Clydesdale Media Podcast | Meet Justin Cotler: The Underdog Leader With Two Podium-ready Athletes

We catch up with dear friend of the show Justin Cotler. We catch up with him, his family, the Underdogs Camp and what his impressions were of the DB Documentary.

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.

what is going on everybody welcome

to the Clydesdale Media Podcast.

Today we have with us none

other than the incomparable,

amazing CrossFit coach

Justin Kotler and my

co-host Jamie Latimer.

And we're going to talk

about all things quarterfinals,

the Danielle documentary.

We're going to get to all that stuff.

But we're right in the

middle of team quarterfinals.

Workouts came out yesterday.

You are living right in the

middle of it right now.

I think your teams did some

workouts already today.

Yes.

Actually.

We've, some of the teams have done,

actually,

I think all of them have done one,

the first one, with a muscle up one.

And then we had a couple of

them wanted to go a little

bit differently.

So they did two and then

another one did three, you know,

so you had the dumbbell

snatch workout and then the

wall ball workout.

So I've gotten to see those three.

So I have a pretty good feel.

We haven't done the fourth one yet,

the deadlift shoulder overhead.

But, yeah, I have opinions.

And, you know, it's been good to watch.

And it's weird with these long, you know,

periods that you have.

The scoring windows, oh, my God,

it's just like –

I wish it would have been

two days for the first

scoring period and two days

for the second.

It doesn't need to be more

than that with four workouts.

It's overkill.

These teams,

you don't need to be repeating workouts.

I mean, come on.

So that part of it is annoying.

But honestly, it's like –

you know, it's pretty stressless for the,

you know,

because they're doing a workout.

You can take a day off if

you want to do another workout,

take a day off doing a, I mean, it's just,

you know,

like for scheduling and stuff like that.

And for training where you

want people to continue to train,

you know, it's a,

it's a bit of a pain in the butt.

So I think this is,

this has been one of my pet

peeves for a while.

I don't think CrossFit

listens to the right people.

You know, a couple people complain,

I got to work.

You can't put the window

during the work week.

But we all go to a CrossFit

class in the middle of the

week all the time.

These workouts do not take

more than an hour.

There's no tape on the floor.

There's no, like,

you don't need six days to

do four events.

No, absolutely not.

Like,

you're overcorrecting something that

wasn't a problem.

Yeah, correct.

I felt like the scoring

windows were fine in the

past couple of years.

I think they overcorrected

because obviously they went

from 10% to 25%.

But at the same time,

what are we trying to do here?

The ultimate goal of the CrossFit Games,

and I understand the community and stuff,

but the ultimate goal is to

find the fittest

individuals in the world.

they're going to find a way

to get the workouts done no

matter what the scoring windows are,

you know?

So ultimately you're serious about it.

Well, for sure.

Yeah.

So, so I'm, you know,

I don't think that was necessary.

I'm not looking forward to

it for individuals at all.

I'm not looking forward to

age groups and individuals

at the same time, especially for us,

when you've got a camp,

you've got a lot of people in person.

It just, it,

it's hard to, it's hard to do time-wise.

Um, but even more so than that, it's just,

just, you know,

like you want to have

focused attention on athletes and people,

you know what I mean?

Like it is it so that, that I don't love,

um, but it is what it is, man, you know?

And, and so we're in it now and, you know,

we're, we're getting it done.

And, um,

The workouts were interesting.

A bit different than I feel

like they have been.

Obviously, without the floor plans,

I think they're trying to

be more inclusive.

I think they're trying to

take into account

you know, the, the ease of,

of doing it for whatever

affiliates you're in or, you know,

wherever you are, as far as not making,

you know, not doing handstand walks or,

or shuttle runs or things like that.

You know, my, my thing though,

is it's hard to judge

workouts when you haven't

seen the full test.

And when I say the full test,

I mean like what's coming

up in semifinals, because you

you would hope that the

qualifying events are

placing the right type of

people and athletes in the next stage,

right?

So I worry a little bit

about the fact that we're not seeing

Any really heavy barbells,

especially Olympic weightlifting,

we're not seeing other than

ring muscle-ups and not a

lot of high-skill gymnastics.

I'm curious to see what that

looks like at semis.

I think that obviously will

expose some people and some teams.

But at the end of the day, listen,

the top 10 teams in the

East and the West and

various other places,

they're going to get through.

So your best teams are going

to get through for sure.

Yeah.

I think you're safe to say

that on the team side,

I think on the individual side,

it might be a different story.

Worried about the individual side.

I don't know how you have a quarter.

Now, listen,

the individual workouts could

be completely different.

But from what we've seen here,

if it's similar,

where we're talking about

not a lot of skill, not very heavy,

more engine capacity, right?

More of that type of...

I worry a little bit because

take a look at semifinals last year.

The programming, even the last two years,

it's been very skilled and challenging,

heavy.

first of all,

I hope it's not four workouts.

I hope there's five or six

scored workouts for quarterfinals, um,

to get to semifinals,

especially with the cut

down fields in Europe and North America.

I mean, this is a big stage.

