March 20, 2025 • 28 mins
This week we sit down with Olympic gold medalist and world champion gymnast, Shawn Johnson East, as she shares her inspiring journey. Shawn opens up about her childhood, getting into gymnastics, and the intense training that led her to become a world champion. She takes us behind the scenes of the unforgettable 2008 Beijing Olympics, where she captured gold and made history, and reflects on the emotional highs and challenges of competing on the world stage. Shawn also discusses life after the Olympics, balancing motherhood, overcoming injuries, and finding fulfillment beyond gymnastics. Shawn concludes with some words of wisdom to other aspiring athletes.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
What is up?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Runner Gang, Welcome back to Post Run High. I'm your
host Kate Max and today I got to move with
an absolute legend, Sean Johnson. Sean and I ran a
couple of blocks through New York City because as always
we believe movement sparks the best conversations. After catching our breath,
we sat down for the conversation you're about to listen to.
Sean is a two thousand and eight Olympic gold medalist,
(00:25):
a mom, an entrepreneur, and so much more. We got
into everything her journey from a lee, gymnastics and her
teens to life today, and how movement still plays a
role in her life beyond sports before we dive in,
don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for full
video episodes. Also follow us on socials for behind the
scenes content at Kate Max And if you're a loving
(00:45):
post friend High, send this episode to a friend. All right,
let's get into it. Hey guys, Welcome back to Post
Run High. I'm here today with Sean Johnson.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Thank you for having me. How's it going?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Good Shohn? What brings you to New York?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
I launched a new kids supplement that I was really
excited about It's called them kids, So I'm just trying
to promote it.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Sean and I ran a couple of Brooklyn blocks. I'm curious,
how is the run for you?
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Are you a runner? I am not a runner.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I have ran, I've ran a bunch of like half
marathons back in the day, but by nature, it like
does not come easy.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I get that.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, what does your fitness look like now? Like, what
is a go to fitness routine for you?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
I lift heavyweight and that is what makes my body
feel the best, feel the strongest. But like I'm in
the gym lifting doing like kettlebells, doing Olympic lifts.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Olympic lifts.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, it's so wild because so much of your life
was spent training as an elite athlete, did your relationship
with fitness ever change?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I mean, I started gymastics when I was three. I
made the national team at twelve, so I went elite
at twelve, and then I retired at twenty. So I
was an elite gymnast for eight years and trained probably
twenty to thirty hours a week in the gym, never
lifted weights, never did like running or anything like that,
and always with a coach and a way with the coach,
they told me exactly what to do. After that, I
(02:17):
kind of ran straight into a brick wall because when
I retired, I didn't even know how to go into
like a fitness center. I didn't know what to do
with a dumbell. I didn't know how to work out
without a coach, and kind of started this whole journey
of like working with personal trainers. I ended up getting
certified as a trainer for a while just because I
really wanted to learn. I went on to learn about nutrition, psychology.
(02:40):
I ended up studying just like trying to learn how
to just be a normal human being.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Right. No, but that's so true, and I feel like,
regardless of the sport, I think that is a very
common experience that people go through. I have two brothers
that played lacrosse at Yale, which was a D one program,
and they won a national championship, and similar to your experience,
like they were at school with a coach with their
team training. Once you're done playing your sport, it's weird
finding your rhythm as an athlete. It is important to
(03:07):
do what you did and like educate yourself and learn,
and I think that's so cool that you always wanted
to kind of challenge yourself athletically always.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
I mean I definitely went those through those like dry
spells too, where I became like very unhealthy because I
was either doing way too much or way too little.
I went through a session of my life where like
I was doing four different workouts today because I thought
that's what you needed to do, and I would go
do Barry's boot camp and then do you know peloton
and then go for a walk or I was way
too much. And then I went through a season of
(03:36):
life where I was like, you know what, I hate
working out and I am done with that. And I've
since come around after having babies for the past six
years to truly like loving it again and wanting to
just truly find like strength and normal cadence and my
passion is for it now.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
All right, let's rewind a little bit. I want to
know about your early life. So you grew up in Iowa.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yes, I grew up in Des Moines, Westmoine, Iowa in Iowa,
Des Moines and West and Wine is different. So West Waine,
Iowa is where I grew up and I was there
until I was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I loved it.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
It was the most perfect Midwest town, the most supportive town.
They truly like, uplifted my journey, my dream to be
an Olympic gymnast, and yeah, had a very normal Midwest
blue collar life.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
What was your family like though, because at four years
old you started gymnastics right, and was it a sport
that you immediately took a liking to.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yes and no.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
So my parents put me in gymnastics because I was
a very very crazy, rambunctious child that thought I could fly,
and I kept finding myself in the er. I literally
jumped off like our stairwell. I jumped off the top
of an entertainment center. I cracked my head open a
bunch of times, and my parents were like, we need
an outlet for her, so they put me in.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Ballet, and I refused to listen.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
I kept doing cartwheels, so I pretty much got kicked out,
and then they ended up finding it gymnastics gym and
I fell in love with the trampoline because it reinforced
the idea that I could fly, so I just kept
going back. But over the course of my childhood I
did so many sports. I played soccer, softball, swimming, track,
I sprinted, never long distance.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
By twelve years old, you were seriously competing in gymnastics.
So when did you put those other sports on the
back burner and say, Okay, I want.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
To go all in gymnastics.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So that was something really beautiful about my family. My family,
in a beautiful way, pushed.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Against me my whole life.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
So they wanted nothing more than for me to just
be a normal kid, because they kind of didn't. They
came from very extreme lives. But gymnastics was truly just
the last man standing. It wasn't always just gymnastics or nothing.
And when I was twelve, I made it to the
highest level in gymnastics, which is wild. I was a child,
I was a baby and started traveling internationally and competing
(05:52):
for the US.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Now that you are a mom of three, your five
year old, it's not that far away from twelve, right.
What is your perspective now on the life you lived?
