Sevan Matossian (00:00):
That’s, that’s exactly what I tell my wife.
Brendan McNeirney (00:04):
What’s that?
Sevan Matossian (00:05):
He just popped on, baby. Let’s do this. He just popped on. He’s ready.
Brendan McNeirney (00:10):
Is she okay with that?
Sevan Matossian (00:11):
He’s, Oh man. She thinks she won the lotto.
Brendan McNeirney (00:16):
Nice.
Sevan Matossian (00:16):
She’s the luckiest woman alive. 10 years.
Brendan McNeirney (00:21):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (00:22):
Dude. Warrior status.
Brendan McNeirney (00:27):
I was pretty pumped when I saw that. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (00:30):
10 years. Um, this is totally off subject, but, but, but I, I, I fell into a kind of a rabbit hole yesterday. I, I, I keep see, I see a lot of like, uh, um, people doing weird stuff to try to avoid germs, like just all over my town, you know, like they walk up to a door and they use their shirt to open, like, you know, it’s like a 17 year old healthy young boy. But he uses his shirt to open the door to Starbucks and like, just all these, and, and I see it as like, uh, I see it as mental health issue. I would be as arrogant to say as I know it’s a mental health issue. And by that I mean the effort that people make to avoid the germs is shows a lack of, uh, risk assessment and, um, is reducing the quality of their life and probably the duration or of their life because of these presuppositions they have about germs and viruses and all this shit. But anyway, when you work in a gym, do you see that shit crazy shit everywhere? Like people like Germophobes or they just can’t even be in there?
Brendan McNeirney (01:29):
I just, No. Well, the germophobe I do see cleaning them their hands or like spraying down bars excessively. I suggest people do it, but I like you, man. I don’t, I think the more things you’re exposed to, the better and your immune system is probably going to be. So
Sevan Matossian (01:44):
Do you use Ask Gaskets personally?
Brendan McNeirney (01:47):
No, I don’t.
Sevan Matossian (01:48):
Yeah. Mean neither. I do a wipe though. I do a Wipe <laugh>. So you, Yeah. You know what? Now that you mention it as a young man, I think I did use Young Ask Gaskets and somewhere probably in my thirties I stopped. I don’t, but I do wipe the seat off. I do take a big old handful of toilet paper that probably is like three tree, three giant Redwoods worth of toilet paper. And I wiped a seat.
Brendan McNeirney (02:11):
I like a home court advantage if I’m going number two. But, um,
Sevan Matossian (02:14):
That’s true,
Brendan McNeirney (02:15):
You know? But if I’m out in the public, I’m gonna give it a once over, regardless.
Sevan Matossian (02:20):
And I also wipe the area below, like, you know, the part that’s closest to you at the tip. I wipe that kind of just in case I’m sitting down and I don’t want my pants or my shorts maybe touching like, some, uh, residual piss, like on the lower side of the,
Brendan McNeirney (02:33):
Yeah. Plus, uh, the front of the bowl, man. Someone with a giant Don probably is rubbing against
Sevan Matossian (02:39):
<laugh>.
Brendan McNeirney (02:40):
I’m not down rubbing my dog on someone else’s dog. Left.
Sevan Matossian (02:44):
The, the humble man knows that there may be a giant dog in the area. <laugh>. Hey, um, when you had, you have, you have two daughters? Yes. And were you pretty fastidious about that too? Like when you would take him into the bathroom, like they gotta take a Dee, you wiped the whole she down, wipe down the sides, make sure like their pants or their dress or whatever wouldn’t touch that?
Brendan McNeirney (03:03):
I mean, yes and no. Uh, when they were not, not like excessively though. Just if there was something on the seat, I would give it again, a once over, but I didn’t like spend like, you know, 15 minutes doing any extra cleanup. It was like, you gotta go in and go get out. I don’t, you know,
Sevan Matossian (03:20):
I didn’t clean it. Yeah. I didn’t carry any spray or anything. But, Or, or, but I would, but I would, I would wipe it down even if I thought it was clean. I just figured,
Brendan McNeirney (03:29):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (03:30):
I, I, I would do for them what I would do for myself.
Brendan McNeirney (03:33):
100%. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (03:36):
Hi Caleb.
Caleb Beaver (03:38):
Good morning.
