CrossFit & Controversies: Unpacking Obesity, Nutrition Education, and Fitness Futures with Craig Howard

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rich, today we're going to be talking CrossFit and
we're going to find out,crucially, if you're as good at
CrossFit as you say you are.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
I don't say I'm that good at CrossFit, so we're not
going to find out that.
And I'm certainly not as goodas our guest today, craig Howard
, who won the CrossFit Games in2013 in his age group of 50 to
54.
He's got phenomenal abs forsomeone in their 60s.
Uh, I think most people wouldaspire to having these.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
We'll probably put it on the uh, the caption
clickbait for sure um, what anice measured guy as well, so
much more than like just acrossfit athlete.
He was very, very knowledgeableand um very passionate about
improving others lives as well,which I thought was really cool
yeah, for sure he's.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
uh, he's a kind of og of the crossfit world.
He's been around it for manyyears.
The ceo of crossfit often comesto him for advice and, uh, yeah
, he's, uh, he's in a lot ofsort of like think tanks related
to CrossFit and he's got hisown podcast, which is quite
influential in the podcast worldand we touch on, yeah, crossfit

(01:13):
towards the end, but mostly wetalk more about what CrossFit is
doing, you know, in terms ofthe problems it's fixing, from
chronic illness to obesity.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, I think the nutrition thing is very
important again rammed homeagain, I mean, as fit as he is,
as much crossfit as he does, hesays you know you've got to
focus on what you're doing inthe kitchen, um, and the couple
of the mistakes that many peopleare making with regards to
processed food, packaged food,so obviously very passionate
about that as well yeah, and wefind out his take on ozempic and

(01:48):
we're going to be.
We all know what I thought hewas going to say to be honest,
which I think is why youshouldn't assume, um, but yeah,
I'm glad I I caught myself.
I was about to put words in hismouth, but actually very
interesting take on ozempic yeah, absolutely, and he.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
One of the reasons I asked him on was because he did
a talk to local schools and peteachers about obesity and I
thought the stuff he was sayingwas really interesting.
Uh, not too controversial, youknow, not.
No, there's no ideology.
He just wants people to to dobetter and um and and be happier
and healthier, and I think his,his takes are really useful for

(02:26):
anyone who's trying to takecharge of their health he seemed
very genuine and verysupportive as well, so I think I
can imagine him being a verygood coach absolutely all right
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(02:47):
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(03:11):
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well.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Nice and easy to begin with.
What do you think is causingobesity?

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Well, it seems to be a global epidemic and you can
point to a lot of differentthings, which makes it
incredibly complex.
But obviously I mean, if you gostraight to the heart of the
matter, too many calories andnot enough burning of calories.
I mean, really it comes down tothat.

(03:46):
But then it's complicated by anumber of issues.
One are just behavioral andmental issues that people may be
struggling with, and caloriesmight be the temporary solution
to make people feel better or tohelp alleviate the symptoms of
either a mental or physicaldisorder.
Then the other things areenvironmental causes.

(04:09):
Was it pollution?
Is it food additives?
Is it pesticides?
Is it other chemicals thatpeople may be exposed to?
There's been a lot of discussionsurrounding plastics in our
systems now, and so you have allof those complications as well.
So it becomes.
You take a very simple equationtoo many calories in and not
enough calories out, and thenyou be complicated with all of

(04:37):
those things and now it becomesa very complex issue to deal
with.
So, right off the bat, toanswer your question too many
calories in, not enough caloriesout, and it has happened so
fast, especially over the last30 years.
There's been a massiveacceleration of obesity in this
country that it makes it verydifficult to unwind it and
reverse it.

(04:58):
I think it's also complicated.
One thing I didn't put in thatlist of complications was the
incredible abundance of caloriedense foods that are readily
available everywhere you go.
And having that accessibilityto food and for creatures that

(05:20):
in our DNA we want to make surewe get as many calories in as
possible to survive that's inour ancient history it makes it
extra extraordinarily difficultand so it's all of those things
and we're simply you know theway I see it is our gym, diablo
CrossFit is on the front linesof trying to take it on one

(05:43):
person at a time on the frontlines of trying to take it on
one person at a time.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, I, I would like how you've?
You've given us sort of one oneanswer to that question, but at
the same time, there are somany things that we need to
address.
It is calories in and caloriesout, but there are so many other
aspects to that.
I really think plastics, Ithink, is really going to be.
We're going to be learning moreand more about plastics in our
food, plastics in our clothesand how they disrupt everything

(06:09):
endocrine systems and thingslike that and people want just a
.
One simple thing is like oh,all I have to do is just I don't
know, cut out seed oils andI'll lose all the weight.
It's like well, maybe you haveto cut out seed oils and you
have to go to the gym and youhave to stop the, the
hypercaloric food, and you haveto do all of these different
things and it's a verycomplicated answer.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
But go on, andy is the plastic thing, then that's
just because it it's muckingwith your natural, it's messing
around with your naturalmetabolism.
That's what plastic is about.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
To be clear, in the in the equation it's a in in
small levels, very small microlevels.
It's it.
As richard said.
It's an endocrine disruptor.
Very small micro levels.
As Richard said, it's anendocrine disruptor and could be
one of the essential kind oftrigger mechanisms that may be
causing people, one to eat toomuch or two, to store fat

(06:56):
instead of the body burning itin its glucose form.
So it gets stored at glycogenin the liver and then, once our
liver stores are full, then itbegins to get their body stores
it as fat.
Well, it is possible, it'sconceivable that the plastics in
our system, or maybe the PFAAsor the even glyphosates from

(07:16):
pesticides, could be disruptingthat cycle and causing calories
to skip part of the process andimmediately be stored as fat.
I mean, those are possibilitiesand those are things that that
people are looking at aspossible contributors to the
obesity crisis yeah, so youspoke to some school children,

(07:38):
didn't you?

Speaker 2 (07:38):
some local school children, about obesity.
What did you say to them?

Speaker 3 (07:43):
it's well so, and I had an opportunity to go out and
speak to pe teachers recently,but I've also I also speak to,
have spoken to the our teamprogram here and have
discussions about it, and thatdiscussion is really centered
around it's it being up to us.
In other, I think, people trustthe system.

(08:06):
They trust, obviously, theirparents, and their parents trust
the food manufacturers.
Unfortunately, I don't feellike that's the case anymore.
I don't think that it's notthat these organizations, the

(08:33):
corporations that want to sellus more foods, or the government
that's creating legislation totry and prevent these things
from being in our foods, andeven the school systems that
educate our kids on what to eat,what not to eat.
I think it's just all become sooverwhelming.
The amount of data and theamount of foods and the amount
of contaminants, all of thosethings has become so

(08:54):
overwhelming that they can'tkeep up, and so it is then up to
ourselves, it is up to us totake the time to find out.
Huh, how can I eat differently?
How can I think differentlyabout food?
What should I be concernedabout?
Is drinking water out of aplastic water bottle that's been

(09:15):
in my car all day a good idea,and can that affect me in some
way?
And the education process needsto start early on.
And really that's what I did,not to scare kids, but to make
them aware that they have aresponsibility to themselves and
to their future selves.
To start to do the researchthemselves.