You know, there's a lot of,

if it's similar to what

we've seen now with the teams,

you're going to see some

big name athletes who don't get through.

Uh, and, and, um,

which happens, you know, year to year.

But, you know,

I think I'm hoping that

we're not looking at it like, oh,

we need to make it

inclusive because there's

25% where in my opinion, no,

like we did that in the open.

what we're doing now is we've got to,

we've got to, you know,

step it up and we've got to

create tests that,

so we're sending the right

athletes to semifinals,

you know what I mean?

So that, that to me,

but I'm curious to see what, you know,

what it's going to be.

And then obviously we won't

know per se until semis,

because we get to semis and,

Quarters, you know,

basically it has absolutely no link.

Like it's not an evolution.

Then, you know,

we'll all throw our hands up and be like,

what the hell is going on here, you know?

So, yeah, I'm interested,

interested to see.

But the workouts themselves are fine.

I don't have an issue with the workouts.

Excuse me.

Especially workout one, which was a bear.

I think a lot harder than people expected.

Very, very challenging.

And, you know.

So you're hitting all my pet peeves,

right?

What's that?

You're hitting all my pet peeves.

Because workout one is the

type of workout I want to see in person.

Yeah.

It's cool.

It was cool to watch.

And I also think that it's

one of those workouts going in,

you feel very differently

coming away from it than

you did going in.

I don't think people thought,

I don't think people

expected to break down.

I don't think they

necessarily looked at the

numbers and said, oh, you know,

like I also think there's

there's different ways to

strategize it now that I've seen it.

That that, you know, I would strategize.

I think we would strategize

a little bit differently

after watching one group do it, you know.

But that's cool.

I like that.

the issue now is though the

scoring window is so big that, you know,

you, you get the opportunity to do that.

I wish they didn't, you know,

I mean like that's,

I feel like that's fine for the open,

but I think beyond that, you know,

that it should be tight

enough that you're not able to repeat,

or if you do, you're really punished,

you know,

like you can't recover well

enough to be able to do as

well on the next ones.

So yeah,

know but that that's

probably my favorite one of

the four um the other ones

honestly are just kind of

like whatever um I i

watched the snatch one

today it's it's not

honestly for for athletes

that would be at

semi-finals it's not that

it's okay it's not that bad

which is fine it doesn't

have to be bad doesn't have

to brutalize you um but

again I just felt like it's

kind of a kind of an open

style you know it doesn't

I felt like we could step

that up for quarters and

make it a little bit more interesting.

Uh, and then the wall ball workout,

you know, everyone does, you know,

people do a lot of interval training.

There's a ton of rest in there.

Uh, you're able to attack it pretty well.

I, I think you're going to see, uh,

very similar times, uh,

from the top teams.

There's not a lot of

separation there for the,

for the top teams.

It's going to be, you know, minuscule, um,

uh,

And I like to see workouts that,

that create a little bit more separation,

you know, where you're like, Oh fuck,

they're good.

You know, like, you know,

that team is good.

I think we will see that on

the first one though,

because I think you're

going to see some teams,

especially the teams that

are like stud muscle ups and who,

you know, who can go and,

you know,

and get 20 around and hold that like, wow,

that's going to be fun to watch.

And you probably see a couple of teams and,

you know, one 90 plus or 200 plus,

which is,

freaking phenomenal, you know,

and I expect that we will see that,

you know,

probably from the usual suspects

that I'm sure we're all thinking about.

I mean,

Noah's popping into my head is

going to kill that.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, it was Matilda and Lena.

I mean,

they're all great at ring muscle ups.

So, you know, as long as they,

as long as they strategize correctly,

which I'm sure they will,

they should be able to, you know,

murder that workout.

For that number three,

would you have preferred to

see either strict handstand

push-up or even wall walks?

I feel like the breakdown in

wall walks and the time

that it takes if you aren't

speedy could have been separated.

I think at this stage,

kipping handstand push-ups

are ridiculous.

I don't think they should be

in this stage unless you're

doing deficit.

I would have been fine with a deficit.

Oh, yeah.

I'd have been fine with a two-inch deficit,

which we've seen in

quarterfinals before when

we had that lunge workout a

few years ago.

Walking lunges with kipping,

walking lunges, kipping deficit,

walking lunges strict.

I would have been fine with that.

But I feel like the fact

that you're alternating partners,

strict absolutely would have been fine.

I don't think that would

have been an issue at all.

Uh, and if it is fine, like I don't,

that's there,

there needs to be some separation.

Like you need to punish some

people for not, you know, like for,

for not having the skills

or the capacity to be able

to handle something like that.

Uh,

cause you can't tell me we're going to

have a workout at, I mean, I don't think,

I don't think we're going

to have a workout at semifinals.

It's got 50 kipping handstand pushups.

I mean, that's a joke.

You know, everyone will,

will go unbroken or they'll go, you know,

30 come down 20, you know, it's just,

it's not hard enough.

Um,

So but deficit, I think,

would have done the job for sure.

I also am just tired of the

nine foot target, you know, for women.

I just I mean, I'm like enough already.

