Jason Grubb - 6X CrossFit Games Champion | Clydesdale Media Podcast

Today we talk to one of the most influential Athletes in the Master's Division.  Not only has he won the CrossFit Games 6 Consecutive times he has also built the divisions biggest training camp and programmer.  They are one of the biggest sponsors, influencers and businesses in the space. How does Jason do it all, we find out today...

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.

Chill, chill, hey, hey, chill,

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 have to ride

away When it get hot in the kitchen,

you decide to stay That's how it win us,

man Stick a fork in the

head of all my dinner plates

what's going on everybody

welcome to the Clydesdale

media podcast don't forget

to like and subscribe to

the channel but we are so

pumped and the reason you

need to like this episode

is because we have none

other than six-time

CrossFit Games champion

Jason Grubb what's going on

Jason uh not much

Just kind of getting back

into the swing of life

after the games and then a

much needed backpacking

trip after the games with my two sons,

two of the three of them.

And and we my oldest son is twenty four.

So and my brother in law went with us.

So we committed to mustache

only on the backpacking trip.

And I kind of like it.

So I just trimmed off, you know,

a week's worth of stubble

after the backpacking trip.

And just to extend the life of this thing.

I mean, it's kind of fun.

And it's I mean,

it's delightful to feel a

little bit of skin on my face.

I look terrible without a

beard altogether.

Just it's awful.

It's not a go.

So the mustache is fun.

I'm getting a lot of

compliments from people.

Lots of people that have mustaches.

So whatever.

That's what's going on, Scott.

That's the answer for now.

Yeah.

I don't know what it means

when the only compliments

you're getting are from

other people with mustaches.

I don't know.

I don't know.

My wife just laughs at me.

I'm like, hey,

you still like the mustaches?

And she just laughs at me.

So it's fun to change things up.

And I'm shocking myself

every time I look in the mirror.

I'm like, oh, my God.

That's right.

I forgot I did this.

So definitely not used to it,

but but having fun with it.

And it feels like offseason

kind of things like, hey, you know,

let's let's go with a

mustache or go on a backpacking trip.

But I mean, really, for me now,

it's it's it's back to training.

You know, as a master's athlete,

it's you know,

I don't see a lot of value

in taking a significant

amount of time off.

I feel like it's too hard to get back.

I can't take a month off.

And in fact, my lifestyle,

I still feel right if I'm

not training most days a

couple of times a day,

a morning conditioning

session and afternoon main session.

When I'm in that rhythm,

I feel more like myself.

So that's really the stage

of life that we're at.

At the same time,

I started back on Tuesday and I am sore.

Really sore.

So I'm not feeling like the

fittest on earth right now.

I'm feeling like the sorest

dude on the planet.

I can barely walk from just

doing some squats on Wednesday.

Not a big deal,

but I'm in a chair and I'll

be here all day or at least

until my next training session.

Yeah, yeah.

What I love about the stash, us dudes,

like women can change their

hairstyles like every six months.

They can do kind of stuff to

change the look.

As dudes,

we don't have those options as much.

And it's really,

it comes down to facial hair.

I just never had the thick

like magnum mustache like you have.

Like I could do the goatee

cause mine's a little bit thinner.

Um, and now mine's just all white.

So now I just look like Santa, but,

but you know, I, so I'm going to be,

so you got the Thomas Magnum.

Yeah.

It takes work.

It takes a lot of work.

Uh, you know, actually,

so two weeks before the games, you know,

I,

I went and got a haircut and I always

get my beard trimmed and do all that, uh,

with the same barber.

I was like, Hey,

I got to have a mustache

like a week after the CrossFit games.

And so he was like, okay,

so we're not trimming the mustache.

We're going to let that get

a little bit thicker, uh,

which is kind of fun.

And then, um, and then, yeah.

So,

so at this point it's actually growing in,

it takes,

it takes the beard mustache is

different than the actual mustache.

The beard mustache is short, you know,

it's all trimmed, but, um, yeah,

this one is, um, it's legit.

And, um,

And getting thicker.

In fact,

I got a reach out from Fit to Surf.

If you know Evan Slaughter,

he's a bit of a comedian on

Instagram and on X,

and he does fun parodies of CrossFit.

He's a bigger guy,

so he likes to make jokes

about being a guy who's –

he always starts out his –

reels or something like, you know,

I've been trained for a

marathon for about two weeks now.

And then he goes into

talking about how you

should train for a marathon.

He's just kind of one of those guys.

And he has a gorgeous mustache.

I mean, just a...

you know, beautiful.

He's,

I think he's a guy that's had a

mustache for a long time.

And, uh, you know, he was like, Hey man,

you got to let that grow out.

You let it get thick.

So it's, it's fun to get advice from, um,

you know,

respected mustache holders out there.

And, and, uh, again,

it's better than nothing.

Nothing is not good.

A full beard is fine.

This is what we got going on now.

And again,

if I can make a few people smile

because they're like, dude,

You look ridiculous.

That's fine.

I'm okay with that for now.

The beard will grow back.

The beard was almost back this week,

and I literally trimmed it

just the other night just to, again,

extend the lifespan of this

monstrous mustache.

All right,

we're done with the mustache talk.

I want to dive into a little

bit of CrossFit.

And literally about a minute

and a half before we went on the air,

the Barbell Spin released some news.

And so I wanted to get your take on this.

This won't be a lot of time,

but I'm going to share my screen.

And so CrossFit,

Barbell Spin has announced

that they have discovered

that the big picture plan

to be announced next week.

What I would like to ask you is,

do you think the age groups

will be involved in this plan,

or do you think it'll just

be the elite CrossFit game season?

Man, it's such a good question.

I know that the Legends team

is looking for consistency.

I know that they – I mean,

I don't know this,

but after talking with them,

I got a pretty good feeling

that they would love to be

in Columbus again.

Like, you know, just out of consistency,

like, you know,

when they change cities every year,

they've got to rebuild from

scratch everything they're doing.

