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We cover the sport of CrossFit from all angles. We talk with athletes, coaches and celebrities that compete and surround in the sport of CrossFit at all levels. We also bring you Breaking News, Human Interest Stories and report on the Methodology of CrossFit. We also use the methodology to make ourselves the fittest we can be.
I was born to kill it.
I was meant to win.
I am down and willing,
so I will find a way.
It took a minute,
now it didn't have to ride away.
When it get hot in the kitchen,
you decide to stay.
That's how a winner's made.
Stick a fork in the head.
what's going on everybody
welcome to the Clydesdale
media podcast where we are
featuring the athletes of
the 2024 legends masters
crossfit games and I'm so
pumped to have with me
james st ledger what's
going on james hey thanks
for having me so um I'm
gonna dive right into this
yeah you qualified for the
games during the covet year yeah
What a bummer, dude.
I know.
I mean, I should, I,
I should have been excited.
I was excited.
I was, I was proper pumped.
And then, yeah,
I found out in a very
roundabout way that it wasn't happening.
Um, but I, I, yeah, qualified, did it.
And then, yeah,
it's taken a few more years
to recall if I,
so I know here in the States,
we have very few masters
aged in-person events, um,
And the whole season is
pretty much online.
You finally make it to that
big stage where you're
going to get to show your
stuff at an in-person
competition and it gets
taken away from you.
Is there anything you get to
do in the UK to help with that?
In terms of alternative competition?
Yeah.
Yeah.
There are other events.
Most of our larger events
have a Masters category within them.
Some of it is standalone
Masters and some of it is
like pairs events or teams of three.
However, with that being COVID year,
pretty much the whole world shut down.
So in any other circumstance
or situation and every other year,
if I've decided to go for
it and for whatever reason
it's been cancelled,
there have been alternatives.
But yeah, that year, it just literally,
the brakes were slammed
pretty hard on it.
Yeah, here in the States,
we had the Masters Fitness
Collective do a competition
to kind of simulate the games.
They couldn't call themselves the games,
but like invited everybody
who made it and tried to
carry on with a ton of
safety protocol and hardly
anybody in the building.
Yeah.
That's great.
And that would have been lovely,
but our government just had
slightly different rules on
what you could do and where
you could do it and who you
could be around.
And so any competition that
might've been pushed
forward would have just
been another virtual event.
So now it's four years later
and you finally get that
next qualification.
Yes.
New age group category.
And so now, for the first time ever,
you're going to be heading
to the CrossFit Games.
Yes.
And I cannot wait.
It's been a long time coming.
And that's a healthy trip for you.
You got to come overseas to do this,
but it means that much to you?
Yeah.
I think along with what most
people do when they enter the sport,
They've seen a few videos and they're like,
I can do that.
I'm going to the games.
And yet I was one of those people.
I was like, I'm going to the games.
I just didn't quite envisage
how long it would take and
the route that it would take me down.
At the time when I first started it,
regionals were a thing.
So my initial first goal was
I'm going to make it to regionals.
And for whatever reason, sickness, injury,
not quite having muscle ups,
not quite having double unders,
believe it or not.
Something always tripped me up each year.
And then I finally qualified
for regionals in 2018.
And little did I know that
would be the last regionals
they ever did.
Yeah.
You're kind of cursed.
Yeah, I know.
So when I look at your Instagram,
it's very fitness forward.
Has fitness always been like
a big part of your life?
Uh, yeah, from a young age, uh,
I did gymnastics until I
was about six or seven.
It might even have been eight.
Um,
and then I started swimming and I did
swimming right.
And through up until uni, uh,
with swimming, I've,
I was doing all the various school sports,
um, played rugby to a decent level, uh,
gave up rugby because I was
getting squashed every game
stuck to swimming.
And then a couple of years
after I stopped swimming, yeah,
I discovered CrossFit and
it just sort of like
scratched the edge that I
had of being competitive
and trying to always like
further and better myself.
I'm the oldest of four boys.
And so naturally,
if one of us does something,
the other three have to
give it a go and try and at
least do it or do it better
or faster or whatever it is.
