August 7, 2025 • 47 mins
In this episode, Jason sits down with CrossFit legend, Rich Froning, to dive deep into the mental and physical toughness it takes to succeed, not just in the gym, but in the mountains. Rich opens up about his passion for hunting, what drew him to it, and how it’s challenged him in ways he didn’t expect. They explore how the intensity of elite fitness compares to the patience and grit required in the backcountry, what training really matters when you're preparing for a hunt, and how to stay disciplined when life’s full of competing priorities. From workouts and recovery to mindset and motivation, this conversation is about pushing limits, building resilience, and finding growth through discomfort, whether you’re on the trail or under a heavy barbell. If you're serious about becoming a tougher, more capable version of yourself, in the field and beyond, you won’t want to miss this one.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. Today,
I'm here with Rich Browning former Fittest Man on Earth?
Maybe still is how's it going? Rich?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Pretty good? Doing good? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Uh. The Fittest on Earth is more of a CrossFit
or rebuk.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Uh marketing title.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I would say I competed at the CrossFit games and
won a couple of times when when people ask I,
you know, that's that's more. But to my kids is
I'll always be the fittest on Earth. You know, try
still thinks. My son thinks I'm still the strongest man
on Earth.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
So whatever that that's all that matters, right, That's the
only title that really matters kids.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
That whatever your kids think is all all that matters
to me.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, yeah, no, I'm excited to have you on. You know,
you got to kind of laugh, like I'm not the
right guy to be giving a workout information or recommendations.
But I have been able to maintain, you know, being
in good enough shape to get it done in the
mountains hard enough, and that not to be like something
that limits my success. And and so that's kind of
(01:12):
my level, just doing just enough and then having a
pretty strong mental game as well. To add to to
being in good enough shape has has been able to
get to get me through it. But I'm curious to
dive into this conversation with you, so you know, individual
specific plans, like these ideas of like how can you
affect this through food and supplementation, like some of these
(01:32):
things that may help people get ready or be better
in the mountains, you know, this fall or in the future.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, I mean when I'm when i'm when I'm talking
to anybody, that's the goal, right, is that at no
point are you like, oh I was not prepared or
you know, we want no. At no point do we
ever question, hey, should we go after something, can we
get there?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Or can we get something out? So you know, that's
that's what it's all about.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Whether you're doing you know, crossbit, whether you're bike in
running any of that stuff, or just rucking. You know,
that's the whole goal is to be as well rounded
as possible when you know you don't know what's going
to happen, and you're.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay, yep. And then there there's another thing. I hunt
because I love it and and there's there's a little
bit of the physical struggle in it. But I don't
want to be. I don't want that to override having fun. Right,
if you can't do something and you're not just you know,
hunched over, can't catch your breath, like, that's a miserable experience.
So if the elks where it's at and I need
(02:33):
to get there, I want to do that and have
as much fun as possible. Where if you're just gassed
and sore and like, it's less fun. Uh, you know,
it's less fun and you're going to accomplish the same thing.
So that that's kind of my goal. I mean, it's
much fun.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
It's already a you know, secondhand fun where it's miserable
in the moment fun after. So why not you know,
at least bring that misery down just a little bit
while you're in the moment and be as prepared as possible.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeh. But but I always kind of joke with my
buddies it doesn't matter how good a shape I'm in
or not. During season, I've always just pushed. If you're
in better shape, you just go farther, and so you're
still in the same suck fest that you would be
if you you were just in worse shape and didn't
go as far. So it always kind of self balances
and self levels. But uh, it's still the pack outs funner.
You know, everything's a little funner when when your legs
(03:22):
are in shape, your lungs are able to handle it
and all of that.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, for sure, But so you can also get there
quicker if you're in better shape.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
So yeah, that's that's for sure, for sure, for sure.
So let's let's jump into some questions on hunting. So,
you know, you you've accomplished a ton in the in
your athletic career, but what what made you want to
take up hunting? Kind of where did it start? How
did this this passion for hunting, you know, get some legs?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, I always tell people I grew up in a
hunting family. I've got a bunch of uncles in Michigan
that whitetail hunt like crazy. My dad, uh su super impatient.
I'm super impatient. Probably have you know a touch of
add or ADHD? Not one hundred percent sure which one.
I can't sit still. I was always you know, doing
(04:11):
or playing sports and always outside. I just never really
you know, I went out. I had a close friend
that him and his dad hunted whitetail a lot, so
I'd go out I'd say ten or fifteen times growing up,
but never really you know, never saw anything. Even if
we did see anything, it was pretty far off. Never
really had a great chance for it. So it never
(04:31):
really stuck as a kid. And then right towards the
end of my individual career, so twenty thirteen, fourteen fifteen range,
I had a really good friend of mine, Charles. We
call him Uncle Charles, my kids call him Uncle Charles,
invited me out turkey hunting, and man first first morning
hearing those gobbles, then instead of sitting and waiting for him,
(04:53):
kind of going after him and trying to get in
a position, and after that I was hooked, and you
know from there, did that three or four years.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
And went on our first elk hunt.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I need to look it up, is probably twenty seventeen,
sixteen or seventeen, and man got skunked with a guide
in Montana rifle hunting. Didn't see we heard one elk
Asusho got out of the truck and didn't hear another
one for the rest of the week. Hiked our balls
off up down over through in the some of the
nastiest country I've ever been a part of, and had
(05:24):
a blast and from then on I was hooked.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
And that actually took us three to three years.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Public land over the counter in Colorado self, you know, D, I, Y,
whatever you want to call it, to finally kill one
on the technically the fourth trip on the last day,
and so man it just from then on, you know,
elk hunting has kind of been my my passion. I
still turkey hunt a lot, but elk hunting is has
kind of replaced any and everything on the hunting sphere.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, and you mentioned, you know a D D ad HD.
I think I've got some of that as well, which
you know doesn't lend itself sometimes to be impatient in
a tree or you know, sitting on a glass knob
for meal deer, and that's where you know, similar to you,
I'm drawn to archery elk hunting because it's it's action,
you know, very rarely unless you're you know, calling one
in or you're in that moment, which I can deal
(06:15):
with with. My ADHD handles that better because there's action.
I'm able to move, I'm able to call, I'm able
to walk to the next ridge, I'm able to do
something where you know, sometimes I struggle if there's not
a lot of action in a white tail tree, you know.
Stand it's like, might get fidgety. I need to move.
I need to move to a different tree. I need
to go see some different ground, which we all know
is not the right answer.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Never, it's never once worked for me.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, yeah, have you you you said you do come
back still turkey hunt? Uh, you're okay whitetail hunting. Now
you can. You can make it through a sit in
a y.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
The last two years I've come to it's been an
acquired taste. It's taken probably two years to actually get
up there and enjoy it. It's the most frustrating thing.
Even with a bad day in the elk wood, are
still a good day, right, you know, you're still moving,
you're covering some ground. You feel like you got something accomplished.
A bad day in the whitetail woods is not really good,
(07:10):
you know, if you're not seeing anything but and you're
stuck in a tree. But yeah, i'd be lying if
I'm not looking forward to November. And we've got about
one hundred and sixty acres here at the house that
we have a couple stands set up and then we
have a three thousand acre lease just down the road.
And for me now it's like getting the kids, you know, getting.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
The kids into it.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I killed a dough archery with my son last year,
and man, you'd have thought we killed you know, a
one hundred and fifty inch deer with how excited he
was and and just you know, I made the shot
and he goes, good shot, dad. You know, he's eight,
and so it was like, I don't know, it was
just it was a ton of fun. And to see
how proud he was of that. Yeah, man, it made
it all. It makes it all worth it.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
That's that's so cool. And I know, you you know,
played some college baseball and one thing I've always you know,
drawn me to hunter I think about a lot is
is you've got this competitive spirit. Obviously, you know you
were able to take you know, high school sports, college
sports turn it into you know, you needed that CrossFit
to kind of fill that that place, you know, that
competitive and then you know a lot of guys that
(08:12):
have this this you know, high school sports, college sports,
they find hunting is that way to kind of it
fills that need form where you can compete against yourself
and if when once you accomplish X. You can go
try to do it, you know deeper, you know, in
the mountains or you know, more remote, or you can
change up the game or you know, God forbid, we
(08:34):
say trophy hunting. But you start with a spike, you know,
I my first three or four deer spikes or whatever's
and then you're like, you know what, I'm gonna try
to kill a two point Well that now you have
to pass five or six spikes, and so like, as
a guy that loves the competition, you can't necessarily play anymore,
you know, or or play these sports anymore to competitive level,
like hunting really fills that that in for me as well.
(08:57):
Do you find that same challenge that that youlenging yourself
within hunting that you kind of get from CrossFit or sports?
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, you know, I played a little bit of baseball,
like you said, went to college, got up there and
just decided college baseball wasn't where I needed to be
and kind of came up. I came home and worked
as actually worked in a factory for six months, don't
ember do that, and then assembling airbags and uh. From there,
I was a firefighter in town. They paid my tuition
and you know, so I would do these kind of
(09:27):
relay firefighter relay type things and had a ton of
fun with that. And then was in exercise science getting
my degree and was going to be a strength coach
and found CrossFit. CrossFit was a way to kind of
scratch that itch turned it into a profession, and then,
you know, towards the back half of my career, really
started enjoying hunting and I was like, man, you know,
I can still compete and uh in in the woods
(09:49):
and and have some fun. And there's the team aspect
of it. You know, a lot of guys are you
know that solo thing.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
That's just not me.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Like, I'm cool with having one or two other guys
and being out there making it kind of a team sport,
even if we're not hunting the exact same area, but
we're out there and kind of working together. There was
that draw of it, the adventure of being out west,
and yeah, the competition. Man, I just I'm you know,
I'm not a goals guy per se, but I need
a target, right and so for me, I want to
be in the best shape as I can.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
You know, I'll do some off season for fun.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
CrossFit competitions that are partner or charity or whatever. Just
actually just finished one in Michigan last week, got another
one in two weeks and then it's elk season, you know.
And so the last two years I've done the Leadville
one hundred mountain bike race and that prepared me really
well for the mountains. And man, it's just you and
the animal. I think it was the first competition. I
think there's you know, all of your listeners are for
(10:42):
sure going to know that feeling. But it just feels
right right being out there, and there's something you can't
can't explain to somebody who's never been out west here
in bugles and and oh man, if there's just something
to it.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, it's awesome. And you touched on on the friending,
which we're going to talk a little bit more, you know,
when we get into the training. But but kind of
jokingly like, do your buddies just get mad if you
start tearing up a mountain and they can't keep up?
Or you one of those nice hunting buddies that like
waits for me, do you kind of always put concert
pressure on him to see if they're gonna break?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
See, it depends.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
I've got our camera guy, Scott, usually me and our
camera guy, and then Bird, another guy that hunts with us.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
He's off camera stuff to talk nice to him, but
we uh.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
You know, Scott, Scott's probably right right at six foot,
maybe a little over. I'm five nine, so I got
these stumpy, little short legs. We joke that I have
for suit mode. So if like we get on something,
I'm off, I'm gone right like we're trying to get
in position, and Scott, you know, he is right there
with me all the time, but maybe laboring a little
bit more. But then Scott has what we call go
(11:46):
home mode once we've realized, hey, the day's over, and
I'm kind of sulky at that point where he's gone.
