Atlas Games with Nick Anapolsky, Finding your inner competitor!

In this week's episode, Coach ADJ is back after a few months off ;)

Off the heels of the CrossFit Games Semi-final Atlas Games, the fellas welcome CrossFit PSC Owner, Coach and Athlete Nick Anapolsky!

Nick Anapolsky, joined by his wife Kaitlyn Anapolsky, Shawn Clarke, and Erica Folo finished just outside a qualifying spot for the CrossFit Games Team division.

We sit down with Nick to discuss his experience going team and competing at the highest level. We dive into Nick's relentless push to compete and why surrounding yourself with elite talent breeds competitive talent.

Adam and Nick chat about some epic feats of strength and how they each have fostered fitness communities differently.

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Transcript

Chad [0:06 - 0:31]
community of members, coaches and professionals working as a team of like minded individuals in constant pursuit, connecting this exclusive group with the tools and resources they require to live a high performance lifestyle, conquering what life has thrown at them. We are living the life. Mm Welcome to the Living daylight podcast. Episode 54. I'm your host chad Mueller and I'm joined by coach A D. J. It's been a minute dude,

Adam [0:31 - 0:35]
you've been rocking some wicked episodes. I've been slacking,

Chad [0:35 - 0:50]
we've talked for a long time, we've been trying to get this guest on the show for a while, so it's super cool that we finally got him on here and it's uh, you know, sitting down with local Crossfit beast nick and polski owner of Crossfit PSC Dude, how's it going man?

Nick [0:51 - 0:53]
Hey, good, how are you doing?

Chad [0:53 - 1:03]
I've been doing great, doing great. We're sitting down with you sort of, let's say four days after the semifinal atlas games. So that's pretty cool, timing is

Nick [1:03 - 1:14]
right. Yeah man, it was, it was quite the experience for sure. Cool competition floor, my first time being at that level stage and uh took a lot out of it for sure.

Adam [1:14 - 1:15]
The body feeling,

Nick [1:15 - 1:37]
yeah, bodies actually feeling pretty good. I mean day one got our legs a little store, but by day to you don't have no choice but to keep going and then um, I was dealing with some other like basically felt like I was held together with tape and glue going into the weekend. But at the end of it, none of that stuff seemed to get any worse. So um doing okay at this point now.

Chad [1:38 - 1:47]
Nice dude, nice to, yeah, I want to get into at this games. Um for sure today, but I wanted to kind of just start off with maybe um

Nick [1:48 - 1:48]
you

Chad [1:48 - 2:06]
know, I feel like some of the many guests that we talked to on the show, they all sort of grew up playing competitive sports or being a competitor at some level at a younger age. I know you're a former waterloo warrior football player. I did want to kind of start off with, what types of training were you doing back then? Like how are you sort of supplementing your training with football back then?

Nick [2:07 - 3:13]
Uh, trained like an idiot for sure. I say this like nonstop that I wish I could go back in time and train how I do now back then, even when playing football, um people are always saying like sports specific training that it's like a certain thing, I honestly think that could be anything. I think everyone trains differently and different things are beneficial for different people. So I think what works best for you versus what you should be doing based on what you read or whatever. So back in the day it was like football training was bench press really bad technique, power cleans, uh, just ripping weight off the ground grip and rip and raw, raw strength clanging bank and that was how you got better at football apparently. Um so I bought into that, obviously I didn't know any better. Um but nowadays, like just learning everything that I've learned from olympic weightlifting and um mental game of going through workouts, like crossfit style stuff or any other feats of strength going through that. I wish I had this mentality and knowledge back then playing football, I do think my body would have either held up better or been able to do more things.

Chad [3:14 - 3:21]
Cool, Cool. So we're is this like one of the, one of the videos where we see the 25 football guys just yelling and screaming, big squat pr

Nick [3:21 - 3:30]
Exactly, and yeah, and they barely reach parallel and their backs are folding and they got 10 guys holding each side of the bar bell for them in case it snaps their back and Oh

Chad [3:30 - 3:32]
yeah, awesome.

Nick [3:32 - 3:33]
Yeah,

Chad [3:33 - 3:36]
gotta love it. So, so when did, like, when did you find crossfit then?

Nick [3:37 - 5:45]
Yeah, so my last season playing football, I played, I think 22 or 20 year, 23 years straight, I played every single year from when I was seven. So my last season I finished playing in Sydney Australia. Um and when I was there, the coach of the team also owned an olympic weightlifting gym and he's a national level coach. Um So I learned from him all the olympic weightlifting stuff, so I spent my whole time playing football, they're also learning weightlifting and when I came back to waterloo between seasons, um there was a crossfit gym opening attached to the world gym that I was going to personally train at. So they started opening this huge gym and I was like great, I can continue doing my olympic with the latest thing in there, and uh as I started doing that, I started watching all these people, you know, swinging around in the bars and doing ring muscle ups and I was like, man, this stuff looks pretty cool. Um so at that point I went and did my crossfit level one and then started coaching there, they were looking for coaches and I had like pretty extensive sports background and training and stuff, so I just had to learn like, you know, the skills specific things related to crossfit. Um and then I started coaching through there and just kind of, I would say like fell in love with the methodology of crossfit and like how it pushed you and um at that point I was starting to move away from organized sport and my body was only holding up so much longer and contact and stuff anyway, so um at that point I kind of like switched over my mindset of competitive sport to just competitive fitness, um started doing a couple of local competitions and stuff and, you know, at that point they were everywhere, you could just like sign up for a competition down the street and go and do what you can and you learn from that and you keep getting better and better and the cool thing about crossfit training is that you're constantly getting better and no matter what you do is never good enough. So you, you always have something to strive for, you can do one ring muscle up and then it's like, okay, now I do three, now you do 10, how many can you do, then? It's like, put a weight vest on, then it's go upside down in the rings and ring handstand, push up like this ridiculous stuff, but there's always something that you can't do, that you want to do.

Chad [5:46 - 5:47]
So that's,

Nick [5:47 - 6:42]
that's what, that's what kind of drew me to this style of training that it was like, you were never complacent. Um and I think it's, I think I just did my eighth or ninth crossfit open, so it's definitely been some time, I would say like, competitive crossfit, I've maybe done it for like three years or so that I started to take it a little bit more serious, but also at the same time, I'm not somebody who's like sacrificing everything to be at the competitive stage. Um like nutrition wise, I like, I enjoy going out and socializing, I enjoy having a casual beverage and not like strict on my diet and that kind of stuff. Um, mobility things, I could definitely be doing more, stretching, it could definitely be doing more, but it's, I try and get a good work, like life work train balance as best I can. So I'm not like, not all in on this stuff, but I definitely enjoy competing. Still.

Chad [6:43 - 6:46]
Nice. I have to ask though, like you played football in Australia,

Nick [6:47 - 6:50]
yep, rugby

Chad [6:50 - 6:51]
or football?

Nick [6:51 - 7:28]
No, and I got there honestly, like I had conversations with people and they're like, you know, they asked what I'm doing there, I say I'm playing football and they have no idea what I'm talking about, like what kind of football they call it, gridiron there. And yeah, it's like it's very different. Not many of them know that they actually have it there. Um But it's, I got set up through like an agent to go and they paid for living and accommodations and flight and everything. So it was quite the experience. Um The level of football I definitely think is still like increasing their um So it was kind of cool. I just went and I played quarterback and help the team uh as best I could and it was fun. It was good.

Chad [7:30 - 7:31]
That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool.

