Sevan Matossian (00:01):
He looks as natural as they get. He looks like a normal dude, like a normal, really super fit dude,
Andrew Hiller (00:10):
While I was at crash, I had a couple of people walk to me and go, I can’t stop looking at people’s stomachs now for little marks.
Sevan Matossian (00:20):
Oh. Oh man. Yeah. Good job. Can we give him the official natural stamp organic or F-D-A-E-D-A approved?
Andrew Hiller (00:32):
Yeah,
Sevan Matossian (00:33):
Me.
Andrew Hiller (00:34):
Is that an insult though?
Sevan Matossian (00:35):
No, I don’t think so. You know who else looked natural? Is Colt Merton’s?
Andrew Hiller (00:42):
He’s pretty jacked.
Sevan Matossian (00:45):
I agree. He crazy jacked. But I saw guys there that I don’t think I saw him there. I saw people there that did not look like him when I saw him next to other bodies. I was like, oh, okay. I think maybe that’s what supplementation looks like. Performance enhancing drug supplementation looks like.
Andrew Hiller (01:07):
Is that something that you would’ve said a year or two ago?
Sevan Matossian (01:10):
No. No. Completely educated by Andrew Hiller.
Andrew Hiller (01:14):
I know what you mean.
Sevan Matossian (01:17):
Colton’s
Andrew Hiller (01:17):
Got a look where you can just tell that it’s labor.
Sevan Matossian (01:21):
Yeah, he looks like a dude. He got the best beach body in the world, but there were dudes there that had muscles on top of, muscles on top of him. Weird angles to their muscles too. Like sharp corners and shit. And
Andrew Hiller (01:36):
Do you care to share?
Sevan Matossian (01:37):
No.
Andrew Hiller (01:40):
Maybe a
Sevan Matossian (01:41):
I’m no doctor. I only play one on the seven podcast.
Andrew Hiller (01:45):
Maybe an age group we can point out in particular.
Sevan Matossian (01:47):
Oh yeah, the masters guys for sure look like, I mean that’s no secret that the masters guys always look way more jacked than the young guys, but even at the CrossFit games,
Andrew Hiller (02:06):
I told you the story, I think I’ve said it on here before. One of the masters athletes who is in the 35 to 39 was in the warmup corral and they go age group, age group, age group. And this person goes to everyone around him told me the story retroactively. God, I can’t wait until I get 40, 44 years old. That’s what I’m going to look like.
Sevan Matossian (02:28):
How come you didn’t look like that when you were on TRT? You weren’t on it long enough or you didn’t do enough, or how come you didn’t look like that?
Andrew Hiller (02:34):
How dare you? I thought I looked great.
Sevan Matossian (02:36):
You did look great. You looked really buffed. You started getting, I mean your chest was really rounded, but some of those guys are just like,
Andrew Hiller (02:43):
I would say it’s probably that. Yeah. I mean the longer you spend on it, the more time if you have to build that muscle. Speaking of muscle,
Sevan Matossian (02:50):
It was a trip.
Andrew Hiller (02:51):
What’s up?
Sevan Matossian (02:52):
Hey dude, how are you? Look at this dude. Can y’all that? I do hear that. Whose phone is that? It’s not mine.
Jayson Hopper (03:03):
It’s not me. That’s the computer I’m on. Sorry, I just turned off.
Sevan Matossian (03:07):
Hey Jason. You look natural as fuck. You don’t look sauced up at all, dude, you look just like a fucking You look Natty brother, Breta Natty
Jayson Hopper (03:16):
Natural dude.
Sevan Matossian (03:17):
Look at
Jayson Hopper (03:17):
You. Natural. How y’all been, man?
Sevan Matossian (03:19):
Dude, living the dream.
Jayson Hopper (03:22):
It’s been a minute since I’ve been on here. When was the last time? Savon?
Sevan Matossian (03:27):
December 3rd. 2021 at 9:52 AM you hit end conversation and you were gone forever. No, I made that up. I don’t know.
Andrew Hiller (03:35):
That was
Jayson Hopper (03:36):
Good. I mean that sounds about right.
Sevan Matossian (03:38):
Hey, it was really seeing you at the games was the first time I saw you in person.