(09:38):
For me to consume carbohydratesonly all day long, with no
protein, and getting themthinking about different ways of
eating that can perhaps holdoff the obesity for themselves.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
Did you get the feeling that you were kind of
this is a standing star, or isthere anything in the curriculum
?
Because, kind of speaking froma UK point of view, I learned
nothing about food at school upto the age of 18.
Literally not one thing.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
There is a small amount that is in our school
system and again it becomes that.
Here's the other thing thatmakes all of this very difficult
.
It's very controversial.
Actually, I think about it froma perspective like we have
vegans who are really abouteating plant foods, plant-based

(10:29):
foods, fresh, natural foods,arguing and debating with the
carnivores who want us to eatgrass-fed, pasture-raised meats
from animals that consumevegetables, and both of them are

(10:49):
correct, meaning you should beeating fresh foods, avoiding all
of the nasty stuff that couldbe disrupting your metabolism or
your endocrine system, causingyou to get sicker later in life.
There is.
So, as a result of it beingcontroversial, it makes it
difficult for any of the schoolsto talk about it, because then

(11:12):
they get the backlash from theparents and others who say, no,
that's not right, I don't wantmy kid learning that.
No, that's not right, I don'twant my kid, you know, learning
that.
It makes it very difficult.
So, as a result, everybodyavoids talking about it,
everybody avoids the discussion.
Meanwhile, everybody's gettingfatter.

(11:33):
They really are.
I mean, it really comes down tothat, and I think you're right.
As I grew up, I had the foodpyramid, and the food pyramid
was in the United States isdirected by or created by the
CDC.
I think is the organization,the Center for Disease Control,
that publishes that, and maybethe FDA too.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
I think it's the FDA yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
Yeah, the FDA, the Federal Drug Administration and
that pyramid is flawed in itsapproach as well.
You're giving a predominantweighting to carbohydrates,
which, of course.
Then you start to look into theconflicts there and why that
might be, and you realize thatthe FDA is and I've read

(12:16):
statistics on this just veryrecently is heavily funded by.
More than half their budgetcomes from corporations, the
food corporations, who areobviously incentivized to make
sure that food pyramid favorsthe foods that they produce, and
so it becomes an educationalprocess with kids.
That that's not there now andreally is up to the parents who,

(12:37):
like you and me, don't havemuch information about it.
And I happen to be in thehealth and fitness business.
So I research, I read about it,I consume it all the time, and
every time I do, each time I getarticles and I send them out
weekly in email, I'm like holycrap, everybody needs to know
this.
It is really.
It's unfortunate.
It's become really complex.
200 years ago and 300 years agoit was so much simpler.

(13:04):
Granted, we had a lot ofstarvation in this world, but it
was.
You eat meat, you eat freshfood.
That was the only thing thatwas available.
There weren't a lot of packagedfoods available.
You went out and you gotchickens and you got a pig.
If you're lucky, you were ableto get a steer and a cow to
provide you dairy products, andthat was it.
And, not surprisingly, justobesity wasn't an issue in those

(13:28):
times.
And then it became okay.
We need to make sure we canfeed large percentages of our
population, especially in timesof calamity or war, and so the
processed foods that stayed onthe shelf a lot longer became
kind of a savior for a lot ofcountries and then, of course,
it became a profit incentive forall of these corporations.
So now we're where we are today, where it's just brilliant how

(13:54):
they make and process foods andthey use scientists to determine
how it's going to feel in yourmouth, the color it's going to
be.
They have marketing experts todesign the packaging and the
colors of the packaging and theplacement in the stores.
Lots of money paid to thedistributors to make sure that
they get perfect productplacement.
You turn it loose in acapitalistic environment without
regulation and you get what yougot.

(14:16):
Today I can buy frozen pies atAce Hardware.
Ace Hardware in the UnitedStates is a big hardware store
and you go through it.
I was talking to someone theother day about it.
I go, I cannot believe that.
There's literally in the lineto check out.
There's a little cooler at theend of the line in this gauntlet
that they run where they runall the kids through, by the way
, to check out, and there's apie refrigerator at the end and

(14:38):
they're frozen pies that youtake home and you cook yourself
and they look amazing.
And one of my members wastelling me she goes, oh yeah,
she goes, get those forThanksgiving.
Those pies are so good.
In my brain I'm thinking that'sso wrong and I was thinking I
might have to try that.
That's how brilliant they arePlace, product, placement,
design, texture, feel like allof that.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
And unfortunately it's making us, incredibly, it's
making us sick.
Is what it is doing?
Yeah, for sure it's.
It is so unfair to think likethe best minds in the world are
behind this packaging, gettingpaid phenomenal amounts.
And is your?
You, let's say you know you'rethe mother of two working two
jobs, super stressed out, a lackof sleep.
She doesn't have the time, thewillpower, the resilience to

(15:26):
then go and fight against thebest minds in marketing and food
science in the world.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
It's just, the things are really stacked against
people Worse than that, richardtoo, and that's a great story
right there, because that isvery common and the one that
I've heard not too long ago was,similarly, she's working two
jobs, or dad's working a job too, and they come home and there's
no food.
So what do they do?
They go down to 7-Eleven andthey get a frozen pizza and a

(15:51):
gallon and a two liter bottle ofCoke and they bring that home
and you think that's awful.
They shouldn't do that.
But then part of me understandsif you've had two kids at home
like screaming and hungry,you're like screw it, man.
I know they're going to lovethis pizza.
I know they're going to likethis Coke.
Everything calms down, itresolves an immediate situation
and they don't have time to dofood prep.

(16:13):
They don't know how to do foodprep.
You know you talked about whatyou learn as a kid, about food.
Here's what my daughter doesn'tknow and it bums me out.
You know my daughter's 21 now,but she's learning how to cook
now, at 21, she's learning howto cook and she never learned to
cook.
Because you know what?
I was a helicopter parent.
My wife and I were helicopterparents, so we did it for her.

(16:33):
But in previous generations,100 years ago, 200 years ago,
the children were part of thecooking process.
They learned that from theirparents, it was passed on
through schools and now today,with both parents working, they
don't have time to food prep.
And if they do have time tofood prep, they know how to make
shit, but they don't know howto teach their kids how to do it

(16:56):
.
And so now we have DoorDash andUber Eats and fast food
drive-through to help take careof that situation, and that's
not the right solution.
That's not the right solution.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
No, and that situation and that's not the
right solution.
That's not the right solution.
No, and the pushback you get atthe schools was there much push
pushback actually against yousaying obesity was a bad thing?
Because at my university it'sno, we want body positivity.
Being overweight isn't aproblem.
So just even addressing theproblem itself has become
controversial.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, I choose that.
It's interesting you say that,no, I didn't get any, but I
choose my words very carefully,very carefully, and typically
you know, you walk into, youwalk into a classroom, you walk
into even my teen class.
You're going to get some of thekids that are going to be that
are obese, and so you have to be.
You have to be sensitive tothat.