He's got those long legs and he's gone, and I'm
I'm the one that's really trying to keep up with
him at that point. And so, you know, for the
most part, us three and and probably one or two
other guys, another guy Dave Curtis or Steve Stephen Gadberry
we hunt with.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Those guys are usually in shape.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
We all kind of you know, share workouts, share kind
of a training plan, what the plan is, so we're
all ready when we get there, and so nobody's kind
of nobody wants to be that guy to hold everybody back. However,
my best friend in the world, Matt.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
He never he's never prepared.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
First time we went to Montana, he thought he had rabdo,
thought were gonna to take him to the hospital. And
he tree stand hunted the next two days for Elk.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
And so you know, we got those buddies.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
And in this last year, we were on a rifle
hunt on a lease we have in Colorado, Man and
when Being Scott saw it, we all kind of saw
this hurd of Elk, and I was like, all right,
let's go, let's get in position. We get there and
Matt's probably five or six minutes, not five or six
minutes behind, but he was a good heavy three and
you know, I'd already killed two in archery. So I
(12:53):
set up this the tripod and I get the gun
ready and I'm like, you're ready, And he was the
complete surprise on his face that I let him take
this shot. I'm not known to let like if I
get there first, or I see it first, I'm taking
the shot.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
And uh And for some reason in my my my
heart or my soul or whatever. I was like, let
that take the shot and the complete look on it.
And you know, so I'm talking to him and he's like,
I can't hear you. My heart's beating in my ears.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
So it's you know, you got those guys that are
with you every once in a while.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, we've we've kind of whittled it down.
You know, physically, we're we're all we all got our
strengths and you know, my group of buddies I hunt with,
but like one thing I look for and we'll get
this in the training. We can we can even hit
on it now, is I I've cared less about the
physical side now, which which is like I want a
mental tough hunter because I don't want if I'm if
(13:42):
I'm in the dumps like you said, you know, you're
sulking on the way back to camp, Like I don't
want that to turn into like, well maybe we should
pack up camp and go stay the night at the
truck tonight versus you know, I need a buddy that's
that's strong. And so we've whittled down Like the group
that I hunt with with is like mental mental giants.
You know, just super tough. The game is like if
I'm down, you pick me up. If you're down, I'm
(14:03):
gonna not letting you quit. And uh, and then the
physical has always just worked it out and we're just
gonna jump into this now like the mental game like
I've always felt, and correct me if I'm wrong or
if you've got a different theory like physical game can
like prolong. The mental game is what. But it always
comes down to that mental game, whether you're gonna climb
that next mountain or whether you're gonna pack up. But
the better shape you're in, it's not gonna start knocking
(14:26):
at that mental that mental door.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Push threshold a little bit.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah, you've been through something worse than this, You've you've
been here like this isn't the worst that it can be,
and so it just kind of suppresses that voice in
your head like I'm fine, I'm for sure, I'm yeah,
the hunting is not great right now, but I'm gonna
be fine. We're gonna eventually figure it out. How much
of what you've did, how much of what you do
when you're hunting and pushing yourself, is that mental game
(14:51):
versus just like you know, letting the physical take over.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And I think it's ninety percent of it really, if
you're being one hundred percent honest and you can train that.
You know, my job for fourteen years or thirteen years,
however long it was, was literally to suffer better than
the person next to me. You know, there was people
that were probably more physically genetically gifted, but I hated
losing and that was my motivation for continuing to go.
(15:18):
And so, you know, pain tolerance, knowing that, hey, once
I stopped for a second, let the heart rate come down,
maybe let the legs flush a little bit, we'll go again,
you know. And even when you're climbing a super steep mountain,
I look at it as you know, we do a
ton of interval work.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
I think a lot of guys get stuck in the
like loh Man.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
We've done a couple of those meat eater Friday fitness
things and you get some guys on there that you know,
they want to argue and talk to you about you know,
energy systems, which I know all of that stuff too,
but man, there's something about doing stuff that's just hard,
resting for a minute, doing it again and knowing that, hey,
I've got eight sets of this and that, Hey, if
(15:57):
I slowed down, you know, like, there's just man, there's
just something about training and doing hard things, competing, getting
yourself out of your comfort zone regularly. You know, we
do these twenty four hour challenges on mountain bikes, or
we do a row twenty four hour on the row
machine with four people. You know, it's like team building
slash just mental check ins to make sure, hey we
(16:18):
haven't gotten soft in the last couple of weeks or months,
and you'd be surprised that what the body is capable
of as long as your your head's in it, and
if you've got other people there to share. Man, it's uh,
you can just as cliche as it is. I think
it's what if you want to go fast, go alone,
if you want to go far, go take others or
something minutes it's uh yeah, So I'd say ninety percent
(16:39):
mental for sure.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Gotcha. You mentioned interval training, you know, high intensity interval training,
which you know, uh connects really well with CrossFit in
particular translating to the mountain. So, like, is your approach
going up a mountain as You're gonna go one hundred
percent until you can't and then rest and do it
again or you you you know, I've got a buddy,
(17:01):
I don't know if you've heard of him, Ryan Lampers.
I've hunted with a little bit.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Oh yeah yeah, start all somebody Scott loves him.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah. So like that guy, like the first time before
I really got to know Ryan, you know, fifteen years
ago we had we happened to have the same bear
tag and he was just starting to talk about hunting
and we watched that guy like not take a break
and do a four thousand foot climb with his overnight,
you know, and you're like, well, how does like is
that better? Or would he you been faster if you ran?
Stop ran? But he didn't take a break for like
(17:30):
an hour and a half track And you're just like, well,
what's like the right thing? Like I always wonder because
I'm I'm an engineer, So I'm like, there's got to
be like an exact best way, and it might be
an exact best way for me and yours might be different.
But like should I go at a medium pace and
never stop or should I go as fast as I
can you know, can't breathe hunched over, catch my breath
and go again, Like is there a right answer, do
(17:52):
you even know the answer or is it truly up
to that individual's like cardiovascular are Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I think there's a ton of ton of different factors
that go into that, right you got. I mean when
you look at genetically, you've got different muscle fibers. Like
some people are more power athletes and they can repeat
power intervals. Some people are to that long slow you know,
pite has something to do with it, the grade of
the hill. There's so many factors that go into it.
I think it's just whatever you're gonna do to get
(18:19):
up that hill and not be too far behind or
not be too gassed by the time you get to
that hill. I you know, depending on how steep the
hill is, we might do more of it. Or if
i'm packing something out, yeah there's gonna be a maybe
a little bit fast quick, find a log to kind
of like take the pressure off your back, sit for
a second, and then go again.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
We train that way a ton.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
But also, you know, there's hills and grades that you're like,
all right, there's no reason. You just kind of put
it in, you know, crawl mode and you just just
get through it. And so I don't think there's I
think every situation has a little bit different and I
think training in many different ways. So you go into
you know, if you're going five minute stints, three minute stints,
(19:01):
if it's super steep, if it's whatever. You know, we
may change the intensity based on how long the interval
is and how long your rest is. And man, I
think it's just I think it's fun because it's it's
fun for me to try to figure out that's the
way my brain works, too, similar to where you know,
like which way's faster? And I think I think yes,
the answer is yes. I think some you know, you
have to be able to you need to have a
(19:22):
capacity to if you need to go short fast burst,
get steep, or if you you know, need to do
that long slow approach that's in your bag of tricks too.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yep, yep. So let's jump into this like individual style training.
You've trained at such a high level for so long,
but that that is to get the most out of you.
Do you think there's like a single style that works
for everyone or should is it truly individual? And with
that like or is there something that everybody should be doing,
you know as a general workout. But then to specialize
(19:52):
whether you know I've I've did everything butt CrossFit, I've
I used to bite, you know, twenty miles to a
small little town and then twenty miles back. I used
to you know, just put a fifty pound pack on
and try to do five or six miles and get
a hundred you know, a thousand feet and a hundred
floors in you know, lift it back in my younger
days in high school sports, you know, lifted heavy. Just
a big guy in general. So like lifting, he's been easy,
(20:14):
but tried to like maintain that is there? Is it individual?
And then when it is individual? One thing that I've
always wondered is like, well how do I figure out
Like you just have to do you know, bicycle riding
for a year and see what you feel like in
the mountains and then like well that was terrible, Like
now I'm gonna lift for a year. Like how do
you how do you dial in what the right thing
is for you?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
What I would tell you is you've done CrossFit, if
you've ran, if you've biked, if you've rode, if you
you know, lifted weights, if you've done body weight movements,
you've done cross it all, cross of it did was
take everything that was good in fitness and combine it
into one and then basically look at the science of.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
How the body works and how you fuel.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
And there's three energy systems, and we try to train
each energy system. We may do that separately by just
doing what you would call long slow monostructural stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Or we might do high intensity intervals.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
We might train that Fosagen or glycolytics system by doing
heavyweight would be the Fossagen glycolytics kind of that middle one.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And so I say, you train all.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Of those things right, And what I've what we've learned
through years of doing this is, you know, cross fit
or a version of CrossFit is really for bang for
your buck. You've got an hour, hour and a half
warm up, workout, cool down, You've got strength, you've got
heart rate, you've got you know. We try to change
(21:37):
up the time domains, we change up the movements. We've
what we've done with Mayhem Hunt is try to take
out a ton of the skill because that's what really
limits people on their intensity.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
So it's a lot of gruntwork. It's a lot of.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Picking sand bags up, carrying dumbells, carrying sand bags, stuff,
you'd use in the mountain and not doing as many
bar muscle ups or some of the high skilled gymnastics
stuff that guys and girls. One, it's gonna limit them,
limit their intensity in the workout, but it's also you know,
might cause some energy, but it might be our injury.
But every once in a while it's fun to like
get up there and do those things if you've got
(22:08):
the time. But yeah, most people have got an hour,
hour and a half. And so what we want to
do is change up the stimulus, you know, heavy, light, moderate,
We want to go short, fast intervals with long breaks.
We want to go kind of one to one, or
we want to just grind for an hour.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
You know, there's if you you don't want every want
to get in.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
A situation and be like, oh man, I'm not you know,
this is not what I'm I was prepared for. So
we try to like touch as many of those different
things and those different energy systems and different movement patterns.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
And heavyweight, lightweight, moderate weight.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Again.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
So I think the more diverse your training can be,
the better off you're going to be.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Gotcha, you you kind of answer my next question, you know,
just just to put you in a situation if someone
only has thirty to four minutes a day, what kind
of training would they prioritize? Runing season, So you're you're
like CrossFit gym style training or you know if you
could do it at home, Like is that would you
recommend bike one day and then lift a different day?
