Sevan Matossian (00:00):
Ba I’m more live. I’m, I’m, I’m reading this article this morning about, uh, it’s funny. It says, cultural differences between host, country cater and western visitors have resulted in a series of issues two days before the opening match. They’re talking about World Cup soccer officials announced there would be no alcohol sales in any venues associated with the tournament. The move came as a surprise to Anheuser Bush, who paid 75 million to be the beer supplier for the games. Then there’s also this one love arm band, this rainbow arm band. Good morning everyone. There’s this one love arm band that, uh, I guess, uh, seven of the European teams wanted to wear. And the, uh, FIFA saying, you can’t wear that. You have to stick with the official uniform. And it’s, it’s fucking crazy that they wanna wear this arm band. I, I, I have an inbox full of people who are gay who cannot stand the Lt I plus a thing. They don’t wanna be affiliated with that shit at all. They just, they wanna go back to the L G B. They don’t, they don’t wanna be associated with the, uh,
(01:15):
With the support of mental illness. I mean, I mean, if we just wanna be just completely honest, and it’s crazy that they’re pushing this as a, uh, they’re calling it one love, but it has nothing to do with one love. They’re asking these soccer players. There’s these European countries that want the soccer teams to wear an arm band that supports a kind of, uh, sexual, uh, intimacy. Same genitalia intimacy. It’s fucking nuts. Like how, how about, how about this, the soccer game not have any, uh, opinion at all on, uh, sex. But what’s even crazier is, is you, you, I think you would be hard pressed to find a lesbian who’s, uh, for, uh, the support of men in women’s sports. I mean, show me one absolutely. Nuts.
(02:09):
And they’re, and it’s, it’s so funny how they’re complaining. Shame on those who did not allow arm bands, one love arm bands to support the BT q I. I’m, I’m proud to wear that arm band. I I need to get some of these, uh, lesbians and, and gay dudes on the show to talk about this. They want nothing to do with this shit. And then what’s so funny is all of a sudden these teams, they’re, they’re bowing down to fifa and they’re like, okay, we won’t wear them. Oh, you, you really stand strong with your opinions, huh? You really care. The whole thing gets painted as, as, uh, AAR is somehow the bad guy or FIFA is somehow the bad guy. Okay? The compromise is that they can wear an arm band that says no discrimination. Okay? I don’t know why you have to do that, but okay, fine. The no discrimination arm band, fine. But, but why, why does a soccer game have to be supporting, uh, in coll, colluding and, um, being a codependent to people with mental illness? It’s fucking insanity. Hi. Good morning, Luke.
Luke Parker (03:30):
Good morning. Good morning. What’s up brother?
Sevan Matossian (03:32):
I’m just looking at the news.
Luke Parker (03:35):
Nice. I’m just drinking caffeine.
Sevan Matossian (03:37):
Yeah. Cafe, I’ll do some of that too. Hey, you, I, I, I’m also, I’m looking at this article right now.
Luke Parker (03:43):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (03:44):
We had a protest at the world’s largest iPhone factory in China.
Luke Parker (03:49):
<laugh> about what
Sevan Matossian (03:50):
Line in here that just was tripping me out. It says hundreds of workers were seen storming out of their dormitories from iPhone City. So they have 200,000 employees at one factory, and I guess they have dormitories there. And it’s called iPhone City. Oh my God,
Luke Parker (04:07):
That sounds wild. That’s like Google’s headquarters on Roy’s.
Sevan Matossian (04:13):
Can you imagine living at the iPhone factory?
Luke Parker (04:16):
IPhone city? Yeah. That’s wild.
Sevan Matossian (04:18):
Hey, it’s not, it’s not even, um, it’s not even, uh, gay conservatives, just gay people in general don’t wanna be lumped up. Women don’t want dudes in their lesbians don’t want dudes in their sports. No, no one wants dudes in in sports unless it’s dude sports. Well, it’s not, it’s not cool. It’s abusive, I think.
Luke Parker (04:43):
I agree.
Sevan Matossian (04:45):
But that being said, I wish that would come to the CrossFit games in CrossFit would have to deal with that. And I’d love to see, I’d love to see transition Matt Fraser and the go against Tia. I would, I would, the ratings would be off the chart.