Nick [7:32 - 7:33]
Yeah,

Chad [7:33 - 7:47]
so like in cross, so you've been in crossfit for a really long time, like could you answer this question, like how has your training changed over the years during crossfit, like, you know, your first year or two in crossfit versus like now.

Nick [7:48 - 7:51]
Uh the easiest way to put this is less is more

Chad [7:52 - 7:55]
alright, so what does, what does training look like you for these days, like these days

Nick [7:56 - 9:20]
for the past and again, this was my first time going into the open in a team setting. So we had a team of four where instead of doing the open individually, everything was about the team and the four people that you're competing with and getting to the next stage and advancing. Um So I would say like the 43 or four months leading up to the open this year, there wasn't a ton of, and again I would say like training versus practice. So training is like individually, you're hammering squats, you're hammering your weaknesses, you're constantly like grinding um for the team aspect and I didn't really realize this until I was into it, that team training is actually literally just practicing workouts with the four of you, so you're practicing synchro stuff, you're practicing transitions, you're practicing um like helping each other through trading and stuff like that. So it wasn't like as much training as it was practiced and especially leading up to competition time, like the month before atlas, we really had like one or two actual training days individually and everything else when we got together. It was just practicing workouts that we saw at other semifinals or things that we thought was gonna come up. Um and it didn't like tax your body as much because you're not like driving yourself into the ground and doing heavy, heavy stuff all the time or like really trying to dial in weaknesses individually. It was more so coming together as a team. So practice was like basically all we did

Chad [9:21 - 9:53]
okay. And so like the training and, and was it last night, two years ago you and Adam were at Lollapalooza as individuals? I think it was two or three years ago. Like how is training for something like that versus training first? And I would probably put out those games and want to lose into some sort of similar grouping for somewhat of a professional competition. Like how is that training different for for you? Do you find like individual versus team minus the practice stuff like you taking more volume? Is it less volume

Nick [9:54 - 10:49]
for sure. I feel like when I was preparing for what appaloosa, I was definitely putting a lot more pressure on myself because it was an individual setting. So you try and do every little thing you can to make yourself not get embarrassed when you're there or like trying to do the best you possibly can. And there's, there's no other like kind of factors around it, like a team where you know, you have to come together with people. So everything's on you. So the more that you can do the better and that's a, and I don't think that's the right mentality, but that's the mentality I had, I was like, I always had to do more and that's what I'm saying, I figured this out over the last couple of years, is that less is more at this point. Um and again, I think there is definitely some truth to overtraining in doing way too much and letting your body kind of just adapt to what it can and should be doing at this point and what's going to be the most beneficial.

Adam [10:50 - 11:14]
I hear you on that buddy, I feel like crossfit such a new sport that the athletes themselves had to find like that limit of what is too much training so that we could all, like, I feel like these are athletes around the world realizing this, like, what is that perfect balance of, like, pushing the limits for training, but also being at peak performance, not overtrained, which is cool.

Chad [11:16 - 11:32]
I was gonna say adam, do you, do you feel like you can relate to that because I know that you wanted to water blues and now you're obviously doing some endurance stuff, but like, I think from what I've seen with you and coach coach Mark, like, I feel like you have sort of a good temperature gauge on sort of, the endurance level, like, not too much and versus too little.

Adam [11:33 - 12:28]
Yeah, I think it's it's the same for for both sports because there's, there's, there's so many different components of the training where you're learning like polski was talking about with the teen stuff, I feel like even an individual, there's a time and a place to work on skills and technique and then there's a time and a place to work on, you know, let's say the four components are like strength conditioning skill and then competing. So like you're always working on different parts of it and then recovery, nutrition, all that stuff, So yeah, spending as much time on, not just hammering it all the time is, has got me probably like nick to like just as good or better point over the last couple of years than just going all all out all the time, you know, in the early days,

Nick [12:29 - 13:28]
I do think that age comes into a factor too. I know like Adam and I are almost the same age and we've been training for a very long time and I do think that just in sense of volume and like intensity, you have to be more and more careful, I think as you age to be able to tolerate what you can and what's going to be beneficial, um I definitely know that like, I used to think again more was better and as we, as I've like, my body seems to adapt to the style of training, I definitely start to feel what I can and can't tolerate anymore. Um my body has like that red light flashing sometimes of like, hey, slow down or like you can't do anymore today, it's not going to be a good idea and uh I've learned from the mistakes of pushing past that, that blinking light like that alert and this is not worth it anymore at this point. So I definitely think like through we start to learn as we get older and I know I'm not like super old, but I do feel that way sometimes comparable to how I used to train. So you just have to be smart now.

Chad [13:29 - 13:54]
Yeah, that's a good point. So like, I mean, I think we all agree that, you know, the older you get, the more, you know, right, and you, we always look back and wish that you like knew this when you were younger. How do you coach that with younger athletes? Like how do you, how do you, how do you get younger people to listen to us, old guys and not old guys, but you know what I mean? Like how do you get younger people that

Nick [13:55 - 13:55]
to

Chad [13:55 - 13:59]
learn that or is it like the younger people can learn it if they're willing to learn it?

Nick [14:01 - 15:03]
Yeah. Um honestly at this thing, it depends on the person, like everyone has different coaching styles and every athlete is I would say on a spectrum of coachable, either very coachable or not at all. So they do think it's like individualized, but from what I try and do to young athletes is just give them my experience of like what I used to do, what my experience has been, what I think would be most beneficial. Um and just I also do try and remember that when I was that age, like I did want to do more and mentally it was an advantage of sorts to feel like you've done more. Um I feel like it's hard to hold somebody back that wants to do more if you try and tell them, you know, this isn't gonna be great if you're overtraining and blah blah, like I just think mental game is also equally as important as the training aspect, and if they don't feel like they're doing enough and they're not prepared even mentally, that could be a disadvantage, so um sometimes you just have to run their own course and you have to just let them figure that out on their own.

Adam [15:03 - 15:59]
Mhm. It's better, it's better to almost if, you know, they're going to be training more, it's better to almost give them the extra structure, so they're not just doing what they think is best, just give them at least the best kind of approach that you can give them if they're just going to keep pounding it, but I don't honestly, there's not that many athletes out there that are that all in that are pushing that far, if anything, you know, it's getting people just to complete the task at hand and complete it, like with a purpose, I mean, there are obviously we've all worked with with athletes and we're around athletes that want to just keep pounding it, but maybe for a short period of time. But yeah, it's a, it's a bit, it's a busy sport. Crossfit is a busy sport and like there's so many things to work on that. Yeah, getting it all in is usually a challenge in itself.

Nick [16:01 - 17:28]
Absolutely, I would agree with that. There's definitely like programming for Crossfit has been more challenging than programming for anything else, just with the amount of skills you have to have. Um and like I've been going through this with a couple of my athletes to, is that like, this is the part of the season right now, that most of them are like, obviously if you're not going to the games, this is like the start of the off season. So what do you do at the start of the offseason? You hammer the weaknesses. Where was your worst workout in the crossfit open and why this is what you're working on now, and if you want to be a really good crossfit athlete, you need to fill the hole that you have in your crossfit skills and in training people like to do the stuff that they're good at. So if I have an athlete now, who's training their weaknesses constantly, This is what we need to do. We need to fill this gap, like you're literally just training the stuff that you suck at, How fun is that? It is not fun whatsoever. It's literally opposite of fun. So I have a lot of athletes that are just going through some pretty miserable sessions right now and like I have to keep explaining to them like why we're doing this and remind them like this is what you wanted to do. You wanted to be better at this workout. You want to have a better score at the end of the open. We need to fill this gap. Um, so we just have to keep your mind set a little bit more positive and you just have to remember that like this isn't going to be fun for the next little bit, but this is what we have to do to get you to be more balanced. Crossfit athletes. Yeah,

Adam [17:28 - 17:51]
it's a tricky time of year. It took me a long time to learn that, that it is the off season once you or whether it's the opens over quarter finals are over or whatever and it's not time to just keep, you know, training the same things that it's, it's a shift in focus and like nick you said it's, it can be a challenging time of year

Nick [17:52 - 17:52]
for

Adam [17:52 - 17:56]
most athletes to stay focused and stay motivated. Um,

Nick [17:57 - 17:57]
yep.