Or do you think you should try to exercise and
(23:07):
do all that and want like a quick fifteen minute
max you know max bike ride and then you know,
like what what would be? You know, like the ideal
you have you can train four days a week and
you got thirty to forty minutes a day like getting
ready for the mountain and average outdoorsman.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Yeah, I think one your foundation needs to be you've
got to get time on your feet, right. You need
to have have a pack on, so a rock twice
a week, you know, thirty forty minutes if you can
find hills, find hills, and then I think on those
off days or those days where you're not outside hell,
you can still be outside, grab a cooler, grab some dumbbells,
grab a jump rope, and you can do kind of
(23:43):
circuit their CrossFit workouts. You know, once again, CrossFit's just
taken all these things that worked for years and combined
it into one package and just kind of defined it right,
And you know that's the beauty of kind of what
we do is we've got different levels for people. Kind
of the highest level, you've got a little bit of everything.
We got kind of the middle of the road. You've
got everything, but you don't quite have the fitness or
(24:03):
you don't have your very limited equipment, and you know,
you just show up and you can do it at
the house on an app or whatever.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
But and it's just getting people moving.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
And something that they enjoy and kind of look forward
to and feel they may not look forward to it,
but they feel better when they're done.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah, I think you just you need to expose yourself
to as many different things and kind of you know,
obviously within reason and have a plan.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
One of the things that I did is because I
live in Washington, Western Washington, where we get seventy inches
or eighty year, and I bought myself one of those
I call the you know, the Devil's Ladder, but it's
it's not it's basically a reverse escal era steps right there,
just never.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Ending steps and step sa master.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah. It does. I mean you can you know, crank
the intensity up? You can do that, But I just
get bored as So that's like one thing I fight
is like I'm just it's literally step after step, watching
a screen that tells me how high I've climbed, and
I'm yeah, it's great. But how one thing that I
think a lot of people can benefit from. I'm stubborn
(25:15):
and too dumb, Like I know where I need to
be to get in the mountains and be successful. So
I'll just force myself through it, like you know, mentally tough,
not giving myself that much credit, but I just do
what I need to do. Why it's raining, But I
think a lot of people just get bored. Is there
a way to work at excitement? Like should people be
like trying to beat their last pr So I'm so competitive,
like I've never got on that stair climber and not
(25:37):
beat what I did the day before in the day
before that, even if it's one step. And if I'm
having a I if I'm having a crappy day, I'm like, well,
i might need an extra two minutes, but I'm not
getting off of this until like I beat yesterday's steps.
But do you have any advice for like keeping in
you know, the the training fund and engaging and not
(25:57):
people like giving up like, man, I just don't want
to use thirty minutes and do this and get bored.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Work out with people, I mean that's the most fun
for me.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
You know, Like if you've got a buddy that you're
on the StairMaster for five minutes, you know, they may
be doing a little five minute am rap what we
would say a wrap as many reps as possible of
like ten burpies ten or one hundred foot lunch or
you know, like just different things and then you guys flip,
but you're still like you're trying to one You're trying
to one up him what he got on his steps.
(26:28):
You may be trying to beat him on whatever round
you're doing. And then you just keep doing that and
kind of cycling through. That was one one thing to do, yeap.
Working out with people's is what it's all about.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Really.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
It builds that camaraderie.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
It gives you somebody to hold accountable, even if it's
a virtual like hey, I'm doing this workout today, I'll
let you know my well. We never share times on
whatever we're doing until after, like you both finish the
workout and then you share times because it's always easier
to beat somebody's time when you know it's their time.
You know, it gives that a little bit of competitive
it makes it fun. And then you know there's something
(27:03):
to the monotonous, boring stuff because it's sometimes you mentally
you need that. But yeah, you definitely need to change
it up every once in a while of you know,
throwing some you know, five minutes on the climber, rest
for a minute or two and try to increase the
intensity there and try to get you know, as many
steps as you can in five minutes, rest a little bit,
(27:24):
go again, or change up the movement and come back
to it, or you know, do ten flights of stairs,
ten push ups and do that for thirty minutes, you know,
cause there you know, I think there's you need a
lot of upper body maybe you know, drawing a bow, uh, falling,
you know, like the stronger you are, because I mean,
how many times are you going to fall off some
dead ball or you know, slip on the side of
(27:46):
a hill and if you don't have that strength or
you know that reaction to you know, stop yourself all
out of this is is, Yeah, you want to be
prepared in the mountains, but you also want to try
to prevent injury as much as possible. So the stronger
you are, the better off you're going to be. And
so doing some upper body stuff, I think that gets
lost in the weeds a lot where guys are like,
I don't want to get too big upper body because
(28:06):
you know it's going to slow me down in the mountains.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
But I've not found that to be true.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Gotcha? Can you touch on like the mental So before
I get to the mental side, how hard should you
push it in to work out? Are you a heart
rate guy? Are you just self driven to I'm just
going to push his heart I mean you mentioned earlier
one of your biggest things where you're able to suffer
more or endure more of that at the end is
that it was a difference like what's the right target
(28:31):
when you're training it. Should it be a heart rate thing?
Should it be as hard as you can go and
forget about all of that. Should it be a distance thing?
Like what's what's your opinion on that? And then I'm
going to segue that into like how do you push
through those mental barriers? And just ye. You know, do
you have any tips or tricks to push it harder?
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Yeah, I think you know, once again, whatever works, Like,
if you think you need a heart rate monitor, go
for it. I think there's some value to doing some long, slow,
what we call zone two work that's going to raise
your your floor on your your heart rate stuff. I've
been doing it for I've been working out for twenty
plus years, so I know what it feels like. I
(29:10):
know kind of what the stimulus of a workout is
or what the goal of a workout is, So I.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
I don't really I don't. I don't wear a heart
rate monitor a ton.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
I did a little bit while I was training for
Leadville last year, and I do wear a whoop just
to like, you know, at the end of the day
kind of know what what I've done and you know,
track some of those things. But for the most part,
it's just all intuitive, and once again, you want to
change up that stimulus.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I think there's some.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Days where you you know, you want to just kind
of get in their conversational pace, which what we would
probably call zone two and just move for a long time.
And then there's some days that we want to all right,
we want to burn up the legs, and so we're
gonna do two minutes of you know, a leg centric
couplet or triplet, two or three movements and you know,
try to get as much as we can there and
(29:58):
burn the legs out rest and then you know, build
some lactate and then try to flush out a little bit.
So there's like, you know, it's hard to you know,
give one or two things.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
That's kind of the value of what we do with
maham Hunt is is you know, you'll get a work
out every day and you'll know the stimulus and hey,
this is what we want you to do. This is
where you push, this is where you don't push, This
is you know, just move at this point.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
And so it's fun for me. That's the stuff that
I enjoy the most.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
And I nerd out on is like looking at a
workout trying to dissect it all right, or building a
workout like that. I I I know, all right, hey,
this is going to prepare for September when we hear
a bugle, you know, and we've got to go up
and down and over and through and then I've got
to calm down and take a shot, you know, like,
we like to do a lot of heart rate stuff
where we're adding in a shot.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
So there's that's a good way to add in some fun.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
You know when people are like, ah, it's just so
boring every two to three minutes of a you know
of your staremaster hop offchet an arrow at twenty and
trying to calm that heart rate down to make that
make a good shot. A lot of people are gonna
be like, oh, it just creates target panic and all that.
I you know, I I disagree. It's it's helped me
be able to really just concentrate on the shot, block
(31:11):
out the noise, take a good shot. Now I'm not
doing all of my shooting at a high heart rate,
but it adds some fun to some Zone two sessions
that are forty minutes long.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Yeah. Yeah, I was just kind of curious, Like I know,
on that that stepper, like one sixty eight to one
seventy two, I can go at that pace all day.
It's pretty high. But like I'm I'm comfortable in that zone.
But as soon as I get to like one seventy five,
like things are starting to fade, Like performance is going
to start going down, and so I just and now
I paid so much attention to that stupid thing on
(31:40):
the machine. Like I can tell like when I'm out,
when I'm out hiking in the woods, like oh, getting
above one seventy two, you know, like start.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
But that's good to know, man, That's that's that's why
you do it, is because you got to know it. Hey,
the wheels are about to fall off, and I'm not
going to be able to make this shot or I'm
not gonna be able to continue to go. And so
what I would say is, you know, if you're doing that,
maybe for two or three minutes, hit that one seventy five,
then back it down for four or so minutes back
to that like one fifty five one sixty. Yeah, back
(32:09):
like you could play around with that a ton and
just you know, it might edge that up to where
you get more comfortable in that range. But you're not
gonna be able to stay in that range for twenty minutes.
It's just not not it's.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
What you can't do.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
And so you know, I would argue that, hey, man,
that's that's great that you know that and you know
that feeling. And that's what we're trying to show people
is there's benefit you know, obviously there's benefit because you're
getting physically stronger, getting mentally stronger, but you also know
your body a whole lot more and know that hey,
you know, stuff starting either to shut down or I'm
(32:41):
you know, I couldn't make it detrimental for the rest
of the hunt.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Yep, yep. So switching gears a little bit still definitely
affect performance. So you know there's a training side, but
then there's also the food that goes through the mouth.
You know, any supplementation, Like how how much does that
affect the performance and the ability to recover in the mountain?
Is performing the mountains and you know, be just as
strong on day one as you are on day ten,
you know, on a long, tough hunt.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah, I think it's huge.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
I think you know, that's another thing when you're you're training,
uh to kind of either track or just know that
what's going into your body. Like I know, if I'm
you know, normal kind of training, I'm one hundred grams
of fat, two hundred grams of car or two hundred
grams of protein, and about four hundred grams of carbs.
Three hundred and four hundred grams of carbs, and you
(33:30):
don't think you know when you're just kind of trudging
along just you know, depending on if you're doing a
ton of glassing or getting to a spot or still
hunting or whatever, your body you're just moving all day
and so you you consume way more calories than you think.
And so I think being you know, obviously you don't
want to be in too too high of a surplus,
(33:53):
but you'd never want to get in a deficit. And
just knowing that and knowing how your body reacts to
different carbohydrates, different types of protein, fat, and and a
lot of that stuff's got to be light if you're
carrying it, and you don't want to have a heavy pack.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
And so.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Yeah, I think it's getting to know those things and
knowing that about your body. Usually they say a ground
a gram of protein per pound of body weight, usually
pretty good rule of thumb. And then you know, depends
on how much physical activity you're doing with with fat
and protein, I mean fat and carbohydrate, and so those
are the two that you kind of can mess around
with a little bit. But yeah, I think you know
(34:30):
everybody's that's another thing where everybody's just different. Like some
people can can be fat adapted where they burn fat
instead of carbs, and some people need a lot more carbs.