Jayson Hopper (03:43):
Dude,
Sevan Matossian (03:44):
That was nice. I liked you way more than I thought I did. I thought you were going to be like an eight out of 10. You’re in a fucking 11, dude. You put the love, you put the love on me. You put the love on me. I
Jayson Hopper (03:56):
Was so thrown off when I saw you. Dude.
Sevan Matossian (03:58):
Why is that?
Jayson Hopper (04:00):
I was just not expecting you to be so tiny.
Sevan Matossian (04:03):
Really? Really? I’m that small, right?
Jayson Hopper (04:05):
Dude, you’re so tiny. Dude.
Sevan Matossian (04:08):
Do you think I’ve started shrinking? Do you look at me like, oh, he’s one of those old guys that’s already started getting smaller. Do you think I was? I know you didn’t know me before. Do you think I was always this small?
Jayson Hopper (04:17):
I think you were always that small. I just never knew because all I’ve ever known is this right here. Your face up close to the camera. When I saw you, I was just like, what? You
Sevan Matossian (04:28):
Wanted to just pick me up and throw me in your duffle?
Jayson Hopper (04:30):
You were just so petite, man.
Sevan Matossian (04:33):
Oh, oh, come on. We were doing so good. We were
Andrew Hiller (04:37):
Doing, but is a strong word. He’s getting back at you for saying that he didn’t look like he was on steroids. Oh, we
Sevan Matossian (04:43):
Were doing so, so good. We were doing so good. Where did you go? Why was it so hard to get you back on the show for so long? Where did you go? Tell me about your disappearance. Is it my fault?
Jayson Hopper (05:01):
No. No,
Sevan Matossian (05:02):
Not my fault.
Jayson Hopper (05:04):
I think I have a tendency to say some crazy things. I think it’s easy for people to use what I say against me. And so it was just best for me to, I think go dark if you will, just staying outside the media and just doing my own thing. And I took that course. It was good course take for that time. And yeah, I wanted to give it a try again, not saying anything like our conversations weren’t bad. It was just, I probably in that time I probably shared some things, said some things, whether it was to the extreme or silly stuff, like my body weight is 3% or something like that. Everything I say, it could just be used against me so easily. So I didn’t even want that stress or insecurity to be something I had to deal with. And so I just said no to it all together
Sevan Matossian (06:04):
And not even used against you. Just repeated. Right. So then anytime you talk publicly, someone’s going to misunderstand you.
Jayson Hopper (06:10):
Yeah, for sure. So
Sevan Matossian (06:11):
For you, you might be like, Hey, I’m 4% body fat. And then Andrew makes a video that says You’re seven or whatever. He ends up saying, and to me it’s no big deal. It’s like, yeah, whatever, who caress. But other people then all of a sudden are kind of trying to weaponize it and you’re like, okay, enough already. Jesus Christ, who cares? And you’re like, I’m just not going to say anything publicly so I don’t have to deal with any of the echoes.
Jayson Hopper (06:33):
Yeah, I dream yourself. Honestly, I kind of just wanted to do my own thing and let y’all do.
Sevan Matossian (06:40):
Yeah. Well we missed you. Our show depends on you coming on. We need you to come on.
Jayson Hopper (06:44):
Stop that.
Sevan Matossian (06:46):
You cut into the bottom line. I want to go back a second. When you became part of HWPO, hard work pays off Matt Frazier’s program, are you still doing that training program?
Jayson Hopper (07:03):
Yep.
Sevan Matossian (07:04):
Go back. What year was it? That was it at a semi-final. You ran into him and then you guys started kindling a relationship.
Jayson Hopper (07:13):
Yeah, I met him in Vegas in 2021 and he didn’t have necessarily any sort of coaching responsibilities going into the games and the games happened. I came in 19th that year and then I took it upon myself to ask him over and over and over for him to have more investment into my journey. And I think begging him over and over was like, okay, I’ll give you a little bit more than I have been able to. And then once Mal came on, he was like, okay, I’m just going to coach.
Sevan Matossian (08:01):
And what year was that?