And and I also think that, you know,

the row,

while it's nasty at the end and you go,

I'm always a fan of

calories instead of instead of meters,

just like that.

in the in these stages um

but uh but it was fine I

mean I you know I watched

it and and it was fine

there were very for good

teams there's just very few

places that hold you up I

mean you're basically

you're basically just

smashing the whole workout

and then it's just going to

come down to a few seconds

of who rose faster and and

and your transitions on

handstand push-ups because

you do have to transition a

little more on the second

set of handstand push-ups

after that fifth the 50 wall balls

It's coming off the wall ball,

so you'll have to

transition a little bit more.

But generally speaking,

it's going to be real tight at the top.

So when you say fine and you

go up an octave,

it leads me to believe

there's a little stank

behind whatever you're

thinking about these workouts,

but we'll let that go.

No, I don't.

I just think at this stage,

you have to make it –

You have to prepare people

for what they're going to

see in the next stage.

You have to get athletes who

will be able –

To do the movements, you know,

to perform the movements at

the next stage and not go

in and stare at a wall.

Nobody wants to see that, you know.

So ultimately speaking,

I just feel like that's, I mean,

last year,

think about what you had at semis.

Seated legless with a legless descent.

For teams, just you had that.

You had strict wall-facing

handstand push-ups.

You had a ton of ring muscle-ups.

You had handstand walks with pirouettes.

I mean,

you had very challenging high-skill

bodyweight movements.

We have none of that in this.

Like, zero.

Zero.

I mean,

are we still calling a ring

muscle-up a high-skill

gymnastics movement at this point?

I don't think so.

I think that's just – it's

like a bar – same thing.

I also think that we're at

the point now where –

you know, if I don't want to go backwards,

you know,

like you've seen these really

cool movements last year,

like we should be building

on those things.

You know,

it's kind of like where I used to

feel like you'd see it at

the games and then you'd

see it at semifinals the next year,

right?

You'd see it at the games,

you'd see it at semifinals.

And then maybe a year or two later,

you might even see it in the open,

something like that.

You know, we saw it in,

in what we saw in semis in

the games last year, we're not seeing in,

in quarters at all you know

um so we'll see we'll see

you know what that means um

the workouts themselves are

fine I don't have an issue

with them what I have an

issue with is is you know

if we're planning on doing

some of the same things we

did in semis in the games

next year then I have an

issue because I just don't

think it's hard enough yeah

I feel like so many of the teams are

they almost like are going

to walk in at this point.

It's 60% of the teams that

I mean,

you could make it harder and there

might be teams that get a

few reps kind of like open

for individuals that just

kind of sneak in just

because there wasn't a

whole lot of competition.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I totally agree with that.

But I think...

So my thought process is like, I,

I'm not looking at it in

the matter of like how many teams or who,

which teams I'm looking at it more from,

from like the programming

of an event or a programming of a,

of a competition tells a story.

And so the, the,

the evolution and the

progression starts in the open.

Then it goes, builds to quarters,

then it builds the semis,

and then it builds to the games.

Um, my concern is that, you know,

and I'm not saying we

should be doing seated legless in,

in quarters,

but should we not be touching a rope?

What if there's a ton of

stuff on the rope?

Should we not be touching

handstand walking?

What if there's the ramp and high level,

you know, uh,

should we not be doing

strict handstand pushups?

What if there's strict deficit?

You're going from kipping

now to strict deficit.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

So I just feel like the progression,

I don't see necessarily the

progression that I would love to see.

But that's just my opinion.

I'm sure that if you speak to 10 other...

you know, coaches or quote unquote experts,

you know,

they're going to give you 10

different opinions.

That just happens to be mine.

And I generally look at

programming an event as an evolution,

as a progression, it should progress.

And, you know,

from qualifying stages to

the competition stage.

And I feel like we already had the open.

which was super basic and it was fine.

But now I just feel like we

could have stepped it up a

little bit with some of these movements.

Yeah.

I do feel like – I feel like

for teams specifically,

like I've heard a lot of people say,

we've hinged a ton.

Like we're doing more deadlifts.

We're doing more dumbbell snatches.

And in my mind, like for teams, yeah,

maybe like –

eight of your athletes in

your affiliate did that and

put the score up.

But of the four that are

going to be on your team, did they do it?

We kind of do need to retest it.

Right.

And I also think,

what if this is the year of the deadlift?

What if at semis we see 405

and 275 pound deadlifts?

And at the games we see the 475,

315 again.

So that would make sense to me,

where you're going from

the, the open to quarters.

You know what I mean?

Like I'm just saying maybe it's the,

you know,

Dave loves deadlifts and I think

Dave is probably more in

control now of things.

So the way that I look at it

is maybe it's the year of the deadlift,

you know?

So you're going to see at each,

at each stage, you know,

an evolution of a deadlift workout,

which I'm fine with.

I'm totally fine.

I have no issues with that whatsoever.

I'm a bit surprised we're not seeing,

a heavier barbell, you know,

clean or snatch or overhead

squad or something a little

bit more skilled with a barbell.

But maybe we're not going to

see that at semis.

Perhaps we're not.

You know,

we had that year that was all dumbbells,

right?

I mean, so maybe that's coming.

I mean, you know, you never know.

