June 5, 2024 • 45 mins
Sage Burgener joins Nathan on the podcast this week! Sage is a weightlifter by birth that found a love for ultra running. They talk about everything from growing up in Coach B's gym, progressing as both an athlete and coach, parenting, running Bad Bitch Camps, and so much more. Sage speaks about the idea of grit and suffering and how you can find both in Olympic weightlifting and distance running. It's a great conversation that you don't want to miss out on.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
08:16 The Importance of Being Coachable
24:54 Improving in 5K Races
34:45 Integrating Strength and Conditioning in Ultra Running: Ultra Strength Program
Check us out at www.bubsnaturals.com
Follow us at:
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facebook.com/bubsnaturals
instagram.com/natebehavior
Follow Sage Burgener at:
instagram.com/sageburgener
instagram.com/ultrastrengthco
instagram.com/burgenerstrength
Intro Music: Stock Media provided by eitanepsteinmusic / Pond5
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
to go.
I don't know why it always does this.
Hold on, let me start this over.
I'm gonna cut that part out.
(00:25):
What's up everybody?
Welcome to the Cult of Recreationalismpodcast.
I'm your host today, Nathan Morris, and weare here with Sage Bergner.
Welcome Sage.
Hi, thanks for having me.
Yeah, absolutely.
Sage, I got a little.
intro music by the way.
That was classy.
Yes.
to talk about stuff.
(00:46):
So, um, I got an intro here, Sage, let meknow if I did too much or if I didn't add
enough in here.
So, um, Sage is a mother, a strength andconditioning coach, a weightlifting and
long distance runner.
Now she's been involved in Olympicweightlifting for over 30 years, been
coaching it for almost two decades.
And most importantly, she stays rad.
(01:07):
Uh huh.
too much, just the right amount.
I love that.
Perfect.
Yeah, that's kind of like, it was funny.
I was going through your website and it'slike, she has been involved in Olympic
weightlifting for 30 years.
And it's like, I don't know many peoplethat can say that.
I know I I feel very lucky because I itwas just introduced to me basically in the
(01:31):
womb But we'll say growing up in my dad'stwo -car garage I was just surrounded by
it because we would have people come infrom all over the world world champions
come and train and I just want to be inthe mix and
and I was the youngest out of four kidsand all my brothers were doing it.
(01:52):
So I just had to be doing it too, be outthere with everybody.
So it's pretty cool to say that you'vebeen involved in something for so long.
I mean, I don't ever remember it not beinga part of my life, which is really cool.
I didn't realize you were one of four.
There was four kids running around likewith all these Olympic level athletes.
That's really...
(02:12):
Do you have any good memories from that?
Like crazy stories, like someone coming inand it's like, who actually, let me
rephrase that.
Who was like the nicest person that youremember from that?
Oh man.
Well, I don't ever really think thatanyone was trying to be super nice when
they were there.
Everyone was just trying to like throwdown hard in the gym.
(02:35):
But it was just like, I just remember wealways had such good quality people there.
You know, now that I look back, I'mactually super nostalgic about that time
because that was just like really grittytraining and this kind of,
dusty old garage gym and everybody wasjust there because they love to train hard
(03:01):
and there was no, you know, phones out,cameras, nothing and people were doing
just absolute savage stuff.
You know, we were doing one rep or 20 repmax back squat and people were going off
to the side like throwing up and thencoming back in and throwing down again.
(03:22):
I would say there was definitely somepeople that made like pretty big impacts
with just the way that they train.
But again, everyone was really cool to me.
If people weren't sweet or kind to mydad's kids, they would be thrown out very
quickly or just wouldn't fit in with thegroup.
So everybody was just super high quality.
(03:45):
Yeah, that was, I don't know.
The reason I threw that out there wasthere was a long time ago I went to, it
was an affiliate owner's dinner.
It was like the 2014 CrossFit Games.
And I was no, I didn't own an affiliate atthat time.
I was just there with a friend and we metJesse Burdick and he was just the nicest
guy.
He's like, Hey, like what's your name?
(04:06):
Like Nathan, he's like, well, how youdoing?
I'm like, good.
And he's like, well, what was good about?
Like he like legitimately wanted to know.
And it always stuck with me.
And I just think.
highly of him because of that.
I know, it's people who just take the timeto really be inquisitive and actually do
care about what you have to say, it'sreally refreshing.
Yeah.
(04:27):
What was it like growing?
Did you know you wanted to stay in theweightlifting space growing up in that
environment?
Or was there ever like, I don't want to bea part of this.
I want to do my own thing.
You are kind of a rebel.
But.
I feel like I never really strayed veryfar from Olympic weightlifting.
(04:50):
I think that I really loved it.
Also, my brothers were really big rolemodels to me.
And specifically, my oldest brother Caseywas one of my huge role models growing up.
And so I watched him.
be very successful in Olympicweightlifting.
And I watched kind of the path that hetook to get to the Olympic Training Center
(05:14):
and perform at a very high level.
And I think there was a large part of methat wanted to be very similar to him.
And so I always kind of knew that I wantedto stay in weightlifting and then explore
like.
transferring high schools the same waythat he did his junior year so he could go
(05:35):
to my dad's high school and train twice aday.
And so I took the same track as him andthen tried to get into the Olympic
Training Center or a collegiate programfor weightlifting the same way that he
did.
So I always kind of knew and I didn't evengo through like a rebellious phase where I
felt like I don't wanna do weightlifting,you guys forced us to do it.
(05:57):
because we did always have to weight lift.
We had to be in at least one sport and wehad to be Olympic weightlifting.
But when I talk to my brothers about it, Idon't feel like any of us were really
forced or had to, you know.
be poked and par like, hey, you got to getyour training.
(06:20):
And I think that we started to see thebenefits of doing it very early and the
way that it helped us in the other sportsthat we were doing.
It was kind of cool that like, we weredoing stuff that not a lot of other kids
were doing.
And so I think there was a element to thatthat was very intriguing, like, oh man,
this is so natural for us, but this isn'tlike a common thing.
(06:43):
And the berners.
We all like to be special in some way andwe all like to be doing something that not
a lot of people are doing.
And so yeah, I always loved it and Ialways wanted to be in it and I never had
to be forced to train.
Yeah, so did your parents, were they like,hey, you gotta go get it in, or was it
(07:07):
more of a, hey, don't forget, was itdirect encouragement, or was it you need
to do this, or how did that work?
Thank you.
The only time I remember ever being like,I don't want to train, was if I wanted to
go and hang out with my friends andthey're like, no, you need to get a
training session in.
(07:28):
But that was very few and far between.
I do feel like there was a couple of timeswhere, you know, it was more of a little
bit of like a guilt trip of like, you'renot gonna get your training session in,
like you know how important that is.
But now that I am a parent, I totallyunderstand why.
Like they really wanted to encourage thatcontinuous strength building.
(07:56):
I think that the fact that there wasalways people at our house, I always
wanted to be in the mix with everybody.
So it wasn't really like directencouragement or guilt or like you have to
do this.
It was more of like, well, this is whateverybody's doing.
This is where we all are.
And it always sounded fun.
(08:17):
Like there was heavy weights dropping.
You could hear that from anywhere in thehouse.
There was yelling, there was passionatecoaching.
And so I think there was just,
always a part of me that would end up outthere because I wanted to see what was
going on and then I just ended up jumpingin on the mix.
Yeah, and so have you, with your kids, doyou kind of require the same thing?
(08:39):
Like, hey, we've got to make sure we workout every day, or what does that look
like?
Yeah, I really try to find the balance.
They actually my son and I have insidejoke where he feels like I always say,
well, if you would have been training moreconsistently, then this wouldn't have
happened.
And so I definitely think I'm in their eara lot about the importance of lifting
(09:03):
weights.
He is finally sort of at that age now he's11.
He'll be 12 in November.
where he is starting to get morepassionate about other sports and he wants
to be good.
And so he's seeing the benefit of puttingon a little bit of muscle.
I see him like flexing in the mirror andstuff, which is hilarious to me.
(09:27):
And so I think he's starting to buy intoit.
Yeah, he does like the abs and then hedoes like the trap thing, which is so
funny to me.
So.
in their ear forever but they do they docome to the gym with me almost every day
and I try and pull the whole like well youknow you can't go on electronics until you
(09:49):
get your lifting in and then you got toread and then you got to do your homework
but lifting is always a part of that orcrossfit it's kind of the same thing for
us so there's definitely like requirementsthat meet and responsibilities that need
to be done and
Weightlifting is just one of those.
So I think it's just kind of a norm forthem where they're like, okay, I gotta get
(10:12):
my homework done.
I have to read and I have to get a workoutin.
That's just like where their brain goes tonow, which makes me really happy.
That's cool.
I do some training with kids.
I don't have kids, but I like trainingsome of them.
I don't know if you've ever taken theCrossFit Kids course, but one of the big
(10:32):
things they instill in that is burpeesshould not be a punishment.