So yeah,
we've always been competitive and
sort of like driven each other along.
So I don't know if you know this,
there's some breaking news
going on right now.
As of five minutes ago,
they've released the events.
Are they?
I've been waiting for this for so long.
Do you mind if we go ahead
and pull them up here on the show?
Yeah, do it.
Yeah, yeah.
Get a live reaction as well from me.
Yeah.
So here we go.
Event one.
Four rounds for time.
600 meter run.
Round one, five deadlifts.
Round two, 10 deadlifts.
Round three, 15 deadlifts.
Round four, 20 deadlifts.
The barbell is 255 and 180.
255.
Trying to now do calculations about 120.
Yes, 120, 130-ish.
Okay, cool.
That's going to be very hamstring-loaded.
Uh, I love a deadlift.
Um, I'm not, don't love running so much.
That's probably due to my
swimming background and
having like really big feet.
So yeah, not an actual runner, but yeah.
Happy with that one.
Um, event two, four rounds for time,
four rope climbs to 15 feet,
six sandbag carries one 50,
140 foot handstand walk
time cap 12 minutes.
Yeah.
Loving that.
Is that handstand walk on broken?
I guess we don't know yet, but yeah.
Um, yeah, I love gymnastics.
Um, I love sandbags.
That's a good one.
Yeah.
The unbroken thing might
vary from age group to age group.
Yeah.
Event three for time, 25 overhead squats,
80-foot dumbbell walking lunge,
25 overhead squats,
time cap three minutes.
Okay.
Yeah,
I was wondering what they would do
for these very, very short workouts.
On the initial schedule they released,
there was two of these really short ones,
so I was wondering what it
was going to be.
What's the loading for the barbell?
Barbell is 75, 55.
Oh, that's dangerous.
That's really light.
Yeah.
And so the dumbbells are 50-30?
50-35.
Yeah.
That's going to burn for sure.
But yeah, I like that one.
Yeah.
Event four for time.
Snatch Speed Ladder.
Four at 135.95.
Three at 165.115.
Two at 195.135.
And one at 225.155.
Time cap, two minutes.
Yeah, that'd be good.
I like the look of them.
I'm just unsure as to what
everyone else would be like on it.
But yeah, I quite like that.
That's good.
Event five for time, 75 wall balls,
40 shoulder to overhead,
30 dumbbell stepovers, 40 dumbbell snatch,
75 wall balls.
Time cap, 15 minutes.
Wall ball, 2014.
Box, 2420.
Barbell, 115, 180.
And dumbbell, 5035.
Yeah.
In the past,
wall balls have tripped me up.
in comparison to my peers.
Um,
but that's just a bit of a burner
already.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I quite like that one.
Event six round one, four minute work,
one minute rest round two,
three minute work,
one minute rest round three,
two minutes of work for completion,
105 or 80 cows on the echo
bike by an each round
starts with 75 double unders,
20 chest of our pull-ups.
Okay, cool.
So that's,
I'm trying to get the format in my head.
So skip, pull,
and then just hop on the
bike until you've done your cows.
Yep.
Yeah.
That's going to get Lenny seven,
the standard.
Oh, I'm happy with this.
Cause I've done this twice
in the past few months.
So yeah.
Happy.
Event eight, eight rounds for time,
eight bar facing burpees,
eight toes to bar, one clean, 255, 180.
Time cap, eight minutes.
Power clean.
I'll be happy with power clean.
Squat clean,
that's going to get quite
painful on the legs.
But yeah, that's a good one.
Event nine,
five minutes to establish a one
rep max front squat.
Okay.
I wasn't too sure if they
would do a standalone strength.
I'm happy they have done.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's half decent.
Although as event nine,
you're not going to have much legs left.
And then finally event 10, four time,
eight, 12, 16,
single arm dumbbell thruster,
bar muscle up,
Time cap, eight minutes.
Dumbbell is 70, 50.
Oh,
on the assumption that's an even split
on the arms.
That's good.