(17:45):
Again, 30, 40 years ago youhave a PE class.
There might be one, maybe nokids at all that were suffering
from obesity.
But now, even here at aCrossFit gym and I think about
our teen class I got two orthree kids that are obese and
maybe even close to morbidlyobese.
They're fit, they're gettingfit and that's probably why

(18:06):
they're there.
And I will tell you that fitnessin and of itself is a great
first step, but it is not asolution.
It is not a long-term solutionto the crisis.
I tell people don't expectmiracles to happen.
When you come in here and youstart exercising, all of a
sudden you're going to like ohhey, oh hey, look at me.
There's a lot that has to go onat home for that to happen.

(18:29):
You guys know the saying absare made in the kitchen.
Well, obesity is reversed inthe kitchen it's really
interesting.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
You mentioned, like, obviously at Diablo you're doing
um things to combat these,these problems.
And I mentioned about thekitchen.
Can you touch a little bit moreabout that?
If someone's interested inlosing weight, how would you
kind of approach that in thefirst instance?

Speaker 3 (18:51):
Yeah, that's a very good question and we do it a
little bit differently and maybea little bit unexpected for
some gym owners.
We outsource nutrition.
I've had nutrition coaches inthe past and fully trained,
experienced nutrition coaches onstaff that were coaching
fitness classes and then alsodoing nutrition coaching for my

(19:15):
members, and what we found wasthat we weren't having good
success with that.
Adherence to nutrition coachingis very difficult and I had a
lot of thoughts on it.
But my primary concern was isif I tied those two together?
And everybody says if you opena CrossFit gym, you should also

(19:35):
have nutrition coaching at yourgym, and I'm on the other side
of that.
I said no, I don't havenutrition coaching be remote or
away.
A couple of reasons why Ifthey're doing it here at the gym
, they have to see theirnutrition coach often, and if
they are struggling with theiradherence to something, they

(19:56):
feel guilty and then they stopcoming in.
So what I've essentially doneis I've linked two habits
together.
I had a member come in that wasabout three, four years ago and
she confessed to me at about amonth in she goes.
I need to let you knowsomething I go.
What's that?
She was French and she goes Ismoke, and I go, you smoke a lot

(20:17):
.
She goes, no, I smoke like ahalf pack to a pack a day.
And I said, okay, she goes,should I quit smoking?
And I said, no, keep cominghere.
And then at some point in timeyou're going to want to quit
smoking.
What I didn't want her to dowas try and quit smoking and try
and do fitness at the same time, because she could.
But as soon as she startedsmoking again, she's like oh,

(20:40):
this shit's not working, so sheloses both habits.
I didn't want to tie the twohabits together.
I didn't want to tie the twohabits together.
I don't want to stack habits.
I want one habit.
You come here, keep coming herelong enough, and you do a
couple of Metcons, richard knowsas you do a couple of Metcons
where you're hacking up shit.
Afterwards you're like I've gotto quit smoking.
You'll come to that conclusion.

(21:00):
And it's the same thing I findwith nutrition.
Here People go to me how do Iget better, how do I get faster,
how do I run faster?
The best one is like how can Ido pull-ups?
And well, and what I tell themis I go.
When people are weightlifting,learning to weightlift, one of
the things they try and do isthey try to go too heavy, too
fast and then their techniquegoes and they have terrible
technique.
So I same thing with gymnasticsyou got to take some weight off

(21:25):
the bar and the only way totake weight off the bar is to
change your nutrition, andyou're going to have to do that
yourself, and so I don't like tolink the two together.
And what I do like people to dois to do it remotely.
I remember we did a Spartanrace when I had a group of my
members in the car and there wasa woman in the car and she was
doing Stronger you, which isthis remote online nutrition
coaching, and I said how come,carolyn?

(21:51):
I said, how come you're usingStronger you?
It seemed like several of ourmembers are using Stronger you
Instead of going to JenniferIsmar in my gym, who's a
manager's gym.
She's a precision nutritioncoach.
She's a great nutrition coachand she goes well, because I
don't want to run into her inthe fucking grocery store and I
thought about that for a second.
I'm like what?
And my wife said that and Iwent home.
My wife, who's the richer,knows she's incredibly fit for

(22:11):
incredibly she goes.
Oh, yeah, definitely she goes.
I hate running into people atthe gym.
If I got something in the carfor my daughter because they'll
judge you and you feel likeyou're being judged and
evaluated and I was and that,just that immediately resonated
with me.
I'm like, oh, and not only shegoes, I don't want her to see
pictures of me like in myunderwear.
She goes.
I can send it to my remotecoach somewhere where I don't

(22:32):
even know where that person is.
I'll send pictures of my beforeand after pictures.
I don't have any problem doingit, but I'm not going to do that
here.
And that really resonated withme.
So from then on we partneredwith online coaches and we refer
nutrition coaching out and welet our members build that
relationship.
One of my good friends, timDimmel, who runs CrossFit Palo
Alto, said to me he doesn'toffer nutrition coaching in his

(22:55):
gym.
He also outsources.
And he said to me nutritioncoaching, or nutrition, is a lot
like religion.
Everybody's got their ownspecial you know thing and he
goes, and trying to changesomebody's religion is very
difficult and I thought, man,that's like.
That's a brilliant analogy.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
That's how nutrition has gotten in this world yeah,
people have really, uh, latchedon to nutrition dogmas in some
ways to to their detriment.
Right, and I like how you yeah,you've separated the habits,
like I think there's an ideafrom bj fogg and tiny habits,
like you should stack habitstogether and you're more likely
to do them.

(23:30):
But what?
Yes, the key is stack a habitonto a habit that you've already
got.
Don't try and implement twohabits at once.
So there's a study thestatistic is 80 of people who've
, um, failed to stick tomultiple new habits, and you
need at least like 21 days tointegrate a habit before adding
on that second one.

(23:51):
So for people who come intoCrossFit, they should just focus
on coming into CrossFit.
Then, after a month or two ofgetting that habit dialed in,
then they go into nutrition.
So I think that's very clever.
Well done, craig.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
Experience, that's 18 years of doing this.
I think there you go.
What do you think of Ozempic?
That's a good question too,because that's certainly a hot
topic and it's changing people'slives and you know it's
interesting.
I've had two really goodconversations with people who
are using Ozempic, so I havesome fresh data for you.
But I'll start it off with astory that about six years ago I

(24:25):
went through a bout of and it'sa middle-aged man thing you get
to your 56 years that's themost likely time for men to
experience depression, clinicaldepression and I went through a
bout where I was dragging, notproductive at work, taking long
naps in the middle of the day,went and talked to my doctor and
my doctor asked me about hey,how you feeling?

(24:47):
I go, I don't know man, I'mjust like I'm down, I can't get
pumped.
I got to, I'm not excited aboutstuff, I'm going to take a long
nap.
So he goes oh, you havedepression in your family.
I was like, oh shit, depression.
And he men your age.
It's very common Testosterone'sfaster dropped than this
happens and he goes.
Let me do this just for a shortperiod of time.