Burpees should be fun.
So you never pun it.
It's like, nope, you have to go sit downover there.
You don't get to do burpees with us.
And it's like just teaching that kind ofmentality.
For sure.
I remember he went through a phase wherehe was giving me some attitude and wasn't
being super coachable.
(10:54):
And I made him finish the workout.
And then I was like, you don't get to workout for the next week because working out
is a privilege.
And one of those things is beingcoachable.
And as a coach, that's my number onerequirement for an athlete is
coachability.
And so I tried to kind of.
shift it to like this is something thatyou get to do this is not something that
(11:16):
is just like oh anybody gets to do it itneeds to be earned and I think that really
shifted his perspective too but yeah noI've never made it a punishment ever.
That's what other sports is he playing?
He does wrestling and jujitsu.
Yeah, so he's super into wrestling rightnow.
(11:38):
That's so cool.
We were talking about like, I've had,we've had Kalipa and Chris Speeler on the
podcast.
And we've been talking about Chris was,he's like, he's like crossfitters.
He's like when they're like a lot ofcrossfitters you've seen like jujitsu and
mountain biking are like the two thingsthat he's like, and it's just because it
just translates.
And for me, I started doing jujitsurecently and it's just, I, I love the
(12:03):
technical aspects of it.
Similar to why I really started.
gravitating towards weightlifting earlyon.
But now my barbell is fighting back.
It's like I'm trying to do somethingspecific with it, but it's trying to fight
back.
And it's not just gravity, it's coming atyou from all angles now.
So.
Yeah, no, I love it.
I think it's I think crossfitters start totransition into more of like active
(12:29):
meditative movements, right?
So like mountain biking you have to be sofocused on what you're doing in that
moment And so your mind is constantlyworking and jujitsu your mind is
constantly working and so that sort of outof active meditation I think becomes very
appealing
(12:49):
Because you have other responsibilities inlife and life is hard and stressful and so
to be so engaged mentally with somethingand to sort of escape from all of that for
an hour, couple of hours, I just think isso appealing for CrossFitters nowadays
from what I'm seeing.
Yeah, and you're kind of finding it toowith ultra running, right?
(13:10):
Yeah, I would say part of it's activemeditation, but the other part is it
requires a lot from me mentally, butthat's why I do it.
Sorry, the dogs.
You're good.
We'll let him stop for us.
There you go.
Where was I gonna go with that?
(13:30):
Oh, but so like with the ultra running,because I wanted to ask you about that.
You don't often hear of weightlifters.
Usually there's like, no, you idiots cango run over there.
Do your thing.
We're gonna have our chair next to ourplatform and sit down between lifts.
So what drove that and what kind of gotthat started for you?
So I was absolutely very old school styleOlympic weightlifter where I was like,
(13:57):
yep, I get out of breath, like walking tothe refrigerator.
We sit down in between sets, we eat gummybears in between sets, and it's like we
throw down super hard on one lift and thenyou go and rest.
And in that culture, there's a lot ofpride and kind of humor surrounding that
(14:17):
culture.
But then five or six years or so ago, Imoved back to Fallbrook.
I had kind of moved all over the place andI got introduced to my coach who's now my
boyfriend, Charlie McEvoy.
And he really changed my whole kind ofperspective and methodology surrounding
(14:46):
fitness.
which there's not a lot of people who comeinto my life where I'm like, wow, like
this just blew my mind with your thoughtprocess surrounding things.
And I think I was like very open tolearning, but without really knowing it.
And I remember telling him like, hey, I'mkind of a coach now.
(15:08):
I don't really like lift much anymorecompetitively.
I don't really class fit morecompetitively.
Like I really want to invest and be acoach and invest in my athletes.
And he was like, that's bullshit.
And I'm like, what do you mean?
This is the natural progression, man.
Like this is what you do.
You're a competitive athlete.
You do all your time and you be selfish.
(15:30):
And then now it's time to be selfless.
And he was like, absolutely not.
And so he kind of started to slowly showme through his programming and just
through the way that we would train justwhat an increase of athleticism as a whole
can do for your strength.
(15:51):
And with that came introducing a littlebit more running for me where I was, I
pushed back very hard.
I was like, nope, running is horrible formy hips.
It kill, like I've had pretty bad hipissues since I was young and
weightlifting.
(16:12):
I'm like, running is gonna be absolutelyhorrible for my hips and I'm trying to get
strong right now.
Like this is, I believed everything therewas to believe about running.
Like this is gonna take away my strengthgains.
It's gonna do all the things.
And he was like, listen, just run a mile aday.
Okay, that's all I'm asking.
You can do it as your warmup.
just run one mile every day and just seewhat happens.
(16:36):
And I, it did take me being open to theidea that it could be something different
than what I thought it was gonna be,right?
Because that's always a huge part ofgrowing anyways is the willingness to be
open to some sort of different thoughtprocess.
And so I started running every day and,
(16:59):
Because I'm me, it was like, all right,well, maybe I won't just do a mile every
day.
Like maybe I'll do two miles today.
And then I was like, okay.
And then I would lift and I'd feel reallygood.
And like my strength wasn't going down.
And I'm like, okay, well, let's up this alittle bit.
I'm gonna try five miles today, which wasjust like absurd to me.
(17:21):
Like five miles, oh my gosh.
I've never even thought about running thisbefore.
Like this is gonna be so far.
And then I went and did it and I was like,dang, I feel pretty good.
And just fast forward, I ended up doing a10 mile run.
And then the next day I came in and myknees were hurting and my hips were
(17:45):
aching.
And I started warming up and I PR my backsquat.
And to PR the phase of your life whereyou've been lifting for over 25 years is
like,
pretty crazy right I don't really expect.
Many PRS at this point.
(18:05):
I do now but back then I was like what Ijust pure my back spot like this is why
all and so that I really like bought intoit.
And then he started getting Charliestarted getting into doing some more
longer runs and.
I'm very much that person where like ifsomebody's close to me that I love is
(18:27):
doing something, I'm so curious about it.
I'm like, oh, I wonder if I could do that.
And so began my journey into like theultra world where all these people that I
was starting to see were going and doingultras and I went and did my first 50K and
I'm like looking around at all thesepeople that looked so different than.
(18:48):
Crossfitters who are like the mostpristine, optimal, like human specimens in
the world and they're so jacked and theirbodies are so beautiful and they're doing
all these crazy things and then you go andyou see these ultra runners and they're
just like these average looking people.
And you're like, okay, well if that personcan do this, then I sure as hell should be
(19:10):
able to do this.
And they're completely breaking me off onthe trails.
Right?
And so that just like totally made mecurious, like what is happening?
And then I realized just how mental thissport is.
And it really comes down to yourwillingness to suffer, not for three to
(19:31):
five minutes, like we do in CrossFit, butfor the span of hours and hours and hours.
And I'm all about like trying to masterthe art of suffering.
and get really good at it because I'm notvery good at it.
And so, ultras really expose me in thatway and...
(19:57):
I'm still not great at running and I'm notgreat at suffering for long periods of
time and I really want to be and so that'swhere I'm at kind of right now in my ultra
career.
I remember seeing a while back, I think itwas maybe your first, was it an ultra or
was it like an off -road marathon orwhat's the longest one that you've done?
(20:19):
to 100 K, so 62 miles.
Dang, how long did each of those take you?
I think those were around 17 hours.
So, and it's kind of funny because Iwouldn't even define myself as a ultra
runner.
I would, like that does, it almost feelslike I'm being an imposter when I say
(20:43):
that.
I definitely am like, no, I'm just anathlete who does ultras.
And I crossfit, and I Olympic weight lift,and I strength train, and you know what I
mean?
So I wouldn't say.
Like even when I said, oh yeah, I am anultra runner, I'm like, well, I don't
really feel like an ultra runner.
I just feel like somebody who does ultras.
(21:03):
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I was trying to think of a goodlike, compared to like, I just casually do
ultras.
It's like, it's a different thing.
It's like, I'm kind of into coffee.
Like.
and you can't kind of do ultras becausethey take so much and there are people who
do.
I mean you could go, you could casuallybe, in my opinion, you could casually go
(21:28):
and do 50 K's or 50 milers with prettyminimal running training.
Especially trail, right?
Like when there's hiking, I mean you cankind of casually do that but when you
start getting into those like highermileage.
You can't casually do that.
You have to be pretty all in to be able togo to the places that you need to go with
(21:50):
those longer distances.
Yeah, that was, I did, before we startedrecording, I told you I did two marathons
while I was in college.
And it was, the first one I really didn'ttrain for a whole lot, did not do great,
but it was my knees were so, it was morejust, they weren't ready for the impact,
that sustained impact for that long.
(22:11):
And then the second one, it was justschool got crazy.
I was in college and everything got crazy,but I put in miles.
Like I, my body was more prepared for it.