Jayson Hopper (08:04):
That was after, that was in 2021, still
Sevan Matossian (08:07):
21. Okay. And that was after the games in 2021?
Jayson Hopper (08:11):
Yeah, after the games. And then there was that little two month window of me just kind of working with HWPO for a little bit. And then after Rogue was when I think Mao came on and he started really coaching.
Sevan Matossian (08:29):
And then when did you decide to move up there and how did that work? Because the last time I had talked to you, you had some good things happening in your life. Basically you were working at a church and training for the CrossFit games and then you were able to work out and you got a new place. That was a
Jayson Hopper (08:46):
Long time ago.
Sevan Matossian (08:47):
And basically from what you told me and what Taylor told me and JR told me that you were real homebody. I mean, not that you wanted stay at home, but you wanted to stay around your family, your friends, you liked your city. And I think you had even told me on the show, nothing could pull you out of there. No fucking way. Are you traveling anywhere? You’re going to train there?
Jayson Hopper (09:09):
Yeah,
Sevan Matossian (09:10):
But you didn’t, but you kind broke out of that dogmatic mold and you’re like, you know what? Fuck it. I’m going to go.
Jayson Hopper (09:17):
Well, I also thought that it was the next step, honestly. So when I came in seventh in 2022, everybody that kind of beat me, most of them, not all of them, most of them all trained remotely with a coach. And so I saw Mao have a great result from the games training with Matt every single day. And so I guess the next step for me mentally was like, okay, I just need to go somewhere with Matt and just almost put everything else on the altar, sacrifice everything else for this little time and just give a hundred percent to the sport to get what I want out of it because I would go up. There’s an accountability, there’s a standard that is held whenever you’re with your coach. I mean, when I’m here training by myself, I mean I have no one to hold me accountable.
(10:12):
I come to the gym whenever I want. I leave whenever I want. I can be a little lazy here and there, but whenever you’re up there, I mean Matt’s like dude, he’s to the book. So working out with him and Mal, it was like, alright, we’re here at this time. We’re going to sleep at this time. We’re out of the gym for session one at this time. We’re in for session two at this time. It’s like bam, bam, bam. And the accountability, the standard was just so high being up there, and I would experience this every time I just traveled up there, here and there. And so I would experience this also, the feedback, Matt’s brilliant and I didn’t have that much feedback being here. And so that everyday feedback was just so good. And then, yeah, so I would go up there every now and then I decided, hey, this is the next step for me in order to get to where I want to be in the sport. Was
Sevan Matossian (11:10):
It a tough decision? Who helped you make it? Was your wife cool with it? What about her job? What about the place you got at the
Jayson Hopper (11:15):
Same time? Like you said, I knew I was a homebody, so it was extremely hard. I rely a lot on my friends. I rely a lot of on my faith, I rely a lot on the community and Greenville in general. I love Greenville, South Carolina and I love all the things about home. And moving away it was tough because I was basically just like saying hell to this all for a little bit and just going for it because you hear that mantra champions don’t have balance. And I just took that on. I had to see if that was true or not, and I came away with a different perspective on that. I think champions, I think it’s different for everybody. For Matt, he was able to move to Tennessee or sacrifice a lot to get to where he went. And for me, he’s an introvert. I’m an extrovert. I have a ton of friends here. I rely on a ton of people to give me joy and give me a balanced life. And there’s other priorities in my life and I relied on that, kind of sacrificed all that and pay the price. I just have to have balance. And I wouldn’t have learned that or got to that space of realizing that unless I had spent six months in Vermont.
Sevan Matossian (12:41):
Look, I just put your Instagram down there for you.
Jayson Hopper (12:44):
Thanks.
Sevan Matossian (12:45):
Good. Dude, when you went, did you just say to your wife, Hey, let’s go. And was that easy? Eaton Beaver? Good morning, Mr. Hopper.
Jayson Hopper (12:57):
Good morning. No,
Sevan Matossian (13:00):
It wasn’t. Good morning. Eaton Beaver.
Jayson Hopper (13:04):
It was probably a harder decision for her. Simple.
Sevan Matossian (13:08):
Would you have gone without her?