Now having kids.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
It feels psychotic. That's a harsh word to use, but
I cannot imagine. I don't know how my parents did it,
and I now understand so much more kind of the
pain that my parents went through. My mom always says
she felt like she was losing her daughter because I
spent so much time at the gym willingly and she
literally would like ask me before practice, She's like, are.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
You sure you want to go?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Like we can go to the mall, I'll take you shopping,
we can go get ice cream. And it was truly
it was always led by me, but it was truly
like the love of my life.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
To get to the level that you got to. How
many hours are you training? What does your typical day
look like?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
My training regimen was that like very different than the
stereotypical gymnast in the day. My coach had a completely
different view on how to do everything, and he kind
of turned the sport to a certain extent on its
head because he proved you could do it a different way.
I attended public school with my whole career. It was
a requirement by my coach. We couldn't leave school early,
(07:03):
like we had to have good grades. We school was
a focus. So I went to school and then I
go to practice from four to eight, and I did
that Monday to Friday. Saturdays, I went nine to noon.
I would take an hour for lunch and then I'd
do one to three and then we had Sundays off
and on Sundays, we were always instructed. We had very
very strict guidelines that we were never allowed to work
(07:24):
out outside of the gym, So if we were ever caught,
like at a fitness center or going for a run,
we would have consequences where we couldn't come back to practice.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Wow, And was that kind of a sneaky thing that
people wanted to do just because you couldn't.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
I think our coach started seeing the obsessions of it
start to kick in the higher level we got, and
his entire focus, which I was so blessed to have him,
his entire focus my whole career was protecting me as
a kid and making sure that I still had this
like obsession and passion for gymnastics and that didn't burn out.
So he would have us like skip practice to go
(07:58):
to school dances or go to a football game.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Or in the summer, I remember he would finish.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Practice like a half hour early and we would play
outside and like he bought all these like bounce houses
and we'd have like carnivals. He was just a giant
kid and he wanted to protect that in us, right.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
And he wanted you guys to feel like you were
living a normal childhood, right, which I'm sure your parents
were so grateful for too.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So what is like the traditional pathlight?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
All the girls were homeschooled or they would school at
the gym, and they were training eight to nine hours
a day, so they were doing two four hour sessions
every day. A lot of girls were working out all
seven days a week with no off season of any kind.
There was no social life, and it was truly just
like this sheltered un I think healthy view of more
(08:46):
is better when I think that truly just leads to
like negative returns and burnout. And we've seen a lot
of pushback on the traditional back in my generation way,
which I think is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
What is the gymnastics schedule?
Speaker 3 (09:00):
We'll like, So, gymnastics is year round. There's no off
season ever, so we are in the gym every week.
There's no week off, which I am kind of against.
I would love to see that kind of change. Maybe
I think seeing kids take time off as a good thing.
But the gymnastics cycle in a year works basically like
and it shifts based off of what level you're in,
(09:20):
but say the elite level, there are competitions year round.
We would probably wait them heavier in the first six
months of the year. The Olympics usually always fall in
the summer, so we're like prepping to compete in the summer.
As an elite athlete, you probably have three major competitions
you're prepping for.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
A year of the year.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
And oh wow, so most of the time as a
gymnast is spent training.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Always when you're growing up in like the recreational levels
or like the lower competitive levels, you probably have. It's
been so long, so I could be completely off on this,
but maybe like eight to ten a year, but that's
within a season, so that might be eight weekends back
to back or eight every other weekends kind of in
the fall, but it's usually like the fall season.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
At what point into your gymnastics career did you take
it from those lower levels into the higher levels pretty quickly?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Gymnastics has this like scale where essentially you start at
like a level one, and every year you're going up
a level. So you go to competitions and if you
meet requirements and you get certain scores, then that qualifies
you by your roster to unlock the next level. And
then after you've completed all like ten levels, you can
(10:47):
opt to try for the Olympic level, which is called Elite.
So I just did that over ten years pretty much.
So I started qualifying when I was five.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I think twelve years old you made TMUSA and then
fifteen U one World All Around Champion.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
What did those years look like? To get from Okay?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Making tm USA is a huge accomplishment and then all
of a sudden, it's like you're at the level where
you're winning this incredible accolade.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
I would love to be able to give you the strategy,
but because I was so young, it was all my
coach who was like strategizing how to get me there.
But it was essentially when I was twelve, I qualified
to my very first US Championships and that's where I
qualified to the team. From there, it just I started
traveling internationally and doing the international circuit is like as
(11:35):
we call it, and that's where I started just getting
reps in on the world stage and seeing what the
competition looked like and kind of gauging from there, what
do I need to get better at and get stronger
at and where are my scores in comparison to the
girls who will be at the Olympics. In a few years,
and it was kind of like just going into all
(11:56):
these different world markets and seeing the Chinese, the Russians,
the Romanians, the Brazilians, the Australians, and saying, Okay, here's
where I am. Now what do I need to go
shopping for in the world of skills and master to
be able to go to the next market and win.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
At what point do.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
You feel like your life really changed and you were
suddenly in the public eye.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
I would say it started at fifteen when I won
World Championships. Things started to shift where I had companies
coming to me and saying we'd like to market you
for the Olympics. And I think that made it harder
because up until then I didn't really have that noise
around me. But the year leading up to the Olympics,
it was a It was a fine balance of trying
to stay focused on getting there and appeasing the marketing,
(12:45):
which is what you also want because you want the
eyeballs and you want.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
To make a living, right, And what was the like
in school.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
It's gonna sound really weird, but I always said I
kind of lived like a hand on montannel life.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Right. It is a double life.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
It really was where I never ever talked about gymnastics
in school. I wanted to be Joe Schmoe at school.
I didn't want to be recognized. I didn't want people
to know about this like outside life, but I just
like never shared about it, and so I would go
to school and just be like me, and then afterwards
I'd go to practice and like win world championships and.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Just the casual life after school.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And then did you end up graduating high school or
did you have to take a step back?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
It was very interesting.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
I completed the Olympics as a junior in high school,
so I ended up leaving high school to go to China.
Took my home, like my homework with me, and then
after it always sounds weird to say this, but after
the Olympics, I didn't realize what would happen, like the notoriety,
and so it unfortunately didn't allow me to go back
(13:47):
to public school because of like security for kids and
just like the safety, so I ended up having to
homeschool my last year before I graduated.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I liked the double life reference.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Really being able to enjoy your child and enjoy being
in public school with your friends like that is kind
of a hard shift, especially at a young age.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
It was I didn't expect it because I truly just
expected to go back to high school.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
You're like, I've already got this sport thing going on,
Like why can't I just go back to school? But
I was.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
I was also like applying to colleges, and I was
excited to go see my counselor and be like, Okay,
let's get my applications in and like all these things.