And then it was,
a couple friends and I, we all did ittogether.
So like the four of us, we actually hadthe exact same time at the St.
Louis Marathon.
Like when you go on to like the results,it was all four of us had, cause we like
(22:33):
made sure we crossed the line, the startat the same time.
Then at the finish, we're like, all right,so get in a line.
We're going to try and do this.
And we all had the exact same time.
It was pretty cool.
Yeah.
I always tell people I would way rather godo a 50 mile trail run than do a marathon
on the road.
(22:54):
Road marathons are just like so brutal andI have so much respect for people who go
out and do a road marathon.
I mean, I feel such a difference when Irun on the road, just that higher impact
and also.
It's not easy to run for that amount oftime.
So much respect to road marathoners forsure.
(23:17):
Yeah, a couple years ago I got, it was a,I remember it was a Sunday and I had gone
out with some friends the night before andso, little hungover, and I got up and I
hadn't like, hadn't worked out for a fewdays either.
It was one of those, I was like, I waslike, I've just been a human piece of
garbage the last few days.
I need to go do something.
(23:38):
And I was like, I'm gonna go from myhouse.
There is, there's a loop where I can golike out.
It's all on main streets, but it's exactlya 5K from my front.
door back to my front door.
And I was like, I'm gonna go do that.
And I'm putting on my shoes and I'm like,this is not gonna be good.
And like, I know what I'm capable of fromback in the day, like the 800 was my race
back in high school.
(23:58):
And yeah, and so it's like, I know whatI'm capable of.
And I was like, I'm not gonna get anywherenear it.
So I threw on a weight vest.
So I was like, okay, if this is gonna beslow, it's gonna be because of this vest,
not because of the bad decisions I madethe last few days.
And I ended up putting up like a somewhatdecent time.
and that was a Sunday.
And then like the next Saturday, I waslike, you know, maybe I'm gonna do another
(24:21):
one tomorrow, like just to test it again.
Like I feel good.
I was good this week.
I ate well and all that, just kind of, andthen it turned, it was like almost a year.
It was like every Sunday or a Saturday, Iwould go for a run in that 5K.
And like, obviously it like plateaued andI didn't improve.
But like the first, it's like, I knockedlike a minute off, like the first time
that I did it.
And then it just kind of kept like, okay,cool.
(24:41):
I'm keeping pretty consistent miles here.
Like this is fun.
So.
that's awesome.
Yeah, we actually just went to theCarlsbad 5000.
I actually saw one of your guys's boostsup there, which was pretty cool, but they
were breaking it down before I got to sayhi.
But I was thinking to myself like, man, Iwould rather go do a half marathon than go
(25:03):
run a 5k because that race just looked sointense.
And we watched the elites and I was justlike, I got
literal goosebumps watching these elitelevel athletes run that 5k.
I mean, that is a hard, hard distancebecause you cannot let off the gas for
(25:24):
three miles.
Like that is so tricky.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, and they're running like sub fivesthe whole time.
Like it's just, I've done one of thoseever.
Like.
I think the top guy averaged to be a 448mile for three miles.
That's faster than my one mile back in myprime when I was 18.
(25:45):
Like that's crazy.
So yeah.
Okay, well so you're doing theweightlifting coach.
Well actually, what does weightliftingcoaching look like for you now?
Like we talked about Sage the athlete,let's talk about Sage the coach a little
bit.
Okay, yeah, so I still do remote coachingfor athletes.
(26:05):
So people come to me specifically to tryand improve their Olympic weightlifting.
They are initially a little disappointedthat I make them do things that are going
to make them be a fit Olympicweightlifter.
Similar to the way that I program formayhem, burgener strength, there's a lot
of stuff that you wouldn't necessarily seein like a conventional style Olympic
(26:28):
weightlifting program.
which is very in line with what mymethodology is about.
It's increasing our athleticism in orderto be better at Olympic weightlifting,
which is an extremely athleticallydemanding sport, right?
Like you gotta be so athletic to be asuccessful Olympic weightlifter.
(26:50):
So why do we keep, you know, honing in onthe snatch and clean and jerk only...
without addressing the things that make usmore athletic that are in turn going to
make us better at smashing, clean andjerking.
Does that make sense?
And so I coach my remote athletes, Iprogram for Mayhem Berner Strength, and I
(27:14):
host my Bad Bitch Camps, which are thesethree -day fitness retreats.
It's kind of like a weird way of sayingit, because it doesn't feel like a retreat
in any capacity.
It's a very challenging weekend.
And people come and yes, we do a lot ofOlympic weightlifting and I coach them on
(27:36):
their technique and teach them and throwall my knowledge on the Olympic lifts onto
them.
And we also do a ton of other forms offitness as well in those three days.
I also coach one day seminars foraffiliates, which is always really fun to
be able to just come in for the day andjust.
(27:58):
I mean, they're so mentally exhausted bythe end of the day of just trying to like
throw in as many cues and education aspossible on the Olympic lifts as well.
Yeah, it's always funny to be like the wehad Jared Enderton lives nearby and came
over and did a snatch clinic at my gym theend of last year.
(28:20):
And it was so funny because people likethey wanted to learn.
We had a good turnout for it.
But the amount of people are like, why amI so sore from a PVC pipe of like just
holding these positions?
Like we do this with a barbell all thetime.
Why is this so hard?
I know.
Yeah, affiliate owners will reach out andthey'll be like, okay, well we wanna kinda
do like some snatch and clean and jerk andmaybe we could do like a lifting session
(28:44):
at the end of it.
And I'm always like, okay, well, you know,we can try, we'll see how everybody's
feeling and everyone is just so smoked bythe end of the day that maybe we'll get to
lifting like empty barbell, 65 to 95pounds or so.
people are so trash that there's there'sabsolutely no heavy lifting most of the
(29:05):
time towards the end.
Yeah.
So going back, like the bad bitch camps,what do those, it's three days.
What all are you covering in those threedays?
Yeah, so Friday is typically a lot ofOlympic weightlifting with a snatch.
So I'll kind of just get into thefundamentals.
I'll cover a lot of the things that wetalk about in our Bergner Strength
(29:28):
courses, our Level 1 courses, and justreally help break down the movements for
people.
Because it's always so fascinating andinteresting to me how often we do the
Olympic lifts and CrossFit.
But people have such little knowledgeabout what is actually happening during a
(29:51):
lift.
Because crossfitters are typically prettyathletic people.
And we have so much that we have to begood at that people get thrown into a
workout that has a snatch or clean andjerk.
And if they move pretty well, the coach isnot really gonna go into too much detail
about what is happening, why it'shappening.
(30:12):
Like, why do you...
Stay over the bar.
Why do you want to think jump more thanhit the bar off your hips?
And so that's kind of my opportunity toreally ask questions.
Like, do you guys know why this ishappening or why we're doing this?
And that's, so that's really fun.
People love getting into the nitty grittywith the Olympic lift.
(30:36):
So that's sort of Friday.
Saturday is a little bit of everything.
So we crossfit, we run, we do more Olympicweightlifting, and I just basically show
them at the end of the day, look at howmuch you just accomplished in one day.
Because I'm trying to change theirperspective or their standard for what
(31:00):
they're capable of doing in one single dayof training.
It's also great because a lot of the womenthat come are moms or they're just busy in
general.
And so they never get the chance to justlike fully dive in to a full weekend or
full day of training.
Like I constantly say throughout theweekend, you have nothing else you have to
(31:24):
do.
You have nowhere you have to be.
You have no one else you need to take careof.
You have nothing else to do.
So just enjoy being here.
with no one else needing any single thingfrom you.
And I just think that that, a lot ofchicks will come looking for that fire to
be lit under their ass.
(31:44):
They always say like, I haven't been ableto train as much as I want.
Like training is definitely taking abackseat.
I just need a fire lit under me.
And that's sort of my basis that I use toplan out that weekend.
And then Sunday is always really fun.
We go and we do like a Q &A with my dad.
(32:07):
We drink some coffee.
People can just pick his brain.
And I mean, that man has so muchinformation and knowledge and experience
that it's fun to just be able to sit therewith him and ask him a bunch of questions.
And then we do like a very old schoolMike's Gym style of training where we
snatch and clean and jerk and front squatheavy singles for the day with my dad.
(32:31):
and people just get to throw down, eventhough they're tired, even though their
bodies are sore and exhausted, we stillget to go and lift in front of Coach B,
which is always so exciting for them.
Yeah, I feel like the lifting with Coach Band going to that garage for a lot of
CrossFitters, like that's like, that'slike going to the ranch for some people,
(32:54):
or that's like going to like MayhemCrossFit, like it's bucket list items.
So I know, yeah, I know it's on minebecause I've talked to Sean from, because
we're then it's, I don't know when it'scoming out, but we can talk about like,
there's going to be a Coach B documentarycoming out that Bubbs is helping do.
