Understanding Fitness As A Competitor | Steven Fawcett | Modern Wisdom Podcast 155

Steven Fawcett is a 3 Times CrossFit Games Athlete and Head Coach of JST Compete. How to become fit and how to use that fitness in a competitive environment are two very different challenges. Many athletes will spend years training and competing to see their numbers stay the same, or maybe even go backwards. So what's the solution? As a coach and athlete who has seen phenomenal success over the last few years, I figured Ste would be a good guy to ask. Expect to learn how to periodise your training, how often you should be competing every year, why a full break can be one of the best training tools you can use, what Ste's best advice is on competition weekends and much more. Check out everything I use from The Protein Works and get 35% OFF SITE WIDE with the code MODERN35 - https://www.theproteinworks.com/modernwisdom/ Extra Stuff: Check out JST Compete - http://www.jstcompete.com/ Follow JST Compete on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jst_compete/ Follow Ste on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/steveyf22 Check out everything I recommend from books to products - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom #crossfit #crossfitgames #fitness - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: [email protected]

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Everyone who starts CrossFit can just do regular CrossFit for six months, so maybe two years, and continually get better. Your body has been exposed to CrossFit, knows what it's about, and then you also know what it is, and then start looking to maybe fine tune areas. But yeah, anyone that's looking to compete at any level, if you've got to a point where your lifts have stayed at a certain level, you don't feel like you're getting much fitter, your gymnastics isn't getting much better, and you're doing all those things in like, it's all muddled up in like one session, and it's time to stop, separate them, work on them individually, work on your weightlifting, work on your condition, work on your gymnastics, build them all up separately, and then bring them back together.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  Steve Forster in the building, how are you man? Good, thank you. Thanks for having me on, or thanks for travelling to Wigan. It's beautiful, look at this, in the dungeon. I know, this is my little man cave. It's cool man. It's very cool. You've come back from Miami? Yes. How was it? Yeah, such a good time, such a good time. We've been back for a week or so now, but in terms of competitions, probably the most fun that I've ever had. Why? Probably a couple of things, mixture of who I was with, who I was around. There was, obviously I was there competing in a team with Taylor, Anita, and Mikey, but we also had a little bit of a JST crew going on with Reggie, Philip, the Danish lad Philip

• 2:00Speaker 00

  Biscard, and the girls as well, so there was Evie and Ayla there, so it was a good group of maybe eight or nine of us, who have all known each other quite a while. So it's good just to go out to Miami, which is somewhere just completely different to Wigan.

• 2:15Chris Williamson?

  Slightly different to Wigan, yeah, a little bit.

• 2:16Speaker 00

  Um, and just go and have a good time. And, and you know, it's like being around Mikey and Reggie, they just bounce off each other and uh, you know, there's kind of laser sharp focus when it's time for um, the event and warming up.

• 2:28Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  And then ten fifteen minutes after, it's just back to uh, just having a good time. So it's something that I've not, um, always had that balance of around competition. Sometimes I get myself kind of in the zone and the fun aspect is maybe just kind of like limited because I'm so focused on wanting to compete. Um, so having those guys there was, it just made it, yeah, really, a really fun experience.

• 2:49Chris Williamson?

  Do you think that you can have the level of focus that you want from yourself and from your athletes, whilst still having that turn off?

• 2:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, yeah, it's a very hard balance. Um, if I was there, if we were there competing and we were going there knowing full well that we were gonna be a top three team and we get any games ticket, then whether or not the environment would have changed just kind of naturally, like people would have been a bit more serious.

• 3:18Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  Um, I'm not sure, but I mean, I'm sure there is a balance out there, but it's, I think it's a very hard balance for people to find because, I mean, if there's three hours between events and this next event is potentially gonna be life changing with the result that comes, then it's quite hard to be uh, you know, it's quite hard to be acting the way that we were acting uh, last week, so. I'm sure some people have the balance, but I think everyone's balance is just a little bit different.

• 3:43Chris Williamson?

  We watch it, right? You can see different personalities come across within the games. You know, watching the documentaries and, and stuff like that, you see some people who are kind of, especially some of the girls. Some of them seem to have real polarized laser focus.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:58Chris Williamson?

  And others seem to be kind of like giggly, spending time with their partner or their coach and like laughing, just doing girl stuff, you know what I mean?

• 4:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, definitely. And like I say, I think everyone has that balance that's a bit, is, is different. I've got ten, maybe eleven individual athletes and every single one of them has a different balance. Um, some like to be, you know, t- talking to people in between events, going to the crowd and walking around the vendor village and just kind of mixing around with people. And other people just like to go like full hermit mode and just shut off from the world. Um, so yeah, I mean, it's. What's right and wrong is there's probably no particular way, I guess it's just it's down to each person, down to each athlete.

• 4:43Chris Williamson?

  Are there any rules that you think all athletes should try and adhere to within competition periods like fun, use sleep, nutrition, anything like that?

• 4:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think, yeah, I think sleep is definitely something that

• 4:59Speaker 00

  just it's not, it doesn't differ that much with different athletes. Everyone needs as much sleep as they can, especially on competition weekend. It's quite hard to get a full night's sleep because of nervous energy and.

• 5:11Chris Williamson?

  I was gonna say, I've never been, so you've been to games, you've been to water palooza, you've been to a number of big, big comps.

• 5:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:17Chris Williamson?

  What is your sleep like in between those? Because you know, you're so exhausted from the day, but also so terrified for tomorrow.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. Personally, I never struggle to fall asleep. It's the waking up. I would probably, I would wake up a couple of hours earlier than usual, something like four or five o'clock because, you know, sometimes if you, you do wake up, let's say you go for a wee to the toilet and then you start thinking.

• 5:41Chris Williamson?

  Oh, you're fucking shit, I'm at the games.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Five thousand in front of a arena, in front of everyone. And that's kind of when like that, your CNS kind of wakes up properly because it's kind of going into that fight mode and then it's, it's tough to get back to sleep. So I'd probably, I'd probably drop sleep by two or three hours as the, as the lying stage in the morning. But it's just important that the weeks before, that it's when you can control it and you can get a good sleep, that you kind of get that sleep in the bank. So yeah, sleep's definitely something that they'd all need. And like you said, nutrition is probably a different thing. I'm not, I've got people to help me with nutrition, to help my athletes with nutrition. Because it's quite a big, broad thing. There's, there's programming and coaching

• 6:27Speaker 00

  and nutrition. It's a lot for kind of one person to try and control everything. Some people deal well with a lot of food during events. Some people deal well with barely any.

• 6:41Chris Williamson?

  What's your disposition?

• 6:43Speaker 00

  I like to eat some food as, as, as soon as possible. And it's probably something that I kind of got myself into the habit of. Back in the early days of competing, it was. Um, you're just like a shake and some smoothie and then get by, but then by the end of the weekend, it was, it would always take its toll.

• 7:01Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  The fact that there's just no kind of like solid food in there to fuel me. Um. But now, you know, I have to work with some, some, some guys for the last few years, I need to get food.

• 7:12Chris Williamson?

  What's your favourite intra-event snack or food?

• 7:17Speaker 00

  It's really boring to be honest. It is really boring. Just sweet potatoes and some white meat, white fish.

• 7:24Chris Williamson?

  Um hum.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  Um, obviously you've got your, your, your carby drinks and, and stuff like that, but.

• 7:29Chris Williamson?

  Nothing fancy.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  I just try and keep it as bland as possible because, um, you know, you don't want to be out of breath in a little burp mid-workout.

• 7:35Chris Williamson?

  Alpinio sauce coming up or whatever.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  Something horrible coming out, some fishy, um, some fishy burps. So yeah, it's really, uh, it's really not too e- excited just.

• 7:47Chris Williamson?

  What else? So you're, you're spending this weekend at Waterpalooza with a team of guys who, um, there's some young ones and some people that have got experience similar to yourself in there as well. Are you giving them coaching with regards to their mindset during that time? Look, guys, we need to think about this. What about, you know, speaking to their girlfriends or their partners or their phones or, you know, what are you doing on that side?

• 8:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, so a lot of this season and, and with having, um, Waterpalooza just gone, a lot of my focus towards the athletes is just trying to relay as much knowledge and education to them around competition and training whilst, whilst doing it with them. There's, there's one thing like trying to teach them as a coach and then there's another thing being by their side as an athlete saying you should be doing this, that and the other. And I find that being um, like in the team with a bunch of guys or being there at the competition and maybe even competing in training with them. Um, athletes tend to pick up a lot, they'll pick up a lot more than just like having that coach athlete relationship where coach says this, athlete does.

• 8:54Chris Williamson?

  Leading by example as well as dictating by example.

• 8:57Speaker 00

  Being in there and then showing them like why things help and that's why recently over the last few months I've enjoyed getting back into um training and competing because we've got a lot of younger athletes coming up through the ranks and I find that the results that we've had from JST over the last um kind of eight or so years I've come off the back of that where I've been in the kind of environment of of competing and training as well as coaching at the same time rather than just being kind of stepped back and saying like I'm coached now.

