2015
and they still work.
Is that an advantage for you?
I don't know.
I guess we'll see.
I do like the workouts.
I don't feel like I feel
confident with all of them.
I like the,
You look at our region, it's like, okay,
our region is really, really fit.
So my goal going in is just
to finish in every event
consistently as high as I can.
So I'm not looking for...
you know if I could hit a
home run somewhere I'm I
will but I i think with our
region we have so many
well-rounded athletes that
it's it's a matter of like
how high can you finish
consistently to stay in
that top 10. um so I i do
fairly well when it comes
to consistency I i think
that's kind of like my
strong suit is I can finish
fairly consistent in most
events um so that will just
be my goal going in uh
to to land myself on as high
as I can on that
leaderboard so what blows
me away and and I'm I'm
trying not to get you to
give me the athlete answer
but I'm going to say this
what blows me away is that
you are consistent and last
year you were consistent
not a hundred percent so
yeah does that give you
confidence that now that
you are in better health
and you have had better
training that you have more
confidence going into this season?
Yeah.
Um,
I think last year I was still confident.
Um,
I had a really big hiccup on event two
with the ring muscle ups and the go rock.
Um, if I didn't have that hiccup,
I was pretty solidified in the top 10.
Um, and,
I'm super excited to see how
this year plays out,
knowing that I've been able
to hit training as well as I have.
I feel healthy.
I feel strong.
I feel confident.
I love that we're moving
moderately heavy barbells
for a lot of reps at a time.
You're adding and running to that.
You're
You're adding in a ton of rope climbs,
some box jump overs.
Like I do love the
combinations that we have here.
And I've been hitting a lot
of things that are
considered weaknesses for me.
Some of them are perceived weaknesses.
Some of them are just
weaknesses in general.
So I'm really excited to see
how that plays out this year.
Um, again,
I know it is a super fit region
and it's really hard to say like, yeah,
I'm shooting for top five
or I'm shooting for top 10.
Like I'm shooting to qualify
and I have confidence that I can do that.
Um, so it's exciting.
I am excited for this year.
Uh, I also, you know,
wasn't putting a ton of
pressure on this year.
Um,
just based on how the first half had
started, um,
So, sorry,
just making sure that wasn't on.
I kind of had a lot of
uncertainty with how the
year was going to play out.
But with how it has played out, I'm ready.
I'm ready to get going.
I think what's interesting
about the season is last
year you had six people in
your semifinal.
So, like, if you hit a home run,
you could have a bad event
and it didn't hurt you as bad.
Yeah.
For example, Sidney Wells, right?
Yeah.
She wins an event, she loses an event,
but it kind of all went out
in the wash because a lot
of people fell down the leaderboard.
Now you only have 40.
So consistency becomes more important.
And every workout is so well-rounded.
Like there are no
monostructural only things.
So like it is going to favor
a consistent athlete like you, I think.
So, yep.
And it's just making sure that, you know,
I stay in it mentally.
I'm fueling properly.
You know,
I'm not an amateur when it comes
to eating and fueling for these weekends.
I know they catch up to you.
And I think a lot of us that
have experience kind of at
the games level or, you know,
multi-year semis level, you know,
having three events on the
final day is a –
I think that's going to
change the leaderboard up quite a bit.
Some people just don't
understand the stress and
what stress does to you and
how it can impact your performance.
So yeah,
I think that coming in with
experience helps.
I'll echo that with a quote
from Saxon Pancheck.
He said, Sunday is all,
are there all execution events?
and with the pressure of it
being sunday and three
events it is going to be
the veterans that should
handle that better yeah so
um you know not my first
rodeo I i tend to do better
in competition than I do in
training um I can just kind
of level up a little bit which uh
you know, is obviously an advantage.
So I'll be trying to do that
and just bring my best self.
Do you get that from being
an athlete your whole life?
I think so.
Yeah, playing division one sport,
playing ice hockey, you know,
you have your high pressure situations.
So, you know, it's experience.
Obviously,
hockey is a little bit different.
You're out there with a team of people.
CrossFit here,
it's you're out there on the
floor by yourself.
You know, if something goes wrong,
it's on you.
You got to correct it.
You got to figure it out.
Um, but yeah, I mean,
we've had some high level games, uh,
back in college that, you know,
there's a lot of pressure on it.
It's a lot on the line.
It's either you, you block the shot or,
you know, your season's ending.
So, um, yeah, I,
I definitely think that
sport and the experience from, you know,
my past with,
with college and high school
comes into play.
Your alma mater's had a lot
of high pressure games lately.
Hey, they're doing all right.
They are.
It's so fun.
It's so fun to see them winning.
We didn't win back when I was there.
Yeah.
So this will be your first
year with a training
partner on the floor with you.
Yeah.
And back with you.
Yeah, man,
we tried really hard to get us
both like either like, you know,
obviously I wanted to be in the top 10.
I want to be in that final
heat to start the weekend off.
But like next best thing would be like,
we're both in 11 through 20.
So we can be on the floor
for the first event together,
but it didn't quite work out that way.
which is fine, you know?
