Hayley Queller | The Athletes of the 2024 Legends Masters CrossFit Games

We sit down with Sports Medicine Doctor Hayley Queller as she prepares for the 2024 Age Group CrossFit Games.  How does she balance training while seeing patients as a busy doctor, a mom of four and a devoted wife.

What is Clydesdale Media Podcast?

We cover the sport of CrossFit from all angles. We talk with athletes, coaches and celebrities that compete and surround in the sport of CrossFit at all levels. We also bring you Breaking News, Human Interest Stories and report on the Methodology of CrossFit. We also use the methodology to make ourselves the fittest we can be.

I was born 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.

What is going on, everybody?

Welcome to the Clydesdale Media Podcast,

where we are featuring the

athletes of the 2024 Masters, wait,

Legends Masters CrossFit Games.

I don't know what the official title is.

That's what I'm calling it.

My name is Scott Soich from the Clydesdale,

and I am so honored and

privileged to have with me Haley Queller.

That's right.

Got it.

And Haley has qualified in

the 45 to 49-year-old division.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

So let's talk about your

background a little bit.

What got you to here?

And I read somewhere you

were an All-American soccer

player in college.

So I was an academic All-American,

which is a little bit

different than an All-American.

Thank you.

I went to a small Division

III college and I did play soccer and my

final year as a soccer player,

I was an academic All-American first team,

which was pretty awesome.

Certainly it was a bit due

to my soccer abilities,

but also tied to my academic prowess.

So that was a pretty cool honor to get.

And it would have been very

cool to be an All-American,

but I wasn't the best soccer player.

But I certainly, you know,

I played well in

In Division III,

it's hard to become an All-American.

So academic is good enough.

Yeah.

And probably does more for

the rest of your life than

just playing All-American.

True.

Yes.

So did you always play

soccer from a child forward

or did you do other sports as well?

I started playing soccer

when I was four and I was elected to the

traveling team by the time I was five.

And I played with the same

travel team from the time I

was five until I graduated high school.

And I did play college

soccer as well and a little

bit of adult league soccer.

Throughout all of that, when I was younger,

it wasn't that you played

all year round like they do now.

So I also picked up sports here and there.

I played a little bit of

basketball until I was the

shortest kid on the team.

And then I kind of quit that.

But I did run track in high school,

but didn't do any further

track in college.

Interestingly, in college,

I did pick up a little bit of lacrosse,

which we didn't have where I grew up.

The lacrosse coach saw me

play soccer and asked me to

play a little bit.

It wasn't my favorite sport,

but I gave it a go.

And then my senior year of college,

I actually joined the women's golf team.

It was a

five soccer players and four

basketball players made up the golf team,

mainly because of title nine,

we needed another women's

sport and we figured we

would try that out.

Um,

so I've picked up a couple of things

here and there.

Um, but soccer was my main passion,

my main sport.

Isn't it fascinating that

when you were in college,

that you had to pick up

another sport for title nine,

just to like be compliant

and where women's sports are today.

Right.

Seriously.

Isn't that mind blowing?

Yep.

Thank you,

Caitlin Clark and all the other

women that came before her.

Holy cow.

For sure.

So did soccer give you a

good groundwork base to go into CrossFit?

I mean,

I think with the athleticism that I had,

I think it was a good foundation,

but there's,

I still keep in touch with

my soccer coach from college today.

If I had known about

CrossFit when I was in

college or as a child,

I would have been a much

better soccer player.

So I think CrossFit would

help soccer more than

soccer helps CrossFit.

Gotcha, gotcha.

What I've always lamented,

and I've always thought of

it in the reverse.

So I was a swimmer,

pretty high-end swimmer when I was a kid.

I retired and there was

nothing for me to go into.

And so, like, I dabbled in powerlifting.

I dabbled in some other things.

And nothing ever stuck.

If there was CrossFit when I retired,

my body would be in much

better shape today than it is.

And so I always lament that aspect of it.

But so you also are a doctor.

Yes, yes.

I think you might be an overachiever.