• 9:29Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 9:29Speaker 00

  Do this like I find that getting that environment and that group of people together and and putting the knowledge and education into them that way um is helping the guys develop much better.

• 9:43Chris Williamson?

  It's interesting to see people that lead by example, especially in a sport like CrossFit, right? Every Crossfitter respects hard work.

• 9:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:51Chris Williamson?

  It's very much a nose grindstone suffering sport.

• 9:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:55Chris Williamson?

  And I I wonder I wonder how much extra a coach brings by leading by example.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:05Chris Williamson?

  Versus how much they lose by having to inevitably sacrifice a tiny bit of coaching performance.

• 10:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:11Chris Williamson?

  To focus on their own performance.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:13Chris Williamson?

  You know what I mean?

• 10:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:14Chris Williamson?

  Like there's a there's a there's a real balance there, but I would say certainly knowing Reggie, Mikey, Taylor, so you know, some of the the guys that you work with.

• 10:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:23Chris Williamson?

  Um they're the sort of team, I think, that would er toward wanting to see you live the lessons you're trying to give to them.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, hundred percent and like I'm I'm living that example right now is last year I put I took more of a step away and went more coaching role. Um I got so I coached Taylor and Jack coaches, uh Mike and Reggie and we've we've very much had like a the coach set away and then they're the athlete and more recently we've got more involved and with training with them and competing with them and they're coming on much quicker and you can tell they enjoy the fact that the coach is in there with them rather than just being kind of stood there telling them to do this, writing this in the programme.

• 11:10Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  If we're in there getting involved and doing it with them. Um, and then able to also teach them and like I say, educate them on just the small and minute details because they see us doing them and then they they ask, oh, why are you doing that for? Why are you not wearing trainers? Why why are you wearing lifting shoes or why are you not wearing a belt? Just all this really small, minute details where when you're when you're in that coach, kind of away from them, it might, you know, you might not pick up all the small little.

• 11:40Chris Williamson?

  Especially coming out from as a competitor first, right? Or a competitor coach, like running in parallel.

• 11:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:46Chris Williamson?

  That's definitely a a unique selling point. There's far more coaches and athletes than there are coach and athletes.

• 11:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:55Chris Williamson?

  Right?

• 11:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, 100%. 100%. And to be honest, I just went for it because that's how I learnt as an athlete. I learnt as an athlete when I was around other athletes or other coaches that were kind of involved and more more practically involved than just kind of a standoff, kind of do as I say. So I just kind of took that same um kind of method or principle that that I felt that I learnt the most and and just passed it on.

• 12:22Chris Williamson?

  Any stuff that you've picked up since over the last couple of years, since the games, since Water Palooza and stuff that you've brought into comp weekends that you've thought was a a bit of a realisation?

• 12:34Speaker 00

  Lots, yeah, lots. It's been, yeah, in in what essence?

• 12:39Chris Williamson?

  Anything, man. So have you realised that having a nap between competitions is a good idea? Have you realised that you need to leave your phone down? Have you realised that you need to spend time warming up more time, less time, whatever?

• 12:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, it comes down, it there's there's a lot of different things where naps could work, couldn't work, um like phones on or off. And again, it sounds like the same answer. It comes down, a lot comes down to the individual. Some people might just need that little bit of time on the phone just to escape. And other people are getting too involved. That's going to start affecting their performance. Um, I think ultimately it's it's making sure that whatever whatever it is they're doing, it's keeping them in the right mind frame, the right positive mind frame, um.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  Always approach that next event, you know, with the right mindset that they need.

• 13:34Chris Williamson?

  So I suppose you need to know your athlete very well.

• 13:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:37Chris Williamson?

  For that to be the case.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  Like I said, the 10 athletes I've got, my attitude towards each one of them is different.

• 13:45Speaker 00

  Just two examples of David Shrunk and Taylor Howe.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  When David walks into the warm-up area, he's got his earphones on and we call it his grocery face. I don't know if you've heard the.

• 13:58Chris Williamson?

  No.

• 13:59Speaker 00

  Rhyme song.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  And sometimes I'm scared of talking to him because he's just like laser focus from when he decides that warm-up's starting. Earphones going and it means business from that point and there's not really much joking around from that point. It's just, he wants to get perfect warm-up, make sure he's feeling like 100% as soon as he steps onto that competition floor. And everything's very kind of serious and just kind of fine tuned to that point. Yeah, like that's, that's when it starts. Comes off the, comes off the arena floor, smiles gleaming, having a good time and, and it's, it's back to being his usual self. Whereas Taylor just kind of needs a little bit more, bit more light-hearted.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  It's the odd joke in warm-up, it'll keep her kind of smiling and keep her happy and that makes her perform better. So it is like, it's like I say, it's the balance of the different athletes and it's understanding what makes people tick. What's too much for certain and what's not enough.

• 14:59Chris Williamson?

  Hmm, you've got one athlete who needs to get into their head more and one athlete that probably needs to get out of their head more.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:06Chris Williamson?

  So this is one of the things I think is interesting about, you know, everyone that's listening, that does CrossFit, they, they want the secret sauce, right? They want like, yeah, but what's, no, no, no, I know that you're saying like it's individual and stuff, but yeah, like how, how much sleep do I need? Or what, how long do I need to warm up or whatever? And the fact that we all are very unique individuals. Unfortunately makes these prescriptive like rules for people to follow. And I suppose this is the the value of a coach.

• 15:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:36Chris Williamson?

  Right?

• 15:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, 100% and and all that whole thing is what we're trying to get across to all the guys that are on our programs. No matter what tier they're on, they could be on the 40 pound program where we've got hundreds of people following or all the way up to just one to one individual. And it's just the tools to be able to know how to educate them so that they can make their own decisions for what's the best for them. And if if every athlete can then make their own decision, you know, and and they know that's the right decision for them. Whether it's what to eat after a comp, how much sleep they should get, should they have a nap in between, hydration. You know, wearing certain equipment on some events and not on the others.

• 16:20Speaker 00

  If they know and they're educated and they can make that decision themselves, then it's going to be far more effective than a coach trying to guess what's right for them. Everyone knows themselves better than anyone else knows them.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  So education for the athletes is key and that's something that we try really hard to get across with the guys on on the program. So that they can make the right decisions because someone's not, there's not always going to be someone there that can tell you what to do. You need to be able to, if it's middle of the event or it's just you and your judge on the on the competition floor. Like something happens, you need to be able to make a decision yourself based off your own knowledge.

• 16:59Chris Williamson?

  It's a great point. You can't rely on your coach as some crutch for every

• 17:05Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 17:05Chris Williamson?

  incident which occurs. So you you've touched on it there, the fact that JST over the last few years has seen quite a bit of success. What are some of the accolades that you guys have had?

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, so we've had, so we're the first, um, so I was the first British male to qualify for the games.

• 17:24Chris Williamson?

  First British male, really?

• 17:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, out of regionals, there was, there was actually a guy, Jamie, it was called, I think maybe 2009, qualified through us. I think he called it sectionals back then, but out of regionals, the first British guy. And then we, two years later, we were the first British team to the games. And then two years later, so last year, 2019, we made it back again as. The, well, the second on the British team to get there and we were the first.

• 17:53Chris Williamson?

  Team of six, so individual team of six, team of four with a year's rest in between.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty much, yeah. 2015, 17, 19.

• 18:00Chris Williamson?

  Nice. So you've, you've seen some real, you know, that, that's a number of different.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  Experiences.

• 18:09Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, and, and on top of that, like firsts, right? So.

• 18:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:13Chris Williamson?

  What is it about JST's approach to coaching or programming or training?

• 18:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:20Chris Williamson?

  What's moving the needle here?

• 18:23Speaker 00

  Do you know, I think it's doing a lot of little things the right way. And, and this is something that I only come into terms with now, kind of like the older I'm getting, the more, more people, more athletes I see and more gyms I'm getting about. Um, it's just I'm seeing people just doing, um, the little things, not, not optimally, not the, not the right way. And it's, and it is a lot of really small little things.

• 18:48Chris Williamson?

  What like?

• 18:49Speaker 00

  Um, like, why are you wearing, I touched before, why are you wearing trainers to do your back squats instead of lifting shoes at this point in the season?

• 19:00Speaker 00

  So just to explain that one itself, that lifting shoes are gonna help most people lift, they're gonna help most people squat better. Say most, not everyone, but.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  They're making you better at lifting because it's an, an accessory that's going on to you, it's not yourself, it's something that you're adding to your body. Um, so learning to squat or lift without that added performer, we call it a performing, performance enhancing accessory, a P. Um. Learning to lift without them and then introducing them closer to competition, so it does give you that effect. Is gonna put you at a higher level than if you just wore them all year round.