And something that I've learned is over the years that
I do really well with carbs and and feel better, more.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
More recovered with carbohydrate. And then sleep.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
You know, if you're training in the off season as
much sleep as you can, mountains are going to be
way different. So you don't want to have a bunch
of bad sleep nights and then go into the mountain
because it's not going to get any better.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Usually, yeah, yeah, And what twenty nineteen, I trained hard
and then was able to like try to carry Keto
into the mountains with me, you know a lot of
coconut oils and and you know, f bombs and all
these things like trying to get the calories in and
and it was a weird feeling where I couldn't go,
you know, like you said that that that last last
couple hundred yards, like I didn't have anything in the
(35:24):
tank to run. But I felt like I my like
in the middle that that like slow steady pace was amazing,
Like I could do that all day long with better
And so it's like I traded maybe some high end
performance for for like just all out, you know, fat
adapted energy, and it was like a weird mix. But
then my typical years, you eat good trying to get
(35:45):
in shape, you know, knock off of five pounds or
whatever is you're training before a season. Then you switch
over to skittle snickers and you know, mountain house freeze
dried and you feel terrible. But then like once you
get there, once you're kind of you know, hooked on
the simple sugars. It's almost like you're body, you know,
complains not not having them, Like, hey, you're not gonna
be able to climb this next little bit unless you
(36:06):
have some you know, sour patch kids. You know, like
it's almost like your body and it's like, you know,
I pay a lot of attention, but you're like, gosh,
I don't really want to eat any more, you know,
simple candy. But that's kind of the rut I fall
into every year. And uh, you know, pack packing all
that protein in the mountains is sometimes tough and you
go into a deficit. Well you know better than I do, Like,
(36:28):
all right, you're burning all this you know energy, you're
not you know, feeding your muscles with any protein. So
you're like, oh, I'll get by on sixty seventy grams
and it's just not.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
It's not conducive.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yeah, you almost got to figure out and get get
creative with it. Yeah, I mean what I look at
it is it's a competition week weekend.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
You know, when we compete at the Games for years.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Man, well, and your stomach's kind of not from just
you know, the stress of competing, which, man, hunting, to
me is the most relaxing and most stressful time of
the year.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
You know, I come back better.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
But in it, man, the the the emotional roller coaster
of oh hey, maybe just over this hill there's something there,
or in this next group of heavy timber there's something here,
and then you know, you build that up and then
you're back in an aspen flat the middle of the
day and you're like, this sucks. There's nothing here, you know,
and man, there's just such an emotional roller coaster. So
it's almost like a competition week So during those kind
of competition weekends or weeks, man, it's it's simple sugars.
(37:23):
It's you know, stuff that I wouldn't normally eat throughout
the year, but it works, right. It's it's quick, it's light,
it's what I got to eat. It's not optimal, it's
not healthy. You know, people are like, well, you know,
that's not good for you, and it's not good for
the environment or whatever.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. And
you know, i'd be lying to say that we don't
do that.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
You know, I do a lot of We'll bring those
kind of apple sauce packets or you know, to try
to clean it.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Up a little bit. You know, yeah, that does seem
to help.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
But man, i'd be lying to say, little Debbie or
you know, for us, it's a peanut butter and jelly
regularly in the pack. I usually have one for lunch
and then another one as soon as we finish that
last climb, just to give us something to look forward to,
and usually make it the night before, so it's nice
and like soggy and kind of just all mashed together.
(38:10):
But man, there's something about that sandwich when you get
to the top of that last hill.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, yeah, that's you know. I went through the phase
of like those little gels, you know, the gu jels
or the cliff gels, and it's like, man, this is
like lead straight to you know, diabetes. But yeah, it
would it does work in the moment, you know, and
your legs are bonking and and nothing seems to be working,
and it is a is a pick me up, but yeah,
(38:36):
it's and that's the stuff where I think people just
have to play with what your body needs, you know,
if you eat this way down on the you know,
at home, and what do you need the mountains or
what can you get by with without it being too
detrimental to your performance? And and some guys, you know,
I've got buddies that have you know, got pulled away
from Spike Camp, slept under a tree and didn't have
food for days, you know, but that's what they're willing
(38:56):
to do for success. And so yeah, your body will
run on it. It's just definitely off.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
It'll figure it out.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Yeah, yeah, just figure it out. Uh. So let's kind
of close out the whole, uh training or supplementation, Like
what do you feel like is there is there something
that like people need to avoid? Is there bad information
out there? Like is there major mistakes people do with
training or food or just like put a button on
this whole you know topic. I know we didn't get
(39:21):
super deep into it, but you know.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Man, I think that there's a you know, the myth
that there's the perfect training system out there. I think
everybody's different, everybody's time is different, everybody, what everybody enjoys
is different. I think, you know, doing something is better
than nothing. The best program and the best diet. Really
it goes to nutrition as well. It's something that you're
(39:47):
going to continue to do. Obviously on diet, the more
you can stay away from anything processed. I think, you know,
having a freezer full ELK meet out here year round
helps a ton with that. Trying to eat as many
you know, steal from CrossFit high you know, lean meats, nuts, seeds,
some fruit, little starch, no sugar. If you can abide
(40:07):
by that seventy to eighty percent of the time, you're
gonna be doing pretty darn good. And then you know,
don't get too uh, too strict with it at times, man,
it's it's enjoy life and have some fun. But I
think fitness, fitness is something that's gonna There's gonna be
times where it's it's a ton of fun and you
look forward to it, and there's times that are it's
gonna be monotonous and you're gonna hate it. But I
(40:29):
think both times are beneficial, right, And so it's just man,
it's just consistency over a long, long period of time
is what's gonna pay off.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Yeah. And you know, one saying that I've kind of
looked to is don't don't don't be motivated to work
out and eat clean, like be disciplined, because motivation is
gonna fluctuate, where discipline is just alwishing yourself to do it.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah, the most thing don't last long.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Yeah, And for me, I got to a point where
I was, you know, headstrong enough that like I really
don't want to get on this machine when I used
to work out at a commercial gym, like I don't,
And then I would like, no, that's what you're doing,
you little you know, your little pansy, Like go get
on that machine. If that's the one that you were
dreading today, then you're gonna spend more too on it.
And and yeah, So it's it was that discipline of like,
(41:14):
get up, do the work every day, and like you said,
even if you're doing it wrong, if you're sweating and
you're breathing hard and you're getting stronger, like it's better
than sleeping in or or not getting to work out.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
At all man.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
Yeah, I think it is consistency. Just consistency, Yeah, that discipline.
So yeah, now we're gonna switch switch gears a little bit.
Make an announcement here. You know, I always want to
talk to Rich. I love the aspect of health and fitness.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
But we're also gonna make an announcement here for the
Meat Eater brand of podcasts. We are excited to announce it.
Rich is going to be kind of taking over this channel.
He's going to be the new host of what we're
calling In Pursuit I believe right in Pursuit podcast. Yeah,
and uh so excited to make that announcement. I think
(41:59):
it mirrors. First episode is going to drop on the
fourteenth of August four. Dirk and I will produce the
episodes up until that point, and Dirk and I aren't
going anywhere. We're still going to deliver twelve episodes a
year under the Cutting the Distance podcast name. I believe
it's gonna live under the podcast. It's like a special.
But this is going to give both Rich the ability
(42:22):
to dive deeper into in Pursuit and some of these
topics that we covered today. I'll let him explain here
in a second. But this will also give Dirk and
I the ability to focus more on Phelps game calls,
which is really what our job should be. But then
when we when we do produce these twelve episodes, we're
going to dive deeper into the tactics, techniques, the technical side,
(42:45):
bring on the right biologists and try to interweave you know,
hunting hunting tactics in with the biology and and hopefully
it delivers a better podcast because we can only talk
so many times about how to kill turkey, how to
kill a dear, how to kill an elk. We want
to dive a little deeper. And so I think this
is gonna be a new voice, some fresh energy for
the podcast. And so you're taking over the rains Rich,
(43:07):
taking it in a little bit new direction. So what's
the vision behind in Pursuit and where's this podcast going? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (43:16):
I think, man, I think it's exactly what we've we've
been talking about. But it's bringing in guys and girls
that are are professionals and you know, whatever they're doing
and kind of trying to pick their brain on you know,
the one percenter. So you know, the first couple we've had,
we've done for so far, we've got Kip Folks, Joel Turner,
which was incredible, Zach Seeler played or plays defensive tackle
(43:36):
for the Miami Dolphins, Big Hunter, Nate Illingsworth, He's lost.
He's pretty funny on social media. He's lost I think
eighty or one hundred pounds, just like a guy that
you could relate to, you know. Kip obviously started and
was a part of Under Arm and Joel Turner his
stuff's incredible, shooting shot iq and man, it's just nerding
out honestly, you know, for my own personal you know,
(43:59):
uh uh, I guess health and and learning from these
guys and and kind of figuring out how myself to
be a better hunter. I feel like we've got the
fitness side pretty nailed down, and obviously it's an obsession
of mine, and so to learn and kind of marry
all these guys are into some type of fitness and
maybe show them kind of our world as well. And
(44:20):
so we'll have some kind of episodes that will go
along with it on YouTube of us kind of hanging out,
working out and them kind of talking about their specialty too,
and then we'll sit down and have an actual podcast
of what we talked about and what we've learned. So
I think selfishly, for me, it's to learn a little bit,
but also you know, to show everybody else they kind
of these outliers or top one percenters and people that
(44:42):
are super relatable as well.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Yeah, it's it's funny how those type of people gravitate
towards each other, right, Like you know, you doing you know,
CrossFit at such a high level. You're like, well, I
want to go talk to the guy that is the
equivalent on the business side, you know, under armor, you
cap and then yep, I want to go talk to
the guy that's the equivalent of an archery trainer, you know,
you go grab Joel and and so the I love
talking businesses in general, and it's like I want to
(45:05):
talk to the guys that around the biggest, most successful.
I want to talk to guys like you you know,
and I want to learn and yeah, and and that's
just asking the questions from your perspective, and I think
people will get a lot out of that. So what
do you hope people take away from in pursuit, you know,
whether they're a hardcore hunter just getting into it, you know,
looking just to level up in life, Like, what's the
goal and what do you hope people can take away from,
(45:26):
you know, tuning into your podcast.
Speaker 3 (45:28):
Yeah, I think it's uh, first of all, I think
it hope, hope they'll take something away that maybe they
can learn from somebody that makes them a better person.
And then obviously some little thing that they can do
to become a better hunter as well. You know, each
of these guys that we've had on so far, man,
I've I've learned quite a bit from and you know,
I think there's just there's more than one way to
skin the cat obviously, and that Man, it's just fun.
(45:52):
It's fun, it's a cool space. There's a bunch of
cool people doing it, and uh, you know the outdoor
outdoor world is awesome, and so yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Think it's it's to take at least a piece.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
Of something from each of these guests that they can
implement in day to day life.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah. Awesome, awesome. Yeah, the hunting world, I can I
can make you know, vouch for that. Like the hunting world.
I've been hunting for thirty five years, kind of been
quote unquote in the industry for twenty years, and it's
just a great group of people. You know, you good guys,
a lot of people willing to share information. So I
think you're gonna you know, you're gonna have a blast.