I'm not sure about that,

but when did you decide

that that is the field you

wanted to go into in life?

When I was six years old, I was sick.

I was in the hospital for about 10 days.

And although I don't really

remember the encounter,

my mom tells me that every

physician that walked in,

I asked them a hundred

questions about a hundred

different things that I was

super intrigued by what

they were doing and how

they were helping me.

She also does tell me the

story of how when I was

going into the hospital,

I told her that I never

want to go in a hospital

because that's where people die.

And I learned a ton in retrospect about

medical field and how they

helped me a great deal.

And when I left the hospital,

instead of saying,

I never want to enter

another hospital again,

I told my mom that I'm

going to be a doctor one day.

I didn't exactly know what that entailed.

And I certainly didn't know

what field of medicine I

wanted to go into.

But that was the kind of the

moment where I said,

that's what I'm going to do.

And I really never looked back.

Along the way, people said, oh,

you would be a great blank or, you know,

this or that.

But I always said, well,

that's not what I want to do.

I want to be a doctor.

I want to help people.

And so from the time I was

five until today,

I've always said this is

what I want to do.

And, you know, I never really looked back.

I just, that blows me away.

I'm a guy who had 18

different majors in college,

but my daughter, she graduated,

she knew what she wanted to

be like you at like six years old,

finished college in four years,

became what she wanted to

be and never looked back.

It's always what she wanted.

And that sounds like you had

the very similar experience.

So you're in sports medicine,

but you're board certified

in several areas.

practices, internal medicine, pediatrics,

and sports medicine.

That's right.

So I wanted to be a

non-operative sports

medicine provider as I

didn't want to do surgery.

So in order to do that,

you have to do a primary

residency in something.

And you may have alluded to it before,

I'm a little bit of an overachiever.

So instead of picking one

primary residency,

I decided to do a combined

residency in both internal

medicine and pediatrics to

be able to get the full

breadth of knowledge, medical knowledge,

both in adults and pediatrics.

And then from there,

I was able to do a

fellowship in sports medicine,

specifically non-operative

sports medicine.

So the non-operative aspect of it,

I was digging into a little bit myself.

Can you explain what that is

for the audience and what

you focus on mainly?

Sure.

So

So the general non-operative

or primary care sports

medicine field can take on

a lot of different hats.

There's a lot of us that

would work in a primary care setting,

seeing routine primary care

conditions and also see

musculoskeletal problems.

There are a lot of primary

care sports medicine

doctors that are head team

physicians in colleges.

at the international and national levels.

But for myself,

I really wanted to just do

sports medicine.

I didn't want to deal with

coughs and colds and

routine health visits.

I only see sports medicine.

So in my practice,

I actually work in an

orthopedic practice and I do

everything that the

orthopedist does until they need surgery.

So whether it be, you know,

I evaluate patients, I do injections,

I do regenerative medicine.

I also have a fairly sizable

concussion population.

So that's kind of a little

niche that I have.

It's about a third of my

practice could be more than

that during football season,

but in general,

about a third of my

practice is concussion management,

which has been,

you know,

in the media has been a very

large topic and in medicine,

a very underserved population.

Nobody really wants to tag

themselves with that diagnosis.

And it's something that I've

kind of grown to really enjoy.

And, you know,

many people in my community

will end up coming through

our door, you know,

there are others of us now in the, in my,

uh, practice that also treat concussion,

but you know,

the neurologists don't want to treat it.

The primary care doctors

don't want to treat it.

And it's something that I have a pretty,

pretty good passion over.

I have a follow-up to that, but, uh,

you have some friends in the chat.

So, uh, Kelly Krivit is saying hi HQ.

What's up Cal?

A G A G A J. Uh, Golick is saying HQ.

So do you go by HQ?

No.

It's funny, everybody calls me HQ.

It was never something that

I introduced myself as,

but in my practice, in my job,

We all go by our initials.

That's how our our templates

are written for our schedules.

So it always said HQ.

And then when I went into

the gym one day and somebody called me HQ,

it kind of just stuck.