• 19:41Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  Because you're improving your own body's ability to do whatever it is you're trying to do. And then you're adding on the, the performance enhancing accessory. Um, and there's just like, that's just one small tiny little thing. Another maybe thing is maybe resetting on your, your snatch deadlifts instead of, like I'm touching, if it's three sets of three snatch deadlift. So many people I will see just doing touch and go, where it's like, again, it's a very small thing, but you're doing a snatch deadlift. The three sets of three at high percentage, so it transfers into your one rep max snatch, so. Doing that touch and go rep is not that second rep and the third rep.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  It's not transferring into a one, into your one rep where you're pulling it from a dead stop off the floor. And like I say, loads of really small tiny things, and this is what I'm having a lot of uh fun doing now is educating the likes of Taylor, David and Mikey and Reggie with Jack. Um, to get all the really small details of how to live the life and how to approach a training session, how to recover from a training session. Um, you know, when to, when to supplement, when to time certain meals. Like all these fine little, little uh details, and we call them inches.

• 20:59Speaker 00

  All of them, all of them done the right way over, say, if all of them done the right way over one week is ten things that you've, that you've, ten inches, that done for six months is just, then it starts to snowball.

• 21:13Chris Williamson?

  Yards.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  And, yeah, exactly, yards and, and, and miles. But that, that's something that I only really now have realised that we started doing. Um, we started doing from, from the beginning. So we're, it's stuff that I had learnt and passed down from other coaches and other athletes. I had, I had competed and worked with. And then we kind of had this group in the beginning at JST, we had this group of maybe ten or so athletes. Where we'd, we'd, uh, we'd always be training together. If someone was doing something wrong, if someone was wearing lifting shoes when it didn't really make sense for them to wear lifting shoes, they'd be told in a nice way and said, look, you should just not wear them because this, that and the other. Um, belts would only be used at a certain stage and, and then coaching cues and techniques, you know,

• 21:58Speaker 00

  little things that just get tweaked, but going round and round in that, those ten people for weeks, months and years on end, made those ten people. Get to a high level and then that's that kind of snowballed again that people wanted to get involved and and the whole knowledge and education of um just kind of training, living and uh the lot having the professional lifestyle that an athlete needs um to grow and and to develop rather than just like the actual training session that are completing.

• 22:32Chris Williamson?

  Um. One of the things that Reggie mentioned to me the other day was the professionalism that he sees when training with you guys.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:41Chris Williamson?

  That he really says he struggles to see elsewhere.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:44Chris Williamson?

  And what I find interesting about that, you know, all of the CrossFitters that are listening, there are two, CrossFit's problem is that it is two things. It is a training methodology, but also a competitive sport.

• 22:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:55Chris Williamson?

  And there are some people who do it because they like to train CrossFit and there are some people who train CrossFit because they like to compete in CrossFit. And the fact that you have those two things running side by side means that you've got the normal class environment, rock up before Angela comes in five minutes late, she'll just jump on the C2 bike instead of doing the rung because everyone's halfway around and blah blah. And then you've got the guys that want to make it to the Games, want to make it to the regional, not regionals now, want to make it to uh the sanctioned events. Um, you know, you've got those guys who are also in that environment, you know, someone who's still maybe sweating out a couple of beers from last night or whatever it is, and you don't have them segmented off. Whereas if you look at any other sport, you have any

• 23:38Chris Williamson?

  semi-professional or professional football team, they don't also have the Sunday League team.

• 23:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:43Chris Williamson?

  Warming up with them.

• 23:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:44Chris Williamson?

  You know?

• 23:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it is, it is two completely different things and it'll, and it should be two completely different things and it should also to the, to the kind of um, to the outlooker looking in, it probably looks quite similar, but in terms of how they train and how they live, like it should be completely different. I put a post out um not too long ago actually on our Instagram about constant, it's just called constantly varied with question mark and how an elite athlete's training is rarely constantly varied. If anything, it's just. Constantly repeated, it's just the same, it's this, it's you, you get a bunch of exercises or a, a bunch of workouts, um, that are perfect for this type of person and it's

• 24:30Speaker 00

  just repeated and repeated and repeated until they improve and then it's developed. Whereas you're, like you say, your CrossFit class where you've got Angelo comes in, they just wanna have a good time, get fit and do different movements. So it's constantly varied and it keeps them on toes and uh, everyone has a good time. But to get, for the elite athlete, um, like it's so much different, it's so different.

• 24:52Chris Williamson?

  Is progressive overload king in all areas?

• 24:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, a hundred percent. Um, you know, there's, there's other methods, but because, and I would say because CrossFit, because we cover so many different, um, like modalities in CrossFit, running, swimming, weightlifting, gymnastics, we are still way behind runners at running. So that our training, uh, you know, our training to get better at running needs to be so, much more simple, uh, than Mo Farah's training program. Um, and our gymnastics, uh, training is a lot more simple to, uh, Max Whitlock's training program. And same goes for our weightlifting. Whereas progressive overload, it can't not

• 25:39Speaker 00

  work for, for CrossFitters because with that, our level is that low compared to these elite athletes. Like progressive overload for Mo Farah probably won't work, you probably not see any.

• 25:50Chris Williamson?

  It'll be much more sort of cyclical periodization of ups and downs.

• 25:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, it needs to be much, in much finer detail. Um, but because we're kind of maybe like, say we're like seventy percent performance than all, than the guys who are elite athletes in their sport, um, it can be a lot more simple. And I think it's, people see the, the, the people at the top in their sport and they try and copy their methods of training. Um, but I think it's, it's sometimes especially for something like running, um, it's too, it's too advanced to, to do in training sessions that is, um, further on than them.

• 26:31Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh. Certainly one of the things that I remember seeing a few years ago was when Meg had started working with you guys when she moved down to Wigan.

• 26:38Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 26:41Chris Williamson?

  She was talking about particular ways of programming monostuctural work, so rowing and running with splits, taking a time, chopping that up into individual distances at slightly negative splits of that. And then the same for gymnastics, the same again, like do your one set max and then take percentages of that with percentage rest. You know, like it's the same for everything it would appear in life, whether it be meditation, whether it be learning, whether it be reading, whether it be, you know, whatever your chosen domain of competence is, like pick the thing that you can do at the maximum you can do it for, and then try and make that a little bit more, compound that a little bit more over time each time.

• 27:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, and that's, and that, and that in a nutshell is exactly how we would, we would periodize training where there's a, there's a, there's phases of training where you do just that, where things are, where rowing and running is, is, is trained separately to gymnastics and weightlifting. And then there's, there's phases of training when you're getting close to competition where now we're going to take, we're going to take, we've built the base of all these different modalities and we're going to take that and start mixing it together into more CrossFit or event style workout so that you, your body is fine tuned into the stresses it's going to come up against. But if, if it can handle higher rowing volume at higher intensity, because you've, you've

• 28:08Speaker 00

  trained for three or four months, rowing on its own and specifically worked on that, then when a rowing workout comes up in an event, you've got a better foundation of rowing to then go into whatever it's coupled up with. And if it's coupled up with some gymnastics and barbell, if they've also been worked separately for three or four months and the, the volume and capacity of them, of those things have increased, then once it's all put together, you, you set yourself up for better performance because.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  You know, the the base of those exercises has improved, increased massively. So the limit on how fast you can do, how many reps you can do, how long you can stay unbroken.

• 28:53Chris Williamson?

  Ceiling's been lifted.

• 28:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's it's it's up and and that's how you get progressive, how you progressively develop your performance, rather than, a lot of people see the the competitions and they see what they get tested on and where they fall behind on that test. And how many times you heard someone struggling in open workout and go, I'm going to do that open workout every week for the next six months. It's just like, it's not, it's not how it works, I'm afraid. It's not as simple. Although training is, needs to be simple, it's not as simple as just doing that one workout over and over. It needs to be kind of separated. Look at what energy systems, what movement mechanics go into it. And then, like I say,

• 29:38Speaker 00

  build the ceiling of those elements and then bring them together when they need to come together.

• 29:43Chris Williamson?

  When it comes to training, that's a really important point that I've heard brought up by Ben Bergeron before, which is the difference between Metcons for practice for competition and what you do in training.

• 29:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:56Chris Williamson?

  Is there a pattern at the moment of over-training Metcons for a lot of athletes? Or are people starting to catch on to the, I don't know what you call it, specialisation of movements?

• 30:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would, I would hope people, and I think people are catching on, although it is, it is still hard for people to kind of let go, because if they can, it's like, it's kind of like a safety thing that if I'm doing Metcons, I'm getting better. And, you know, if I'm finishing a workout, you know, completely depleted, then that's me, got better as an athlete. And the thing is, for the, for the first few years of CrossFit, that worked because everyone was that new to the sport that anything would have worked. But it's getting to that level now where the improvements aren't as quick in like the top tier of athletes. So it needs, it needs a different approach and it needs that,

• 30:51Speaker 00

  like I say, that special, that specialist approach where you're training things separately and bringing them together and actually periodising the training.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  You know, with a bit more thought than just head in, train hard, be on the floor and then leave the gym.

