Oikos presents 15 Seconds of Strength.
Here we go, Steve's got a trunk full of groceries and no one to help him.
Oh, that's tough, Jim.
Looks like a five -trip load at least. He grabs the first bag, the second.
Huh, Bob, it looks like he's trying to do it on one trip.
He shimmies the door open, steps over the dog.
Oh, and he stumbles.
Oh, right into the kitchen without missing a beat.
Jim, now that's a man who eats his protein -packed Oikos.
With 15 grams of complete protein in each cup, Oikos Triple Zero can help build strength for every day.
Oikos. Stronger makes everything better.
hello and welcome back to the show i am patrick i am here with ben but we don't matter today because we're also joined by our friend kathy david's daughter hello catcher how are you hi guys thank you so much for having me on please thank you for taking some time to chat with us we thought it'd be fun to have you on you i don't even remember the last time you were on you you've You've been on a number of times, probably back in like the 2000.
I don't, I'm going to guess maybe like 18, 19 range, but it's been a while since we chatted.
So you just announced at the, at the end of last year that you were hanging up your, I don't even know.
What do you call a CrossFit athlete when they hang like cleats?
It's not cleats. What do you do when you, what do you hang up when you're done competing as a CrossFit athlete?
Your grips, your grips.
Yeah. Your trainers.
Okay. Either way, whatever you, whatever you hung up, you hung it up in December.
you announced you're no longer competing in the sport of CrossFit.
So we thought it'd be fun to have you on, say hi, catch up with what's going on in your life, and also talk through some of maybe the big lessons that you learned as an athlete that you are going to do your best to take into life post -competition and see if we can't learn some of those lessons through you and with you.
So I would love to know, just as an entry point to this conversation, how hard was it it to decide like okay now's the right time you know we had cole your friend our friend cole on recently to sort of have a similar conversation about this is the right time for me to no longer compete in this in this sport i'm just curious how long a lead -up was it for you to say okay this is going to be the year that i that i say okay i'm done yeah it was like both like initially you start asking the question i was like it was the easiest thing in the world but i was skipping over a whole chapter where it really
was an impossible decision for me.
So in a perfect world, I wanted to compete the 24 season.
That was what I was going for.
And just something that I had in my head of like, I want to do.
And immediately as I start training for the 24 season, I can't handle it.
My back isn't handling it.
It was worse than it had ever been.
And Ben probably knows more than anybody else that I always had trouble picking up off the floor.
I always had pain going below parallel.
But during those times, I could still always run, work on my fitness.
I could always work on gymnastics.
And this was the first year that even impact with running, I couldn't jump anymore.
I couldn't do kipping movements.
And so if I extended my back and I know what it takes for me to be proud at the end of a season, and I wasn't able to train that way.
And so I was having a really tough internal conflict all year and leading into that season just with knowing that there's no way I'm training, like I need to be training.
I don't know how I'm going to be proud at the end of the season, but I still could not pull out.
I could not. I felt like I was giving up on myself.
I'd never quit a season.
I'd never not competing if I intended to.
And so that decision was impossible for me and very hard mentally, and it actually kind of ended up just making the decision for me when I couldn't compete at semifinals, which was online.
I couldn't do that.
I'd gotten a cortisone shot in my back to try and get me through the season, and it did nothing, which my surgeon, who ended up with back surgery, was actually super excited about that.
I was not at the time, but he was like, well, that's great news.
now we know it's not the joint it's the disc and the surgery is going to help you so I ended up having surgery but knowing that then so that decision was hard but then to actually retire I am so happy with my career I feel so fulfilled with it I had so much fun with it I feel very expressed and as much as like yeah I can look back and like am I gonna miss that like yes Yes, I will.
It was my favorite thing in the world to do and like to be out there competing.
I just am very excited about what is to come and we're now expecting our daughter.
And so I just, I know that I want that more.
And I think that gives me like peace and confidence in saying that.
Kat, you said that, um, it's your, you felt like your career was fulfilled and expressed.
What do you mean by that?
I got to experience it all I mean the highest of the high like we got to stand on the podium twice and we got to chase it for how many years you're on the podium three times 13 years or something that I competed three times on the top of the podium we're on the podium four times four four times for the podium yeah top of the podium twice yeah four times total yeah yeah right COVID Yeah.
One, one, two, three.
And then, but like that whole pursuit of doing that, it shaped so much of who I am.
You look at the life that I have, you look at, you guys became my family.
Like the Bergeons are my family.
We're just talking about Harley Love.
Like she's like my youngest little sister.
So my best friends that I've made are through this.
I always feel like even mine and Brooke's connection was a very like mutual, just approach to our sports and respect for each other as athletes.
And that's kind of like how we have our connection.
And yeah, I can also pinpoint so many hard things, but those hard things during my career also taught me so much. They showed me what I'm capable of working through.
They showed me that, you know, a hard time's not the end of the world.
And just I have so many great memories every Cape Summer, you know, every competition, like the adrenaline of it.
I love being out there.
I really, as an athlete, feel very fortunate that I did get to experience it all.
Like it it didn't always go my way, but I was able to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish in the sport.
I was almost, I mean, I didn't get to compete that last year, but that kind of just is life and that sport.
And I got to compete for so much longer than I ever thought I would, you know, I was better remember when I took one semester off.
off right you know this is um start of 2015 i was just gonna i took the semester off because i wasn't sure what i wanted to do in school and and i loved crossfit and this and doing it and that's when i kind of also accidentally moved in with the bergerons i just kept extending the training camp she she came here to train she came here to train with us and stay with us for like a week or a weekend and just didn't leave for like three years that's like not it's not an exaggeration that's literally what happened i think i'm just gonna stay i'm not gonna i'm gonna cancel my flight and not you know
is it okay if i stay for a little bit longer i think the actual yeah the actual words were i don't want to leave you're like well stay Hey, that's about it.