So now both in my private

practice as well as in the gym,

it just seems it seemed to have stuck.

So I don't mind it.

It sounds cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Way worse names out there to be called.

For sure.

So with the concussion thing,

it has become such a hot topic.

And there's so much more

known about it today than

like when I played football.

That are you seeing an

increase in patients

because of the awareness we

have today as opposed to 10,

15 years ago?

Definitely.

People are definitely more

knowledgeable about

concussion and they're also

knowledgeable of the

repercussions of not treating concussion,

which I think is super important.

When I first started in 2009,

when I got to Long Island

where I'm practicing,

there was nobody treating

concussion and it was kind

of like the wild west.

People would go see their

pediatrician and get

clearance or not even see

anybody and just end up

back on the field.

And people realized that

once we started an

education process and what

the repercussions are and, you know,

the whole NFL talking about

CTE and all that stuff,

it definitely became,

people almost became

Very far to the other side

where they were terrified of it.

And it was the boogeyman.

So the first couple of years

of my practice,

I spent a lot of time educating,

a lot of time going into

schools and talking about

concussion and things to

look out for and certain

preventive measures that we can take.

And, you know,

to try to instill in these kids, like,

okay, this isn't the boogeyman, you know,

it's an important thing to

look for and it's an

important thing to pay attention to,

but we can recover from

this and we can certainly

get people back on the field.

I think a lot of people in

the past thought, oh,

as soon as I get a

diagnosis of concussion, that's it,

it's over.

I'm not going to be able to play anymore.

But I think people have a

better understanding of

what the treatment entails

and how to become

appropriately cleared

before you play in order to

mitigate any of those risks.

One interesting question I

have for you is you're the

mother of four.

So you see on a day-to-day

basis what the

repercussions are from playing sport.

Do you have any trepidation

in allowing your children to play sports?

So I have two girls and two boys.

My girls have zero interest

in sweating at all.

They're not like me.

They don't play any sports.

They are both into theater and music,

which is great as well.

My boys play one of the

highest risk sports around.

They're both competitive gymnasts,

which the risk of head

injury in particular is pretty high.

And they've had their fair

shares of musculoskeletal injuries,

broken bones, et cetera.

But

you got to let a kid be a kid.

So neither of them,

neither of my boys ever

asked to play football.

I don't know what the answer

would have been if they did ask,

but they have no interest.

I feel collision sports are

certainly would, would make me hesitant.

So ice hockey and,

and football would make me hesitate.

But again, kids,

kids need to learn and kids

need to be kids.

And they're going to get

injured no matter what they do.

You know, my, my older son is 14 and

he's a very high level gymnast and,

you know,

some of his stupider injuries

happened falling off his

scooter outside my home.

So it doesn't necessarily happen at the,

you know,

when they're being spotted by

their coaches in a safe

environment as safe as gymnastics can be.

So, you know,

you have to let them kind of

sow their oats and figure it out.

So two competitive gymnasts,

two theater and music lovers,

a mom that's competing in

CrossFit at the highest

level and as a doctor,

how do you do it all?

I am very, very organized as far as time.

So I schedule things out

that most people don't schedule.

So if you looked at my

appointment scheduling, my log book,

everything is written out

when I'm going to do this, that,

and the other.

My husband and I literally

have a work meeting every

Sunday and we look at the

schedule together to see

who's picking up which kid at what time.

What time are you training?

What time am I training?

And my staff in my office

also very fully understands

that my schedule needs to be pristine,

my office schedule,

so that the moment that I'm

supposed to be done,

I'm out the door because my

work schedule is pristine.

scheduled according to when

I need to be at the gym as well.

So I don't have very many other hobbies.

I don't watch TV.

I don't have much time to read.

because every moment is

already accounted for.

Like if a kid has a concert on, you know,

school concert one night,

I have to kind of know that

ahead of time so that I can

rearrange my schedule so

that sometimes work gets a

little bit cut short.

And sometimes the gym gets a

little cut short because

those are my two big commitments.