But it it was a it's a blessing being able
to like do that.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Is it when you're already a professional athlete you can't
go and play the sport in college.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Yeah, So before NIL, I had to have a very
hard conversation because I dreamt of competing in college gymnastics.
College gymnastics and back in the day was like where
you went and had fun in gymnastics, and it wasn't
like the serious elite world. It's since now take it a
whole different level, so like truly elite gymnasts are competing
(14:48):
in college at an elite level. But when I was
twelve and I was deciding between that, I basically had
to sit down with an agent because I got scouted
and it was this option of you can go pro
and you can take endorsements and money, or you cannot
and like.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Preserve your eligibility.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
So I could have competed at the Olympics and preserved
my eligibility, but it made sense for me to be
able to like cover my expenses.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Exactly, yeah, exactly, because it makes sense. It's like, you
have all these incredible brands coming to you. It's kind
of an opportunity to just have this incredible moment in
time and moment in your life.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
You can't not you can't turn that down.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
And at the time, my two big things that I
had on my list to check off was like, I
wanted to compete in college, but my biggest dream, this
is gonna sound weird, was to be an orthopedic surgeon.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
And I wanted to get my education from Stanford.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
So I was kind of like weighing those and I thought,
by the time I competed at the Olympics, I might
be burnt out of gymnastics. So at least I could
pay my way to go to college and become a doctor.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
And you got into.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Stanford, I yes, yeah, we have to say that. Did
wanting to become an orthopedic surgeon. Income before, after the ac.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Altears, way before, I wanted to be a doctor my
whole life. I love that's so cool everything about the
human body and biology and physiology and anatomy. And I
shadowed oven heart surgeries and brain surgeries.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Okay, I love it. That is so intense. I'm fascinated
by it.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Two thousand and eight Beijing Olympics. What was it like
walking into the arena being an Olympic athlete?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Magical?
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I would relate it to like the first time a
kid walked into Disney World. It just felt so grand
to me and so spectacular. I truly feel like the
Beijing Olympics went above and beyond. Just how they executed
those Olympics was incredible as an athlete, and so it
just all felt like magic, something a little interesting. I
didn't get to walk through opening ceremonies. Gymnasts usually don't
(16:51):
because our first competition is the next morning, So.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It really is your first moment at the Olympics is
like actually stepping into the arena.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
And it was. It felt just as magical.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
I'm remember watching the opening ceremonies and thinking, like, in
the morning, I'm gonna go compete, which is really special,
but it's just the whole atmosphere being around the world's
best athletes walking through the village and seeing fencers and
long distance runners and just basketball players from all these
countries and knowing that like they had had a similar
journey to a certain extent, it put it humanized everyone,
(17:23):
but it was really.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Cool and putting on your team USA outfits.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
One of my absolute like dreams in my gymnastics career
was getting my very first USA leotard and when I
got that, I was a kidney candy store.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
They're stunning. And then being able to like wear red,
white and.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Blue leotard and you have like the insignia, and like
it just makes it feel like you make it something
that I wish someone would cover and maybe they have.
I just feel like I've looked for it and they don't.
Is when USA athletes head off to the Olympics, you
go through something called processing, and it's where.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Almost all the athletes.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Sometimes they'll like opt out based off of like scheduling,
but they meet up in some city in the United
States where you go through like the rules of social
media and what you can and can't say, and how
to represent the United States, But you also get all
the gear, and it's usually some sort of warehouse where
you get like a shopping cart and you go down
the roads and down the aisles and you get all
(18:17):
of the Olympic gear you're gonna wear at the Olympics.
And I remember it being like the coolest thing ever.
And you're there with like the USA basketball team, and
you're like, it's just it's so cool to be able
to share that moment as USA athletes.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
What was something from your Olympic experience that surprised you
that you maybe didn't expect growing into it.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Back to what I said that humanizing all of these
massive figures, Being able to walk through the village and
see Nadol and Yao Ming and Serena Williams and know
that like you're all there for the same thing, it
was really really special. I just love sports, and I
loved sports my whole life. I followed so many different sports,
(18:56):
and so I think that was why it was so
cool at the village, is seeing all the different bodies
in different countries and different talents and also feeling so
warm and welcome. I think was so fun because I
was sixteen years old walking into the cafeteria and the rowing.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Team being like, do you guys want to sit here?
And like what's here? It was. It was really special
because it is gymnastics. Typically the youngest group of people
it they are, yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
By far, especially back then. I think it's since gotten
a little bit older, which I love seeing. You're seeing
more and more like late twenties and stuff compete in gymnastics.
But in our in twentousand and eight, we were six
fifteen to nineteen.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
It's so wild to think about.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, babies, babies, And I feel like the craziest thing
about it is at such a young age you were
competing at such a high level. Applause to your parents
because it's so hard also to know what to do,
especially since they weren't gymnasts.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
I think what happened and this was like a whole
just luck of the draw thing. The gymnastics gym that
I started out at was like the only gym in
our city. And then out of nowhere, this guy from
China moves to Des Moines, Iowa, and he opens a
gym closer to our house, and.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
It's like fate. It literally was fate.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
But it saved my parents gas money and they were like,
we have we're gonna switch here because we need to
save extra dollars. Was the greatest thing to ever happened.
He truly like held my parent's hand, and I remember
I was accelerating a little bit faster than my parents
were comfortable with, and they would have like hard conversations
with him and they're like, I don't want to let
her move up because she's going to be this older
(20:32):
girls and that's not appropriate for her age. And it
was truly this like just working through things.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
But have your parents ever reflected with you on that time,
especially now that you are a mom. I'm curious as
your mom ever given you advice?
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Almost We're talking through a lot of stuff now, my
mom and I, especially since my kids are starting sports
and my daughter actually got scouted for a sport and
just trying to like bounce that off my mom and be.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Like I don't know what to do here? Is it gymnastics?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
No? Wow?
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Figure skating?
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah? Oh my god, I.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Know those are just like in my mind, like those
are those are just like the most beautiful sports.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
So I love it and ballet.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
And she does ballet too, But it's this it's this
hard reality as a parent of I teach kids, and
I talk to parents all the time, and so like,
as a removed person, I can so easily tell a
parent like it's not important, like she's literally only five.