So I was going to take one semester off.
We ended up winning the games in 2015.
That was a whole, like a holy smokes moment of like, whoa, this is what happens if we put a hundred percent into something, not 90%, not 95, not thinking about other things.
Like we just truly focused on what we were doing and just being the best me that I could be in competing.
And, and it was a huge, just eye opener.
And so I was like, well, let's keep doing that.
And then I just kept doing that for another 10 years, you know.
We talked a lot about when, you know, especially in those early days about what 100 % looked like, what the process looked like, what that full commitment looked like.
And we never really talked about the end thing, right?
We never talked about the games.
We never talked about winning the games.
It was all about that focus on one day, one step, one minute at a time.
Can you just give a little bit of – because I think it's really interesting.
Having seen it firsthand, I learned so much watching you do a cat.
What – like in your mind, what that 100 % – not in your mind.
Just give an example of like what your days looked like, particularly in those early days.
because I think it frames up really well what total commitment is.
We say that for a champion there is no balance.
We talk about balance all the time on the show because it's what we want now.
It's what you want now.
But your life is totally different now as somebody in a really meaningful relationship and looking for balance with friends and family and assumed to be mom.
But back then it wasn't that.
It was laser focused.
Can you give a little insight into what that laser focus looked like?
Yeah, I love that laser focus.
It was, it was a time in my life and Brooks was very similar in that way.
We just, we had a time in our life where we weren't chasing our relationship.
We weren't chasing anything else.
We were just chasing this goal that we had.
And it was so, I really, truly loved it.
like I loved showing up to the gym especially in those early days we had you always had like a couple of teams competing we had athletes come in to train so there was always a group training and for some people they don't handle that constant competition very well I love training with people it makes it so much easier for me it makes it so much easier to just to push to do the work doesn't seem so much like work.
It was always fun for me to show up.
And especially I would say if we think about that 2015 season, because you were saying we were never chasing that top of the podium.
We were really just chasing like, what could we do?
Like how good can we get?
And honestly, I never wanted to like limit the top of the podium.
Like what if we can get better than that?
Like I never wanted to compare against somebody else.
I just wanted to see how far I could get like how good can we get and showing up like that year it honestly had never crossed my mind that we would ever win the CrossFit game so it really was just like showing up and what can we do today how good can I be in this workout and you saw it was we were on the after a Metcon we'd be sprawled out on the floor leaving everything that we have for that Metcon I wasn't thinking about what's next I was just like what can I do here and now and then I'll trust or recover and then I'll I'll do that again next time and it really was such a I don't think I fully
comprehended like what you were talking about with full effort until you're actually in it because like think about Blue Hills for example that's like a great example of that like you start your first sprint and you do it in 42 seconds you do another one and you get it in 43 and you do your third and your legs stop locking up and it's only 52 seconds you know and you end and your last one is a minute and it doesn't mean that that last one is a failure that might be everything that you have in that moment and just comparing against that and constantly questioning like you know was that my best
was it not and I think that also makes competition so much easier because if I lose but no it was everything that I have I can take that I can take a loss as long as I know that I competed and it was everything that I have and the opposite I also didn't want to just beat somebody but know that I could have done something more because then I felt disappointed and like no i left something on the table today i think it's uh it's so much when you when you're talking it's like bringing me back and i've realized that that's not how we train now it's really not how i trained probably ever but it's like
i i've i'm more around the everyday athlete now than i than i was then and you sort of i think it was a little bit of our it flies in in the face of the way that if when you read about performance exercise and training now this is not what they suggest like it's not that it's about you know if you're going to train to try to PR a long distance run you're only looking at like one hard interval session a week all the others are tempos or long distance and I just hear you say that it's like that's not what we did at at all.
Like we threw down every day.
And what you said is like, I'm going to give everything and trust that I'm going to recover.
And I think that maybe one of the differences that allowed you to do that is how much you, when we say a hundred percent, it wasn't just 100 % effort once you walked into the gym, which it certainly was.
It was 100 % like all encompassing.
Like you weighed ate and measured every single thing that you ate for years and years.
And that includes, that's not like five days a week.
That was seven days a week.
That wasn't 50 weeks a year.
That was 52 weeks. It was when you went out to eat at every restaurant, you brought the food with you.
Like we would sit down, she wouldn't order.
She would pull out her Tupperware and eat the stuff that she'd, every night was like the right amount of sleep and all the recovery.
recovery, just to kind of like paint the picture of what the 100 % looked like on a daily, I would go and I would work out in the morning.
I would usually train at the 630 class and I would coach the 730 or the 830 class.
When I was done with that, Heather would drive Catrin and have a car.
So, Heather would come and take the 830 class that I would coach and she would drive Catrin there.
While I was coaching class, Catrin would do an hour long warm -up.
We called them Catrin warm -ups.
That's most people's training day.
Most people's training day is an hour.
Katrin spent an hour getting her body and her mind ready for the training session.
Then we would train for about three hours in the morning.
She would take a lunch break, which was already prepared.