If they could be in Columbus for two years,

they could optimize, you know,

year two in Columbus so much.

So I know that would be a

perfect scenario for them.

At the same time,

I'm leaning towards

everything being together, everything,

you know, being all in one place.

You've got...

the twentieth anniversary of

the CrossFit Games starting, right?

So this is the twentieth CrossFit Games.

It's back in California,

which is interesting, you know,

with CrossFit having this

idea of being able to go around the globe

And yet now we're back in California.

That feels like a return to home,

a return to the roots.

A few weeks ago, Dave,

on his Week in Review,

he answered three or four

questions in a row.

And he's the one that picks

the comments that he responds to, right?

And he mentioned three or

four of them in a row about people saying,

hey, I wish everyone was back together.

Love the festival feel.

And he didn't hint anything.

He said, yeah, you know,

we really like that.

It's always something we can consider.

Even if we don't do it in the longterm,

we could do something altogether.

He talked about the complications of that,

of course, being that when they do that,

they almost have to rent

two weekends at a location.

So they've got the prep work

of the weekend before,

then they might have age

groups and adaptive, you know,

maybe go first during the

week and then the elites go

later in the week and the teams.

So he talked about some of

those logistical complications, but yeah,

He didn't rule it out,

and he brought it up.

I mean, he answered that question,

and he answered it three or

four times or at least said

that three or four

questions were about that,

and that gives me kind of a

bit of a hint there.

The other thing that I found

interesting was at our CrossFit,

at the age group games,

and I know you were there,

we saw Don Fowle, we saw Castro,

we saw Adrian Bosman,

which Castro and Bosman

should be popping in,

but to see Don Fowle there

as well and a lot of the

CrossFit Games team,

I know they were having

meetings on site there.

And it makes me curious

about the potential of

of them getting a feel for

how this comp is run, you know,

really eyes on the scene of how it's run,

how the Legends team is running it.

And I think that leans me

towards this idea that even for one year,

for the twentieth anniversary, you know,

kind of a bigger push,

a bigger celebration,

they could unify all of the teams,

the Wheelwod team, the Legends team,

and the CrossFit team,

and have all three teams

working on a similar site all together

without making promises that

this is how we will always be.

So I have a feeling that

we'll all be in California next week.

Again,

I talk with the Legends team quite a bit.

We are the title sponsor or

the programming sponsor for

the Legends Championships.

We have lots of conversations around that,

but I will tell you that

they are very compartmentalized.

We don't get any secrets.

They are very good at not

sharing things that they can't share.

Um, but I, I mean,

I'm maybe part of that is a

hope that we're all together.

Like that would be, would be really fun.

And I think they could pull

it off in a more efficient way.

Having these two outsource

teams that have ran their

own CrossFit games for the past two years,

you know,

they're all collaborating together.

They're all using the

efficiencies of scale, right?

So, you know,

you have all the rogue equipment there.

for the elite in the teams.

And then you just have the

age group and adaptive use

that early runs.

I mean, like they used to do.

So, I mean, I could be totally wrong.

If I was a betting person, I would bet,

you know,

I'd say there's a probably like

a fifty five to sixty

percent chance they're all together.

And I hedge my bet because

there is every time I

predicted what I think

CrossFit is going to do,

they do something

you know,

very different than what I think.

So that's where I'm hedging it.

But I think that I think it

will be unified for a

twenty year celebration anniversary.

I think that could be big.

Your thoughts, what do you think?

So selfishly,

I would love for it to be

back in Columbus because

that's where I live.

This was the easiest event

for me to cover ever as I

got to sleep in my own bed every night.

And I thought that Columbus

offered so much more than

most events offer around the venue.

It was a big space.

There was five hundred

restaurants right outside the door,

like plenty of places to

eat for everybody.

My only complaint with

Columbus is I thought the

ticket prices were too high

and then there's not enough

butts in the seats for the vendors.

I think you lower the ticket price,

you get more butts in the seats,

you up the amount of

vendors that are willing to

come in because the number

of people grows,

and you get your revenue

from vendors as opposed to spectators.

But I do also,

I've been fighting that I

think the only way CrossFit

can succeed is to build

back up with the festival feel.

I think it has to go back to

the festival feel.

So from a non-selfish point of view,

I do think it's better if

they're all in one place.

You get to sell those

festival tickets at under a

hundred dollars for people to come in,

watch together at the beer garden,

watch together on the big screens.

And then those who want to

pay the upper price to go

into a Coliseum to watch

the finals of events or whatever,

they can choose to do so.

Um, I also, yeah, so I do.

I like the idea of the festival feel back.

I hope it's more than just

the twentieth anniversary.

I don't think we're ready to go overseas.

I think in our head we think

we're bigger than we are.

And I think we have to grow

it back before we even

think about going overseas at this point.

Yeah.

I mean, I agree.

I think the enthusiasm overseas is,

is amazing.

And if they were to do something like that,

they would fill stadiums.

Uh, but, but I agree with you.

I don't,

I don't think that the sport is

mature enough or quite ready for that.

And, uh,

Yeah, I agree.

The Masters games were in

Alabama last year, Birmingham.

I got to sleep in my own bed

in twenty twenty four.

And that was nice.

And I did very much like Columbus.

I would love going back there.

But California is actually

kind of a pain to get there

from where I'm at.

But I'll go.

I mean, I'm a fan.

I'm a fan of the sport.

And I think.

I think one of the biggest

challenges when CrossFit

broke apart the festival

field and they broke this

off into these branches,

a couple of things happened.

On one hand,

vendors that had multi-year

contracts really got hammered by that.

You would typically have

so... When you have

um, masters adaptive, you know,

you've got five hundred athletes just,

I'll just talk about age groups, you know,

five hundred age group

athletes plus their

families and a good amount

of them staying into the indie event,

you have that much more

foot traffic for vendors.