But then when it becomes your own kid, I literally
can go running to my mom and like, I don't
(21:37):
know what to do here. I don't want to hold
her back and something that could be her treasure in life.
But I also want to help foster her passions and
protect them like they did for me. So it's it's
just a fine balance. But I truly think the greatest
thing you can do for a child in any sport
is protect their love for it, which means, to a
certain extent, holding them back.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
What is the Sean Johnson approach to parenting? When you're
watching your kid from the sideline.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Oh, I like sew my lips shut, and I'm just
the biggest cheerleader.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Okay, I love that. But you can say you're competitive though.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I'm very competitive, Like I'm dying inside, yeah, and I'm like, oh,
you know how to do this?
Speaker 1 (22:14):
What are you doing?
Speaker 3 (22:15):
You know? It's it's not like the coaching side as
it is, like I know their potential and their their
abilities and so like when they have hard days, I
don't want to say that because I always just want
to be their cheerleader.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
After the Olympics, you solidified yourself as one of the
biggest names in the sport.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
And then two years later you and I talked about
this before we started filming, but we share kind of
a traumatic injury.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
My coach, who I've talked about a little bit already,
he kind of went against the grain and had a
different system with things. A lot of times in gymnastics
coaches were very strict. You couldn't play other sports, you
couldn't kind of go be a kid. He had no rules.
He's like, I want you to go try everything. I
want you to go do everything. You can go horseback riding,
you can play soccer, you can play lacrosse. See like,
whatever you want to do, he said, But the only
(23:12):
rule I have in my gym is you can't ski,
which I abided by. I officially retired the first time
right after the Beijing Olympics, and I was like, you
know what, I want to learn to ski because I've
done everything else and I loved it. I fell in
love with it. My eighteenth birthday, we went skiing. It
was cliche, last run, last day, easy run. Nothing is
(23:34):
just a freak accident. I took a fall in my ski,
didn't come out of my boot.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
It's the most awful injury, I swear, because then it's
like you have to just have a lifetime of a compromise. Me.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
I was really fortunate my entire career to be very,
very healthy. I had shin splints, I had a couple
of stress fractures, but other than that, I was healthy.
No major surgeries, no brakes. I remember as soon as
it happened, I was sitting on the mountain and I knew.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I was like, that.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Wasn't a normal sound or feeling. I ended up skiing
down the mountain, which is wild.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
No way, it's I don't think that's wild because you
can still like after I tore my ACL the first
time and again I was actually the same exact way,
no breaks, nothing, no other weird injuries, no concussions, like nothing,
And then it was the ACL.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
And it's it's sneaky because for a while I think it.
I think I went a couple of months before I
even went to the doctor, which I don't advise like,
if you feel anything's off, just go straight to the
doctor to see. But I had learned as professional athletes,
like compensating and stuff. I knew if I ran or
walked in a perfectly straight line, I was fine. I
just couldn't turn and if I turned, I would buckle.
(24:43):
And I remember when I finally went to the doctor,
they were like, oh, honey, like it's your acel, You're
you're blown and did the full surgery, rehabbed, and I
don't think I fully rehabbed properly. I think I cheated
that system a little bit. Went back to early went
back int competing in gymnastics. I wanted to feel strong
again and that was the first time I felt vulnerable
(25:05):
in my body. And that's honestly what brought me back.
Got completely back to competition. And it was through competition.
When I finally retired a second time. I went back
to the doctor and they're like, it didn't hold, like
it's super loose. It's so I redid it all again.
I add five knee surgeries meniscus.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Yeah, just cleanups for the rest of our life or
a part of this club.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah. And then I had the similar experience where it
was like I got the surgery the first time. I
tore my ACL MCL meniscus in that one shot. So
you know, I guess the MCL repairs on its own
or whatever, or it can. I think I like it
could because that's like the blood flow to that ligament.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yep, there is.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
So you are non weight bearing for a long time.
At the long time, which is the hardest part.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
The hardest part too, I feel like is as an athlete,
and obviously you were on a completely different level of
what an athlete is. But for me, it was like
I was a three sport athlete and all of a sudden,
you go from being at peak performance to like zero
zero actually negative.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah, you have to get back to zero.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
And the hard thing about n ACL tair is you
can't go any faster than anybody else because it's a
ligament and it's not like it's like a muscle that
we strengthen.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
It really is just leaving time for the graft to heal.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
I kept feeling like I could beat the system. I'm like, oh,
I'll do it a little bit faster.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
No, let's fast forward to today. Okay, you're a mom
of three, you're an entrepreneur. You've got a whole business
going for yourself. What has it been like, What are
you currently up to, What are you excited about.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
It's a lot of fun. My husband and I work together.
We started doing this whole social media world. A couple
of things we're really excited about. We've been investing in
women's sports a lot, and I love it. I've been
learning so much about women's soccer and women's volleyball, and
we've just been really trying to give back to the
women's sports community, especially now being a mom to a daughter.
(26:57):
The more we can do there, I think, the better.
And then my babies are my life. It's because my
babies that we started being kids. I had this frustration,
as someone who's obsessed with nutrition and exercise, that there
is a need for a supplement for a kid, which
sounds weird, but if you know kids and toddlers, they're
(27:18):
picky and they like cheetos and peanut butter and like
that's it.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
And at the end of the day, I felt like
they were lacking. My kids.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
See, my husband and I wake up every morning and
make protein shakes and take our supplements and kind of
like prep our bodies, and they were always asking for hours,
which they couldn't have because of you know, things that
were in them. And I was like, why isn't there
something like this for a kid? And so I went
out and got all the supplements I could find for
kids and to cover all of their bases. They'd be
(27:48):
taking like eight gummies a day and it's just sugar
and candy, and so I went and made one.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I selfishly made it only for my children.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
It was this incredible powder that you mixed with milk
and it made it taste like chocolate milk, but it
was a prebiotic, a probiotic, a greens blend so like kale, broccoli,
all this stuff, and then a multivitamin. And after six
months of them taking it and loving it, I was like,
maybe I should like give this to other parents, so
we started selling it.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
The last question is knowing what you know now, what's
one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Stop caring what other people think and have fun. I got.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
I lost a lot of my joy in my sport
and in my career over the years trying to please
other people. And then when I stopped trying to please them,
and I just truly had fun and found what I loved.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Things started to work.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Out better well, Sean, thank you so much for being
with us today. Thank you for running and chatting with
me anytime,
What is up?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Runner Gang, Welcome back to Post Run High. I'm your
host Kate Max and today I got to move with
an absolute legend, Sean Johnson. Sean and I ran a
couple of blocks through New York City because as always
we believe movement sparks the best conversations. After catching our breath,
we sat down for the conversation you're about to listen to.