Adam [17:58 - 18:04]
And then, yeah, but it pays off right? Like you, you, you had a couple athletes that it paid off big time last year. Right,

Nick [18:06 - 18:45]
yep. And there's a big difference too, is like being an affiliate owner and then also a competitive programmer. Like there's almost two different worlds for me at this point. So the people who are like in the affiliate and they're just, you know, they want to do crossfit for a style of training and lifestyle. Like it's not really an off season for them. Like, yeah, they do the open and stuff. But then after that, like they don't need to hammer their weaknesses for the most part, I feel like at our crossfit affiliate, we probably have the highest Percentage of people in the area who like really do want to tackle weaknesses and stuff. But even at that, it's like under 50% of our members. Um, and the rest of them, like I still have to program all things crossfit because that's what they want to do. They want to just do crossfit all the time. But my competitive

Adam [18:45 - 18:46]
members

Nick [18:47 - 19:29]
exactly when you have to keep touches on everything, Like you have to keep everybody doing all skills. Whereas my competitive people like that's a different world and now they're in their like strength phase because most people, this is where you want to just gain a lot of strength before you get into trying to tackle back into the crossfit skills and stuff like that. So for the, I have kind of the affiliate program, I have the competitive program and then I also have a handful of individual athletes and those are the ones I was kind of talking about like really tackling weaknesses and their programming right now is not super fun for them because it's all stuff that they're not great at. So again, I have like three different worlds of program and they all just have different styles and different mentalities.

Chad [19:31 - 19:32]
That's nice.

Adam [19:32 - 19:32]
It's

Chad [19:32 - 19:49]
cool. Um I don't want to talk about like your, your decision to go team. Like we were just mentioning, you did some individual competitions, Lollapalooza, you're, you're obviously you're pretty fit dude. What made you jump into team this year and tackle that venture?

Nick [19:49 - 21:56]
Yeah, for sure. I like, I think I've always wanted to do team ever since I've seen like the affiliate cup or like the team stuff at the game. So I've always kind of wanted to do that. I just finding the right people finding the right team, um people who are one committed to, like this is what I wanna do, not like, hey, we're gonna do the open and then if I qualify individually, see you later, you know what I mean? Or having the right people that you want to train with 24/7, like because you put a lot of time together. Um and I can say like the four people we had there literally family to me at this point and like I absolutely love spending every second training with them. So you have to have the right mess of people for that kate. Obviously my, my wife and I like we've always competed together if we can find any male female pairs for the last seven years around the area, we try to jump in on it. That's one of the things that we love doing is just competing together. We're always on the same page. We move kind of similarly. Um, and we bond doing stuff like that. So the two of us, obviously we're on the team, we just had to find another two. Um, and then probably the last, but most important factor is that I honestly got to a point where like I'm individual stuff doing training and competing and you come to a realization that I don't think I'm gonna be able to make it to that level as an individual. So what else can you do? You know, I have another year or two before I get to the masters division and like I could do that maybe um where you put yourself on a team, I feel like I have all the qualities and aspects to be able to help a team, but maybe not as strong an athlete be at the top level of a crossfit elite individual at this point and it's just everyone's getting so good and I just at this point, not progressing as fast as I used to in in crossfit. So, um, that was definitely a factor as well. It's like, hey, I still want to compete at the highest level and I feel like I could do that with other individuals, I probably couldn't do that on my own. So yeah, I think all those things kind of come into factor, but this was by far the most fun I've had training in my crossfit kind of career.

Nick [22:09 - 22:10]
Sorry, can you guys still hear me?

Chad [22:11 - 22:13]
Yep, to set up as

Chad [22:17 - 23:19]
okay. Um No, that's really awesome. It's a good, good reflection point to, to be sort of true true to yourself and like you still want to compete and I agree with you. Like it feels like the competition of crossfit is like in the past few years is like just like skyrocketed right? Like a few years ago, maybe it was sort of a bit more stagnant. There was maybe there was a difference in maybe the young Crossfit is now coming into play. Um but like the competition level is like really, really gotten strong, even like I was watching uh this games, like even some of those teams, man, like individual, there's a lot of individuals on the team like yourself and like you probably noticed it a lot that, that could make a run at being an individual, right? And for whatever reason, you know, they just decided to go team and like likely because it's more fun, it's less pressure on yourself. You don't have the time to just devote to yourself. I know rich Froning always said right? Like he just didn't have like the time invested in team is less demanding on his body than time invested as an individual. So it's super interesting seeing like just the scale across it moving up

Nick [23:20 - 23:22]
for sure. No, I totally agree.

Chad [23:23 - 23:33]
Um Yeah, so like, you guys obviously had a great quarter final showing, um obviously you guys are a fairly new team, you've been, how long have you been training together as a team?

Nick [23:34 - 23:42]
Um We, the four of us all kind of got together in december and started training that, so december january, yeah. Ish Yeah,

Chad [23:42 - 24:02]
Okay, cool. How was so like, yeah, you guys performed really well with online quarterfinals, I think you performed awesome at the semis as well. I know that's probably not the outcome you wanted, but I want, I wanted to ask like, how was, how was that first off, like how was competing at atlas? Like how was that sort of on the floor, competing with a bunch of like, I mean, a stacked field of teams

Nick [24:03 - 25:34]
for sure. Yeah, like the whole experience was really cool. Um like, like I said before, I've never been on, like that stage, I think individually I'd say watch appaloosa was probably the biggest stage I've been on and then I think after that I had qualified for my first, like, Elite sanction Als at Canwest and then that got canceled obviously with Covid, so that would have been like my first actual individual, elite level. Com, but going onto this stage was, it was super cool. Like the first event when you walk out onto the floor and you see the crowd and um, you know that it's like being streamed live and everyone at home is watching and stuff, it's a, it's a different feeling. Um and then the first workout, I was in the second pair with kate and once Shaun and Erica were done, then it was kate and I was trying to get on, so that whole time I was like, watching them take the experience, but at the same time just standing there and you can't do anything about it. Um and then the workout started with strict handstand pushups, like in the rig and we were right behind it. So as soon as you kick up into the rig and you still don't quite feel it, and then all of a sudden you have to go from the rig out into the middle of the floor, and as soon as you get outside the rig, everything just kind of opened up and it was just like this overwhelming feeling of, like, I was just like crushed your chest, you know what I mean? Like, I couldn't breathe and you're like running up to a barbell that's about to be super heavy, you don't know if you're about to get crushed in front of everybody or not. Um So it was, it was definitely just like a super cool first work out how it, how you got to go out on the floor and like, see how everything was. Um

Chad [25:34 - 25:35]
I

Nick [25:35 - 26:03]
think like the, the program, like the workouts weren't in our hugely beneficial to us, not that they were like bad, but I feel like if it was programmed different workouts who may have done differently and okay, that's a whole other topic of like semi finals, ours versus granite games versus mid atlantic or whatever else. Like everyone having different programs, but yet you're still being compared to each other, but you're doing a different workout or a different challenge

Chad [26:03 - 26:04]
doesn't, still,

Nick [26:04 - 26:46]
doesn't, still, doesn't make a whole ton of sense to me. I mean they had this year, they decided to put two workouts that we're going to be the same across all semifinals for individuals and for teams, those two workouts like, okay, yes, we're being compared even though the standards for those workouts were slightly different for different people. So the times may have been slightly different as well and you are still testing the same skills but it wasn't identical across the board. Even during like the athlete briefing and stuff like people are asking questions being like, oh, we watched this in the granite games and they did this, what are we doing? And then it was something different. So it was kind of weird that way. I'm trying to think about the things like what

Chad [26:46 - 26:47]
was, what was the highlight for you?