And so when you have vendors

that have spent hundreds of

thousands of dollars to

build these huge massive booths and these,

you know, these activations,

and then you cut the

attendance significantly.

Dallas, the attendance was,

was very different than

what I experienced in, um,

or port worth I'm sorry was

was very different than

madison and albany I think

was was quite small as well

I couldn't get up to albany

this year um so you know

you have vendors that were

really uh frustrated by

that I know I know some of

the sponsors I've worked

with had some big

frustrations there on the

other hand when we did

separate that into individual categories

For Masters, last year,

I could have a booth for

Boulder Athlete in our

first year sponsoring anything.

We could have a booth at the

Masters Games and afford it.

So we didn't pay a hundred

thousand dollars to have a

booth last year.

This year,

our booth was three times the

investment than it was last year,

but we were happy to invest

in organizations and

situations that are investing in Masters.

So whether it be the Legends

Championship or the Masters Games,

we're there.

When it's all together,

that vendor fee and that

vendor location becomes

somewhat out of range for

small companies like us.

So I do like that we can

bring Boulder Athlete to

our specific target demographic,

Masters athletes.

So we like all that.

So the man who broke the

story is in the chat.

Barbell spin.

Can all the divisions fit

inside the Chase Center?

And I think you said it

would be one weekend of

Masters Adaptive into

another weekend of Elites,

I think is the only way it would work.

Yeah, I think that or, you know,

historically what they've

done is they have masters go Tuesday,

Wednesday, Thursday,

and they have the elite go Thursday,

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Friday,

Saturday, Sunday, just like that.

I mean,

they have three days during the

week of us, which is not optimal,

but it's fine.

Like, I mean,

we're already taking a week

off from whatever our lives are anyway.

So, you know, three days of masters,

age group adaptive,

and then three days of indie and elite.

The challenge certainly is,

when you're,

when you're working with masters, um,

and they did this in Madison,

they worked it out just fine.

And again,

they had Northfield and the stadium, uh,

or the Coliseum.

Right.

And with masters athletes,

you have something like.

Fourteen different divisions, uh, you know,

between to all the way up

to male and female.

This is a huge amount of athletes.

And one of the concerns

me is that when they

consolidate this they cut

the qualifiers you know the

amount of people way down

at one point we were you

know we had ten per

division um male and female

at the games this was you

know I think just one of

the twenty twenty twenty

three twenty four I can't

remember which ones but um

when we do have our own

uh competition we can have

thirty to forty in each

division and that's

significant so my biggest

concern is like can we get

a similar experience that

we have with this many

qualifiers this many

athletes able to

participate at the crossfit

games like a dream come

true situation for them in

this in the chase center

and maybe that you know

maybe that goes back to

what you said maybe it is

two weekends actually maybe

they just bite the bullet

and they do it into

completely unique weekends

um the the glitch with that

so from a business

perspective now that I say

that less chances yeah yeah

yeah exactly yeah the

carryover doesn't work but

tuesday wednesday thursday

then friday saturday sunday

there's nothing better for

most of us athletes to

compete earlier in the week

than sitting back and enjoying the,

watching the Indies go right.

We've, our competition is done.

We've got our medals or, you know,

we're sore.

We're walking around,

but we are there to watch

the Indies battle it out and, and,

and do that.

So I, yeah, the chase center,

I have no idea, but,

I mean, if,

if they can do our competition with eight,

with and you were there

with teenagers and masters

athletes in one floor of a

convention center.

And really you were,

we had three competition floors.

I think they had four competition boards,

but they consolidated it to three.

We, they can figure it out.

It's not hard.

And we can still have a

competition like we had,

which was incredibly

well-rounded this year

compared to last year.

So it's doable.

Sean in Oregon asked a question.

Would it be,

would be cool if everyone had

the same workout so we

could see apples to apples

comparisons of performance

scaled appropriately?

Of course.

That'd be amazing.

We'd love that.

I think the one problem

you're going to run into

with CrossFit is they want

to keep something secret for the elites.

And if you do it,

if you do it ahead of time,

then they know, but you could do,

I know the swim workout from what,

at the pool where everybody

did the exact same workout.

It was cool to compare the numbers,

even if they did a handful

or two or three,

it would be a cool

experiment to kind of totally agree.

In in twenty nineteen,

we did the we did the the

the ruck run where Matt

Frazier lost a sandbag out of his ruck.

That was right.

We did the exact same weights.

We did the exact same run.

So that was super cool.

I'm trying to think any other.

I mean, we did.

We all did the swim.

Every division did the swim.

And that was really cool.

They could.

I always feel like they

should have they should

have one or two that have

all that crossover to.

in essence,

create this unified experience.

Like all CrossFit Games

athletes are doing this.

And it would be so easy to do that.

And who cares if the cat's

out of the bag that we're

all doing a seven K run or

a run row run or some sort

of version like that, right?

Yeah.

I think you could do it more

CrossFit-y than we've ever done it.

It's always been like the swim or the run.

Yeah.

Wouldn't it be cool if you

all did thrusters and

chest-to-bar pull-ups, right?

It's the same.

Well...

You know, I'm actually remembering.

So there's two other

versions of CrossFit

workouts that we did do.

I think it was twenty twenty one.

We finished with wall walks and thrusters.

So we did ten, eight, six, four, two.

I think the Indies did a

version of that that day.

It wasn't their final workout,

but it was a workout.

Dave announced it during

opening ceremonies and they did ten,

ten all the way to one wall

walks and thrusters.

That was fun because that

felt very unifying.

It was our last day.

It was the Indies first day, I believe.

and then um we did Helen and

the indies did Helena and

we should have done Helena

that would have been if

that's even how we

pronounce it that was Helen

was fine but it was is very

hard to judge um we could

have totally done that

version of the workout as

Masters ours was a little

dumbed down but um I PR'd

my four hundred meter run

three times in Helen so

that was that was fun

Yeah, that's awesome, actually.