By the way, while I was coaching class and she was at home with Heather, Heather began the kids at us ready for school and Katrin making herself breakfast and lunch and probably probably two or maybe three times a week she would set off the fire alarm that's true 100 true 100 true we had like pans would be burnt completely like melted on the so Brooks like loves my cooking like everything he's like oh my God I'm like so thankful for this like you're such a great chef and I'm always like just skipping over the part of like yeah he doesn't know I'm a natural I'm a natural it's just came out meanwhile
there were six years of of melting in the kitchen fire alarms going off anyway so it started off before the gym it started off with meal prep so it'd be like two hours of meal prep every day then an hour of she would do breath work and meditation before she would go into foam rolling for 20 to 30 minutes then we get into this big long beefy very catchin warm -ups very big long beefy anaerobic basically like imam 30s to is it basically like an imam 25 to 40 of just kind of like move move but it wasn't it was like everyone else's workouts kettlebell swings burpees bikes run then we would get into
a two three hour training session then you'd have your lunch take a short break and we go into to another three hour training session.
And then I would go and do work and Katrin, we had these lazy boys would sit in a lazy boy, Norma tech, start her recovery process.
Norma techs, those like, um, air compression bags that you put on your legs, compression boots, and every day compression boot Theragun, more foam rolling, more stretching, go see Cairo or massage.
massage. And then she would also sit and she would read.
And it's a big understatement.
Like she would read about sports psychology for an hour while she waited for me to be done with work, to drive her home.
And then it was a meal at the dinner table.
And you know, we were so at the dinner table, we'd just be talking about sports psychology with the family.
That's all we talked about.
I love that I skipped about everything else outside of the gym, but it It is so true.
And I think it is also I think that's a huge part of what people don't understand about being a professional athlete.
You know, you hear people say like, oh, yeah, like if I had more time to be in the gym, yeah, I'd also be one or whatever.
And it's like, OK, it's not just that simple because it doesn't turn off when you leave the gym.
And it's one of those things that like it really is a 24 -7 job because I have to make sure that I get in enough sleep.
and that's eight hours at a minimum depending on how hard the training day is.
Sometimes you just you might need 10 hours.
It is everything that you eat.
It's eating clean so that you're not inflamed but it's also making sure that you're getting in enough fuel and calories so that you can recover.
It's the body work.
It's your head space and your mind frame that you're in and one one of the things when Ben said I started reading the start of 2015 was actually 2014 I think was when I started reading and I did a lot of sports psychology and also something that really I read a lot of it and Ben always used to show me a lot of just videos but it's either just autobiographies or just real life examples and I feel like there's so like stories move the world and they certainly move me because if I've ever seen it happen before you know just you know Tom Brady being I don't know how many points down at the halftime
at the Super Bowl it is like oh this is only going to make for a greater story it's just going to be a better story and and it was true and so knowing that it was true when we got to the games and it wasn't the start that we wanted you're like great it's only going to make for a better story and I I always believed it and it showed and it didn't always pan out you mean you take 2019 and it was me or Jamie on the podium and I took fourth and it's disappointing but I always fought right until the last event you know there's always there was always that chance and sometimes you do take the the better
of the two and that's also something that I'm very proud of in my career I don't know how it felt like being button all the time.
But I am a bit of like a risk taker.
And sometimes it like pans off.
And sometimes it doesn't.
But I don't regret it.
Like I never regret trying.
You know, sometimes you you take a shot at something and maybe, maybe you die midway through and, and it's not so great.
But sometimes you do and you have a breakthrough.
And I think the underlying thing is, is also like, Like you have to know when to take risks and you have to be able to back up those risks.
You can't just say, I'm going to risk it, I'm going to chase her and see if I can hold on.
Like you have to be able to back it up with your running fitness and you have to be able to have the skill set behind that.
But taking calculated, educated risks, and we would always discuss that, and we discuss that in training of when to do that and kind of being composed so that you can make those decisions is something that i will never regret it's something that i always i think i'd rather regret not trying not going for things we're brought to you by element the electrolyte drink mix that supports your health with zero sugar zero artificial ingredients and all the essential minerals your body needs head to drink element .com slash excellence to get your free element sample pack you just gotta cover shipping you
know achieving the kind of mindset we talk about here on the show starts with taking care of your foundation and proper hydration is absolutely crucial.
Element delivers the perfect ratio of sodium, potassium, and magnesium that your body needs, especially if you're training hard, following a low carb diet or practicing some intermittent fasting.
And their brand new lemonade salt flavor is absolutely incredible.
It's like a burst of summer in your water bottle.
It is lovely. What we love about Element is that they're focused on real science -backed nutrition, no fillers, no junk, just what your body needs to perform at its best get your free element sample pack and learn more about element at drinkelement .com excellence you just got to cover shipping for that element sample pack and do make sure you check out lemonade so this episode is brought to you by momentous the supplement company trusted by elite athletes and health conscious individuals who refuse to compromise on quality visit live momentous .com use the code excellence for 35 off your first subscription to
the momentous three the foundation for optimal performance When we discuss the five factors of health in our framework here on the show, training and nutrition are absolutely crucial, and that's where Momentus can help.
The Momentus 3 combines their premium whey protein, creatine, and omega -3s to create a daily protocol that supports both physical and mental performance.
Their whey protein is sourced from grass -fed European dairy.
Their creatine is the pure monohydrate form backed by research, and their omega -3s deliver a potent 1 ,600 milligrams of EPA and DHA without any fishy aftertaste.
every product is third -party tested and certified by either nsf sports or informed sport because when it comes to what you put in your body purity and quality matter go to live momentous .com use the code excellence for 35 off your first subscription to the momentous 3 that's live momentous .com one of the things i've worked with a lot of athletes and there's a couple of things that i think are really special about kat one i think is probably the most obvious and then i'll I'll talk about the second one.
But the first one is, and you just mentioned it, that's what kind of like spurred this, is she won't take this the wrong way, so don't worry.
She's not very talented.
No, I'll be the first one to say that.
I don't think I was ever the best athlete.
I think that she's good on her hands.
She's good on her hands.