(25:07):
Let me prescribe anantidepressant Now.
I'm an anti-drug guy.
I'm like I don't know aboutthis.
I'm like, okay, well, I'll giveit a shot for a few months and
see how it is.
And it helped.
It snapped me out of the vortex.
So I was in this vortex andthis kind of spiraling vortex
trying to solve it myself and Iwasn't solving it myself and it

(25:28):
was able to snap me out of thevortex and then I weaned myself
off and put that in my past andnow I'm easy.
I recognize the symptoms earlyon, I know what they are and I
know how to remedy them myself.
I'd look at Ozempic the sameway.
With the incredible quantitiesof readily available,
unbelievably tasting foods thatare available out there and the

(25:52):
known fact that many folks thatare suffering from obesity have
almost addictive-like symptoms,I think Ozempic can be a great
intervention drug, short-termintervention drug, where it
snaps, it breaks them out ofthat vortex that they're falling
into and that they finally justgive in.
And then it's all about bodypositivity and look at me and

(26:15):
putting it out there, and thenfinally to depression and
everything else that go, thenillness and then of course, the
chronic illnesses that comealong with it.
So now you got Ozempic thatcomes in, intervenes and
basically takes away the hungerelement.
I was at a party for one of mymembers had.
It was for someone's birthday,I think big party and one of the

(26:38):
girls there, who lookedfantastic, told me she goes.
Yeah, I've been on Ozempic forshe goes.
I've lost like eight poundsover the last 10 months.
I'm like, holy crap, that'samazing, she goes.
Yeah, it's because I took aZempik and I said, what about
the muscle loss?
She goes, yeah, there is, shegoes.
But I've been working out shegoes.
I exercise, I walk, I do all ofthese things.
I said it's perfect, she goes,yeah, and she goes.
That's brilliant.

(26:58):
That got her out of the cycle.
Now she's going.
We got another member in heretoo and I'm going to have her on
my podcast and Rich.
I'll give you her name and thenyou can maybe connect with her
too, because it's a fascinatingstory too.
She's morbidly obese and she'sblack and she comes from a

(27:20):
community that supports bodypositivity and she's been on for
that supports body positivityand she's been on for, I think,
eight months now and she haslost almost 100 pounds and she
looks phenomenal.
She's here, she's positive,she's working out.
We saw her running the otherday.
I was in the front room and meand a couple of the coaches saw

(27:41):
her running.
We're like, holy crap, look ather run now, like she was
literally running in the workout, versus three, four months ago
where she had to walk or ridethe bike instead.
And she can't wait to tell meabout her experience with it.
And again, for her, she's veryeducated, she's doing the
research, she knows what theissues are surrounding it,

(28:02):
different versions of it,there's the actual GLP-1 and
then there's the compounds.
She says she's using a compoundit's not quite as expensive
which is essentially basicallylike a generic version of it.
But I look at her and I go,okay, that's working.
That's great, because that'swhat it should do, because I
can't imagine you know, ifyou've been, you know obesity

(28:23):
takes years to many years 10, 20, 30 years in some cases where
people have been putting onweight, trying to instantly stop
that and reverse that, withnutrition changes and then being
exposed and then being theoutcast among your social group.
Like that's tough.
Here's an interesting point.
I'm sorry to ramble guys, tellme to shut up if I talk too much
.
Here's a really fascinatingpart of that story that that

(28:45):
like stuck with me and I talkedto other coaches about.
Afterwards I was like holy crap, I forgot about this.
She said, yeah, she goes.
My friends are telling me thatI've lost too much weight.
Now I look at her now and she'sstill probably another.
She's probably 30, 40 pounds,still that overweight, and she
goes.
My friends are telling me tostop, that I need to stop losing
weight.
They like me the way I am andshe goes.

(29:11):
But I'm not.
She goes.
I keep coming here because lookat these people and I thought,
man, that's just like the socialpressure.
And then I thought about whyher friends are telling her that
and why her friends are likelytelling her that is because she,
through her efforts, are makingthem feel uncomfortable about
themselves.
That's highly likely.
And can you imagine fightingthat battle on top of everything
else?
Like all of your friends andyour family want you to be obese

(29:33):
, and I get it, I understand it.
But, man, I couldn't you knowif that was your spouse, your
partner, your friends, your goodfriends telling you holy shit.
And Ozempic can help kind ofsnap, snap you out of that.
I'm all for it, but not longterm.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yeah, that is such a common challenge that people
have to face.
Whenever they're changinganything whether it's their
obesity, whether they're healingfrom childhood trauma there are
always people who want to sortof bring you back into the
bucket.
There's that, that lobsteranalogy.
You know, when they catchlobsters in a net, if one of
them tries to climb out of thenet, the other lobsters will

(30:12):
pull it back in, so it stopsgetting free.
And yeah, I think that's a,that's a great.
Yeah, um it's quite sad and it'ssuch a battle.
But that's interesting that yousay that this person was an
Ozempic and then came off andwas fine, because I've heard a
lot of people say, once you comeoff, you can't come off it.

(30:34):
Basically, have you heard that?

Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, as a matter of fact, the CEO of CrossFit
mentioned that when he wentdownfall he went and spoke with
Casey Means, the senator who hadrecently hosted the function at
the Congress a few weeks ago.
That everyone's rebroadcasting.
Jillian Michaels and everyoneelse are rebroadcasting their
clips from there and I'm notsure if that's for diabetes
management or for weight loss.

(30:56):
This girl that I spoke to, shesaid she's been off for three
weeks and she said she felt fine.
You know her plan was to use itand then go off of it, but I
have heard that that the beliefis that you have to be on it for
life, which would be awful howdo you see the government's role
in this?

Speaker 1 (31:15):
and you mentioned a little bit earlier, you know, um
big food producers and the foodpyramid.
What are the government gettingso wrong?

Speaker 3 (31:26):
the government right now in the US.
There's the reason why so manypeople are out so many of these
health advocates were inWashington DC is there's a bill
that just went through theinitial kind of committee
overview and passed a USrepresentative's committee on
providing coverage for Ozempicin Medicare and Medi-Cal and it

(31:47):
passed that initial committee.
So now they're going to put thebill together and you'll go
before the representatives andbefore the Senate to be voted on
.
And it was essentially the bigcomponent of that bill was to
provide Ozempic for Medicare andMedicaid users, which would be
an estimatedtrillion-dollar-a-year cost for

(32:09):
American taxpayers.
That's an astronomical number,but I understand it from the
perspective of they're facing a$4 trillion budget, primarily
due to the explosive costs oftreating chronic disease in this
country, which includes, ofcourse, heart disease, strokes,

(32:32):
high blood pressure, diabetes,obesity and many cancers.
And so there's this incrediblegrowth of chronic disease which
is putting inordinate cost onour government, chronic disease
which is putting inordinate coston our government.
And now they're seeing Ozempicas maybe that solution, wegovy
in it.
But you know the bulk of thatmoney would go towards one

(32:52):
company, the manufacturer, thedesigner of Ozempic and Wegovy,
which is Novadisk I think it'scalled a Danish company, danish
pharmaceutical company.
They'd be the biggestbenefactors.
Ironically, they have 3,000lobbyists in Washington DC, or
maybe not so ironically, they'reworking.