Gosh, so many places to go from this.

But anyway, so not only are you an athlete,

but you own Boulder Athlete,

which is pretty much,

for lack of better terminology,

the biggest training camp

in the Masters Division.

Why did you create Boulder?

And then we'll get into some other things.

Yeah,

I certainly didn't set out to create

Boulder.

I was with another training

camp at the time,

and I really felt like we

could lean into Masters

more if we had a dedicated

resource with this

particular training camp.

And those that know me can deduce it.

I'm not pointing fingers at anyone,

because I'll share more in this story.

you know, I, I, I was actually,

we were living in our RV.

We were,

we were traveling full-time as a family.

And at that time we had spent a few months,

uh, at this particular, uh,

training camp and,

and lots of conversations around,

like if we had a dedicated

asset for masters athletes,

we can really do something

important and impactful, um, you know,

really make masters that we

could grow this masters

athlete community if there

was a dedicated resource.

And with that, you know,

a way to support that resource, um,

like via a salary or

anything like I'll just say

that it was a you know

asking for a bit of a

salary or something so that

I was proposing I would do

that for this training camp

and what that would mean

that I would stop doing

everything else I'm doing

um and dedicate everything to that and um

hoping in that sense that

there would be some media

support and there would be

some some team support this

is a very large very large

training camp and uh it it

it came back to you know

hey you know jason we we

would love to do that and

we would love to give you

five percent of of new

revenue growth and I was like

I mean,

it's just literally starting from

scratch.

Literally, hey, you know, Jason,

set aside everything you're doing.

Start from absolute scratch.

And then we'll grow this.

And it was just the math

didn't work for me.

And that was okay.

I was like, okay.

So at the same time,

I actually talked with a couple of other

of the biggest training camps.

Just saying, is this a harebrained idea?

Is this a good idea or a bad idea?

And a few other training camps were like,

yeah, this is a great idea.

This is a market that needs

dedicated resources.

And I was like, let's do it.

I'm ready to jump in.

And

whether or not I was the guy

that I got essentially the

same kind of offers like, Hey, we would,

we'd love to do this.

We're all in on this.

We would love to give you, you know,

starting from scratch, but, but, you know,

a little bit of revenue based on growth.

And again, that's not,

I wasn't seeking the world.

It's just, it just wasn't the right fit.

None of those were the right scenarios.

And that was a good thing at the time.

And I,

I mean, just as you're saying that,

like if you're putting all

that work in from scratch,

why would you want to do

that for someone else when

you could do the same thing on your own?

That's correct.

And my biggest fear,

my biggest fear at the time

was I don't know how to program.

Like, I don't know.

I know how to take a program

and make it fit for me.

Right.

I know how to make

adjustments to ensure my longevity,

pay attention to my body

like I've been doing.

you know,

competitive CrossFit training for

long enough, you know,

going through way back to,

to comp train individuals

where I just killed myself

to comp train masters to make him masters,

whatever.

So I knew how to adapt

things to to myself.

But I didn't know how to,

to program from scratch.

And

Um, I did have a friend at the time and,

uh, he was overseas.

We just, you know,

virtual somehow a relationship forms over,

you know, Instagram and then turns into,

we're sending messages to,

we're sending voice messages.

And then we're like, Hey,

he had a lot of programming

experience and he could help with this.

I was like, all right, let's, let's, um,

that would be good.

I had another friend that was willing to,

um, provide, uh, as a partnership,

some financial backing to

get us off the ground.

Um,

And so I decided, I was like, hey,

I'm going to make the leap

and start Boulder Athlete.

So it literally,

I remember like driving

down the highway with my wife,

we were going from one

location to another location.

It was like, we really liked this idea of,

I used to say, get bolder, not older.

It was just something,

one of my catchphrases, right?

And we're like, Boulder Athlete.

Well, that's kind of fun.

Let's see if that domain is available.

So we reserved all of them,

Boulder Athlete, Boulder Nutrition,

Boulder Coach, Boulder, whatever.

We reserved all of them on the road, like

My wife was doing it on her

phone while we were driving,

as if the thought would

cause someone else in the

world to snap up those

domains really quick.

But we just bought them all.

And my business partner, Adam,

was like hey we can do this

he's he's run and sold a

couple of businesses he's

he's uh he's in his early

forties he's retired and he

was looking for a project

he's he's really a great um

chief operating officer

that's that's what we

consider him in our

business and um we decided

to do it let's let's do

this thing and so I had my

pro this is a long side

note but I had my

programmer overseas I was

like all right he's gonna

program everything's gonna

be fine and when we

launched at the games in

I wasn't getting the best

vibes from my friend overseas.

He was wanting a significant

amount of equity and it

just wasn't working out.

I was like, look,

if I'm going to be the face

of Boulder Athlete,

I have to be in charge of the product.

The product is the programming.

I mean,

it is supported by our community and

And all of the things we

have now that make Boulder Athlete great.

I mean,

our community is our strongest resource.

We have an incredible community.

But when it comes down to it,

the product is the programming.

And it's got to be stellar.

And I need to know that in

and out as a founder.

So a week after the twenty

twenty three games,

I am the programmer for

Boulder Athlete and I am

totally over my head.

So, you know,

the first the first thirty

athletes that signed up for

Boulder Athlete in that first week.

they were doing way too much

volume from the get-go I

would just I was learning

on the fly and um there a

lot of them are still with

us and and I could talk

about it now and we all

laugh like dude we were

killing ourselves but I

very very quickly I became

a student of programming of

of of what it was that was

good for me the best parts

of what I had learned over the years

And within six months,

I think we had programming very,

very dialed in for masters athletes.

And now, you know, just over two years in,

I think we have the best

programming on the market for masters.

I mean, I don't,

question that at all um so

it's a lot of iterations

let me get some context in

here because you and I sat

and talked at legends I

think it was and your wife

was your media director and

team I think all in one yep

um you had a handful of

athletes um competing there that day

Fast forward to the games this year,

you have a massive booth

with recovery tools and you

have commercials running

during the broadcast.