That's the last workout as well.
They told us yesterday that
there's going to be a cut
leading into the top.
There's a cut going into the
last event and it's the top
50% move forward.
Yeah.
And they rejiggered the schedule.
So there was meant to be two
workouts on the Sunday on
the initial info we were told.
And then, yeah,
yesterday we were told that
it's just going to be the one.
So that's, that's, that's a good, heavy,
heavy and different workout
to finish off.
Yeah.
I like it.
Yeah.
That's a,
that's a heavy dumbbell thruster
to finish the week.
I mean,
I can't say I'm going to do well on it.
I just like the look of it
and it's going to be good to have a,
have a go at it.
Yeah.
If, if I make it that far.
Yeah.
All right.
So you were here for the breaking news.
Excellent.
Thank you.
All the events announced now.
Good.
Yeah,
it's going to be a tricky one to try
these out just because of
my travel schedule.
I'm going to hit a couple of
them just to get some feels for it.
That's a great question.
Like we're less than a week away.
At this point, like,
not going to get any better
between now and next
thursday right it's just
really just feeling them
out so you know kind of
what to expect yeah 100
yeah yeah you're not going
to get any better but you
could get worse um just by
doing too much um yeah it's
what we are now thursday
now I fly saturday land the
same day but it's probably
going to take a day and a
half just to get used to my
bearings and managing the time difference
And then it will be, what,
three days before event time.
So yeah, three days to have a little play.
I'll pop into a gym over there.
So whenever I fly west,
it doesn't really affect me.
When I fly east, it kills me.
Yeah.
Coming home is going to be tricky.
Yeah,
that's going to be rough on you going
home.
But hopefully it means
you'll recover pretty quick
for the event itself.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, coming over shouldn't be, I mean,
it shouldn't be too much of a problem,
but the timings for my age group,
it's the equivalent of
working out at midnight.
Um, and I normally get things done,
try to juggle around childcare,
normally get things done in the mornings.
Uh,
then I occasionally train early evening.
I don't train at midnight.
Um, so that's the only.
difference in the system really.
I thought everybody trained at midnight.
No, it's been a while.
Yeah.
Um, so are you,
are you with any kind of
camp or any kind of
programming or do you do your own thing?
Uh, I've had the same coach now for,
I want to say nine years,
ever since I've started to
try and actually chase this properly.
Um,
I've been with a company and within
that company,
I've had pretty much the same coach, uh,
throughout,
A guy's called Sam Smith.
And he lives in Arizona.
And everything's done remotely, naturally.
So this will actually be the
first time I've met him.
So we've done plenty of
video calls and catch-ups
and whatnot to discuss things,
but I've not actually met
him face-to-face.
So he's coming with you to the games?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
That's cool.
You're a husband and a father.
Correct.
Yeah.
How do you balance all of
that with the training you
have to do for this?
Oh, yep.
I'm quite a good juggler.
The wife is really supportive,
as are various family
members when we call upon
babysitting needs.
But training wise,
Try and get things done, as I said,
in the mornings where possible,
just before the kids are up.
So I'm not with them.
In the evenings, if we've got a babysitter,
then the wife and I will
nip off to the gym together.
That's kind of like our date
day or date time.
It's the one time that we
are together without the kids.
And then with my job,
we're encouraged to
maintain a level of fitness.
So within that,
we're afforded a bit of gym time as well.
So I can train when I'm at
work and the rest of it is
just juggling around when
the kids are either awake or asleep.
What do you do for a job?
I'm a firearms officer with the police.
Okay.
So in the UK, um,
we don't routinely carry firearms.
Um, there's like,
there's certain teams that do.
So I'm on one of those teams.
I've been doing it for about 16 years now.
Okay.
Been a while.
Did I see you coach as well?
Yes.
Yes.
I used to co-run a gym
before COVID dismantled that.
And then, yeah,
I've moved around a couple
of gyms and I currently
coach the competitors squad at the gym.
And I also do online
coaching and programming
for some of those guys and
also other people that aren't at the gym.
Does being a coach help you be an athlete?
