Dave Newman RXSG CEO | Ep. 20 - The Cult of Recreationalism

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Pre -setup discussions.
I kinda did...
Good.
got you.
got to hold on.
I got to go turn on my fan so I don't getall sweaty.
Cue.
There you go.
Two, one.
Nathan, how about you?
What is your internal cooling system overthere in Denver, Colorado?
I wear black shirts for a

(00:24):
What does it look like your beard and yourhair is flowing like Marilyn Monroe?
What's going on there?
Fan here, fan here, fan down here.
You see?
Yeah.
Cool.
Dave, I know I booked like an hour and ahalf.
Do you have to get out earlier than that?
These usually take about an hour.

(00:45):
Yeah, they can go fast, slow.
There's really no rules.
We've had some go like 40 minutes and somego at almost the whole hour and a half.
Fellas, I'm totally clear and it'shonestly as bored as you want to make your
fans and your audience.
I'm down.
Let's see if we can put some people tosleep.

(01:05):
New challenge accepted.
We have not had that challenge.
Well, I'm going to lead some things offhere.
And then and then Nathan is going to comein with some great descriptions of who you
are and what you do, putting people tosleep.
Given what you do in the fitness realmcould be a monumental task.
We might actually make that some sort of atakeaway challenge.

(01:27):
I'm not sure.
We're going to find out about that.
But folks.
What is up everybody and welcome to theCult of Recreationalism podcast.
I'm your host Sean Lake along with NathanMorris.
And on today, today's show, we've got DaveNewman.
Nathan, tell me a little bit about Dave.

(01:48):
So, Dave, I put some bullets together.
Let me know if I missed anything or if Igot anything wrong.
Dave is the founder and CEO of RX SmartGear.
He used to work in real estate and owned aboutique firm.
He coached gymnastics at San Diego Statewhere he met his now wife who was also,
she was a coach.
You didn't meet her like she was anathlete coaching.
I'm assuming on that.

(02:13):
I never know.
might have a student athlete, studentathlete coach.
RxSmartgear, ran it out of his house whilehis wife was at work, which I have
questions about that for sure.
He has taught countless people their firstdouble unders and crossovers.
And like I mentioned, he was a formergymnastics coach before he kind of got

(02:34):
into the jump rope world.
So Dave, welcome.
Thanks for having me.
Happy to be out with you
Nice.
So you are in San Diego.
Are you like a lifer?
You've been here your whole life or areyou part of the transplant?
I came here 30 years ago, fell in lovewith it, never left type deal.
I'm more of the latter.

(02:55):
So yeah, I moved here 38 years ago tostart college, but coincidentally, I was
actually born in Oceanside, Tri -CityHospital, Vista.
Right up, yeah.
Yeah.
So I spent the first year or so of my lifethere and then father was career military.
So took us all around the world and thenfinished high school in Arizona and moved

(03:18):
straight out and been here ever since.
My wife is born and raised
her whole life.
Nice.
So deep San Diego roots.
mean, you're literally from North County,San Diego.
She's from San Diego.
You left because obviously militaryfamily, that's super common in San Diego.
all right, there we go.
So I didn't know that.
So when you came back, was it because ofthose early roots or was it just, Hey,

(03:41):
this is where I want to go to college.
Yeah, just to go to college, be honestwith you, didn't know much.
I mean, I was a year old when we movedaway, so I don't even feel like I'm from
North County.
It's funny when you just said that, likefrom North County, because right now to
me, you North County guys, you're the oneswith like the pristine beach breaks and

(04:01):
you know what I mean?
You guys have like the less crowdedbeaches and the cool community up there.
But yeah, honestly had no...
recollection or experiences with San Diegohad never been back growing up.
And so my brother and I, we were actuallyliving in Victorville, California, if you

(04:22):
know where that's at.
Yeah.
know Victor, but that's that's a warm partof the state.
yeah, it was not ideal.
mean, that was kind of like paying ourpenance when we came to the state.
Like, okay, you gotta live somewhereshitty for a while and then we'll let you
parole out.
And so it was just kind of happenstance,but our oldest brother had just gotten out
of the service out of Fort Irwin, which isup there by Barstow, and wanted to stay in

(04:48):
the area because he started dating a gal.
And so we all three moved in together andwe thought,
You know, this is a good chance just toget state in -state residency before we
pick the college.
And then literally just pick San Diego ona map, you know, the funny story about
that is there was a cute,

(05:19):
99%, like honestly, 99%.
The 1 % was the story I was going to getinto was there was a liquor store close to
where we were all renting a house.
And there was a cute girl worked at thatliquor store.
And she told us that she was moving to SanDiego to be in a sorority.
And she drove, you know, cute littleconvertible VW bug, kind of the newer

(05:44):
model VW bugs.
And so when we were looking on a
You know, we wanted to be somewhere alongthe coastline and you know, like, okay,
Huntington Beach, Long Beach, we're kindof moving down Del Mar.
And then we said, Hey, isn't that, isn'tthat girl at the liquor store moving to
San Diego?
Let's go check it out.
So literally drove down, spent the weekendand said, okay, this is where we're

(06:04):
coming.
And yeah, never looked back.
David said this is why I love this.
Number one, my approach to going tocollege when I was in high school, I took
what I can only refer to as like the punkrock route where I was like, I only want
to go to colleges where I don't have towrite an essay.
You know, and the essays are usually likethe most thoughtful part of revealing who

(06:27):
you are, what your interests are, whatyour drive is.
Like there's a lot of components towriting your college essay.
I was like, I don't want to write collegeessay.
I was such a little punk rock dick.
You were like, that's me just being likespiteful and, not really understanding how
the world works.
You on the other hand, we're going likethat girl was pretty cute and San Diego

(06:48):
sounds really good to me.
Cute girls and beaches.
Cute girls and beaches, yeah, for sure.
It worked.
It
That was different than my choice ofcentral Missouri.
No beaches.
I grew up in Missouri.
I grew up right outside Kansas City andthen so I went to University of Missouri.
But and it was I didn't have to write anessay though, Sean.

(07:10):
don't know the at that time it was if youhad at least a 24 on your ACT, it was
automatic acceptance.
So that was the only school I applied to.
I was looking at a few, but then that oneis after I toured it, I was like, I really
want to go here and I already had
test score to get in, so that was the onlyplace I applied.
Yeah, I mean, that's a bit of a layup,too, right?
You're just like, I got this one.

(07:32):
Yeah, but a minimum of 24.
I think I scored a 21 on my ACT, so Iwouldn't have been able to get into your
school.
Well, it was like there was some kind oflike sliding scale like 24 you
automatically got in.
But if you had like a 23 and you were thetop 20 % of your class and a 22 and you're
the top 15 % like there was a scale to it.

(07:52):
So Dave, what what is, what I think whathe's saying is, yeah, you, you had a real
small chance razor thin chance to make itinto that school.
San Diego on the other hand, sounds likethat was a
Yeah, San Diego is not so bad, not so badat
so, so you basically cruise down to SanDiego and then that was it.

(08:14):
You dropped anchor.
Like you never
Never left?
I've been ever since.
Absolutely.
And were you like, tell me a little bitabout your gymnastics journey, because
obviously we know that you're the founderof RX Smart Gear.
You've been really active in the CrossFitspace, but the gymnastics background that
kind of led to that.

(08:35):
Tell us a little bit of how that came
Yeah, so I was never a high performinggymnast.
You know, didn't go to any like big clubsand train to a competitive level.
Was introduced to gymnastics when I was injunior high school, actually in Georgia,
Fort Benning, Georgia, living on basethere.

(08:56):
And it was awesome.
I they literally spent, I forgot how manyweeks, but really teaching us parallel
bars.
And we had to develop a little routine onparallel bars.
on floor exercise, which was just tumblingstrips, just kind of the carpet bonded
foam rolled out and you just had toperform a sequence of rolls and cartwheels

(09:17):
and handstands.
I mean, all very rudimentary stuff, but,pommel horse, you they had a little
mushroom where you could practice yourcircles.
So, I think about that now and I'm like,how lucky was I to get that experience?
Because now, I mean, in school, I mean,it's a joke, you couldn't even imagine.
So,

(09:37):
Yeah, so that was
have it in school at all.
It's all club activity paid for.
You got to go after it and just open upyour wallet.
Yeah, 100%.
So yeah, so from that introduction, I justgot hooked and just became a backyard
gymnast, like walking on my hands, doingback flips, round off backflips, just

(10:00):
whatever I can just go kind of huck andlearn how to teach myself basically.
I was never a formally trained gymnast.
then, so I always call us a backyardgymnast.
And when I moved to Victorville
to just spend time to get in -stateresidency.
I got a job at a glass factory, a glassmanufacturing plant that was, it was open

(10:23):
24 hours and they had a day shift, a swingshift and a night shift, a graveyard
shift.
And we would have to work all three.
Like your schedule would rotate every weekand you would work all three shifts.
But a gymnastics gym opened up literallyon the same block and I would drive past
it on my way home.
And I just stopped in one day just to seeif they had any open gym.