• 31:08Chris Williamson?

  Have you got any examples of particular pairings that you like to put together in terms of, you know, daily or periods of pairings where you think some monoskeletal stuff with some gymnastics stuff tends to go well? Or if you're doing muscle ups with rowing, I don't know. But are there some things that you've found tend to lend each other as compliments?

• 31:29Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, it's a, you can go into, you can go into it in however much detail you want, but there's, you've got, you've got your skill element of CrossFit, so weightlifting, like max weightlifting or heavy weightlifting, um, your gymnastics, um, and your max lifts in general. And then you've got your capacity and threshold end of CrossFit. So, you know, your burpees, your rowing, running, just the really simple things, your assault bike, simple things that anyone can do.

• 32:03Speaker 00

  And both are limited by, limited by, uh, different things. So your capacity is limited by, um, your V O two max, your heart rate, your threshold. And your, the skills are limited by coordination, strength, um,

• 32:21Speaker 00

  balance and, and being able to, um,

• 32:26Speaker 00

  use like different muscle groups from all of your body at this, at the same time, kind of co-contraction of different muscle groups. And it's, it's hard to, it's hard to, if you've got something at this end, which is like the highest skill, let's say, let's say your max snatch is a hundred and twenty kilos. If you link that in with something capacity based where, um, you know, your heart rate's raised, then the skill breaks down. And it's, that, that's an obvious example. Like if you were to hit a max snatch from fresh and completely kind of rested and, and prepared to stay. Then if you were to do a one K row at a hard intensity and then hit a snatch, you're not gonna, you're not gonna make the lift, you're very unlikely to make the lift.

• 33:11Speaker 00

  Um, and that's just an obvi- an obvious example there of how um, skill and threshold, how it affects each other. And then you kind of, you can go into quite a bit of detail of how you can work them with each other. So that the the threshold of the skill gradually increases over time.

• 33:35Chris Williamson?

  Obviously, that's what people are looking to do, right? In competition, and this is what I think the seductive factor of Metcons is. It's the, fuck, I hit ninety percent of my X movement after I did two K row tests, thirty muscle ups for time, blah, blah, whatever it might be. And that's where it's like, and that's that sort of send it mentality is kind of, that's what people are chasing, right? It's like, can I do the thing which I could almost not do fresh under fatigue?

• 34:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:09Chris Williamson?

  Um, but from a training perspective, that's suboptimal.

• 34:13Speaker 00

  It's, it's not that it's suboptimal, it's the timing of things. Like, if you're gonna have to do that at competition, then you're gonna have to get used to doing that, like, when you're getting close to the competition. But long term, doing that over and over again is not going to, not going to um, increase your performance year on year. So if it, let's say it was just uh, rowing into some heavy snatches and the snatch weight was a hundred kilos and you had um, I'm imagining we'll take the strength and depth workout was double unders and cleans and the cleans got heavier as you went along. And the heaviest weight for the guys was one forty and the girls maybe ninety three. And it's heavy for a lot of people.

• 34:55Speaker 00

  And um, that's the end of a round about a ten minute workout with, they probably had a good two hundred or so double unders by then. And I think another twenty eight clean reps. So the fatigue has built up quite a lot there. Um, but in, in order for that, for that athlete's performance to Increase, say maybe in a 12 months' time, if that workout was to come back, the skill level of clean needs to be have increased.

• 35:21Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 35:21Speaker 00

  The threshold level of working kind of those uh lower weight barbell cycling reps with double unders, which is now probably classed as more of a low lower skill exercise.

• 35:31Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 35:32Speaker 00

  Building the threshold of that, building the skill level of heavy cleans, then bringing them back together, letting the body get used to that kind of um that clash of skill and threshold and then retesting um is the only way that that type of workout is going to improve. Rather than just doing that type of workout over and over again.

• 35:53Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 35:54Speaker 00

  Um, and I think it is, people are clicking on to it, especially the the guys that are at the top, like they they get it. It's the it's the athletes that are like wanting to get to a sanction level, I find, like the the guys that um compete at a good level around like the the country, but they want to get to that European or that international level um. And I think it's mainly for them where they everything kind of gets a bit mixed because they want to do so well and they want to improve so much. They get caught into it too much. They see what other athletes are doing in a competition. They want to do that, so then they do it. And it's just kind of taking that step back and having a bit more of a sensible approach and a logical approach um to what can actually get them.

• 36:37Chris Williamson?

  So that's even for the guys that are competing at a a local level, they're not, don't need to be going to the games, they need to be specializing, they need to be focusing, periodizing their training properly and not just pinning themselves with Metcons you around.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it depends on your training age, like someone, everyone everyone who starts CrossFit can just do regular CrossFit for some maybe six months, some maybe two years and continually get better.

• 37:01Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 37:02Speaker 00

  Um, and they probably need to do just CrossFit for, like you say, we say anyone that comes on the program, make sure you've done CrossFit from a from a box for at least six months so that you your body is has been exposed to CrossFit, knows what it's about and then and you also know what it is. And then start looking to maybe like fine tune areas. But yeah, anyone that's looking to to compete at any level. Um, if you've got to a point where your lifts have stayed at a certain level, you don't feel like you're getting much fitter, your gymnastics isn't getting much better. And you're doing all those things in like, it's all bundled up in like one session, then it's time to stop. Separate them, work on them individually, work on your weightlifting, work on your your

• 37:45Speaker 00

  condition, work on your gymnastics, build them all up separately and then bring them back together.

• 37:50Chris Williamson?

  I love it man, it's so simple.

• 37:52Speaker 00

  It is, it's like I say, Reggie, Reggie always says, you speak with so much logic in it, I don't know if you say it on your podcast, it makes me wet.

• 38:02Chris Williamson?

  You can say, that is by far not the worst thing that we've seen, we had a porn star on a couple of weeks ago. So, I mean, she'd be good mates with Reggie, but, yeah, it seems, it does seem really, really basic, like, you know, why, why wouldn't you just go away and do a microcosm of what the specialists within each of their disciplines are doing and then re-bring them back together? Let's say that there's some athletes listening that are those sort of local level comps, maybe scaled one, maybe RX team or individual, how would you advise your athletes of that standard? How frequently would you allow them to compete?

• 38:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, this is, this.

• 38:43Chris Williamson?

  It's the question everyone wants to know, right?

• 38:46Speaker 00

  Everyone wants to know and everyone asks, it's such a talked about thing for our athletes on the programme and just generally people that just want some advice, is they always asking, how often should I compete?

• 38:58Chris Williamson?

  Well, I think the question might actually be, how often can I compete?

• 39:02Speaker 00

  Can I compete? Yeah. And the answer I always give is, first of all, you need to decide why you're doing it, why are you training, why are you competing? Are you doing it to get to the highest physical level that you can get your body to? Or are you just doing it because you enjoy competing? And although you'd want to get a higher level, like, you just like going to, you know, you scale all your RX comps every few weeks and just do them and having a good time. I think that's the first thing that people need to, need to understand and they need to realise. And then off the back of that, can they then make a decision, sorry, on what, on how often they compete? I would say.

• 39:47Speaker 00

  Three to four, uh, three, maybe four, but definitely three competitions per year as maximum and try and have them so they're quite, um, they're quite closely knitted together. So there's maybe six to eight weeks between them.

• 40:06Chris Williamson?

  Okay. So I guess for somewhere like the UK that works as you kind of bundle a bunch of comps into summer.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

• 40:13Chris Williamson?

  You can now also add the open prep is probably the last comp of the year or one of the, one of the last comps of the year as a part.

• 40:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, example maybe is, is you've obviously got the open now, which is October and then there's the strength in depth, which is January. And if there's a couple more Abi, Abi UK or Europe based competitions in around there, then that's kind of your season to compete. Um, and if your goal is for longer term development, then that gives you potentially eight months of off season to do exactly what we've just been talking about, just to, to really break things down and build them back up. When it comes back around to the next year's open, you will be in a, a better position to perform better and get to a higher level and perform higher.

• 40:57Chris Williamson?

  Is, is part of the complication. So one of the complications of why people can't get better whilst competing is that their training in the build up to a competition requires them to do more metcon style stuff, which doesn't lend itself to improving progressively over time.

• 41:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:14Chris Williamson?

  But how much of it is also uh, the demands of the comp itself? Is it 50 50, do you think?

• 41:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, it, it goes, it goes hand in hand. Before a competition, um, you know, the two weeks before the volume, um, you would hope has, has, has dropped. Maybe still some intensity there, um, but the volume should be lower than what it has been in the weeks leading up. So if you say there's a two week period there, like before the competition, and then you've got a one to two week, um, uh, deload a bit of time off after competition, then you've had a month, a month where training hasn't really been at the volume uh, or intensities to warrant.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Continuing developing it's been it's the volume has changed and intensity has changed. So the performance for that that two days in the middle um is at the best it could be. And then although two weeks is probably nowhere near what most people have off after competition. Um that's in there to recover from the stresses from that competition.