That's about it. Yeah, she has good overhead stability.
That's what it is. She has good balance upside down and she has good overhead mobility and stability.
Besides that, she's like a ball of clay.
But you were able to mold that clay into almost anything because of your willingness to just grind and work.
work which gets into the second one which is i have never ever worked with somebody that enjoyed the process or the work more i've um i have a friend who's a really high level basketball coach and high school basketball and i'll just call him out it's it's alex gallagher and he he's actually heather's ex -husband he's phenomenal he's and cats met him a bunch of times and he has this saying which I just love which is at the end of the season I want a locker room full of crying girls not because we won or lost but because we don't get to come back to practice the next day that's Katrin she just wanted
to work and do the thing and she found so much fulfillment and joy in that journey that was super cool and that's why you know i dubbed her the the sled dog was because her hardest days her hardest moments are when she's not working and sled dogs when they're you know chained up outside the yard are howling you know katrin actually owns a sled dog now but uh that's who she was she was like just wanted to work and wanted to work and wanted to work and holy crap like as a coach what you want more than anything is somebody that you have to pull the reins back on instead of crack the whip right she's
the one that was going to go and overwork unless you pulled her back and that's such a amazing thing to be a part of and to watch happen because it is this not like the Muhammad Ali thing of like i hated training every single day but i did it for the glory of being a champion for cat it was like you flipped it it was like i loved the every day and holy crap that that turned out to turned into me being a champion like that was cool that was like such a cool thing that you were able to bring not only a pure passion joy to it but the other third thing about it was the lack of maybe except for like
muscle ups um legless rope climbs and swimming there was like sorry there was like no judgment ever there was no judgment ever about anything it was just like let's go do it let's go do it let's let's go do it like it was always like against anyone with anyone it didn't matter if we won or lost i just want to like go and pour everything i have have into this.
If anyone has the opportunity to be around people like that, it is so inspiring and you get to see people in flow a lot.
And that's a really unique thing.
Not unique in terms of that it's reserved for the few.
It's unique that you get to see it so frequently.
And it was really cool to be a part of that.
also just to like thank you for all that but also just say that was the environment too you know I got to come in and be coached by you every day I got to come in to see if any I got to train with our team that we had at the time I made it varied from year to year but that all made it so I could show up like that I don't like turning along you know you put me gonna ask that about because you had the opportunity to train so many different ways right from training with with like me with a bunch of like other high fitness people like our team yeah you've also got a chance to train with like annie
and matt as your training partners like the best in the world if you were to go and recreate it if you were gonna do this again and you could choose either you know train with uh elite level people like katrin matt and annie or would you train in the The bigger group like we do with teams or isolation like you are now?
Like how would you recreate it?
Yeah, isolation kills me.
Oh, God. So I think if I got to choose one thing and I was to redo my whole career again, it would be coming in to train with you and our team.
That's not to take away with.
And Matt was a part of that team during certain times of the year.
Yeah, totally. Cole's a part of that team.
So there's very high -level athletes.
And Annie's my best friend in the world.
But she'd also be the first one to say she doesn't want to train with me every day of the year.
Right, so training with the super high people maybe leads to a little bit of burnout.
But training with our team, our gym team, is that what you're saying?
I think I could honestly.
I was an ebb and flow.
like the tories yeah tory but also i could do as long as it was as long as you were coaching let's just take like our games training camps like i sell those those are my favorite memories ever yeah you know and you take it was with cole and with brooke and there was a summer that just a lot of brand that wouldn't even your athletes came in and trained with us i think um me getting And just getting in to train with you every day and you seeing me, you would always make adjustments on the fly.
And you always knew the right thing to say to shift my mindset.
You know, so let's say it's a it's a like less or it's a muscle up.
And and I would start for some reason I couldn't.
Honestly, like I think I have like a psychological something with it.
I couldn't breathe.
And I would like I would panic.
I couldn't breathe.
breathe and I and if I'm not breathing like I can't do the movements you also say like you thought maybe like you you you you drowned in a former life oh yeah and I I feel like I got over my swimming yeah but I do remember that and you're like what the hell are you talking I was like no like I think so because I would just panic when I went into water I feel like I'm proud of where my swimming got I have you know what regrets I have in my career it's my muscle ups and leg those road climbs I can still fully say like I never I I think I did do well my last year I had a I always had like a top 10
event I beat Annie in it and she was like what the heck and I'm like yep first one must loves but it was a it was my greatest challenge one of my greatest challenges and I never could somehow figure it out even though I look at other people and I'm like it's really not that complicated for some reason it is for me but even in those moments you could always shift that for me you could always tell me you know like it it doesn't if you fail you fail and then we know that you went up too soon try again like it's not life or death this is a learning experience and i think always you always able to
just like bring me back down to earth on that and then i was able to go have i i rarely ever remember a bad session there were bad things there were tough things and bad things in a session but first we were always able to if I ended on a bad note we would talk about it and we would flip it and how and it somehow got me excited to work on it again the next day because I wanted to change that outcome if you had a great day we talked about it and so I feel like we always as we were to say it but we always always had good days, regardless of what happened.
We always made it good days.
And I think that was the magic.
And then I love training with the team.
So I think that would be like, if I recreated again, that's what I would do.
That's what I would do.
Yeah. That's awesome.
Yeah. We, we did a lot of, uh, you know, I think people might be surprised about how much, cause you just said it this kind of like changing on the fly.
Oh yeah yeah it was I mean like we had a game plan but I would say 80 % was adapting on the fly you know we had an idea every day and every week what we wanted to do you had the the bone the bone the big macro yeah right yeah the structure yeah yeah but then everything was based off of kind of like the adjustments that's the advantage of being in in person, right?