(10:45):
know, gymnastics gyms would have an opensession that people could just come and
tumble around, get up on the rings, get onthe high bar, you know, do whatever.
So I started doing that and, you know, meta great group of friends that we'd spend a
lot of time together and train together.
And it was just, again, just fungymnastics stuff, right?
Just trying to teach ourselves new skillsand whatnot.

(11:08):
So, but you know, I got decent enough to
I could swing giants on high bars and Icould do handstand on rings and, know,
muscle ups and all those kinds of thingswere pretty, pretty simple, basic things.
So, so yeah, so, so the owner of that gymasked me to help him out one day and then,
just felt, noticed something in me that hefelt like I had a knack for coaching and

(11:31):
spotting and just understanding kind oflike spatial awareness.
so took me under his wings and startedcoaching me to be a coach
started teaching me from like very groundlevel, working with little little kids.
And we're talking in your teenage years,like this is kind of like when you're,
you're maybe your goals and aspirationsmight be, Hey, I want to take this as far

(11:52):
as I can.
Or, you know, who knows, like you'recompetitive and all of a this, this guy
sees something completely different insideyou,
Yeah, no, super cool.
Well, the performing part of gymnasticswas simply a recreation to stay in shape
and just do something active and fun.
I mean, it's cool to be able to flip anddo all those neat things with your body,
obviously.

(12:12):
yeah, and then the coaching aspect of it,didn't even think twice.
He just saw me out spotting some of myfellow adults in the tumbling class, and I
was just spotting them on their back flipsor tricks, whatever they're doing.
And yeah, so he noticed that
kind of had a little knack for it.
yeah, started coaching me to be a coach,which was super fun.

(12:35):
And it was a good way to bide my timewhile I was, you know, living in that city
that didn't have a whole lot else tooffer.
And so he actually made a call down to SanDiego after I spent almost a year there
and said, hey, I'm moving away to go toschool.
So he called down to San Diego, called theprogram at San Diego State.

(12:58):
And the program at San Diego State was aclub program that taught kids.
It was a nonprofit club program that wasin the same facility that used to be their
collegiate gymnastics program.
Like San Diego State, apparently back inthe sixties and seventies had one of the
most powerhouse collegiate, women'scollegiate programs.
And then they lost the program due toTitle IX at some point,

(13:23):
the head coach of that team was able tokeep the program going as a nonprofit
booster and just let kids come in andtrain.
one of his former gymnasts, he eventuallymarried, I think after she graduated, they
married.
And so she ended up running the programfor 30 years.

(13:43):
Yeah, I know, there's definitely a trend.
carries water.
I will give Foz and I'm going to hall passthis one.
I had this conversation last week.
Dave, we'll jump around a little bit, butI used to coach at U S CrossFit, which was
like an OG CrossFit gym in Encinitas,California.

(14:03):
Mark Devine.
So Mark's my old boss.
Mark's a dear, friend of mine.
And quite literally I know of fourmarriages that came out of the coach to
client relationship.
Including yours truly.
I met my wife at that gym 10 years later.
We have two children and you know So Idon't judge that those situations you

(14:28):
know, like sometimes that's that's wherethe spark flies and you know, got to go
with
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Well, you know, at least they're in acollege setting where everybody's an adult
with, with, you the owner of that gym orthe founder of that program.
But so my owner calls down there and says,Hey, I got a young coach moving down there
to go to school.
You should bring them in for an interview.

(14:50):
And so I thought I had a job lined up theminute I got to town and for whatever
reason, it didn't work out.
I can never get ahold of the guy.
Every time I tried to call up to come infor an interview.
I would always get blown off.
And so I just, got frustrated and juststarted looking in the phone book for
different facilities.
And the first one, the first independentgymnastics team I walked into, I got a job

(15:12):
and coached there for the next four years.
so, you know, and then years later endedup getting a job at that, at San Diego
state.
And that's where I finished my coachingcareer.
And it's where I met my
who used to be a gymnast in the program,but now she was a college student and she
was just a coach at the program.
She'd given up competing, but she was justa coach and yeah, so that's story.

(15:39):
let's put a little timeline on that oneoffline.
We'll do this afterwards.
We'll make it into the show notes.
the correlation of David's time, hiswife's trajectory in that school.
yeah, all consenting adults.
Hey man, you know, look at, know, youmarry someone who's athletic and you,

(16:00):
you're, you're, hanging out with athletes.
It's going to keep you athletic, keeps yousharp.
And I'm all in favor of that.
So sorry, Nathan, what were you rolling?
and say like, so was it your, cause for alot of people, like, cause then obviously
you got into the CrossFit world very earlyon.
was it, I did you not, I don't know, didyou get tired of gymnastics or like, what
was the step that ended up taking you intoa CrossFit gym?

(16:24):
So from coaching gymnastics, I ended upgetting into real estate and then I cut
down on the coaching aspect because I wascoaching full time and at one point I
thought that was going to be my careerpath.
I really enjoyed coaching and thought Iwould eventually own a gym one day and
coach gymnastics.
But that's just a really tough business tobe in.

(16:47):
It consumes you and working with kids iswonderful but they consume you.
It just takes a lot of
to be good at it, you know, can't just bea, you know, kind of a boring, it really
is.
between the kids and then more recently,the parents, you really are hyper involved
in those lives, which is amazing to beable to shape them.

(17:10):
also, like, again, how much time andenergy do you have towards that?
real estate.
Yeah, yeah, so my brothers had alreadygotten into real estate and they saw that
I was kind of wavering on what my careerpath was going to be.
So they said, hey, just get your realestate license.
Come work with us until you figure outwhat you want to do.

(17:32):
And I up in that career for over a decade,almost a decade and a half in real estate.
so only found CrossFit after the 08 crash.
When the real estate
and I had a lot of time on my handsbecause there wasn't a whole lot of
business happening.
A buddy of mine had been trying to get meto join him at the CrossFit gym for most

(17:55):
of 2007.
He's like, dude, you gotta come do this.
This is awesome.
You gotta come try this.
And this was my ski buddy.
We'd go on ski trips together.
And everything he described just soundedhorrible.
Like had no interest in doing it at all.
And then after the crash, you
he give you that nod of like, might throwup after a workout.

(18:16):
It's the coolest.
Well, the funny thing is he did not giveme that warning, but I did throw up my
first day.
have, and he was goading it on the wholetime.
Cause yeah, yeah.
Back, back in those days, right?
That was your badge of honor.
Like walked in and scaled the entireworkout, just slogged my way through this
relatively easy workout.
And, and, then Ralph went outside and atleast I had the presence of mind to go

(18:41):
throw up in the trash can outside, youknow?
So yeah, it wasn't bad.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, so that was it.
That was it.
Loved it.
Fell in love.
I know.
Good old days.
Good old days for sure.
2008, you get your very first workout andyou didn't run for the Hills
No, know what's funny is while I wasthere, I was kicking myself.

(19:05):
Like this is stupid.
I can't believe I let myself get talkedinto this.
My buddy's an idiot.
just, you know, it was five in themorning, right at the early AM class.
And then after I got home, brushed myteeth, get all the vomit taste out of my
mouth, you know, take a shower, have a cupof coffee.

(19:26):
And then, you you still feel
endorphins like flushing through your bodyand you just all of a sudden you're like,
man, I did something right.
then, and, and, you know, in alltransparency, I was pretty sedentary for
probably a decade leading up to that day.
I was, I was really sedentary and just,got in this hyper focused mode of just

(19:46):
trying to run my real estate business.
And then of course the, the marriage andthen kids and then mortgages, you know,
and then running the business hyperfocused.
So really
all like organized exercising, you know.
My exercise was going skiing in thewinters and just kind of, you know, doing
busy things, but not actually exercising.

(20:08):
that was amazing.
Like that day, that indoctrination isexactly what I needed, you know, to get
kind of a punch in the face and, you know,get woken up and yeah.
the guy that brought me into CrossFit, hisname is Dave
And you know, our kids startedkindergarten together.
That's how we became buddies.
And then we became ski buddies.
And so I credit him as being my vampire,right?

(20:31):
He's the one that bit me and turned me forlife.
And so, yeah, so he's a good dude.
And then the gym that I started at is thesame gym I'm at today.
Like I've been at the same gym now for 16years.
In fact, it's CrossFit East County.
CrossFit East County owned by Paul Floresand

(20:51):
And, you know, Paul found CrossFit in 07,he affiliated in 07.
So he's one of the earlier gyms in SanDiego.
And he, you know, went to the games acouple times in the early days of the
master, like the first year that they hada master was in 2010 in Carson.
And he was in that first class of mastersand got on the podium, took third place

(21:14):
that year.
So just super, super cool guy.
But he and his wife own and operateCrossFit East County.
And we've been fortunate enough that we'rein a building here in El Cajon and if I go
out my roll -up door, I look right intohis roll -up door.
So his gym is right there across thedriveway.
So it's pretty awesome.

(21:37):
That's fantastic.
I've actually been to his gym.
know CrossFit East County and I've been toyour facility before eons ago.
I was probably there with Nathan.
you used to do some, he did some work withbarbells for boobs way back when
everyone's favorite CrossFit nonprofit,for a number of years.

