The Adaptive Athlete Podcast

Nat Vorelis training for LA28 in swimming and rowing, and still competes in climbing — right now, it's a full-time job. 

But Nat didn't grow up in para sport. 

A college swimmer who fell for climbing on the very first route she tried, Nat graduated in 2020, turned 22 a week later, and a week after that took a 30-foot ground fall that fractured her spine. 

Mat Hotho and Nat talk about the long limbo of a spinal cor...

In 2019, Ben Fallon was diagnosed with an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis and told to prepare for the possibility of losing his independence within five years. 

His answer came one night in Hawaii. Overhaul the way he eats—cold turkey—and never look back. Seven years later, he's a two-time CrossFit Games champion.

Mat Hotho talks with Ben about living with MS every single day, the strict nutrition protocol he u...

Mat Hotho talks with Alexa Serret, an adaptive CrossFit athlete and third grade teacher who found out she had cerebral palsy at 28 from a PT at her CrossFit gym.

Alexa grew up in Spain and in her first season she made the 2024 CrossFit Games in San Antonio in a division that wasn't really hers. That trip ended with a decision to move to Texas. 

Now she teaches in Odessa, runs a Harry Potter–themed classroom, and doesn't le...

Mat Hotho and Jed Snelson pick up where they left off—on the thing Jed says separates first place from tenth. Mindset. 

Jed spent years as a strength coach for pro motocross racers, watching guys who were untouchable on a practice track finish seventh on race day, and he built training specifically to fix it. 

He walks through the pressure-cooker workouts he designed, the two words he repeated to athletes mid-sufferin...

Mat Hotho talks with Jed Snelson—seventeen years racing motocross, a strength coach for pro racers and X Games athletes, paralyzed in a 2014 race crash, and now one of the few people coaching seated adaptive athletes full time. 

This is part one of two. Jed's rule is simple and harkens back to the CrossFit methodology: function first, everything else second.

He walks through what that means for a seated athlete—core ...

Mat Hotho talks withKatie Weymouth, one of the OGs of adaptive CrossFit. 

She competed at the 2021 WheelWOD Games in a packed affiliate in North Carolina, where nobody left the floor until the last athlete finished. 

Five seasons later she took second at the 2026 Games in her own backyard, on a final workout that gave her twenty seconds to set up instead of two minutes. 

Katie is the only bilateral below-knee amputee in...

In September 2023, Sam Constantin hit the ground at 100 kilometers an hour on a skydiving landing and was paralyzed from the waist down. Thirteen months later, he stood up. 

Mat Hotho talks with the Quebec athlete about the parts of the comeback that never make it to Instagram—banded leg curls from a wheelchair, an hour on the bike on bad days, and a deadlift that climbed from 75 pounds to 275 in under two years. 

Sam...

Courtnei Lopez was in a car accident a week before the 2026 Adaptive CrossFit Open. Six months later, she stood on the Adaptive CrossFit Games podium in third  after securing the spot in the very last workout. 

Mat Hotho talks with Courtnei about the doubt she carried into the season, the moment she decided to make it you versus you, and why she says the whole thing was mental. 

Courtnei also opens up her sponsorship p...

Sue Jordaan qualified for her rookie season and then made the call not to go because a $4,000 flight from South Africa deserves the fittest version of herself. 

Mat Hotho talks with Sue about a 2013 car accident that broke her back in three places, cost her her job, and left her raising two daughters from a wheelchair. 

What came after is amazing. Wheelchair rugby, a community that pulled her out of isolation, a CrossFit gy...

Emma Hood walked off a roof (literally) and landed on both feet, shattering her ankles and heels. Months later she was back in the gym, and this year she's a rookie at the Adaptive CrossFit Games in the Vision division. 

Mat Hotho talks with Emma about aniridia, the rare condition she shares with her dad and grandfather, and how growing up her family never asked whether she could do something—only how. 

They get into ...

Mat Hotho talks with Tori Clinch, a rookie competing in the Seated Two division heading to the 2026 CrossFit Games in San Jose. Tori's year has been anything but expected—she got back into CrossFit in January purely for her own sanity, never intending to compete, and ended up finishing first in the Open and first at Semifinals. 

She opens up about her path to adaptive CrossFit: an above-knee amputation after months of sep...

Mat Hotho sits down with Noah Cook, a 25-year-old vision athlete gearing up for his first CrossFit Adaptive Games appearance after going completely blind by age 18. 

Noah lost his sight to glaucoma-related injuries, never touched CrossFit until after he went blind, and now trains under his dad, who's also his handler on the competition floor. 

They talk prosthetic eyes, producing hip-hop tracks in Logic Pro by feel using Vo...

Mat Hotho sits down with McKenzie Kravetsky, a rookie Lower Minor athlete heading to her first CrossFit Games. In 2013, a head-on collision left McKenzie with injuries that reconstructed nearly everything — including a right ankle that's now fused and immobile. 

She walked into a CrossFit gym mid-recovery with one request: make me strong and unkillable. Thirteen years later, she's a black belt, a registered nurse, and an ...

Mat Hotho sits down with Roman Cameron, a rookie heading into his first CrossFit Adaptive Games in one of the sport's toughest divisions, Seated with Hip Function. 

Roman shares how a vitamin B12 deficiency at 17 led to spinal cord degeneration and life in a wheelchair, and how he turned that into a relentless drive to compete.

He talks studying film like he did back in soccer and rugby, mentoring younger athletes at WHASCP Fitn...

Mat Hotho sits down with Kristee Irby, a Houston-based adaptive CrossFit athlete competing with a left limb difference.

Kristee didn't even know adaptive CrossFit existed when she first walked into her gym, Bellhouse CrossFit. She stumbled into the Open, found herself on a leaderboard, and had to decide: was she actually going to do this? She did. What followed was double sessions, a self-built spreadsheet of past semifinal workouts...

Mat Hotho sits down with Oscar Jessup, a 17-year-old adaptive CrossFit athlete from Australia who placed third at last year's Adaptive Games in Las Vegas, complete with his now-famous bow-and-arrow celebration. 

Oscar's joined by his dad Rich and his coach Tom Woodham from CrossFit 2444, and together they get into what it actually takes to build a path for an athlete like Oscar: a gym that says yes first and figures out the how...

Mat Hotho sits down with Brian Knight. Brian was born with a brachial plexus injury. He won a silver medal at the 2025 CrossFit Games, and he's one of the  OGs of adaptive CrossFit content. 

Brian grew up fully integrated into able-bodied sports, didn't discover CrossFit until a roommate with the heart of a coach handed him a dumbbell and a workout in a school gym in Chicago. 

Brian and Mat cover the spectrum between o...

Mat Hotho sits down with Kieran Healey-Ryder, a Glasgow-based adaptive athlete navigating a rare, progressive skeletal disease that's slowly taking the use of his left leg. 

Kieran shares the story of a camping trip discovery, a devastating second opinion delivered in a Scottish palatial estate, and the quiet grief that arrives in micro-moments.

He talks about losing his career and his mobility at the same time, CrossFit Glasgow...

Mat Hotho takes the mic solo for the first installment of a new format: personal episodes between the interviews, where Mat tackles the ideas and conversations he keeps having about adaptive fitness off the show.

After a lap through two things on his mind—connecting adaptive athletes with local pediatric and rehab communities, and the case for a true para-sport classification system—Mat spends the bulk of this one debrie...