And, you know,

I will have time to make it

to the kids concert so that I,

just by kind of cutting

short 30 minutes here,

30 minutes there from work

and from the gym.

And it just kind of works for me.

I've, you know,

I've always been a very

organized and some people

might say OCD kind of person.

And that kind of,

it works in my extremely hectic life.

So your husband,

going back to your Instagram,

looks like at one time he

was a powerlifter,

and he was doing it at a

very high level because he

was at the Arnold,

which is very near and dear

to my heart because it's here in Columbus,

Ohio.

And I used to work that as

security for a while.

So is he as busy as you are,

or can he pick up some slack?

So...

My husband is ex-military,

so he was in the Army National Guard for,

I believe, 13 years.

In 2008,

he was in Iraq for a year when my

oldest was just a wee pup.

And when he came home from Iraq,

he stayed home for a while.

He did his drilling for the

National Guard and what have you,

but he did stay home.

He did a little bit of

academics and he got his

master's in education.

In 2014,

he wasn't able to find a job on

Long Island.

Long Island,

getting a teaching job is near

impossible.

So he decided because he had

a strong passion for

fitness and he had learned

about CrossFit when he was in Iraq.

When he came home,

we started doing some

CrossFitting and then he

opened a gym or we opened a gym in 2014,

which we owned for four years.

And he was doing that full time.

We did sell that gym and he

thought he was going to go

back to education, go back to teaching.

And again,

very difficult at that time to

find a job.

So like a bunch of suckers,

we opened another gym,

which we currently own.

And he did that again

full-time for quite some time.

And last year,

he really had that hankering.

He really, really wants to teach.

He's very, very smart.

He's a history buff.

That's his specialty.

And as an ex-military,

he has this passion for it.

So he decided last year to

enroll in Teach for America.

And he just finished his

first year of teaching in

an underserved community in Queens.

So he leaves the house at

four 30 in the morning and

he comes home at seven 30 at night.

It used to be that he was

able to pick up the

afternoon stuff with the kids,

but now a lot of it does,

I say fall on me, but doesn't, you know,

I'm the one who organizes

the babysitter who has to

pick up the kids in order

to bring them to the places

that they need to be.

Um, and you know, if,

if all heck race loose, then I do have to,

you know,

sometimes I'll have to leave the

office and pick a kid up

from school if they're sick

or what have you,

where he used to do that.

So that's been a huge change this year.

I thought it was going to be

harder than it actually turned out to be.

It actually was okay.

I, you know,

I was terrified that I wasn't

going to be able to keep up,

but we make it work.

You know, he, he does his fair share.

He busts his chops on the weekends,

make sure, you know,

helps with the cleaning and

all that kind of stuff.

Cause

That's the kind of thing

that has to be pushed to

the wayside when both of us

are out of the house for an

ungodly number of hours every day.

Okay.

So you're a business owner.

You're a doctor.

You have four kids.

Your husband is traveling

into New York City to teach every day.

How do you have time to

volunteer at the fight for

the fittest as head judge?

Sure.

So I know you know Sam and Kelly.

So I've known Sam and Kelly since 2016.

They came to the first gym

that I owned at Mount Sinai CrossFit.

And we just became very friendly.

Sam and I worked out together a ton.

And he had this interest in 2020,

I guess it was,

to try to put together a

community-based competition.

And we actually did that in

my gym at RX Fit in Rocky Point.

And we had a really great, great time.

I sort of became the head judge because,

again,

I'm very OCD and I see things and I

like for people to move well and,

you know, follow the rules.

So I just kind of got stuck with that.

I was also a lot of, I was,

Kelly's probably still on.

She gave me a lot of titles.

One of them was like shirt

bitch and everything.

I've gotten all different

titles from the fight for the fittest,

but I've continued to judge for them,

help with some of the programming,

help with writing rule

books and stuff like that.

Do I have time for it?

No,

but a lot of this is done because I mean,

we're good friends to this day.