Nick [26:50 - 28:02]
The highlight was. So after the first workout, it, it didn't go very well at all, not as planned and like we finished 16th in the first workout so right away, it's like damn, we got some work to do and it was trying to like crawl back the whole weekend Um and then by the last day going in on Sunday it was pretty evident that we were sitting in 11th and we're not going to qualify in the top five spots even if we win both workouts, So at that point we're just like, you know, let's just have fun with it last day. And then the last workout, we ended up winning the last workout with an event win by like 2030 seconds or something. So the, the feeling of like I wouldn't say the feeling of winning that workout, but the feeling of saying like we do belong there and we, we could be in a better spot on another weekend like this, if we decided to do it again next year or just knowing that if things went differently in certain workouts, we do belong to be in the top five and go to the games. So I think that was, that was the cool feeling other than like Just finishing in the bottom 10 or like getting crushed in the last workout before you go home, it would have been a lot different. So mindset wise, that was the cool experience of having an event win and feeling like we did belong there.

Chad [28:04 - 28:12]
Yeah man, it was cool watching it was cool watching the event um And yeah, congrats on the event when that was pretty epic too.

Nick [28:13 - 28:43]
Yeah, it was it was a fun workout for us. It was something that also like crossfit had out for a while so we got to practice it, we're a team that is um like I have a background of like film study practice, do it again, change something, try it again. Um And that's why I think we did really well in the quarterfinal too. It's like it's online, you could redo it as many times as you want, you get the workouts ahead of time, you get to game plan practice. Um So I do think that like it's a benefit to us to be able to do that kind of stuff just because we do put the time into making sure we're prepared.

Nick [28:46 - 28:47]
And I

Chad [28:47 - 29:08]
was I was gonna I was gonna ask you about the the worm. I mean every everybody that watches. I mean many cross fitters don't get the chance to even see or touch a worm, but like how is that for you? I know that you posted some stuff on social, you guys playing around with it, but like at the event, how is that for you guys?

Nick [29:09 - 30:35]
Yeah. Um It was actually one of the things that we were looking forward to most were like, man, I hope they have a bunch of worm events and then it only end up being one, whereas other semifinals for teams, they had up to three or four workouts using the worm. So we were kind of disappointed that it wasn't used as much and the workout we were confident going into it and the first half of the workout went really well with it And then the last 20 cleaner direct where we kind of just fell apart. I think our are how people were standing on the worm. We kind of shifted a little bit as we went and we ended up being in like a really weird position and started failing some reps on the clean and jerks and I was like, what's going on? And it's one of those movements that's so frustrating when you don't get it because you're not understanding why it's not being smooth, but when it is, when it is smooth and everyone's working together it feels easy. But then all of sudden like either one person's off or there's like one person gets a little bit more gassed and then all of a sudden it's just like it goes miserably and you can't fix it. It's such a a terrible feeling. Um so yeah, we like fell apart in like the last 10 clean and jerks of that workout and went from first I think like 4th or 5th or something and it was like it was bad. Um also the worm was different there, so the rogue worms and this is something like, again, experience wise, I didn't know and I'll know for next year. The worm sandbags is in sections, so it's like £100 on the front than 70 than 100 and then 70. So there's two like male

Adam [30:35 - 30:36]
parts.

Nick [30:36 - 30:43]
Whereas like the worm that we had, it wasn't rogue, it's a different company and all the sandbags are just the same weight throughout the whole thing. Uh

Chad [30:43 - 30:44]
huh.

Nick [30:44 - 31:05]
So like practice wise was just a little bit different. Um So we weren't used to like the front of it being so heavy and like yeah, we just had to move slightly, Just like 11 step up for each person would have been would have solved everything. But we can't fix that when you're exhausted and on the fly and you don't know what's going on, but you look back at it after and we could have fixed that

Chad [31:05 - 31:07]
adam, have you got to play around with the worm yet?

Adam [31:07 - 31:48]
I'm one of those crossfit athletes that have never touched it. It seems exactly like nick described like so effortless when it goes smooth and then so punishing if you're out of rhythm and just can break even the best athlete down if if someone's just a little off or timing's off, whatever it is. But yeah, looks looks fun but tough nick sounds like the team is pumped to prepare for next year. I mean, yeah, like I didn't know how the feelings would be after dialing it in for four or five months here as a team, but it seems like you guys are pretty pumped.

Nick [31:50 - 32:55]
Yeah, I mean we've definitely chatted about it even like the night we finished the event, got back to the Airbnb and we're like, well listen like, is there something we're doing again? Because it's a huge time commitment and for some people like um Erica just finished, she just graduated from Laurier. So she kind of like stayed in the town just to train and be a part of the affiliate and do what we were doing. Um So like at some point she's got to start making money and like, is she going to get a job somewhere local or she moved back to Burlington already, like as of monday and it's like she's already gone, but at some point if we're doing this again, is she gonna move back and train with us again? Um So I feel like it's on the table, we've all said that it's on the table and it's something that we would want to do, but is it something that's gonna like line up and line up with all of our lifestyles and what we're doing in life at that point? So I think we just have to, you know, get together once in a while because we still like to train together and we do have some like local comps that we had signed up for previously as like some tune ups before the games, if we had planned to do that. So we're still gonna do those for fun and probably just go from

Adam [32:55 - 33:02]
there. Is that later in the podcast or can we ask Polsky what has lined up for the summer?

Chad [33:03 - 33:04]
Let's go right now

Nick [33:05 - 33:48]
as of right now we just have the U. G. Games. So the one in Collingwood that's like one that kate and I have always done individually they're not doing individual this year just because they've been shut down for two years. They just want to get things back up running again. So they're doing the teams of four. Typically we have between 6 to 10 teams from PSC that go and do the U. G. Games so they have all different divisions and stuff and we love like the location of it it's on the pier, it's always outside there's some swimming and it's always like a really good time and a good like jim bonding experience for everybody too. So we have a team in there and I think so far we have five total teams from PSC which I feel like it's getting harder and harder to do is to get people together and compete but we're still

Adam [33:48 - 33:51]
trying.

Nick [33:51 - 33:52]
Yeah

Chad [33:52 - 34:15]
I'm gonna ask you because I feel like um a lot of people that watch team, I mean this is what had gone went through my mind initially when I started watching team like what's harder like doing your workout as an individual or as a team because obviously with the teams from the workouts you have built and rest, but it looks like you're going full send as soon as it's your time to, to shine. Like how would you compare the two?