And I was telling, he's like, yeah, we'regonna launch it hopefully like spring or
(33:15):
summer.
And I'm like, cool, like when we launchit, like we should go like get some stuff
with Coach B and like, and I get to go,right?
Like I get to go.
I wanna go to the, I wanna go lift in thegarage.
Pick me pick me, please.
Yeah, I mean I have had a lot of peopleask like hey, can we do a Destination bad
(33:38):
bitch camp like would you want to come tomy jam?
I have a ton of women who'd be sointerested in something like this and
while I totally want to do it There's alsoa part of me that's like well part of the
magic of the weekend is getting to go andbe in that jam and I
and be on that property.
I mean, my mom just has created thisbeautiful property with her yard and the
(34:02):
house and everything.
It's like, that's such a pivotal part ofthe weekend that there's always a part of
me that's like, I don't know, I think itshould stay here, but then you wanna reach
more people.
So I'm not really sure, but it is such amagical place.
Like very magical things happen at Mike'sGym for sure.
(34:24):
Yeah, I wanna go lift with the geezers, orworkout with the geezers.
I don't expect much of a workout.
They mostly just like shit talk and talkabout politics the whole time.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Exactly.
Exactly.
It's pretty funny.
Hmm.
What's, um, okay.
(34:45):
So that you're at the bad bitch camps, youhave your coaching and all that.
What's like professionally, personally,what kind of goals are you working towards
right now?
Like, is there anything big we can expectfrom Sage Bergner over the next couple of
years or coming up or what are you lookingto do?
I think that it's very dynamic.
(35:06):
I'm a very dynamic person things kind ofebb and flow for me, but I definitely want
to explore this world of ultra running andintegrating more strength and conditioning
into that ultra world and that ultracommunity and my boyfriend and I actually
(35:26):
just launched a program called ultrastrength and it
was born out of this past year has beenlike such a huge year for us a year of
change.
He got diagnosed with cancer and that waslike a whole journey.
It was very sudden, very extreme, like atotal whirlwind.
(35:51):
And now we're on the other side of it andwe're both training for a hundred mile
race in June.
And so I attempted the 100 mile race lastyear for a list of reasons that we don't
even have to go into because they'llalways just sound like excuses.
So I just say, hey, I DNF'd.
(36:12):
If you want to know the story, great.
If not, doesn't matter.
But I DNF'd that race.
And so I learned so much from that.
DNF means did not finish.
learned so much from that race that westarted sort of thinking like, what could
(36:35):
I have done better?
What could I have done differently tocomplete this race?
And he just had major, major surgery toget rid of his cancer in November.
And so his thought process and our thoughtprocess has been how can we rebuild you
from zero and have you ready for this racein June?
(36:56):
And so those two stories together, we'relike, we have to create a program for
this.
Like this is what we believe in.
And you have two categories.
You have the strength and conditioningpeople who never want to run, but are
curious about what would it look like if Iadded some running in.
And then you have the runners who arelike, yeah,
(37:19):
We do strength work, like we do dumbbellwork, we do like accessory work, but they
don't ever do heavy, heavy lifting.
And we know the benefit to the stimulusthat heavy loading on the body can do for
you in terms of durability of the body,right?
(37:39):
You can't just do strength training withlight weight and expect to have the most
durable body that you can.
you possibly need you not you have to doit all you have to run you have to do the
accessory work you have to do the heavylifting and so that's where this whole
program kind of was born was how do Iimprove from a failure and how do you go
(38:02):
from zero to get ready for a hundred milerace and so I'm just like really excited
about this this is kind of something thatI feel like I'm at this point in my life
where all of my passions
are starting to get a little bit morefocused into one thing.
(38:22):
And I really want to explore that.
Like I just had an ultimate, my first everultimate bad bitch camp.
So you have regular bad bitch camp, thenyou have your ultimate.
And the, yes.
And the ultimate was doing just that.
We, I merged the world of CrossFit,Olympic weightlifting, and ultra running
(38:44):
into one weekend.
and it was just like the most incredibleweekend ever for me.
And so that's sort of where I see myvision and going from here is I just want
to keep exploring that.
The camps are my passion, they're what Ilove to do because I get to take
(39:04):
everything I believe in and love and pourit into these such willing, badass women.
from all over the world, which itliterally doesn't get much better than
that.
cool.
I want to go to bad bitch camp that soundslike fun.
(39:25):
it's like, okay, well, I could be a badbitch if you just let some dudes in there.
I do want to, I want Charlie to run an all-male one.
I think, I mean, men are dying for thiskind of weekend as well, but they don't
want to come and learn from a female orlisten and be yelled at a female all
(39:47):
weekend.
Maybe they do, which is a pretty cool guy,in my opinion.
Mm -hmm.
would be cool to have a male presencebecause we get into like very deep sort of
emotional stuff that is pretty specific towomen, which I think would be really cool
for a guy to get into the mental sidethat's specific to men and the challenges
(40:08):
that men face on the regular.
Yeah, the one of my coaches at my gym,she, we had, especially like with COVID
and all that, it was like sport, you justcouldn't like do kids, couldn't go to as
many sports and all that kind of stuff.
So a lot of my members were in the burbsof Denver.
So we've got a lot of families and like,Hey, like my junior high to early high
(40:32):
school kid, like they wanted to bring themin.
And it was so cool seeing, especially theyoung ladies that came in being coached by
Jess, because she's just a very fit.
looks the part, broad shoulders.
It's one of those like, actually, I'mgonna brag on her for a second.
So she teaches at a local police academy.
She does their physical training componentand does that year round every morning.
(40:56):
And this guy came in, he's coming in to bea police officer and he's like, she's
wearing a tank top and he's like, do youmind putting on a sweater or something?
It's really intimidating how big yourshoulders are.
And she's like, you're gonna be a cop.
I'm 130 pounds.
You're 200 and like, you're intimidated byme?
Like it was.
we need to address that please before yougo out and try and protect our streets.
(41:20):
but it's been so cool seeing her work with14 year old, 18 year old girls and all
that.
And like, you see like that shift of like,being a strong female, like there's
nothing wrong with that.
And like, and seeing like some of thesegirls like progress up, like, we've got
one, she's in college now, but like shecomes back and just like throws down with
(41:41):
us every time she comes home.
It's like one of my favorite things.
So.
It's amazing getting to redefine kind ofwhat these teenage girls' priorities are,
for sure.
And that's so awesome that she just takesthat role very seriously because you can
make some very impactful changes at thatage.
(42:03):
They are just so impressionable.
So I always love hearing that.
Yeah, it's been cool.
Like just there's her there's I would putyou in that camp also as well a lot of
like just the higher level CrossFit Gamesathletes of like what beauty is and like
obviously I'm a white guy talking aboutthis but like.
(42:23):
smart you see what happens.
cool seeing that being reframed in societyand that there's nothing wrong with having
strong arms or strong legs or whatever itis.
So for me, it's been cool to watch becausedefinitely over the last 10 years, I feel
like CrossFit really blew up the 2013games around there.
(42:46):
So we're a decade out at this point andjust seeing how that's changed across so
many people.
I know, it's amazing.
What else?
I had another question on here for you.
That's kind of what I had.
I had a list of things and we kind oftalked about all of it.
(43:09):
As we went through, we kind of hit on someof the subjects I want to talk about.
Is there anything else that you wanted toshare or anything else big coming up?
I know you talked about the campus and allthat.
Yeah, no, I think we pretty much coveredeverything.
Yeah, got that big race coming up, whichwill be really fun.
Got some camps coming up this summer,which will be great.
(43:32):
So yeah, life is good.
And I really appreciate you guys having meon here.
We love Bubs.
Bubs always takes care of my dad, takescare of me.
So we're so thankful to you guys forputting out such amazing, clean, quality
products.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
We're happy to have you guys be a part ofthe Bose family.
(43:53):
So yeah, when we were putting togetherlike that, we just started doing the
podcast and we were putting together thelist of names like you guys were on the
list like immediately of like, we want todefinitely talk with them.
So, cool.
All right.
So Sage, if people want to learn moreabout you or Bad Bitch Camps or any of
like the programming that you do, wherecan they find you?
(44:16):
Where can they find all that stuff?
So they can go to my website, sagebergner.com.
I have all of the information about remotecoaching, about one day seminars, about
the camps, everything is on there.
And then if they want to learn about theultra strength programming as well,
ultrastrengthco .com.
(44:37):
We also have that website with a bunch ofdifferent programs or running programs
that people can check out, which is reallycool too.
And then I'll make sure to in thedescription of the podcast or the YouTube
video, wherever you're listening orwatching this, I'll make sure to drop
links in there.
I'll throw your Instagram in there too.
So people want to connect with you.
They can.
So.
Thank you so much Nathan.
(44:59):
Sorry about the dogs.
right, dogs are back.
Guys, as always, thank you for listening.