And if we ever do have the

chance to hang out,

that's kind of what we talk about.

We have a group chat between

the three of us and we

bounce questions off each other

pretty much all day long,

especially when it starts

getting closer and it's a ton of fun.

It's something different

rather than doing the activity,

planning the activity.

And again, when it comes to being OCD,

that's fun for me and

probably more OCD than me as Kelly.

So we work really well

together and Sam is just,

he's just a flighty kind of

guy and it's great.

So I believe this is Sam.

So I'm not saying this

because HQ is one of my best friends,

but she is one of the most

kind and giving individuals

I've ever known.

I've watched her fitness

journey since 2016,

and we are so excited for her.

Thanks, Sam.

So with all of this,

you have qualified for the

CrossFit Games for the first time ever.

Right.

You are a rookie in the 45

to 49-year-old division.

That sounds weird to say,

but you're heading to the

games for the first time.

What does that mean to you?

It's insane.

I mean,

I've been trying to get to this

point since I was 39.

When I was 39 was the first

year that they had the 35 to 39 division.

So that was the first year

that I really pushed to try

to make it pretty high up there.

Certainly I didn't achieve that,

but as the years got on,

I was getting closer and closer.

In the last couple of years,

I've been working with an

individual coach and I've

been really upping my

training and really

focusing on weaknesses.

And just to see this come to

fruition is just unbelievable.

The amount of sacrifice,

both between me and my family

that we've put in to try to

get to this point.

I came incredibly close last

year and it was almost, you know,

fire under my butt to say like, you're,

you're there.

You just, you need,

you just need a little extra push.

And here we are.

If I remember right, you,

if it were this year's rules,

you would have qualified last year.

Correct.

Correct.

Yeah.

How cool is it that they

have expanded this?

Are you,

are you excited or disappointed

that it's moved away from

the main festival.

I mean I always wanted to go

to the main festival and I

never did and probably will

never go to the main

festival unless I was somehow involved,

just because again time, I don't have it.

But.

I think it's great.

I've been to Legends in the past in 2022,

and I love that we're all

normal people who have jobs

and have family and have kids.

And it's super fun to meet these people.

I mean,

a lot of these people that I've

quote unquote met over the

past 14 years online that I

would think they're very

close friends of mine,

but I've never literally

met them in person.

Um, so I think, you know,

having it as a separate

event where we're the,

we're the main show.

So, you know, everybody's watching us.

I think it's great.

Um, it, it's only selfish reasons.

Like I would love to go to

the games one day just to watch because,

you know, I,

I love CrossFit and I love the athletes,

but I'm glad that our show is our show.

I am too.

I'm glad you guys get the

opportunity to be

highlighted because what

you do is amazing.

Um,

and what most people probably don't

even realize is this

underserved community from

35 to 50 collectively,

you have almost 3 million

followers on Instagram.

That's crazy.

Isn't that crazy?

It's great.

You know, and it, and, um,

And I think the more you are

highlighted and the more

that you are shown to the world,

the better that's going to

get for all of you.

Absolutely.

So who are you taking with

you to Birmingham?

So one of my very close friends,

Charlotte Moriarty,

she's actually a sports

medicine doctor up in Rhode Island.

She was at Legends last year.

She was at Legends last year.

And actually,

we are one of those sets of

friends that we...

kind of met online and we

ended up never meeting

before and ending ended up

doing masters fitness

collective together just

through instagram and had a

blast and we've been close

friends since so she's

coming down and then my

husband pending getting off

from work he his first week

of school is that week so

he's trying to see if he

can get off that friday

Um,

unfortunately bringing all four kids is

not going to work out.

Um, my, my younger sister,

thank goodness is able to

come watch them.

And I believe that my

in-laws will be there.

My in-laws actually moved to

Georgia a few years ago.

And so it's a couple hour drive for them.

So I think they're going to be there.

Um, but really just, you know, my husband,

Charlotte, and probably my in-laws,

and then tons of people

will be following my Instagram feed.