(21:58):
and you guys had made some pink customjump ropes.
And I remember I was doing some consultingwork for them.
This must've been
Gosh, 2012 maybe like early on, but Iremember going down there for a workout.
Uh, was the first time I met you and I wasjust sort of there to kind of help
facilitate whatever was needed.
Uh, Nathan, I don't, I think you wereworking at, at Barbells Reboot at the

(22:21):
time.
Maybe it was a little before.
RX facility.
I remember I really wanted to go, but theyended up sending a couple other people,
more like the partnership side, because Iwas more like copywriting type stuff.
And that would have been like 2016, veryinto 2015 into 2016.

(22:41):
well, I'm to back up a step because I justjumped the shark a little bit on that one.
How in the world did you get into likefocus on jumping rope?
Like not arcs, smart gear, but like justlike the, the, that component of
coordinated gymnastic physical fitness.

(23:04):
I think I lost you on that.
I buzzed out.
What was the question?
said, how did you get started withskipping rope with jumping rope with, kind
of finding a focus on that, like prior tostarting the company, like how did that
like get a spark inside of you?
Because I only know you as David Newman,founder of RX Smart Gear.

(23:25):
And it's the most popular rope in all ofCrossFit.
And it's in every gym that you go to that.
That's what I know.
But how did it start?
Because when we
You were you had the business it wasestablished it was like a jumping rope
Mecca if you will for CrossFit.
Appreciate that.
Yeah, two words I can describe our impetusfor jump ropes.

(23:48):
Shame and humiliation.
I kid you not.
Like, huge motivators.
So after I got into CrossFit and gotsucked in and just went crazy, I I fell in
love and just, you know.

(24:10):
Two things that happened in my life.
My wife got me into scuba diving.
I had no interest in scuba diving back inthe day when we started dating.
And she was already certified.
She got certified again as a high schoolPE curriculum course.
She got certified in scuba diving.
So when she and I started dating incollege, she said, hey, you ever thought
about scuba diving?
And I said, nope, no interest whatsoever.

(24:31):
Next thing I know, she signs me up and Igot certified.
hook line a sinker and then I went and gotmy advanced open water, then I got my
rescue dive and then I went all the to mydive master.
was super, you know, she became a divewidow because I just lived, you know, in
the ocean during that period.
so same thing with CrossFit.
As soon as I got into CrossFit and fell inlove with it, man, I was going three times

(24:53):
a day.
I just could not get enough of it.
So I got decent pretty early on.
got fairly decent at most things CrossFit,not great at any one thing, but decent
and, know,
Like back then, like our workouts werepretty basic, you know what I mean?
Basic CrossFit workouts, all thebenchmarks and whatnot.
But I got to where I was winning most ofthe workouts, right?

(25:16):
I mean, against our buddies back then, itwas always a competition.
So I was beating, The guy that got me intoCrossFit, the owner of the gym, you know,
everybody that, you know, had a head starton me, you know, in the early day, they
were kicking my ass every single day.
And then I eventually caught up to them.
And then I eventually bypassed them,right?
To where I
winning most of the workouts.
And unless it had double unders, if it haddouble unders, they were just licking

(25:41):
their chops.
They're like, dude, you're going down.
You know, like they knew, they knew that Ijust was so inconsistent and I was just
like literally a flapping chicken with hishead cut off, just trying to squawk my way
through a set of double unders.
It was really horrendous.
And it became a good.
double under is when you're skipping ropeand instead of just doing a single jump to

(26:04):
a single skip of the rope, you're actuallydoing two skips of the rope.
So the rope has to work in a verycoordinated manner to go fast enough so
that your single jump has two skips of therope underneath it.
And it just dials up the aerobic capacityjust a punch and changes the entire
dynamic of skipping rope.
So sorry, keep going.

(26:25):
Yeah, no, great description.
That's exactly correct.
yeah, it was just a shit show andeverybody knew it.
And so that was the shame and humiliation.
they didn't hold back, right?
Like they knew, double unders, Newman,you're F'd.
You know what I mean?
Like it was an ongoing thing.
So I'm like, all right, this has got tostop.

(26:45):
Like I've got to figure this out.
And so that was the sole focus was to helpme figure out that movement and understand
it just so I could
just mash these guys and take it to them.
Like that was the one thing.
that
just show
programming those workouts, Dave, I wouldstart every workout with 100 double under
buy in.

(27:05):
Like, it's gonna take me one minute, it'sgonna take you seven or whatever.
Yeah.
that's exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.
going to, I'm going to break in on onestory, at us CrossFit seal fit.
And I too, I feel like I'm your spiritanimal on this one, David.

(27:28):
I was so bad for so long at double.
I'm just quite frankly, I still lacktechnique in any way, shape or form, but
it used to really, I'd get really madabout it.
Like I'd be hot headed.
So I'd be in the middle of a workout mad.
Which is like everyone else is this like,yes, we're going to keep fucking with them

(27:48):
and mess with them.
So I'm outside and there's a yoga studiowhere like all the hippies go to and it's
us CrossFit owned by Mark Devine Navy sealback alley where we would do a lot of our
outdoor workouts.
And then hot yoga studio, yoga tropics orsomething like that was right around the
corner.
And I'm back there and I'm skipping ropeand skipping rope.

(28:08):
And this is the side of the building righthere.
And I'm just getting madder and
and matter and matter.
just, can't link them up.
I'm in my head.
My head's exploding.
And at one point I grabbed the rope, swearthe top of my lungs like, f**k, throw the
rope.
And it's a big tin sided building hits itlike so loud, right as it's like old

(28:31):
hippies walking by.
And he's like going to his yoga class,sees me just all, throw the rope.
smashes against the loudest noise ever andjust sort of looks up and he's like, looks
at me and just keeps walking.
I'm like, all right, something's got tochange.

(28:52):
Yeah, you need some zen.
You need some zen in your life.
my god, that's awesome.
you need the rapid fit 2 .0, Sean.
pivotal moment in me.
Then after that, I'm like, I better learnhow to do the double under.
I got to, I got to learn how to do this.
Like check the ego at the door.
Like this is, you know, bananas.
I wonder if that was one of our ropes thatyou threw because we used to set you guys

(29:13):
up with ropes.
We did all the branded, know, steel fitropes up there for Mark.
And that one warranty item when thebearings blew out of it, that was my fault
and I apologize for
That's funny.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
You'd be amazed.
That is such a common story.
I've heard that.
I lived it myself and you just describedit to a T.

(29:36):
And that happens.
It's so pervasive in the CrossFitstratosphere.
It's amazing that it happens worldwide.
And the funny thing is, once truly youunderstand the movement,
you realize that it's probably one of theeasiest movements in CrossFit.
It really should be.
And I tell people that.
It's one of the easiest movements inCrossFit.

(29:57):
requires some coordination, obviously, andjust understanding of timing and really
just having the right priorities in placeof what you're trying to accomplish.
And that's where people are lacking justthe understanding of what those priorities
should be.
But it's such a simple movement.
I also try and stress this to all the gymowners because
I truly believe this, you know, it's adual purpose.

(30:20):
I know that it'll keep us in business andhopefully we'll sell more ropes.
if you can teach your members doubleunders, to me, that's truly one of the
core pure CrossFit movements wheresomebody feels like a CrossFitter, right?
If you think about it, not all of them aregonna get a muscle up, some are gonna get

(30:41):
a handstand push
Right?
But everybody can do burpees, everybodygets pull ups, everybody gets a light
snatch, a light clean and jerk, but ifthey can do double unders, they feel like,
yeah, I'm a cross fitter.
And there's people that have gone, I'vehad people that have come to me, I've been
cross fitting for five years, seven years,10 years, can't do, seriously, can't do

(31:01):
double unders.
They're just, it's the bane of theirexistence and they've never, they've just
never changed what they're trying toaccomplish there.
So yeah.
I think my that mindset going into I mean,I was mentally just an absolute I mean, I
would jump so high up in the air and justbe ripping this rope around before like,
you know, I remember you like telling mejust Hey, why your elbows chicken winging

(31:23):
out like just pull them in.
And have you ever considered this just inthe wrist like just in the wrist like
these little nuanced changes and then youwere just like, I remember you telling me
about how much energy I was expounding totry and do this one
thing and he's like, you know, it'stotally inefficient.
And it was the efficiency thing thatreally helped change it.

(31:44):
And I imagine it every, every student getsdifferent things unlocked for them to
understand like, Hey, like, why, what are,what are my mental blockades?
but you've magically done that, which,kind of leads to the question.
Like, I mean, how many seminars do thinkyou've done?
Have you kept count of how many peopleyou've taught this amazing movement?

(32:05):
that is so explosive in your aerobicfitness and what you're able to accomplish
using a simple tool like a jump rope.
Like how many you think you've done?
Yeah, tens of thousands actually probably,but I wish I knew that would be really
cool.
Kind of like McDonald's, a billion burgersold.
I I really wish I knew what that numberis, but we also like during the pandemic,

(32:29):
we filmed our entire methodology, ourentire presentation that we do like at
Power Monkey Camp or if we come to a gymand we filmed it in like a five -part
video series, very detailed, just turn thecamera on and
went through the entire thing with a demoperson and put it out there for free, just

(32:50):
to kind of give people something duringthe pandemic to work on and hopefully get
better at that skill.
I don't know how many people through thatmaybe got their first double under, but
yeah, I would say it's gotta be in thetens of thousands just because after 15
years of doing it and traveling all overthe world, mean, it's pretty fun.