You know, you already know a ton, but you're gonna
(46:29):
get to meet a bunch more. And and uh, I'm
looking forward to tuning in and you know, seeing what
your guests have to say, and you know you sharing
more of your stuff. And really appreciate having you on
the podcast today, rich and wish you all the best
kind of taking this thing over in the future.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
God appreciate it. Jason, Yeah, it's been awesome. Hopefully we
uh don't let everybody down. Uh listen to to what
you guys have done for years.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
I think I think you're gonna be just fine. Thanks
for joining, and good luck to fall. If I don't
talk to you before then I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Brother.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Yep, take care
Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. Today,
I'm here with Rich Browning former Fittest Man on Earth?
Maybe still is how's it going? Rich?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Pretty good? Doing good? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Uh. The Fittest on Earth is more of a CrossFit
or rebuk.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Uh marketing title.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I would say I competed at the CrossFit games and
won a couple of times when when people ask I,
you know, that's that's more. But to my kids is
I'll always be the fittest on Earth. You know, try
still thinks. My son thinks I'm still the strongest man
on Earth.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
So whatever that that's all that matters, right, That's the
only title that really matters kids.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
That whatever your kids think is all all that matters
to me.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, yeah, no, I'm excited to have you on. You know,
you got to kind of laugh, like I'm not the
right guy to be giving a workout information or recommendations.
But I have been able to maintain, you know, being
in good enough shape to get it done in the
mountains hard enough, and that not to be like something
that limits my success. And and so that's kind of
(01:12):
my level, just doing just enough and then having a
pretty strong mental game as well. To add to to
being in good enough shape has has been able to
get to get me through it. But I'm curious to
dive into this conversation with you, so you know, individual
specific plans, like these ideas of like how can you
affect this through food and supplementation, like some of these
(01:32):
things that may help people get ready or be better
in the mountains, you know, this fall or in the future.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, I mean when I'm when i'm when I'm talking
to anybody, that's the goal, right, is that at no
point are you like, oh I was not prepared or
you know, we want no. At no point do we
ever question, hey, should we go after something, can we
get there?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Or can we get something out? So you know, that's
that's what it's all about.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Whether you're doing you know, crossbit, whether you're bike in
running any of that stuff, or just rucking. You know,
that's the whole goal is to be as well rounded
as possible when you know you don't know what's going
to happen, and you're.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay, yep. And then there there's another thing. I hunt
because I love it and and there's there's a little
bit of the physical struggle in it. But I don't
want to be. I don't want that to override having fun. Right,
if you can't do something and you're not just you know,
hunched over, can't catch your breath, like, that's a miserable experience.
So if the elks where it's at and I need
(02:33):
to get there, I want to do that and have
as much fun as possible. Where if you're just gassed
and sore and like, it's less fun. Uh, you know,
it's less fun and you're going to accomplish the same thing.
So that that's kind of my goal. I mean, it's
much fun.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
It's already a you know, secondhand fun where it's miserable
in the moment fun after. So why not you know,
at least bring that misery down just a little bit
while you're in the moment and be as prepared as possible.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeh. But but I always kind of joke with my
buddies it doesn't matter how good a shape I'm in
or not. During season, I've always just pushed. If you're
in better shape, you just go farther, and so you're
still in the same suck fest that you would be
if you you were just in worse shape and didn't
go as far. So it always kind of self balances
and self levels. But uh, it's still the pack outs funner.
You know, everything's a little funner when when your legs
(03:22):
are in shape, your lungs are able to handle it
and all of that.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, for sure, But so you can also get there
quicker if you're in better shape.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
So yeah, that's that's for sure, for sure, for sure.
So let's let's jump into some questions on hunting. So,
you know, you you've accomplished a ton in the in
your athletic career, but what what made you want to
take up hunting? Kind of where did it start? How
did this this passion for hunting, you know, get some legs?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, I always tell people I grew up in a
hunting family. I've got a bunch of uncles in Michigan
that whitetail hunt like crazy. My dad, uh su super impatient.
I'm super impatient. Probably have you know a touch of
add or ADHD? Not one hundred percent sure which one.
I can't sit still. I was always you know, doing
(04:11):
or playing sports and always outside. I just never really
you know, I went out. I had a close friend
that him and his dad hunted whitetail a lot, so
I'd go out I'd say ten or fifteen times growing up,
but never really you know, never saw anything. Even if
we did see anything, it was pretty far off. Never
really had a great chance for it. So it never
(04:31):
really stuck as a kid. And then right towards the
end of my individual career, so twenty thirteen, fourteen fifteen range,
I had a really good friend of mine, Charles. We
call him Uncle Charles, my kids call him Uncle Charles,
invited me out turkey hunting, and man first first morning
hearing those gobbles, then instead of sitting and waiting for him,
(04:53):
kind of going after him and trying to get in
a position, and after that I was hooked, and you
know from there, did that three or four years.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
And went on our first elk hunt.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I need to look it up, is probably twenty seventeen,
sixteen or seventeen, and man got skunked with a guide
in Montana rifle hunting. Didn't see we heard one elk
Asusho got out of the truck and didn't hear another
one for the rest of the week. Hiked our balls
off up down over through in the some of the
nastiest country I've ever been a part of, and had
(05:24):
a blast and from then on I was hooked.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
And that actually took us three to three years.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Public land over the counter in Colorado self, you know, D, I, Y,
whatever you want to call it, to finally kill one
on the technically the fourth trip on the last day,
and so man it just from then on, you know,
elk hunting has kind of been my my passion. I
still turkey hunt a lot, but elk hunting is has
kind of replaced any and everything on the hunting sphere.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, and you mentioned, you know a D D ad HD.
I think I've got some of that as well, which
you know doesn't lend itself sometimes to be impatient in
a tree or you know, sitting on a glass knob
for meal deer, and that's where you know, similar to you,
I'm drawn to archery elk hunting because it's it's action,
you know, very rarely unless you're you know, calling one
in or you're in that moment, which I can deal
(06:15):
with with. My ADHD handles that better because there's action.
I'm able to move, I'm able to call, I'm able
to walk to the next ridge, I'm able to do
something where you know, sometimes I struggle if there's not
a lot of action in a white tail tree, you know.
Stand it's like, might get fidgety. I need to move.
I need to move to a different tree. I need
to go see some different ground, which we all know
is not the right answer.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Never, it's never once worked for me.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, yeah, have you you you said you do come
back still turkey hunt? Uh, you're okay whitetail hunting. Now
you can. You can make it through a sit in
a y.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
The last two years I've come to it's been an
acquired taste. It's taken probably two years to actually get
up there and enjoy it. It's the most frustrating thing.
Even with a bad day in the elk wood, are
still a good day, right, you know, you're still moving,
you're covering some ground. You feel like you got something accomplished.
A bad day in the whitetail woods is not really good,
(07:10):
you know, if you're not seeing anything but and you're
stuck in a tree. But yeah, i'd be lying if
I'm not looking forward to November. And we've got about
one hundred and sixty acres here at the house that
we have a couple stands set up and then we
have a three thousand acre lease just down the road.
And for me now it's like getting the kids, you know, getting.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
The kids into it.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I killed a dough archery with my son last year,
and man, you'd have thought we killed you know, a
one hundred and fifty inch deer with how excited he
was and and just you know, I made the shot
and he goes, good shot, dad. You know, he's eight,
and so it was like, I don't know, it was
just it was a ton of fun. And to see
how proud he was of that. Yeah, man, it made
it all. It makes it all worth it.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
That's that's so cool. And I know, you you know,
played some college baseball and one thing I've always you know,
drawn me to hunter I think about a lot is
is you've got this competitive spirit. Obviously, you know you
were able to take you know, high school sports, college
sports turn it into you know, you needed that CrossFit
to kind of fill that that place, you know, that
competitive and then you know a lot of guys that
(08:12):
have this this you know, high school sports, college sports,
they find hunting is that way to kind of it
fills that need form where you can compete against yourself
and if when once you accomplish X. You can go
try to do it, you know deeper, you know, in
the mountains or you know, more remote, or you can
change up the game or you know, God forbid, we
(08:34):
say trophy hunting. But you start with a spike, you know,
I my first three or four deer spikes or whatever's
and then you're like, you know what, I'm gonna try
to kill a two point Well that now you have
to pass five or six spikes, and so like, as
a guy that loves the competition, you can't necessarily play anymore,
you know, or or play these sports anymore to competitive level,
like hunting really fills that that in for me as well.
(08:57):
Do you find that same challenge that that youlenging yourself
within hunting that you kind of get from CrossFit or sports?
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, you know, I played a little bit of baseball,
like you said, went to college, got up there and
just decided college baseball wasn't where I needed to be
and kind of came up. I came home and worked
as actually worked in a factory for six months, don't
ember do that, and then assembling airbags and uh. From there,
I was a firefighter in town. They paid my tuition
and you know, so I would do these kind of
(09:27):
relay firefighter relay type things and had a ton of
fun with that. And then was in exercise science getting
my degree and was going to be a strength coach
and found CrossFit. CrossFit was a way to kind of
scratch that itch turned it into a profession, and then,
you know, towards the back half of my career, really
started enjoying hunting and I was like, man, you know,
I can still compete and uh in in the woods
(09:49):
and and have some fun. And there's the team aspect
of it. You know, a lot of guys are you
know that solo thing.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
That's just not me.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Like, I'm cool with having one or two other guys
and being out there making it kind of a team sport,
even if we're not hunting the exact same area, but
we're out there and kind of working together. There was
that draw of it, the adventure of being out west,
and yeah, the competition. Man, I just I'm you know,
I'm not a goals guy per se, but I need
a target, right and so for me, I want to
be in the best shape as I can.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
You know, I'll do some off season for fun.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
CrossFit competitions that are partner or charity or whatever. Just
actually just finished one in Michigan last week, got another
one in two weeks and then it's elk season, you know.
And so the last two years I've done the Leadville
one hundred mountain bike race and that prepared me really
well for the mountains. And man, it's just you and
the animal. I think it was the first competition. I
think there's you know, all of your listeners are for
(10:42):
sure going to know that feeling. But it just feels
right right being out there, and there's something you can't
can't explain to somebody who's never been out west here
in bugles and and oh man, if there's just something
to it.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, it's awesome. And you touched on on the friending,
which we're going to talk a little bit more, you know,
when we get into the training. But but kind of
jokingly like, do your buddies just get mad if you
start tearing up a mountain and they can't keep up?
Or you one of those nice hunting buddies that like
waits for me, do you kind of always put concert
pressure on him to see if they're gonna break?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
See, it depends.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
I've got our camera guy, Scott, usually me and our
camera guy, and then Bird, another guy that hunts with us.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
He's off camera stuff to talk nice to him, but
we uh.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
You know, Scott, Scott's probably right right at six foot,
maybe a little over. I'm five nine, so I got
these stumpy, little short legs. We joke that I have
for suit mode. So if like we get on something,
I'm off, I'm gone right like we're trying to get
in position, and Scott, you know, he is right there
with me all the time, but maybe laboring a little
bit more. But then Scott has what we call go
(11:46):
home mode once we've realized, hey, the day's over, and
I'm kind of sulky at that point where he's gone.