You can find the Cult of Recreationalismpodcast on podcast services everywhere,
YouTube.
If you want to connect with us, just lookup Bubs Naturals anywhere, whether it's
Google, social media, you're gonna findus.
(45:20):
And while you're there, leave a thumbs upor a five -star review, every little bit
helps and it helps us grow this podcastand grow Bubs.
So.
Sage, thanks so much for coming on.
And then stick around after this.
I wanted to talk to you about a coupleother things, but thank you for coming on.
Okay, thanks.
to go.
I don't know why it always does this.
Hold on, let me start this over.
I'm gonna cut that part out.
(00:25):
What's up everybody?
Welcome to the Cult of Recreationalismpodcast.
I'm your host today, Nathan Morris, and weare here with Sage Bergner.
Welcome Sage.
Hi, thanks for having me.
Yeah, absolutely.
Sage, I got a little.
intro music by the way.
That was classy.
Yes.
to talk about stuff.
(00:46):
So, um, I got an intro here, Sage, let meknow if I did too much or if I didn't add
enough in here.
So, um, Sage is a mother, a strength andconditioning coach, a weightlifting and
long distance runner.
Now she's been involved in Olympicweightlifting for over 30 years, been
coaching it for almost two decades.
And most importantly, she stays rad.
(01:07):
Uh huh.
too much, just the right amount.
I love that.
Perfect.
Yeah, that's kind of like, it was funny.
I was going through your website and it'slike, she has been involved in Olympic
weightlifting for 30 years.
And it's like, I don't know many peoplethat can say that.
I know I I feel very lucky because I itwas just introduced to me basically in the
(01:31):
womb But we'll say growing up in my dad'stwo -car garage I was just surrounded by
it because we would have people come infrom all over the world world champions
come and train and I just want to be inthe mix and
and I was the youngest out of four kidsand all my brothers were doing it.
(01:52):
So I just had to be doing it too, be outthere with everybody.
So it's pretty cool to say that you'vebeen involved in something for so long.
I mean, I don't ever remember it not beinga part of my life, which is really cool.
I didn't realize you were one of four.
There was four kids running around likewith all these Olympic level athletes.
That's really...
(02:12):
Do you have any good memories from that?
Like crazy stories, like someone coming inand it's like, who actually, let me
rephrase that.
Who was like the nicest person that youremember from that?
Oh man.
Well, I don't ever really think thatanyone was trying to be super nice when
they were there.
Everyone was just trying to like throwdown hard in the gym.
(02:35):
But it was just like, I just remember wealways had such good quality people there.
You know, now that I look back, I'mactually super nostalgic about that time
because that was just like really grittytraining and this kind of,
dusty old garage gym and everybody wasjust there because they love to train hard
(03:01):
and there was no, you know, phones out,cameras, nothing and people were doing
just absolute savage stuff.
You know, we were doing one rep or 20 repmax back squat and people were going off
to the side like throwing up and thencoming back in and throwing down again.
(03:22):
I would say there was definitely somepeople that made like pretty big impacts
with just the way that they train.
But again, everyone was really cool to me.
If people weren't sweet or kind to mydad's kids, they would be thrown out very
quickly or just wouldn't fit in with thegroup.
So everybody was just super high quality.
(03:45):
Yeah, that was, I don't know.
The reason I threw that out there wasthere was a long time ago I went to, it
was an affiliate owner's dinner.
It was like the 2014 CrossFit Games.
And I was no, I didn't own an affiliate atthat time.
I was just there with a friend and we metJesse Burdick and he was just the nicest
guy.
He's like, Hey, like what's your name?
(04:06):
Like Nathan, he's like, well, how youdoing?
I'm like, good.
And he's like, well, what was good about?
Like he like legitimately wanted to know.
And it always stuck with me.
And I just think.
highly of him because of that.
I know, it's people who just take the timeto really be inquisitive and actually do
care about what you have to say, it'sreally refreshing.
Yeah.
(04:27):
What was it like growing?
Did you know you wanted to stay in theweightlifting space growing up in that
environment?
Or was there ever like, I don't want to bea part of this.
I want to do my own thing.
You are kind of a rebel.
But.
I feel like I never really strayed veryfar from Olympic weightlifting.
(04:50):
I think that I really loved it.
Also, my brothers were really big rolemodels to me.
And specifically, my oldest brother Caseywas one of my huge role models growing up.
And so I watched him.
be very successful in Olympicweightlifting.
And I watched kind of the path that hetook to get to the Olympic Training Center
(05:14):
and perform at a very high level.
And I think there was a large part of methat wanted to be very similar to him.
And so I always kind of knew that I wantedto stay in weightlifting and then explore
like.
transferring high schools the same waythat he did his junior year so he could go
(05:35):
to my dad's high school and train twice aday.
And so I took the same track as him andthen tried to get into the Olympic
Training Center or a collegiate programfor weightlifting the same way that he
did.
So I always kind of knew and I didn't evengo through like a rebellious phase where I
felt like I don't wanna do weightlifting,you guys forced us to do it.
(05:57):
because we did always have to weight lift.
We had to be in at least one sport and wehad to be Olympic weightlifting.
But when I talk to my brothers about it, Idon't feel like any of us were really
forced or had to, you know.
be poked and par like, hey, you got to getyour training.
(06:20):
And I think that we started to see thebenefits of doing it very early and the
way that it helped us in the other sportsthat we were doing.
It was kind of cool that like, we weredoing stuff that not a lot of other kids
were doing.
And so I think there was a element to thatthat was very intriguing, like, oh man,
this is so natural for us, but this isn'tlike a common thing.
(06:43):
And the berners.
We all like to be special in some way andwe all like to be doing something that not
a lot of people are doing.
And so yeah, I always loved it and Ialways wanted to be in it and I never had
to be forced to train.
Yeah, so did your parents, were they like,hey, you gotta go get it in, or was it
(07:07):
more of a, hey, don't forget, was itdirect encouragement, or was it you need
to do this, or how did that work?
Thank you.
The only time I remember ever being like,I don't want to train, was if I wanted to
go and hang out with my friends andthey're like, no, you need to get a
training session in.
(07:28):
But that was very few and far between.
I do feel like there was a couple of timeswhere, you know, it was more of a little
bit of like a guilt trip of like, you'renot gonna get your training session in,
like you know how important that is.
But now that I am a parent, I totallyunderstand why.
Like they really wanted to encourage thatcontinuous strength building.
(07:56):
I think that the fact that there wasalways people at our house, I always
wanted to be in the mix with everybody.
So it wasn't really like directencouragement or guilt or like you have to
do this.
It was more of like, well, this is whateverybody's doing.
This is where we all are.
And it always sounded fun.
(08:17):
Like there was heavy weights dropping.
You could hear that from anywhere in thehouse.
There was yelling, there was passionatecoaching.
And so I think there was just,
always a part of me that would end up outthere because I wanted to see what was
going on and then I just ended up jumpingin on the mix.
Yeah, and so have you, with your kids, doyou kind of require the same thing?
(08:39):
Like, hey, we've got to make sure we workout every day, or what does that look
like?
Yeah, I really try to find the balance.
They actually my son and I have insidejoke where he feels like I always say,
well, if you would have been training moreconsistently, then this wouldn't have
happened.
And so I definitely think I'm in their eara lot about the importance of lifting
(09:03):
weights.
He is finally sort of at that age now he's11.
He'll be 12 in November.
where he is starting to get morepassionate about other sports and he wants
to be good.
And so he's seeing the benefit of puttingon a little bit of muscle.
I see him like flexing in the mirror andstuff, which is hilarious to me.
(09:27):
And so I think he's starting to buy intoit.
Yeah, he does like the abs and then hedoes like the trap thing, which is so
funny to me.
So.
in their ear forever but they do they docome to the gym with me almost every day
and I try and pull the whole like well youknow you can't go on electronics until you
(09:49):
get your lifting in and then you got toread and then you got to do your homework
but lifting is always a part of that orcrossfit it's kind of the same thing for
us so there's definitely like requirementsthat meet and responsibilities that need
to be done and
Weightlifting is just one of those.
So I think it's just kind of a norm forthem where they're like, okay, I gotta get
(10:12):
my homework done.
I have to read and I have to get a workoutin.
That's just like where their brain goes tonow, which makes me really happy.
That's cool.
I do some training with kids.
I don't have kids, but I like trainingsome of them.
I don't know if you've ever taken theCrossFit Kids course, but one of the big
(10:32):
things they instill in that is burpeesshould not be a punishment.
Burpees should be fun.
So you never pun it.
It's like, nope, you have to go sit downover there.
You don't get to do burpees with us.
And it's like just teaching that kind ofmentality.
For sure.
I remember he went through a phase wherehe was giving me some attitude and wasn't
being super coachable.
(10:54):
And I made him finish the workout.
And then I was like, you don't get to workout for the next week because working out
is a privilege.
And one of those things is beingcoachable.