Sean is a two thousand and eight Olympic gold medalist,
(00:25):
a mom, an entrepreneur, and so much more. We got
into everything her journey from a lee, gymnastics and her
teens to life today, and how movement still plays a
role in her life beyond sports before we dive in,
don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for full
video episodes. Also follow us on socials for behind the
scenes content at Kate Max And if you're a loving
(00:45):
post friend High, send this episode to a friend. All right,
let's get into it. Hey guys, Welcome back to Post
Run High. I'm here today with Sean Johnson.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Thank you for having me. How's it going?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Good Shohn? What brings you to New York?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
I launched a new kids supplement that I was really
excited about It's called them kids, So I'm just trying
to promote it.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Sean and I ran a couple of Brooklyn blocks. I'm curious,
how is the run for you?
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Are you a runner? I am not a runner.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I have ran, I've ran a bunch of like half
marathons back in the day, but by nature, it like
does not come easy.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I get that.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, what does your fitness look like now? Like, what
is a go to fitness routine for you?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
I lift heavyweight and that is what makes my body
feel the best, feel the strongest. But like I'm in
the gym lifting doing like kettlebells, doing Olympic lifts.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Olympic lifts.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, it's so wild because so much of your life
was spent training as an elite athlete, did your relationship
with fitness ever change?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I mean, I started gymastics when I was three. I
made the national team at twelve, so I went elite
at twelve, and then I retired at twenty. So I
was an elite gymnast for eight years and trained probably
twenty to thirty hours a week in the gym, never
lifted weights, never did like running or anything like that,
and always with a coach and a way with the coach,
they told me exactly what to do. After that, I
(02:17):
kind of ran straight into a brick wall because when
I retired, I didn't even know how to go into
like a fitness center. I didn't know what to do
with a dumbell. I didn't know how to work out
without a coach, and kind of started this whole journey
of like working with personal trainers. I ended up getting
certified as a trainer for a while just because I
really wanted to learn. I went on to learn about nutrition, psychology.
(02:40):
I ended up studying just like trying to learn how
to just be a normal human being.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Right. No, but that's so true, and I feel like,
regardless of the sport, I think that is a very
common experience that people go through. I have two brothers
that played lacrosse at Yale, which was a D one program,
and they won a national championship, and similar to your experience,
like they were at school with a coach with their
team training. Once you're done playing your sport, it's weird
finding your rhythm as an athlete. It is important to
(03:07):
do what you did and like educate yourself and learn,
and I think that's so cool that you always wanted
to kind of challenge yourself athletically always.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
I mean I definitely went those through those like dry
spells too, where I became like very unhealthy because I
was either doing way too much or way too little.
I went through a session of my life where like
I was doing four different workouts today because I thought
that's what you needed to do, and I would go
do Barry's boot camp and then do you know peloton
and then go for a walk or I was way
too much. And then I went through a season of
(03:36):
life where I was like, you know what, I hate
working out and I am done with that. And I've
since come around after having babies for the past six
years to truly like loving it again and wanting to
just truly find like strength and normal cadence and my
passion is for it now.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
All right, let's rewind a little bit. I want to
know about your early life. So you grew up in Iowa.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yes, I grew up in Des Moines, Westmoine, Iowa in Iowa,
Des Moines and West and Wine is different. So West Waine,
Iowa is where I grew up and I was there
until I was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I loved it.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
It was the most perfect Midwest town, the most supportive town.
They truly like, uplifted my journey, my dream to be
an Olympic gymnast, and yeah, had a very normal Midwest
blue collar life.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
What was your family like though, because at four years
old you started gymnastics right, and was it a sport
that you immediately took a liking to.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yes and no.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
So my parents put me in gymnastics because I was
a very very crazy, rambunctious child that thought I could fly,
and I kept finding myself in the er. I literally
jumped off like our stairwell. I jumped off the top
of an entertainment center. I cracked my head open a
bunch of times, and my parents were like, we need
an outlet for her, so they put me in.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Ballet, and I refused to listen.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
I kept doing cartwheels, so I pretty much got kicked out,
and then they ended up finding it gymnastics gym and
I fell in love with the trampoline because it reinforced
the idea that I could fly, so I just kept
going back. But over the course of my childhood I
did so many sports. I played soccer, softball, swimming, track,
I sprinted, never long distance.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
By twelve years old, you were seriously competing in gymnastics.
So when did you put those other sports on the
back burner and say, Okay, I want.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
To go all in gymnastics.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So that was something really beautiful about my family. My family,
in a beautiful way, pushed.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Against me my whole life.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
So they wanted nothing more than for me to just
be a normal kid, because they kind of didn't. They
came from very extreme lives. But gymnastics was truly just
the last man standing. It wasn't always just gymnastics or nothing.
And when I was twelve, I made it to the
highest level in gymnastics, which is wild. I was a child,
I was a baby and started traveling internationally and competing
(05:52):
for the US.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Now that you are a mom of three, your five
year old, it's not that far away from twelve, right.
What is your perspective now on the life you lived?
Now having kids.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
It feels psychotic. That's a harsh word to use, but
I cannot imagine. I don't know how my parents did it,
and I now understand so much more kind of the
pain that my parents went through. My mom always says
she felt like she was losing her daughter because I
spent so much time at the gym willingly and she
literally would like ask me before practice, She's like, are.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
You sure you want to go?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Like we can go to the mall, I'll take you shopping,
we can go get ice cream. And it was truly
it was always led by me, but it was truly
like the love of my life.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
To get to the level that you got to. How
many hours are you training? What does your typical day
look like?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
My training regimen was that like very different than the
stereotypical gymnast in the day. My coach had a completely
different view on how to do everything, and he kind
of turned the sport to a certain extent on its
head because he proved you could do it a different way.