It opens my mind to more
things that I might not
necessarily just be going
through on my own.
Yeah,
it gives me a broader understanding
of what a multitude of
people are going through.
And with that,
sometimes I can relate to it very well.
So I can have an
understanding and we can
have a nice discussion about it.
And then other times there's
things that are thrown my
way that are big curveballs
and I've then got to
learn,
learn a bit more about the human
psychology of things.
And yeah, it's, it's good.
What, when you're competing,
how much of your inner
dialogue do you fight with
during a workout?
I've never been in the point.
I thought I once
I'll come back to that.
I've never been to the point
where I've not been able to do something.
It's always,
it's more been about how hard can I push?
And yeah,
you've got to have a little talk
with yourself about, you know,
how hard do you want this?
Like, what does it mean to you?
You do replay various conversations,
you know,
remembering all the training
hours you've put in,
all the sacrifices you've
made to get to that certain point.
And yeah,
once that little flick in your
head is switched, then you can obviously,
well, yeah,
I usually bury myself quite
deep in a dark hole.
Make it hurt accordingly.
Yeah,
going back to the thing I said where
I've never not been able to do a workout,
there was a workout that
completely broke me.
I want to say it was 2017.
Might have been 18 at the
French Throwdown.
Double dumbbells, pull-ups and
So double kettlebell thrusters,
burpees and pull-ups, I think it was.
And for whatever reason,
mainly the heat that weekend,
because it was when Europe
had a massive heat wave and
the air conditioning unit
inside the Velodrome was broken,
I just wanted to stop.
You can see the whole pack
of the heat was moving past me.
I was probably last in my heat, I think.
And that played on my mind,
and then the heat.
And yeah, I just...
just that's the first time
I've ever not wanted to be
there and do something and
ready to throw the towel in
with three minutes left and
I was like no just let's
just keep sticking it out
keep chipping away again
the whole inner dialogue of
you train hard for this you
know don't let yourself
down don't let your
supporters down yeah
eventually finished the workout um
Went back to the room that
night and the missus had a word with me.
I was like, what are you doing?
Do you want to be here or not?
I was like, well, yeah.
It's just that workout was just horrible.
So I came out the next day,
absolutely smashed the
first workout that day, came sixth.
And if it weren't for a silly mistake,
probably could have won it.
So yeah, inner dialogue is strong.
When you, when you almost quit, right?
Yeah.
Do you beat yourself up as
much as the missus wanted to beat you up?
I think she might've been
coming at it from a
slightly different angle in
terms of she knows how much
it means to me to,
to do this and to do well.
Whereas at the time I was
like pure survival mode.
It's like for whatever reason,
and the heat was a massive factor.
I just need to survive and
get through the workout as
opposed to push myself anymore.
I think because I've been
training and doing various
sports for so long, if I push too hard,
I can tip myself over the
edge and then recovery
becomes a massive factor
then that I'm not recovering properly.
So yeah,
that workout was definitely more
about just like survival.
Sorry, one second.
My door has just turned up.
I'm busy.
Sorry, one second.
Wait.
Elsie?
Sorry, guys.
One second.
Elsie?
Elsie?
Can you take Elsa upstairs, darling?
I'm still on this call, darling.
Okay.
Okay, sorry.
It's not about that balance
you have to enjoy.
Yes.
You stay here.
I'll go upstairs.
Get somewhere quiet.
okay sorry guys I'm back
it's all good it's all good
um usually it's my dog
getting in the way he's
definitely easier to lock
out the room though yeah um
so when when your your
brain does flip into that
like I'm gonna fight for
this and then you lean into
it yeah how good do you
feel after that workout uh
yeah good the adrenaline is
usually riding high um
more often than not the
result has then been good
so yeah definitely riding
off those definitely riding
off the position you're
finishing um more so than
the performance I've not
yet been in the position
where I've done the best I
can and I'm also then happy
with the place I've been in
if it's like way down the pack
So speak, so going in that direction,
what are your realistic
expectations for yourself
at this year's games?