Nick [34:18 - 35:29]
Yeah. Um honestly like the programming of team I think is like endless. You can have male male partners, female female partners have them to work together. You could switch, have mixed pairs together, you could have four persons synchro, you could have split work. You could, um, you could do individual relay style, which is like I think is a really cool part to do. Um, you could do like combined scores. There's so many different options you can have with teams of four. Um, and actually had this conversation on the weekend when I was at atlas with the guy who runs can west and he was like thinking about doing team stuff and like, oh, I don't know if you do twos or threes and I basically gave him the same spiel that I just said about the teams of four and the endless amount of options for programming and fun. Um, so I just think it's like there's just more things you can do with four people. So in terms of like pressure and stuff individually, you're just one person and you put a lot of pressure on yourself. So you think team is going to be less pressure, but when you get into a team setting, you have the ability to let your team down. So in terms of pressure, it may be very similar. Just different. I

Chad [35:29 - 35:30]
think it's more, I think it's way

Nick [35:30 - 35:56]
more. It definitely could be. I'll give you an example two weeks before atlas you go for a social dinner with friends and stuff. Right? This is something if I was competing individually. I'm a social guy. I get a beer every time. This time, two weeks before atlas I'm on a team, I'm out for dinner. I'm about to order a beer and no, I can't let my team down. I feel like they would judge me. I can't do it. I order something

Chad [35:56 - 35:57]
different.

Nick [35:58 - 36:11]
That's the difference. Before lots of pressure individually. I'm my own guy. I can make my decisions. I'm on a team now I have the responsibility of doing this for my team. So small little things that may affect us. I'm not doing it

Chad [36:11 - 36:12]
accountability man.

Nick [36:12 - 36:13]
Yeah, it's

Chad [36:13 - 36:17]
pressure, pressure is finest.

Adam [36:17 - 36:18]
So

Chad [36:18 - 36:25]
what was, what was, so what was some of your recovery protocols this weekend and some of the, how, how are you feeling? Like

Nick [36:25 - 38:00]
we actually were fortunate enough to have an athletic therapist with us. Um, so we have an athletic therapist. Olivia. She's from swat in Burlington. So it's attached to crossfit coal. So they kind of had a connection through there and swat sponsored us as a team to have her as our athletic therapist. So she was taking care of us for the last three months of taking care of all our negative injuries and making sure we're prepped for training and all that kind of stuff and then she traveled with us, stayed in the Airbnb so we could do treatment at nighttime treatment in the morning. She was there to help us warm up for events. So treatment and protocol that way. It was like, we were very fortunate to have that other stuff we did um we got a cold tub at the gym for training because of all like the back to back training days we had and um obviously there's a lot of science behind cold tubbing and like is it beneficial to recover and uh strength gains and that kind of stuff and there's a lot to be said that like strength and muscle building cold tubs are not beneficial, but for us that's not our purpose at that point our purpose was to train as a team and be able to train again the next day as a team. So the cold cold tub stuff seemed to help us recover and feel decent for the next day. Um there's this company called Cold Tribe, they just came out with like a blow up version with like a filter and like cooling system and everything. So we got one of those set up in the gym and all of us were using that pretty much every day leading up and then they ended up being a big named sponsor at atlas and they had the same tubs there and everything too. So we were kind of used to doing that between workouts already.

Chad [38:01 - 38:01]
Nice.

Nick [38:02 - 38:03]
It's

Chad [38:03 - 38:07]
pretty solid. Yeah, I've seen the cold truck, I've seen the new cold tubs look pretty cool.

Nick [38:08 - 38:10]
Yeah, definitely. It's a cool concept.

Chad [38:10 - 38:13]
Yeah, I might have to upgrade my plastic horse trough.

Nick [38:13 - 38:27]
Yeah, well that's what we were using before too, and it's just a pain in the past, like, constantly fill it with ice and dump it every time. This one, like you can leave the water in it. There's a little bit of chlorine in it with the filtration system, like you could leave the water in for a while and not have to do all that

Chad [38:27 - 38:29]
nice. That's sweet. That's

Adam [38:29 - 38:29]
sweet.

Chad [38:30 - 38:51]
Um So like, what, what is it like, you, you love competing, you, you mentioned a few times like, you love competing, like, any competition coming up that's local, you're in it, you, you guys host a lot of throw downs, like, what is it for you that like for crossfit that you just, you don't just train crossfit, You compete crossfit.

Nick [38:52 - 40:47]
Um It's just like growing up with a competitive like, mindset um and not just competing against people, but competing like against yourself and making sure that like um I have something to train for, like I'm not, I've never been somebody who just like wants to go to the gym and just train for nothing. I always feel like I have to have a purpose of why I'm going there and doing that. So it's always like performance based as opposed to like training for aesthetics or anything like that. I never really done that style of training, I've always kind of trained for something. So if I have something on the schedule, it keeps my mindset right to continue to train and hold myself accountable to hit the intensity that I need to be hitting. Um also, just feel like since owning a gym, having crossfit competition has been our biggest community builder um of like keeping people keeping them accountable for having competitions coming up and they get to bond with each other with doing team stuff and even just like training together for the event, even if it's like an individual event, we still train as a team. It's kind of cool that like, as an individual sport of crossfit for most people as individual, I do think it's super beneficial to have a team and I feel like crossfit has kind of branded and promoted that a lot more and more over time in the last little bit, you'll see teams like, you know, mayhem athletes, like Mayhem athletes train together. Like look at that gym now, they have people move across the world to go train with them, but they're individual, it just um proven or I don't know, there's so many places now or like recruiting people to go train with them and they train as a team together and they all get so much better having the same either level of athletes or same mindsets and helping and pushing each other and then they go compete against each other. It's still like, it's a weird concept.

Chad [40:48 - 41:12]
Yeah, no, I get that though, That's pretty cool, like, So like, what would you like, how would you encourage a crossfit? Er that does crossfit in the gym, They love doing crossfit from a daily basis, but maybe they're still standing on the outside looking in and kind of, they need a little bit of a nudge to do a competition, or maybe they're sort of curious how would you encourage them to do that, or would you encourage them to do that?

Nick [41:13 - 42:35]
Um I definitely would, I think that for the most part, um I would get them to try it one time and if it's something that they really enjoy, great, let's do it again. If it's something they didn't enjoy, like, totally get it and let's just continue to do classes and just keep having fun doing crossfit, but not competing, but I do think that a lot of people just need that little extra nudge to sign up for the first one because it is overwhelming and it's like stressful and nerve wracking and um even like, it doesn't matter what age you are, I mean there's masters divisions and there's teens divisions there's like kids crossfit competition stuff going on now too and if if it's something that people have ever thought about, just if you're thinking about it just go try it And I think you'll learn from that and you'll learn if you like it or if you don't and I would say 99% of the time in my experience someone who's tried it definitely wants to do it again. I feel like they got pushed outside their comfort zone, they tried something they always wanted to do. Um and you kinda just like doing your first crossfit class, 99% of the time you get that itch to go back. Um So yeah I would definitely encourage people to do it if someone's like straight up no I don't want to compete. I would never mess with that and I totally understand but I would I've been through it many times where I've encourage somebody to do across the event and they continue to do them afterwards.

Adam [42:36 - 43:27]
Yeah I love I love that approach. You haven't tried one try it if you enjoyed it, do more if you don't it's all good but it is it turns into something that's super scary and intimidating to something like nick is saying which it turns into your accountability buddy. We're like hey I got another competition U. G. Series, middle of july now I'm gonna start you know he's gassed after atlas but you're going to get back on the horse and get ready for for yuji instead of all of a sudden it's september and I'm still recovering right. So it's just, it turns into your little accountability buddy instead of something that you're, of course, you know, no matter how many competitions you've done, you still get nervous, you still get the jitterbug, you still get whatever, but that kind of becomes the fun of it. Like it's what you learn to love.