You have grown significantly

in those two years.

There's a question in the chat.

How big is Boulder now?

We're over seven hundred athletes now.

Dang, that is impressive.

Yeah, we're very excited.

Our goal at the end of the

year is is eight hundred.

I think we're going to I

think we'll surpass that.

And, you know,

if we could get to a

thousand athletes by the end of the year,

that would be be really, really great.

Really great.

And you're right, in, in, in, in, in, in,

in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in,

in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in,

in, in, in, in, in,

But we've been scrappy since day one.

You know,

in twenty twenty four at the

Masters Games, we had our first booth.

And I remember, you know,

I've got this small team with me.

Now our leadership team team is me,

you know, Adam, Josh and Aaron.

You know, these are all three tech guys.

They're, you know, high level tech guys.

But remember when we were

putting the booth together for that,

we had written a check and we're like,

we're doing a booth at the games.

what do we do and I could

think it was like well

we'll do re recovery I

think that makes sense

we'll do kind of a recovery

booth so in twenty twenty

four we had uh uh penguin

chillers came out and they they brought

you know, ice barrel couldn't commit,

but penguin chillers

brought their own ice barrel,

their own chillers.

We rent, we reached out to Norma tech.

They sent us some boots and, and stuff.

We've, we own all that stuff now.

Um, but,

and we served coffee and there was, uh,

there were a lot of

athletes thought we were a

coffee company because we

were giving away coffee.

And, um,

Anyway, we learned from that.

But I remember that being

the most stressful part of

the games in twenty twenty

four was the fact that none

of us knew how to how to

run a booth or do anything like that.

And my business partners at the time,

I was like, guys,

I really need help with this.

And they were all like,

we don't know what we're doing.

I'm like, okay, I guess I'll take it.

And we did.

So we had a booth there.

We had a booth at legends, twenty,

twenty four.

And then now in twenty, twenty five,

we learn quickly.

We've learned as a team

really quickly how to take

care of our athletes.

And if you were at our booth,

what was great is you have Adam there,

you know, all, you know,

you're putting boots on all athletes,

not just Boulder athletes,

helping people in and out of booth boots.

Um,

we have the chiller people there all day,

every day, um,

making sure that everybody

can get in the cold pledges.

It was super busy.

And I loved that feeling.

I loved walking by our own

booth and having it feel

like when you walk by an

Apple store at a mall.

You're like, how is it so busy in there?

You know, a sense of pride in that.

For me, this Games was like,

I was all out focused.

So I'd walk by the booth,

I'd wave at everyone on my

way to the hotel room to recover.

You saw how serious I was.

I was really...

he's very serious at these

games and um but but our

team our team is is huge

it's we I couldn't do this

by myself um I am a

visionary I'm the guy that

um I could easily chase you

know sparkly things uh but

I bring a lot to my team

and they help us the team

every time we meet once a

week we focus we get things

done um and we execute very

quickly and we we say yes to

you know every every

fastball over the plate

that gives us an

opportunity to support

masters athletes we say yes

and some of them are

strikeouts some of them are

are not are you know home

runs and I think our booth

this year was a home run um and

Our athletes are responding.

But we have athletes that

are joining because they

had a great time at the games.

They haven't even tested the programming,

which, trust me, is very, very good.

But they're like, yeah,

we just love how you

supported us at the games.

And that's exactly what we

intend to continue to do.

What I want to point out at

the twenty four games.

the sponsor that was

supposed to supply cold

tubs and recovery stuff

fell through for the people

doing the games.

And your team offered up

your booth and your

recovery tools to the

entire group of Masters athletes.

Not just older athletes,

but everybody at the venue,

which I thought was super

cool of you guys to do.

And just shows the type of people you are.

Yeah,

we will love people whether they go

with us or not.

Some people have been

with... We'll just use an

example like Invictus.

People have been... They're so loyal.

And that's totally fine with us.

We're not trying to steal people.

We just want to support masters.

If that turns into clients

over the long run, that's great.

But when it comes down to it,

we want to see this...

this uh this group of men

and women thrive for the

long run um I you know you

you go to the masters games

and you watch watch these

athletes compete of all

ages like you know we I

love watching scott panchik

and con porter battle it

out as like these are it's

just ogs crushing it like

that's super exciting and I

also love watching marie

one of our athletes in the

sixty plus you know just

just struggling and hit on

every snatch in that last workout.

Like,

but with this like resolved that she's,

she's going to do this.

And this is a heavy,

I think it was ninety five

pounds or something for sixty plus women.

Like it's a heavy snatch.

And, um,

I mean,

I get just as excited watching that.

And we want to continue to

see that happen and foster

that as much as we can.

We know that that'll pay

dividends in the future for business.

That's fine.

But really,

it just feels good and it feels

right to be supporting businesses.

masters athletes where

they're competing and and

we you know we mfc is

coming up in a couple of

weeks we're not a sponsor

but like all hands on deck

our team will be there to

sporting over fifty boulder

athletes that are competing

there uh obviously we're

doing the same thing at

legends fittest of the

coast is in the spring we

had something like thirty

athletes there last year um

we we will go wherever we

can wherever we can within

reason um and for me it's

it's weird because I'm not competing

Anymore in twenty twenty five.

I can't compete at Legends

as the programming sponsor.

I'll know the workout,

so I certainly can't compete.

So I'm not.

I have a follow.

I want to go down that path

because here's the one

drawback of Boulder athlete

that and we've said this

about other people in the

elite division who do a lot

of programming for competitions.

Because Boulder has grown so much,

and you have mentioned

you're doing the Programming for Legends,

which is probably one of

the top three events in the

Masters Division for the year.

And does that bring a

conflict of interest?

I know you are not competing,

but you have eight hundred

athletes that do your programming.

Yeah, that's a great question.