Um,

so it's hard to really give

constructive criticism

without knowing the next stage.

Um, but my, my inclination or my, you know,

I have a sixth sense a

little bit that we're

probably going to look back

on some of this and be like, Hmm,

could have done that a

little bit differently

knowing what we know now.

So that's kind of it.

So to wrap up this team thing,

one of the handful of

things that makes teams

hard to follow for the

season is we don't know

who's on the teams.

Nobody has to declare – you

don't have to declare until

you go to semis or – it's

something goofy like that.

Well, you got six, so you can –

you've got but it doesn't

have to be the same group

from quarters doesn't have

to be the same group at

semis doesn't have to be

the same group at the games

um it just has to be four

of the six so as you know

you can kind of mix and

match in that so so you

have two teams in vegas

three three yeah we have

three in-house teams so I

have rhino service dogs yep

And that I have a question about.

Yeah.

So big fans of CJ and Mitch.

Yeah.

Those are two of my favorite dudes ever.

Yep.

So I've been following them.

They made a post with Ava

George and Carson.

Yes.

yet on the open leaderboard,

Carson doesn't appear, and it's Kyra.

Yeah.

Kyra's going individual.

Kyra's the alternate.

So she was on – of the six,

she had better scores,

but Carson is doing quarters.

Carson will do semis.

And, you know, they're like –

a team they, they, you know,

Carson would do the games too.

So yeah.

Okay.

That was just of the six that were,

you know,

the six that you have to declare, uh,

on the team and I'm sure

that's all over the place

because I I think in a

couple of scores that even

down at peak did Monica

have a couple of the scores

that that uh I'm sure yeah

I mean I think it's

everywhere I think you'll

probably see um you know I

think Kristen Holt that had

some scores for Oslo uh

even though she's not I

don't think she's gonna be

on the team I may be wrong

maybe she's on the team

But I think she probably,

if she's competing,

she's probably competing in the Masters,

I would think.

If she's competing,

I don't know if she is.

But anyway,

I think you're going to see

that a lot of places.

And then obviously the

athletes that go individual

go individual.

And then, you know, you'll see the,

you'll probably see like

the real team this week and

then at semis for sure.

So you guys actually only

put six on your roster for

each of those teams, correct?

Yeah.

So you guys did it the right way.

I appreciate that.

Were there people who put more?

Oh, yeah.

There's people who put like 30.

And you honestly have no clue.

There's no restriction.

If your affiliate's only

putting together one team,

it's just the best scores

from your affiliate.

Wow.

You have multiple teams,

so you have to separate them out early.

Yeah.

But like Peak,

I think they only have one team.

So anybody who works out

there can contribute to the score.

Well, listen,

if anybody beats Noah or Tola,

I guess that got more power to them.

I can't imagine that that's happening.

But like Annika could beat.

Yes.

Right.

For sure.

I mean,

she did on the majority of the workouts.

So then I have Rhino CrossFit dogs.

They,

is it a form of the team that went

last year?

That's just Roth.

Who's still on that team.

So I have Roth and Nikita.

Yep.

Most of the scores were Allie.

Is she going team or Indy?

No, she's individual.

So there's, uh, um, Alina, um, Alina Ward,

who was at semis last year.

She was a semis athlete in the Northwest.

And then, uh, Emily,

her name is Emily Torres, um,

who didn't compete last

year because of an injury.

Um,

So I did pretty well the

year before in quarterfinals,

didn't make semis,

but she just started

working with one of our coaches,

Brendan and Brendan Snyder.

And Emily's great.

She she's great.

She lives full-time in Colorado,

but obviously commutes here

and has been under the

underdog's hat for a few months.

So those are the four who

are competing this week in quarterfinals.

Well, Zombie, just to clarify,

it is D-A-W-G, not D-O-G.

Yeah, D-A-W-G.

It's less funny when you get

the right spelling.

Yeah.

So who's the third team?

So the third team is another –

can't remember that you know

they made up those names I

mean that's another dogs

team out of camp rhino uh

dakota cole uh sarah and

skylar those are our our

four um and there I i would

say you know I mean listen

if they get through to

semis we'll be ecstatic you

know um and they're busting

their ass to do so but for

sure you know like that

this this week is is

more more their season uh

and then you know we'll see

how it goes especially with

them cutting down teams you

know down to 30 and so

we'll I'll be curious to

see um you know how they do

but yeah they they've been

busting their ass the last

two days and you know we're

giving them as much support as we can

All right,

so now we're going to move to

the Danielle documentary.

Yes, sir.

I've been pretty vocal on a

couple shows since its

airing that I didn't like.

I loved the childhood background story.

I knew it was bad.

I didn't know details until

this documentary.

So it was very enlightening for me,

and I really appreciated

getting to know kind of the

background behind Danielle.

Yeah.

I did not care for the

CrossFit piece as much,

especially when it comes to

her relationship with you.

Many people have asked me,

is it because you're good

friends with Justin that

you feel that way?

I said,

probably that has something to do

with it.

So I will admit that I

probably have a bias in that vein.

But what I want to do is I

want to show one piece of

the documentary that

It's you explaining what

happened and Cooper's response.