(33:14):
When people get that skill, especiallypeople that have struggled, Like you and I
both know that feeling.
Yeah, you and I both know that feeling.
it's funny.
There are people out there who picked updouble unders like first try.
They're like, these are easy.
And they just were able to figure themout.
Like they were just a natural at them.
And those people just don't get it.

(33:35):
know, when then, you know, we'll put out atutorial or put out some tips and I'll see
comments where people are like, yeah,that's kind of silly.
Nobody needs to do that.
These are easy, right?
Like they just don't get it.
They don't understand what people aregoing
Yeah.
Well, they don't, but, like once, goahead.

(33:56):
Well, I was gonna say it's interestingbecause like for the longest time it was
double unders were like, and you mentionedthis day, like double unders were the
movement that makes you a cross fitter.
It's like, if you can do that, you're across fitter.
And now I would almost make the argumentthat crossover is taking that, like just
that new skill set.
Yeah, yeah, naturally, naturally so, butyou know, because there's gotta be an

(34:16):
evolution, right?
Like the skills have to get a little bitmore difficult.
There's still so many people who can't doa crossover or excuse me, just a regular
double under.
And so that I think that's still a, higherpercentage of, of kind of CrossFit members
that that would be the base skill thatthey might still be struggling with.
And then, yeah, the people who picked updouble unders relatively easily.

(34:38):
Yeah.
Now it's crossovers for them.
And it should be that way, right?
Like there should be layers of skillbuilding that people can kind of keep
working their way up the ladder.
in our big approach, just because I wasthe same as everybody else, like that's
all you thought about when you got intoCrossFit, you start off with a single
under and then you get your double under.

(34:58):
And then maybe you start working towardstriple unders, but that was pretty far
off.
So was always singles, doubles, so liketunnel vision with those skills.
And in the last, gosh,
seven, eight years, we started reallyexpanding how we look at, actually
probably longer than that because when westarted working with USA Boxing, we became

(35:18):
the official partner to USA Boxing andwe'd get to travel up to Colorado Springs
and work with the athletes up there andUSA Wrestling also.
And so as we started getting into moreoutside of CrossFit and getting into kind
of more just sport performance and lookingat
a jump rope is not just used in a workout,but used for sport performance, enhancing

(35:41):
and developing your sport.
We started getting into more of theuniversal movements from just single and
crossovers, running in place, alternatingsteps, side swings, those types of things.
Crossfit just really missed the mark forso many years just being having tunnel

(36:02):
vision on double unders.
Like there's so many more fun things youcan do.
I almost like honestly for the last almosttwo years, if double under workout comes
up, I'm not doing double unders.
I'm subbing out and I'm doing usuallysingle under crossovers is my go -to and
single under crossovers but while runningin place, right?

(36:23):
Alternating foot, running in place,crossovers.
swapping arms, so you're alternating yourarms as well, right, which arms on top.
And I find that to be so much morechallenging and fatiguing and time
consuming.
it's just, for me, it's a better workoutbecause double unders have gotten so
efficient at them that they're kind of ajoke.

(36:45):
It's kind of like, when people say that,that's your rest period during a workout,
then that means you're not gettinganything out of it.
You're resting, you're not gettinganything out of it, right?
It's not challenging you, it's not pushingyou, so.
So why do it, right?
It should be more challenging.
So in a workout.
Yeah.

(37:15):
Nice.
Yeah, I know.
those people at the gym that can do that.
Like when Glenn would do that, it'd belike he's putting on a clinic.
And then you got people like me jumpingsix, eight inches off the ground, like

(37:36):
swinging our arms around, trying to linktwo together.
And it was just, it just looked God awful.
So yeah, man, it's an act of beauty whenyou get it.
And some people, they just unlock that.
And each movement's different.
I mean, I remember Glenn taught me how todo a muscle up.
It took three tries.

(37:56):
And he was so pissed because he's like ittook him like six months to do his first
muscle up.
But he was a great coach.
He could articulate things well.
I remember like after my third try I'mlike, this turnover and push.
And he's just like, I hate you.
I hate your face.
Go do some double unders.
Yeah, that's awesome.

(38:21):
Yeah.
I hate you.
Go do something you're really bad at for awhile because that's going to make me feel
better.
Hey, wanted to ask, to divert, but Ireally, I wanted to know how Glenn got the
nickname
You know what?
I love that you asked that question.
So I don't know.
I have spent time with Brandon Webb, ShaneHyatt, Mike Ritland, Clint Emerson, like

(38:48):
these guys that they're like, they spent adecade with Glenn.
Part of them was giving like thatnickname, that call sign came out of that
experience.
And as best I can tell it was becauseGlenn always had this kind of surfy ski
bum.
like bro persona and like he was justeveryone's bub but he never said that like

(39:09):
that wasn't part of his vernacular so manwhen i find out i'm going to call you and
let you know but it still is like one ofthose little mysteries which i kind of
like that that like we don't really knowthe answer to
That was, you did an episode, it waseither Mike Ritland or Clint Emerson,
Sean, where you asked them that, and theywere like, he just was Bub.

(39:29):
Like, there wasn't an answer.
They were like, that's just who he was.
Like, there wasn't an answer.
Bob
And he got that in the teams, that's whereit came
in the teams yet and never existed priorto him joining the Navy.
Like literally, Bob came up, he just camehome and he was Glenn bub.
I'm like, what's that?
Like, yeah, Glenn bub, you're Glenn.

(39:49):
And, and then he's like, Nope, no, I amnow I'm now, Bob.
I'm like, Okay.
friends?
You guys were childhood friends grew uptogether?
Yeah, so I met Glenn.
nice party balloons there.
I don't We're going to try to do thatagain.
I don't know if we can simulate that one.
I like that, though.
Anyways, so Glenn and I met in like theeighth grade, seventh grade, both in

(40:12):
Winchester, Massachusetts, and a littlesmall town.
We became buddies during high school.
And just like both middle children, olderbrothers, younger sisters, like our
families were very mirrored.
And we both just kind of have this littlewild gene in us, like that middle child,
like I'm kind of ignored and I'm going togo and be a little bit rebellious.
and that's what did.
We just literally ski bummed, dropped outof college together, moved to Utah, and

(40:38):
just had these wild adventures.
yeah.
Like very unconventional path.
Like Glenn went to college at Embry Riddleto become an airline pilot, dropped out to
be a pro skier.
I dropped out of college in New Mexico tobecome a professional snowboarder.
We settled on Utah as our launch mountain.
And at 25, he's like, ski thing's kind ofrough.

(41:00):
So he decides to join the Navy to become aNavy SEAL.
This is in 1994.
There's no internet to help him understandwhat BUD's training is, what Naval Special
Warfare is, any of that stuff.
was just, I think I can do that.
I'm going to go for it.
Wow.
What was your home hill in Utah?

(41:23):
Snowbird that's awesome.
That's a beautiful mountain so
Darn.
I spent darn near a decade at Snowbird inthe nineties.
it is a phenomenal mountain.
Little Cottonwood Canyon is just, we'llalways have a place in my heart.
And, and yeah, man, we spent a lot of timeback country in resort chase and powder.
you know, Glenn would go down to Moab andbe a river guide in the summer.

(41:44):
I paint houses in park city or, or movearound and do different construction jobs.
And it was just
just an epic existence there.
then eventually I started going to collegein the summer and the fall.
So I would, you know, I would chip awaywhen Glenn joined the Navy and like went
and got all serious about life.
was like, I should probably get serioustoo.
So, back to college.

(42:05):
a run named after him
He does.
Yeah.
So the ski resort has a long standingrelationship with the U S Navy and, and
the seal teams.
So a lot of the mountain Bay seal teams doannual winter training out of snowbird.
And there's just, it's, it's beenestablished.
were, they were doing it back in thenineties when we were there, we just never

(42:27):
understood what it was.
There would just be like these guysdressed in all white skiing down the
mountain and in these like little packs.
And we just knew that they were militaryand they did their own thing and no
paid any attention to them and they werejust doing their thing.
But when Glenn passed, the mountain reallyraised their hand and they dedicated a run

(42:47):
right near tower three called Glenn's.
yeah, so that run, if you run down thecircuit, ride down the circuit traverse
right before tower three dropping in onthe Wilbur side.
is, is they call the Glens.
We had petitioned them to call it Glenshot.

(43:07):
And the reason for that is that thatspecific run was one of Glenn's favorite
runs when he was living at Snowbird.
That was his like end of the day go -torun because it was the shoulder line that
always had powder would blow into it aweek after a storm.
So you could always harvest it for alittle fresh snow.
And he's like, let's go do Glen shot.
And you know, that's just what we calledit.

