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.
what's going on everybody
welcome to lunch with the
clydesdale it is lunch time
it's time to hang out do
our thing um can't wait to
chat with you all it's a
monday afternoon and I
actually have a show idea
after the weekend uh so I'm
super pumped about that um
so yeah so what we're going
to eventually get into today is
For years,
I've been hearing about people
talk about this show full
swing and that CrossFit
needs to get into the
business of doing a show
like that in order to grow the sport,
the methodology, all of that stuff.
So this weekend, I actually...
I had some time to sit down
and start watching full
swing and I got a flood of
ideas that came with it and
whether I thought that it
was a viable option for CrossFit.
But before we get into that,
there was some breaking
news today as two people
have withdrawn from the Mayhem Classic.
We just did our preview show
last night where we made
our picks for who will get
their tickets to the CrossFit Games.
And then this morning,
this came out where the top
two women on the list have withdrawn.
That is Danielle Brandon and Brooke Wells.
So now the field is down to four, six,
eight, ten, twelve, fourteen.
Sixteen, eighteen,
eighteen competitors with.
Eighteen competitors and two
cannot qualify for the games.
So now instead of two spots out of twenty,
it's going to be two spots out of sixteen,
which really increases the odds.
I know some people actually
declined coming to this
because of how stacked the
field was and that the odds
weren't that good.
And now as more and more people withdraw,
the odds are getting better and better.
What I think the correlation
is going to be is,
that by the end of the
in-person qualifying events
like nor cal uh it is going
to be insane the number of
high-level athletes that
will be signed up for that
trying to get those last
couple spots to the games
um I watched daniel
brandon's rad tapes last
night someone suggested it
in the chat uh so I watched
that before I went to bed
And it is obvious in that
little documentary,
she has no idea what her
plan is for the season.
This is all new.
With the in-affiliate semis
and the in-person semis,
there are two different ways to qualify.
And so I think that
everybody is confused as to
what is the best route to
take to get there.
And I think a lot of people
are really putting their
eggs in the online basket.
But that's only eleven spots.
And there's a lot more
people than eleven trying
to get those spots.
So it's going to be crazy.
It's going to be a crazy season.
Can't wait to follow it all.
But wanted to hit you up
with that breaking news
before we get into much else.
Uh, the other thing, uh,
on my mind today is, uh,
Corey is the only lot.
The online basket is the
only basket I have.
Yeah.
That's that's age group.
And it's been that way for a long time,
dude.
Um,
So, yeah,
Craig says it's great news for fee.
It sure is.
And she was one of my picks
to get a ticket.
So that increases her chances.
She's been killing it this year, though.
I think she's I think she's
going to be great this weekend.
Can't wait to see her out there.
And I actually picked Alexis
Raptus and Fee,
so my two girls are still in it.
So this just thins out the
hurt a little bit for my picks.
So the other thing I wanted
to talk about is my wife
and I sat down this weekend
and watched Anora,
the movie that won Best
Picture of the Year at the
Academy Awards.
And my question to all of
you is who in the hell
picks these movies?
it was one of the biggest
waste of times I've ever
taken to watch a movie in my life.
To me,
a movie is supposed to tell me a story.
I'm supposed to,
whether it is fiction or nonfiction,
it's supposed to tell me a story.
It took forty five minutes
just to get to the
beginnings of a storyline.
The first forty five minutes
were basically soft core porn.
And no storyline,
just meandering through life.
And then when there is an
assemblance of a storyline.
It starts to go in a way you're like, OK,
now I get it.
And then they completely
abandoned that storyline for the ending.
That just makes you go like,
what the hell did I just watch?
Um,
Honestly,
I don't think I would have given
it anything higher than like a D grade,
maybe one or two stars tops.
And that's being generous.
It was such a bad movie and
it was picked as the best
movie of the year by these people.
Do I think it was a DEI pick?
I do not.
I do not.
