Cory Kinley - The Athletes of the 2024 Legends Masters CrossFit Games

We meet Cory Kinley as he heads to the Masters CrossFit Games.  We talk to Cory about what the Journey has been like, what his goals and aspirations are and so much more.

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.

I was born

What is going on, everybody?

Welcome to the Clydesdale Media Podcast.

My name is Scott Switch.

I'm the Clydesdale.

We are here to celebrate and

highlight the athletes of

the 2024 Legends Masters CrossFit Games.

And I have with me right now,

Corey Kinley.

What's going on?

Hey, Scott.

Hey, thanks for doing this, man.

I've been watching a lot of

your other interviews.

And, uh, I just think to give us, you know,

15 minutes of fame, a lot of us, you know,

don't really think too much

about like ourselves as,

as a interview worthy.

Uh, so I really appreciate it, man.

Actually, I think,

I think the stories that

you guys have are much more

interesting to me than the

stories of the elite athletes,

the lives that you lead and

the balance that it takes

for you to do what you do, uh,

is way more interesting to me.

You got a good point.

The other thing too is like

a lot of these guys I

consider friends and

listening to these interviews,

getting to know them better

has been really fascinating.

Yeah.

I didn't think I could like

Brandon Fontenot any better,

but I think I do now.

Yeah.

He's a good dude.

He's awesome.

Uh, Carol Hunt,

thank you so much for joining up.

Uh, yeah, you can,

you can join the channel

for as low as $2 and 99 cents a month and,

uh,

help support the channel and helps us

get to different locations

to be able to do what we want to do.

Shout out Carol.

That's your mom.

That's my mom.

Ah, gotta love moms.

She's she, I have to, yeah,

let me shout her out.

She's gotta be one of the

most supportive people.

Um,

I was just thinking about a

bunch of stuff leading up

to this and I really wanted

to be a good soccer player growing up.

And I tried out for all

these teams and I tried out

for a team that was two

hours away from where we lived.

And yeah,

You know,

we're not much of a sports family.

And she and my stepfather

thought there'd be no

chance that I could make it.

So they're like, yeah, we'll support you.

So we went up, tried out.

It turns out I made it.

So they used to drive me two

hours during the weekday

and on weekends to practice.

Well, four hours,

two hours up and two hours back.

And she's still the most

supportive person.

My mom was the same way and

my dad as well.

I was a swimmer growing up.

I got private lessons

because I wanted to be the best.

They would drive an hour or two.

So you were born in Lock Haven,

Pennsylvania.

That's right.

Which is one of the PSA, PSCA,

whatever it is,

Collegiate Athletic in Pennsylvania.

I went to private lessons at

Clarion University.

Okay.

So they were our tribals

kind of in that division.

And it was good 45 minutes from our house,

and I thought that was a lot,

but two hours, dang.

Yeah.

It was – yeah,

I ended up having to

basically have like a host family.

I would –

they would drive me up on

Saturday mornings, we'd have practice,

and then they'd drive home

on Saturday morning,

and I'd stay up there.

But this is when we moved to Delaware.

So I was born in Lock Haven

and Williamsport area,

where they do the Little

League World Series.

But when I was around nine or ten,

we moved to the

the, the, the Atlantic, you know, in,

in Rehoboth beach, Delaware.

So I was driving,

they were driving me from

Southern Delaware up to

Northern Delaware in Wilmington.

And I would have to stay

overnight Saturday and then

we play the games on Sunday.

So then they would come back up,

watch the game and take me home.

Wow.

Yeah.

I've been to Wilmington a few times.

Um,

My one co-host, Kat, she's from there.

And we went out and covered

a Green Beret project

competition in Wilmington a

couple years ago.

Wilmington, Delaware?

Yep.

No way.

Oh, I have to get a hold of Kat.

That's really interesting.

Yeah.

She'll be with me at the games next week.

So she'll be on some shows with us there.

Is she coming to Birmingham?

I haven't heard yet.