That's what you can't do remotely or with a big group.
That brings it also back to never having a bad day.
I would say like me by myself, if you just give me programming and I'm in the garage, I'm very, and this is me in school.
This is just me in life.
I don't like changing.
I really don't like changing things.
And let's say he wrote a programming that was, you know, five by five deadlifts going into a Metcon of Diane and I don't know, I didn't have any squats at the end, but I can't, my back is really hurting that day.
I feel like I would either fight through it or I can't do it.
And then I feel like I had a bad day and I failed versus in person.
I come in, you'd all, the first thing you'd always ask me is how are you feeling?
You know, and be like, good, great.
My back is hurting.
This is, and then he would build out from that and so it would never make me feel like i had a bad day or i failed or i missed out it was just adjusted and then he would make that mental note of like she hasn't deadlifted this week we'll see how she is on thursday you know and then i'll just get that later in the week and so i think those adjustments really helped me like maximize what we were going going to do overall and also keep me more sane and knowing that i just trust i very much trust in my coach and i trust in ben and what he's saying and so he tells me it's okay i'm like it's okay i
don't need to freak out about it it's not me making the decision to not do it it was and we're not skipping it we're just moving it trust after it is earned and in the beginning and Hinshaw used to always say this about Cat as well is like, he'd be like, I like it when they ask a lot of questions.
Like, cause Cat would always want to know like the why's behind it.
You know? Oh yeah. Exactly.
If Ben did switch again, like, I think this is just my personality too.
He switched. I'll be like, why?
It's really good. It's that idea of like doing what you can with what you got.
Yeah. Let's maximize today.
Do you remember, you know, this was the thing we did every single year and I was really into this to finding success.
Do you remember what your definition of success was?
Yeah. What is it? It was knowing that I had done the best of my abilities with what I had in that time.
Is that it? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And we used to always, yeah, it was the thing we used to say to each other, which I always just kind of like whisper to you when it would get hard in the training session was be like, do it for the girl in the mirror right it was that idea of like being able to look at yourself and just know that you gave everything you had in that moment and it didn't matter how it shook out if we did everything that we could in that moment that's success you stack those days on top of each other yeah we still have which is very similar to we still have up hanging up in our garage that that etched sign
that it's your grandmother's.
One step at a time.
Exactly. Walk like a champion.
Walk like a champion.
One foot in front of the other.
Do your best with that one step and we'll do it together.
I love that. Yeah. That's very much what kind of the whole thing was built upon.
Did you have any lessons?
I'm curious about this.
any lessons learned because there was one year that we kind of like shifted things a little bit which was we came out of the games and we were like we're gonna get strong and we did small off and you as an athlete were somebody that like if you trained it you got better so cat when she came in was a gymnast wasn't a very good runner we're like let's get good at running she became one of the best runners at the games like phenomenal she was pretty good at gymnastics and she was pretty strong as a young athlete but worked on her conditioning became the best conditioned athlete at the games and she
combined that and she would like win events like dt because she's really good at cycling barbells but never had the top end strength minus me snatching we did small off one year because we were like let's get effing strong and we like we didn't do anything for like i would say it's probably like eight eight to ten weeks i was living a couple months yeah yeah so and you got freaking you got really strong you went from like a 275 back squat to plus 300 we added like 25 or 30 pounds yeah i think we actually got like a three yeah 305 i or 315 but i think i was doing it low bar so i probably it was yeah
so anyway added like 20 30 40 pounds onto a well -trained athlete squat in a two -week period i also put on some weight i'm sorry not two weeks two month period yeah so but that's my kind of thing is like do you look when you look back on that what is your takeaway from that what would what do you say about it okay so my takeaway i don't think it panned out because i never was able to bank points for that you know i just was never able to translate i was never winning the pure strength events and our bread and butter was that we could win events and they had nothing to do with heavy weights i could cycle
moderate weights very well and light weights um and well conditioned and so if it was a bike if it's a run if it was long enough if it was weird enough like i can win those event events and that's where we would get our points from and there's so little once you trickle down the leaderboard it's exponential so from taking almost no points to taking some points wasn't really a huge bang for our buck yeah and so during that season i don't think it like it didn't translate that well but it's one of those it's another thing that i also what if we never had tried that i would regret that like that would be
something that like oh we didn't even try so i love that we went for it i think a i'm just i probably don't have physically the amount of fast which fibers to be the best in the sport at high -end strength also had a broken back yeah thank you yeah forget about that one yeah that was a tough that was probably one of my biggest challenges in my career that was my back yeah so again this is one of those things I don't regret doing it I don't think it like translated hugely hugely over into like the games or success for us but I also and that's another thing that like I am very proud of is that I
was I was willing to try anything you want to try Smolik I'm willing to try it and I'm willing to run with it and like let's go and see what happens and it's it's just part of being curious and it's kind of fun to just like let's see what happens but actually with some athletes it takes a very very special I'm going to say there's only a few in a generation that can do it all like CrossFit is such an incredible sport and for the fact that it is everything you know you're not you can't just be like small and tiny and great at gymnastics and you can't just be big and explosive and great with weights
you have to be able to kind of marry them them all and you have to be able to do a little bit of everything but very few people are top of the class in everything like very few people can take top 10 in everything and I think for most athletes I would say this is a broad stroke I would say it's a dangerous game to try to get good at all of them so let's say you're top of the game in conditioning and gymnastics and not with strength and explosiveness and you spend all year working on that now you get to the games and you don't get your 100 points or 95 points in these two and you just get extra five
points here but you drop down 25 points in these you know so it doesn't it is a dangerous game to play but i also that's how you get the most dominant athletes in the world is by being able to do all all of those, which is my takeaways.