Luke Parker (04:58):
We were actually just talking about this the other day in the gym. Um, I have to bring it up just cuz you’re, you brought that up. Uh, Angela,
Sevan Matossian (05:04):
Please blame me. I can’t believes you’re making me say this, but you’re behind your back
Luke Parker (05:09):
Play on you already. Uh, Angelo put this on the whiteboard is pretty interesting. Um, so first, without giving any background information, he puts a bunch of stats on the board. Um, he’ll, he’ll have to tell you the details, but long story short, the stats are like someone, they’re the same age and then it’s one person that has zero fighting, let’s just say UFC fighting, um, zero fighting experience. But they’re an athlete. They do CrossFit, they’re fit and the other person has a ton of experience. And then it’s like, well the one that doesn’t have a whole lot of experience is taller and weighs more about 20 to 30 pounds on ’em. Um, four to five inch, um, longer reach as far as height goes. Which one wins for sure the one that has experience The UFC fighter.
Sevan Matossian (05:57):
Yeah. I would think,
Luke Parker (05:59):
Well what if, what if the UFC fighter’s a female?
Sevan Matossian (06:02):
Yeah.
Luke Parker (06:04):
This, I mean we don’t have to get into it too much, but
Sevan Matossian (06:06):
We’re Oh, we can, if you want, we can
Luke Parker (06:09):
Uproar in the gym about it. It was hilarious.
Sevan Matossian (06:12):
We, we can,
Luke Parker (06:13):
And then at the end of it we’re all like, right, well we need to start DMing some, uh, some female UFC fighters and get a fight on YouTube.
Sevan Matossian (06:21):
Oh, that would be awesome. Angela versus I I saw a stat the other day that um, it was like 500 of the fastest high school sprinters, um, can beat male sprinters, can beat the woman’s world record in the 400 meter high school boys.
Luke Parker (06:38):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (06:39):
Can beat the woman, the fastest woman in the world in the 400, like four or 500 of them. I was like, holy shit. Yeah. And do you know what women can do? All women, uh, 1000% of women a hundred, uh, can, um, have babies better than dudes
Luke Parker (06:55):
Into that. All,
Sevan Matossian (06:57):
All of them.
Luke Parker (06:57):
You can’t do it. They’re, they’re just all
Sevan Matossian (06:59):
Of them. And they can all, and they can all breastfeed the babies and they can have an attachment to their boys and their daughters that us husbands will never have.
Luke Parker (07:11):
Well said. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (07:12):
My kids tell me all the time, well, you know, we love mom more. I’m like, good, you should and go eat your food. Fucking crack you
Luke Parker (07:21):
<laugh>. Hey man, I gotta, I gotta applaud you real quick. I, uh, I hadn’t talked to you in a while, but, um, I watched a little bit of those zelos games. Oh, and man, you guys did a really good job. I thought it was, I thought it was really professional. Um, not just how it was run, but it was really neat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before as far as, um, the broadcast goes, having you guys, it was almost like, you know, you guys were on like an open conversation as far as like almost a podcast, but it was live, you guys were talking about it right then there live multiple different people and opinions and highly decorated cross your career opinions coaches, um, just people who are fans of the sport. It was, it was good.
Sevan Matossian (08:06):
Thanks dude. That means a lot to me. I, I, I, yeah, I saw it as a milestone and, and, and not only in the sport but in technology. If we would’ve had better bandwidths so you could see the picture better and you know, a few thousand more dollars for microphones, it would’ve been absolutely nuts. It would’ve, I’m I’m, I’m so excited, um, to try it again. It was, it was, it was really cool. And, and basically you could go into the judges. I mean that guy, Jared gave us full access. So you could listen to the judges, you could listen to the challenges, you could go to the warmup area. It was just completely open.
Luke Parker (08:39):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (08:41):
And I think the athletes benefit. Don’t you like it? The athletes benefit?
Luke Parker (08:45):
Yeah, I mean for sure more. I mean for sure, right. More eyeballs, more people watching. Uh, more exposure. And it’s better, like said for the athlete as far as actually being able to see the athlete and it’s something that we joke around about. Like for example, um, the CrossFit games, right? And I’m not hating on their broadcast, but I’m also gonna hate on their broadcast.
Sevan Matossian (09:10):
Sure. I do it all the time going, you know,
Luke Parker (09:12):
Like obviously Rich, you know, and his team, the fans wanna see that, right? Yeah. But there’s some events where someone will be in second place and you don’t even get to see ’em the entire time until the end, until the the sprint finish to the finish line. Um, cuz they’ll highlight other teams and stuff. And again, like to pull away from that, going back to Zelos, it was neat how like even the people, whether it was pacing strategies or maybe they weren’t as fit, even the people that weren’t hanging on that top time in their heat, I still got to see them, um, where their maybe faults weren’t pacing or maybe, um, just how they attacked the workout, you know? So I thought that was pretty cool
Sevan Matossian (09:57):
And the angle still showed the winner in the back. That’s what I liked. You could still see the guy in the back. It’s like, hey, it’s totally doable. Yeah, they really, did you watch Rogue?