Tricky one.
I'm not trying not to place
too much expectation on it.
And although I will be
looking at the leaderboard,
I'm going to try my hardest
not to be leaderboarding.
Every other event I've done,
including the Opens,
the ones that I've
performed at best are where
I've gone in with no expectation,
gone in to enjoy it and not
looked a leaderboard.
And for whatever reason,
not carrying that stress
around with you is always paid off.
Maybe the start of the
workouts on that particular
year or the particular
event has just fallen well
in how they've done the programming.
Um, but yeah, if I,
if I go in with too much of
an expectation,
I don't hit it that a hundred percent,
it's going to play on my head.
And I know it's not over
until the fat lady sings
and the last event is all
done and dusted.
And there's always moving days.
But if I'm focusing on the
fact that I'm either where I want to be,
or I'm not where I want to be, yeah,
that will definitely carry
over a level of stress.
I don't need to be managing.
or carrying with me.
So if I can manage it and
keep that stress level down,
I find that my performance
is often a lot better.
I would, however, with that,
keeping in hand today,
I would love top 10.
Pushing for top five is good.
I kind of think first,
maybe second are locked in,
but the rest of us, yeah, third,
three total,
10th maybe 15th we could all
be fighting for those near
podium positions but again
I've got no idea how these
workouts have fallen for
other people it could be
their wheelhouse workouts
or they could hate them I have no idea
it's so hard to tell like
where you even stand
because online competitions
are not the same as what
it's going to be like in person, right?
Yeah.
Best in person competitor.
And you have no idea where
you stand because
everything's been online up till now.
Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
I think the only expectation
I would like to carry
forward is to execute my plan.
So again,
I've only literally had that
quick glance of the workouts and,
i like most of them I think
I know how I'm going to
attack all of them and as
long as I can stay to my
game plan and execute as I
need to the leaderboard
will be whatever the
leaderboard is so as long
as I do what I go into what
I'm planning to do in the
actual workout and the plan
of attack for it if I can
execute that well and to my plan
Then I almost don't care
where I fall in the leaderboard.
If I'm near the top, brilliant.
If I'm near the bottom, that's also fine.
Providing I executed as per plan.
So this has been a long time coming.
How important is it for you
to make sure that you soak
in the experience?
Yeah, quite, quite important.
Um,
going back to regionals when I didn't
realize that that was going
to be the last.
regionals experience um I
did take a lot of time back
and trying to soak it in
walking around just without
overthinking too much um
really taking my time and
sort of trying to immerse
myself with the other
athletes uh and again
similarly I feel this time
um I would love to
re-qualify and come back um
in future years again I've
got no idea on how the
crossfit season is going to unfold
And yeah,
definitely going to be taking in
as much as possible,
but while still trying to
have my head in the game.
Corey Leonard says control
what you can control.
Let the rest fall away.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fully in agreement with that.
If I do my best, that's all I can ask for.
And then the leaderboard
will be what the
leaderboard is and everything else will.
Yeah.
As she says, it will just,
it will just fall into
place as it was meant to.
Yeah, big props to Corey.
He's the one that let me
know that those workouts were released.
Thank you.
So we were able to share
those in the show.
Well, James, thank you so much for this.
This has been a blast.
We're going to be there in Birmingham.
We're going to be filming a
behind the scenes.
Excellent.
I'll make sure I come and stop by.
Say hi.
ellie hiller myself will be
backstage in the corrals in
the warm-up areas uh just
kind of capturing
everybody's experience
through this uh this
weekend and uh we'll put it
together in a multi-episode
documentary it should be
out after it's all over and
hopefully that allows you
to remember your experience
as well oh thank you yeah
that'll be good yeah I
can't wait to meet you in person
Yeah, likewise.
Likewise.
I seem to be doing an awful
lot of things online at the moment.
So yeah,
getting face-to-face with people
will be brilliant.
Yeah.
Well, thank you, James.
Thank you to everybody in
the chat for being here.
We will see everybody next
time on the Clydesdale Media Podcast.
Thank you so much, guys.