Yeah. It was the same thing.
I think you said it exactly the way I would as well.
Like I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I don't regret not trying it because if we are able to do that, then you are, that's the well -rounded, right?
You are the generational, you are the, the, the eight times game winner, right?
So we, so let's go for that.
But I think we as we got to that 305 when we started not putting all of that attention to it it came back to the you know it didn't come back to where it was but it didn't hang out at that upper echelon of the girls weights i didn't keep it the top girls athletes are doing 330 top five gets you you know top 315 gets your top five over 300 keeps you in the top 10 you did slide back to that 285 290 so we ended up where I hover like hovered right so yeah yeah it's like I don't I don't regret trying it because if it worked it would have been like amazing yes but I agree that it didn't pan out and stick
and hold so it was it wasn't this like uh uh game -changing thing that we kind of hoped it it might it could have been yeah we're brought to you by more hair naturally a company that understands that true excellence starts with showing up as your most confident self.
Head to MoreHairNaturally .com.
Use the code Excellence10 for 10 % off your first order.
Look, chasing excellence isn't just about what you do in the gym or how disciplined your morning routine is.
It's also about how you show up in the world.
For a lot of folks, hair loss chips away at that.
Slowly and silently, it can mess with how you see yourself.
That's where More Hair Naturally comes in with their science -backed drug -free approach using powerful natural ingredients like stem cells amino acids peptide complexes and probiotics they're helping people take back control of their hair growth journey no weird drugs side effects or lifetime guarantees just real results their mission to help you elevate your self -confidence reclaim your presence and get back to being unshakable in everything you do visit more hair naturally .com use the code Excellence 10 for 10 % off your first order and stop letting something like hair loss stop your momentum.
We're brought to you by BetterHelp, the world's largest online therapy platform that's helping break down barriers to mental health support, especially for men.
Visit betterhelp .com slash excellence to get 10 % off your first month.
You know, as men, we often feel this immense pressure to have it all figured out, to be the strong one, to push through challenges all by by ourselves.
But here's something that might surprise you.
Over 6 million men in the United States deal with depression every year, and many never seek help because of outdated stigmas.
Just like we talk about training being essential for physical strength, working with a therapist is about building mental strength and resilience.
BetterHelp makes this process simple with over 35 ,000 licensed therapists who understand the unique challenges men face.
You can connect with the therapist on your terms in your own space, making it as convenient as any other part of your daily routine.
Real Strength isn't about carrying everything alone.
It's about having the courage to reach out when you need support.
Remember, we're all better with help.
Visit betterhelp .com slash excellence and get 10 % off your first month.
That's betterhelp .com slash excellence.
Talk to me about hard things in general Like the mindset that you have to do this sport Which is so hard and uncomfortable It's like there's very few sports that I think there are sports that require more pain tolerance Like MMA or rugby But in terms of uncomfortable I don't know if there's many other sports like crew certainly rowing 2k all the time is maybe probably one of those but even that maybe not in training sessions so you were phenomenal at like being comfortable being uncomfortable how has that translated if at all to anything else I honestly just think it's perspective because it really
is just discomfort you know and you're so right with like there are sports courts when I never got to see Brooks play on the ice but he takes pucks to the face and yeah and he gets slammed he gets slammed in between a player and the glass and breaks a collarbone and like the things that he's been through and I'm like oh that must hurt he's like don't let that hurt yeah we are uncomfortable and I think very early on I remember you talking to us about the difference between pain and discomfort you know and honestly i think very early on too unfortunately i did have real pain like losing my grandma and that's
why i was in boston i was with the bergeron so i think that is something that when you have perspective that's what pain is.
That's what hurts. You can't change that.
And knowing that what we do in the gym is discomfort and a, it will take an end.
It will be over. I know those, that last minute on the echo bike seems forever to count and you're so uncomfortable and it really hurts, but that minute will pass whether you go as hard as you can or if you stop and get off that echo bike.
And then another point to that too is also knowing that this is where I want to be if I'm not hurting if I'm not uncomfortable in this position I'm not going hard enough I need to push because now I can go out and do my track workout and I can be comfortable but I'm not going to get better and I need to and I don't know the whole science behind this but I need to show my body that a I'm I'm doing this i'm creating the stimulus so my body a learns how to breathe under that speed learns how to clear the lactic under that speed learns just the mechanics and the rhythm of it all and i will come back
and become better and so i think it's both i think it's just perspective of a this discomfort it'll be over and then be knowing that this discomfort is exactly why you're doing this it hurts great that's what you're doing that's so good yeah like most people fear that spot and try to avoid it you're like seeking it out and trying to get there you're like waiting until you get to the spot of real discomfort and then you're like okay got it now it's in that perspective like god now's where i start to make adaptations now it's like thank god i finally got here where everyone's like oh no like yeah
shock i used to have a we used to talk a lot about what's the story going on in your head what are you saying to yourself and i used to love and i use it to this day what you used to say to yourself all the time which is the time is gonna pass either way like you're doing this workout you're doing this set the time is going to pass pass anyway like why do you want to sit in wallow and suffer more than you're going to anyway just like accept it like this is where i'm going to be for a little while okay now the time's going to pass and i use that now to this day when i'm like in a hard training
session i'm like time's gonna pass like and at the end it's like you get to look back and like that's the difference once the time's over and you look back are you going to be proud of the way you walked through that or are you going to go gosh I wish I wasn't such a woe is me in the middle yeah like it's over take the 20 -minute bike test like either I can you know sit there and do it for 20 minutes or I can really make a push at it know that I'll be proud after and those 20 minutes will also pass like like both things can, it's 20 minutes.