(33:13):
They're lobbying our country totake a look at this as a
solution.
So that's the more nefariousinformation that most of us
aren't aware of either, in termsof what is our government doing
and how they're looking at itis.
I think they're mired in thesame politics that we are on a

(33:35):
local level, meaning talkingabout obesity is politically
incorrect and can be consideredoffensive.
Educating people on foodchoices is contentious because
of the diet choices of somepeople, and then what Congress
and our government is faced with, unfortunately, is talking

(33:55):
about or changing the dietstructure in this country or the
nutrition requirements in thiscountry means upsetting
political donors, and you havethe major food corporations and
beverage companies that arefunding the campaigns of many of
our government officials andyou have to tread very as a

(34:15):
politician.
You got to tread very carefullyor risk losing that funding,
and that's unfortunate.
Pharmaceutical companies.
I saw it again anotherstatistic the other day where 24
of the last 30 executive or theheads of the FDA or something

(34:36):
like that the officials in theFDA government that get revolved
in and out, all went to workfor pharmaceutical companies
after they left office.
Those inherent conflicts make itvery difficult and I understand
how these things happen.
These aren't things like someonesitting in a.
I know a lot of people like tothink oh, they're sitting in a
room somewhere with their pointyhats and fires in the
background and sacrificialthings and they're plotting the

(34:59):
end of the and the takeover ofthe world.
I don't think those things arehappening, but I think over time
, over 50 years, what's happenedis these small relationships
have creeped into the governmentand then become part of the
status quo and if you want toget ahead, you've got to take
these people to dinner andyou've got to accept their
campaign contributions.
If you want to get elected andtake on your initiatives that

(35:22):
you're going to change the world, you have to first of all make
sure you take care of these guysfirst.
And I think over the last 50 to100 years, all of those things
have resulted in the currentsituation in our government
where you can't do anythingbecause you're going to offend
somebody, and the last personyou want to offend is the guy
that's paying for you to bethere.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah, absolutely, I agree.
I don't think there's some.
It's much easier or nicer tothink there are some global
cabal of hyper intelligentreptiles who can figure all
these things out.
But actually it's just chance,it's just capitalism, it's just
human nature.
And that's a lot more scary tothink of, I think, because it's

(36:03):
so much more chaotic.
But the economic impacts ofOZEMPIC are huge.
Airlines are changing theirforecasts of profit and fuel in
the future because they knowthey're going to need less fuel
to fly people across the country, around the world because
people are going to be so muchlighter.
And ring manufacturers arechanging all of their forecasts

(36:25):
because they know they're goingto need less gold because
people's fingers are going toare changing all of their
forecasts because they knowthey're going to need less gold
because feet, people's fingersare going to slim down.
It's it's really going tochange the economy.
But yeah, it's fascinatingstuff, but changing gears over
to to crossfit, which is what.
So what you really do is run avery successful crossfit gym and
you're very well, well known inthe crossfit industry.

(36:45):
I was down in San Diego and Itold people I was at your gym.
People know you.
He's kind of a big deal, andy,he's very much like Ron Burkenty
, but what are your thoughts onthe future of CrossFit?
I've it was exponential growthfor many years gyms opening up
all over the place but now thereseems to be a lot more
challenges.
So what do you think is goingto happen?

Speaker 3 (37:08):
It's every two years, something extreme seems to
happen to the organization atthe top level, on, where I've
kind of gotten used to it.
The methodology itself is justbrilliantly effective and it's
so simple and the prescriptionso easy.
And Greg Glassman, the founderthat created the methodology, is
an extremely smart guy.

(37:28):
He's the son of a rocketscientist and engineer and is a
studied professional himself andcame up with.
The first thing he did wasdefine fitness.
Right, if you looked it up inthe dictionary 30 years ago,
fitness was the state of beingfit.
He said well, it would.
It would be good to.
If we're shooting for something, we're shooting for fitness.

(37:49):
We should be able to definewhat we're shooting for.
And he said look, worked it outvery simply just by studying
and researching and coming upwith a practical way to explain
it in really easy to understandterms.
It's increased work capacity,so your ability to increase, to
ability to do more.

(38:10):
And he said he added, acrossbroad time and mold of the mains
.
So in other words, yes, atriathlete or a marathon runner
is fit, but at the end of therace they probably couldn't
deadlift their body weight.
They're not, so they're notstrong across different domains.
And so they.
So being able to run a marathonand deadlifting your body
weight might make you more fit.
And then, of course, being ableto do skills like gymnastic

(38:32):
skills, in other words, beingable to control your body,
having balance, agility andflexibility.
Those things are also includedin fitness.
So it's increased work capacityacross broad time and multiple
domains.
Very simple, started there andthen he determined, through
basically years of runningclasses and teaching individuals
, the best way to get there isto do functional movements,

(38:55):
stuff you do in everyday lifeConstantly very change it often
almost daily, and that way yourstruggles to adapt.
It makes really good sense.
Know kind of changing theadaptation makes your body adapt
overall quicker, so it'sconstantly varied and then it's
done at high intensity.
Put a little bit of intensityin it and, similar to our

(39:16):
ancestors, you had to run awayfrom shit that was trying to
kill you or run after stuff thatyou wanted to kill so you could
eat.
Adding those components in madeyou fit really fast.
It made you able to do morework across broad time and
mobile domains for really simplecontent Adapted really fast,
especially post 9-11 because itwas very popular.

(39:37):
Crossfit became very popular inthe military community military
police, fire community, and sothose were the fastest adapters
and essentially the tip of thespear for CrossFit, and
everybody looked to them andsaid, oh shit, well, if that's
what they're doing, then I'mgoing to do that too.
So it grew rapidly and hetrained coaches in it, offered
training certifications thatpeople were gobbling up so that
they could teach it themselves,and then shortly afterwards,

(39:59):
people came to them and said,hey, we want to have this name
on our doorstep.
I said, okay, pay anaffiliation fee and get your
certification with us and teachCrossFit.
That's all you have to do.
And so the barrier to entry wasreally low.
So it allowed it to grow reallyfast.
And he had a blog, and that'sall it was was a blog with a

(40:20):
message board, and it justexploded.
And shortly after that, becausethe workouts are measurable,
observable and repeatable so Icould do a workout here, fran,
which is thrusters and pull-ups,and someone in the United
Kingdom can do it as well and wecan compare our scores because

(40:40):
we're doing exactly the samething we're squatting to a
certain depth, we're using thesame weight and we're doing
pull-ups the same way.
The same thing we're squattingto a certain depth, we're using
the same weight and we're doingpull-ups the same way.
So because it's measurable,observable and repeatable, they
could have competitions, andwhich led to the CrossFit Games
eventually, where they crownedquote the fittest on earth.
And they say it's the fitteston earth because they can do
more across broad time andmultiple domains.