Brendan McNeirney (03:39):
Morning.
Sevan Matossian (03:40):
Great hair. Kayla, me, Brendan.
Caleb Beaver (03:42):
Nice to meet you, Brendan.
Sevan Matossian (03:44):
Good morning. Brendan owns, uh, CrossFit Mecklenberg.
Caleb Beaver (03:48):
Oh, awesome.
Sevan Matossian (03:50):
Yeah, for, for 10 years.
Caleb Beaver (03:53):
10 years.
Brendan McNeirney (03:54):
We had a couple different name affiliate names that we had to change, but as my, uh, you know, CrossFit Mecklenberg has been seven, almost seven years in September. So, but then three years I ran a couple other programs and they let me continue carrying my affiliate from where I was at
Sevan Matossian (04:11):
Before working. Oh, this is, this is gonna be a good story. I could tell already. Was there any debauchery that caused the, uh, shakeups?
Brendan McNeirney (04:21):
Oh, yeah. We had some difference of opinions that each of the places that I was at the first was the Harris Y M C A.
Sevan Matossian (04:29):
Oh.
Brendan McNeirney (04:30):
So I started the global gym atmosphere and they, when I, they, they offered me $5 per person when I started. And so it was up to me to make count. If I had one person, I got $5. And I think they, I, I don’t think they thought I would be successful. And in the first six months we had 90 members and they were, I was getting $5 each time they came. And it got to a point where they saw how much they were paying me, and they said, Well, hold on now. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We gotta pay you insurance if we’re paying you this much and you’re doing this many hours. And I said, Well, that’s perfect because I need insurance. And, um, they, they weren’t willing to do that. They weren’t willing to create another avenue. I was underneath the umbrella of fitness, but we were really running ourselves. I was running it myself.
Sevan Matossian (05:19):
And were you in a racketball court? Was it that kind of at the ym, c a, um,
Brendan McNeirney (05:24):
We would go really anywhere. They would let me train. I was in the basketball court. I would take the, uh, stair steppers and do some GDS outside by the, um, by like the disability and fire exit. Um, and I mean, we would, I would literally just go wherever. There was a little bit of space for the amount of people we had. So it was very austere in the type of training we were doing.
Sevan Matossian (05:47):
Uh, um, so if you had 90 clients and you got paid $5 every time they came in, and every client came in twice a week, that would be eight times 90 is seven 20 times $5. That’s like four grand a month at A Y M C A.
Brendan McNeirney (06:02):
They didn’t like it <laugh>.
Brendan McNeirney (06:07):
They, they are, you know, like the, the Leto or the, like, the methodology for their stuff is that their family run and all about family. Well, I needed insurance. And when it came to it, they didn’t want to be family oriented. I was like, Well, I don’t have insurance, so why are, why would you not put me on insurance? And they, they had to create, it was just a big onion. I figured out with that, um, that Y M C A is just such an onion effect that I got like outed because I was, I was too successful. They, they didn’t want to see people. I don’t know if they didn’t wanna see people getting healthy, but I know the other trainers didn’t wanna see that. But, um,
Sevan Matossian (06:51):
What’s
Brendan McNeirney (06:51):
That?
Sevan Matossian (06:52):
No, no, sorry, go ahead. Sorry. They didn’t pay you. What?
Brendan McNeirney (06:54):
They just refused to pay me insurance, even though I was doing, you know, as most people do in the beginning, as you’re starting, I was doing 60, 70 hours, maybe not specifically training hours, but recruitment. I would walk through the gym and see someone doing a horrible pushup or something, and I would give them a little bit of, you know, not well critique, but not like aggressively critiquing, like giving them like an example of what might be a better way to do things. Yeah. That’s how it made all my clients was just, um, kind of, he helping a little bit, giving ’em a little bit of, Hey, I could help you get a, a a lot more healthy if you did something this way.
Sevan Matossian (07:33):
Um, it’s crazy. You, you’re already onto it. It’s like the thing, um, every affiliate owner I’ve had on here keeps reminding me of, Hey man, we’re in the relationship business.