And that really got me upset.

And that's why I just want

to explain that.

And then we can talk about this.

However much you are willing

to share after that.

Yeah, for sure.

So here we go.

We were going as a company

and where we were going as a brand,

I don't think was

necessarily the best fit for her.

We talked about it, and I said, look, man,

you guys should really try

to talk through this and figure this out.

I think you guys owe it to

each other to communicate

through this and make it work.

So that got me upset, and I will say this.

I hung out with you a lot at semis.

There were ups and downs

with Danielle during that time,

and I know that you guys had had talks.

When Cooper comes across

that way as her agent,

My feeling was,

isn't it part of your

responsibility as her agent

to make sure that those

conversations are had and

that it's not solely on somebody else?

Yeah.

I mean, well, let me,

let me first say this.

I thought the documentary

was incredibly done.

I thought it was fantastic.

I thought it was very well done.

You know, I, I knew like you, I mean,

obviously, you know,

I knew a lot about her background,

but specific events that

happen and some of the stuff that you see,

you know, obviously, you know,

it was heartbreaking to see

a lot of that stuff and, and,

I thought it was a, you know,

a beautiful story of

someone who was able to

utilize their God-given gifts, you know,

to get them out of a situation that was,

you know,

highly dysfunctional and where

most people would crumble.

So, you know, I think it really was,

you know, an incredible,

it is an incredible story.

I have a very different

perspective I think of how

things were portrayed a little bit,

obviously, because I lived it.

You know, I always, you know,

you have to take into

account that obviously this

is Danielle's documentary, right?

And they put it out and, you know,

they want to, you know,

I understand obviously that

they want to be truthful,

but it's always going to

come a little bit from a

biased perspective,

which I totally understand.

Every, you know,

I would say everybody's documentary,

especially if you agree to do it, right?

Unless it's somebody who's

doing it from the outside

where you maybe didn't agree to do it.

Um, you know, that, that,

that might be a little bit different.

Um, you know, I, I was down, I did that,

that interview that you saw, uh,

was done at Waterpalooza this year.

So it's very fresh.

I did that.

I did that at Waterpalooza and I, I took,

it was a long time, you know, um,

it was about an hour.

I would say about an hour's

worth of footage.

I was there for, for a very long time.

It was very emotional.

Um,

there were parts of it where I had to stop,

you know, they didn't show that,

but there were parts of it

where I had to take,

take five minutes and compose myself.

And, you know, I,

I tried to be as truthful

as possible with, you know, with,

without really,

I have to be a little bit delicate.

It's a couple of years ago and, you know,

I've always kind of, you know,

I always felt like it

wasn't necessarily people's

business to know the, the,

the ins and outs of the

situation in some of the particulars.

And I think for me,

the toughest part of watching that,

and I appreciated what

Danielle said to Lauren

Khalil in her interview.

I thought she was very

honest and without question,

There are certain things

that I take blame for.

I think I could have been

more transparent and honest

throughout that season with

some of the feedback that I

was getting from athletes

and coaches within the camp

who felt that they weren't

getting treated the right way.

And I could have had some of

those conversations instead of being like,

you know what,

I'll handle it at the end of the season.

It'll be fine.

You know, we'll get there.

Because the truth was for

the majority of that year,

Danielle and I were fine.

There was never an issue

between Danielle and I.

And she had mentioned in

there that she wasn't

necessarily extremely happy

with more athletes coming

in and the camp getting

bigger and all those things.

And I can understand that

from her perspective.

The one thing that I felt like...

wasn't addressed that bothered me.

And it still bothers me to this day.

I would have loved to hear

her or Cooper kind of talk

about a little bit,

taking responsibility for

some of the behavior and

some of the actions.

They almost made it sound like, oh, well,

she just got kicked out of the camp.

No,

like there were a lot of things that

went into that.

I mean,

you think I wanted to kick her out

of the camp?

And at the end of the day, it also didn't,

it didn't,

that wasn't necessarily the case.

There was a, you know,

there was an opportunity

there to change behavior

and apologize to people.

And that didn't take place.

And when that didn't take place,

it just felt like there

wasn't anything else we

could do at that time.

There were some things that

happened that I was very

upset at the time.

And I probably could have

handled my anger better, to be honest.

But I don't regret the

decision because it had to be done,

I felt like.

And when I look back,

I still feel like it had to be done.

That all being said,

when you hear me talk in

the doc and it's still, I love Danielle.

I'm angry at her still.

There's no question about it

because I feel like there's

some apologies that still

need to be made in certain respects.

And I'm sure she's probably

upset with me and I'm fine with that.

That's okay.

And I feel like we're far

enough removed that I would

love to sit down and have a

conversation and

I feel like we're both in a place,

at least I know I am,

where I could sit down and have a civil,

cordial conversation and

talk about some of those

things and talk about some

of the mistakes that were

made and take

responsibility for the

mistakes that I made.