He's got those long legs and he's gone, and I'm
I'm the one that's really trying to keep up with
him at that point. And so, you know, for the
most part, us three and and probably one or two
other guys, another guy Dave Curtis or Steve Stephen Gadberry
we hunt with.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Those guys are usually in shape.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
We all kind of you know, share workouts, share kind
of a training plan, what the plan is, so we're
all ready when we get there, and so nobody's kind
of nobody wants to be that guy to hold everybody back. However,
my best friend in the world, Matt.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
He never he's never prepared.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
First time we went to Montana, he thought he had rabdo,
thought were gonna to take him to the hospital. And
he tree stand hunted the next two days for Elk.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
And so you know, we got those buddies.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
And in this last year, we were on a rifle
hunt on a lease we have in Colorado, Man and
when Being Scott saw it, we all kind of saw
this hurd of Elk, and I was like, all right,
let's go, let's get in position. We get there and
Matt's probably five or six minutes, not five or six
minutes behind, but he was a good heavy three and
you know, I'd already killed two in archery. So I
(12:53):
set up this the tripod and I get the gun
ready and I'm like, you're ready, And he was the
complete surprise on his face that I let him take
this shot. I'm not known to let like if I
get there first, or I see it first, I'm taking
the shot.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
And uh And for some reason in my my my
heart or my soul or whatever. I was like, let
that take the shot and the complete look on it.
And you know, so I'm talking to him and he's like,
I can't hear you. My heart's beating in my ears.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
So it's you know, you got those guys that are
with you every once in a while.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, we've we've kind of whittled it down.
You know, physically, we're we're all we all got our
strengths and you know, my group of buddies I hunt with,
but like one thing I look for and we'll get
this in the training. We can we can even hit
on it now, is I I've cared less about the
physical side now, which which is like I want a
mental tough hunter because I don't want if I'm if
(13:42):
I'm in the dumps like you said, you know, you're
sulking on the way back to camp, Like I don't
want that to turn into like, well maybe we should
pack up camp and go stay the night at the
truck tonight versus you know, I need a buddy that's
that's strong. And so we've whittled down Like the group
that I hunt with with is like mental mental giants.
You know, just super tough. The game is like if
I'm down, you pick me up. If you're down, I'm
(14:03):
gonna not letting you quit. And uh, and then the
physical has always just worked it out and we're just
gonna jump into this now like the mental game like
I've always felt, and correct me if I'm wrong or
if you've got a different theory like physical game can
like prolong. The mental game is what. But it always
comes down to that mental game, whether you're gonna climb
that next mountain or whether you're gonna pack up. But
the better shape you're in, it's not gonna start knocking
(14:26):
at that mental that mental door.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Push threshold a little bit.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah, you've been through something worse than this, You've you've
been here like this isn't the worst that it can be,
and so it just kind of suppresses that voice in
your head like I'm fine, I'm for sure, I'm yeah,
the hunting is not great right now, but I'm gonna
be fine. We're gonna eventually figure it out. How much
of what you've did, how much of what you do
when you're hunting and pushing yourself, is that mental game
(14:51):
versus just like you know, letting the physical take over.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And I think it's ninety percent of it really, if
you're being one hundred percent honest and you can train that.
You know, my job for fourteen years or thirteen years,
however long it was, was literally to suffer better than
the person next to me. You know, there was people
that were probably more physically genetically gifted, but I hated
losing and that was my motivation for continuing to go.
(15:18):
And so, you know, pain tolerance, knowing that, hey, once
I stopped for a second, let the heart rate come down,
maybe let the legs flush a little bit, we'll go again,
you know. And even when you're climbing a super steep mountain,
I look at it as you know, we do a
ton of interval work.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
I think a lot of guys get stuck in the
like loh Man.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
We've done a couple of those meat eater Friday fitness
things and you get some guys on there that you know,
they want to argue and talk to you about you know,
energy systems, which I know all of that stuff too,
but man, there's something about doing stuff that's just hard,
resting for a minute, doing it again and knowing that, hey,
I've got eight sets of this and that, Hey, if
(15:57):
I slowed down, you know, like, there's just man, there's
just something about training and doing hard things, competing, getting
yourself out of your comfort zone regularly. You know, we
do these twenty four hour challenges on mountain bikes, or
we do a row twenty four hour on the row
machine with four people. You know, it's like team building
slash just mental check ins to make sure, hey we
(16:18):
haven't gotten soft in the last couple of weeks or months,
and you'd be surprised that what the body is capable
of as long as your your head's in it, and
if you've got other people there to share. Man, it's uh,
you can just as cliche as it is. I think
it's what if you want to go fast, go alone,
if you want to go far, go take others or
something minutes it's uh yeah, So I'd say ninety percent
(16:39):
mental for sure.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Gotcha. You mentioned interval training, you know, high intensity interval training,
which you know, uh connects really well with CrossFit in
particular translating to the mountain. So, like, is your approach
going up a mountain as You're gonna go one hundred
percent until you can't and then rest and do it
again or you you you know, I've got a buddy,
(17:01):
I don't know if you've heard of him, Ryan Lampers.
I've hunted with a little bit.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Oh yeah yeah, start all somebody Scott loves him.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah. So like that guy, like the first time before
I really got to know Ryan, you know, fifteen years
ago we had we happened to have the same bear
tag and he was just starting to talk about hunting
and we watched that guy like not take a break
and do a four thousand foot climb with his overnight,
you know, and you're like, well, how does like is
that better? Or would he you been faster if you ran?
Stop ran? But he didn't take a break for like
(17:30):
an hour and a half track And you're just like, well,
what's like the right thing? Like I always wonder because
I'm I'm an engineer, So I'm like, there's got to
be like an exact best way, and it might be
an exact best way for me and yours might be different.
But like should I go at a medium pace and
never stop or should I go as fast as I
can you know, can't breathe hunched over, catch my breath
and go again, Like is there a right answer, do
(17:52):
you even know the answer or is it truly up
to that individual's like cardiovascular are Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I think there's a ton of ton of different factors
that go into that, right you got. I mean when
you look at genetically, you've got different muscle fibers. Like
some people are more power athletes and they can repeat
power intervals. Some people are to that long slow you know,
pite has something to do with it, the grade of
the hill. There's so many factors that go into it.
I think it's just whatever you're gonna do to get
(18:19):
up that hill and not be too far behind or
not be too gassed by the time you get to
that hill. I you know, depending on how steep the
hill is, we might do more of it. Or if
i'm packing something out, yeah there's gonna be a maybe
a little bit fast quick, find a log to kind
of like take the pressure off your back, sit for
a second, and then go again.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
We train that way a ton.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
But also, you know, there's hills and grades that you're like,
all right, there's no reason. You just kind of put
it in, you know, crawl mode and you just just
get through it. And so I don't think there's I
think every situation has a little bit different and I
think training in many different ways. So you go into
you know, if you're going five minute stints, three minute stints,
(19:01):
if it's super steep, if it's whatever. You know, we
may change the intensity based on how long the interval
is and how long your rest is. And man, I
think it's just I think it's fun because it's it's
fun for me to try to figure out that's the
way my brain works, too, similar to where you know,
like which way's faster? And I think I think yes,
the answer is yes. I think some you know, you
have to be able to you need to have a
(19:22):
capacity to if you need to go short fast burst,
get steep, or if you you know, need to do
that long slow approach that's in your bag of tricks too.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yep, yep. So let's jump into this like individual style training.
You've trained at such a high level for so long,
but that that is to get the most out of you.
Do you think there's like a single style that works
for everyone or should is it truly individual? And with
that like or is there something that everybody should be doing,
you know as a general workout. But then to specialize
(19:52):
whether you know I've I've did everything butt CrossFit, I've
I used to bite, you know, twenty miles to a
small little town and then twenty miles back. I used
to you know, just put a fifty pound pack on
and try to do five or six miles and get
a hundred you know, a thousand feet and a hundred
floors in you know, lift it back in my younger
days in high school sports, you know, lifted heavy. Just
a big guy in general. So like lifting, he's been easy,
(20:14):
but tried to like maintain that is there? Is it individual?
And then when it is individual? One thing that I've
always wondered is like, well how do I figure out
Like you just have to do you know, bicycle riding
for a year and see what you feel like in
the mountains and then like well that was terrible, Like
now I'm gonna lift for a year. Like how do
you how do you dial in what the right thing
is for you?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
What I would tell you is you've done CrossFit, if
you've ran, if you've biked, if you've rode, if you
you know, lifted weights, if you've done body weight movements,
you've done cross it all, cross of it did was
take everything that was good in fitness and combine it
into one and then basically look at the science of.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
How the body works and how you fuel.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
And there's three energy systems, and we try to train
each energy system. We may do that separately by just
doing what you would call long slow monostructural stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Or we might do high intensity intervals.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
We might train that Fosagen or glycolytics system by doing
heavyweight would be the Fossagen glycolytics kind of that middle one.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And so I say, you train all.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Of those things right, And what I've what we've learned
through years of doing this is, you know, cross fit
or a version of CrossFit is really for bang for
your buck. You've got an hour, hour and a half
warm up, workout, cool down, You've got strength, you've got
heart rate, you've got you know. We try to change
(21:37):
up the time domains, we change up the movements. We've
what we've done with Mayhem Hunt is try to take
out a ton of the skill because that's what really
limits people on their intensity.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
So it's a lot of gruntwork. It's a lot of.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Picking sand bags up, carrying dumbells, carrying sand bags, stuff,
you'd use in the mountain and not doing as many
bar muscle ups or some of the high skilled gymnastics
stuff that guys and girls. One, it's gonna limit them,
limit their intensity in the workout, but it's also you know,
might cause some energy, but it might be our injury.
But every once in a while it's fun to like
get up there and do those things if you've got
(22:08):
the time. But yeah, most people have got an hour,
hour and a half. And so what we want to
do is change up the stimulus, you know, heavy, light, moderate,
We want to go short, fast intervals with long breaks.
We want to go kind of one to one, or
we want to just grind for an hour.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
You know, there's if you you don't want every want
to get in.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
A situation and be like, oh man, I'm not you know,
this is not what I'm I was prepared for. So
we try to like touch as many of those different
things and those different energy systems and different movement patterns.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
And heavyweight, lightweight, moderate weight.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Again.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
So I think the more diverse your training can be,
the better off you're going to be.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Gotcha, you you kind of answer my next question, you know,
just just to put you in a situation if someone
only has thirty to four minutes a day, what kind
of training would they prioritize? Runing season, So you're you're
like CrossFit gym style training or you know if you
could do it at home, Like is that would you
recommend bike one day and then lift a different day?
Or do you think you should try to exercise and
(23:07):
do all that and want like a quick fifteen minute
max you know max bike ride and then you know,
like what what would be? You know, like the ideal
you have you can train four days a week and
you got thirty to forty minutes a day like getting
ready for the mountain and average outdoorsman.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Yeah, I think one your foundation needs to be you've
got to get time on your feet, right. You need
to have have a pack on, so a rock twice
a week, you know, thirty forty minutes if you can
find hills, find hills, and then I think on those
off days or those days where you're not outside hell,
you can still be outside, grab a cooler, grab some dumbbells,
grab a jump rope, and you can do kind of
(23:43):
circuit their CrossFit workouts. You know, once again, CrossFit's just
taken all these things that worked for years and combined
it into one package and just kind of defined it right,
And you know that's the beauty of kind of what
we do is we've got different levels for people. Kind
of the highest level, you've got a little bit of everything.