Brendan McNeirney (07:41):
Yo, 100%. I, I’ve been in sale. I I was in sales pretty much most of my adult career. And um, first was like, I worked at a truck leasing place and as management training. So you kind of go through all like the, you have to get in front of people, get them to like, you rent the trucks and, um,
Sevan Matossian (08:01):
Alright, so I I are, you’re on your phone, right? No,
Brendan McNeirney (08:03):
I’m on an iPad. I my girlfriend with her iPad, but I’m trying to figure out
Sevan Matossian (08:07):
How about, Okay. He has a girlfriend. Okay. So he is straight. All right. So that means half the audience can just turn off now.
Brendan McNeirney (08:15):
<laugh>. Um, so I, I forgot where I was at there, but, um,
Sevan Matossian (08:22):
Clients and relationships that were in the relations, you’re in the relationship business. Woo. I just showed, I was listening.
Brendan McNeirney (08:28):
Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah, for sure. That, and yeah, that basically is the same thing. Like when I was at y the girl that helped me get started was Melissa Murphy and her dad owned Carolina CrossFit down in South Carolina and Columbia, so to city. Um, after a little while she started describing our space as, um, like a treehouse effect. When people came in there, they felt like back when they were kids, like, you know, you could cut up at work out hard, but still not make it so stressful that it was, you didn’t want to go. That’s the, what’s the thing that you want to have with, you know, building a relationship. But then also keeping pe the clients on is that they want to, they wanna be happy about coming to the treehouse, you know,
Sevan Matossian (09:14):
And you, you’ve had people get married outta your gym,
Brendan McNeirney (09:16):
Many, many people, many kids as well, um, in the right order for most of the times.
Sevan Matossian (09:23):
Hey, uh, um, when I was in growing up through, um, I remember in elementary school, like I really just wanted to go to school to see like my best friend Jeff Holman. Like all through, like, all that’s, I just loved going to. And if he was like sick, I was bummed. And, uh, when I was in college, I, I, by then I’d crack the code and I knew what I was interested in. So I would go to, um, I would go, I would, I would go to class and I would always try to find a pretty girl there to kind of keep me like motivated to go to the 8:00 AM class. Even if like I wasn’t gonna hit on or anything, I’d just be like, okay, it was like a treat. Okay, there’s that pretty girl with the crazy red hair or whatever, you know?
Brendan McNeirney (10:01):
Yep.
Sevan Matossian (10:02):
And, uh, then when I went to CrossFit, it was became like my friends, like there was a guy there named Leaf Edmondson or Dave Castro or Greg Glassman. Like, I got up every morning knowing, okay, I, at least, even if I didn’t wanna like, deal with anything, oh, I get to talk to Greg today. I get to go like to lunch with Leaf, I get to work out with, you know, uh, Matt or whoever the guys were there, they were like my friends. I get to do shit with them.
Brendan McNeirney (10:25):
So 10 years of training and I wake up at 4 43 every morning and, and I coach most of the morning classes. That is one of the harder ones to get. Um, coach,
Sevan Matossian (10:33):
What time is morning mean?
Brendan McNeirney (10:36):
Uh, am 4:43 AM
Sevan Matossian (10:38):
Oh four. Oh shit. Okay.
Brendan McNeirney (10:40):
So that’s not unheard of with what we do, but
Sevan Matossian (10:43):
You know that you get up at 4:43 AM
Brendan McNeirney (10:46):
I get up at, well, so I listen to Goggins and Joco and all those motivators, and I used to get up at 4 44, and then they said if I wake up a little bit early every day, that’s my time. And so I now set my clock for 4 43. So one minute per, if I coach 300 classes a year calculated out, I get one extra minute times that for me.
Sevan Matossian (11:08):
Um, I, I love the math, fucking love simple math like that. Hey. And so, um, do you know at what time is your first class that you teach?
Brendan McNeirney (11:17):
Five 15.
Sevan Matossian (11:19):
So do you know, like I get up at every morning at 6:00 AM to do the 7:00 AM podcast and I have every, I’ve done it now five or 600 times every minute is spoke like it’s, I’m in Groundhog Day. It’s, it’s fucking amazing. I just fucking love it. And I laugh at myself as I go through this first hour, like before I sit down and high Brendan. It’s crazy. Yeah.
Brendan McNeirney (11:39):
So same, is
Sevan Matossian (11:40):
It like that for you from 4 43 to five to, what is it? Five 30?