It really had nothing to do
with any of that.
Even, um, no,
the brutalist was a bigger waste of time.
So Jody, I'll say I've seen worse movies.
Um, but it just,
it was a complete waste of
two and a half hours.
Um, I have seen worse movies than this,
but if you've won the best
picture of the year,
I would say that your
expectations are higher.
and it didn't come close to
reaching any of that so if
you have not why it's on
hulu now uh that's why we
watched it andrew says I
think it was more on its
subject matter than the actual movie
the subject matter is, I mean,
I'm not going to spoil anything.
She's a stripper.
She meets a kid in the strip joint.
They start hanging out.
They impulsively get married.
His parents do not like the
fact that they're married
and they try to get the wedding annulled.
That is,
that is the entire storyline that,
other than that she is a New
York girl with Russian descendants.
They are actually Russian,
the boy and the family that
wants the wedding annulled.
And other than that, it made no sense.
Like, that is the storyline.
I don't think it had, I don't know.
I, I, Andrew,
if you can explain to me why it won,
go ahead.
But I don't think that there
was anything subject matter
in there that was earth shattering.
I think pretty woman did it
years ago with a twist at the end.
Um,
Romeo and Juliet did it deck or
centuries ago, um,
where the parents didn't
want them to get married.
It's an old story.
It doesn't, I don't know anyway.
Sorry, that's just my little rant.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't really pay attention
to all that stuff,
so I don't know who put the
movie together.
It just was an awful movie.
uh helson albernes says I me
and my wife started
watching the pit thank you
now I'm hooked yeah you are
welcome you are welcome it
is so good so good yeah you
like the new script jody
lynn I just noticed that I
could change it if I wanted
to and this is like uh uh
like a rock star like I
don't know it's some kind
of rock star script
We'll use it for today.
We'll see what it's like and
then see what we're going
to do going forward.
Jeffrey Birchfield starting
his online L one today.
Good luck, brother.
It's a fun ride.
When you get to the physical
part of the working out in
front of the camera for your coach,
you're going to be tired.
It's going to feel like a
pretty big workout after that.
But enjoy it.
It's a lot of fun.
Scott takes the movie bullet
for all of us.
Yeah,
I watched it so you guys don't have to.
Really, really a complete waste of time.
Now,
there's a lot of movies that have come
out on streaming.
So, like,
I have a long list of things I
want to watch.
still need to see den of
these two I still the
complete unknown came out
wicked came out um so at
some point over the next
few days my wife and I'll
probably hit some of those
um and I will share my
thoughts on those uh so
that you guys can avoid the
bad ones and check out the
good ones so yeah
So the real thing I wanted
to get into today at lunch
was for a long time, I've heard like
Justin Kotler and Matt
O'Keefe and a lot of these
interrupts in the CrossFit
space say that in order to grow the sport,
CrossFit needs to do
something like full swing.
And so this weekend, I had some time.
I was babysitting my daughter's dogs,
so I couldn't really go anywhere,
and I just had to take them on walks.
I started watching full swing.
I'll say I am hooked immediately.
I am not a golfer.
I have golfed, and I used to golf a lot.
Not so much anymore.
I watch maybe...
a few hours of the masters every year,
and maybe a few hours of another major.
That's about the extent of
my golf watching,
but the stories that this
show is telling suck me right in.
And I think that's what
they're getting at with that.
CrossFit needs to do something like this,
um, to help grow it.
What I will say is after watching it, um,
that I think that CrossFit
has done some of these things.
They've probably done all of these things.
But there's a piece in this thing.
There's a piece in this thing.
There's a piece over here.
And what Full Swing does is
it brings it all together
into one cohesive,
episodic documentary series.
um I think the one example
that I could find where
crossfit did it the best
was in a road to the games
in and I have it here so
you can see it it was road
to the games uh joshua
brooke episode sixteen dot oh six
And this episode of Road to
the Games is the year after
Josh missed out on the
games and was making his comeback.