All right.

Let's get her to Birmingham.

Um, so you, you played soccer.

What kind of foundation did

that give you for overall

fitness in life?

Um, that's a great question.

I think that it, it basically,

it set my default.

Um, I just,

I say this often cause I coach

CrossFit and I've been

doing that for like 12 years.

And I think that the, the,

The worst curse to me would

be to like not like to sweat, you know?

Cause I just, I'm a sweaty,

I'm a sweaty workouter.

And it's just kind of,

I think growing up where,

You know, I played in high school,

you know,

played during school and then I

played travel teams and

Olympic development.

So just all year long playing soccer.

So it just became my default

to to do workouts and, you know,

move my body.

And if I wasn't, you know,

before I before I got old, I might have,

you know,

participated in some drinking a

little bit here and there.

And I remember, like,

if I didn't feel good the next morning,

if I didn't.

do some type of exercise,

then I was worthless.

So I think playing all that

soccer just gave me a base

where you got to move your

body to feel good, I guess.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's really cool.

But what I find fascinating

is I talked to a lot of

athletes and there's a,

there's some connections

and backgrounds and soccer

seems to be one of them.

And it's just because you're

constantly moving.

Right.

So you're used to like that

wide pace of just keep moving,

just keep moving.

You ended up playing in college.

Yeah.

Moravian university.

Do you,

So you – I listened to some

other of your interviews,

and you kind of mentioned wrestling.

It was – I was listening to

the rec interview.

So Lehigh University is in Bethlehem,

Pennsylvania also.

They have a pretty good like

a wrestling program.

Moravian University is kind of like –

the little stepbrother of

Lehigh university.

But it's been there since 1742.

It's the sixth oldest college in the,

in the country.

It's small.

We had, we had a thousand students.

Yeah.

I think if I remember right,

Chris Spieler actually went

to Lehigh to wrestle.

I think he went to Lock Haven.

Lock Haven.

Was it Lock Haven?

Yeah.

It was one of the Eastern

Pennsylvania schools.

And so that – when I read –

the reason that I

remembered it was Spieler

went to Lock Haven because

I was born in Lock Haven.

And I read the coolest thing.

You know,

those wrestlers are just monsters.

And they did an airdyne test

at Lock Haven.

Like I guess every year the

wrestlers did an airdyne test.

And, you know, I've always complained.

I'm like kind of a shorter lever athlete.

And so, you know,

I don't have a lot of power

on the airdyne or whatever.

but it turns out that

spieler for a long time had

the the airdyne record and

he was you know a

lightweight yeah I think he

told that story on our show

when he was on no way

something about like

breaking the record of that

that um and he and he

attributes a lot of it to

to wrestling putting you in

positions where you're

uncomfortable and like if

you're comfortable being

uncomfortable it helps you in workouts

Yeah, absolutely.

I have a heightened sense of

self-preservation.

And maybe it's from not

doing like the one-on-one

like in a wrestling sports.

Like in soccer,

you have to have something left.

And, you know, it's 90 minutes.

So, you know,

it's particularly if you if

you still need to win the

game or whatever, if you need to score,

you got to have something left.

So I've always been kind of

conservative in trying to

figure out the best way to

move through a workout where I don't fail,

don't blow up.

And I think.

If I'm going to improve,

it's either getting a

mentality that I need to

put myself under more

stress or at least have

coaches tell me to do that.

We have a hello from Argentina.

Wow.

Hello, Gisela.

Is that real?

That doesn't look real.

I don't know.

I know we have listeners all

over the world,

so I'll take it for what it is.

It's funny,

just the different sports and

the different mentality.

I was talking to Caitlin

Johnson last Friday.

She was a swimmer,

and she talked about how

when she went to CrossFit,

the mentality of swimming

is there's no option to

quit or to stop in the middle of a race.

If you do, you drown.

You have to keep swimming to

get to the end.

And in CrossFit,

you have the option to put the bar down.