Brendan McNeirney (11:44):
It’s like, uh, the Dunking Donuts commercial time to make the donuts, but yeah, I get to, I enjoy going to make the donuts, so yes. Yeah, it’s same, same thing. Yeah, I have it all pretty much. I have a I snooze button. I know by the time I get downstairs, have my coffee ready, the second snooze hits, I know I gotta be out the door in the car. I leave it silent in the car because I have music and stimulation like pretty much all day. Um, and yeah, that’s my quiet time. And yeah, I have it pretty much set to a routine.
Sevan Matossian (12:14):
Um, Do you use bar soap?
Brendan McNeirney (12:17):
No.
Sevan Matossian (12:18):
Uh, ladies and gentlemen, this is why you listen to this podcast. If, if I use bar soap.
Brendan McNeirney (12:26):
Oh, bar, um, no, I use Alofa. You talking about it in
Sevan Matossian (12:29):
The shower? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I saw your Lofa. But you don’t have a, you don’t have like a bar of soap, like you soap your, like your, your armpits with and your cocking balls and your ass and your, like you don’t have a bar soap for that.
Brendan McNeirney (12:40):
Well, if there is a bar of soap and not a luva, then I would use a bar of soap straight to the skin. Straight to the body everywhere. Cocking balls
Sevan Matossian (12:47):
Included. And your lofas always in there?
Brendan McNeirney (12:50):
Yeah, I, yeah, pretty much. There’s Alofa in there, so I use gel because it’s just is easier to get on there. But if there was a bar, I would you put it on the Lofa and then use that to clean myself.
Sevan Matossian (13:03):
I, um, I think you have to log out and log back in. I’ve seen this problem before. We’re getting, we’re getting a crazy audio issue. A popping Sorry, I’m sorry. Sorry to do that to you. That’s okay. That’s okay. Am I right, Caleb? That’s a, that they log in. Okay. That’s what I thought I, I’d seen that for. So you just hang. Yeah. Okay. If I, if if I, if I have a, if I get in the shower and the bar of soap is gone, I’d say 90. Oh, here he is. He’s back.
Brendan McNeirney (13:32):
We good.
Sevan Matossian (13:33):
Yeah. If I get in the shower and the bar of soap is, is isn’t there for some reason, like it’s been whittled down to nothing, you know what I mean? Like, when it’s so small, like, it’s like it gets clumped up in your pubes <laugh>. I, 90% of the time I don’t go get a new bar. Like, even though it’s only like six feet away, I don’t wanna like get out of the shower.
Brendan McNeirney (13:52):
You could slip. Yeah, that’s
Sevan Matossian (13:54):
S <laugh>
Brendan McNeirney (13:56):
Safety first.
Sevan Matossian (13:57):
I’m just like, I’m gonna get everything wet that I’m gonna have to clean that up. And I always wonder what other people do. Like if you get in the shower and you don’t, and your bar soap is not, um, uh, there for some reason it’s run out, you didn’t replace it. And sometimes I’ll get in the shower like five times before like I, and I keep forgetting to put a new bar open there.
Brendan McNeirney (14:16):
So then you just go with water and nothing
Sevan Matossian (14:18):
Else. Oh, yeah. Or you don’t tell anyone this. I use my wife shampoo <laugh>.
Brendan McNeirney (14:23):
There’s still some something to wa wash up, but I did have a, uh, funny thing in the bath, uh, the shower this morning, I went number two and I usually have a strict policy on two first and shower.
Sevan Matossian (14:33):
Yes. Yes. And
Brendan McNeirney (14:35):
Then, you know, obviously, you know, and then, um, had to, uh, double back and it was, it was kind of dangerous. Yeah. Like I said, slippery on the floor and, uh, had to get back to the commode pretty quickly.
Sevan Matossian (14:45):
<laugh>, I’m, I’m glad you didn’t waffle stomp it. Someone introduced me to that Cons.
Brendan McNeirney (14:50):
I don’t know what, what that is.
Sevan Matossian (14:51):
That’s when you take someone on the show, introduce me that that’s when you take a shit in the shower and stomp it down the train. Oh
Brendan McNeirney (15:01):
My God. I’ve never,
Sevan Matossian (15:02):
What’s wrong with these people?
Brendan McNeirney (15:04):
Wait, but they, that’s intentional Or was it an, I
Sevan Matossian (15:07):
Don’t know. Ask Kayla. Oh, Waffle Stomp. Thank you. Defecating in the shower then Pro. I hope it’s not, I hope it’s not intentional.