Luke Parker (10:07):
Uh, a little bit. I didn’t watch as much as I would’ve liked.
Sevan Matossian (10:10):
There was this one event where they started with a rope climb. It was one rope climb. Yeah.
Luke Parker (10:15):
Yeah. I watched that event.
Sevan Matossian (10:16):
Okay. And then so every time they said start, they had a drone in the air that was shooting the rig from the side. Yeah. So by the time the drone came around to show the front of the rig, they were all off the rope climb. So for eight, eight or heats or 10 heats or whatever, that one ended up being um, you never got to see the rope climb maybe like once or twice. It was like, dude, what, who the fuck is is is the person calling the camera? I mean it’s cool cuz it’s a drone shot.
Luke Parker (10:42):
Yeah. They kinda go above and beyond the shot, but yeah. Missing it, missing the mark. Um, I did notice that a little bit rogue. There was a few times, there’s a few lanes cuz if my friends right people, I wanna see how they do or people that I think will probably win. And there’s a few times they kinda lacked a few angles or didn’t get a lane or two till like the last few inches of the sprint finish, you know.
Sevan Matossian (11:03):
Um, I don’t know if it was last year’s games, but, or the one before, but I think it was two games ago, there was an event where it was a like a seven and a half minute event and Scott Panik and Travis Mayer were within one second of each other the entire time and they never showed it until the last three seconds. And I was like, this is a sport and a competition. We have to see them neck and like that would’ve been just seven minutes of tension for us. Right? Yeah. Maderas and Scott. Yeah. The old legend and the new fucking bad or uh, uh, mayor and Scott. Two, two legends just tearing it up.
Luke Parker (11:38):
Yeah. That’s, that’s rough.
Sevan Matossian (11:39):
You think that’s me calling ’em Legends? Like I’m saying they’re washed up
Luke Parker (11:44):
<laugh>. No, that’s not me at all. They appreciate that. No, it’s funny, I actually grew up my first year of CrossFit, um, like before I moved to Cookville and joined the Mayhem Empire, right? Like I was at training Think Tank and Travis Mayer and like all the coaches at Think Tank used to joke around about that cuz Travis was such a stud and day in, not day in, day out, excuse me. Year in and year out, continuing to show up to the games and put up top scores and freaky stats and stuff and be there for such a long time. Like even compete against Rich when he was an individual and like no one knows him cuz the broadcast just kind of screws him. So they used to always mess with him and kinda poking pro cuz it’s, it was ridiculous. I mean honestly like Right. Cause exposure’s been rough. I mean,
Sevan Matossian (12:33):
And then this year what was kind of funny is that he was winning the capital event for the entire like, you know, first half. And so he got, he got like seven minutes of running <laugh>, you know what I mean? The camera was just on Travis. It was dope.
Luke Parker (12:46):
That was cool.
Sevan Matossian (12:46):
And people were complaining. I’m like, no, no, this is good. This is payback. Hey, what happened to that door back there?
Luke Parker (12:55):
So it’s actually a sliding closet door and I was moving some stuff around in my closet and when I was yanking on it, the little like, I guess you can see this, like
Sevan Matossian (13:06):
It came off the track.
Luke Parker (13:07):
The metal, yeah, the metal thing kind of got twisted up. So I tried putting it back on the track and it wouldn’t do it. So I’m just kind of leaning up against the wall and now it’s like a nice little decorative piece.
Sevan Matossian (13:17):
Yeah, it is.
Luke Parker (13:19):
So I fix it.
Sevan Matossian (13:21):
You, you started over there at um, at training Think Tank and you walked in the office one day and there was Travis Mayer and you said, I wanna be as good as you when I’m your age.
Luke Parker (13:30):
100%. That was, that’s my day one story. Well like probably two months in the CrossFit. I was, I had a local box and then all the guys were like, dude, the baddest dude in the southeast where we live is Travis Mayer. You gotta visit Think Tank. That’s where all the, the competitive dudes throw down. And then, yeah, I walked in, I’m like, Hey man, uh, how do I be like, you help me out here <laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (13:52):
Was he receptive?