Nick [43:29 - 44:53]
Yeah, the cool thing about like, Crossfit two is the online competition stuff. I mean, there's a huge advantage and disadvantage to having online versus in person and like, I can't say I love everything about online competition and crossfit, but um something like the Open, every crossfit affiliate owner would probably say this that like the Open is the biggest event of the year for your gym. Um, it encourages everyone to come together as a community and it has, I think it's the only sport in the world where an average joe can compete against the elite athlete in the sport? Head to head, like, you're literally competing against each other. It's the only sport that you can actually go in and do that. What other sport can you go like, hey, they're the best in the world of the sport, I'm going to go compete against them now, you can't do that anywhere, but the crossfit open, you do, they go through the same process, like, you know, Tia Toomey has to do the same workout in 22.1 as average joe at PSC, they're literally going head to head. Um So I just I think that's kind of cool and like, you have that online aspect of, okay, someone wants to try competing, but you don't have to go anywhere, you're literally doing it in your home gym where you're comfortable, you're doing it with people that you your four o'clock class, they're doing at the same time with everybody every day is nothing different. You're not doing a different event or a different sport, You're literally doing what you've practiced every day is just someone else has programmed it. That's

Adam [44:53 - 44:55]
it. Super cool.

Nick [44:55 - 45:00]
And I think once people, once people do the Open, that's like a little bit of that nudge to start competing. Yeah,

Chad [45:00 - 45:54]
it's a little barrier to entry. For sure. For sure. Get a camera, get someone to count your reps, good to go, That's great. That's great. Um Mhm. I did want to talk about the feats of strength. I know, I mean, both of you dabble into the feats of strength. I know you guys recently partnered up and did £500 dead lift, five minute mile and whole whack of pull ups and then I know uh nick, you've done sort of attempted the Guinness world record for burpees chest to ground burpees and then, you know, I've seen you do 1000 unbroken double owners adam. I know you're dabbling in some of this Iron Man stuff and I don't even understand half the feats of strength that you're doing in the endurance world, but like you got I don't know like you gotta be crazy to think about doing these things like I mean what gives you these ideas to kind of test yourself? I mean you're doing these competitions that are organized but then to say I'm just gonna do 1000 unbroken double letters today.

Nick [45:54 - 47:40]
Yeah, I know it's uh it does sometimes feel a little crazy but at the same time like I guess what I'm trying to do is like I have like a list of things that I want to be able to say when I can't do this stuff anymore that I did that one time, you know what I mean? Like I don't know for how long I'll be able to dead lift £500. Like I know I can still do it. I know I did a previous but for how long can I do that? I wanna be able to say later on when I can't do it that I did um running a sub five minute mile was just like kind of came out of nowhere and it was like I think I might be able to do it in 56 years from now, I won't be able to, so I need to be able to like do it and say I did it. Um Even like the double unders thing like Yeah that was, I couldn't walk for like two weeks after my calves were just wrecked. Um But like I'm at the atlas games and like someone walks by, he's like, hey imagine the guy who is like 1000 double unders like I don't know. It's not like not something I wanted to happen but it's also kind of cool that like people recognize you for doing something like that. I don't know when my son grows up. He gets to look at the Guinness world records and flip back and be like, hey that's my dad, he broke the record for most burpees an hour and his friends go what the heck you know what I mean? Like I think that'll be cool. Um And the more I have those moments, the more I'd be like what else can I do? Like I want to be able to check these things off and have like this list of cool things that I did when I was at like, you know the peak of my like fitness level or when I had the ability to do it later on. I just wanna be able to say that kind of stuff. So I'm still thinking of things, the 100 pull ups unbroken is still on the radar thinking now that I'm like done competition for a little bit. Maybe I start building some volume back and that give that another go. I have some other ideas.

Adam [47:40 - 48:01]
He was so mad when the pull ups didn't go, it was, it was more like the grip failure, you know what I mean? It was kind of like a technical malfunction where like in the future you'll probably find like a better way to, to do it. I forget what the group started getting super the chalk like evaporate, it's gone. Yeah,

Nick [48:01 - 48:50]
I think honestly like it has to do with like the heat, like the heat of the grips on the bar and just like turning constantly for like, it was like 70 to 80 reps that 70 felt so easy every time I hit 70 I did it twice in the same day because I was trying to, trying to get it done all in the same day, so I hit it the first time I got to 70 and I was like, there's no way I'm not getting past 100 this feels so good. Still All of a sudden 70-80 my grips just start like sliding, it felt like there was ice on them, like I just couldn't hang on to it anymore and my hands were slipping off the bar and then, so I was still frustrated because I got the sub sub five minute mile, I got the dead lift and then the pull ups I thought would be the easiest one and then I missed it and I was like, there's no way. So I went back at night and I still got time, I'm gonna try it again. I think 86, the first time went back 87.

Chad [48:50 - 48:52]
Come on,

Nick [48:52 - 48:53]
it's

Adam [48:53 - 48:59]
still so incredible. And you said the Burpee thing was maybe maybe the toughest thing you've done the burp you want

Nick [49:01 - 49:39]
uh for sure. Like that was something where I didn't do a ton of training leading up to it. I just wanted to like go and just try it. So Had kind of the mindset of 15 burpees every minute for the 60 minutes. And that would leave me with some room of being the record by like 30 reps or so. Um and I got to like 30, or something and I just I took a full minute break. I needed to reset. So there goes like that barrier of like that extra 15 reps or so and I'm like I could still do it, I feel like I can hang back on and then I got to like the 48 minute mark, took another full minute

Adam [49:39 - 49:40]
rest. So at

Nick [49:40 - 49:56]
this point I'm like there's no room for any more air after that. And I think from 51 to like the final complete blackout have no no recollection of that time. Um It was definitely by far like the darkest place I've ever been in physically mm

Adam [49:57 - 49:58]
but

Nick [49:58 - 50:14]
two minutes, 2 minutes afterwards. Yeah, two minutes afterwards though. You're like, it wasn't that bad. Like just you recover it pretty quickly. But in that time it was like that was the hardest thing I've ever had to like put my body through physically and tell myself like you cannot quit. Oh

Chad [50:14 - 50:15]
yeah. Yeah,

Adam [50:16 - 50:22]
that was the that was the carter effect. He was carter was there cheering you on for

Nick [50:22 - 50:26]
sure. Yeah, he was right beside me at the end. He not he napped for the whole first

Adam [50:26 - 50:32]
uh they

Nick [50:32 - 50:37]
woke him up, they woke him up and pull them out for the last five, so that definitely was like a motivator to keep going. Yeah,

Chad [50:37 - 50:44]
that's that's a precious memory for sure. Adam. Do you get any feats of strength coming up? I know you got the Iron Man and somebody that

Adam [50:44 - 50:51]
Yeah, I thought at first I thought like just completing an ironman or Half Ironman was a feat of strength in itself

Chad [50:51 - 50:52]
now

Adam [50:52 - 51:21]
that I mean of course once you do something, once you do something once then it just becomes like an expectation. So um I don't know. No, I'm so focused on a couple of big races this year that there's no like none of those outlier crazy ones. I feel like I gotta go maybe back at That £500 dead lift, five minute mile challenge because I was trying to keep pace with me. But it was it was

Nick [51:21 - 51:55]
well let's talk about that though. Like the difference, the difference of the feats of strength, we definitely tackle this two different ways and the way Adam did, it is significantly harder. So the timer starts for the five minute mile. But I took off running Right. I didn't do the deadline. I wanted to do the dead lifting the same day. Adam does the £500 dead lift at the start of the timer and then continues into his sub 500 miles. So not only taking the time to do the lift, but the devastation of your posterior chain and nervous system to hit that max dead lift And then try and pick up pace to get on your sub sub five minute mile pace.