(43:28):
And then the resort was
Well, given what happened in Benghazi, wedon't want to call it shot.
So we'll just call it Glenn's and we'relike, you know what?
That's cool.
And so, yeah, in January of 2014, theydedicated the run to Glenn's and it's part
of the trail map.
It's a, it's a really neat honor that theybestowed on, remembering the fallen.

(43:51):
It's pretty
Absolutely, that's super cool.
Well, I'm gonna have new meaning now whenI go there and go ski there.
I can't wait to go hit Glenn's shot.
Now, question, when he was with the team,did he get to go back and train at
Snowbird as a team member?
he, you know if he went and
No, no, that was the cruelest thing.
Like he was at SEAL Team 3.

(44:12):
like, I think he did his mountain traininglike up in Alaska or something, which is
also cool.
But he didn't really get a lot of Utahtime.
He would go to Utah during his breaks.
So he would he would fly out all the time.
If he was in between deployments, or hehad a little window, he would shoot right
out to Utah and get, you know, a coupledays of skiing
That's amazing.

(44:33):
God, what a great story.
That's so cool.
So cool.
fun run there, literally from Bostonian tocollege dropout to professional ski bum to
Navy SEAL.
mean, these are the unscripted paths weall take in life.
What a trajectory for sure.
Yeah, my youngest, my 20 year old, spent awinter at Alta and was on their Lifty

(44:58):
crew.
And so he did the one season of skibumming it and I had some pretty fun
stories to tell.
it was.
up Canyon?
Was he living up Little Cottonwood like inthe
yeah, they live right there at the at thebase of Collins chairlift, you know, and
like, there's like 30 dorm rooms toliterally like a dorm just bunk beds.

(45:20):
These were the shittiest little dorms.
I mean, the place was kind of gross.
But they had like almost homemade lookingbunk beds and an address or like that and
maybe a maybe a little sofa.
Yeah, like loveseat sofa, but that was 20years old and just stunk.
And yeah, and he did
And that was two winters ago, which thatwas the year that they got record

(45:44):
snowfall, like 900 plus inches.
It was just insane.
They spent so much time shoveling out, youknow, that it was just insane.
Yeah, that was literally one of the best,I think one of the best winters ever on
record period.
well, good, good year to be out there andgo ski bombing, man.
That's good
yeah, I was super jealous.

(46:04):
Sean, didn't Glenn do his first year as alifty at Alta?
He did.
Yep.
So Glenn's first year when we were 19, 18years old, um, he didn't get hired at
Snowbird and he, cause he was a skier.
He was like, well, the only other place Ican go is I got to go to Alta and get a
job.
his first job was as a lift operator atAlta.
So he and my brother guy did that theirfirst season and then he migrated down to

(46:27):
Snowbird his second
Very cool, very cool.
So quick trivia that my son taught me.
Do you know what ALTA stands
It's an acronym.
Wow.
Okay.
I was going to think about something aboutlame skiers, but I didn't, couldn't come
up with anything on the spot.

(46:47):
What do you got for
No, well my son said it stands for a longtraverse ahead.
Okay, so so for those folks that like toski out, you've got a lot of chairlifts
all around this this basis big wraparoundand Alta is famous for its traverses.

(47:08):
So it is literally like you just traverseeverywhere to get to these great little
ski shots.
And I've skied out a few times and it'sliterally like traverse, traverse,
traverse, traverse, traverse for a mileand then ski a line traverse some more ski
line and the whole mountain is
Lines down, traverses across, lines down,traverses.
So yes, he's, he's not wrong.

(47:29):
Yeah, yeah, so that's what he tells me.
But yeah, that's what a cool history, man.
Super stoked to hear that.
Thanks for sharing that story.
the spark.
Like I got to dive back in on, jumpingrope.
mean, obviously you made jumping rope yourbitch because it owned you for a long
time.
And you said, no way.
I'm not, I'm not having this.

(47:51):
And when did the spark come to say, youknow what?
I'm going to design a rope.
I'm going to make this better because weknow the equipment we had back in 2008 in
a CrossFit
Yeah, it was pretty shitty.
Buddy Lee, that was the premiere rope.
Yeah, that was the first real quality.

(48:13):
I definitely give Buddy a lot of creditfor making a very quality product early
on.
And so you were lucky if you found one ofhis ropes in the gym, honestly, because
those were pretty nice ropes.
But most gyms didn't have that.
They had much cheaper, just basic.
basic, we call them licorice or gummycord, right?

(48:34):
So they're just a soft kind of PVC cord,no cable running through it.
And same with buddies, like that was theproblem with buddies rope.
A couple of people in the gym had buddylyropes and I would try with those as well.
So it was definitely an evolution and thishappens even today, which just boggles my

(48:54):
mind that it would, because it shouldn't.
a gym would have just the smattering
crappy ropes on the wall and new memberswho don't have their own rope would go
just grab one and try it and they didn'tlike it, grab a different one, try it
until they find one they feel somewhatcomfortable with.
And that's what I went through, right?
I had my favorite rope that had like greenhandles and a gray cord, a gray licorice

(49:17):
cord.
And I'm like, okay, that's the one that Iwas able to get two double unders, almost
two double unders, whatever.
That's the one I would target every time Igot to the gym.
Yeah, so then from
I just thought, well, let me go buy a jumprope.
And so I went to the sporting goods and Iwould buy a jump rope thinking that that's
going to help me with some consistency.
Never really panned out.

(49:37):
So I'd go buy a different one.
I call that the golfer's mentality.
If either of you have ever golfed, youknow, when you hit a big slice, it's like,
well, it's a club.
Let me go get a different club, right?
Let me go buy a stiffer shaft or biggerclub head or something to try and fix the
slice.
just, you know, buying different jumpropes and never experiencing any real

(49:57):
improvement or consistency.
then I started just Frankensteining thethings that I liked about different ropes
together.
So the jump rope handle, I have a littlerack here.
So the jump rope handle, was the originalhandle that I found in a Big Five Sporting
Goods store and it just had a black PVCcoming out of it and had a foam sleeve

(50:22):
over it as your grip was a foam sleeve.
That was one of the ones that I purchased.
and so I, I stripped that apart and, andthen attached cabling to it.
Right.
And so that's what I realized.
I just started kind of like taking a lookat all the variables and trying to figure
out, okay, well, how do I control thevariables to at least put myself in the

(50:45):
best environment?
Right.
And so the things that I figured out formyself were that the stretchy cord, the
PVC cord, like that was the issue evenwith buddy Lee ropes is
they stretch and then they retract.
So the faster you spin it, it stretches,right?
That centrifugal force pulls it long.
And then if you slow down, it retracts.

(51:06):
And so if you're not used to that or awareof that, then you're tripping up
constantly.
So cable didn't do that.
If you had cable, it was a static length,no matter how fast or how slow.
So that was key number one.
The second thing was just the rightweight.
know, something that had
what I figured out for me was again, likebetween three and four ounces of weight

(51:29):
was way better.
Just so that I could slow the rope down,the rope would still have inertia and I
could time things out better.
So that's what I figured out.
And again, this is all just like self-exploration, like what feels good to me,
right?
It didn't give a shit about anybody else.
I don't care what they thought about it.
You know, it was my own little concoction,you know, my own cocktail, jump rope

(51:52):
cocktail.
And then the other thing that I figuredout for myself was just that I wanted,
like this was the thing, so I don't ownthis handle.
I've never owned this handle.
It had been on the market for probablydecades before I started building my stuff
onto it.
But the swivel connection at the end,that's what I patented, right?
So just allowing the cable to not onlyrotate on this axis, but also have this

(52:20):
omnidirectional motion.
That allows you to have a more relaxedwrist and still keep the rope on line, you
know?
Cause I always thought you were using likea skateboard bearing and then had a swivel
head on the end of it.
It's like, I always liked it for that.
I was always like, RX is cool.
They got skateboard bearings in there.
It looks like it, it definitely looks likeit, but honestly, the handle came with the

(52:41):
bearing.
That was all one piece, and then I justadded the swivel guts to it.
And then one day I was passing by, I wasgoing in to buy more jump rope handles,
and the early day I would just go to thelocal Big Five and I would buy every jump
rope with these handles.
I would just buy them off the rack, andthen I would deconstruct them and build
ropes for all my friends in the gym, andthen go give them ropes.

(53:03):
And so...
One day I'm walking by the tennis sectionand they had tennis over grip.
And so I thought, hey, that's kind ofinteresting.
These foam sleeves really suck becausethey'd slip off.
And so I bought tennis over grip and Istarted wrapping the handle with over grip
and I'm like, wow, that feels fantastic.
And I can do black and pink and yellow andall these different colors.
So, so we were the first ones to ever kindof pioneer that, know, like putting that

(53:27):
on your jump rope handle.
And now if you look, if you look around orlook on Amazon, like it's everybody does
it now.
That was kind of our contribution.
The tink, well, I don't want to call ittinkering, but like that, the whole like
almost kind of Frankensteining differentpieces of different stuff.
Was that all you or did you have like abuddy who you're like, what do you think
about this?
Or how did, how did that come

(53:49):
So, it was all me, like it was just mykind of, what's the word I'm looking for?
Fanaticism, right?
Like I was just like so in tune to likefix things.
I'm telling you, shame and humility orhumiliation are amazing motivators to
drive you, right?
And so I remember when I started makingjump ropes and bringing them to the gym,

(54:11):
all my friends in the gym would make funof me.
Like it became a laughing joke.
Like first I was really bad at doubleunders, so I was a joke for
And then they were starting to prod meabout, you know, that I'm making jump
ropes.
Cause back then it's kind of a odd hobby,right?
It's an obscure thing to do, I guess.
And so they would, they would give me ahard time and ribbing about that all in
fun.