And when she first went in,

she was trying to do

everything unbroken because

that was the mentality that

she grew up with swimming

all those years.

You can't stop.

Yeah.

Yeah.

you bring up something to me that's,

I think it's interesting that maybe,

you know,

the difference between a team

sport like soccer and,

and these one-on-one like wrestling where,

so in soccer, how, what's the,

the saying go that the,

the whole is greater than the sum,

the sum of the parts.

Like there there's that,

there's like this

intangible thing that like,

maybe, maybe you don't have the,

the team doesn't have the best skills,

but just something about, you know, there,

there are underdogs can win, you know?

And in it, it's a lot about,

I think these intangibles

of what's the best way to say this?

Like you can be,

you can behave in a way you

can play in a way that's,

that's higher than,

on what you have on paper, you know?

And it reminds me that I

think that mentality,

it helps me in CrossFit because, I mean,

you know, on paper, let's say,

a guy's going to beat you, but you,

you can, you can outsmart,

you can do a workout

smarter than another guy.

That's that's faster and

bigger and stronger.

And you can, and you can, and you can win.

You can be way smarter, you know?

Yeah.

Like everybody can do 10 thrusters,

135 pounds, you know, unbroken,

but you shouldn't, you know, like,

And I guess just like not

working out with the ego,

just saying instead of ego,

just do the smartest thing.

And that can go a long way.

I know a lot of guys that

are not going to the games

that are fitter, stronger,

and faster than me and a

lot of the guys that are going.

Well, you look at you're a mayhem athlete.

You look at Rich Froning,

the guy never lost on Sunday.

And the reason is because he

played the week in a way

that allowed him to

dominate when it mattered most.

So it is a lot about strategy.

It is a lot about the brains

that you put behind this.

What was the main reason you

went with Mayhem as you were programming?

I think so.

So my story is interesting.

I haven't been real competitive.

Um, you know, like I, I'm in a, in a,

in a thread with a bunch of great guys.

Um, very inspirational to me.

Um,

like Dave Johnston, Chris Anderson,

and Ryan Redkey, these guys,

and it's really good for me

because I don't have like

the same approach and

mentality that they do.

And so for me to get exposed

to how they think is really good for me.

So I'm kind of,

I'm new to competing in CrossFit.

And my first Legends was 2021, I think.

And so at the time, I was 44, I believe.

And I didn't even understand how – really,

I didn't think too much

about how – where you are

in the age group affects

the possibility of doing well or not.

So I think I was 44.

But I never thought about it.

I just don't have – I don't

have like a real –

analytic brain for this stuff.

And so I went to Legends and

I think I got dead last.

And so I got into CrossFit

at 35 years old.

Um, similar story to, to Brandon, where,

um, I, I, I went on this run and I was,

do you remember the barefoot shoes?

Oh yeah.

The five fingers.

Oh man.

I was, I was into it.

I was born to run.

barefoot.

I went out on what I

consider a longer run

because at that time,

exercise for me at 35 was pull-ups,

push-ups on a jungle gym and a trail run.

I went on this long run and I had...

one of those gel packs, you know,

and my key in my shorts.

And so I think I went out

like five miles out or no.

Yeah, maybe it was like a,

maybe I was three miles out

and I was going to come back three miles.

Well,

I get back to my truck and I don't

have my key because I

dropped it when I ate my gel pack at like,

you know, three miles out.

So I had to go run and get my key.

so I did I think I did 12

miles in barefoot shoes so

I had this terrible plantar

fasciitis so I couldn't do

my my exercise I couldn't

trail run anymore and

that's when I i found

crossfit um and you asked

me about mayhem um so

So I'm going to ask, anytime you go run,

do you now put your key on

the little piece of yarn

like they do for the kids

so you can put it around your neck?

Oh, yeah.

I duct tape it to my leg so

it doesn't go anywhere.

Well, I don't really run anymore.

So that's how I solve that.

Just don't go on long runs.

The first six months I did CrossFit,

I left my wedding ring at

the gym like 12 times.