(41:02):
It all kind of came togetherreally nicely and it was easy to
host the competitions.
You had judges, so it exploded.
So from I would say, 2010,really to 2018, there were just
there were literally thousandsof affiliates opened around the
world.
Crossfit was doing tons ofcertifications.
With that explosive growth camealso the antagonists out there

(41:26):
and within the fitness communitythat felt threatened by it and
so they started to attack it.
Crossfit's dangerous, thosetypes of things, but you see
more people in there but theirchiropractor doctor's office
than you do in the gyms.
All of that stuff startedcoming.
It was basically anytime youhave success, no matter whether
it's Elon Musk or Greg Glassmanyou're going to get detractors
that are going to try and slowyour growth or maybe take some

(41:48):
of your market share, and a lotof that happened with CrossFit.
But here's the other thing alot of the people that opened
these affiliates were passionatecrossfitters and coaches and
they opened businesses without areal fundamental understanding
of running a business running asmall business especially and

(42:11):
the first few years are great.
Members come in, you're payingyour bills, it's awesome and
then your landlord says, hey,you know what?
We're going to raise rents by$1,000 a month next year.
What are you going to do?
We'd be raising you out, or the, in my case, the city, comes in
and says, hey, you're notallowed to be here because this
area, this light industrial area, where there is tons of
vacancies and no one gives ashit that you're there, is not

(42:35):
zoned to have a fitness studioin it, so you have to leave, is
not zoned to have a fitnessstudio in it, so you have to
leave, and you get those typesof challenges that come up.
Or you get a customer that getshurt and it says you know what,
I'm gonna sue you.
All of those things are new topeople that started these
businesses and they becomeoverwhelming.
And then you, all of a sudden,you're managing coaches and the
coach doesn't show up for a 5 amclass, or you piss them off and

(42:56):
they quit.
Or what we had for a number ofyears, from 2016 to 2018, is
people would, the coaches wouldleave and they'd go open up the
CrossFit of their own a mileaway and they'd take half your
customers with them.
Those types of things made itincredibly challenging for these
thousands of affiliates thatopened up.
The normal tenure for anaverage small business owner is,

(43:17):
they say, like four to sixyears.
Four to six years is what anaverage business owner will go.
And then they finally theyeither go back into the
workforce or they move on tosomething else, because opening
a small business is verychallenging all of the same
reasons.
You're in it 24-7.
And there's always something.
And so you have thousands ofCrossFit gyms 14,000 to be exact
that opened up around the worldover that period of time, and

(43:40):
now we're in 2024.
We had a pandemic that took outa lot of these businesses, and
you have these burned out.
You have a number of burned outaffiliate owners that are tired

(44:03):
and don't know what to do andhow to do it and how to
resurrect their business, how tocreate the demand that they had
from 2010 to 2014.
And so they opt out.
Costs have risen, rents haverisen, the cost of equipment now
is higher.
All of those things.
It makes it very challenging.
And then CrossFit itself.
The new owners of CrossFit said, hey, to participate and to be
affiliated, it's going to costyou more money.
They went to when I startedback in the day 2007 or 2006 is
when we first affiliated was 500bucks a year.

(44:24):
Now it's 4,000 a year andthat's, that's a.
That's a big number.
That's a number that where youget like you get that bill and
you're like, oh shit.
When you rationalize it fromthe point of view of that's two
members a year, it's not thatbig a deal.
But when you've, if you'regoing month to month on all your
bills or your margins arereally low and all of a sudden

(44:45):
you and you didn't plan for ityou get a $4,000 bill, you're
like oh man, and so you'regetting.
What we're getting now is, Ithink, normal attrition within
the CrossFit community.
I'm not sure exactly how manyaffiliates there are, but if I
had to guess I'd probably sayit's not as high as 14,000.
But they've installed a newmanagement team.
They've got private equities,the ownership.

(45:06):
That, of course, upset a lot ofaffiliate owners as well.
They're concerned about the bigcorporate influence.
The reality is the managementteam that is there and in place
is keenly interested in thesuccess of the affiliates.
They have to be.
We're the primary source ofrevenue, but we're also the
indoctrination centers for theCrossFit methodology.
We bring people in, we teachthem CrossFit methodology.

(45:26):
Those people want to go becomecoaches.
They sign up and get theircertifications in the CrossFit
training system.
That generates revenue.
They go and they're the onesthat become future CrossFit
affiliate owners and thatresults in more affiliation fees
for CrossFit.
We also create the athletesthat go to the CrossFit games.
That generates millions ofdollars of revenue every year.

(45:47):
So the affiliates are reallyessential and what they've done
is essentially over the lastyear now.
They've really tried toprofessionalize the process of
being an affiliate owner andprovide all of the tools so that
affiliates can succeed on theirown without too much help from
corporate, corporate influence,and really so that they can
remain independent yet have allthe tools to make themselves
professional.
That was a long answer, butyeah, it's thorough.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
I like it.
Yes, indeed, the maincriticisms I hear about crossfit
and it's like you get injured,earns people out and also it's a
bit culty.
I think that word is spokenabout quite a lot.
Have you heard that?
I'm sure you have.

Speaker 3 (46:24):
You know that's not unique to CrossFit.
I remember in 2000,.
Your 2000 has started running.
I lived in Austin Texas.
In Austin Texas, that's whereLance Armstrong's from it's a
very big cycling and triathloncommunity and so my friends in
that community roped me in tostart running the series of
races that Austin has that leadsup to the marathon.

(46:45):
And I did that for six yearsand it was phenomenal.
It was so much fun.
We had to get together onSaturdays, we trained together
on Saturdays and we'd go tobreakfast and I was doing all of
the races, which starts with aone mile race in January and
then culminates in a marathon inMay, the Austin Marathon, which
was a lot of fun.
But you do 5k, 10k, builds allthe way up and I was a cult.

(47:07):
That was an incredible cult andI was really happy to be a part
of it.
And then and I think that's theway it is with, unfortunately,
it's how fitness is perceived Ifyou get involved in a any one
particular methodology or mode,it's perceived as all but
because that's who your friendsbecome, you want to be around

(47:29):
those people, and CrossFit is nodifferent.
You come in, you come into class, you warm up, you're all
talking to each other.
Then you do the workout.
There's this incredibleendorphin rush.
Now I'm sure you're gettingtested.
I'm sure you get thisincredible endorphin rush after
doing something that intense fora short period of time and
everybody's high-fiving eachother.
You go walk outside, you feelgood, you get in your car, you

(47:49):
drive it home, you're pumped.
Then you're instantly online,you're putting pictures of
yourself, you're putting yourworkout results on there.
All of it becomes veryintoxicating.
But the beauty is that you'rein a community, a supportive
community.
These become your new friends,and so the answer is is it a
cult?
Hell, yeah, it's a cult.
That's what I mean If youdefine a cult, but it's the kind

(48:10):
of cult that people need to bein, because they also are one.
They want to share what they'redoing.
They want to share with thefamily.
They want to share with themand help reverse this incredible
chronic disease crisis that wehave in this country and then
hopefully pass it on to ageneration of people that are
interested in taking care ofthemselves.
What it's unlocked for me is apassion for learning about all