Adam [51:55 - 51:56]
There

Nick [51:56 - 51:58]
was completely different things.

Adam [51:58 - 52:29]
Yeah, we had a great training block in terms of like, I feel I feel like our our mild training plan was pretty good. We were both strong enough to do the dead lift. I think you said it to me like a couple of weeks so you're like, we haven't really like done them together at all the tests like what the devastation is going to feel like. I didn't really want to know what that just like you didn't want to know what the burpees felt like. I didn't really want to know what the dead lift is going to feel like because it's just too punishing. But anyways. Yeah, so that's the only thing maybe in the Polsky you got anything in the radar.

Nick [52:31 - 52:33]
No. Would

Chad [52:33 - 52:36]
you ever do Iron Man? Would you ever do endurance sports?

Nick [52:37 - 52:39]
Absolutely not. No,

Chad [52:39 - 52:39]
no,

Nick [52:39 - 53:16]
no for me that's just like, that's just like the, it wouldn't be fun for me. Like I don't, I don't enjoy long, long and different stuff like short, high intensity, those things like get me going. But in terms of like longer things, I think I could do like close to a half marathon or something if I wanted to try and like train for that a couple of times. I I just, I wouldn't enjoy training for it. So I would only do like a couple of runs ahead of time just to make sure I'm not hurting myself. Um But again, like that might just be like a check off the list. Like I think a half marathon is the most I would ever

Chad [53:16 - 53:17]
do.

Adam [53:18 - 53:30]
Yeah. Where I'm kind of the opposite. Like I somewhat enjoy the longer stuff where like, I know way more people that say like I'm not going there like chad you're not a huge fan of the long stuff either. No,

Chad [53:30 - 53:31]
the same.

Adam [53:32 - 53:46]
Which is funny because we both played hockey and I feel like hockey is a little bit more of like a little bit more of an aerobic sport than football is. So I'm surprised you don't have a little bit. I just,

Chad [53:46 - 53:58]
I just feel like it has some has something to do with like how you perceived time maybe. I don't know, like I can't imagine spending that much time doing one thing

Adam [53:58 - 53:59]
and

Chad [53:59 - 54:21]
that and I think that's that's the blocker for me. Like you, you, your mindset probably now is like you go for a run and you're probably thinking about a lot of different things and because you know, you're comfortable, but like for me to even think about like doing something for an hour and a half or two hours or I mean likely more. That's the, I still struggle to like get past that sense of like stillness or boredom or I don't know, whatever it

Adam [54:21 - 54:22]
is.

Nick [54:24 - 55:56]
There's like, there's like a training mindset for that kind of stuff too, you know what I mean? Like you have so much time where you're thinking of things and like your mind can just like venture off in so many different ways with that time. Like I know it's like a crossfit athlete, you get like a 12 to 15 minute am rap of sorts or whatever. Like the hamster will work out if you're not thinking about the transitions and stuff like that. If there's like less of them, your your mind is in some weird places, man and it's like going off everywhere and sometimes that helps you because you're not thinking about the pain you're in or whatever. But um training that mindset actually comes to mind, we have an event that I do every year at PSC, it's called the PSC 60. And what I'm basically trying to do is train people's minds to complete something for an hour. This kind of started from like the Burpee challenge that I did, it's like burpees for an hour. People can choose that exercise. But basically what they're gonna do is like our class is going to be from 9 to 10 is a one full hour time clock to complete as many reps as possible of one exercise. You choose what you want to do and this is going to be like a mindset thing of like you're supposed to be uncomfortable, it's not supposed to be overly fun, but this is going to help you and workouts later on where you're like, well I only have to do this for 20 minutes. Like damn, I did that for an hour before, you know, I mean like maybe maybe you sit on an assault like for an hour and that's what a lot of people are probably gonna do and it's like, it's boring. It's kind of sucks. But also it's gonna help your mindset and workouts later on like, I don't know how many times I reflect back when I'm in severe pain and crossfit workouts. Now I go, man, I did that our burpees, I was way harder. This is no problem.

Chad [55:57 - 55:58]
It'll

Nick [55:58 - 56:03]
be a cool event for people. I don't think so.

Adam [56:03 - 56:05]
Not actually

Nick [56:05 - 56:05]
I changed, I changed

Chad [56:05 - 56:09]
my invite to the podcast for sure.

Nick [56:09 - 56:17]
Here's the, here's the challenge that someone proposed to me and I may try this. So for the 60 minutes I'm going to try and do one round of Cindy every minute for 60 minutes,

Adam [56:18 - 56:18]
five

Nick [56:18 - 56:43]
Pull ups, 10 push ups, 15 squats. I think that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna try it. I know I've done like 30 or close to 35 rounds of Cindy in 20 minutes. So if you can just pace that out a little bit more it's the endurance battle and again, that's like, it's going to be taking that rest at the end of each minute instead of consistently going through, which sometimes makes things harder, having that rest.

Adam [56:44 - 56:45]
Yeah,

Nick [56:45 - 56:49]
That's like nine, air squats in the time and whatever.

Adam [56:50 - 56:52]
I saw you posted that and I thought could

Nick [56:52 - 56:53]
lower

Adam [56:54 - 56:56]
That's cool. I love, I love that attitude

Nick [56:56 - 56:57]
around it. Cool.

Adam [56:57 - 56:58]
Super fun.

Chad [56:59 - 57:41]
Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, like it seems like you've built like obviously the two of you have been involved in some of these feats of strength and doing some of these competitions and I know you, Nikki really sort of built up a competitive sort of community at the gym. Obviously we know that you have Emma Lawson and Jack Farlow sort of outside of your gym. Um like how, how did you, I guess do you believe having somebody like having some of these elite individuals, like yourself and your wife and Emma and Jack, like, do you feel like having them as foundational athletes brings in more elite competition. Like what fuels sort of the competition level that you guys have at PSC.

Nick [57:41 - 60:32]
No, I definitely think that's it. I think like the more competitive people you have, it, it brings in more competitive people. I don't know how many times people reach out through social media and stuff and like they're moving to town and they're looking for a crossfit gym and the majority of people who are looking for something like competitive and they want to maybe compete a little bit or they don't want to be the best person in the gym. Like I don't think any of our athletes in the gym are the best at everything. Like everyone can beat somebody in a workout or beat somebody else. Like there's not one person that would wipe the table in all events and like that includes Jack and Emma, like, and I think they would agree like there's definitely people in our gym that may have a specialty that they can beat them in a certain workout and and that helps them get better. Like if you're constantly winning all the time. Like look at it just like a random average crossfit gym, there's always gonna be somebody in there who like wipes the table of all workouts. If that person came into a gym that had other high level athletes and they're getting beat once in a while, is that gonna make them worse or better? I I honestly think that that's gonna make somebody better. So we've attracted people who are beating each other in different workouts all the time and there. Um and again, it's not always like head to head, but they train together and it pushes them. If you're going, there'll be somebody comes in the gym at 5:30 AM, they do the class or the first one to do it, they put a score on the board, The person that comes in at 10:00 will come in and they'll look at the time. What has their pace changed in the workout based on the person ahead of them in their time? Absolutely, it has, it's pushed them to go at an uncomfortable pace because they want to beat the person who did it earlier and that's why we have, like I call it sign your work at the end of the day, your score for the mechanism going up on the white board, whether you like it or not, and it's like a sign your work. I want to be proud of what I did. Um and I'm not just taking like I'm just here to move today, like we don't have that approach. Like we have you here to push obviously with like injuries or something that's a little bit different or if you're on like a rest day, we have an active recovery day and that kind of stuff, but for the most part we want somebody to be pushing and trying and pushing the intensity and that's what crossfit is about, like you have to be pushing each time you're in there because it's only a short window of time, you're not training for three hours with us, you're training for Maybe 20 minutes total total time in terms of like you're working sets and you're Mexican. So the intensity needs to be way up there to get the most benefit. So again, it's like having people come together who have the same mindset. I feel like each crossfit affiliate in like the KW area or around, like everyone has like their niche thing of like different groups of people who kind of come together and like, yeah, they'll be sprinkles of everybody everywhere, but for the most part we, and I don't know how or why this happened, but we've created like a more competitive crossfit atmosphere and it has brought in more of those style of people.