Brendan McNeirney (15:15):
I hope not either. If I do, I’d like to know their policy before I take a shower at anyone’s house though.
Sevan Matossian (15:22):
<laugh>, uh, Travis at Vindicate doesn’t like the Yeah, it’s one of those stores. It’s hard, it’s hard to process. Yes. I, I agree. Get with the program. I agree. Well, awful. Stomp is aggressive.
Brendan McNeirney (15:31):
Would you consider then
Sevan Matossian (15:33):
A, that’s a mental illness. I’ll throw that in the mental illness category. <laugh>.
Brendan McNeirney (15:36):
What if you, if you chart it, I guess you don’t have to stop, it’s just rolling. But if you, you know, try to let one ride and,
Sevan Matossian (15:43):
Oh, my, I don’t, I think you’re using the word chart wrong. My son tries to use it like that too. Whoa. I think are suggesting that if you, if you think you’re gonna fart and a little bit of something comes out that it’s always a shark.
Brendan McNeirney (15:57):
Is that not what
Sevan Matossian (15:58):
The I told him your pants have to be on. Oh, it actually has to <laugh>. I told them the official, I’m a stickler on words. Oh, okay. When one attempts to fart, but shit simultaneously. Okay, well I guess I’m wrong. You give my son or my seven year old son. Right. So you don’t have to have clothes on. I told him, he’s like, I charted. I’m like, where? So just now in the toilet, I’m like that it has to, it has to get stuck on some clothing to be a shark.
Brendan McNeirney (16:22):
Anal. Yes. Okay, there we go. That’s technical
Sevan Matossian (16:26):
To double back. Um, tell, uh, so, so you’re, why did you open the CrossFit gym at the Y How did, how did that start?
Brendan McNeirney (16:41):
Well, so I worked for a lumber yard was my, uh, well I was a sales rep for all of Carolina’s and Virginia and the
Sevan Matossian (16:48):
Account killer, Let me put that on your resume. Hold on. Tree killer. Okay. That,
Brendan McNeirney (16:52):
You know, I did have to battle a lot of, uh, architects and, you know, the fancy, uh, smart thinkers about, um, that type of situation. But the, I went to Cedar School. I went to British Columbia and they educated us on that. And they say, Well, if you properly forest, I don’t need to explain that, you
Sevan Matossian (17:10):
Know, the No, but you’re right. It’s, it’s one of the biggest misconceptions. It’s a, it’s completely unbelievable how well forced are actually maintained when they’re maintained properly and that we’re actually are planting more trees than we’re cutting down. And it is a reusable energy source. Yes. And people are fu it’s crazy. I used to be one of those people. I apologize to all of humanity
Brendan McNeirney (17:30):
For that. Well, you’ve been educated on it. And that’s, that’s the deal. But everyone wants to use whatever these new composite products and, and they produce more carbon dioxide than anything. So
Sevan Matossian (17:40):
Anyway, And bad for your kids. Fuck using that kind of shit around your kids.
Brendan McNeirney (17:43):
No shit. And, and it’s not breathable. Your house should breathe and wood is better. But anyway, um, that’s what she said. But, um, she, so I, I did sales and the economy went bad and I had got my level one working at a bike shop and just, I love CrossFit. I would mountain bike, um, at lunch, but I would do CrossFit before work. And once the economy went bad, the company that wanted to hire me was out of a, i I live in Charlotte and Statesville is about an hour drive. And the, um, the people that wanted to hire me wanted me to be on the road five days a week. And my daughters were young. Like, I think she, my daughter’s running her mile right now, but, um, eight, I think she was 18 months. And my, my ex-wife was pregnant with her, uh, with our other daughter.
Brendan McNeirney (18:29):
And I was like, I can’t be on the road five days a week. I’m already, you know, my track record and I’m, I’m been successful. I’ll make more money than you think I will. And, um, they were like, Yeah, then we’ll hire you, but we need you on the road five days a week. And I stood up and was like, All right, well I, I’m good then I’m gonna go, I’m I’ll figure out something else to do. And the guy told me, I’ll hear, I’ll hear from you in two weeks. And I said, No, dude, you’ll never hear from me again. And so I, well, I walked away. I had my
Sevan Matossian (18:56):
Level work. I like his attitude though. That’s the kind of shit I would talk to.