One,

everyone should just join and then you

won't be surprised.

Not really.

So with the programming sponsor,

be clear about Legends.

We're the programming sponsor.

And that means that I get to

help influence the workouts

that Joe creates.

I don't write the workouts.

I don't have to love all of the workouts.

But Joe and I will

collaborate on the workouts

with the idea that there

will be some things in

there that feel bold or athlete-like.

And that's it.

We don't take over the

programming in any way.

And it's a shared responsibility.

It's something that's kind

of fun that we can influence.

But when it comes down to it,

the idea is to create a

test that's well-rounded,

that a well-rounded athlete

should be able to thrive in.

And that's, I mean, honestly,

that's the program.

My programming isn't overly biased.

We're not,

I'm not trying to create

gymnastics ninjas,

even though I'm great at gymnastics.

It's to create incredibly

well-rounded and over-prepared athletes,

over-prepared for whatever

comes in competition.

So when it comes to like

writing or influencing some

of the programming in a large competition,

you know,

it negates me from competing

because I would know the workouts.

Obviously that's not fair.

you know athletes in boulder

athlete will not see any

major biases or changes

between now and legends

that would favor them doing

well at the legends

championship it's and if

and you could study I could

open the book to you as

almost like an audit like

hey look at the program

we've done for the last you

know eighteen months and

watch it continue in this

same flow and pattern

through legends,

through the games next year.

And regardless of who

programs and what's programmed,

our athletes should be, uh, well-prepared,

but you bring up that point.

Like, um, you know, let's say that,

let's say, um,

we were going to introduce it.

Let's say that we were going

to introduce a pig flip at legends.

I can just use that because

we're not introducing a pig

flip at legends.

Okay.

Um, not that I know of, um,

but if I just started introducing,

you know, uh,

massive amounts of tire flips or,

or pig flips or something like that,

or peg boards, I was like,

all of a sudden Boulder

athletes are all doing peg

boards and it's all showing

up in social media.

And then it shows up at

legends that gets a little bit weird.

Right.

Yeah.

Um,

So, you know, I don't see weird,

unique things like that happening.

You know,

should you expect handstand

pushups at Legends?

Like, probably.

Should you expect to snatch

or clean and jerk or swim

or run or carry things or do CrossFit?

You should expect all of those things.

Yes.

But that's my answer.

And it may not be a hundred

percent satisfactory

because when it comes down to it,

everybody and anybody will

have their suspicions that

if a training camp knows the workouts,

there's going to be some

sort of leakage into the programming.

And I'm just kind of a routine-based guy.

I program things well out in advance.

And the idea behind the

Legends programming for

that championship is to create

a well-rounded test,

like the game should be a

well-rounded test,

like people's training

should be well-rounded.

So it should all, in theory, blow like

butter I don't know what I

don't know what the right

and the facts are that you

are investing in the

master's division more than

anyone else and so and

because of that you that

has helped your growth but

you also are going to be an

influence anyway because

you are deeply invested in

this division anyway I'm a

student of the division I

think of it that way too

When we're training for the

games or we're training for

any kind of a competition,

last year training for Legends,

we're studying what Legends

has put out over the past

couple of years and

training to prepare for Legends.

Legends tends to be one of

those competitions that's almost as hard,

if not more challenging than the games.

At least that's been my

experience over five years,

such a challenging test it

tends to be heavier um and

maybe that's the a bias of

of joe and bob when they

program legends they they

bias things a little bit

heavier there but um

Where am I going with that?

All that to say is that if

you're preparing for a competition,

you know, you study how that's been,

what's been delivered in the past.

Another example would be like MFC.

MFC tends to use heavy sandbags.

Like I was a forty seven

year old doing two hundred

pound sandbag cleans at MFC

in twenty twenty four, I think,

or twenty twenty three.

I can't remember.

Twenty twenty three.

I was like, this is a heavy sandbag.

I will never get caught off guard.

Again, if I'm preparing for MFC,

I'm using heavy sandbags.

So Boulder athletes that are

preparing for MFC right now

are having a dose of two

hundred pound sandbags.

You've become a student of the sport.

You can become a student of

the trends you see.

And I guess that's another

example of like whether

it's legends or fittest of

the coast or MFC or the

fittest experience or monster games.

you you study what has

historically been put out

there um and again it's all

just crossfit but you can

kind of like okay we're

gonna use two hundred pound

sandbags let's practice

that or getting ready for

the games like we have seen

pistols at the games maybe

we should practice pistols

and then they throw out

weighted pistols at us like

holy crap we may never see

that again but next year we

won't get caught off guard

we'll be practicing weighted pistols

So, um,

well-rounded programs should pay

attention.

It should be students of the

game and students of competitions.

That's, that's what I do.

Uh, SEMA jumps in with a great example.

Should,

should you know how to do triple

unders if Boz is programming?

Yes.

Everyone has a bias.

It's fine.

Right.

And Boz is programming.

I'm like, ah, here we go.

We're,

we're going to do some pirouettes on

our hands.

We're going to do triple unders,

maybe double crossovers.

Um,

I don't think we'll see

those kinds of things for Masters.

But if Boz were programming,

let's just say like, hey,

they have a guest

programmer for Legends and

his name is Boz.

We're probably going to

practice some stuff like

that and not be excited about it,

but we will.

Some of the higher skill...

I actually don't want to

call them circus tricks, right?

Because they're not.

But they're high skill.

They're high skill stuff.

They require practice.

He was trained in the circus.

That's what I know.

Maybe that's where I came.

But I thought about that.

But, you know, pirouettes up on a box.

I love that kind of stuff.

Like, I absolutely love it.

But you you are dealing with, you know,

really high skill and a

little bit higher danger stuff.

But yeah, Boz is doing it.

Or a few years ago,

Mayhem programmed Legends Championship.

You're like, OK, Mayhem.

Can we expect GHDs?

We should probably expect

some significant volume

GHDs or ring muscle-ups.