• 42:17Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 42:18Speaker 00

  Um and and yeah, then the problem you get is people don't take the two weeks, they take two days uh if you're lucky.

• 42:24Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  Um and then they have another one two weeks later and it goes and they just kind of like snowball into that. Kind of overtraining, I guess. It's a lot of stress on the body uh in a competition weekend, although not actual. The actual amount of reps, it's the adrenaline, the nerves.

• 42:40Chris Williamson?

  CNS.

• 42:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, CNS just just is in complete fight mode. Um and then just not letting it come out of that and reset and then go back into training. That's over and over and over again, if you're competing year round and you're competing once a month. You can just see now how that stops someone progressing.

• 43:00Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 43:01Speaker 00

  Um but a girl on the programme who um who we told, we basically told that whole story too. Um she's fully fully aware of it, but she loved competing. So um you know, that's why she trained. Um so it was kind of like, what position are we in to tell her like to stop competing?

• 43:21Chris Williamson?

  Don't do the thing that you like doing.

• 43:23Speaker 00

  Exactly. Um.

• 43:24Chris Williamson?

  I suppose if someone can see to the fact that over time they're not going to progress, someone might very well be able to say. I'm fine with my lift staying the same for the next two years if I get to do a competition with my friends every two months.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 43:42Chris Williamson?

  So that again, like a lot of the uniting principle, it seems like what we're talking about here is understand yourself as an athlete. Understand what you want from the sport.

• 43:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:51Chris Williamson?

  Um and then how can you facilitate your training and competing cadence to allow you to enjoy that? So the next question, so first off, what everyone wanted to know was how often can I compete? The next question everyone wants to know is how often can I do qualifiers?

• 44:07Speaker 00

  It's a hard one now because there's that many of them, although you know.

• 44:10Chris Williamson?

  I see people think the number of guys that are in the gym, they'll do class and they'll be like, oh, what's going on? Are you gonna do, should we do some strict press? It's like, oh mate, no, I've got to do a qualifier deadline. We've got three qualifiers to do before midnight.

• 44:21Speaker 00

  I've got thirty five minutes.

• 44:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 44:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's um, like it's a qualifier is competition because you know, it needs a competition maybe is defined that you need to be at your top physical performance. And obviously everyone wants to qualify. If you can do a qualifier and hit it with the same.

• 44:38Chris Williamson?

  So maximally.

• 44:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's same training intensity. I know a lot of, if Vander does that, does that, he'll just do it as his training and accept that he's not going to qualify at the top. But he'll qualify and you get to competitions and you're at, then you can.

• 44:52Chris Williamson?

  And he sees uh the potentially lower taken position in comp as a good um compromise. To permit him to not, to maybe be able to train the next day properly or whatever.

• 45:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 45:06Chris Williamson?

  That's a clever way to do it, but I suppose that's reliant on the fact that you're sufficiently strong to not send it and still make it.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, you need to be already at that level to be able to, like your ninety percent needs to be still.

• 45:18Chris Williamson?

  Everyone else is hundred percent.

• 45:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. So you need to be still a good athlete to be able to do that. Um, but again, hey, it's just, the qualifiers are obviously, you need to qualify to get to a competition. So you need to decide what competition do you want to do? What are the most important competitions of the year? What are kind of like secondary like priority wise to that? And what's further down the line? And obviously prioritize the ones at the top, prioritize those qualifiers. And then maybe you have to do those qualifiers to get the competition. Um, and just don't get sucked into the hype of a competition or some really good marketing from a competition. If it's not ultimately what you want. What you set out to do that, yeah?

• 46:02Chris Williamson?

  You're right, it's very seductive. You see the, um, you, your three friends throwing down in a stadium in the sunshine. Yeah, and you're like, fucking hell, like, this sounds mint.

• 46:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:14Chris Williamson?

  But you're right, you have to, it's the guy saying, all right, mate, I know you're driving, but just one more pint. It's the one more pint guy, right? And you're like, fuck, like, uh, I really need to consider, does doing this qualifier align with my long-term goals as an athlete?

• 46:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:32Chris Williamson?

  And I wonder, I wonder how many people that are listening are pushing themselves, you know, I love, I absolutely love the fact that the UK's got some cool competitions, you know, like, other things like the coast to coast bike ride that we just had recently, that's, that's mint. I don't know whether you class that as a comp, I mean, some of the guys, I'm probably gonna have to take a little bit, a couple of weeks off squats, but, um, you know, there's cool shit happening.

• 46:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:55Chris Williamson?

  But the problem with cool shit happening is it's distracting from training.

• 46:58Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. And, you know, I, I had a, had a podcast with Eric from, from Weightlifting 101, uh, a few months ago, and we, and we went through in detail my development as an athlete from 2010, when I started CrossFit, to, uh, to up until this point. And for the first five years, the common thing that went round and round is that I did the open and then did regionals and then, and then I didn't compete. And maybe did like the odd one, like here and there, but for a five years running, it was open regionals, open region, until it became open regionals again. And whereas now, like then, didn't have the opportunity to compete every other weekend because there wasn't a competition to do.

• 47:38Speaker 00

  Like in 2012, there was maybe regionals and one other, um, UK competition, London Throwdown, which changed its name about five different times, but, um, I thought the opportunity wasn't there, so you kind of got forced just to train properly. You had to go into like an off-season mode because.

• 47:54Chris Williamson?

  There's no distractions.

• 47:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, and but now, like it's, uh, the, you could literally do one every weekend, uh, which is great, it's great for the, for the industry, it's, there's more people participating in CrossFit and in competitive CrossFit, um, which is brilliant, um, but I do think it's limiting.

• 48:13Speaker 00

  The level of, like the top level athlete that we're producing, it's stopping people. Like, Reg is an example, um. He's got so much, the lad's got so much potential, he's twenty three or twenty four years old. Um, you know, he's built like perfectly for CrossFit. Um, and he's got a great kind of mindset for it, but he's kind of been used to doing all these little competitions around the country and, and because he's done well at them, like that's been his like, it's got him going and he wants to keep entering them. And we're actually doing Battle for Middle Ground together in two weeks. And he doesn't know it yet, and I don't know if this will be released.

• 48:52Chris Williamson?

  Won't be, it'll be after.

• 48:54Speaker 00

  But, um, we're going to finish the competition and tell him that's the last time that you do anything that's not sanction our games. And because he nee- he needs to

• 49:05Speaker 00

  accept that he's, he's better than that level of competition, not to call Battle for Middle Ground or any other competitions, but he just competed at Waddell Palooza and he's beat

• 49:15Speaker 00

  maybe fifteen Games athlete in a rowing event and he's five foot four.

• 49:18Chris Williamson?

  Hmm. I mean, he placed above Alex Smith.

• 49:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, he beat, yeah, beat overall. I think came eighteenth in the end.

• 49:24Chris Williamson?

  Just came one, one, um, place above Dan Bailey at Filthy One Fifty.

• 49:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, so he needs to realise that he is,

• 49:33Speaker 00

  he is a high level athlete, but he needs to live and act like a higher level, like a even higher level athlete for him to.

• 49:40Chris Williamson?

  Get above those. I mean, you don't see like Dan Bailey or Alex Smith going like, oh, the Cincinnati Throwdown, like I'm gonna go and do that this weekend or whatever. They'll go to like the Rogue Invitational. They'll go to the, the ones that either raise their profile or, or fit, fit their season.

• 49:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure.

• 49:58Chris Williamson?

  So, you know, everything that we're talking about here kind of, it seems comes back to firstly, what are your goals? And then secondly, can you let your ego and the inherent in excitement of CrossFit as a sport, can you allow that to?

• 50:19Chris Williamson?

  Go away from you so that you can focus on the things that matter.

• 50:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, to the goal that you actually like long term, so that when you look back, let's say you're forty years old and your career's over, you can look back and say, well, I achieved X, Y and Z and got to the highest level I could physically get to, rather than having maybe been like ten percent down from that and done a load of other, not average, just just better than average.

• 50:47Chris Williamson?

  Finishes.

• 50:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:48Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, because that's the thing as well, you know, even if you're not thinking about somebody that's maybe making it to sanctionals, if you're in the RX sort of division of a local comp, taking two years off to do real focused, periodised, specialised work might mean that you then come back and podium in two years' time.

• 51:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:05Chris Williamson?

  Like, would you sacrifice two years of competition?

• 51:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:08Chris Williamson?

  Of not not competing to get that. I think a lot of people probably would, but when you're in the gym and your friends come up to you and say, hey, man, the new fucking Battle for Middle Ground workout or the new this or the new that's just been released, like, do you want, we should go, John's doing it with with them, we can beat them.

• 51:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:28Chris Williamson?

  Like, how?

• 51:28Speaker 00

  And then there's a decent little bit of prize money at these competitions, like, drawing people in, so.