Brendan McNeirney (19:00):
Oh, the, the guy who was trying to hire me.
Sevan Matossian (19:01):
Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love
Brendan McNeirney (19:03):
It now. So I did. So I went to the Y and I, um, I was coaching sports. I, I got
Sevan Matossian (19:10):
Wait, so you just went straight jobless and you’re like, Fuck it, I’ll just go apply at the y As a coach, you just filled out an application and you’re like, Look, I’ll coach some shit here.
Brendan McNeirney (19:21):
And, and I also, um, I was a referee, so I had been refereeing at the Y before just cuz I want, I, I like being around sports and stuff. So I was referee in sports, so I was
Sevan Matossian (19:31):
In the what sports. What sports?
Brendan McNeirney (19:33):
Uh, I did football, soccer, and basketball. And basketball was one of the toughest things to, uh, referee. I think I got run off by, uh, grandma at a U 11 girls basketball, um, game.
Sevan Matossian (19:48):
Like, you motherfucker, like chasing you to your car.
Brendan McNeirney (19:51):
It was the evils words that I could hear from coming from anyone. And a little grandma was doing it.
Sevan Matossian (19:56):
Dope.
Brendan McNeirney (19:57):
I love it. She’s like, make a call. And I was like, What do you want me to do? They’re holding the ball over their head. And so then once I made contact with the crowd, the woman just would not let me be alone. She killed me.
Sevan Matossian (20:10):
Uh, Brendan. So I hate to do this to you. You gotta hang up again. Sorry. I think eventually this thing resolves itself, but there’s a popping, It happens every like two or 300 shows. All right. For the unlucky one. Uh, did you guys hear, he’s sitting there, he must be sitting next to his gym and he said he saw his daughter run by running or Mile. Yes. Like that is awesome. That’s a one. How many men, women, parents are sitting somewhere right now? How many people are sitting somewhere right now where they can see their 16 year old daughter, um, training and it on, on a sun? I mean, this, this is, these are the things that are, um, correlates to showing that you, you’re giving your kid a better life, that you’re doing the right thing when you’re just happen to be sitting somewhere on a Sunday morning and you see your kid training. Uh, there’s a ton of parents who don’t know where their kids are right now, but they’re in the room next door watching their 60 inch tv playing some fucking video game with some fucking wacka doodles in fucking Korea or Russia. It’s a nuts.
Brendan McNeirney (21:13):
Yep. That’s my little mama’s.
Sevan Matossian (21:16):
Yeah. Dope. Oh, I like the glasses.
Brendan McNeirney (21:19):
<laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (21:20):
Uh, your oldest one is 16.
Brendan McNeirney (21:22):
Yeah, she’s, uh, August. She turned 16.
Sevan Matossian (21:24):
Yeah. And your youngest one?
Brendan McNeirney (21:26):
She is
Sevan Matossian (21:27):
14. Yeah. Congrats dude. You’re stoked.
Brendan McNeirney (21:30):
I’m psyched, man. They’re awesome little girls.
Sevan Matossian (21:33):
Okay. Town. So, so you’re a referee at the y um, you, you, you don’t have the job anymore and so you just immediately just cruise over. Are you panicked when you lose your job?
Brendan McNeirney (21:41):
Not really, no. I, I don’t, I had kind of a calmness really. I was, I, I kind of thought that I would get into CrossFit because at this point I’d been doing it for a little while and I had people that would train with me and I didn’t charge anything. I just loved it so much and would pretty much, I was Captain CrossFit. Anyone that asked me what, like, Oh, hey, you want to go do something? Yeah, but have you done CrossFit? Have you ever heard of CrossFit? And then, you know, it was a little much probably, but it really was the reason that people started following me is because I loved it so much and it did so many good things for me. But I had a calmness really. I, I worked out with another guy at the y Jim Hart, who was a special force guy, really driven to get a program started at the y We had different kind of visions of like how we wanted a program. I liked the Metcons and he wanted to do five sets of one deadlifts and Right. You know, that kind of stuff. So we matched together and met the, um, fitness director, Katie Wheel, uh, Kate Wheeler, Katie Wheeler.