And so the beginning of the
episode talks about Josh not making it,
seeing the huddle of the
five athletes who did,
him far away from it,
like great shots of all that stuff.
And that what was he doing
in order to make it back the next year?
then the contradiction to
that was you have Brooke
ends coming off a CrossFit game season.
She gets picked to be in the
wonder woman movie and the, um, uh, the,
uh, the big DC movie with Batman and,
and all of them.
Uh, I don't know why I'm brain dead.
And she didn't get to work
out as much in the
offseason and is trying to
make it back to the game so
that she has time to get back into shape.
So you have Josh.
You're right, Jay Birch.
Yeah, Justice League.
And it's long-haired and bearded Josh.
Yeah,
it's when he first gets out of the
Navy and he lets his hair
grow and he first gets the
mustache and the beard and
he comes to make his comeback.
And so they're showing like
piece by piece how they're
actually showing the
struggle as the workouts
get announced and him
struggling with like strict
Nate and trying to get the
strict muscle ups done and
him and Dan Bailey working out the house,
trying to get them figured out.
You have Brooke Entz looking
at things going, wow,
that's not going to be in my wheelhouse.
How am I going to do that?
And then they go to the West
Regional in California at Del Mar,
and they show how it all plays out.
And you have Josh hitting home runs,
hitting home runs, hitting doubles,
hitting triples with everything,
and you can tell he's going
to make it to the games.
You have Brooke Entz not
doing so well and it all
kind of unraveling.
And it's famously the
episode that she kind of
goes off on Mars.
He is filming.
Heber is filming.
She walks out of the arena
to like an outdoor event
area and sits on bleachers, is crying.
Like it is a big unraveling
and you're watching it all
kind of unfold in front of you.
because when I was watching
full swing and the reason I
say that is most of the
stuff that CrossFit puts
out now are all the feel good stories,
all the, this person achieved this,
this person achieved that.
Those things only mean so
much unless you know where
they came from to do it.
And full swing does an
amazing job of showing
golfers that were in a struggle to
and overcame those struggles
in the same episode to then
redeem themselves in their struggles.
They feature Brooks Koepka,
who was the best golfer in
the world from two thousand
seventeen to nineteen,
and how at the Masters in season one,
he just starts unraveling
at the Masters and that
he's starting to question
himself and loses his confidence.
Um, and,
and how can he become great again
if he can't believe in himself?
And then you have the story of Joel Dolman,
who was the seventieth
ranked first golfer in the world.
Yeah.
Always is self-deprecating.
Always says he's not good
enough to be on the course.
Always says all those things.
And then he gets to the U.S.
Open, barely qualifies to get in.
And after two rounds,
he is in first place at the U.S.
Open at a major.
And he's never even led a
golf tournament before.
His mom died of cancer.
He had testicular cancer that he overcame.
And then here he is at the U S open.
One of the majors of golf
winning after two rounds.
And so they do a great job
of piecing all of this
together to see what they came from,
to see what they're overcoming.
In fact,
his wife just got pregnant and
they weren't even sure they
could have kids because of
the testicular cancer.
His wife gets pregnant.
They show them stroller
shopping and then bam,
you're at the US Open and
he is kicking ass and taking names.
And you can see confidence
building in him.
And he ends up finishing in tenth place.
And he wins a half a million
dollars money.
He's never seen before.
it was the coolest it is
really a great show and
really it it it shows what
cross crossfit has done
these parts savans behind
the scenes do a great job
of showing that emotion
showing those things that
you don't get to see um
road to the games did a
great job of like setting
things up the documentaries
do a great job of showing
the action on the floor
All these Hiller does a
great job with those like
forty eight hours with Hiller.
What's what's going on with this athlete?
But nowhere do you have all
of those components
together in one seamless
storyline like full swing
has showed us it can be done.