(54:31):
Like, you know, nobody was ever mean aboutit, but it was, was all in fun.
And, and then eventually once I figuredout what I liked and what felt good.
And I kind of like narrowed down myparameters of like, okay, cause it's,
You know, people always say like, yeah,it's the jump rope.
know, if you're having a hard time, it'sthe jump rope.
Well, that has something to do with it.

(54:52):
Your jump rope, what you're using and howit's constructed and how it's sized to fit
you can lead you down a bad path or itcould lead you down a better path, right?
And so that's what I figured out is thatthe rope is gonna kind of set the bar for
me to like...
understand the movement, get into bettermechanical position so that my
biomechanics were better.

(55:14):
And when my biomechanics are better,that's gonna allow my timing to be better.
And then you realize that it's all abouttiming and mechanics.
That's all jump rope is, is timing andmechanics.
It's that simple.
And it's just like every other skill thatwe see in CrossFit, every skill we taught
in gymnastics was just, was based onsimple progression.
You have a foundation.

(55:35):
from that foundation, you start layeringand building your skills on the
foundation.
And that's all jump rope is.
And so I simply just looked at it from acoach's, a gymnastic coach's perspective
of like, okay, how do I control thesevariables?
How do I minimize the variables and putmyself in the best situation to then learn
and have more consistency?

(55:56):
And it was like, it was like a lightswitch.
It was amazing that my, I kind of figuredthat out for myself, that all of a sudden,
my learning trajectory just shot throughthe roof.
And next thing you know, I was gettingpretty good at double unders.
And so of course, all my friends in thegym stopped making fun of me and started
asking me if I would make them a jumprope, you know?
so that led to them trying to figure outlike, okay, well, there must be some type

(56:23):
of a, I don't want to say an algorithm,because it's not that fancy, honestly, but
for lack of a better word, there must besome kind of a formula here.
to figure out like what size rope shouldfit a person.
Like that's something there was neveranything out available and there still is
and other than what we've produced andwhat other people kind of, you know, maybe

(56:47):
parrot or copycat what we've put out, butyour rope should fit you in a certain way.
And that's why we're always big proponentsof like knowing your size.
Like what's your size?
Like you know your shoe size, you knowyour pant size, you know, you know.
how much you snatch and how much you cleanand jerk and you know how many muscle ups
you can do unbroken, but do you know howlong your jump rope is?

(57:08):
Like something that has a direct impact onyour performance, do you know how long
your jump rope is?
And most people can't answer thatquestion.
They would say like, well, you know, knowwhen I stand on it, it should come up to
about here, you know, and those types ofthings.
And that's such a generic thing that itdidn't make sense to me.
So I wanted to know to the inch.

(57:30):
how long should my jump rope be for myoptimal, right?
And that's the way we approach it.
Like what is optimal for me so that if Ican use optimal, I'm gonna use optimal.
But if I have to use suboptimal, if I haveto use something else, I can still use it.
I know how to compensate and adapt to usesomething longer or shorter or whatever it

(57:50):
might be.
So when all of my gym member friendsstarted asking for ropes, basically what I
did was
I pre -built a bunch of different sizesand I wrote on the handles how long the
cord was and then took a notepad, wrotedown their name.
Okay, Nathan, how tall are you?
Five foot 11?
Great, here, try this rope and I have youtry the rope.

(58:13):
How'd that feel?
I would look at how you were performingwith it, look at your technique, your
positioning, where your hands were,where's the rope hitting the ground, how
much is passing over your head.
Really just start kind of like mapping outand then okay, try this rope and they give
you a different
watch you make adjustments to it and giveyou a different rope until we kind of
narrow things down for a very general, ageneral formula, which is your height plus

(58:38):
three feet is the longest rope you shouldever use height plus three feet as a
standard.
But honestly, like that's the longest youshould use.
Cause when you start using anything longerthan that, then that really starts pushing
you out of reasonable form and takes youinto a bad place.
Right.
And when you change your form, you change
You change your mechanics and your musclerecruitment and that totally changes the

(59:01):
movement, right?
Like it literally makes it somethingdifferent.
So you see so many people or I encounterso many people that say, oh my gosh,
double unders, they just tire me outwithin 20 reps.
I'm just dying.
My shoulders are fried, you know, allthese different things.
And, and a hundred percent, because whenyou start, when you, when you're using all
the big muscle groups, right?

(59:22):
And you're doing something like doubleunders, which is a high repetition
movement and you're pumping all thatblood.
into the big muscles, right?
Your heart's working harder, right?
You start getting the shoulder fry, all ofthose different things start, you know,
kind of spiraling out of your favor.
So as you start to shrink that rope aroundyour body and allow your body to be more

(59:43):
compact and in a more relaxed positioning,right?
Using very little muscle recruitment.
then you realize that, you don't have towork so hard.
You don't have to use as much of your bodyas you think.
It's so much easier to breathe.
The timing of everything is so muchquicker and easier.
So yeah, so that's the standard we createdthat now is again, that's prevalent across

(01:00:07):
the world.
Everybody, know, we kind of scope and seewhat other companies are doing.
And a lot of them have adopted that heightplus three feet, but that's really the
ceiling.
That's the longest rope anybody shoulduse.
And really you should strive to usesomething far shorter than that if you
can.
It should be a journey to test yourself,challenge yourself to how short can you go

(01:00:31):
and still perform all the skills you wannaperform and be consistent, have
consistency, right?
And when you do that, you just open up awhole world.
There's so many things you can now do witha rope when you're able to do that.
And it allows you to use so many differentropes.
That's the other
when you can use a super, super shortrope, that means you can pretty much use

(01:00:53):
any rope, but not the other way around.
If you're used to only a long rope, peoplehave a very hard time adapting to a
shorter rope, because they just don't havethe awareness, and they just feel like
they're gonna hit their head, or they'regonna hit their toe without having that
understanding and awareness.
So yeah, so it's a really cool thing.
So that kind of started the whole journey,you know?

(01:01:14):
It's been super fun.
And here we are now, like, you know, justso many people are indoctrinated to using
the product.
mean, my, my local gym is CrossFitcounterculture and they just have a rack,
giant rack filled with your ropes.
And it's like, just go to your height.
They've got the size chart.
So you perfected all of that becauseyou've taken the guesswork out of it.

(01:01:36):
So I use the gray rope or the black ropebecause you know, that's, that's for my
height.
And then the only nuance there is howthick
of a cable do you want based on creatingthat momentum?
Also where your abilities are like thoselittle light ones can be still a little
bit tricky to, to maintain, based on yourskill levels, but like you've literally
taken the guesswork out of it and madethat movement and that fundamental so

(01:02:00):
accessible for literally for likethousands and thousands and thousands of
people in, CrossFit.
how big
the jump roping world.
mean, is it a massive community?
Because I know it through CrossFit.
Then I remember seeing like the Buddy Leeand like the sort of offshoot and I was
like, there's a whole culture built aroundskipping rope.

(01:02:23):
And there's like the old stuff where youlike hopscotch and double rope, like, you
know, like play basically playgroundgames, hopscotch.
That was it.
But like, how big is this community?
Because you guys are right at the centerof
Yeah, the funny thing is jump rope hasgotten huge.
jump rope, competitive jump roping hasbeen around for decades and decades.

(01:02:50):
I don't even know when the firstcompetitive jump rope and the competitive
jump rope is what you just described.
You have, you have, it'll be a team ofkids that, and now even adults, right?
But originally was like a team of kidsthat would compete in different skills.
Double Dutch is one of them.
They'd have a team that performed doubleDutch and two people turning two ropes and

(01:03:12):
then somebody in the middle doing just adiverse routine of really challenging
skills and acrobatics and things like thatduring double Dutch.
And then you'd have kids that wouldcompete at speed rope in the same
competition arena.
Speed rope is, and that's where speedropes came from.

(01:03:34):
That's what people don't realize
the thin little wire speed ropes, right?
Like all the rogue ropes and you know, wemake the Evo jump ropes and so anything
with a super fast bearing and super thinwire, those were developed specifically
for these kids that basically run inplace, right?

(01:03:57):
Like they stand in one spot and you'veseen them, they have to stoop down because
their ropes are so short and it barelyclears their head.
and they're running in place trying to getas many repetitions in 30 seconds.
Well, it's changed.
So it's 30 seconds, 60 seconds, and threeminutes.
And I think they dropped one.
I just met with a competitor recently andthey said they dropped one of those three

(01:04:21):
they don't do anymore.
Maybe it's the 30 second, the 30 secondcompetition they don't do anymore.
Now maybe it's just 60 seconds and threeminutes.
But literally.
their feet are moving so fast, judges aretrained to only count the right footstep.
Every time the right foot strikes, one,two, three, four, right?
And that's your score, even though youknow it's double the amount, right?