We got kind of the middle of the road. You've
got everything, but you don't quite have the fitness or
(24:03):
you don't have your very limited equipment, and you know,
you just show up and you can do it at
the house on an app or whatever.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
But and it's just getting people moving.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
And something that they enjoy and kind of look forward
to and feel they may not look forward to it,
but they feel better when they're done.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah, I think you just you need to expose yourself
to as many different things and kind of you know,
obviously within reason and have a plan.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
One of the things that I did is because I
live in Washington, Western Washington, where we get seventy inches
or eighty year, and I bought myself one of those
I call the you know, the Devil's Ladder, but it's
it's not it's basically a reverse escal era steps right there,
just never.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Ending steps and step sa master.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah. It does. I mean you can you know, crank
the intensity up? You can do that, But I just
get bored as So that's like one thing I fight
is like I'm just it's literally step after step, watching
a screen that tells me how high I've climbed, and
I'm yeah, it's great. But how one thing that I
think a lot of people can benefit from. I'm stubborn
(25:15):
and too dumb, Like I know where I need to
be to get in the mountains and be successful. So
I'll just force myself through it, like you know, mentally tough,
not giving myself that much credit, but I just do
what I need to do. Why it's raining, But I
think a lot of people just get bored. Is there
a way to work at excitement? Like should people be
like trying to beat their last pr So I'm so competitive,
like I've never got on that stair climber and not
(25:37):
beat what I did the day before in the day
before that, even if it's one step. And if I'm
having a I if I'm having a crappy day, I'm like, well,
i might need an extra two minutes, but I'm not
getting off of this until like I beat yesterday's steps.
But do you have any advice for like keeping in
you know, the the training fund and engaging and not
(25:57):
people like giving up like, man, I just don't want
to use thirty minutes and do this and get bored.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Work out with people, I mean that's the most fun
for me.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
You know, Like if you've got a buddy that you're
on the StairMaster for five minutes, you know, they may
be doing a little five minute am rap what we
would say a wrap as many reps as possible of
like ten burpies ten or one hundred foot lunch or
you know, like just different things and then you guys flip,
but you're still like you're trying to one You're trying
to one up him what he got on his steps.
(26:28):
You may be trying to beat him on whatever round
you're doing. And then you just keep doing that and
kind of cycling through. That was one one thing to do, yeap.
Working out with people's is what it's all about.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Really.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
It builds that camaraderie.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
It gives you somebody to hold accountable, even if it's
a virtual like hey, I'm doing this workout today, I'll
let you know my well. We never share times on
whatever we're doing until after, like you both finish the
workout and then you share times because it's always easier
to beat somebody's time when you know it's their time.
You know, it gives that a little bit of competitive
it makes it fun. And then you know there's something
(27:03):
to the monotonous, boring stuff because it's sometimes you mentally
you need that. But yeah, you definitely need to change
it up every once in a while of you know,
throwing some you know, five minutes on the climber, rest
for a minute or two and try to increase the
intensity there and try to get you know, as many
steps as you can in five minutes, rest a little bit,
(27:24):
go again, or change up the movement and come back
to it, or you know, do ten flights of stairs,
ten push ups and do that for thirty minutes, you know,
cause there you know, I think there's you need a
lot of upper body maybe you know, drawing a bow, uh, falling,
you know, like the stronger you are, because I mean,
how many times are you going to fall off some
dead ball or you know, slip on the side of
(27:46):
a hill and if you don't have that strength or
you know that reaction to you know, stop yourself all
out of this is is, Yeah, you want to be
prepared in the mountains, but you also want to try
to prevent injury as much as possible. So the stronger
you are, the better off you're going to be. And
so doing some upper body stuff, I think that gets
lost in the weeds a lot where guys are like,
I don't want to get too big upper body because
(28:06):
you know it's going to slow me down in the mountains.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
But I've not found that to be true.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Gotcha? Can you touch on like the mental So before
I get to the mental side, how hard should you
push it in to work out? Are you a heart
rate guy? Are you just self driven to I'm just
going to push his heart I mean you mentioned earlier
one of your biggest things where you're able to suffer
more or endure more of that at the end is
that it was a difference like what's the right target
(28:31):
when you're training it. Should it be a heart rate thing?
Should it be as hard as you can go and
forget about all of that. Should it be a distance thing?
Like what's what's your opinion on that? And then I'm
going to segue that into like how do you push
through those mental barriers? And just ye. You know, do
you have any tips or tricks to push it harder?
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Yeah, I think you know, once again, whatever works, Like,
if you think you need a heart rate monitor, go
for it. I think there's some value to doing some long, slow,
what we call zone two work that's going to raise
your your floor on your your heart rate stuff. I've
been doing it for I've been working out for twenty
plus years, so I know what it feels like. I
(29:10):
know kind of what the stimulus of a workout is
or what the goal of a workout is, So I.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
I don't really I don't. I don't wear a heart
rate monitor a ton.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
I did a little bit while I was training for
Leadville last year, and I do wear a whoop just
to like, you know, at the end of the day
kind of know what what I've done and you know,
track some of those things. But for the most part,
it's just all intuitive, and once again, you want to
change up that stimulus.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I think there's some.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Days where you you know, you want to just kind
of get in their conversational pace, which what we would
probably call zone two and just move for a long time.
And then there's some days that we want to all right,
we want to burn up the legs, and so we're
gonna do two minutes of you know, a leg centric
couplet or triplet, two or three movements and you know,
try to get as much as we can there and
(29:58):
burn the legs out rest and then you know, build
some lactate and then try to flush out a little bit.
So there's like, you know, it's hard to you know,
give one or two things.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
That's kind of the value of what we do with
maham Hunt is is you know, you'll get a work
out every day and you'll know the stimulus and hey,
this is what we want you to do. This is
where you push, this is where you don't push, This
is you know, just move at this point.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
And so it's fun for me. That's the stuff that
I enjoy the most.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
And I nerd out on is like looking at a
workout trying to dissect it all right, or building a
workout like that. I I I know, all right, hey,
this is going to prepare for September when we hear
a bugle, you know, and we've got to go up
and down and over and through and then I've got
to calm down and take a shot, you know, like,
we like to do a lot of heart rate stuff
where we're adding in a shot.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
So there's that's a good way to add in some fun.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
You know when people are like, ah, it's just so
boring every two to three minutes of a you know
of your staremaster hop offchet an arrow at twenty and
trying to calm that heart rate down to make that
make a good shot. A lot of people are gonna
be like, oh, it just creates target panic and all that.
I you know, I I disagree. It's it's helped me
be able to really just concentrate on the shot, block
(31:11):
out the noise, take a good shot. Now I'm not
doing all of my shooting at a high heart rate,
but it adds some fun to some Zone two sessions
that are forty minutes long.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Yeah. Yeah, I was just kind of curious, Like I know,
on that that stepper, like one sixty eight to one
seventy two, I can go at that pace all day.
It's pretty high. But like I'm I'm comfortable in that zone.
But as soon as I get to like one seventy five,
like things are starting to fade, Like performance is going
to start going down, and so I just and now
I paid so much attention to that stupid thing on
(31:40):
the machine. Like I can tell like when I'm out,
when I'm out hiking in the woods, like oh, getting
above one seventy two, you know, like start.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
But that's good to know, man, That's that's that's why
you do it, is because you got to know it. Hey,
the wheels are about to fall off, and I'm not
going to be able to make this shot or I'm
not gonna be able to continue to go. And so
what I would say is, you know, if you're doing that,
maybe for two or three minutes, hit that one seventy five,
then back it down for four or so minutes back
to that like one fifty five one sixty. Yeah, back
(32:09):
like you could play around with that a ton and
just you know, it might edge that up to where
you get more comfortable in that range. But you're not
gonna be able to stay in that range for twenty minutes.
It's just not not it's.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
What you can't do.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
And so you know, I would argue that, hey, man,
that's that's great that you know that and you know
that feeling. And that's what we're trying to show people
is there's benefit you know, obviously there's benefit because you're
getting physically stronger, getting mentally stronger, but you also know
your body a whole lot more and know that hey,
you know, stuff starting either to shut down or I'm
(32:41):
you know, I couldn't make it detrimental for the rest
of the hunt.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Yep, yep. So switching gears a little bit still definitely
affect performance. So you know there's a training side, but
then there's also the food that goes through the mouth.
You know, any supplementation, Like how how much does that
affect the performance and the ability to recover in the mountain?
Is performing the mountains and you know, be just as
strong on day one as you are on day ten,
you know, on a long, tough hunt.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah, I think it's huge.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
I think you know, that's another thing when you're you're training,
uh to kind of either track or just know that
what's going into your body. Like I know, if I'm
you know, normal kind of training, I'm one hundred grams
of fat, two hundred grams of car or two hundred
grams of protein, and about four hundred grams of carbs.
Three hundred and four hundred grams of carbs, and you
(33:30):
don't think you know when you're just kind of trudging
along just you know, depending on if you're doing a
ton of glassing or getting to a spot or still
hunting or whatever, your body you're just moving all day
and so you you consume way more calories than you think.
And so I think being you know, obviously you don't
want to be in too too high of a surplus,
(33:53):
but you'd never want to get in a deficit. And
just knowing that and knowing how your body reacts to
different carbohydrates, different types of protein, fat, and and a
lot of that stuff's got to be light if you're
carrying it, and you don't want to have a heavy pack.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
And so.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Yeah, I think it's getting to know those things and
knowing that about your body. Usually they say a ground
a gram of protein per pound of body weight, usually
pretty good rule of thumb. And then you know, depends
on how much physical activity you're doing with with fat
and protein, I mean fat and carbohydrate, and so those
are the two that you kind of can mess around
with a little bit. But yeah, I think you know
(34:30):
everybody's that's another thing where everybody's just different. Like some
people can can be fat adapted where they burn fat
instead of carbs, and some people need a lot more carbs.