Now, last night in the chat,
Hiller jumped in,
said that we are going to
love the Jason Hopper story
that's coming out soon,
which now has me excited
because he heard my mini
rant last night and said
that the Jason Hopper thing
we're going to love.
So I'm really,
really looking forward to
that to see what he's going
to do with that.
And this road to the games
is the closest example I
could find to it.
And I don't know if you can
see these stats.
I have a software that gives
me numbers about everything
and everything I watch.
So right over here are the
total views for this Road to the Games.
Over three million views.
Over three million views.
CrossFit has one point one
million subscribers.
That means three times the
number of subscribers watch
this Road to the Games.
um so it was successful and
I hope I hope that crossfit
is looking at these numbers
saying man we could kill it
if we just did more stories
like this better
storytelling um the other
interesting thing about
about full swing is when
I'm watching this it's season one
live is trying to make it
make inroads into the golf
world and create a competing league.
And the parallels between it
and the WFP are uncanny.
Um,
first of all,
we've heard rumors of a sale
with CrossFit and then they
said they are selling Saudi
money backed the live tour.
There are rumors that Saudi
money is backing an effort
to buy the CrossFit company.
And the political backlash
behind all of that was huge at the time,
which I didn't really
understand until I was
watching a full swing of
Live versus the World Fitness Project,
they both offer guaranteed
money to the biggest
athletes in the world to
try to get them away from
the other entity.
And they made the money
whether they showed up or not.
Full swing shows how on the PGA Tour,
a golfer makes nothing
unless they make the cut at a tournament.
If they don't make the cut,
they walk away with zero.
And there are so many
competitions that a
CrossFit athlete pays to go to.
And if they don't make a certain placing,
they walk away with zero.
And age group athletes know
that even more than even elite athletes.
A lot of times there you
have to podium or you win nothing.
So I thought that was interesting.
It's really hard if you're
an athlete going to all
these competitions and
you're losing money going to them.
And then you have an entity
coming in offering you
money to come over with them.
And it's guaranteed so you
can actually pay for your trip,
pay for things like that.
It's really hard as an
athlete to say no to that.
But what the live thing did
is it really split the golf community up.
It split the big golfers,
the PGA band golfers who
went over to live,
and then they could not
compete in the PGA Tour anymore.
It split the whole community up big time.
And you see that happening
here with what happened at
the games and then WFP coming in.
You can see the split
happening and people taking sides.
And I don't think that is a
good thing for the sport,
for the methodology, for any of that.
And it really illustrated
how Liv wasn't looking for
necessarily the best athletes,
but they were looking for
the biggest and the biggest characters.
The people that had the most
followers on social media.
The people that were doing
things that garnered attention.
And they do a whole episode on Ian Poulter,
who was the guy that wore
the crazy colored pants, the wild shirts,
had his hair dyed in different colors,
and that that was more
important to the success of
Liv than whether he was a
good golfer or not.
But what we learn in history
is that the Liv Golf Tour did not last.
There was a merger with them in the PGA.
and it didn't work.
So what I find interesting
now is you have the WFP
going down the same path
using the same tactics.
What are we going to see
with them in a year or two?
So, but if you're not watching full swing,
I highly recommend it.
It's really good.
If you're,
Like I said,
I watch a couple hours of golf a year,
a couple hours of the Masters,
a couple hours of maybe another major.
Other than that,
I'm just like a drive-by golf fan.
Lynn makes a great point.
I made this point last night.
The difference between full
swing and CrossFit is full
swing shows the good, the bad,
and the ugly.
CrossFit is very PC.
You have to have athlete
involvement in this.
Brooks Koepka unraveling at
the Masters and then
talking about it with the
people with Netflix is
showing him at his worst on
the golf course and
questioning his ability.
That's why full swing makes
a bigger impact because
then when Brooks Koepka
makes the comeback, then it is more...
It's more powerful when he
makes the comeback.
You have to see the bad to
appreciate the good.