And as a coach, that's my number onerequirement for an athlete is
coachability.
And so I tried to kind of.
shift it to like this is something thatyou get to do this is not something that
(11:16):
is just like oh anybody gets to do it itneeds to be earned and I think that really
shifted his perspective too but yeah noI've never made it a punishment ever.
That's what other sports is he playing?
He does wrestling and jujitsu.
Yeah, so he's super into wrestling rightnow.
(11:38):
That's so cool.
We were talking about like, I've had,we've had Kalipa and Chris Speeler on the
podcast.
And we've been talking about Chris was,he's like, he's like crossfitters.
He's like when they're like a lot ofcrossfitters you've seen like jujitsu and
mountain biking are like the two thingsthat he's like, and it's just because it
just translates.
And for me, I started doing jujitsurecently and it's just, I, I love the
(12:03):
technical aspects of it.
Similar to why I really started.
gravitating towards weightlifting earlyon.
But now my barbell is fighting back.
It's like I'm trying to do somethingspecific with it, but it's trying to fight
back.
And it's not just gravity, it's coming atyou from all angles now.
So.
Yeah, no, I love it.
I think it's I think crossfitters start totransition into more of like active
(12:29):
meditative movements, right?
So like mountain biking you have to be sofocused on what you're doing in that
moment And so your mind is constantlyworking and jujitsu your mind is
constantly working and so that sort of outof active meditation I think becomes very
appealing
(12:49):
Because you have other responsibilities inlife and life is hard and stressful and so
to be so engaged mentally with somethingand to sort of escape from all of that for
an hour, couple of hours, I just think isso appealing for CrossFitters nowadays
from what I'm seeing.
Yeah, and you're kind of finding it toowith ultra running, right?
(13:10):
Yeah, I would say part of it's activemeditation, but the other part is it
requires a lot from me mentally, butthat's why I do it.
Sorry, the dogs.
You're good.
We'll let him stop for us.
There you go.
Where was I gonna go with that?
(13:30):
Oh, but so like with the ultra running,because I wanted to ask you about that.
You don't often hear of weightlifters.
Usually there's like, no, you idiots cango run over there.
Do your thing.
We're gonna have our chair next to ourplatform and sit down between lifts.
So what drove that and what kind of gotthat started for you?
So I was absolutely very old school styleOlympic weightlifter where I was like,
(13:57):
yep, I get out of breath, like walking tothe refrigerator.
We sit down in between sets, we eat gummybears in between sets, and it's like we
throw down super hard on one lift and thenyou go and rest.
And in that culture, there's a lot ofpride and kind of humor surrounding that
(14:17):
culture.
But then five or six years or so ago, Imoved back to Fallbrook.
I had kind of moved all over the place andI got introduced to my coach who's now my
boyfriend, Charlie McEvoy.
And he really changed my whole kind ofperspective and methodology surrounding
(14:46):
fitness.
which there's not a lot of people who comeinto my life where I'm like, wow, like
this just blew my mind with your thoughtprocess surrounding things.
And I think I was like very open tolearning, but without really knowing it.
And I remember telling him like, hey, I'mkind of a coach now.
(15:08):
I don't really like lift much anymorecompetitively.
I don't really class fit morecompetitively.
Like I really want to invest and be acoach and invest in my athletes.
And he was like, that's bullshit.
And I'm like, what do you mean?
This is the natural progression, man.
Like this is what you do.
You're a competitive athlete.
You do all your time and you be selfish.
(15:30):
And then now it's time to be selfless.
And he was like, absolutely not.
And so he kind of started to slowly showme through his programming and just
through the way that we would train justwhat an increase of athleticism as a whole
can do for your strength.
(15:51):
And with that came introducing a littlebit more running for me where I was, I
pushed back very hard.
I was like, nope, running is horrible formy hips.
It kill, like I've had pretty bad hipissues since I was young and
weightlifting.
(16:12):
I'm like, running is gonna be absolutelyhorrible for my hips and I'm trying to get
strong right now.
Like this is, I believed everything therewas to believe about running.
Like this is gonna take away my strengthgains.
It's gonna do all the things.
And he was like, listen, just run a mile aday.
Okay, that's all I'm asking.
You can do it as your warmup.
just run one mile every day and just seewhat happens.
(16:36):
And I, it did take me being open to theidea that it could be something different
than what I thought it was gonna be,right?
Because that's always a huge part ofgrowing anyways is the willingness to be
open to some sort of different thoughtprocess.
And so I started running every day and,
(16:59):
Because I'm me, it was like, all right,well, maybe I won't just do a mile every
day.
Like maybe I'll do two miles today.
And then I was like, okay.
And then I would lift and I'd feel reallygood.
And like my strength wasn't going down.
And I'm like, okay, well, let's up this alittle bit.
I'm gonna try five miles today, which wasjust like absurd to me.
(17:21):
Like five miles, oh my gosh.
I've never even thought about running thisbefore.
Like this is gonna be so far.
And then I went and did it and I was like,dang, I feel pretty good.
And just fast forward, I ended up doing a10 mile run.
And then the next day I came in and myknees were hurting and my hips were
(17:45):
aching.
And I started warming up and I PR my backsquat.
And to PR the phase of your life whereyou've been lifting for over 25 years is
like,
pretty crazy right I don't really expect.
Many PRS at this point.
(18:05):
I do now but back then I was like what Ijust pure my back spot like this is why
all and so that I really like bought intoit.
And then he started getting Charliestarted getting into doing some more
longer runs and.
I'm very much that person where like ifsomebody's close to me that I love is
(18:27):
doing something, I'm so curious about it.
I'm like, oh, I wonder if I could do that.
And so began my journey into like theultra world where all these people that I
was starting to see were going and doingultras and I went and did my first 50K and
I'm like looking around at all thesepeople that looked so different than.
(18:48):
Crossfitters who are like the mostpristine, optimal, like human specimens in
the world and they're so jacked and theirbodies are so beautiful and they're doing
all these crazy things and then you go andyou see these ultra runners and they're
just like these average looking people.
And you're like, okay, well if that personcan do this, then I sure as hell should be
(19:10):
able to do this.
And they're completely breaking me off onthe trails.
Right?
And so that just like totally made mecurious, like what is happening?
And then I realized just how mental thissport is.
And it really comes down to yourwillingness to suffer, not for three to
(19:31):
five minutes, like we do in CrossFit, butfor the span of hours and hours and hours.
And I'm all about like trying to masterthe art of suffering.
and get really good at it because I'm notvery good at it.
And so, ultras really expose me in thatway and...
(19:57):
I'm still not great at running and I'm notgreat at suffering for long periods of
time and I really want to be and so that'swhere I'm at kind of right now in my ultra
career.
I remember seeing a while back, I think itwas maybe your first, was it an ultra or
was it like an off -road marathon orwhat's the longest one that you've done?
(20:19):
to 100 K, so 62 miles.
Dang, how long did each of those take you?
I think those were around 17 hours.
So, and it's kind of funny because Iwouldn't even define myself as a ultra
runner.
I would, like that does, it almost feelslike I'm being an imposter when I say
(20:43):
that.
I definitely am like, no, I'm just anathlete who does ultras.
And I crossfit, and I Olympic weight lift,and I strength train, and you know what I
mean?
So I wouldn't say.
Like even when I said, oh yeah, I am anultra runner, I'm like, well, I don't
really feel like an ultra runner.
I just feel like somebody who does ultras.
(21:03):
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I was trying to think of a goodlike, compared to like, I just casually do
ultras.
It's like, it's a different thing.
It's like, I'm kind of into coffee.
Like.
and you can't kind of do ultras becausethey take so much and there are people who
do.
I mean you could go, you could casuallybe, in my opinion, you could casually go
(21:28):
and do 50 K's or 50 milers with prettyminimal running training.
Especially trail, right?
Like when there's hiking, I mean you cankind of casually do that but when you
start getting into those like highermileage.
You can't casually do that.
You have to be pretty all in to be able togo to the places that you need to go with
(21:50):
those longer distances.
Yeah, that was, I did, before we startedrecording, I told you I did two marathons
while I was in college.
And it was, the first one I really didn'ttrain for a whole lot, did not do great,
but it was my knees were so, it was morejust, they weren't ready for the impact,
that sustained impact for that long.
(22:11):
And then the second one, it was justschool got crazy.
I was in college and everything got crazy,but I put in miles.
Like I, my body was more prepared for it.
And then it was,
a couple friends and I, we all did ittogether.
So like the four of us, we actually hadthe exact same time at the St.
Louis Marathon.
Like when you go on to like the results,it was all four of us had, cause we like
(22:33):
made sure we crossed the line, the startat the same time.
Then at the finish, we're like, all right,so get in a line.
We're going to try and do this.
And we all had the exact same time.
It was pretty cool.
Yeah.
I always tell people I would way rather godo a 50 mile trail run than do a marathon
on the road.