• 51:32Chris Williamson?

  I tell you what, it was a good one. So I went to Bali. I was in Bali when they had the

• 51:39Chris Williamson?

  Isotonics Drink Three Fifty or whatever it was called. Anthony's and his missus won it.

• 51:44Speaker 00

  Right.

• 51:44Chris Williamson?

  Um, they won every single event pretty much. And then Anthony's and his missus won it. It was seven and a half grand each, prize money. That's the easiest weekend's work that anyone's done in my life.

• 51:53Speaker 00

  It is.

• 51:53Chris Williamson?

  You know, just like roll out to Bali, do a couple of workouts, fuck off at fifteen grand between you go go travelling for another couple of months.

• 52:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Deposit down on the house.

• 52:02Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I know. Easy work.

• 52:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, and that's that is the good thing about being so many competitions in the industry is that it's it's becoming

• 52:12Speaker 00

  easier to earn or make money. It's still it's still hard, but you know, being able to, um, win your Battle of Britain and get it a thousand pounds, like a thousand pounds for a lot of people is going to set them up for, you know, to support the training.

• 52:28Chris Williamson?

  It's a significant, yeah, that's your that's your supplements and your kit for a year, you know.

• 52:32Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 52:32Chris Williamson?

  I think.

• 52:33Speaker 00

  And the sponsorships may have come off the back of it again.

• 52:35Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, for sure. Um, it it's it is a, it's an interesting one, man. Another thing to consider as well, if you're, you know, an athlete that's listening, is.

• 52:46Chris Williamson?

  Think about the fact that there are more competitions and that more people are getting into doing them. Everybody else is coming up against the same challenge that you are at the moment, which is that competing is seductive. And it seems cool and there's more CrossFit gyms and more CrossFit members and blah, blah, blah. That means that if you can do something which gives you a competitive advantage, which includes not competing. If you can do the thing that no one else is doing and, you know, you can see on the walls for people that are just listening, we're in Steve's Garage Gym. And I'm surrounded by shirts and memorabilia from all manner of top level competitions. You can see that the people whom, for them, the top level of the sport is the goal. That is what they're doing. They're not allowing their athletes to compete all of the time.

• 53:31Chris Williamson?

  If you want to do that, if you want to move the needle in that direction, then presumably you have to take on board some of those principles.

• 53:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, 100%. And I always come back to the feelings that athletes have at the end of a competition. And they see the leaderboard, they see where they've finished and maybe they're not so satisfied by it. They want to place higher next time. So it's at that moment, those feelings that you have, those like raw emotions that you have there at the end of a competition. Is remember those emotions and then, and then plan if it's that same competition 12 months later. Is plan back from there and how do you get from that, that position that you're in right now to, um. To having the emotions that you want, want to have. And does that include competing every, every month or every two months?

• 54:21Speaker 00

  Does it mean like knuckling down? And if you think, if the, if the 10 competitors, they come from 10th and the 10 competitors above you or nine above you. Are going to compete three or four times, then that's like we said before, if, if it's a month out, you're training for every competition. That's four months potentially that there, that you could gain on them if you're just doing a little bit that's, that's. Of your training or your lifestyle, your recovery, your nutrition, that's going to help you improve that little bit more. If that's a little bit more than you're the person that's just beat you, then in 12 months' time. That little bit more, all that inch, what we say.

• 54:59Chris Williamson?

  Inches to yards to miles.

• 55:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, is is gonna put you in a better.

• 55:02Chris Williamson?

  That is your competitive advantage, right? That is your competitive advantage, the train, the difference in your modality, the difference in the cadence of you competing. That is it. So I I think um I hope that it's given some people a sort of a second thought about whether or not their competing schedule is facilitating their goals in training.

• 55:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:22Chris Williamson?

  I was I was listening to something on the way down here about evolutionary psychology and about how um the anticipation of an event is often, the pleasure derived from the anticipation of an event is often so much higher than the event itself or the aftermath.

• 55:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:36Chris Williamson?

  It's why um thinking about eating food is often actually better than the food. Or the example that was used was um you you think about a holiday, you book a holiday six months in advance. You get excited for six months, you're like, fuck, it's gonna be amazing. I'm gonna go to this beach and there's gonna be a sunset and you're looking at all the Instagram photos of it. Then you get to the beach and you sit down, you're like, well, this is nice, there's a bit of sand between my toes. And all my beer could be a bit colder and blah, blah, blah.

• 56:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:01Chris Williamson?

  But when you look back, you don't remember the sand and when you anticipate, you don't think about it.

• 56:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:06Chris Williamson?

  So what you actually want to do, and you can hack your way into happiness by by doing this, is plan things that you want to do well in advance because you essentially get to enjoy the event and some of the anticipatory kind of uh dopamine kicks that you get. So plan, right, I am going to do uh strength and depth twenty twenty one.

• 56:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:25Chris Williamson?

  And you're like, right, that's my goal. I get to think about that event for all of this time, you know? And like, right, that's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do it. This is when the qualifiers are gonna come out and I'll plan towards that. As opposed to just being ragged around by, oh, this event that I've never heard of but happens to be within fifty miles of me has released some online qualifiers. Should we go bin ourselves tomorrow?

• 56:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And and do you know what? The thing is, it's it's it's hard to commit. It is hard to commit to training for eight months and not be in that that position in in in the competition and testing yourself. Like, the day to day lifestyle and commitment to training can get a bit monotonous and it can be. Can be hard, but you just have to keep the kind of end goal kind of clear in your head of what you are working towards. And I think that's why people do then just go to and do a competition because they need that kind of kick to keep them going, keep the motivation high. But if you can kind of just clearly set the path from now until the competition in eight to eight to 12 months' time.

• 57:27Speaker 00

  And just keep chipping away and just go like month by month, rather than just thinking, oh, it's gonna be eight months until I compete again. And just kind of break it down, then you probably steer away from, you know, being sucked into competing every month.

• 57:41Chris Williamson?

  I guess having a training partner or like a little squad of people that are potentially on that more. I don't want to call it more virtuous journey, that more long-term.

• 57:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:52Chris Williamson?

  You can bounce off each other a lot. Do you think that might be a good way to kind of?

• 57:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, definitely.

• 57:55Chris Williamson?

  Make that more robust?

• 57:57Speaker 00

  And that's, that's probably another thing that we've created there in JST. We've got a group of guys that understand it. So they're not kind of like, they're not kind of forcing each other. If someone goes and does a competition that was, wasn't kind of planned and it just came out of the blue, then it's kind of all, why are you doing that? We've got, you're supposed to be focusing on Rogue Invitation that's coming up in May or something. Um, yeah, if you, if you have that group that are kind of all aligned in the same kind of mentality of, um, of training, then it definitely makes.

• 58:26Chris Williamson?

  Accountable to each other.

• 58:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, it makes decisions a lot easier.

• 58:29Chris Williamson?

  One thing that I wanted to bring up, you mentioned about the CNS frying nature of doing competitions. Talk to me about what it's like, um, taking JST, your business, your gym, over to the Games as the first British team. And then talk to me about the aftermath, like what was your CNS like before, during and after?

• 58:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I mean, I think the, the, the most I've struggled is 2015 Games. Um, didn't really have much, I thought the JST compete room was still, it was around then, there was, there was probably 10% of the amount of people on it, uh, as there is now. But, um, it was still there, it was still, it was still a thing. And that was probably the only thing as well as running the gym that I had outside of training. So training was just like.

• 59:19Chris Williamson?

  You had training, you had training people to train and you had training people to train online.

• 59:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 59:24Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 59:24Speaker 00

  Um, but my own training itself, like my wife, I tell you, and any of my friends that are around me was like. If if anything didn't um help me with training, then it was a hindrance. Ridiculous. Yeah, it was kind of out of the way. And that for years and years and and then having the competition and it being a bit of a brutal competition, two thousand fifteen games, to then coming back to it all just kind of like, ah, it's like happened. And then you see N S still having like that fatigue, like that was um I've really struggled. I I'd planned three weeks rest after competition, took the three weeks rest, came back to training for a week and then need another six.

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  I've been, it was just, I don't know, it was mentally because for so long in in my head, like it was building up to get to the game for five years or so. And then like it kind of, I was in L A for like four weeks on Mersa Muscle Beach, competing in front of thousands and then and then I get back into my front room in in Wigan and it's my dog's wanting to go for a walk and it's pissing down outside and it's like, oh. So that kind of whole like dump of adrenaline and like expectations to then just like back to to no normality. Um, I I think it, I think it's that that people struggle with. Like when you're at competition, your name's been called out on the um from the M C and the crowd cheer your name and then you have a good event and

• 1:00:52Speaker 00

  it's the endorphins are flying and like you go from that and then it's suddenly been like over. Hmm. Like two days later, you're back at home and like, fuck. Where'd you go? Yeah, it's like that. I think that's what athletes struggle with the most. Um, as opposed to maybe the actual physical effects of the competition. Uh, i- is that dump. Um, but having having experienced that quite badly in two thousand fifteen, like I'm able to, I know, I know it's gonna happen now. I know I did what a pleasure at the weekend. I know it's gonna be a great time. I know I was gonna come home and I I because I expected I would feel like. Learned from that experience in two thousand fifteen. Um, so getting that across to the guys as as well is is quite important for them to then.