Luke Parker (13:54):
Yeah, he was cool. I’m sure he was laughing like, well got another one of these in the building and then he like looks over and was like, there’s Max Al Hodge, uh, there’s the competitive side. You need to go talk to them. It was pretty cool though. It was a neat experience. I was with my brother and we were like kind of amazed cuz we didn’t know what to expect. And we walked down this hallway and we see his shrine, all this like different medals and stuff like Granite games, gold and like all these different medals and we’re jerseys and we’re just like, dang, feel like we’re in like Rich’s compound or something. Like this is, this is really neat. But it was cool. He was always a big brother and me and tuck me on his wing for that solid.
Sevan Matossian (14:32):
Is is he guarded? Is Travis guarded?
Luke Parker (14:36):
Uh, touch more on that? Like what do you
Sevan Matossian (14:38):
Mean? Um, I get this impression from the times I’ve talked to him that he’s guarded, meaning, um, he has a very, he’s compartmentalized his life. There’s Travis, the family man who’s at home and there is, uh, Travis the athlete and he keeps them separate as opposed to maybe Rich. It’s just, just like you show up there at the, at the house and it’s just, just a pile of rich.
Luke Parker (15:05):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (15:06):
Like you see, like you see the chaos just wide open.
Luke Parker (15:09):
Yeah, I guess that’s a good way to put language to it and describe it. Um, I think there’s definitely like anybody, even myself, right? I mean once you get to know me truly on a deeper level, like you, you might be able to get to know a different side of me or I might allow you into different parts of my life. I definitely think there’s part of that too, right? Like
Sevan Matossian (15:33):
Did you ever go to Travis’s house for dinner?
Luke Parker (15:36):
No, but
Sevan Matossian (15:36):
I mean you’ve been to Rich’s house for dinner.
Luke Parker (15:39):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (15:40):
Maybe you’ve even gone over there and just opened the cabinet and helped yourself to something
Luke Parker (15:45):
<laugh> a few times maybe. But uh, yeah, I mean Travis was, uh, yeah I guess you put it in a good way as far as um, having like, alright, I’m in my family life and then I’m going to work. I’m clocking in. But Travis was still really cool about growing out, especially like on like trips whether we’re like out traveling and we were all staying in a hotel and going out in the eat together. I remember uh, like the, uh, they at think Tank, they had a big thing like their games prep camp and sometimes we just all pile in a car and go eat somewhere. And, but it was, yeah, I think you have to get to know him for those like walls to break down. But Travis is such a good dude. Um, yeah, I think he definitely does what you said as far as it’s a different, almost like I’m clocking the work and that’s CrossFit for me and then okay, I’m going back home to my family kind of thing. And like walking in
Sevan Matossian (16:40):
It’s um, dang
Luke Parker (16:43):
Dude, he’s strong.
Sevan Matossian (16:45):
He is strong, right?
Luke Parker (16:46):
I think people overlook his strength cuz he’s been strong for a long time and he just keeps slowly getting stronger.
Sevan Matossian (16:53):
I, um, what is it? It’s interesting. Let’s say, let’s say me and you, uh, oh, he’s got a, he’s got a house cleaner. Definitely underage house cleaner. Yeah. Um, it, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting when you have kids, so like if, if me and five of my friends went out and I didn’t have kids and we were, let’s say just some like at some outdoor sandwich shop, drinking beers, I would be fully present there. Yeah. But, but when you have four kids at home or three kids at home, whatever he’s got, or five or 12, whatever Travis is doing these days, you can’t, a part of you has to be mindful, you know what I mean? Like, am I gonna, how many beers should I drink? Should I bring half this sandwich back home to my family? My kid has a game at at four, I can’t, you know what I mean? It, it’s kind of weird. You can’t be um, you’re not all in.
Luke Parker (17:39):
Well, yeah, yeah, you can’t, you can’t just think about yourself like you’re saying, right? You gotta pick your family first as far as your thoughts and stuff. I think, I think at the end of the day, rich is just different. Like he’s more of a social person he loves thriving about around being with fam close family and friends. You know, like I, I kind of, I’m somewhere in, in the middle. Like we you brought up Travis Mayer as an example. So like, I think he might be more someone that’s like, um, yeah, don’t get me wrong. Like Travis can be social and he’ll go whether it’s a friend, I mean Thanksgiving small, right? Let’s use friends giving as an example. I see him go to different friends givings and do different things, but when it comes to the majority of his time, he’d rather be at home alone with his family.