(22:54):
Road marathons are just like so brutal andI have so much respect for people who go
out and do a road marathon.
I mean, I feel such a difference when Irun on the road, just that higher impact
and also.
It's not easy to run for that amount oftime.
So much respect to road marathoners forsure.
(23:17):
Yeah, a couple years ago I got, it was a,I remember it was a Sunday and I had gone
out with some friends the night before andso, little hungover, and I got up and I
hadn't like, hadn't worked out for a fewdays either.
It was one of those, I was like, I waslike, I've just been a human piece of
garbage the last few days.
I need to go do something.
(23:38):
And I was like, I'm gonna go from myhouse.
There is, there's a loop where I can golike out.
It's all on main streets, but it's exactlya 5K from my front.
door back to my front door.
And I was like, I'm gonna go do that.
And I'm putting on my shoes and I'm like,this is not gonna be good.
And like, I know what I'm capable of fromback in the day, like the 800 was my race
back in high school.
(23:58):
And yeah, and so it's like, I know whatI'm capable of.
And I was like, I'm not gonna get anywherenear it.
So I threw on a weight vest.
So I was like, okay, if this is gonna beslow, it's gonna be because of this vest,
not because of the bad decisions I madethe last few days.
And I ended up putting up like a somewhatdecent time.
and that was a Sunday.
And then like the next Saturday, I waslike, you know, maybe I'm gonna do another
(24:21):
one tomorrow, like just to test it again.
Like I feel good.
I was good this week.
I ate well and all that, just kind of, andthen it turned, it was like almost a year.
It was like every Sunday or a Saturday, Iwould go for a run in that 5K.
And like, obviously it like plateaued andI didn't improve.
But like the first, it's like, I knockedlike a minute off, like the first time
that I did it.
And then it just kind of kept like, okay,cool.
(24:41):
I'm keeping pretty consistent miles here.
Like this is fun.
So.
that's awesome.
Yeah, we actually just went to theCarlsbad 5000.
I actually saw one of your guys's boostsup there, which was pretty cool, but they
were breaking it down before I got to sayhi.
But I was thinking to myself like, man, Iwould rather go do a half marathon than go
(25:03):
run a 5k because that race just looked sointense.
And we watched the elites and I was justlike, I got
literal goosebumps watching these elitelevel athletes run that 5k.
I mean, that is a hard, hard distancebecause you cannot let off the gas for
(25:24):
three miles.
Like that is so tricky.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, and they're running like sub fivesthe whole time.
Like it's just, I've done one of thoseever.
Like.
I think the top guy averaged to be a 448mile for three miles.
That's faster than my one mile back in myprime when I was 18.
(25:45):
Like that's crazy.
So yeah.
Okay, well so you're doing theweightlifting coach.
Well actually, what does weightliftingcoaching look like for you now?
Like we talked about Sage the athlete,let's talk about Sage the coach a little
bit.
Okay, yeah, so I still do remote coachingfor athletes.
(26:05):
So people come to me specifically to tryand improve their Olympic weightlifting.
They are initially a little disappointedthat I make them do things that are going
to make them be a fit Olympicweightlifter.
Similar to the way that I program formayhem, burgener strength, there's a lot
of stuff that you wouldn't necessarily seein like a conventional style Olympic
(26:28):
weightlifting program.
which is very in line with what mymethodology is about.
It's increasing our athleticism in orderto be better at Olympic weightlifting,
which is an extremely athleticallydemanding sport, right?
Like you gotta be so athletic to be asuccessful Olympic weightlifter.
(26:50):
So why do we keep, you know, honing in onthe snatch and clean and jerk only...
without addressing the things that make usmore athletic that are in turn going to
make us better at smashing, clean andjerking.
Does that make sense?
And so I coach my remote athletes, Iprogram for Mayhem Berner Strength, and I
(27:14):
host my Bad Bitch Camps, which are thesethree -day fitness retreats.
It's kind of like a weird way of sayingit, because it doesn't feel like a retreat
in any capacity.
It's a very challenging weekend.
And people come and yes, we do a lot ofOlympic weightlifting and I coach them on
(27:36):
their technique and teach them and throwall my knowledge on the Olympic lifts onto
them.
And we also do a ton of other forms offitness as well in those three days.
I also coach one day seminars foraffiliates, which is always really fun to
be able to just come in for the day andjust.
(27:58):
I mean, they're so mentally exhausted bythe end of the day of just trying to like
throw in as many cues and education aspossible on the Olympic lifts as well.
Yeah, it's always funny to be like the wehad Jared Enderton lives nearby and came
over and did a snatch clinic at my gym theend of last year.
(28:20):
And it was so funny because people likethey wanted to learn.
We had a good turnout for it.
But the amount of people are like, why amI so sore from a PVC pipe of like just
holding these positions?
Like we do this with a barbell all thetime.
Why is this so hard?
I know.
Yeah, affiliate owners will reach out andthey'll be like, okay, well we wanna kinda
do like some snatch and clean and jerk andmaybe we could do like a lifting session
(28:44):
at the end of it.
And I'm always like, okay, well, you know,we can try, we'll see how everybody's
feeling and everyone is just so smoked bythe end of the day that maybe we'll get to
lifting like empty barbell, 65 to 95pounds or so.
people are so trash that there's there'sabsolutely no heavy lifting most of the
(29:05):
time towards the end.
Yeah.
So going back, like the bad bitch camps,what do those, it's three days.
What all are you covering in those threedays?
Yeah, so Friday is typically a lot ofOlympic weightlifting with a snatch.
So I'll kind of just get into thefundamentals.
I'll cover a lot of the things that wetalk about in our Bergner Strength
(29:28):
courses, our Level 1 courses, and justreally help break down the movements for
people.
Because it's always so fascinating andinteresting to me how often we do the
Olympic lifts and CrossFit.
But people have such little knowledgeabout what is actually happening during a
(29:51):
lift.
Because crossfitters are typically prettyathletic people.
And we have so much that we have to begood at that people get thrown into a
workout that has a snatch or clean andjerk.
And if they move pretty well, the coach isnot really gonna go into too much detail
about what is happening, why it'shappening.
(30:12):
Like, why do you...
Stay over the bar.
Why do you want to think jump more thanhit the bar off your hips?
And so that's kind of my opportunity toreally ask questions.
Like, do you guys know why this ishappening or why we're doing this?
And that's, so that's really fun.
People love getting into the nitty grittywith the Olympic lift.
(30:36):
So that's sort of Friday.
Saturday is a little bit of everything.
So we crossfit, we run, we do more Olympicweightlifting, and I just basically show
them at the end of the day, look at howmuch you just accomplished in one day.
Because I'm trying to change theirperspective or their standard for what
(31:00):
they're capable of doing in one single dayof training.
It's also great because a lot of the womenthat come are moms or they're just busy in
general.
And so they never get the chance to justlike fully dive in to a full weekend or
full day of training.
Like I constantly say throughout theweekend, you have nothing else you have to
(31:24):
do.
You have nowhere you have to be.
You have no one else you need to take careof.
You have nothing else to do.
So just enjoy being here.
with no one else needing any single thingfrom you.
And I just think that that, a lot ofchicks will come looking for that fire to
be lit under their ass.
(31:44):
They always say like, I haven't been ableto train as much as I want.
Like training is definitely taking abackseat.
I just need a fire lit under me.
And that's sort of my basis that I use toplan out that weekend.
And then Sunday is always really fun.
We go and we do like a Q &A with my dad.
(32:07):
We drink some coffee.
People can just pick his brain.
And I mean, that man has so muchinformation and knowledge and experience
that it's fun to just be able to sit therewith him and ask him a bunch of questions.
And then we do like a very old schoolMike's Gym style of training where we
snatch and clean and jerk and front squatheavy singles for the day with my dad.
(32:31):
and people just get to throw down, eventhough they're tired, even though their
bodies are sore and exhausted, we stillget to go and lift in front of Coach B,
which is always so exciting for them.
Yeah, I feel like the lifting with Coach Band going to that garage for a lot of
CrossFitters, like that's like, that'slike going to the ranch for some people,
(32:54):
or that's like going to like MayhemCrossFit, like it's bucket list items.
So I know, yeah, I know it's on minebecause I've talked to Sean from, because
we're then it's, I don't know when it'scoming out, but we can talk about like,
there's going to be a Coach B documentarycoming out that Bubbs is helping do.
And I was telling, he's like, yeah, we'regonna launch it hopefully like spring or
(33:15):
summer.
And I'm like, cool, like when we launchit, like we should go like get some stuff
with Coach B and like, and I get to go,right?
Like I get to go.
I wanna go to the, I wanna go lift in thegarage.
Pick me pick me, please.
Yeah, I mean I have had a lot of peopleask like hey, can we do a Destination bad
(33:38):
bitch camp like would you want to come tomy jam?