Yeah, the owner's like calling me like,

hey, is your wife around?

I'm like, no.

And he's like, I have your wedding ring.

Yeah, you did it again.

Yeah.

Yeah, Scott,

you got to figure out how to

keep this ring.

So I went with silicone so I

don't ever take it off.

Yeah, there you go.

Solved the problem.

So to answer your question,

I think I was dead last at

my first Legends.

And I hadn't been really

competitive up to that point.

And so here I am, I think.

We were in San Diego and I'm like,

you're spending a lot of money and time.

So you either should quit

this or figure out how to be competitive.

And so I think going to the

games this year is kind of

the victory lap of that.

So three years ago, I said,

how can you be competitive?

You have to figure it out or

you should quit because

this is expensive.

So I start asking everybody

at Legends that's whipping my butt,

what do they do?

How do you do this?

And so two things –

everybody said the same two

things essentially is that

you have to find programming.

You have to find –

programming that is designed

to lead you to where you want to go.

And you basically have to

fit your schedule so you

can get the volume in.

And

you know,

basically that was everyone else.

That's the approach now that,

that makes perfect sense.

But I didn't, I didn't know anything.

So that, and that was the year like Grubb,

Jason Grubb was super,

was like Mr. Mayhem.

And so, you know, he's beaten everybody.

So I'm like, well, mayhem sounds good.

And another couple of guys

mentioned mayhem.

Um, and so I said, well, I should do that.

And I think right around the same time,

um,

Because I was in proximity

to Ryan Redke at the time,

we kind of stayed a little bit in touch.

And I think that's right

around the same time that

he decided to switch over

to Mayhem to get more serious too.

I think about like this, this week alone,

I think I've talked to four

of you from that group and

cat is coming up this weekend.

Yeah.

Um,

and you all did semifinals together and

what a collection of

different style athletes.

We all made it.

Yeah.

All with one mission,

all with it in one place.

What a cool, what a cool story that is.

It was an incredible camp.

Um,

Yeah.

I mean, you want to do a documentary,

do a documentary on that camp.

Like we all came from all

over the place and all qualified.

It's nuts.

Well, like if you stand beside Chris,

beside Ryan,

you guys don't look anything

like the same sport.

And yet you're all going to

the CrossFit games.

Yeah.

It's you.

You talking about Chris Anderson?

Yeah.

Well,

I think if we talk about my

perspective in CrossFit and

how it's – my perspective

of how all this goes down

is a lot different than

like a Ryan Redke or a Dave Johnson,

Chris Anderson because they're aliens.

Like I do – You're in that group.

What's that?

You're in that group.

Okay.

Okay.

I appreciate that.

Um, I think there, there's,

there are tears though, you know, like,

and, and Chris Anderson,

like we had this workout at

legends this year that was like heavy, um,

heavy cleans too.

Well, they were heavy for me.

They're 225 pound cleans and, and, and, um,

handstand walk.

And like,

You know, I did very well on the strength.

We had to do a snatch and a

clean and jerk.

And so, you know,

I think I clean and jerk 295.

But I did not – I struggled

with the high volume

225-pound weight in this clean workout.

Chris Anderson weighs like 150 pounds.

And –

225 pounds is probably 90% of his max,

right?

Well,

he can move 90% better than I can

move that 75%.

Yeah, we don't look alike.

And he's from another planet.

To be honest,

when you look at Chris

Anderson on the floor...

He doesn't look like he belongs,

yet he's one of the best in

the world in his age group.

It is mind-boggling.

I look at when workouts come out,

I have this Chris Anderson filter.

It's like, oh,

no one's beaten Chris

Anderson in that workout.

If the movements are a certain thing,

no one is beating him in any age group.

Corey Leonard says,

this guy has a great first name.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He,

Corey Leonard spells his name the right

way.

Yeah.

So Corey's in your age group.

He's, he's,

he's been training so hard so

that he can compete when he turns 50.