Sevan Matossian (22:42):
Had you ever worked at an, at an affiliate Up to this point?
Brendan McNeirney (22:45):
There wasn’t affiliates. There was, well there was two in Charlotte. There was, and they argue over who’s first Ultimate CrossFit and CrossFit. Charlotte Andy handles plates
Sevan Matossian (22:54):
A and, but, but up until then you had, you had only been doing CrossFit at home or at the y like you would just go to the website and, and you learned it. You self top
Brendan McNeirney (23:00):
YouTube. Yeah. And main site and YouTube. Some of your, your videos with I guess maybe Dutch. I don’t know some of those.
Sevan Matossian (23:07):
Yeah. Oh shit. What year did you start doing CrossFit?
Brendan McNeirney (23:13):
2005 maybe for,
Sevan Matossian (23:13):
Oh shit. So even before you were on the site before there were videos?
Brendan McNeirney (23:18):
Yes. Um,
Sevan Matossian (23:20):
<laugh>. Oh my god.
Brendan McNeirney (23:21):
So I remember when I was talking to a guy yesterday that was, that visited and he’s been doing it since 2002 or something. And I, everyone, I introduced him to go, I said, This guy’s been doing CrossFit since 2002. And he’s like, Why are you telling everybody that? I’m like, Cuz dude, it’s, That’s impressive, man. Yes. You stayed on this methodology for as long as you have. I know. You’re successful at whatever you’re doing.
Sevan Matossian (23:43):
I don’t it’s 20 years. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s a good correlate too. I see, I see your point. Yeah. What does that guy’s vocation, what’s that guy do?
Brendan McNeirney (23:51):
Uh, he’s doing building now, investing in, uh, building around Charlotte, like, um, developing homes and town homes and shit like
Sevan Matossian (23:58):
That. A go getter.
Brendan McNeirney (23:59):
He, he, he’s just, yeah, highly driven dude, man. In fact, you know what’s funny? I told him this. His partner worked out with me at, um, they worked together back in real estate development together. That around that time the program, I’m sorry, not the program, the business plan that they wrote together, his business partner gave me. And so all this stuff happened. Like organically, this guy comes in and he goes, You know, Lou Andre? And I say, Yeah, I know Lou Andre. He gave me his business plan to show me how the potential for growth in a CrossFit would be. It was very aggressive. It was like a million dollar business in one year. Now in hindsight, <laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (24:40):
Yeah.
Brendan McNeirney (24:40):
I was like, well, that shit ain’t happening. But maybe, I don’t know, someone out there probably could do that. But, um, I didn’t really even care about making money. I I, I had enough money, you know, and I’m not, I don’t come from money or anything, but I just, I had enough to do the fun things That Ultimate was second. Okay. That’s, uh, Kevin Branford, but, um, Ultimate Jim. But, um,
Sevan Matossian (25:01):
Let the argument begin.
Brendan McNeirney (25:03):
I know I don’t whatever, either one of those. I for one, one b, I don’t care. But, um, I did visit them once or twice. They just weren’t close to me and I was finding out I could just do it on my own. And, and, and really I was getting people to do well, tipping pull ups, butterfly pull ups and all that stuff. People were like, What is that? You know, And that’s not pull ups, you know, the whole argument. And then I would do regular pullups with them and say, Well, I can do regular pullups, but I can also do these faster pullups for power output and kind of explain all the, that side of it without, you know, running ’em off.
Sevan Matossian (25:39):
But, um, what year, what year, how old are you now?
Brendan McNeirney (25:44):
Uh, I’m sorry, how old?
Sevan Matossian (25:45):
Yeah, are you now?
Brendan McNeirney (25:47):
I’m 46. I’ll be 46 in December.
Sevan Matossian (25:49):
So, So, okay. So you found CrossFit when you were about 30, right? At 30, Yeah.
Brendan McNeirney (25:53):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (25:54):
And I’ll get you back on track. I know we, we started a bunch of stories. So how did, how did, let’s go back to how you found it and then we’ll jump back up to, um, the Y M C A
Brendan McNeirney (26:02):
I found CrossFit from, uh, my friend Jake Brown who was associated with Todd Whitman some or I might be pretty.
Sevan Matossian (26:10):
Wow.