Guess what? You're going to be on here for 20 minutes.
Either accept it or not.
But guess what? Either which way the time's going.
I love that you still use it.
Do you have other, when you look back on training workouts, sessions, obviously the Cape was the magic spot.
Do you have like a certain, any certain workouts that you like that like kind of like are up on the top shelf of like training sessions for like best ones or like most learned uh yeah you answer that how you want to well talking about just to give some clarity i'll kind of give a little bit of everything but there was a workout on the cape every single year and i think this one was called zeus remember remember?
I just remembered that one in, I'm not always, like, the greatest at communicating, I know what I'm feeling and thinking, I can't always put it into words, and so very often throughout the season, you know, we might do a conditioning workout, and I would just tell Ben, like, I'm not ready, you know, I'm not fit enough, I'm not this, I'd be like, okay, you know, we're still working, we still have this many weeks, like, he's like, you know what can happen, we keep doing doing this or we added this or whatever and that's one of those workouts I remember and there was always a point in every summer
that we'd finish a workout it was like I'm ready and I always felt like it was the magic of the cape and it wasn't that ready can't mean like oh I'm ready to you know you never know what place you're gonna take I don't know how anybody else is gonna show up it It was just that I knew that I felt how I wanted to feel and knew that I could feel.
And it's such a, it's the greatest feeling because it's not that I don't ever feel tired.
It's just that I could keep working so much while I was tired.
It was this amazing feeling.
It was like this insane fitness that we'd built all year and it kind of all accumulated like right at the right time before the games and you kind of sit there.
I was like, oh, I'm ready.
Like I trusted that I could fight through anything, like no matter how tired I was, I could always keep going both physically and mentally.
So that's definitely one, one that I feel like really like encompasses like everything that we kind of talked about and how we approach training was there was one day in the back room we were doing, it was echo bike, hang power clean and burpees.
and it was like five rounds per time of something and i smashed that workout and you know you tell you were like good job and i was like no it wasn't and you're like no good job and i was like i could have gone faster he goes you smashed that and i go i know i i still could have gone faster i think that was also a huge thing of like and i i there's probably a line too where you're like too hard on to yourself, but that was just honesty.
And I knew, you know, I was just going fast enough and I was, I was going fast, but I knew I was like, no, I could have pushed harder.
Like I could have gotten better than I did that day.
Um, so that one's like a little bit of a reference.
Yeah. It's kind of like a, a call out to, um, it's not about the scoreboard. It's about my potential.
It even like smashing them on the scoreboard. If there's still room for me to get better like that's not the top like i might have smashed it i might have a world record in this but i have more to give in that i think that comes back to confidence and like how the type of confidence that we wanted to create because it's you can create false confidence with thinking that yeah you're gonna go beat other people or maybe you have been all summer long beating other athletes but you don't know where your biggest competitors are how hard they are training and so i think comparing against others can create
this false confidence versus i think comparing against yourself can create true confidence and it isn't like i i could never ever go in knowing that, you know, I'm going to beat X, Y, or Z.
I just had to go in knowing that I could always do my best. And that was always within my control.
And knowing that, knowing that I had confidence in, A, I'm going to always go do my best. And also knowing that I have composure and the experience to handle when things don't go as planned and I have to make an adjustment.
Like those are things that I wanted to have confidence in and created a great competitor ultimately when I was out there on the floor.
Yeah, that confidence comes from obviously putting in the work, but also that it feels so good, as you said, when you're peaking.
And we used to like try to peak right before the games.
And that's when we would do that Zeus workout.
And just for so people can follow along.
Zeus is task priority fight gone bad so instead of like as many reps as you can in a minute you do 30 reps of every station except when you get done with the five stations you do 10 body weight back squats from the ground and then 30 push -ups so you're adding in extra upper body pushing and this heavy load it's a really good combination and there would be these times where you're like you're kind of like you don't know because you're not benchmarking you're not like to the nature of our sport you're not trying to peak before so you don't kind of really know where you are and then we would always
do two workouts in the last two weeks before our taper Zeus being one and then the sevens was the other one we would always do the sevens yes yeah and Katrin's sevens is holy crap I've if you've ever done the sevens workout Kat you should I wish that we had that on film me too because I remember it just didn't stop you're Your sevens is like the most – one of the more impressive thing I've ever seen.
So anyone that's ever done the sevens workout, seven rounds of seven reps of seven different movements.
Normal human beings do the first round in like three minutes, the next round in like four or five.
And they kind of like hang out at like four or five -ish minutes per round like myself being a normal human being.
So you end up kind of like that 28, 32 minutes.
Katrin would do the whole workout in sub 14 she would hold under yeah yeah sold sub twos per round it took me two minutes to do the thrusters in round two that's in round two I have five more rounds to go oh it's like it's so so those two things together was like oh we ready I remember that feeling it was just so what what like stands out in your mind like what are workouts that that come to your mind that you can remember?
So I like anything on the Echo bike.
Cause I just think the Echo bike was so cool.
Towards the end of the year, we started doing a little benchmarking of Echo bike and GHD sit -ups.
Oh yeah. Yeah. That was really cool.
Really terrible, nasty combination.
That was a big one.
And then the other ones I just loved were the outside the gyms. Right.
So running in the power lines and the trails with you on the Cape, swimming swimming in the open ocean this is like katrin wasn't great in the water but one year we put a lot of emphasis into open water swimming and we had one training session with cole and we weren't planning on this kind of speaks to like our training methodology in terms of like you adapt on the fly we weren't planning on swimming that day but there was a tropical storm so naturally ben wants us in the water so we went swimming that day and we went to the the beach with the biggest possible waves and this is one of those times
i was like what have i done i it was when i killed katrin it was literally like where the waves and i can't even call and we're just disappear for like disappear between these huge swells for like 25 seconds at a time and i'm trying to run along the edge of the shore to get out towards where i I told him to go to, but that one really sticks out because when we got to the games that year, it was so cool because that was the games that I was like, yeah, the biggest surprises, right?