(48:31):
of the things that influence ourhealth.
You know, how do I know about,how do I know about a Zempik and
Wigovian the impact on the body?
Well, I know it because I'mdoing CrossFit.
I want to learn about thesethings.
How do I know about Richard'samazing breathing techniques for
improving your mental healthNot only physical health, but
mental health.
Well, it's because I'm inCrossFit, I freaking want to

(48:53):
learn more about how do Iimprove my body and my health.
It's easy to understand howpeople perceive it as a cult,
but regarding the injury stuff,yeah, we have injuries here in
our gym.
There's a lot of CrossFitaffiliates that CrossFit needs
to do more to tell people thatyou're not going to get injured.
I'm like, eh, I'm not so muchworried about it because the

(49:17):
normal aches and pains thatyou're going to have with any
physical activity are going tohappen here as well.
I want people to be preparedfor that.
I want them to understand thata muscular strain is not
something that can limit you,that has to limit everything
that you do in your life, thatyou shouldn't stop what you're
doing.
I remember walking in the otherday and she gave a crap because

(49:38):
she came in a boot and she's inher morning class, she's in her
9 am class and she comes walkingin a boot and I go oh, she goes
, don't ask.
I said, how did you do that?
And I was worried that she'ddone it here at Diablo, maybe
running or you know, doing somesort of jump rope or something
like that.
She goes no, I did it playingpickleball.
And I'm like, oh man.

(50:01):
I said well, I'm glad to seeyou here because we can scale
and adjust, which is what every,by the way, anybody's listening
and I told her.
I said ask your coach, becauseyour coach will give you a
substitution.
Obviously you're not going torun, obviously you're not going
to jump rope, but we are goingto keep you moving so that you
can heal faster and you canlearn to make yourself better
athletes, so that it doesn'thappen in the future.
I also told her.
I said I really appreciate theeffort that you put out in your

(50:23):
pickleball that caused you toget an injury.
I said I wish you would putthat type of effort into your
CrossFit workouts.
She told me she goes.
Okay, there's another statementyou've made that makes me want
to cancel my membership.
She was very funny about it,but it's true, as we do things
with passion, no matter what itis, whether it's kayaking,

(50:43):
whether it's pickleball, whetherit's crossfit, it doesn't
matter chances are you'reprobably going to experience
some sort of pain along the way.
That's human nature and whatyou have to be able to do is
adapt and get around, heal up,learn to heal and get around and
move on yeah, pickleball isdefinitely a cult, but it's also

(51:06):
like, is that such a problem?

Speaker 2 (51:07):
I mean, you look at professional sports, what fans
will do for manchester united orthe 49ers, that that is very
cultish behavior and that's just, yeah, an accepted part of
society.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
yes, and and makes one like and I and I love
pickleball.
By the way, I don't play it,but I love.
I run by a park every day withmy dogs.
Every morning, my dogs are runby and they're out there playing
it and it's usually 60 plusyear olds, 50, 60, 70 bucks and
to me that's awesome.
If those were tennis courts,there'd be nobody on them, but
now you got literally 30 to 40people.

(51:39):
This little park in myneighborhood that other people
are pissed off about becausethey make a lot of noise, but to
me I'm like that's awesome.
That's awesome.
And if they want to get betterat pickleball, come to my gym.
I'll make you better atpickleball, yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
So there was a lot of controversy recently at the
CrossFit Games with the tragicdeath of Lazar Dukic.
So he, andy, was one of the topathletes in the world and they
had a run swim event and hedrowned and the lifeguards
didn't spot him and, yeah, hepassed away.
So, yeah, a lot of flack's beenthrown at CrossFit for that.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
So, craig, how do you respond to that criticism
better?
Or was it preventable?
Or was there negligence?
And so we're waiting to hearback from CrossFit.
I was there at the games and itwas horrible and there were a
lot of tears shed, there were alot of hugs and I personally was
in favor of the gamescontinuing on, which they did,

(52:54):
and some of the athletes decidednot to participate, and I
respect that decision as well.
I imagine it was especiallythose that knew him very well
made it very difficult for themto continue on with the event.
I like your picture perspectivethat the sport must go on.
I also take it from a personalperspective.
In other words, if I was in anevent and something happened to

(53:16):
me, I would want the event tocontinue.
But that's my own personal andmaybe that's selfish, but that's
my own personal perspective.
I just don't like to put anobligation on myself, on other
people.
And in this case the gamesdecided to go on, which allowed
the other athletes whoselivelihoods depend upon it the
sport to continue and toparticipate and to earn that
money.
It also allowed all the vendorswho were coming for the weekend

(53:37):
and really depend upon it thesport to continue and to
participate and to earn thatmoney.
It also allowed all the vendorswho were coming for the weekend
and really depend upon thegames as a large percentage of
their income.
It allowed them to participateand continue to earn their
incomes, to continue theirlivelihood, so that they
wouldn't be negatively impactedor too severely impacted.
It also allowed all of thepeople that work at the venue

(53:58):
and there are hundreds, if notthousands, of people that are
coming there to be there andemployed by the games and not
only that, but by the DickiesArena, which is where this is
held allowed all of those peopleto continue to do their jobs,

(54:19):
to continue to earn the moneythat they were entitled to.
It allowed the sponsors tocontinue and showed the sponsors
that the sport can thrive andcan survive a tragedy like this,
and it did nothing to underminethe impact of it and certainly
the severity of the issue.
That, because CrossFit is doinga tremendous amount of work to
try and find out one how thishappened, why this happened and

(54:41):
then also how do they prevent itfrom happening in the future.
All of that is going to comeout.
The team is genuinely concernedabout making sure this is a very
safe sport for everyone whatthis was.
Guys was the first time someonedied in a CrossFit event.
Guys, was the first timesomeone died in a CrossFit event

(55:05):
.
And you guys know, in the sportof endurance competitions
triathlons especially, butmarathons as well, and cycling
events, tour de France deathsoccur.
People are at training and doingwork at the absolute extreme
edge of performance and when youare there operating at that
edge, the possibility of severeinjury or death is much higher.

(55:29):
And that's what has happenedhere in this situation operating
at the absolute extreme.
The amount of work that theyhave to do in a four-day period
of time under an intenseenvironment is incredible, and
CrossFit has been very fortunatethat they haven't had any
severe incidents in the past andunfortunately they had one this

(55:53):
last weekend.
I think it'll ensure that thereare changes in the future that
will make it safer for athletesand hopefully it never happens
again.
But it is certainly apossibility that all athletes
need to make sure that theyunderstand when they participate
in the sport.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Thank you so much for your thoughts, craig.
That's a really measured answerand it's a very difficult topic
.
No doubt I hadn't heard of thatoh yeah, very sad.
I would like to know what'snext for you and diablo that's a
.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
That's a good question too, man, you guys load
them up, um, so I'm so, I'm my,my I'm 61, my wife 62, and
we've been at this for 18 years.
I'm interested in continuing togrow our business, so I'd say
90% of our efforts are focusedon that.
My wife competes in the agegroup level, so she dedicates
quite a bit of her time to that,which is an awesome example for

(56:47):
everyone, especially me, whohas to measure up to that.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Yeah, where did she come in the world this year?