Jayson Hopper (13:10):
No. No. It was harder for her because she’s not the one actually doing the sport, and so I’m dragging her away from everything she knows here. And you live with that burden every day when things are, you’re four months in. We’re not hanging out a lot in Vermont because I’m six feet deep in games training and whenever I do get a break, I don’t want to hang out because I’m tired and all that emotionally takes a, it’s a huge weight and it’s a big burden. And then you feel bad that you drug her out here for your sport. And then I mean it was tough. It was tough emotionally. It was tough all around home life and gym life.
Sevan Matossian (13:55):
Jason, isn’t that what part of being the best is about being People say the word selfish. I don’t like that word. It’s not selfish. Being focused on yourself. And then if you want to be with someone who’s going to do something great, accepting that and just being thankful you have a front row seat. Doesn’t your wife just have to just be like, yeah, this is what I want to do. This is a front row seat. This is what I want to be around greatness.
Jayson Hopper (14:24):
I mean, she is already completely selfless in my life. I mean, she has sacrificed so much for this career of mine. I mean without her, I couldn’t do any of this to the level that I’m doing it. And so there is a, yes in a sense be willing to sacrifice a lot for this, but at the same time, there’s a line. We have values in our life, we have friends. This sport isn’t the number one priority. Money isn’t the number one priority in our life. There’s definitely a cutoff of how much we could sacrifice and how much we should sacrifice in order to be as best as we can in this space. I mean, it’s cool. It would be really cool to win the CrossFit games or be on the podium, but if that means putting everything else on the altar and sacrificing everything to the point where that’s going to affect me and my wife’s marriage, then I don’t need that. I don’t even want that.
Sevan Matossian (15:31):
Can you give me an example of something that comes before training
Jayson Hopper (15:35):
And
Sevan Matossian (15:35):
I’m going to judge you no matter what you say. I apologize. Well,
Jayson Hopper (15:38):
My marriage comes first. Well,
Sevan Matossian (15:40):
But what do you mean by that? Like your marriage?
Jayson Hopper (15:43):
It means that when Thursday comes around and I’m dead tired and I come home from training and all I want to do is sleep, I put all my energy into training or that training week or all that stuff, and I come home and I’m giving my wife leftovers and I’m like, Hey, I just want to lay here and watch tv. That’s not serving her the best way I could possibly be serving her that’s not loving her, that’s not at the same time energies. There’s an amount of energy that I have to be able to allocate for each of these priorities in my life. If I just go all in on training, then I’m not going to want to do anything else. I’m not going to want to go on a date with my wife. I’m not going to want to hang out with my friends. I’m not going to want to put effort into anything else because it’s just all in one basket. And that’s like the champions have no balance mantra. It’s just like, hey, it’s all in on this basket. And for me, I just don’t roll that way. I have values. I want to give my effort and energies to other things in my life. And I mean, if I don’t get the results that I want on a competition floor because of that, then I’m okay to live with that.
Sevan Matossian (17:04):
Tyler, good morning, Jason. How long were you up there in Vermont?
Jayson Hopper (17:16):
Five months.
Sevan Matossian (17:17):
And how close was your bed to the weights?
Jayson Hopper (17:22):
Not far.
Sevan Matossian (17:23):
Not far. No,
Jayson Hopper (17:24):
Actually it was probably 15 minutes.
Sevan Matossian (17:27):
A 15 minute drive.
Jayson Hopper (17:28):
Yeah, I was in a sketchy part of Burlington.
Sevan Matossian (17:32):
Is there a sketchy part of Burlington?
Jayson Hopper (17:34):
There’s one road. It’s pretty sketchy. One road,
Sevan Matossian (17:43):
Blade Walker. Sevan. Imagine having a goal that pulled you away from playing with your kids for about six months straight. Yeah. Nah, I ain’t doing that. There’s no way I’m doing that. But that is my goal though. That is where my life’s out of balance,
Andrew Hiller (18:02):
Where
Sevan Matossian (18:03):
With my attention to my kids.
Andrew Hiller (18:08):
I’m seeing you interact this weekend at the crash crucible of the entire gang. It seems as if that would be something that would very strongly impact you if you were to not have that being around Taylor and JR and just everybody around you, just that community of people,
Jayson Hopper (18:23):
It
Andrew Hiller (18:23):
Seemed to be something that gave you a lot of energy.