That was getting on a plane.
We're going to the ranch plane delayed on the flight back, all surprises be at the beach at 5.
And we got to the beach and it was like 15 foot swells.
It was like huge and everyone's freaking out.
And Katrin's like, that was the best I ever did.
and uh yeah yeah it's the best you've ever done a swim so that one stuck out a ton i love that one i obviously love all blue hills stuff blue hills is my i think that are my favorite training sessions same yeah that and then like that you said earlier is the ones that started off as bad days right lots of frustration why why am i that ended up turning into like the quiet talks outside side that we reframed into being our most impactful days when I think about working with you those are the things I think about is like how we were able to just everything was grounded on this thing of mindset just
like let's be the type of people that yeah dot yeah yeah what about uh what about at the games did you have any events at the games that you like look back on you like that was was awesome yeah I think like the turning point like just in our career was definitely the rope climb event at the 2015 games because the same I just like I had a very not only physical limitation but psychological boundaries with legless and we had never ever discussed it and it honestly had had never crossed my mind that we would win the games that year or that i i never even like said it or like i i don't think truly
wanted it but we were just so focused on literally just have be the best me just every time we did that every single time in training and then when we got to the games like there were no eyes on me i didn't have any pressure or anything like that and so it was kind it made it easy to just like i'm just going to compete well we're just going to compete well and be proud of what we did out there every single time and suddenly angel who is athlete control comes and hands me the leader's jersey and it's right before a likeless road climb event and it was just four likeless road climbs and was it it
was like pig flip into likeless road rope climbs into handstand walking.
And I just, I just start bawling my eyes out immediately.
I just freaked out because I was like, I was already nervous about the rope climbs.
And now I was like, Oh, like everybody's going to be watching me fail rope climbs.
So this is what I told myself there.
It wasn't that they're going to watch me be slow.
I was like, they're going to watch me fail rope climbs.
And I just started bawling.
And so I'm like, where's Ben?
I'm like, where's Ben?
and I'm like freaking out about the leader's jersey and the rope climbs and I remember you coming and you're like okay you're like nope that's great do the pig flips and do you think you can get one rope climb and I was like yeah and he goes okay he goes great so go and do the pig flips and one rope climb and then when you've done that I just want you to think like you know know when you're in training how long do you normally think until you need to jump up and when you feel like you're ready go do another rope climb i was like okay i can do that i was like yeah i can do that he goes okay that's
all you need to do do one rope climb and then when you're ready try another one and it just completely i was like i wasn't thinking about the leader's jersey or winning that event or people watching me fail i was like oh i can go and do one rope climb and the best part about that though is that i get out onto the field and i can like barely pick flip the thing and i'm like oh i'm i didn't even get to the roflips but we do end up in it we get to the rope climb i do one i do two i do three and by this point i feel like i've won because i'm way further than we ever discussed and we had done like
i also think this is i have very like a great workout memory like I can almost remember every like what I held for how long in workouts and we had just done this like 10 row climbs for time or something right before and I knew how long it took me to get up and down the rope and I was like I needed to so I remember looking at the clock and there was about a minute left and I was like well either I run out of time or you know I if I fail I would have run out of time anyway if I would have waited longer, so I remember looking at the clock and just being like, I'm just gonna try one, and I'll just
jump up with 30 seconds left, that'll give me enough time to get up, and I think we had to get down below the tape too, to get it to count or something, and so I just remembered like shaking it out, and I didn't feel ready for that one, but I just looked at the clock, and I was like, okay, I need to jump up to get it in time, to have a chance, and I jump up, and I like, I get it, I like get that fourth rope climb bear in mind I've not finished the workout the workout's still the handstand walking and I come down and I knew my judge at the time and a time captain whatever and I was like Denise
I won and she just goes she literally thought like I was delirious or like too hot or something and she was like so confused and I was like Denise I won like I need a reaction from her and she just goes she goes sweetie those girls on the finish line those won and I like nothing she said fazed me I just go Denise I won I just gave her a hug and then I'm just and I remember Ben and O 'Keefe sitting in the stands we're walking through and I am so happy I was like so happy because that was just that was all I could do and I took that risk get the end and it paid off so it was even better than I thought
I could have done in that workout it was truly like everything that we could have gone out of it and so I've that was a huge shift I think of define in our career and also kind of just define what we had been working on and the headspace that we came there into because you can always believe that you're doing the right thing.
And there I was like, Oh no, like this is, yeah, this is the mindset that I need to have every single time I go out in the field.
So what did I take in that workout?
15th? I think it's 15th.
I was gonna say 15th.
Yep. Yeah. I was so proud.
I was so proud of that.
And that's just one of those things that like, you know, whether I took first or for me first was 15th in that that workout and that was my win yeah so focused on what's what's your not using the external to determine how you feel internally it's just truly it's a great testament to can i perform my best yeah i think that's a that's a good place to wrap up thank you so much for joining us katherine yeah likewise it's been so fun thank you very much for tuning into the show make sure you're subscribed wherever you're listening or watching so you do not miss another episode for more frameworks and daily practices, visit chasingexcellence .email.
And don't forget to tap the link in the show notes for today's full listener guide, where we break down the key ideas and provide actionable steps to help you put them into practice.
Until next time, keep building health, finding freedom, and living with your heart on fire.