And so Lynn is exactly, exactly dead on.
And that's what's amazing
about this road to the
games that I shared with you,
the sixteen point oh six.
Brooke ends shows her herself unraveling.
The problem we have with
Brooke is that she never
did make the comeback.
She only made that one game's appearance,
and then she hurt her neck,
and then everything kind of
went downhill from there.
But if I'm CrossFit at this moment in time,
I get someone embedded with Gabby Magawa.
Getting video of her rehabbing,
getting video of her
struggling through the rehab,
to finish second at the
games and be at rogue
killing it to then blow out
your Achilles just at the
most inopportune moment of
your career of that competition,
get that footage from rogue
and then make a storyline
from there forward and get the comeback.
Show her at her worst at
those rehab where she's in pain,
struggling through, um,
See what all she had to
endure to make this comeback.
If I were CrossFit,
that's what I would be
doing from a media perspective.
I would be looking for those storylines.
You could do it with Heinrich Heipleinen,
but I would think that it would be
I think you get more views
with a Gabby McGowan
because of where she
finished at the games.
Kenneth says, like old WWE promos,
when a wrestler was out
injured but coming back, returning soon.
Yeah,
we all know she's going to make the
comeback, right?
Why not show the hurdle she
has to overcome to then
make that comeback?
And Lynn's right,
which is okay too if
someone can't make the comeback,
but still are trying
because that's real life.
And a lot of people love Gabby.
That's why it's,
that would be the one I
would try to get the story.
That's the story.
You know,
it wouldn't hurt to have someone
embedded with Sarah.
Sarah Sigmund's daughter,
all these years of struggling,
she's making one more run at it.
Whether she makes it or not,
it's a story to follow.
We've seen her out on the floor struggle.
We've seen her out on the
floor get injured.
We've seen all that stuff.
It'd be a great storyline.
The opportunities are there
for CrossFit to take
advantage of these things.
And like I said,
they do a good job in pieces and parts.
Um,
but it's never put together in one
cohesive, um, in one cohesive storyline,
right?
Like you get a piece of it
in Savant's behind the scenes.
You get a piece of it in a
thing that CrossFit did.
You get a piece of it in
something Hiller did.
You get a piece of it that
they put on their own YouTube channel.
And I don't think that the
athletes understand that
people want to see how they
overcome the struggle.
And so they're not going to
put that stuff on their own
YouTube channel.
Very few athletes understand
that to be able to show
that stuff on their own.
They need someone to lead
them through that so they can show that.
Jody Lynn says, retire early and go for it,
Scott.
Man, if I could.
If I could, that would be the dream.
That would be the dream, Jody.
Kenneth says,
CrossFit wouldn't even have
to do it themselves necessarily.
All the big camps have media teams.
Throw them some money and
ask for their footage.
Send it out to the masses.
I don't think all the camps
have massive media teams.
I think Mayhem does.
I think HWPO has some.
I know Training Think Tank
really only has like one
guy that kind of does it all.
I don't think Underdogs has
a massive team anymore.
Yeah, Proven probably has a big team.
I think they really just
contract their stuff out periodically,
but like Mayhem has an
entrenched team that knows.
Yeah, Corey, TTT has CTP.
Yeah, you know me.
And I love CTP.
He is so cool.
Yeah.
But yeah,
I just think that how the Alexis
Raptor story,
getting through all the
stuff that she has and her illness,
and she's kept fighting through it all.
Lynn says outside media are
always better because they
let the story build itself.
F one unchained full swing.
What is unchained?
That one I've not heard of.
I've seen the,
I've seen drive to survive
and I've seen full swing.
What is unchained?
That would be interesting.
I think that third Marty
third party media could do it.
It did the time commitment
to devote to it.
I just don't know.
Economically,
it'd be hard to get the
payoff you need to kind of
then see the fruits of your labor.
Most of us in the media
world do this stuff because we love it.
And we just love the outcome
of what's produced.