(01:04:41):
But however many right foot strikes isdouble the score.
So that's why speed ropes were created andthen CrossFitters just kind of adopted it,
like thinking, for double unders, I needto go fast, I need a speed rope, which
kind of ruined CrossFitters.
Yeah, honestly, that ruined CrossFittersbecause it's not
It's not, it's the like, honestly, speedropes.

(01:05:03):
have to layer this.
Like, I feel like we make the most premierspeed rope on the planet.
It's the most expensive speed rope on theplanet.
We don't, we don't, you know, make anyexcuses about that, but we also don't
think most people should be using it.
Like it's great for competition whenyou're in competition and, you want
something to be effortless, you know, oryou're at a little local, local throwdown

(01:05:26):
or whatever.
Or if
in a training session, but you're tryingto go fast on purpose, which you should be
specifically focused on doing that forspecific workouts, but not always.
Other than that, you really shouldn't beusing a speed rope very often.
I would say 15 % of the time, tops use aspeed rope.
Otherwise, you should be using a heavierimplement to build more stamina and build

(01:05:49):
more capacity.
But anyway, so I got off track.
So speed rope was one of the disciplinesin competitive jump rope.
as well as they would do max tripleunders.
Well, they would do single and tandemfreestyle routines.
So that's where the kids that would do thebetween the legs and jump and they would
run and do some tumbling while they'returning the rope and all these things,

(01:06:12):
right?
So they do a back flip and a quadruple.
Like they're literally flipping throughthe air backwards and doing a quadruple
rotation around their body before theyland.
mean, so you would have
Doubles competing at that and individualscompeting.
So you had speed rope, had freestyle, youhad double dutch.
That's a whole competition circuit of jumprope that's been around forever.

(01:06:35):
those kids were, know, they're kind ofthe, those are the kids that aren't
usually playing team sports.
They're not out playing AYSO soccer or PopWarner football or whatever, right?
They're jumping rope.
And I don't want to say they were kind ofthe nerdy kids because they're phenomenal
at what they do, but it was just one ofthose overlooked sports.
that didn't get a lot of attention andpeople didn't give a whole lot of like,

(01:06:58):
you know, a second thought to.
And now those kids are the ones that arelike have 2 million followers on Instagram
and they're doing all the cool stuff tomusic.
And now they're like, you know, super richinfluencers that are just, you know,
crushing it out there.
So it's really neat.
It's really neat.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.

(01:07:18):
We get to work with a lot of them.
so to answer your original question of howbig jump rope
You know, COVID really helped bring thataudience up, right?
Cause as those influencers started doingthese really snazzy routines online with,
you know, all the latest popular musicthat brought a lot of eyeballs.
So that's probably the bigger, theCrossFit or CrossFit jump rope world is

(01:07:44):
people kind of into that just freestylebackyard, you know, out there having fun,
learning new skills.
And then you have your segment that usesit for fitness.
They use jump rope.
CrossFit's weird.
We use jump rope as simply one of thetools to do a workout.
And that's how people look at it.

(01:08:05):
Like, okay, it's one of the things I haveto do to get this workout done.
But they don't usually look at jump ropeas the thing that's giving them fitness.
Like I'm trying to get more fit using ajump rope.
They just look at it as a skill I have tocheck off the box.
to get through the overall workout alongwith my clean and jerk and burpees and
pull -ups, whatever, right?

(01:08:26):
Whereas there's another segment, know,like team sports, like volleyball,
basketball, like we supply ropes to the LALakers, right?
So Nathan, your rapid fit, your favoriterope, you're using the same rope that the
LA Lakers use, you know, and we sent ropesto Anthony Davis and he has his own, we
put his own special logo on his handle forthe rapid fit.

(01:08:49):
You know, so there's a lot of team sports,college, professional, you name it, club
sports, basketball, soccer, volleyball,tennis.
Well, tennis, not necessarily team, butthat use jump rope, you know, to kind of
like better enhance their specific sport,right?
Or they use it to improve their fitness byjumping rope.
But CrossFitters, we look at jump rope ina really weird way.

(01:09:11):
Like it's just a skill to check off thebox to do the overall workout.
And by doing the overall workout, that'swhat's making me
but they don't usually think of jump ropeas one discipline that helps you get
fitter.
So that's always a weird dynamic to tryand cross over that threshold.
But CrossFit is the one market that reallyloves their jump ropes, right?

(01:09:35):
Like they're the ones that they want thebest, they'll pay for the best.
you know, whereas like the freestylegenre,
I get on a lot of these forums and I'll beon Reddit and different places and kind of
like, you know, see what the discussionis.
And they always say like, ah, just go geta cheap $10 jump rope off Amazon.

(01:09:56):
Like that's all you need.
You'll be fine.
Don't, you know, don't waste a lot ofmoney on a jump rope.
that's, it's pretty funny to see the verydrastic, you know, kind of philosophies
out there.
Well, yeah, you learn on a crappy rope andthen and then you get bit with it and you
graduate to a good rope or you get a feelfor it from a good rope.
Like there's always that progression.
It's like, you know, tennis was the samething.
It's like, just get any racket.
Don't worry about it.

(01:10:16):
And then all of a you're like, well, whatif
Right, right.
Our proposition is if you get a good rolefrom the beginning, that's gonna help your
learning curve, right?
That's gonna help you improve better andgain more consistency.
So I mean, I see the argument on bothsides, but I'd rather deal with quality.
think get good equipment up front.
you know you're going to do it, spend the$50, spend the $60, spend somewhere in

(01:10:39):
that modest range and then get into it.
Don't spend the $10 for just a piece ofcable.
You're not doing it.
And now, literally tens of thousands ofCrossFitters later all doing double
unders, courtesy of you.
really, yeah, no, if you run the numbers,I'm going to say that the amount of
CrossFitters that have gone

(01:11:01):
through their evolution of fitness thathave used your ropes over the last 15,
however many years.
Like, yeah, man, you've, you've, you'vetouched tens of thousands of lives with
better fitness.
That's pretty special.
And you look at it you're not done.
You're just getting started.
So that's the beauty of this is like, youknow, people can look out for more and

(01:11:22):
more as they move on.
So in their progression, we canshamelessly plug the RX gear.
and put people in your direction.
that will be in the show notes, folks.
Now, that being said, and obviously, andyou've got a ton of seminars that you roll
around with and that you're constantlyteaching and gyms are constantly embracing

(01:11:45):
the methodologies of jump ropeprogression.
So you're constantly feeding a newcommunity, which is amazing.
That being said,
We got some questions for you, Nathan.
I think we have what we call the rapidfire questions here, because this is how
we want to really help folks get to knowDavid.
David, please clear your head of anycomplex thoughts of the jumping rope,

(01:12:09):
rope, the training of people, theindoctrination into this amazing
cardiovascular and gymnastics basedcoordinated activity.
And answer me this.
What was your first
Very first job, wow.
I would say first job was in Anchorage,Alaska, working at the drive -through

(01:12:35):
window of Crud, what was it called?
It was kind of like a Dairy Queen type icecream shop where we actually made the ice
cream.
No, it wasn't Sonic, man, I gotta ask mybrother.
My brother's got me the job there, I wasstill in high school.
But I didn't work there very long.
That job was very short -lived because mybrothers quit and they were my ride to get

(01:12:55):
there.
So my first real job I'd say is working ata Dunkin' Donuts in the mall in Alaska,
the summer of my sophomore
Duncan?
Yeah.
There we go.
They didn't see that one coming.
Yeah.
All right, Dave, rank these from best toworst.
So best to worst, salsa, queso, andguacamole.

(01:13:19):
Salsa queso guacamole.
Completely reverse that order and it'sgonna be guac, queso, and salsa.
That's my preference.
Love guac.
I'm a guac fiend.
I don't know why those balloons keeppopping up.
I have no idea what's causing
support you.
They support your choice.

(01:13:40):
Dude, we're in San Diego.
Give me that guac.
How do I make that happen?
I don't know what's causing
like thumbs up ones too that'll do it, butyeah.
I occasionally get those.
It's not happening today, but maybe theseones.
Dave's got the power.
We're not on for that one.

(01:14:01):
However, next question.
Name some hobbies or interests that peopledon't know about you on social media.
For example, you cannot answer jumping
Right, hobbies.
I, well, let's see, I'm trying to thinkwhat qualifies as a hobby.
I love riding motorcycles, streetmotorcycles, so I do that as often as I

(01:14:25):
can.
I love paddle boarding and mountainbiking.
So these are things I try and get in everyweekend.
I'll try and make sure I'm out surfing.
And I have a group of buddies that I surfwith every Sunday.
I get out and try and mountain bike withanother group of buddies.
Some of those buddies overlap betweensurfing and mountain biking.
So I'll get out and do mountain biking.