• 1:01:40Speaker 00

  Regain motivation and have it back rather than that just hitting them like a boss and being like, oh shit.

• 1:01:45Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:48Speaker 00

  So I feel like that's in terms of, how do you call it CNS, but in terms of just kind of having like that, that dump after competition.

• 1:01:55Chris Williamson?

  It's more than just CNS, right? It's like you will be fatigued from the level of, of work that you've put in, but it's like a socio-cultural thing as well that's been going on. I have been placed in high esteem. Here is egos just getting fucking cold shoveled into it like that.

• 1:02:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:02:14Chris Williamson?

  And I recently did a podcast, I've done two with DJs recently, a guy called Kristoff and another one called Danny T. And both of those guys talk about their post-show slump and Danny deals with it a lot better than Chris does, but he's supporting Eric Prids around the world. He's playing to thousands of people. He's literally living the dream for this guy. And he gets back to the hotel and it's just him and a room service and a flight in four hours' time to go to Buenos Aires or wherever's next on the tour. And it's just lonely and sad, man. And you know, you see this with people like Avicii, Tim Berg,

• 1:02:54Chris Williamson?

  you know, a DJ who had the capability, had the artistic capacity, but he wasn't able to deal with the socio-cultural ego side, the exposure, that stuff. And people don't see athletes in that same light, right? They don't view them as performers despite the fact that you have to perform. Like it's in, you know?

• 1:03:17Speaker 00

  You're paying to watch them perform.

• 1:03:18Chris Williamson?

  It is a performance, you know?

• 1:03:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, a hundred percent. And I guess it's the same for every, every sports. That's why you see football and rugby players having a, having a tough time when they've retired because they've gone from living that life to then retired and then boom. Um, but it's, yeah, it's just kind of that on a different scale, I guess.

• 1:03:37Chris Williamson?

  So you've had that 2015, 2017, you've got to be thinking, right, I, I need to prepare myself. Um, a little bit more gently somehow, or account for it when I come back and then 19 as well. What, what was some of the strategies that you put in place to kind of bring yourself out of that slump?

• 1:03:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's, it just helps knowing that that's a thing and it happened and it happens. Like just, so you, you, if, if you, if you're prepared for it, because I wasn't prepared for it after 2015.

• 1:04:06Chris Williamson?

  No one wanted you to.

• 1:04:07Speaker 00

  And a carry on going and then.

• 1:04:08Chris Williamson?

  Ass fisted by some.

• 1:04:11Speaker 00

  CNS. Um, so just simply just, um, being aware that it happens and it's normal. Because you, you go from having all those endorphins and having the greatest time of your life to then just being back to your, to your normal life.

• 1:04:25Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:04:25Speaker 00

  Just understanding that that happens just helps like greatly. Um, but also for me, it's just like not making immediate plans like after the game. So people always say to me, oh, you're on another comeback, like you've retired four times.

• 1:04:41Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:42Speaker 00

  It's like, it's not, it's not that I'm having a comeback or retiring, it's that I'm just taking more time off. And then only restarting when I know that I'm ready to build backup training and compete again.

• 1:04:54Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:04:54Speaker 00

  Um, if I was someone, if I tried competing through all of 2018, 19 and, and continued, then I probably wouldn't be able to compete anymore. Because one hour wouldn't be good enough, um, or I'd have just lost love for it. Um, so just not kind of making immediate plans when the main competition, whether it's games or it's, you know, it's rain or whatever you're doing.

• 1:05:18Speaker 00

  Not having immediate plans for like two weeks after to do another competition, another competition. It's just accepting just to kind of have that, that step, that step down, that step away. Let your mind and your body just completely reset and then get back into it when you're ready to get back into it.

• 1:05:33Chris Williamson?

  You don't know where your head's going to be at.

• 1:05:35Speaker 00

  No, I mean, sometimes the, it's, and it's a great sign is that you, two weeks after training, you're, you're flying again and you can't wait to get back into it.

• 1:05:44Chris Williamson?

  Pumped.

• 1:05:44Speaker 00

  Best, yeah, best case scenario. It's a great indicator that your body's in a good place, your mind's in a good place. Um, but a lot of people then just try and, they don't have that feeling, they try and like maybe have that, maybe artificially make that feeling. And that's when it just kind of like gets a little bit out of control. So, um. Yeah, like in two thousand seventeen and two thousand nineteen, just, um, I just kind of accepted that I didn't need to train. Um, you know, I trained when I wanted to and then I enjoyed, that made me enjoy it because I wanted to do it. Um, because there's a lot of times as an athlete where you have to do a lot of training sessions and a lot of things that every part of you does not want to do it. Um, like it's, it goes back to

• 1:06:28Speaker 00

  the constantly varied posts that said that it's not always a fun thing to do is training, like sitting on a rower and doing twelve, five hundred meter rows with a minute's rest. Unless you love rowing, like I don't love rowing, it's not a fun thing to do.

• 1:06:41Chris Williamson?

  No one loves rowing, Steve.

• 1:06:42Speaker 00

  So, it's a lot of those little fights that you have in your head, like to do this thing that you don't want to do over and over again for years and years, like just to be able to then have a moment of time where

• 1:06:54Chris Williamson?

  Fully let go.

• 1:06:55Speaker 00

  I don't have to do it anymore. It's just, it's like such a nice feeling and then you've, you gradually find yourself being like, I want to get back on that road.

• 1:07:03Chris Williamson?

  I miss that, yeah. Well, it's the same as, you know, the first bite of ice cream is real tasty, but if I make you eat five liters of ice cream, you're like, by the end of it, it's not that good.

• 1:07:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:12Chris Williamson?

  Um, there's a quote from James Clear's Atomic Habits where he spoke to a Chinese weightlifting coach and he said, um, what separates the very, very best lifters from everybody else? And he says, it's the lifters who can put up with boredom the most.

• 1:07:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:25Chris Williamson?

  You know, I think there is a, um, kind of like this folklore belief that guys at the top end of the sport somehow have like a bottomless pit of motivation. It's like it's not, it's got nothing to do with that as far as I can see, not in any way being a league level athlete, but it appears to be who can withstand the monotony and the boredom

• 1:07:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:50Chris Williamson?

  better than everybody else.

• 1:07:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:51Chris Williamson?

  And a final point there on what you just said is, when you take a love and turn it into a labour, it can sometimes overshoot being a labour of love and just become work.

• 1:08:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:01Chris Williamson?

  You know, like if training is your job, but you trained because you loved it and now you train because you, it's what you have to do, you know, like.

• 1:08:10Chris Williamson?

  Everyone sees the punch drunk forty five year old heavyweight boxer coming back for one more fight because you know and it looks sad but there's an equivalent of people doing that to themselves mentally in the gym you know you're past your passion your passion has left you behind and you're now like just wringing out every last drop of willpower that you've got to get yourself through a training session which for Taz Nadeen just feels like play to him or for Zach George just feels like you know because everything's brand new because he's twelve like you know and an absolute monster he's actually going to games this year as well isn't he

• 1:08:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's got it both are.

• 1:08:46Chris Williamson?

  Yeah unbelievable man how cool like

• 1:08:49Speaker 00

  And like Tyson Fury is an example there I'm sure he had retired and then he had hit that stage where he I think recently he was on someone's game someone's host show about like the depression that he'd gone through and like but he had that premiered a couple of years off and he's what has he just beat now Deontay Wilder and he's back to being world champion like he's just a perfect example there is that there needs to be a bit of a reset to be able to account for longevity and compete.

• 1:09:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah I wonder I wonder how many athletes that we'll never we'll never know but that are at the top end of the sport you know I wonder how much better Noah Olson or Matt Fraser or Pat Vellner or Brent Fikowski or you know like Tia Claire Toomey or whatever I wonder how many of those could be even better if they took a year to regain because you don't know no one's ever this is the sort of thing that no one will ever put in an Instagram post where they'll say do you know what it is my desire to train actually is waning at the moment and I don't love the sport but I've maybe still got five years of of career in me you know like it's a real unspoken about mechanism that's happening.

• 1:10:02Speaker 00

  Yeah that that was hundred percent me in two thousand and sixteen so for after

• 1:10:06Chris Williamson?

  Post slump.

• 1:10:07Speaker 00

  Yeah it's just like in my head everyone's going are you gonna get back to the games yeah probably should try and get back to the games because that's what I've been doing for the last few years should do it again and like having having struggled to kind of like get the the the drive to get back training after after the games just kind of like forcing myself into it and just getting back into that routine again. And then just applying everything just as much as I did in 2015 and 2016. Um, and then actually got injured in regionals in the second event in 2016.