Oh, Unchained is the Tour de France story,
huh?
Okay.
Okay.
When I did behind the scenes
for the Masters last year,
I didn't do it thinking
that I was going to get a
million followers and great
feedback and blah, blah, blah.
I thought that I wanted to
do something that meant
something to me and it was
the most rewarding thing I've ever done.
But it didn't blow up my channel.
It didn't
But I would do it again in a heartbeat.
So, or a Roy Orbison hot song.
Okay.
I've been and we appreciate
you for what you did thank
you thank you corey thank
you denise and hopefully I
get to do it um hopefully I
get to do it again this
year in columbus because I
just love hanging out with
you guys I love your stories
And I think that's the other
thing that I got out of Full Swing.
The Joel Dahlman story,
he was seventieth in the world.
Mother dies of cancer when
he's a junior in high school.
He gets testicular cancer at twenty-three.
And he goes on to make the
top ten at the U.S.
Open.
CrossFit doesn't go down the
leaderboard that far.
To grab that at the
seventieth player in the
world and to tell that
story because it was the
best story to tell,
not because they were the best athlete.
I think those are things
that get in CrossFit's way as well.
But I kind of tend to
believe that Lynn is right.
I think outside media are
the people that are going
to have to take the bull by
the horns and get it done.
they understand it better.
And again,
Hiller jumped in the chat last
night and said this Jason
Hopper video is going to be
awesome and that I'm going
to like it based on what I
said last night.
So hopefully we see a
transition towards this
kind of storytelling again
because I think it is,
I think that's what's
missing in the CrossFit space right now.
Road to the Games, behind the scenes,
back in the day,
gave us that in a combo
deal with the Games documentaries.
Now it's just pieces and
parts everywhere with no cohesiveness,
no line between them,
no chain that connects at all.
The Hopper vid is awesome.
The new one or the workout one?
I watched the workout one a
couple days ago,
but there's a full-blown
one coming out soon.
And now BTS is behind Siobhan's paywall.
It is.
It is.
And you guys can do what you want to do.
For me...
I would pay, if I went to the movies,
I would pay twenty to
thirty dollars for my wife
and I to go to the movies.
And I just viewed behind the
scenes is that much entertainment for me.
I enjoy it more than going to a movie.
So that's how I justified
the price of paying for a
handful of episodes every month.
It doesn't mean that you
guys believe the same, but
for me and I'm so glad I did
it this year the behind the
scenes from this year are
really helped me put the
pieces of the puzzle
together and I've said that
before um and it makes me
understand what was going
on behind the scenes last
year so uh the problem with
this corey right now is
he's only putting him up
for a couple hours and then
taking them down
because I do believe that
some people think that
there is content in there
that they don't want released widespread.
And so he's only putting
them up for a short amount
of time so they don't get pulled.
Any other year, great advice.
Wait till they're all up, pay the fee,
watch them all.
This year,
I don't know if that's going to
happen because of the content in them.
I mean, just total transparency.
It's probably the last
recorded voice of Lazar is
in these behind the scenes.
Because there is stuff from
him right before the swim,
right before the run swim.
So it's probably the last
time we heard from him.
But again,
I think the people are out there
to do this.
I think that people are
going to tell the story.
And I hope that people go in
this direction.
I just wanted to highlight
why full swing is so
popular and why it is
possible for crossfit to do
it or a third party media
someone in the space um
because we we as a space
have done it before we just
have to get it we just have
to get it more cohesive
with a nice thread going
through the whole thing so
Well,
I hope your Monday is a great one and
you have a great start to the week.
Again, breaking news off the top,
two people have withdrawn
from the Mayhem Classic.
Danielle Brandon and Brooke Wells.
So with that, and don't go see Anora.
It was terrible.
With that,
You knuckleheads, get back to work.
Lunch hour is over.
We'll see everybody next
time on Lunch with the Clydesdale.
Bye, guys.