Speaker 3 (56:54):
her third year in asian and she was six in the
world in the 60 to 60 64 yearold category.
Really remarkable performancethis year, the third year in her
age unbelievable.
Yeah, she's a machine, but theso for.
So she'll continue to do that.
I will as well.
But for us, I'll tell you, onething that we're interested in
is at this age and this is, Ithink, anyone that hits this age

(57:17):
at 60 plus the things you startthinking about is how can I
protect my legacy and our legacy, really for us?
I had a career in finance andinvestment banking, but really I
measure myself by the successI've had in the world of fitness
and the ability to influencepeople to change their lives
through fitness, especiallyCrossFit, and so I want to make

(57:37):
sure that continues and thatDiablo business continues to
thrive.
And so over the next five years, my wife was thinking about how
do we transition this businessso that it can continue to
thrive and grow and make surethat the next person that comes
in to take on Diablo CrossFit tothe next level is the right
person.

(57:58):
The other things that we'refocusing on, too.
A big part of what we're doingis making sure that, because
this is a challenge for a lot ofaffiliate owners, by the way.
Coming back to the affiliatequestion is how do I make sure
that I can give my coaches, andCrossFit coaches in general, the
opportunity to earn a verycomfortable living wage to do

(58:18):
what we're doing here?
And that's a challenging thingis the coaches are often not
well paid, and so we're workingon a number of different things
to help generate more income forour coaches so they could come
work out and coach and make ourmembers better but at the same
time, be able to have a familyand have insurance and have a

(58:40):
long-term retirement plan and beable to afford a house.
And in the Bay Area that's adifficult thing.
But we're doing, we're startingto.
We're making some real headwaywith private coaching here at
the Diablo and with our newinitiative, which is a small
group training.
So we're small group trainingis becoming very prevalent
within the fitness worldtraining.
So we're small group trainingis becoming very prevalent
within the fitness world, andwe're having some success with

(59:05):
that as well, where people paymore for their membership at a
gym but what they get is areserved class time with a small
group of people, usually two tofour people, with the same
coach doing programming that iscustomized for them, and there
seems to be, and it's a trendwithin the industry, but there
seems to be a real appetite forthat right now, especially with
an aging population facing thewall of chronic disease.

(59:28):
People are interested.
They don't necessarily want tobe in a large group class with
20 other people.
That makes them feel a littlebit uncomfortable.
Hey, I can come.
I know that I can come.
Monday, wednesday, friday at 11am.
I'm always going to get thesame coach who knows who I am
and knows what injuries I haveand everything else that I have.
So they can customize it andgive me custom programming.
I'm down for that and peopleare paying considerably more

(59:50):
money to do that and for me thatallows me to give a large, very
large percentage of that to mycoaches.

Speaker 2 (59:59):
Awesome, yeah, and how do people find you?
Obviously, you've got thepodcast.
What's the name of the podcast?

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
It's PRsAllDay P-R-S All Day.
That's on the YouTube channel,but they can find me on
Instagram at Craig Craig HDiablo.
I think it is Craig H Diablo.
We'll put it in the net.
Yeah, craig H Diablo.
I think it is Craig H Diablo.
We'll put it in the mail.
Yeah, craig H Diablo.
And then, and you can find usat Diablo CrossFit on Instagram
as well.
That's the easiest way to findme.
Just go to at Diablo CrossFiton Instagram and you can find me
there and I'll answer most ofthe direct messages I get except

(01:00:34):
for the ones from some randomthe UK asking to be my friend.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
Yeah, thanks so much for coming on, Craig.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
It's been a pleasure to have you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
No, I hope I didn't talk too much.
It was awesome.
Those are good questions, verygood questions.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Awesome, all right.
Thanks very much, craig.

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
Yeah, cheers, yeah cheers.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
Firstly, we're going to have to see his birth
certificate, because I don'tbelieve for a second that he's
61 no, he 41, he does and heworks out like a 41 year old.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Um, and yeah, listen, I hope you enjoyed that.
I hope you learned something.
Maybe you've taken somethingaway, maybe you're gonna stack
some habits in a different way.
Maybe you'll even try crossfit,maybe you'll join the cult and
uh, yeah, well, it depends whichcult, whether it's the
pickleball cult or the.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
I actually don't think pickleball's reached here.
We're still on paddle.
Is that what's coming?

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
thanks, pickleball I don't know.
I feel like the the gap in themarket has been filled by paddle
in the uk.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
Um, it's basically the same thing, so maybe there
there's there's no space forpickleball in the uk but I found
it really interesting yeah,going back to the habit thing
when he said he outsources hisnutrition advice because I think
a lot of pts try and do yourgym and your diet together and I
thought his take on that wasparticularly interesting in
terms of you should probablykeep them separate yeah,

(01:02:00):
absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
There's so much psychology in nutrition and that
idea of I don't want my gymcoach seeing me in the grocery
store and the shame and theguilt of of not being perfect
which is no one really is withnutrition and on a lighter note,
I learned you could buy a piefrom a gas station a hardware
store?

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
yes, a hardware store , yeah, ace hardware is not
somewhere I'd be getting mygroceries, but yeah, fascinating
but you haven't been to acehardware.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
It's not like bmq, it's like really nice, they're
really friendly in there.
If you're like me andcompletely useless with diy,
this is the place you go,because they actually come up to
you and say can I help you?
And I'm like what's this thing?
This, you know, just like ohthat's a spanner.
That's a spanner, sir, andthey'll tell you what you need
and stuff.
Ace is amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
Anyway, this is in the podcast about ace hardware
and they're not sponsoring thisshow, but there's an opportunity
sponsor us but I think that, uh, yeah, I think for sure, and I
think the crossfit when peoplehear that they think you know
hour-long workout, bit cold teammight get injured.
Hopefully it's put some moredimension to that in terms of
the diet and the kind ofunsupportive network you get

(01:03:13):
from excellent coaches likecraig um and the good work
they're doing.
So, yeah, I thought it wasreally interesting yeah, for
sure, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Well, thank you listener andy.
Where do they find us?

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
at andy sam on instagram, at the breath geek on
instagram and richard lblakecom.
And then it's laughing throughthe pain, navigating wellness on
all good and bad podcasthosting sites absolutely, and
you know I've got a little bitof an announcement, andy.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
I have finally gotten myself a work visa in the US.
So people can now they don'tjust have to listen to me on
this podcast, they can now cometo me to work one-on-one on
their breath work, theirfunctional breathing, where they
can come and see the study Idid.
They can do conscious connectedbreathing with me virtually and
change their lives, as we didwith the people in the
randomized control trial that Iwas the creator of.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Top man.
Well congratulations.
Another accolade for Richard LBlake, Doctor Work visa.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
Yes, the accolade is work visa, work visas, dr
Richard L.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
Blake.
Doctor Work visa yes, theaccolade is work visa, work
visas.
Doctor Richard L Blake yes,indeed.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
All right, well, thank you, bye-bye, bye.

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