Jayson Hopper (18:26):
It did. Like I said, like I’ve been saying, a big friend guy, been big family guy. I’m a big extrovert. I like having fun and just without that, it kind of just sucks the life out of me. I almost get life. I almost get joy and energy being around people. And when I’m not saying Jake and Matt and the people in Vermont weren’t fun to hang around, but we’re completely different people at heart. Me and Matt are completely different. We are good in a gym together, but we can’t just be best friends. And so there is a joy that I get being here in Greenville with my friends, who I’ve spent my entire life with and that I know personally, and it gives me life, man. And I need that.
Andrew Hiller (19:27):
You did say extrovert versus introvert and I think that’s a really good way to put it. I mean, hanging out with Taylor, he’s just, he’s over the top of you the entire time and he’s awesome. And I’m sitting there my whole holy hell, and then I see you two together and you’re bouncing off one another really well. It’s cool.
Jayson Hopper (19:43):
I also think that being up there in Vermont was, I mean, it was an amazing experience for sure, but Matt is one of the most serious people I’ve ever met, and Matt is also one of the most serious people I’ve ever met. And so I am almost the opposite. I’m like this, let’s have fun. Let’s lock in when we need to lock in. But when we’re not locked in, I mean we can enjoy life and be a little wild. And it was tough because I was always around seriousness all the time. And I mean that’s what made them great and got the results that they wanted in the space because they were so locked in all the time on what they wanted. And I have, it kind of goes back to everything I’ve been saying. It’s just like in order for me to do well in this sport, I lock in when I need to lock in, but also have to step back and be like, Hey, this is CrossFit. It’s not that. At the end of the day, it’s just a sport and it’s not even that big of a sport for me to give my entire life to. There’s bigger and better things to do in this life than workout. And so just stepping back and having fun, enjoying life and not training on this day, or not getting out of the gym a little early to go play golf with a friend because he asked. That’s the stuff I’m willing to do.
(21:23):
Yeah, I might mess up the results in the end of the day, but that’s something I’m going to look back on in 50 years and not regret.
Sevan Matossian (21:31):
I wonder what Matt learned from coaching you. Sorry, Hiller. I wonder if he changed his style at all. It’s pretty wild year for him, right? First year coach coaching has you and Mal up there. Mal ends up taking the year off. You end up coming back to South Carolina. It must’ve been a pretty wild year for him too. Like a whole rethinking, I mean, you’re part of his experiment too, right? I mean, he was the greatest ever who did it, but he was not the greatest coach ever who did it.
Jayson Hopper (22:01):
I mean, I’m sure he has a bunch of takeaways. Honestly, when I got done after the games, I came home, he has his baby, so we haven’t really had much of a debrief about what he’s been, he’s been feeling about the whole situation.
Sevan Matossian (22:16):
What happened.
Jayson Hopper (22:17):
We definitely have talked, don’t get me wrong. We definitely have talked.
Sevan Matossian (22:21):
They’re fighting people. They’re not talking and they’re fighting. That’s the takeaway. You guys aren’t
Jayson Hopper (22:26):
Fighting, guys aren’t fighting, right? We haven’t talked since the games. No, we definitely talked. We had our debrief
Sevan Matossian (22:32):
And it’s not like you’re not fighting with them.
Jayson Hopper (22:35):
No,
Sevan Matossian (22:36):
No. There were a couple interesting things here. What did will t say? Love having a hopper back on the show
Andrew Hiller (22:47):
That wasn’t interesting. That’s just a fact.
Sevan Matossian (22:49):
Mal was so locked in that she had to take a year off.
Andrew Hiller (22:54):
I was going to ask you if doing stuff like that made you feel anywhere similar, burnt out, just not being in your environment, maybe the pressure of just being so locked in.
Jayson Hopper (23:06):
Yeah. I mean,
Andrew Hiller (23:08):
Does that have anything to do with you think you’re placing this year? I mean, I kind of look at it as if you were building a house and then you go to HWPO and then you’re trying to build the house really fast and then you kick over the gas can in year one, it’s like holy hell, this is a great fire. And then you have this great finishing at the games and then the next year comes along and you’re like, well, now I got all these ashes and would you finish 30 something this year?