So either way, it'll be exciting.
I think now, um, you know,
last year McKenna was also
following Misfit athletics
and with my back injury, like I really,
really kind of backed off
of being around anybody.
I just, it was,
I didn't know how to handle it.
I didn't know how to, um,
approach training I didn't
know how to approach being
around other people when it
came to training like it
was just a lot and I
obviously if I could go
back I would try to change
some of those things um
because I feel like you
know I not that I let
anybody down but like you
know McKenna is still a
really good friend of mine
and I want to see her
succeed as well so um this
year uh I really
made a promise to myself
that I wouldn't kind of go
off into the dark side by myself.
Um, I wanted to be able to be here,
be present, be there for McKenna.
I want to be able to just
kind of be an example for her,
but I also want to be a
great training partner and
she's a great training partner for me.
So it's like, there's so much benefit to,
you know, sticking it out.
Um,
And I think this year,
like I've seen so much
growth in her just through
the season of training.
Um,
and it's fun to watch because obviously
a lot of the things that
she's going through, uh,
even just as her second
year are things that I've gone through,
you know,
just through the years of training and,
um,
sometimes I smirk because I
know that she's got to
figure these things out on
her own and work through them.
And I smirk because I've had
to do that too.
Um, and it's cool to see, you know,
a young athlete like her
just have no excuses.
Like she sucks at something.
Guess what?
She's going to do it anyway.
And she's going to work on it.
Um, she is going to get frustrated and,
um,
she's gonna figure it out afterwards.
And in those moments,
I just like to be a support.
I feel, you know,
I don't feel like I'm
obligated to do that.
But like, I want to, like,
I want to be there.
It gives me purpose.
And yeah, I, you know, as an athlete,
she has so much potential.
So it's like,
why would I not want to see her succeed?
Because like,
it's not often you can find
two athletes from the same gym.
Um, number one from the same gym,
just in general, but two,
two athletes that get along
so well that can, um,
really succeed in the sport.
So yeah.
Yeah.
I,
so my next question is with someone like
that in the back and in the
warmup area and all that stuff,
will it help relax you and
make you a better athlete on the floor?
Yeah, I think so.
And I think I could say the same for her,
like, um,
we've really like,
I practice what I preach.
If I tell my athletes, my remote athletes,
like, hey,
you should be warming up on a
machine for 15 minutes.
Guess what?
I'm warming up on a machine
every single day for 15 minutes.
And none of that kind of
stuff changes when we get to semifinals.
Like all of that,
all of those small daily
habits all come into play
when you get there.
So it's like,
the warming up part of it is
this is another day this is
another training session
the upside to semi-finals
is it's either one two or
three events a day so on
the one and the two it's
like these are very light
volume days for us like
warming up for one or two
events a day is nothing you
know at the games you're
sometimes warming up for four events
And it's like, OK, well, 12 to 15 minutes,
four times in a day,
like you're adding a lot of
volume to your day.
But that's how we do it here.
And it keeps us healthy.
There's you know,
we don't have these nagging
injuries going on.
So, yeah, it's, you know,
practice what you preach
and you take your daily
habits to game day because
those are what made you fit
in the first place.
So I'm going to finish up with this.
And that is in the Western,
they're going to be in
Carson and this iconic venue that is,
you know, famous in CrossFit,
but you're going back to someplace,
you know, you know,
you've qualified there before.
Yeah.
Do you think it's better that,
that you can be comfortable
where you're going or is it
better to be someplace cool and iconic?
I think it depends who you
are as an athlete, you know, having like,
I think at this point,
there are a lot of athletes
who have traveled to compete, you know,
whether it was the year of sanctionals,
and you're traveling to
Brazil or France or Italy,
like wherever it was, like,
you've pretty much gotten
yourself outside of your
comfort zone at least a couple of times.
So I think as an experienced
athlete that shouldn't have much
of a factor, like going somewhere new.
I do love that we're going
back to Syndicate.
I thought the venue was great.
I thought the organization
did a really good job.
I'm staying in the same
exact Airbnb I stayed in two years ago,
which will be nice.
So yeah, I did try to,
not that I'm being superstitious about it,
but if there could be a
level of comfort in there,
you definitely want to have that.
Yeah, I love the venue at Syndicate.
I love the way the stands are elevated.
It just gives it a cool look and feel.
And it's intimate.
It feels very intimate in there.
Yep.
Yeah, that's what I like about it too.
So I'm excited to go back.
Well, this is awesome.
You're one of my favorite athletes.
My kid just started playing ice hockey.
Yeah.
Good for you.
It's going to be a lot of trouble for you.
I like it.
Hopefully he has fun.
We will be rooting for you
hard at syndicate.
Good luck in everything.
And I hope you have a great
and rewarding season.
Hey, thanks.
I appreciate it.
Thank you to everybody in the chat.
Again, this is Clydesdale media podcast.
We're featuring the athletes
of the 2024 CrossFit game semifinals,
and we'll see everybody next time.
Thank you so much.