Well, he's looking, I just saw his photo.

He's ripped.

Yeah.

He, he has really dialed it in,

in the last nine months.

He's, he works out with Brandon Luckett.

Where do they live?

Louisiana.

I don't know if you know Brandon Lockett.

He made it to the games in the elite.

He runs email company and

that's the programming that Corey does.

Well, where does Brandon Fontenot live?

Does he live in Louisiana?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he's,

he's part of that group down there too.

That's a good, that's a good,

that's a good camp down there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They have a camp called the

Southland group, Southland camp.

And Rudy Berger goes down there and,

Roy Vijay,

some other people that are in

the Masters world.

Lake Charles is what Corey said.

Okay.

Yeah, it's really cool.

There's a lot of different

camps out there.

Really, really cool community.

Yeah.

And that's why I want to

document this year,

because I think that's what

you guys bring that the elites don't.

And that is that sense of

camaraderie and the

community behind it all.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You mentioned that at our

semis camp at mayhem this year,

there were four of us in

the same age group doing

workouts together.

And I mean, not at one time,

did anybody think, oh, you know,

this guy's – we should be

competing against each other.

I mean, mainly, I guess, because, you know,

there were 40 spots,

so there was plenty of spots.

But, yeah,

there was – it was a brotherhood.

There was no competition whatsoever.

I don't think that would have mattered.

No.

Like, in this community,

it just doesn't seem to matter.

But you went from 58 at

quarters to 31st at semis.

Probably that environment is

10 of those spots alone.

Absolutely.

And the main thing that I think informed,

like,

led to that was likely because we

had the 40s to 44s and us 45 to 49s.

We did everything together.

And, you know,

so I could see like what

Jonathan Varela and Brett

Owsley were rowing on their

50 Cal intervals.

And so I would,

I could see what they're rowing.

They're rowing 1200s.

let's say maybe they were

rowing 11 hundreds.

And I was like, I, you know,

I can't do that.

So I'm going to row 12, a 1200.

And I put a perfect workout together.

You just, you just can't get that.

You know,

when I'm at my home gym and I got

people running in front of

my camera and they don't,

they don't care.

Nobody cares about a

semifinals video workout at

your home gym.

But we were so dialed in and

feeding off each other so much.

I mean,

I know that Brandon had to repeat a

workout that if he hadn't,

he wouldn't have qualified.

And it was simply because we

had all this data of everyone's scores.

that's crazy.

He was saying like,

and we'll move on from this,

but like that Ryan is so

good with the numbers.

Like Ryan was like,

he could tell you based on

how you finished, where do you,

are you in, are you out?

Is it going to be close?

Like Brandon was like,

I could not believe he was like rain,

man.

He is literally rain, man.

I don't know what the best way to put this,

but he, he's so analytical.

Like,

I think we're a good

yin-yang because I am the exact opposite.

You have to remind me of how

all of that works and how

important it is because

it's just not natural for me.

But I was...

I was, I didn't repeat any workouts,

which I think I had a

really good camp because I just,

I was all one and done,

which I think will prepare

me good for the games.

But I was contemplating

doing a workout because, you know,

It was a workout where I

could have probably improved.

And I'm thinking, well,

maybe I should do this.

And Ryan just says, well, you know,

that's not where you would

make up ground.

If you want to repeat a workout,

you'd have to repeat workout like two.

You know, I was like, yeah,

I never would have thought of that.

But you're totally right.

He.

Yeah,

I think it's the common feedback is

that Ryan is the rain man

of like competitive exercise.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I, I could talk about Ryan forever.

That dude,

like his mind works in ways that

just fascinate me,

but you're going to the

games for your first time.

It's your rookie season.

Like how are you going to

keep all the nerves, all the excitement?

Are you going to go out in

that first workout at like,

like your hair's on fire?

No, I don't do that.

Um,

oh, I know me,

I'd be like all gas right

off the start line and die

right after it started.