I have a ton of women who'd be sointerested in something like this and
while I totally want to do it There's alsoa part of me that's like well part of the
magic of the weekend is getting to go andbe in that jam and I
and be on that property.
I mean, my mom just has created thisbeautiful property with her yard and the
(34:02):
house and everything.
It's like, that's such a pivotal part ofthe weekend that there's always a part of
me that's like, I don't know, I think itshould stay here, but then you wanna reach
more people.
So I'm not really sure, but it is such amagical place.
Like very magical things happen at Mike'sGym for sure.
(34:24):
Yeah, I wanna go lift with the geezers, orworkout with the geezers.
I don't expect much of a workout.
They mostly just like shit talk and talkabout politics the whole time.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Exactly.
Exactly.
It's pretty funny.
Hmm.
What's, um, okay.
(34:45):
So that you're at the bad bitch camps, youhave your coaching and all that.
What's like professionally, personally,what kind of goals are you working towards
right now?
Like, is there anything big we can expectfrom Sage Bergner over the next couple of
years or coming up or what are you lookingto do?
I think that it's very dynamic.
(35:06):
I'm a very dynamic person things kind ofebb and flow for me, but I definitely want
to explore this world of ultra running andintegrating more strength and conditioning
into that ultra world and that ultracommunity and my boyfriend and I actually
(35:26):
just launched a program called ultrastrength and it
was born out of this past year has beenlike such a huge year for us a year of
change.
He got diagnosed with cancer and that waslike a whole journey.
It was very sudden, very extreme, like atotal whirlwind.
(35:51):
And now we're on the other side of it andwe're both training for a hundred mile
race in June.
And so I attempted the 100 mile race lastyear for a list of reasons that we don't
even have to go into because they'llalways just sound like excuses.
So I just say, hey, I DNF'd.
(36:12):
If you want to know the story, great.
If not, doesn't matter.
But I DNF'd that race.
And so I learned so much from that.
DNF means did not finish.
learned so much from that race that westarted sort of thinking like, what could
(36:35):
I have done better?
What could I have done differently tocomplete this race?
And he just had major, major surgery toget rid of his cancer in November.
And so his thought process and our thoughtprocess has been how can we rebuild you
from zero and have you ready for this racein June?
(36:56):
And so those two stories together, we'relike, we have to create a program for
this.
Like this is what we believe in.
And you have two categories.
You have the strength and conditioningpeople who never want to run, but are
curious about what would it look like if Iadded some running in.
And then you have the runners who arelike, yeah,
(37:19):
We do strength work, like we do dumbbellwork, we do like accessory work, but they
don't ever do heavy, heavy lifting.
And we know the benefit to the stimulusthat heavy loading on the body can do for
you in terms of durability of the body,right?
(37:39):
You can't just do strength training withlight weight and expect to have the most
durable body that you can.
you possibly need you not you have to doit all you have to run you have to do the
accessory work you have to do the heavylifting and so that's where this whole
program kind of was born was how do Iimprove from a failure and how do you go
(38:02):
from zero to get ready for a hundred milerace and so I'm just like really excited
about this this is kind of something thatI feel like I'm at this point in my life
where all of my passions
are starting to get a little bit morefocused into one thing.
(38:22):
And I really want to explore that.
Like I just had an ultimate, my first everultimate bad bitch camp.
So you have regular bad bitch camp, thenyou have your ultimate.
And the, yes.
And the ultimate was doing just that.
We, I merged the world of CrossFit,Olympic weightlifting, and ultra running
(38:44):
into one weekend.
and it was just like the most incredibleweekend ever for me.
And so that's sort of where I see myvision and going from here is I just want
to keep exploring that.
The camps are my passion, they're what Ilove to do because I get to take
(39:04):
everything I believe in and love and pourit into these such willing, badass women.
from all over the world, which itliterally doesn't get much better than
that.
cool.
I want to go to bad bitch camp that soundslike fun.
(39:25):
it's like, okay, well, I could be a badbitch if you just let some dudes in there.
I do want to, I want Charlie to run an all-male one.
I think, I mean, men are dying for thiskind of weekend as well, but they don't
want to come and learn from a female orlisten and be yelled at a female all
(39:47):
weekend.
Maybe they do, which is a pretty cool guy,in my opinion.
Mm -hmm.
would be cool to have a male presencebecause we get into like very deep sort of
emotional stuff that is pretty specific towomen, which I think would be really cool
for a guy to get into the mental sidethat's specific to men and the challenges
(40:08):
that men face on the regular.
Yeah, the one of my coaches at my gym,she, we had, especially like with COVID
and all that, it was like sport, you justcouldn't like do kids, couldn't go to as
many sports and all that kind of stuff.
So a lot of my members were in the burbsof Denver.
So we've got a lot of families and like,Hey, like my junior high to early high
(40:32):
school kid, like they wanted to bring themin.
And it was so cool seeing, especially theyoung ladies that came in being coached by
Jess, because she's just a very fit.
looks the part, broad shoulders.
It's one of those like, actually, I'mgonna brag on her for a second.
So she teaches at a local police academy.
She does their physical training componentand does that year round every morning.
(40:56):
And this guy came in, he's coming in to bea police officer and he's like, she's
wearing a tank top and he's like, do youmind putting on a sweater or something?
It's really intimidating how big yourshoulders are.
And she's like, you're gonna be a cop.
I'm 130 pounds.
You're 200 and like, you're intimidated byme?
Like it was.
we need to address that please before yougo out and try and protect our streets.
(41:20):
but it's been so cool seeing her work with14 year old, 18 year old girls and all
that.
And like, you see like that shift of like,being a strong female, like there's
nothing wrong with that.
And like, and seeing like some of thesegirls like progress up, like, we've got
one, she's in college now, but like shecomes back and just like throws down with
(41:41):
us every time she comes home.
It's like one of my favorite things.
So.
It's amazing getting to redefine kind ofwhat these teenage girls' priorities are,
for sure.
And that's so awesome that she just takesthat role very seriously because you can
make some very impactful changes at thatage.
(42:03):
They are just so impressionable.
So I always love hearing that.
Yeah, it's been cool.
Like just there's her there's I would putyou in that camp also as well a lot of
like just the higher level CrossFit Gamesathletes of like what beauty is and like
obviously I'm a white guy talking aboutthis but like.
(42:23):
smart you see what happens.
cool seeing that being reframed in societyand that there's nothing wrong with having
strong arms or strong legs or whatever itis.
So for me, it's been cool to watch becausedefinitely over the last 10 years, I feel
like CrossFit really blew up the 2013games around there.
(42:46):
So we're a decade out at this point andjust seeing how that's changed across so
many people.
I know, it's amazing.
What else?
I had another question on here for you.
That's kind of what I had.
I had a list of things and we kind oftalked about all of it.
(43:09):
As we went through, we kind of hit on someof the subjects I want to talk about.
Is there anything else that you wanted toshare or anything else big coming up?
I know you talked about the campus and allthat.
Yeah, no, I think we pretty much coveredeverything.
Yeah, got that big race coming up, whichwill be really fun.
Got some camps coming up this summer,which will be great.
(43:32):
So yeah, life is good.
And I really appreciate you guys having meon here.
We love Bubs.
Bubs always takes care of my dad, takescare of me.
So we're so thankful to you guys forputting out such amazing, clean, quality
products.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
We're happy to have you guys be a part ofthe Bose family.
(43:53):
So yeah, when we were putting togetherlike that, we just started doing the
podcast and we were putting together thelist of names like you guys were on the
list like immediately of like, we want todefinitely talk with them.
So, cool.
All right.
So Sage, if people want to learn moreabout you or Bad Bitch Camps or any of
like the programming that you do, wherecan they find you?
(44:16):
Where can they find all that stuff?
So they can go to my website, sagebergner.com.
I have all of the information about remotecoaching, about one day seminars, about
the camps, everything is on there.
And then if they want to learn about theultra strength programming as well,
ultrastrengthco .com.
(44:37):
We also have that website with a bunch ofdifferent programs or running programs
that people can check out, which is reallycool too.
And then I'll make sure to in thedescription of the podcast or the YouTube
video, wherever you're listening orwatching this, I'll make sure to drop
links in there.
I'll throw your Instagram in there too.
So people want to connect with you.
They can.
So.
Thank you so much Nathan.
(44:59):
Sorry about the dogs.
right, dogs are back.
Guys, as always, thank you for listening.
You can find the Cult of Recreationalismpodcast on podcast services everywhere,
YouTube.
If you want to connect with us, just lookup Bubs Naturals anywhere, whether it's
Google, social media, you're gonna findus.
(45:20):
And while you're there, leave a thumbs upor a five -star review, every little bit
helps and it helps us grow this podcastand grow Bubs.
So.
Sage, thanks so much for coming on.
And then stick around after this.
I wanted to talk to you about a coupleother things, but thank you for coming on.
Okay, thanks.
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