I attended public school with my whole career. It was
a requirement by my coach. We couldn't leave school early,
(07:03):
like we had to have good grades. We school was
a focus. So I went to school and then I
go to practice from four to eight, and I did
that Monday to Friday. Saturdays, I went nine to noon.
I would take an hour for lunch and then I'd
do one to three and then we had Sundays off
and on Sundays, we were always instructed. We had very
very strict guidelines that we were never allowed to work
(07:24):
out outside of the gym, So if we were ever caught,
like at a fitness center or going for a run,
we would have consequences where we couldn't come back to practice.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Wow, And was that kind of a sneaky thing that
people wanted to do just because you couldn't.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
I think our coach started seeing the obsessions of it
start to kick in the higher level we got, and
his entire focus, which I was so blessed to have him,
his entire focus my whole career was protecting me as
a kid and making sure that I still had this
like obsession and passion for gymnastics and that didn't burn out.
So he would have us like skip practice to go
(07:58):
to school dances or go to a football game.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Or in the summer, I remember he would finish.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Practice like a half hour early and we would play
outside and like he bought all these like bounce houses
and we'd have like carnivals. He was just a giant
kid and he wanted to protect that in us, right.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
And he wanted you guys to feel like you were
living a normal childhood, right, which I'm sure your parents
were so grateful for too.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So what is like the traditional pathlight?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
All the girls were homeschooled or they would school at
the gym, and they were training eight to nine hours
a day, so they were doing two four hour sessions
every day. A lot of girls were working out all
seven days a week with no off season of any kind.
There was no social life, and it was truly just
like this sheltered un I think healthy view of more
(08:46):
is better when I think that truly just leads to
like negative returns and burnout. And we've seen a lot
of pushback on the traditional back in my generation way,
which I think is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
What is the gymnastics schedule?
Speaker 3 (09:00):
We'll like, So, gymnastics is year round. There's no off
season ever, so we are in the gym every week.
There's no week off, which I am kind of against.
I would love to see that kind of change. Maybe
I think seeing kids take time off as a good thing.
But the gymnastics cycle in a year works basically like
and it shifts based off of what level you're in,
(09:20):
but say the elite level, there are competitions year round.
We would probably wait them heavier in the first six
months of the year. The Olympics usually always fall in
the summer, so we're like prepping to compete in the summer.
As an elite athlete, you probably have three major competitions
you're prepping for.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
A year of the year.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
And oh wow, so most of the time as a
gymnast is spent training.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Always when you're growing up in like the recreational levels
or like the lower competitive levels, you probably have. It's
been so long, so I could be completely off on this,
but maybe like eight to ten a year, but that's
within a season, so that might be eight weekends back
to back or eight every other weekends kind of in
the fall, but it's usually like the fall season.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
At what point into your gymnastics career did you take
it from those lower levels into the higher levels pretty quickly?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Gymnastics has this like scale where essentially you start at
like a level one, and every year you're going up
a level. So you go to competitions and if you
meet requirements and you get certain scores, then that qualifies
you by your roster to unlock the next level. And
then after you've completed all like ten levels, you can
(10:47):
opt to try for the Olympic level, which is called Elite.
So I just did that over ten years pretty much.
So I started qualifying when I was five.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I think twelve years old you made TMUSA and then
fifteen U one World All Around Champion.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
What did those years look like? To get from Okay?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Making tm USA is a huge accomplishment and then all
of a sudden, it's like you're at the level where
you're winning this incredible accolade.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
I would love to be able to give you the strategy,
but because I was so young, it was all my
coach who was like strategizing how to get me there.
But it was essentially when I was twelve, I qualified
to my very first US Championships and that's where I
qualified to the team. From there, it just I started
traveling internationally and doing the international circuit is like as
(11:35):
we call it, and that's where I started just getting
reps in on the world stage and seeing what the
competition looked like and kind of gauging from there, what
do I need to get better at and get stronger
at and where are my scores in comparison to the
girls who will be at the Olympics. In a few years,
and it was kind of like just going into all
(11:56):
these different world markets and seeing the Chinese, the Russians,
the Romanians, the Brazilians, the Australians, and saying, Okay, here's
where I am. Now what do I need to go
shopping for in the world of skills and master to
be able to go to the next market and win.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
At what point do.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
You feel like your life really changed and you were
suddenly in the public eye.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
I would say it started at fifteen when I won
World Championships. Things started to shift where I had companies
coming to me and saying we'd like to market you
for the Olympics. And I think that made it harder
because up until then I didn't really have that noise
around me. But the year leading up to the Olympics,
it was a It was a fine balance of trying
to stay focused on getting there and appeasing the marketing,
(12:45):
which is what you also want because you want the
eyeballs and you want.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
To make a living, right, And what was the like
in school.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
It's gonna sound really weird, but I always said I
kind of lived like a hand on montannel life.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Right. It is a double life.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
It really was where I never ever talked about gymnastics
in school. I wanted to be Joe Schmoe at school.
I didn't want to be recognized. I didn't want people
to know about this like outside life, but I just
like never shared about it, and so I would go
to school and just be like me, and then afterwards
I'd go to practice and like win world championships and.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Just the casual life after school.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And then did you end up graduating high school or
did you have to take a step back?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
It was very interesting.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
I completed the Olympics as a junior in high school,
so I ended up leaving high school to go to China.
Took my home, like my homework with me, and then
after it always sounds weird to say this, but after
the Olympics, I didn't realize what would happen, like the notoriety,
and so it unfortunately didn't allow me to go back
(13:47):
to public school because of like security for kids and
just like the safety, so I ended up having to
homeschool my last year before I graduated.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I liked the double life reference.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Really being able to enjoy your child and enjoy being
in public school with your friends like that is kind
of a hard shift, especially at a young age.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
It was I didn't expect it because I truly just
expected to go back to high school.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
You're like, I've already got this sport thing going on,
Like why can't I just go back to school? But
I was.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
I was also like applying to colleges, and I was
excited to go see my counselor and be like, Okay,
let's get my applications in and like all these things.
But it it was a it's a blessing being able
to like do that.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Is it when you're already a professional athlete you can't
go and play the sport in college.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Yeah, So before NIL, I had to have a very
hard conversation because I dreamt of competing in college gymnastics.