What do you typically see from Mayhem?

And sure enough, at that competition,

I think we had an event

that started with.

Seventy-five or ninety GHD sit-ups,

something like that,

which is a lot for masters.

But that's something that, yeah, if, if.

And that's where I want to

say like Boulder athlete,

where will the Boulder athlete flavor be?

Well, I will say that, you know,

Boulder athlete on, on, um,

know three days of the week

monday tuesday and friday

we have we open up our

training on the compete in

elite side of things with

uh with gymnastics

endurance we're pairing a

high skill gymnastics

movement um with

complications so a

complication would be like

you know let's say like

tuesdays would be uh

pressing overhead so we

might have handstand push

push-ups combined with echo

bike because that's going

to mess up handstand

push-ups or double unders or wall walks

and uh what was fun at the

crossfit games for masters

is we had a workout that was

uh, handstand pushups,

echo bike and double unders.

And so many athletes sent me

a message saying, Hey, this is a,

this is our Tuesday.

I'm like,

I know this is a Tuesday workout.

A hundred percent.

That's a shoulder endurance workout.

I mean,

it's really more of a

cardiovascular endurance, uh,

when it turned, when it came on, but,

but that's something that

we pay attention to, you know, on Mondays,

we often do ring muscle ups

combined with some sort of complication.

And if,

if I can bring a little bit of that

interestingness to legends,

that would be kind of fun.

But that's not something that you,

that would be,

it shouldn't throw a wrench in anything.

You should always expect to

have to do higher skilled

gymnastics under fatigue.

But we practice that at Boulder.

We practice it three days a

week as our opener.

Like that's just kind of how we warm up.

What are my thoughts on that?

That would be.

I want to move.

I want to move into a

different direction because

my lunch hour is coming to an end.

I could have you on for a couple hours.

That'd be so fun, right?

We could just chat.

Um,

Dave in his weekend review a couple

months back kind of leaked

this idea that there may be, um,

an in-person way for the

masters athlete to qualify for the games.

I wanted to get your thoughts on that.

Yeah.

Um, so I,

I've heard a little bit about that.

I, I know, uh,

I know who's pitching that to Dave.

Um,

I was copied on that communication.

And what I do know is that

Dave was receptive.

And I believe they've had

one or two meetings already.

I believe one of those

meetings was at the CrossFit Games.

And so it's looking like it's I mean,

having a couple of meetings

are all steps in the right direction.

But I think Masters athletes

would love that.

And if they could, you know,

ideally test test this with

one competition in twenty

twenty six and then the

future expand that a little bit to,

you know,

if you have one in twenty twenty

six and it's in a specific location,

you know,

that's not fair for the entire world.

who wants to try to qualify in person.

But if they can test this in

twenty twenty six and then

or proof of concept,

make sure it works and then expand that.

And again,

we're probably not going to send

we're never going to send

all of our Masters athletes

to the games via in-person competition.

But it would be really

interesting if you could get

half of the athletes via

multiple in-person competitions.

So all that to say is that I

know that talks are happening.

I was thoroughly

I wasn't thoroughly shocked or surprised,

but I was maybe grateful to

see that Dave was receptive

to that idea and that that

actually turned into action from HQ.

So I know who's in charge of that.

I don't think that's

something to let out just

yet because it's too early to know.

But the person that would be

in charge of running that is a very,

very competent competition

Organizer, I mean,

very professional competitions,

very smart.

In fact,

I have a call with the same

individual tomorrow that

was sort of out of the blue.

Just a text that said, hey, are you free?

Wait, what's today?

Friday.

Today's Friday.

Oh, I have a call in ten minutes with him.

So he said, hey,

are you free Friday at noon?

And I was like, yes.

And he's like, OK, I'll call you.

I have no idea what that's about.

But in ten minutes,

maybe I'll know more or

maybe it's about something else.

I have no idea.

But that rumor is true.

And there's talks happening.

And that would be very, very exciting.

to see that happen.

And then ideally, if it works well,

it's going to move slowly.

But if, if you could be like,

you have a competition in

some of the major areas, you know, Europe,

Brazil, couple in America, you know,

maybe one in, in Asia.

I mean, that'd be sick.

That'd be just amazing.

And it would be so good for the master's,

Um, and even if it was just age group,

again, you can have teenagers and,

and masters that there's a lot of,

a lot of crossover there.

We could do the same

workouts and a lot of the

same scaling patterns, um,

and find the fittest athletes.

Yeah.

It brings more meaning to those,

those events.

And I'm sure event

coordinators would love to

have that added meaning to

something to bring more

people into the stands.

I mean, heck yeah.

And they just have to figure out, you know,

like, like, let's say,

let's say that down the road, like,

you know, the syndicate crown had,

had masters in there.

You just have to navigate

the challenges of having so

many more divisions.

That's,

that's the one thing that makes

masters difficult.

both wonderful from an

attendance perspective and

maybe a revenue perspective,

but logistically,

it does take a special

skillset to program it

correctly for those age groups,

which that's not hard to do,

but actually the logistics of running

you know, fourteen heats per event.

That's not that's not easy.

And those are I mean,

that's fourteen heats.

That's that's if you only

had one heat going per division,

if that makes sense.

So logistically, it's challenging.

But that's what that's what

great competition organizers do.

I don't know how they do it,

but they do it.

All right,

I'm going to finish up our

conversation with this,

and then I got to have you

back on because I'm not

even we haven't even

touched the surface of all the issues.

You just send me an invite

and we'll do it.

So the last thing is there's

all these plans in place.

There's all these rumors of

things to come.

And then you have this thing

called the sale of CrossFit.

That who knows what kind of

wrinkle that is going to

bring to this whole thing.

You as a business owner in the space,

as a six-time games champion saying,

How and other people as

prominent as you in the

elite division have put

kind of their flag down

saying it has to be this way or else.

What are your thoughts about

the sale and can you make

any plans going forward?