Brendan McNeirney (26:10):
So they were associated together, I don’t know, in the Special force or whatever, whatever they were doing. I
Sevan Matossian (26:16):
Don’t want to Yeah, that guy’s a serious og that’s about as hardcore CrossFit as you get Todd Whitman.
Brendan McNeirney (26:21):
So we were email, I was on an email, uh, thread with a 45 day program that Glassman, and I might be butchering what it is, but it was a 45 day AUSTER training schedule and it was a business week, five days a week you did some lifting with Bcan stuff that was relevant to the Canadian Special Force, I think it was for, um, and so I just, just followed that program and I was doing triathlon training too. Cause I wanted to be competitive and I didn’t know really what the avenue to take. And so I ran a 5k. I was probably two hundred and forty five, two fifty pounds str you know, I could bench and squat and do all the old stuff. But I did this program, I did a 5K and it took me 29 minutes. I did the 45 day program stuck directly to it. Times were, I didn’t know what the time should be except we were emailing back and forth. And so the competition side came out and someone would say they did the workout in 15 minutes, and then I would then the next day realized, well, I gotta go harder. And so I did. And so I did that and I cut five time, five minutes off my 5K time in 45 days, still not lose, I still was 2 35, maybe a few pounds off. Did it again, 45 days straight and got down to a 19 minute 5K and still at like two, 220 pounds. At that point I
Sevan Matossian (27:44):
Was like, Hey, sorry Brenda, uh, every, it looks like every seven minutes we’re gonna have to do this <laugh>. He doesn’t even say anything Now. I’m sorry guys. This happens every couple hundred shows. I, maybe it’s the, I, I don’t know. I don’t know why every couple hundred shows this happens. Okay, so, so you, you do this program 45 days and you’d never heard of CrossFit before, but it cuts five minutes off your, uh, 5k.
Brendan McNeirney (28:07):
My buddy Jake had told me about CrossFit. Okay. And then he sent me the email and now we’re on that email
Sevan Matossian (28:11):
List. What did the program look like in a nutshell? That 45 day Greg Glassman austere program,
Brendan McNeirney (28:16):
Exactly what you would think you
Sevan Matossian (28:18):
Do. Main site.
Brendan McNeirney (28:19):
There was a five K run one day. There was, um, uh, 15, 12, 9, 3 rounds for time. Um, Okay. So different time domains and, but it was nice that it was a five day business week because then the weekends were still my, you know, I could be with the kids and the family and stuff like that. But, um, and it
Sevan Matossian (28:38):
Was, And you were hooked at that point. You were hooked. It got in well
Brendan McNeirney (28:40):
Hooked and I was, I was mountain biking and thought I was gonna be a competitive mountain biker. Um, and then I stopped riding as much, but I did CrossFit, but I would ride now and again and I was a better rider because of it.
Sevan Matossian (28:54):
Um, how big are you? You look like a, you look like a big man in your, in your video. Are you tall?
Brendan McNeirney (28:59):
I, I’m five. I’m six foot, uh, six one. Maybe just the hair over six foot if I,
Sevan Matossian (29:04):
Are you too big to be a mountain bike rider?
Brendan McNeirney (29:06):
Yes. I, I’m too top heavy. I, I spent too many years as, as a younger dude doing bench pressing curls and not enough squats.
Sevan Matossian (29:14):
Oh shit. You found it, Caleb? Yeah.
Brendan McNeirney (29:16):
That’s the one. Yeah. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (29:18):
Dear, dear Dave Castro, I appreciate you mentioning to the world that the journal will be back in a year and a half. Yeah, it’s too fucking long. Bring it back tomorrow.
Brendan McNeirney (29:27):
I love that. I, I read the journal as frequently as it came out and I, I referenced videos from it. Um, I referenced people to it that were like, What is CrossFit? Go to the crossfit.com, go to the journal, read up on the different, it, it, it was great. Yep. That’s it, man.
Sevan Matossian (29:43):
I wonder if Dave’s running the media team now. You know, he was at my house the other day.
Brendan McNeirney (29:47):
I saw that on your thing, man, I met him once.
Sevan Matossian (29:50):
It was pretty cool. I saw the photo. It was awesome. He, well, it was awesome. It’s just the back of your head. I don’t even know for sure if it’s you to be honest. <laugh>,
Brendan McNeirney (29:58):
He was me. He.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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