College gymnastics and back in the day was like where
you went and had fun in gymnastics, and it wasn't
like the serious elite world. It's since now take it a
whole different level, so like truly elite gymnasts are competing
(14:48):
in college at an elite level. But when I was
twelve and I was deciding between that, I basically had
to sit down with an agent because I got scouted
and it was this option of you can go pro
and you can take endorsements and money, or you cannot
and like.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Preserve your eligibility.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
So I could have competed at the Olympics and preserved
my eligibility, but it made sense for me to be
able to like cover my expenses.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Exactly, yeah, exactly, because it makes sense. It's like, you
have all these incredible brands coming to you. It's kind
of an opportunity to just have this incredible moment in
time and moment in your life.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
You can't not you can't turn that down.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
And at the time, my two big things that I
had on my list to check off was like, I
wanted to compete in college, but my biggest dream, this
is gonna sound weird, was to be an orthopedic surgeon.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
And I wanted to get my education from Stanford.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
So I was kind of like weighing those and I thought,
by the time I competed at the Olympics, I might
be burnt out of gymnastics. So at least I could
pay my way to go to college and become a doctor.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
And you got into.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Stanford, I yes, yeah, we have to say that. Did
wanting to become an orthopedic surgeon. Income before, after the ac.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Altears, way before, I wanted to be a doctor my
whole life. I love that's so cool everything about the
human body and biology and physiology and anatomy. And I
shadowed oven heart surgeries and brain surgeries.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Okay, I love it. That is so intense. I'm fascinated
by it.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Two thousand and eight Beijing Olympics. What was it like
walking into the arena being an Olympic athlete?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Magical?
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I would relate it to like the first time a
kid walked into Disney World. It just felt so grand
to me and so spectacular. I truly feel like the
Beijing Olympics went above and beyond. Just how they executed
those Olympics was incredible as an athlete, and so it
just all felt like magic, something a little interesting. I
didn't get to walk through opening ceremonies. Gymnasts usually don't
(16:51):
because our first competition is the next morning, So.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It really is your first moment at the Olympics is
like actually stepping into the arena.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
And it was. It felt just as magical.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
I'm remember watching the opening ceremonies and thinking, like, in
the morning, I'm gonna go compete, which is really special,
but it's just the whole atmosphere being around the world's
best athletes walking through the village and seeing fencers and
long distance runners and just basketball players from all these
countries and knowing that like they had had a similar
journey to a certain extent, it put it humanized everyone,
(17:23):
but it was really.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Cool and putting on your team USA outfits.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
One of my absolute like dreams in my gymnastics career
was getting my very first USA leotard and when I
got that, I was a kidney candy store.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
They're stunning. And then being able to like wear red,
white and.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Blue leotard and you have like the insignia, and like
it just makes it feel like you make it something
that I wish someone would cover and maybe they have.
I just feel like I've looked for it and they don't.
Is when USA athletes head off to the Olympics, you
go through something called processing, and it's where.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Almost all the athletes.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Sometimes they'll like opt out based off of like scheduling,
but they meet up in some city in the United
States where you go through like the rules of social
media and what you can and can't say, and how
to represent the United States, But you also get all
the gear, and it's usually some sort of warehouse where
you get like a shopping cart and you go down
the roads and down the aisles and you get all
(18:17):
of the Olympic gear you're gonna wear at the Olympics.
And I remember it being like the coolest thing ever.
And you're there with like the USA basketball team, and
you're like, it's just it's so cool to be able
to share that moment as USA athletes.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
What was something from your Olympic experience that surprised you
that you maybe didn't expect growing into it.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Back to what I said that humanizing all of these
massive figures, Being able to walk through the village and
see Nadol and Yao Ming and Serena Williams and know
that like you're all there for the same thing, it
was really really special. I just love sports, and I
loved sports my whole life. I followed so many different sports,
(18:56):
and so I think that was why it was so
cool at the village, is seeing all the different bodies
in different countries and different talents and also feeling so
warm and welcome. I think was so fun because I
was sixteen years old walking into the cafeteria and the rowing.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Team being like, do you guys want to sit here?
And like what's here? It was. It was really special
because it is gymnastics. Typically the youngest group of people
it they are, yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
By far, especially back then. I think it's since gotten
a little bit older, which I love seeing. You're seeing
more and more like late twenties and stuff compete in gymnastics.
But in our in twentousand and eight, we were six
fifteen to nineteen.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
It's so wild to think about.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, babies, babies, And I feel like the craziest thing
about it is at such a young age you were
competing at such a high level. Applause to your parents
because it's so hard also to know what to do,
especially since they weren't gymnasts.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
I think what happened and this was like a whole
just luck of the draw thing. The gymnastics gym that
I started out at was like the only gym in
our city. And then out of nowhere, this guy from
China moves to Des Moines, Iowa, and he opens a
gym closer to our house, and.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
It's like fate. It literally was fate.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
But it saved my parents gas money and they were like,
we have we're gonna switch here because we need to
save extra dollars. Was the greatest thing to ever happened.
He truly like held my parent's hand, and I remember
I was accelerating a little bit faster than my parents
were comfortable with, and they would have like hard conversations
with him and they're like, I don't want to let
her move up because she's going to be this older
(20:32):
girls and that's not appropriate for her age. And it
was truly this like just working through things.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
But have your parents ever reflected with you on that time,
especially now that you are a mom. I'm curious as
your mom ever given you advice?
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Almost We're talking through a lot of stuff now, my
mom and I, especially since my kids are starting sports
and my daughter actually got scouted for a sport and
just trying to like bounce that off my mom and be.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Like I don't know what to do here? Is it gymnastics?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
No? Wow?
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Figure skating?
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah? Oh my god, I.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Know those are just like in my mind, like those
are those are just like the most beautiful sports.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
So I love it and ballet.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
And she does ballet too, But it's this it's this
hard reality as a parent of I teach kids, and
I talk to parents all the time, and so like,
as a removed person, I can so easily tell a
parent like it's not important, like she's literally only five.
But then when it becomes your own kid, I literally
can go running to my mom and like, I don't
(21:37):
know what to do here. I don't want to hold
her back and something that could be her treasure in life.