Cause I,

I know a lot of people wanted to be there,

Sam and Kelly included,

but unfortunately it's, it's a schlep.

It's a big, big job to get down there.

Well,

the good news is they're streaming it

this year.

Yep.

So everybody can,

they can have a watch party

in New York and cheer you on from there.

Cause we,

we want eyes on this as much as

possible through stream or

through being there.

So this keeps growing and growing.

Absolutely.

What are your realistic

expectations at the games?

Well,

I just want to really go down there

and have a blast.

You know,

I've been working really hard for

this and the prize is that I made it.

Everything past this is kind of gravy.

Certainly, you know,

finishing in the top 10 in

the world in the semifinals

was unbelievably great.

And if I could

stay in that, in that heat, in that,

you know, elite heat,

that would be amazing.

Um, but you know, it is what,

whatever shows up and as

long as I have fun and

hopefully stay healthy,

that's really all I can ask for.

How much did it mean to you

that you would have

qualified under the old rules this year?

It,

it's a little bittersweet because last

year I finished in 18th and

if the roles were reversed,

I would go for two years in a row,

but obviously they're not.

Um,

But it's great.

The top 40 people in our age group,

they're all badasses.

So anybody that finished in that top 40,

I mean, it's unreal.

And a slight of – a little

change in this workout or that workout,

I could have easily been 35th.

But the cards just fell

beautifully in my pocket,

and I executed well.

So 10th is great,

and I'm glad that I would

have made it last year too.

But anything in the top 40 is –

just amazing.

So last question.

Um, do you like to race?

Like,

are you excited to get out there on

the floor head to head with

other athletes after this

long season of online competition?

Yeah.

You know,

I don't have a ton of experience.

I've only been to one

individual competition before,

and that was legends 2022.

And I enjoyed the racing.

Um,

The only other time I

competed on a big stage was

Masters Fitness, and that was as a team.

And I loved that as well.

But I feel like it's going

to give me a little bit

extra fire just having

people around me who are, you know,

seriously fit, like crazy fit.

And I think that'll help me

and it'll light a fire.

And I think, you know,

in the Masters community, at least,

we all walk off the big

stage and we're hugging each other.

So,

whatever happens, I mean, it's,

it's going to be a lot of

fun with a lot of really cool people that,

you know,

all have similar interests and

similar desires.

And we all know what we're going through.

We all, you know,

can push each other equally.

Um, you know, it's not super cutthroat.

Like I think the individual

process probably is we're,

we're all trying to lift each other up.

So I think that part of it

itself is going to be just unbelievable.

So I'm going to finish this

with just a wacky question

that came in in the chat.

And it says that Haley

sounds like such a hardworking badass,

but I wonder if she's scared of spiders.

I'm not scared of spiders.

I'd prefer them not be there,

but I'm usually the one

who's killing them.

So I'm not scared of spiders.

There are other things I'm scared of,

actually.

Certain bugs that I am scared of.

But you'll keep that to yourself.

Those damn flying crickets, man.

You never know.

They might jump up and fly

right into your mouth.

Those things are crazy.

When I lived in Florida,

we had the big palmetto beetles.

Oh, yeah.

Or just mega cockroaches.

No, thank you.

I wasn't afraid of them.

They just grossed me out.

Yeah.

Um, so can't wait to meet you in person.

We're going to be in Birmingham.

We got granted full access

to do a behind the scenes.

Um,

so we're going to be Ellie Hiller and

myself will be behind the

scenes chatting with all the athletes,

recording those

conversations and making a

highlight video of all of that.

Um, it'll actually come out in episodes,

uh, through afterwards.

So you'll be able to relive

the experience if you have

time to sit down and watch

YouTube for a couple of minutes.

That's great.

I appreciate that you're doing that.

That's awesome.

With that.

Thank you to everybody in

the chat and I'll leave it with this.

A fight for the fist.

We love you.

With that.

Thank you everybody in the chat.

This was an awesome

experience for me getting to know you.

And we will see everybody

next time on the Clydesdale

media podcast.

Bye guys.

Thanks.