Sevan Matossian (23:33):
Yeah,
Jayson Hopper (23:34):
31st. 31st,
Andrew Hiller (23:35):
31st. So I was wondering if you had burnt the fire too hot and it kind of caught up to you
Sevan Matossian (23:43):
Or another way to ask what the fuck happened this year?
Jayson Hopper (23:48):
Well, one, I take complete ownership as to what happened. It’s no one’s fault but mine. I think there are some things looking back that I would’ve changed and I think would absolutely have resulted in a better result. For one, Vermont was extremely tough on me emotionally, and it got to a point where I just wasn’t as happy as I am now. And that takes a toll on you as a performer. I mean, if you’re not happy where you are, how do you expect me to go to a gym every single day and go to this crazy headspace that is required in this sport and prosper?
(24:44):
It was tough being in Vermont, and like I said, there were so many things that I said no to in that little five month span that it just took a toll on me emotionally, and I felt like I was getting super fit. Don’t get me wrong, I was fitter than I had ever been in those five months, but I just wasn’t emotionally healthy. And it got to a point where there was some injuries, I had some strains and there was some things that I couldn’t do. I had some things wrong on my shin that stopped me from running for the last month of games training. I had a forearm strain. There was these things nagging around that didn’t stop me from training. It just stopped me from doing certain things to the intensity that I would’ve liked. And so all that to say is when I got to the games, I was super beat up and burnt out emotionally, physically, and I knew, it’s not like I went into the games thinking like, oh man, this is about to be a crap show. I’m about to burn this thing all up. I actually thought I was going to do well. It’s just looking back on it like hindsight, looking back after the games at the whole entire situation, the entire six months, it’s like, okay, I wasn’t as healthy as I probably would’ve liked to be. Liked to have been emotionally, spiritually. Physically. I mean it was just a toll all the way through and it just got worse. And then, yeah, without
Sevan Matossian (26:33):
Coming home, could you have done different, Jason without coming home? Was there something you could have done different there? So you’re saying basically your gymnastics, your strength, your conditioning was all on point. There were some injuries, but what does it mean you were emotionally burnt out? What is that? You just couldn’t,
Jayson Hopper (26:53):
I just gave way too much and I was living at that 80% line every single day. There was never, the intensities were never 100%. I was always walking to the gym beat up from the day before, beat up from, I mean,
Sevan Matossian (27:15):
Did he know? Did Fraser know? Did your coaches know? Did Marconi know? They knew.
Jayson Hopper (27:20):
I mean, there were days where I had to take three days off at one point in a row leading up to the games. I think a week before, two weeks before the games, I had to take three days off. I mean, it was tough. I mean, there were some things that I could not do. I was doing rowing intervals one day and pulling one 50. I couldn’t pull one 50 on the rower and it was just tough. There was days where I did not want to be in the gym and I kind of just thought like, oh, this is how it’s supposed to be. This is games training, deload on the week before, and then you’re going to be prime ready to go. But hindsight, man, I look back and I was never really thriving there all around. It mean it was a good time. I enjoyed my time there. Don’t get me wrong, don’t think that I went to the gym every day like, oh my goodness, I don’t want to be here. That’s not the case. I just wasn’t as healthy as I am now all around in every aspect of my life.
Andrew Hiller (28:32):
I heard you say you gave too much by saying no a
Sevan Matossian (28:36):
Lot.
Andrew Hiller (28:39):
Is that correct? I connected a couple of different thoughts there. You said that you gave too much and it kind of took away because you had to say no a lot and it really wasn’t All you had to do was train. So if it wasn’t in relation to training, it was a no. Yeah.
Jayson Hopper (28:54):
Yeah. So I mean, it was tough. I mean, you don’t really understand how I felt unless you were actually in my shoes. I saw my wife struggling to be there and was, we were taken away from all that we’ve known here in South Carolina, and it was just tough.
Sevan Matossian (29:23):
Are you crazy? Excited to be back home?
Jayson Hopper (29:26):
Yeah, man. I mean, we got here, I drove here right after the games, and I remember driving into town and I was just crying. Just wow. It is crazy. I don’t appreciate home as much. I don’t appreciate home to the effect that I do now. I had to leave for a second to really
Jayson Hopper (29:57):
Appreciate it. Totally.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
Check out our other posts.