But I also want to help foster her passions and
protect them like they did for me. So it's it's
just a fine balance. But I truly think the greatest
thing you can do for a child in any sport
is protect their love for it, which means, to a
certain extent, holding them back.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
What is the Sean Johnson approach to parenting? When you're
watching your kid from the sideline.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Oh, I like sew my lips shut, and I'm just
the biggest cheerleader.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Okay, I love that. But you can say you're competitive though.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I'm very competitive, Like I'm dying inside, yeah, and I'm like, oh,
you know how to do this?
Speaker 1 (22:14):
What are you doing?
Speaker 3 (22:15):
You know? It's it's not like the coaching side as
it is, like I know their potential and their their
abilities and so like when they have hard days, I
don't want to say that because I always just want
to be their cheerleader.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
After the Olympics, you solidified yourself as one of the
biggest names in the sport.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
And then two years later you and I talked about
this before we started filming, but we share kind of
a traumatic injury.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
My coach, who I've talked about a little bit already,
he kind of went against the grain and had a
different system with things. A lot of times in gymnastics
coaches were very strict. You couldn't play other sports, you
couldn't kind of go be a kid. He had no rules.
He's like, I want you to go try everything. I
want you to go do everything. You can go horseback riding,
you can play soccer, you can play lacrosse. See like,
whatever you want to do, he said, But the only
(23:12):
rule I have in my gym is you can't ski,
which I abided by. I officially retired the first time
right after the Beijing Olympics, and I was like, you
know what, I want to learn to ski because I've
done everything else and I loved it. I fell in
love with it. My eighteenth birthday, we went skiing. It
was cliche, last run, last day, easy run. Nothing is
(23:34):
just a freak accident. I took a fall in my ski,
didn't come out of my boot.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
It's the most awful injury, I swear, because then it's
like you have to just have a lifetime of a compromise. Me.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
I was really fortunate my entire career to be very,
very healthy. I had shin splints, I had a couple
of stress fractures, but other than that, I was healthy.
No major surgeries, no brakes. I remember as soon as
it happened, I was sitting on the mountain and I knew.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I was like, that.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Wasn't a normal sound or feeling. I ended up skiing
down the mountain, which is wild.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
No way, it's I don't think that's wild because you
can still like after I tore my ACL the first
time and again I was actually the same exact way,
no breaks, nothing, no other weird injuries, no concussions, like nothing,
And then it was the ACL.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
And it's it's sneaky because for a while I think it.
I think I went a couple of months before I
even went to the doctor, which I don't advise like,
if you feel anything's off, just go straight to the
doctor to see. But I had learned as professional athletes,
like compensating and stuff. I knew if I ran or
walked in a perfectly straight line, I was fine. I
just couldn't turn and if I turned, I would buckle.
(24:43):
And I remember when I finally went to the doctor,
they were like, oh, honey, like it's your acel, You're
you're blown and did the full surgery, rehabbed, and I
don't think I fully rehabbed properly. I think I cheated
that system a little bit. Went back to early went
back int competing in gymnastics. I wanted to feel strong
again and that was the first time I felt vulnerable
(25:05):
in my body. And that's honestly what brought me back.
Got completely back to competition. And it was through competition.
When I finally retired a second time. I went back
to the doctor and they're like, it didn't hold, like
it's super loose. It's so I redid it all again.
I add five knee surgeries meniscus.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Yeah, just cleanups for the rest of our life or
a part of this club.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah. And then I had the similar experience where it
was like I got the surgery the first time. I
tore my ACL MCL meniscus in that one shot. So
you know, I guess the MCL repairs on its own
or whatever, or it can. I think I like it
could because that's like the blood flow to that ligament.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yep, there is.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
So you are non weight bearing for a long time.
At the long time, which is the hardest part.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
The hardest part too, I feel like is as an athlete,
and obviously you were on a completely different level of
what an athlete is. But for me, it was like
I was a three sport athlete and all of a sudden,
you go from being at peak performance to like zero
zero actually negative.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah, you have to get back to zero.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
And the hard thing about n ACL tair is you
can't go any faster than anybody else because it's a
ligament and it's not like it's like a muscle that
we strengthen.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
It really is just leaving time for the graft to heal.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
I kept feeling like I could beat the system. I'm like, oh,
I'll do it a little bit faster.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
No, let's fast forward to today. Okay, you're a mom
of three, you're an entrepreneur. You've got a whole business
going for yourself. What has it been like, What are
you currently up to, What are you excited about.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
It's a lot of fun. My husband and I work together.
We started doing this whole social media world. A couple
of things we're really excited about. We've been investing in
women's sports a lot, and I love it. I've been
learning so much about women's soccer and women's volleyball, and
we've just been really trying to give back to the
women's sports community, especially now being a mom to a daughter.
(26:57):
The more we can do there, I think, the better.
And then my babies are my life. It's because my
babies that we started being kids. I had this frustration,
as someone who's obsessed with nutrition and exercise, that there
is a need for a supplement for a kid, which
sounds weird, but if you know kids and toddlers, they're
(27:18):
picky and they like cheetos and peanut butter and like
that's it.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
And at the end of the day, I felt like
they were lacking. My kids.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
See, my husband and I wake up every morning and
make protein shakes and take our supplements and kind of
like prep our bodies, and they were always asking for hours,
which they couldn't have because of you know, things that
were in them. And I was like, why isn't there
something like this for a kid? And so I went
out and got all the supplements I could find for
kids and to cover all of their bases. They'd be
(27:48):
taking like eight gummies a day and it's just sugar
and candy, and so I went and made one.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I selfishly made it only for my children.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
It was this incredible powder that you mixed with milk
and it made it taste like chocolate milk, but it
was a prebiotic, a probiotic, a greens blend so like kale, broccoli,
all this stuff, and then a multivitamin. And after six
months of them taking it and loving it, I was like,
maybe I should like give this to other parents, so
we started selling it.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
The last question is knowing what you know now, what's
one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Stop caring what other people think and have fun. I got.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
I lost a lot of my joy in my sport
and in my career over the years trying to please
other people. And then when I stopped trying to please them,
and I just truly had fun and found what I loved.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Things started to work.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Out better well, Sean, thank you so much for being
with us today. Thank you for running and chatting with
me anytime,
Host
Kate Mackz
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com