But I would like to see that reciprocated.

and I and I i guess that's

what's frustrating to me is

I just I felt like that

could have been done in the

documentary it could have

been done without throwing

her under the bus too you

know we just could have

been like listen there was

there were some things that

I did that I felt bad about

and you know like I can

understand some of the

stuff you know I wish it

had maybe been handled

differently like that's all

good I was just frustrated

that that wasn't addressed in it um

But I don't love rehashing

it because I don't want people to be like,

again, what happened and blah, blah,

blah.

You know what?

It's not really your

business to know what happened.

And I'm not willing to talk

about some of the specifics because,

first of all,

I think you should never be judged.

you know by unless it's you

know a catastrophic mistake

right or or but you

shouldn't be judged I think

by most people for for some

of the worst mistakes that

you make because you have

time to redeem yourself you

have time to to change and

learn from those mistakes

um and I i think um

I think them just asking me

to be a part of it was a

huge leap of faith that I

wouldn't just fucking throw

Danielle under the bus.

I think it was brave.

I also think that, like I said,

some of the interviews that

I've seen with her talking about, I mean,

it was very touching to me

to hear that stuff.

It was very meaningful to me to hear that

she, I, you know,

even though things didn't end up as,

you know,

as we expected that she took a

lot from the time that we spent together.

Um,

and I'd like to think that I had a

mostly positive effect on her in,

in her career.

Uh, and, um,

And I am fully in a place

where I would like to get

to that point where she and

I can see each other and

hug and feel some of those

feelings that we have.

Because again, I...

I really,

I want nothing but the best for

her without question.

You know, I,

I think there's obviously some,

some anger that's still

there from some of the

things and some of the

conversations that I think

we still need to have or some, you know,

but, but at the end of the day, you know,

I'm, um,

I'm still very grateful to have met her,

to have known her,

to have been able to coach her.

She's an incredible athlete.

You know, she's just a unique person.

Uh, and, uh,

you know, I hope that at some point we can,

we can have a conversation

and I'd like to do it in person.

And, and I, you know, I hope that, uh,

hope she's willing to do that.

So the last thing I'm going

to say on this is I think

probably what also

contributed to my feelings

watching the documentary is

I watched the interview

with Lauren first that came

out before the documentary came out.

And in that interview, she was,

it was very touching and almost like,

not almost like she missed

you a lot as a coach.

We miss her.

And someone who cared about her so much.

And she talked about no

other coaches she had after

that cared about her.

Like you cared about her

because the way you cared

about her was real, you know?

And when she said that, I was like,

Oh my gosh, like she's, she's B it's,

it's becoming aware to her that,

that that relationship was pretty good.

Yeah.

And then when the

documentary came out and

that was just kind of glanced over,

I think that's why it

caught me off guard and shocked me a bit.

Cause I was hopeful that like,

maybe like we could get to

a bygones be bygones and

maybe not coach her again

or anything like that,

but at least be able to, like you say,

be friendly when you see her,

give her a hug.

Um,

Yeah, I was very touched by,

by what she said in the,

in the interview.

Um, yeah, I'm not going to lie with,

you know, I, I definitely,

there were some, some waterworks,

you know, hearing that stuff and,

you know, I think it's hard, excuse me,

in that, in that form, you know,

maybe in that, in that documentary form,

um,

I don't know.

I, I, I understand what you're saying.

And I,

I do think there was an opportunity there,

you know, to,

to take some more responsibility.

I think that's the thing that,

that I will continue to

kind of talk about that, that where I,

where I felt a little bit, you know,

disappointed in that, in that sense.

But the hearing her say the

things she did to Lauren

and knowing that I had that

positive impact and that effect on her,

cause I felt it too.

Yeah.

It wasn't make-believe.

It's the way I felt.

You guys acted the same

behind closed doors with

each other as you did as

what people see out on the floor.

Absolutely.

I can remember specific

workouts and specific things

that I knew I just felt in

tune with her emotionally, you know,

to be able to say the

things she needed to hear

at the right times,

especially during workouts

when she was training,

when she was practicing.

And, you know,

it's not stuff that I would

repeat and it's not stuff

that you would say to other

athletes necessarily

because they won't respond that way.

You know, she's a different animal,

you know,

and there were things that you

needed to say.

And I mean, she even talks about it.

I don't remember if it was

in the documentary when she

talks about it or if it's in,

she's talked about it before where,

you know, Danielle is not,

she doesn't respond to like

pie in the sky kind of, you know, that,

that self-help book, you know,

like the secret type

thinking where it's like, you know,

I'm the prettiest and I

think I'm the best.

And if I do this, it's no,

she didn't respond to that.

Like she responded more to

tough love than anything else.

And there were specific

times where that needed to happen.

And then there were specific

times where like,

I had to appeal that to

that animal instinct, kind of like,

that Michael Jordan type thing where like,

she needed to have that

chip on her shoulder to be able to like,

feel like, Oh yeah,

that's the way they feel about me.

And I'm gonna fucking step on their neck.

Like she just has that in her, you know,

which I loved, like, I just loved it,

you know?

And so I felt like I could,

I could trigger that at specific moments.

And, and I felt like,

You know,

but I also was able to – she knew

how much I cared about her.

She knew that it was real and genuine.

And she knew how much Ashley

cared about her, my wife,

and how much my kids cared about her.