And something that I've learned is over the years that
I do really well with carbs and and feel better, more.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
More recovered with carbohydrate. And then sleep.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
You know, if you're training in the off season as
much sleep as you can, mountains are going to be
way different. So you don't want to have a bunch
of bad sleep nights and then go into the mountain
because it's not going to get any better.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Usually, yeah, yeah, And what twenty nineteen, I trained hard
and then was able to like try to carry Keto
into the mountains with me, you know a lot of
coconut oils and and you know, f bombs and all
these things like trying to get the calories in and
and it was a weird feeling where I couldn't go,
you know, like you said that that that last last
couple hundred yards, like I didn't have anything in the
(35:24):
tank to run. But I felt like I my like
in the middle that that like slow steady pace was amazing,
Like I could do that all day long with better
And so it's like I traded maybe some high end
performance for for like just all out, you know, fat
adapted energy, and it was like a weird mix. But
then my typical years, you eat good trying to get
(35:45):
in shape, you know, knock off of five pounds or
whatever is you're training before a season. Then you switch
over to skittle snickers and you know, mountain house freeze
dried and you feel terrible. But then like once you
get there, once you're kind of you know, hooked on
the simple sugars. It's almost like you're body, you know,
complains not not having them, Like, hey, you're not gonna
be able to climb this next little bit unless you
(36:06):
have some you know, sour patch kids. You know, like
it's almost like your body and it's like, you know,
I pay a lot of attention, but you're like, gosh,
I don't really want to eat any more, you know,
simple candy. But that's kind of the rut I fall
into every year. And uh, you know, pack packing all
that protein in the mountains is sometimes tough and you
go into a deficit. Well you know better than I do, Like,
(36:28):
all right, you're burning all this you know energy, you're
not you know, feeding your muscles with any protein. So
you're like, oh, I'll get by on sixty seventy grams
and it's just not.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
It's not conducive.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yeah, you almost got to figure out and get get
creative with it. Yeah, I mean what I look at
it is it's a competition week weekend.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
You know, when we compete at the Games for years.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Man, well, and your stomach's kind of not from just
you know, the stress of competing, which, man, hunting, to
me is the most relaxing and most stressful time of
the year.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
You know, I come back better.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
But in it, man, the the the emotional roller coaster
of oh hey, maybe just over this hill there's something there,
or in this next group of heavy timber there's something here,
and then you know, you build that up and then
you're back in an aspen flat the middle of the
day and you're like, this sucks. There's nothing here, you know,
and man, there's just such an emotional roller coaster. So
it's almost like a competition week So during those kind
of competition weekends or weeks, man, it's it's simple sugars.
(37:23):
It's you know, stuff that I wouldn't normally eat throughout
the year, but it works, right. It's it's quick, it's light,
it's what I got to eat. It's not optimal, it's
not healthy. You know, people are like, well, you know,
that's not good for you, and it's not good for
the environment or whatever.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. And
you know, i'd be lying to say that we don't
do that.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
You know, I do a lot of We'll bring those
kind of apple sauce packets or you know, to try
to clean it.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Up a little bit. You know, yeah, that does seem
to help.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
But man, i'd be lying to say, little Debbie or
you know, for us, it's a peanut butter and jelly
regularly in the pack. I usually have one for lunch
and then another one as soon as we finish that
last climb, just to give us something to look forward to,
and usually make it the night before, so it's nice
and like soggy and kind of just all mashed together.
(38:10):
But man, there's something about that sandwich when you get
to the top of that last hill.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, yeah, that's you know. I went through the phase
of like those little gels, you know, the gu jels
or the cliff gels, and it's like, man, this is
like lead straight to you know, diabetes. But yeah, it
would it does work in the moment, you know, and
your legs are bonking and and nothing seems to be working,
and it is a is a pick me up, but yeah,
(38:36):
it's and that's the stuff where I think people just
have to play with what your body needs, you know,
if you eat this way down on the you know,
at home, and what do you need the mountains or
what can you get by with without it being too
detrimental to your performance? And and some guys, you know,
I've got buddies that have you know, got pulled away
from Spike Camp, slept under a tree and didn't have
food for days, you know, but that's what they're willing
(38:56):
to do for success. And so yeah, your body will
run on it. It's just definitely off.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
It'll figure it out.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Yeah, yeah, just figure it out. Uh. So let's kind
of close out the whole, uh training or supplementation, Like
what do you feel like is there is there something
that like people need to avoid? Is there bad information
out there? Like is there major mistakes people do with
training or food or just like put a button on
this whole you know topic. I know we didn't get
(39:21):
super deep into it, but you know.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Man, I think that there's a you know, the myth
that there's the perfect training system out there. I think
everybody's different, everybody's time is different, everybody, what everybody enjoys
is different. I think, you know, doing something is better
than nothing. The best program and the best diet. Really
it goes to nutrition as well. It's something that you're
(39:47):
going to continue to do. Obviously on diet, the more
you can stay away from anything processed. I think, you know,
having a freezer full ELK meet out here year round
helps a ton with that. Trying to eat as many
you know, steal from CrossFit high you know, lean meats, nuts, seeds,
some fruit, little starch, no sugar. If you can abide
(40:07):
by that seventy to eighty percent of the time, you're
gonna be doing pretty darn good. And then you know,
don't get too uh, too strict with it at times, man,
it's it's enjoy life and have some fun. But I
think fitness, fitness is something that's gonna There's gonna be
times where it's it's a ton of fun and you
look forward to it, and there's times that are it's
gonna be monotonous and you're gonna hate it. But I
(40:29):
think both times are beneficial, right, And so it's just man,
it's just consistency over a long, long period of time
is what's gonna pay off.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Yeah. And you know, one saying that I've kind of
looked to is don't don't don't be motivated to work
out and eat clean, like be disciplined, because motivation is
gonna fluctuate, where discipline is just alwishing yourself to do it.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah, the most thing don't last long.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Yeah, And for me, I got to a point where
I was, you know, headstrong enough that like I really
don't want to get on this machine when I used
to work out at a commercial gym, like I don't,
And then I would like, no, that's what you're doing,
you little you know, your little pansy, Like go get
on that machine. If that's the one that you were
dreading today, then you're gonna spend more too on it.
And and yeah, So it's it was that discipline of like,
(41:14):
get up, do the work every day, and like you said,
even if you're doing it wrong, if you're sweating and
you're breathing hard and you're getting stronger, like it's better
than sleeping in or or not getting to work out.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
At all man.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
Yeah, I think it is consistency. Just consistency, Yeah, that discipline.
So yeah, now we're gonna switch switch gears a little bit.
Make an announcement here. You know, I always want to
talk to Rich. I love the aspect of health and fitness.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
But we're also gonna make an announcement here for the
Meat Eater brand of podcasts. We are excited to announce it.
Rich is going to be kind of taking over this channel.
He's going to be the new host of what we're
calling In Pursuit I believe right in Pursuit podcast. Yeah,
and uh so excited to make that announcement. I think
(41:59):
it mirrors. First episode is going to drop on the
fourteenth of August four. Dirk and I will produce the
episodes up until that point, and Dirk and I aren't
going anywhere. We're still going to deliver twelve episodes a
year under the Cutting the Distance podcast name. I believe
it's gonna live under the podcast. It's like a special.
But this is going to give both Rich the ability
(42:22):
to dive deeper into in Pursuit and some of these
topics that we covered today. I'll let him explain here
in a second. But this will also give Dirk and
I the ability to focus more on Phelps game calls,
which is really what our job should be. But then
when we when we do produce these twelve episodes, we're
going to dive deeper into the tactics, techniques, the technical side,
(42:45):
bring on the right biologists and try to interweave you know,
hunting hunting tactics in with the biology and and hopefully
it delivers a better podcast because we can only talk
so many times about how to kill turkey, how to
kill a dear, how to kill an elk. We want
to dive a little deeper. And so I think this
is gonna be a new voice, some fresh energy for
the podcast. And so you're taking over the rains Rich,
(43:07):
taking it in a little bit new direction. So what's
the vision behind in Pursuit and where's this podcast going? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (43:16):
I think, man, I think it's exactly what we've we've
been talking about. But it's bringing in guys and girls
that are are professionals and you know, whatever they're doing
and kind of trying to pick their brain on you know,
the one percenter. So you know, the first couple we've had,
we've done for so far, we've got Kip Folks, Joel Turner,
which was incredible, Zach Seeler played or plays defensive tackle
(43:36):
for the Miami Dolphins, Big Hunter, Nate Illingsworth, He's lost.
He's pretty funny on social media. He's lost I think
eighty or one hundred pounds, just like a guy that
you could relate to, you know. Kip obviously started and
was a part of Under Arm and Joel Turner his
stuff's incredible, shooting shot iq and man, it's just nerding
out honestly, you know, for my own personal you know,
(43:59):
uh uh, I guess health and and learning from these
guys and and kind of figuring out how myself to
be a better hunter. I feel like we've got the
fitness side pretty nailed down, and obviously it's an obsession
of mine, and so to learn and kind of marry
all these guys are into some type of fitness and
maybe show them kind of our world as well. And
(44:20):
so we'll have some kind of episodes that will go
along with it on YouTube of us kind of hanging out,
working out and them kind of talking about their specialty too,
and then we'll sit down and have an actual podcast
of what we talked about and what we've learned. So
I think selfishly, for me, it's to learn a little bit,
but also you know, to show everybody else they kind
of these outliers or top one percenters and people that
(44:42):
are super relatable as well.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Yeah, it's it's funny how those type of people gravitate
towards each other, right, Like you know, you doing you know,
CrossFit at such a high level. You're like, well, I
want to go talk to the guy that is the
equivalent on the business side, you know, under armor, you
cap and then yep, I want to go talk to
the guy that's the equivalent of an archery trainer, you know,
you go grab Joel and and so the I love
talking businesses in general, and it's like I want to
(45:05):
talk to the guys that around the biggest, most successful.
I want to talk to guys like you you know,
and I want to learn and yeah, and and that's
just asking the questions from your perspective, and I think
people will get a lot out of that. So what
do you hope people take away from in pursuit, you know,
whether they're a hardcore hunter just getting into it, you know,
looking just to level up in life, Like, what's the
goal and what do you hope people can take away from,
(45:26):
you know, tuning into your podcast.
Speaker 3 (45:28):
Yeah, I think it's uh, first of all, I think
it hope, hope they'll take something away that maybe they
can learn from somebody that makes them a better person.
And then obviously some little thing that they can do
to become a better hunter as well. You know, each
of these guys that we've had on so far, man,
I've I've learned quite a bit from and you know,
I think there's just there's more than one way to
skin the cat obviously, and that Man, it's just fun.
(45:52):
It's fun, it's a cool space. There's a bunch of
cool people doing it, and uh, you know the outdoor
outdoor world is awesome, and so yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Think it's it's to take at least a piece.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
Of something from each of these guests that they can
implement in day to day life.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah. Awesome, awesome. Yeah, the hunting world, I can I
can make you know, vouch for that. Like the hunting world.
I've been hunting for thirty five years, kind of been
quote unquote in the industry for twenty years, and it's
just a great group of people. You know, you good guys,
a lot of people willing to share information. So I
think you're gonna you know, you're gonna have a blast.
You know, you already know a ton, but you're gonna
(46:29):
get to meet a bunch more. And and uh, I'm
looking forward to tuning in and you know, seeing what
your guests have to say, and you know you sharing
more of your stuff. And really appreciate having you on
the podcast today, rich and wish you all the best
kind of taking this thing over in the future.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
God appreciate it. Jason, Yeah, it's been awesome. Hopefully we
uh don't let everybody down. Uh listen to to what
you guys have done for years.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
I think I think you're gonna be just fine. Thanks
for joining, and good luck to fall. If I don't
talk to you before then I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Brother.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Yep, take care
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