(01:14:45):
And then if I can get on my motorcyclesand get some riding in out on my bikes, I
love doing that.
So those are probably three.
And then winter time, living on the hill.
Alaska got me hooked on snow skiing when Iwas a kid.
So loved to ski.
Amen.
That is a phenomenal answer.
Do you have a mantra or piece of advicethat you live by?

(01:15:11):
That's a you know, probably a bunch ofthem but you know one is to Never never
never take things too seriously is a bigone The other one is things always Always
aren't what they appear You know, so Ialways try and kind of reserve judgment
until I know more or understand more andTreat everybody the same You know, those

(01:15:39):
are probably three three things that Ithink
or kind of guide my day, right?
Those are great.
Those are absolutely fantastic.
And if everyone can incorporate thempartially into their lives, I think we'd
all be in a much, much better place.
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
think at least it keeps my head clear, you

(01:15:59):
Hands down.
What do do to relax?
You know, my wife and I have, we've becomenighttime couch potatoes.
So we, you know, find these differentshows, Netflix shows, series, whatever,
you know, like obviously Game of Thronesand then Ted Lasso.

(01:16:22):
And so, yeah, so we've kind of becomeNetflix couch potatoes.
And so that's super relaxing and get to doit with my best friend.
you know, my wife and, and yeah, probablythat.
awesome.
That's a great
That's the end of the rapid firequestions.
You don't have to be nervous anymore.

(01:16:44):
I know you're super nervous about that.
Glad you didn't ask me about my drughabits or anything like that,
wait, one final question.
What are you crushing up there on the sidethat you were snorting on off -camera?
What what's that all about?
Good Lord
It's funny because we actually stoppeddrinking, my wife and I stopped drinking
like a year and a half ago just for healthreasons, just to live healthier.

(01:17:05):
So I joke about being a drug addict andbeing an alcoholic and things like that
when we're actually pretty flippingboring.
Yeah, well, it makes it fun to spice upthe conversation with folks who are like,
really?
And meanwhile, you're like, no, no, we'renot even drinking anymore.
Yeah, all our friends drink, you know, andso we just we didn't want them to feel
weird, you know, that we're not drinkingbecause we're not judgmental about it at

(01:17:28):
all.
Like we think it's great if you want tohave drinks, but we just yeah, we stop
for, you know, just for our own healthreasons and feel great.
But nothing wrong with
Yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah, we're kind of in a similar boatwhere like, there those great nights where
we will enjoy having a drink.
And I remember like, when it started toreally dial back, and now it's like, hey,

(01:17:50):
you know, like, we're gonna have a, youknow, we'll have a great drink on a
Sunday, like a little glass of champagneor something like there's a celebratory
moment.
But it's a glass, right?
It's not a bottle.
And all of sudden, I'm down to like, I'llrun the math.
And I'm like, how many drinks did I havethis week?
Three.
Three drinks, just individual drinksspread out.

(01:18:12):
And old me, it'd be like, well, yeah, I'llhave a couple of drinks a night.
Like, no big deal.
Just like, have a beer before dinner, havea glass of wine with dinner, and then, but
that's seven nights a week.
And then somewhere we had kids, and thenthat went to just weekends only.
But then you're like making up for losttime, so you're having a couple of drinks.
But somewhere it went from like 14 drinksa week, down to 10, down to eight, down to

(01:18:35):
five, down to three.
And now we're on like a couple of weeks,my wife and I were, it's like, there's
just nothing.
you're like, yeah, we didn't even drinklast week or the week before that.
And then you have a nice dinner and you'relike, let's open a glass.
I have a bottle of Pinot.
We don't even finish the bottle.
and you notice these, these healthdifferences of like how clear a thought

(01:18:56):
you have, how much energy you bring intothe morning, like your ability to interact
with others better.
Like you're just not clouded.
It is awesome.
And I'm not some T total like you like Idon't care what my friends do like, hey,
worst case scenario, they've got a driver.
In fact, the last couple of concerts I'vegone to, I'm like, cool, I can drive
everyone home like no big deal.

(01:19:17):
Yeah, isn't that awesome?
And you hit it on the head actually, go todinner.
Like the first time my wife and I went outto dinner and didn't order any wine or, we
like to drink wine back then.
And we looked at the bill afterwards andthought, holy cow, this is how cheap
dinners can be?
Like when you don't order alcohol?
We thought they messed up on the bill.

(01:19:38):
We were like, did they only charge us forone entree?
Because it was so much cheaper than wewere used to seeing, right?
So that was a huge benefit.
Yeah, went from like missing it, like man,I miss having a drink like just socially
with our friends or just casually likeyou're saying with a nice meal, really
missed it to like, yeah, now it's like,don't even think about it, you know, it's

(01:20:02):
just like smoking.
I don't smoke, never have and never will.
That's kind of how alcohol feels now like,you know, although I do have all the
memories of like, man, I had some funtimes when I used to drink.
Oh yeah.
I mean, mean, that's the thing.
Like, I don't, I, I'm not in the coldTurkey camp.
I'm in the, like, it's under this justlike, moderation, like, Hey, I'm to go to

(01:20:22):
Nashville in two weeks and go to a bunchof honky tonks.
Like, yeah, I'm going to, know I'm goingto just thematically have a Budweiser beer
or a Coors long neck just to like be inthe environment, but I won't have six.
won't have five.
I probably won't have two.
You know, it's like, I'm okay.
I'm totally good with that now.
Whereas 40 year old Sean.

(01:20:42):
would have been different.
Like that version of me would be like, no,man, we're in Nashville.
We got to send it.
But waking up on that Sunday morning feelsa lot fresher now.
Right, the older we get, man, absolutely.
Get in your 40s, get in your 50s.
Yeah, you're right, man.
You definitely feel the difference.
Yeah, hands down.
mean, and it is worth it is worth it tojust kind of dial that just kind of tinker

(01:21:06):
with it.
Hey, man, if you really love it, go backto it, whatever.
But for me, like the amount of energy andkind of just clarity of thought that you
can bring into your days is justunbelievable.
It's like, Huberman scared everyone a yearor two ago when he ran his alcohol podcast
and everyone's like, God.
But then again, you know, we're big dumbanimals.
So it takes us a while to curb thosehabits.

(01:21:27):
I like how Nathan's sitting quietly overthere not saying a word.
So I'm thinking he must, he must, he musttoss them back quite a bit.
never, like my parents weren't bigdrinkers growing up.
if family, like friends over somethinglike that, they would like share a bottle
of wine.
like, I was never a huge drinker.

(01:21:49):
then like, I've always like, now it'slike, if I go to, I live in Colorado,
micro breweries.
If I go have like two, I'm feeling likehangover -esque.
I'm
I had two beers, why is this?
So I, and I just don't really drink awhole lot anyways.
So, but yeah, it's like the, I like wakingup not hung over and I can immediately
take my dog for a really long walk.

(01:22:11):
Like that's more appealing to me.
So yeah.
trained early.
Dave and I had to take the longer road toget there.
But thanks, Nathan.
So listen, Dave, thank you for joining ustoday.
If people want to learn more about you andRx and what you're doing, where can they
find

(01:22:31):
Well, on the website, it's rxsmartgear.com.
Instagram is at rxsmartgear.
I have my own Instagram that's kind of themore business related.
have two, one's kind of personal, likeposting family stuff and whatnot, but
rxsgceo, rxsgceo.

(01:22:51):
So that one, I'll try and put things thatmight be a little bit more interesting to
kind of the fitness community or withregard
teaching or products or whatever.
Yeah.
And then we'll make sure to put those inthe show notes too.
So if people want to find you, they, theycan just click on there and find it way
easier.
So, yeah.

(01:23:12):
And then real quick, before we close up, Ijust, I wanted to throw out there cause
I've had the opportunity to go throughDave's, the two hour at power monkey, the
jump rope seminar.
And if you're a coach, take that course,like whether it's at power monkey or
somewhere else, like when's the last timeas a coach, I'm at

(01:23:32):
that you were trained on double unders orthought about training somebody else on
double unders.
And so to learn from somebody who actuallyteaches jump rope versus a cross fitter
teaching you how to jump rope, it's just,it's an amazing, just a couple hours.
Like you just think about things totallydifferently and then it has improved my
ability to coach double unders to myathletes.

(01:23:53):
So I just wanted to throw that out therebecause it, that one and kettlebells where
it's like, when's the last time youthought
kettlebell swings outside of your introcourse a decade ago.
yeah, absolutely.
So Dave, thank you again for being hereand then listeners as always, thank you.
You can find the cult of recreationalismon all podcasting services.

(01:24:17):
Don't forget to check us out on YouTube orour social media.
If you look up Bubbs Naturals, you'regonna find us.
And while you're there, leave us a thumbsup, leave us a five star review, whatever
platform you're on, every positive reviewhelps.
try to get some more thumbs up going.
So Dave, once again, thanks for the
John, Nathan, thank you guys both.
Had a great time chatting, learned a lot,appreciate

(01:24:37):
good to get caught up, man.
Good to get caught up.
And

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Dave Newman RXSG CEO | Ep. 20

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Dave Newman RXSG CEO | Ep. 20