Adam [60:32 - 60:53]
I don't know if it's been since day one, but I think the fact that you communicate that and you're clear about that and that's, you know, the type of attitude that you, you guys thrive off of in your community is is awesome and then, you know, attracts more and more of those like minded people, which is amazing. Love that

Nick [60:53 - 61:35]
for sure. Um and I just think like even all of our coaches compete in crossfit and that's not something that I look for when hiring a coach, but I do look for people who are gonna lead by example, so if like we don't have any lazy coaches who don't train or don't do anything like all of our coaches, like our members will look at them and say like wow, like this is impressive what they're doing with themselves and like their training and their regime and their lifestyle. Like those are the kind of people who we have leading the community. Um So I just feel like that kind of helps as well. Um and whether they're like doing competitions or not, they're just like, I need them to be at the forefront of showing and practicing what we preach

Chad [61:36 - 61:46]
no smoking. And you and you were mentioning to like you do competitive programming, do you, are you sorry, do you have members outside of the gym that also do your programming?

Nick [61:46 - 64:12]
Yeah. So the, basically the way our competitive programming works is like I have our affiliate program for regular classes and then our competitive program gives them access to our like open gym area as well as the template and guidance on the additional work that should be done to, to be a supplement on top of the class program. So our competitive members don't skip class, they go to class first, then they go and they do their extra stuff after that way I keep the community together. You have your like your, again, your average show that comes in to do your crossfit class, then you have your competitive member there side by side, still bonding steamed going through the same experience, but then the person that's doing the competitive program maybe has some extra time or extra motivation or extra goals where they go and they complete the extra work. So again, I'm not separating anybody which has kept our community really tight and together um but with that being said, I'm also giving like the competitive people guidance on what they could and should be doing to not over train as well as like being running alongside the crossfit season of what they should be working on. So right now is like a big strength block. So the extra stuff for them is like some just strength guidance and doing that kind of stuff and not over doing it. So there's not a ton of like skill work or long conditioning pieces right now and then. Yeah, so recently I would say within the last year that competitive program, I've had a lot of people reach out and ask if they can join that competitive program from their own gym. So I know a lot of other crossfit gyms have like an open gym style for us, we actually don't have space to offer that at this point for someone to come in and do their own programming. So everyone at PSC is doing PSC programming. I think the only other people who aren't following specifically day to day is Jack and Emma from our gym and that's because they have their own coach josh who's been part of the PSC family for how, I don't know how long as well. Um, so again, it's all within the family and like we trust josh and um, he programs for them and he's their individual coach and we love having them in there doing that, but then they also still participate with some of the stuff that we're doing every saturday. We do a throw down with our computers, are competitive people and that we get to train together with them and stuff too. So there still is the connection. Um, but yeah, those are the only two outside of like our however many members we have that do something different. Um, and basically if someone came and said like, hey, I want to do my own program at your gym. We just, we don't offer that at this point. Um, it is just, it is what it is.

Chad [64:13 - 64:15]
That's great. That's awesome

Adam [64:15 - 64:31]
How community is still number one and that's a mistake. I think a lot of affiliates and gyms make is the elite athletes are like in this different, you know, category, but you've done such a good job of keeping community As # one, which is awesome.

Nick [64:33 - 65:05]
It's not easy to do for sure. It's definitely not easy. There's some like struggles and stuff and like, um, you have to turn people away sometimes, you know, like I have the message of like, hey, I'm like, I follow Decca and I wanna, like in the area and I love the competitive atmosphere jim. And if they don't want to like switch their program and stuff, like I wish I could accommodate, if I had like an extra area of the gym where like, people could go in and do that, that would be great. But at this point it's more important for us to have the community of people who are training together to continue to do that and not have other influences coming in and kind of messing that up.

Adam [65:05 - 65:06]
So

Chad [65:07 - 65:36]
Yeah, Yeah, I'll wrap up, but I have to ask. And you're mentioning Emma and jack. Like, obviously a lot of the community listening cross fitters and I'm sure a lot of them have watched or seen highlights from last weekend. Like, what is it like seeing these two like beasts just like become superstars. Like you get to train with him, obviously have a much closer relationship than a lot of us, but like, how is that? Like, because I have to ask, like they look like superstars already,

Nick [65:36 - 66:33]
they absolutely are superstars. They're, they're phenomenal and to, but this like, in another way too, like, no matter how good they are in crossfit, they're both better people. Um, like their characters are just so genuine and they're um, they're so thankful for everything that we've done to help them and like, they're just, they're so nice to our community and the people who support them, I couldn't ask for like better people in the gym than those two um but just seeing what they do on a day to day basis, it never like I shouldn't say this, like I still actually do get very surprised and shocked at like some of the stuff that they're continuing to do and build and it's just, it's been a pleasure having them in and they, everyone else feeds off their energy man, like how well Jack and Emma both did an atlas, like they came back in their whole community was just like in awe of them as athletes and it's super cool to see, and the scary part about it is that they're both just getting

Chad [66:33 - 66:33]
started,

Nick [66:33 - 66:43]
Like they both have such bright futures ahead um if they continue to like put everything they're doing into the sport, like they'll both be at the top 100%.

Chad [66:45 - 66:46]
Yeah, it's crazy.

Adam [66:47 - 66:47]
Super

Chad [66:47 - 66:51]
cold. Super cold. The future of the sport is in good hands. For sure. For

Nick [66:51 - 66:52]
sure,

Chad [66:52 - 67:04]
awesome man. Well thanks so much for sitting down with us. I really appreciate it. This has been a great episode um really great sharing some of your story and seeing some insight from the team side of things. Super cool.

Nick [67:05 - 67:07]
Of course, thanks for having me appreciate it.

Chad [67:07 - 67:10]
No problem. Thanks, thanks, thanks

Adam [67:10 - 67:14]
great to chat. Of

Nick [67:14 - 67:16]
course adam will get together for a couple of training sessions soon or what

Adam [67:16 - 67:26]
Yeah buddy, when I get back to slinging some weights around, we'll, uh, we'll get training. I won't be able to walk for a few days if I hop into the Polsky dome. I

Nick [67:26 - 67:29]
got I got I got like five km in me. I'll go for a run or

Adam [67:29 - 67:34]
something. Yes. There we go. Put carter in the stroller and go for a rip.

Nick [67:35 - 67:36]
Yeah.

Chad [67:38 - 67:43]
Thank you. Thanks everyone for listening, appreciate it. See you in the gym. Yeah.