And Ivy dyed her damn hair blue, you know,

like when – you know, my daughter,

when she went to semis.

And, you know, I just –

so it was very painful and very emotional,

the whole thing.

And it has been, you know, ever since,

to be honest, I mean,

there's a part of me that, you know,

we'll always think what if, you know,

because I felt like we were

on this trajectory and she

was making this incredible growth.

And I mean,

obviously she's still one of

the best in the sport.

I mean, that's not to say that, you know,

that I maybe, you know,

could have gotten her on

the podium or maybe more.

I mean,

I know she dealt with some health issues,

et cetera.

Um,

But like I said,

when I started working with her,

my intention was I'll be

with her for the rest of her career.

And I felt like we had a great connection.

or as good a connection as,

as you can have with Danielle,

because there's always going to be some,

she just, you know,

there's always going to be

some volatility.

There's always going to be

some drama and that's okay.

That's who she is.

It's part of what makes her great.

Part of,

part of what makes her such a

unique individual and, and,

and why people, you know,

either love her or hate her.

You know, you,

you generally don't have

like blah feelings toward Danielle.

It's, it's generally,

she's very polarizing.

It's one at one end of the

spectrum or the other.

Um,

but that's what makes an interesting

individuals.

You know, we don't honestly,

we don't have enough of that in,

in CrossFit.

Like, I feel like we need more of that.

You know, it's, it's good for the sport.

It grows the sport.

It creates more visibility.

Um, but yeah, but anyway, I mean, I could,

we could go on and on and I

could talk a lot about it.

That's career view mirror.

Yeah.

But looking at your windshield,

you've got a lot to look forward to.

Yeah.

You've got two athletes, one male,

one female poised to podium.

They are on the precipice of a great year,

right?

Yeah.

I mean, you know, I, I think, uh,

I don't want to get ahead of myself,

but I mean, listen, uh,

Um, you know, they're both really,

really good, you know?

Um, I mean,

whenever you talk about

athletes that are ranked in

the top five in the world, you know,

you're talking about

obviously special athletes, uh, you know,

and, uh, the, the biggest thing from here,

and I think this is just the way most,

you know, it's, it's,

it's the way most coaches will feel.

And I know the way I feel is

that the key is now getting

them to semifinals and the

games as healthy as humanly possible.

Like, you know, the work, you know,

you're talking about like,

Ricky's a little bit

different because Ricky's a

bit more seasoned.

And with Alex, there are still some things,

I think, trajectory-wise.

She's still more on this

type of trajectory.

You know, like, I mean,

it's wild to see what her

strength numbers are doing.

And, you know, I mean,

she's just – I don't know

in the next couple years.

You know,

and I – people get on me a little bit,

I think,

when I say this because they're

always like,

you're putting so much pressure on.

It's not pressure.

I mean –

Pressure is a privilege, first of all,

and expectations are a good thing.

It just means that you're good.

I think she has the

opportunity to kind of

redefine the sport for when

you talk about someone

who's as big and as strong as she is.

And I think ultimately what

she's going to be able to do and not yet,

but in another year or two.

That's not to say she can't

podium this year.

I'm just saying she's

nowhere near where she's going to be.

I think Ricky is, you know,

he's in the peak of his career.

So, you know,

I think Ricky would have won

the games last year,

and that's with all respect

to Jeff and Roman.

But when you look at the programming,

there wasn't a bad event at

the games for Ricky.

In fact,

there were five or six events that

Ricky would have won.

Like,

I don't even have a question about that.

He wins the game,

and I don't think it would

have been close.

Yeah.

now you don't know if you're

ever going to get that

again you know that's just

the way it is uh and also

you know it just depends it

depends on are you healthy

at the time you're feeling

really good at the time you

know like he's been

battling a few injuries

this year since wadapalooza

you know we're not going to

talk the specifics but it's

been a bit up and down

honestly over the last

several weeks and you know

so we've got to get through

quarters I think honestly

for both of them

I mean, they're both really good,

so they'll be fine,

but I'm not sure you're

going to see the type of

performance necessarily

that you're used to seeing

with them because they're

both kind of dealing with

some nagging things right now.

But I think the nagging

things are nowhere near

serious enough that we're

not going to get them to 100% by semis.

And then my goal is to have

them feeling as confident

in their bodies as humanly

possible to be able to

handle whatever test comes at them

In Dallas,

and I think it's a fine line

that you see with with some

athletes going into the games,

where you've got to be

ready for the volume,

but you have to be at your

physical tip top shape,

you can't be overtrained

and you can't be crushed.

And I think you see half the

field come into the games are done.

They're done before they even start.

And you can see it on day one or day two.

I think we saw it with some

big names last year,

and I'm not going to talk

about who it was,

but we saw some big names

last year who you looked at

and you were like,

what the hell is going on?

And it just,

I think it just comes from you going,

you're over-trained,

you're not feeling great,

you have a bad first day and you're done.

And my key is going in,

having them feeling as good

as humanly possible.

And that, you know, I've kind of,

kind of tinkered a little bit with,

with volume and with

cutting down specific things this year,

as far as Metcons doing a

little bit more

monostructural just to stay healthy.