• 1:10:42Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 1:10:43Speaker 00

  It was at that point when I got injured, although I was gutted to be injured and I really didn't want to be like, it was like such a relief to have gotten injured. Uh, and looking back now, if I had taken out, if after 2015, if I'd listened to that part of my head that was saying you shouldn't compete this year, you should just take this year off, improve and get yourselves to be a top 10 games individual in 2017. Cause you need that talent. Like there's part of my head that was saying that, but then you've got the other part of the head that was saying, get back to the games next year and then do it the year after, and then do it the year after. Be a five times games athlete. Um, and if I look back now, then I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have competed in 2016 and I would have saved it 2000.

• 1:11:24Speaker 00

  Um, but 2017, the, the, the other side of that is that we went, they were then, I then competed in a, in a, an amazing team of loads of great people and became the first team to qualify against in 2017. So if I was thinking solely as an individual, then I wouldn't have competed 2016 and would hopefully have been in that position, position in 2017. But then, so I wouldn't have had the.

• 1:11:50Chris Williamson?

  Might not have ended up here.

• 1:11:52Speaker 00

  So it's.

• 1:11:52Chris Williamson?

  Every cloud is silver lining. Yeah, I, you know, I wonder how we can focus on our better nature, so to speak. I don't really know.

• 1:12:02Chris Williamson?

  The thing as well is it's beautiful with hindsight to say, well, yeah, of course I should have taken a break after 2015. But if you'd not got injured and you'd walked into another game spot, you'd have been like, yeah, I knew, I knew that I actually. Oh, yeah, exactly. So I want to finish on this actually, because it's something that keeps coming up in discussions that I have with people. And it's, how do you know when enough is enough within training? You know, JST, I think, especially with the, the, this new wave of athletes that you've got that are coming through, they, the guys train hard.

• 1:12:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:34Chris Williamson?

  You know, they do like to go hard. How do you know when it's time to slow down? Because you're pushing your body too much. And how do you know when you need to push more because you've got some left in the tank?

• 1:12:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it's hard to, um, it's hard to just kind of like say a few things like, I always say, I just, inside me, just like know when it's time to take some, some time off. Um, I, I know for, for my own, for my own performance and for my own, for my own, my own life, that if relationships or business start, um, like having a negative effect on my own health, like in last year, although competing at the games, I had a kidney infection, a chest infection and, um, an ear infection for about four months. And that was between having qualified at Reykjavik and then before the games.

• 1:13:29Speaker 00

  So for me during that time, that was like, well, this is enough indication. Um, I've got those, those infections.

• 1:13:38Speaker 00

  Like life was busy and my, my lad was six, six months or so old at that point, like this is too much.

• 1:13:44Chris Williamson?

  That's, that's life, RX plus, plus.

• 1:13:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. So competing and training to be an athlete. After the, once I get through to this game, once that's done, it just needs to take a back burner. Until I feel like I'm ready to go again. And, and it took from, it took from August and then December. It was like, right, okay, I feel like I've got everything in control and my health's better. We're in a better routine with, um, with the baby and, um, the business is a, is a better position for me to be able to bring training back into my life again. I was always training, but bring, like, whatever class is proper training.

• 1:14:21Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:22Speaker 00

  Um, so I guess it's, you've just got to, for, for anyone else, they've just got to understand, like, the priorities in, in the life and they having a negative effect from, um, training. And is your performance also not benefiting from constantly going and going?

• 1:14:40Chris Williamson?

  Isn't it interesting that you were saying in 2015, anything that was in your life that didn't serve you was pushed to the side because of training?

• 1:14:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:51Chris Williamson?

  And then move it forward to sort of 2017, 2019. And you're using those, the quality of those other things in your life as the canary in the coal mine to tell you when training's going too far. And it's sort of strangely, poetically ironic how that comes back around.

• 1:15:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I guess probably just as I've got older, there's been a shift in priorities to. Because business and family is is has come to the top of the uh the list and now training is now like number three so. Um I guess training is the the hindrance sometimes to a family and business. So yeah, it's just it's kind of turned on its head. Um but like I said, for the next year or so, for the competitions I've got planned, I'm enjoying. The fact that it is turned on its head and I'm still able to perform at a decent level and just see where it kind of gets me to. Uh with a bit of a different perspective.

• 1:15:44Chris Williamson?

  I think certainly, you know, watching people like Cara Webb, what's her new name?

• 1:15:50Speaker 00

  Um Saunders.

• 1:15:52Chris Williamson?

  Cara Saunders, sorry Cara. Um you know, watching her, watching an athlete choose to be a mum in the. Like slap bang in the middle of a career, like two second place finishes in a row or something, then kid, like the strength. Of will that it takes to decide to put your athletic career to the side and maybe the fear is never come back, you know, I'm sure that she will, she's a monster. But like, you know, to see people do that, I think it's, I think it's very, very healthy to see people. You know, having the wholesome family life.

• 1:16:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:27Chris Williamson?

  Because the bottom line is that you for pretty much everyone, their family, their child's life, everything, that is what is going to be the most important thing. But the immediate gratification of no, but one more year competing, one more year training, you know, you can one more year it until you're so, it's so late that you maybe can't. And that's a real big sacrifice to make.

• 1:16:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And it just shows that, you know, deep down and and if we're using Cara as as the example. That she her long like life goals are maybe in line that it involves kids more so as she's. Not many people can say they've come second at the game, so she's done twice and you know, she's probably in um a full time salary from being an athlete. So she's kind of. Ticks those boxes, but there's only so long in her life that she's going to be able to tick the start a family box. And she knows that, like, and she's proven now that she'll always be able to return to the athlete. Um. It's always a bit of a, no one knows whether she'll, you'll always be, women go through quite a lot in their pregnancy, so.

• 1:17:31Chris Williamson?

  Changes in hormones, changes in body makeup, changes in everything.

• 1:17:35Speaker 00

  Um, so being able to get back to that level is, is always a bit of a gamble maybe, but I mean, she's proving that she's a, she's, well, she's competing actually this weekend in Australia, I think.

• 1:17:46Chris Williamson?

  Is she?

• 1:17:46Speaker 00

  In the Australian.

• 1:17:47Chris Williamson?

  How cool is it gonna be if she makes it back to the Games, man? Like if she, if she steps back out of the floor.

• 1:17:51Speaker 00

  Did she not do it from the, I'm not sure.

• 1:17:53Chris Williamson?

  I don't, I don't know.

• 1:17:54Speaker 00

  No, but yeah.

• 1:17:55Chris Williamson?

  I think, you know, to kind of round up what we've gone through there, there's certainly a unifying principle across everything, it would seem, which is what are your goals? Within training, within life, you know, within work, within business, all the rest of it. And are the things that you're doing on a daily basis moving you toward that? And then on top of that, like, okay, I know what I need to do. My training needs to look like this. And then how can I ensure that all of the individual parts, the tiny inches, how can those add up towards yards and miles?

• 1:18:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:25Chris Williamson?

  And as long as you're consistently reflecting and moving back toward it.

• 1:18:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:30Chris Williamson?

  Man, you know, it ma- it makes it seem really fucking simple. Like, I'll just go to the Games next year.

• 1:18:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. That's all you do.

• 1:18:35Chris Williamson?

  Awesome, man. And so people wanna find out about JST? Where do they go?

• 1:18:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, so Instagram, we're at JST underscore compete. Um, that's where most of our, that's most of our information is, but you've got jstcompete.com. Um, yeah, those are two main, main pages. And then that all, our actual programming is on a Fitter Training website, which I'll, it'll direct you to after there. You can just take a look through. Um, shoot us an email or, or, or an Instagram message and, um, we'll help you out.

• 1:19:05Chris Williamson?

  Beautiful, man. People aren't coming down to Sunny Wigan, come.

• 1:19:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, they can.

• 1:19:08Chris Williamson?

  Come and get in my little, uh.

• 1:19:10Speaker 00

  We've got six people in here.

• 1:19:11Chris Williamson?

  The new boss.

• 1:19:12Speaker 00

  Six here.

• 1:19:13Chris Williamson?

  Must be one. Um, everything that we've spoken about will be linked in the show notes below. Uh, Steve, man, it's been awesome. I really appreciate your time.

• 1:19:20Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:19:20Chris Williamson?

  Thank you, bro.

• 1:19:20Speaker 00

  Cheers. Thank you.

• 1:19:39Speaker 02

  Mr. President, my company foreme of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:19:42Speaker 03

  On October 2nd.

• 1:19:43Speaker 02

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:19:48Speaker 03

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess.

• 1:19:51Speaker 02

  And Digger's gonna dig us out.

• 1:19:53Speaker 03

  From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:19:55Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped going? You start, you freeze in there, that's what.

• 1:19:59Speaker 03

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:20:03Speaker 04

  I'm not the first man.

• 1:20:04Speaker 03

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.