No,

the way I know that a workout has been

successful is simply that

the plan you put together for it,

you executed that plan.

You stuck as close to that

plan as possible and you

worked really hard.

So

And especially now,

I have never had a coach before.

And so I have Michael

McElroy in my corner now.

And so for me, I don't let –

you know, the, the atmosphere like dictate,

you know,

interfere in anything I were

literally have the exact

plan that I want to do.

And I'm just going to execute that.

And that,

that takes all the nerves away from me.

Um,

I think I did a semis camp with Ryan

two years last year.

And we,

I went down to his place in

Huntington beach and

there were four of us, um,

doing the workouts at,

at Tustin CrossFit.

And,

and I was the only one that didn't

make it.

Um, but I learned a lot from watching, um,

Rachel Sessa,

Leka Fineman and Ryan Redkey

do us do semis.

Um, because what I found, and again,

I'm kind of new to this.

What I saw was that, um,

They didn't have amazing workouts.

You know,

they didn't like blow a workout

out of the water and, you know,

have this miraculous finish

that put them in.

They literally just exercised, you know,

and their baseline of when

they do workouts is top 10 in the world.

So it took away that, you know,

I don't know how to describe it.

like there's not this like

big unknown miraculous

thing that's going to happen.

Um, you're just going to exercise,

you're going to do a

workout and the way you

finish it will put you in a

certain place.

So I just,

there's not a lot of nerves in

that for me.

It's just go to execute, you know,

and work hard and have a good plan.

Who are you taking with you?

Um, that's a great question.

Um,

my mom's coming obviously

and uh and my girlfriend um

and I was actually thinking

about because we I get so

caught up in the last three

years I've been very

serious about like training

and everything and and I

basically train alone um

but thinking about talking

to you it I made me realize

like how much crossfit has

has meant in my life um

And the first thing that I'd

say is that when I moved to

this area at Folsom, California,

I didn't know a soul.

And so I joined this

CrossFit gym and it turns

out that every important

person in my life,

like my entire social network, you know,

the people that I would

consider my family are

entirely from the CrossFit gym, you know.

And the two people that are

coming to support me and, you know,

and watch me are

are my mom and my girlfriend, Noah, N-O-A.

Her name's Noah.

She has the coolest name.

I met Noah because she and

my mom work out at the 830

CrossFit class up at

CrossFit Destination in Walla Walla,

Washington.

So when I would go visit my parents,

I would drop into this gym.

It's an incredible gym.

Like a lot of times when you

go away to another gym,

you lose a lot because you know,

it's a small town.

You think the gym's not going to be great.

Destination CrossFit is an incredible gym.

I don't lose a beat.

And so I would like work out

with my mom and I met my

girlfriend there at the

beginning of this year.

And so now they're both

going to come watch me in Birmingham.

So the secret is work out with your mom,

make it to the CrossFit Games.

That's it.

Simple.

Man, love it.

As a mama's boy here,

that would be really cool.

Well, Corey, I want to thank you a ton.

We're at the 30-minute mark,

which I promised everybody

we would stick to.

But we're going to be in Birmingham.

We're going to be walking

around with a camera.

Ellie Hiller and myself will

be just back there chatting with you guys,

collecting all that stuff

so that we can put together

a cool little scrapbook

documentary of what

happened at the games behind the scenes.

And I can't wait to chat

with you some more.

Yeah, I can't wait to see you down there.

Thanks a lot, Scott.

I appreciate you doing this.

Corey Leonard, well, hell,

I got to go get my mom to the gym.

Wait,

people aren't working out with their

moms?

You're crazy.

Yeah.

With that,

don't forget to like and

subscribe to the channel.

Hit the notifier.

We got a ton of these

interviews coming up.

You're only going to know if

you hit that notifier and

you are made aware that

they're coming on.

So make sure you do that.

Thank you again to Carol Hunt, Corey's mom,

for supporting the channel.

And we'll see you next time

on the Clydesdale Media Podcast.

Bye, guys.