And, um, I feel like, you know,

I feel like that's helping.

I feel like taking more rest

days is helping.

I think, um,

not being glued to the, not,

not feeling like you have

to do what's on the page.

If your body that day

doesn't feel like it's

going to benefit you,

which I think a lot of

people are married to the program.

And, and if they look at the program,

they're like, fuck,

if I don't do the program,

I'm not going to get better.

And that sometimes is a

disservice to them.

So there's a lot more stuff by fuel,

especially with those two this year.

And yeah,

So yeah,

I'm obviously extremely optimistic

that if they are feeling

great and if they are healthy,

which I expect them to be

and intend them to be,

they both have the full capacity to

So I'm going to, we're,

we're coming up on the hour already,

so we're going to try rapid

fire with Justin.

Okay.

I'm going to hit you with

some quick questions.

I'm going to start with one

in the chat and I'm going to build on it.

And that is serious question.

Does Justin ever get tired

of coaching or bored of it?

No.

So then I'm going to follow

up with that is you have

Ricky who had to sit out last year,

injured, couldn't participate,

probably going nuts after

all he's been through in his career.

You have that on one side.

You have this up-and-comer

on the other side who

everything is brand new,

going into it all,

doesn't even know what she's capable of.

Is that what makes coaching great?

I think the ability to be

able to help someone reach

their maximum potential,

not just in sports, but also in life,

you know,

I just feel like that to me is

how to get bored of that, you know?

Now, listen, without question,

I run a business too.

So I get tired of doing a

lot of the backend stuff,

the stuff that's not the fun stuff,

like doing payroll or handling,

dealing with social media

or doing that kind of stuff, which is not,

I don't love.

But the coaching side of

things is the great joy that I have.

I mean, listen, being in the gym, I mean,

on a daily basis with Alex,

and I wish I was – Ricky's different.

He's in Australia.

We talk all the time,

but it's not quite the same.

But being able to be in the

gym and see the progress

that Alex has made, I mean,

I always say it's like the

best part of my week is

watching her progress and

seeing the things that she does.

And obviously that –

That spans to all the

athletes that I coach, you know,

with her and Ricky and

Sarah and Caitlin and Braun, et cetera,

you know.

And, you know, there's more, obviously.

But I, you know,

just see them being able to

achieve the things that

they set their minds to and

the goals and that stuff.

I know I don't ever get tired of that.

So Jake Chapman asks,

do you still coach any

plebes getting their first pull up?

I don't.

I haven't in a long time.

But when I owned an affiliate,

I taught foundations for 11 years.

So that was like every day.

That was one of my favorite

things was coaching.

you know,

being able to be on the ground

floor with people who just

get into CrossFit,

like being able to be that

influence when they first start, you know,

I enjoyed that as much as I

do coaching elite athletes,

to be honest with you,

like that was just so cool.

So I haven't done that in a while.

But, but I do love doing that, you know,

for sure.

So you say the backend

business owner stuff is, is tedious,

but when you got into this game, right,

you were an affiliate owner, right?

doing your thing.

You guys had a lot of

successful teams back then

you hook up with Carrie Pierce.

That is a match made in heaven.

You evolve into owning this

underdogs business.

Could you have ever imagined where,

when you started this whole

journey in CrossFit,

that this is where you'd end up?

That's an interesting question.

Um,

I'm not sure that I expect, you know,

it's hard to say, like,

I don't know that I expected to evolve,

you know, into being, I guess,

one of the more visible

coaches in the space.

But my goal, when I, when I started,

when I opened an affiliate,

I started coaching elite

athletes and we're talking 15 years ago.

My goal was to help change

people's lives through fitness first.

But then my goal just from

being in sports forever and

being a competitive collegiate athlete,

et cetera,

I wanted to coach elite athletes.

I felt like I had something to give.

And as that started to evolve,

I felt like I could affect

people positively.

I felt like I could help them.

So I'm not sure, you know,

that this necessarily was

the iteration that I expected it to take.

But, you know,

did I feel like I could be successful,

you know, doing it?

Yes, I definitely did.

And I don't know, you know,

I don't think necessarily

that that's arrogance.

I just felt like, you know, this was...

something that felt like a

second calling for me after music,

you know, where I felt like I had,

I had a God given ability to be able to,

to sing and affect people that way.

And then, you know, I,

I had a way to be able to

get through to people and

affect people in this way.

So it's, it's ended up being, you know,

obviously the, you know, my,

my calling or second calling,

I would say.

So I have a music question for you.

But before that,

you were the first coach we

ever had on this show.

Wow.

Many years ago.

I did not know that.

It's because Kat,

my co-host on the roundtable,

was a grid league.

Yeah, sure.

Can you imagine?

That's 10 years ago now.

And she knew you from that.

And that's why we reached out to you.

And then we learned that

getting coaches on was a cool thing.

Right?

It was just a different perspective.

Yeah.

A lot of podcasts weren't doing that.

Until we kind of started

that ball rolling.

And now it's like a staple, right?

Coaches are on everything.

Yeah, for sure.

Even people that aren't

coaches are coaching.