I mean...

We move forward with things

continuing in a similar fashion.

What's nice is that our

entire business doesn't

hinge on the CrossFit Games.

My entire career doesn't

hinge on the CrossFit Games.

There are multiple other

competitions that are very,

very satisfying.

uh there's a there's the

steam that goes with the

crossfit games that would

very much like to see

continue um both on the

individual side and the um

you know of course the age

group side and or the the

divisional side we'll call

it that I would love to see

that continue I have a

drawer full of of gold

medals I would love to

continue and I'd love to

continue to build that

legacy that's my preferred

direction um but you know i

All we can do is plan to

continue in this direction.

And if it changes, adapt.

I think we've adapted.

We adapted when we were... I mean,

it was a big shock when

they said that you were

breaking apart the

divisions from the elites in Madison.

I mean, I was sad.

I was sad.

I was upset.

I hate hearing things through rumors.

I hate it not being

delivered in a way that was really...

you know,

well thought out and packaged or

at least communicated.

But it's turned out to be great.

I mean, it's worked out really well.

I don't think,

I don't know if Boulder

Athlete is where we're at

if that didn't happen.

You know,

there was something serendipitous

about that that I'm not upset about.

So with that kind of optimism,

that's my glasses half full

kind of optimism.

Like, hey, if everything changes,

let's roll with it.

Let's see what happens.

There may be some opportunities there.

There may be some things

that are really scary, but that's okay.

That's how life is, right?

I have this tattoo in the

middle of my chest.

I forget it's there,

but oftentimes people are like, hey,

what's that tattoo mean?

And I got it twenty years ago.

So it's a balance.

There's this vertical line

in the middle and two

kanjis on either side.

It's the word for crisis, actually.

And it's the balance between

danger and opportunity.

And every time...

we sort of enter a new stage in life.

There's a crisis moment.

And crisis may not be,

it doesn't have to be like

something scary or dangerous.

It's just like there's a transition,

a transition moment.

And in every transition or

every uncertain moment or every crisis,

there is a balance between

danger and opportunity.

And I kind of think of things that way.

Like there could be great

opportunity if there are major changes.

There could be big dangers or big bummers.

It could threaten everything.

But I mean,

I've been kind of an

entrepreneur my whole life.

So if everything changes and

everything falls apart,

we'll just, you know,

we'll build something else.

You know,

there's lots of things to do out there.

I was on Talking Elite

Fitness the other day and

it's not published yet,

but they asked me if I

wasn't a CrossFit athlete,

what else would I do at this point?

I mean, it's sort of like when people ask,

like, if you won the lottery,

would you still do what you do?

Well,

I would still do what I do if I won

the lottery.

And if I wasn't doing CrossFit and I had,

I would be doing another sport.

You know, I'd be doing,

Maybe high rocks.

That's pretty awful.

But maybe doing that or like

triathlons or I don't even know,

but I'd be doing something.

And so all that to say that whatever comes,

we'll navigate it.

And there are plenty of really great

functional fitness CrossFit

competitions out there

where we can be tested and

push our limits and get on

the battlefield and have

all of those feelings.

Uh,

but ideally we get to do that at

something called the

CrossFit games in the future as well.

Ideally.

Awesome.

What I, just because you said it,

all of your medals are in a drawer.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't have,

I'm not a guy that puts them all up.

I just haven't had a chance

in the last seven years, but yeah,

it's in a drawer right here.

Uh, in fact, right behind me.

Um,

I mean, I have them all, you know,

just all in this drawer.

I have all my shirts, you know, my,

in fact, I have like, you know,

the fittest on earth shirts.

I have these in bags with

the metal from that year.

One of the things we do need to do

And we need to have back.

In fact,

Boulder Athlete is going to

sponsor it if we have to next year.

We're going to make it happen.

But the winners should have

Fittest on Earth shirts.

It's something we had when

we were in Madison.

We didn't have it last year in Birmingham,

and we didn't have it this year.

But there is something about

having a medal around your

neck and a white shirt with

gold words that say Fittest on Earth.

That is the shirt.

You want that shirt.

We were actually thinking as

Boulder athlete,

like we're just going to

send all the winners

fittest on earth shirts.

We're just going to make

them ourselves and send them.

And then we realized that is

a straight up trademark.

Yeah.

But you can get permission, right?

I mean,

maybe CrossFit would give you

permission to do it.

I mean, we, we have thought about that.

I can't, I can't imagine they'd say yes.

But it would be a hard

argument if they said no.

Why not?

But we would very much have

to have their permission.

We asked ChatGPT, and ChatGPT was like,

yeah,

you can't... That is a strong

copyrighted phrase right there,

so you're going to want to

tread carefully.

But it is on our Thursday

to-do list to discuss that next week.

Again, is this something we should do?

Because how cool would it be

just to have something in

the mail that says, Fittest on Earth.

Congratulations.

And

Again,

we've got a shirt vendor that would

do that for us.

Thick Boy is our partner in our apparel,

and he's great.

They would do that in a

second if we had permission.

Since you said that,

I will just ask CrossFit.

I'm just going to ask them,

can we do this?

And whatever they say, they say.

Sean in Oregon says,

appropriate that his

hardware is in a tool chest.

It is.

That is correct.

It's well protected.

This will survive a fire.

Well, Jason, as always,

it was a treat having you on.

Again,

we barely touched the surface of all

the stuff I wanted to get

to as to what's going on in

the Masters and H Group divisions.

So we'll have to have you

back on for sure.

I'd love to.

But thank you so much for doing this.

And thank you guys in the

chat for the great questions.

With that, guys,

don't forget to like and

subscribe to the channel.

And I don't know if we're

doing a Sunday night show this week.

Jamie had surgery today.

I'm heading to Montana tomorrow.

And Carolyn probably doesn't

want to do the show by herself.

So with that,

we will see everybody next

week on Lunch with the Clydesdale.

With that, guys, peace out.