(18:21):
I’m like that too, but I’m somewhere in the middle. I kinda like being social but not all the time. I feel like Rich is more of a guy that thrives like love having a ton of family and friends around and like it just kind of helps him with his flow. Sometimes I’m like, I don’t know, add I’m like, I, I don’t, I get distracted if I have too many people around me too too often. You know, I need some alone time to focus and kinda clear my head or do my thing or get my own things done, you know what I mean?
Sevan Matossian (18:48):
Uh, did Travis, uh, did Travis ask Luke how to get more followers on Instagram? <laugh>? That was a, that was a running joke for a long time. Whenever I would see Travis, I, we would bug his chain. Hey, 12,000. 12,000 follow. I think he’s up over a hundred thousand. Is he up over a hundred thousand?
Luke Parker (19:04):
That’s so
Sevan Matossian (19:05):
Funny. Well, he’s not su how can that be? Dude,
Luke Parker (19:09):
He’s grown a
Sevan Matossian (19:10):
Lot eight times CrossFit games athlete and a and a beautiful man too. There’s no, it’s not like there’s any shortcoming. He doesn’t have any shortcomings. He’s kind, he’s polite, he’s outgoing, he’s good looking and he is of one of the best in the game. Who has more him or Scott? PS Scott Does Scott, uh, how, how, how was it, how was it over there at training Think Tank? Did you just, did you just do a transition from there to Mayhem? Was it just like one day you’re there and one day you’re at Mayhem or did the reality show come in between those?
Luke Parker (19:50):
I can’t remember how much I told you about this transition cause I thought I’d shared this with you on my first podcast, but it’s all good. I
Sevan Matossian (19:56):
Mean, I think you may, you may have maybe
Luke Parker (19:58):
Not. Excuse me, we we’ll,
Sevan Matossian (20:01):
But you did some CrossFit before the reality show, right?
Luke Parker (20:04):
Yeah. For a few months and then I was at Think Tank first started and then I go on the show and then I come back for a little bit of time and think Tank was really cool. Travis actually had my back a lot in that time cuz I was getting a lot of backlash, obviously. Right? You’re always gonna have supporters and you’re always gonna have haters. Right. And then when, when the platform
Sevan Matossian (20:29):
Grows, that’s cool by the way, that kind, that kind of filters out the dbags from your life. Did you actually lose friends that you like friends from that show?
Luke Parker (20:38):
Like when you say friends you mean people like Yeah, I mean, no, I didn’t lose friends cause
Sevan Matossian (20:45):
Ah, I see, I see what you’re doing. Yes. They weren’t your friends, but did you lose people who you thought you were friends who, like they saw you the show and they’re like, no, I’m not gonna be a friend anymore.
Luke Parker (20:56):
No.
Sevan Matossian (20:56):
No. Okay, good. That makes, that makes me happy.
Luke Parker (20:59):
If there was, there was a few that were like, had questions, like they were skeptical. They’re like, huh uh, yo, what’s up with this and that. But it was cool, like, I think for the majority as in like 99% of my friends were like super supportive without like any questions. So,
Sevan Matossian (21:19):
You know, that would’ve broken most people. Absolutely. Like 99, 90 9% of the people would’ve gone. Has anyone from that show ever killed themselves?
Luke Parker (21:31):
Um,
Sevan Matossian (21:31):
Well you looked that up at have, oh, Susan’s nodding yes. Bachelorette or Bachelor. You see if anyone’s ever committed suicide.
Luke Parker (21:38):
I think, I think the question or the answer would be yes, but I don’t know necessarily that it’s intentional. Um, it was actually kind of rough. I had a guy on my season that had some rough stuff happened and then some like outside of the show allegations and they had to pull him from the season early while we were filming. Wow. We were talking on the phone and I was trying to keep in touch with him for a while. We were talking actually like thriving. Our conversations were thriving on CrossFit and functional fitness. Cause I had just started CrossFit and I was like doing body weight workouts at the mansion with the guys. And it was interesting, uh, for a few weeks of us consistently communicating. Um, I had text him a few times and he didn’t text me back and then I got an email saying that he had, uh, passed away. Um, but I don’t know that necessarily that it was intentional. Um, he had a pill problem and ended up going bad, but
Sevan Matossian (22:39):
Wow. Yeah. The pressure’s nuts.
Luke Parker (22:42):
Yeah,
Sevan Matossian (22:42):
The pressure’s absolutely nuts. Okay, sorry. So I, I interrupted your story. So you’re at Train Think Tank, you do the reality show and then, um, and then when you’re done with that, where does your, where do you start doing CrossFit? Let’s say the day after you fly home, how soon before you get into a jam and where do you go?
Luke Parker (23:05):
Uh, as soon as I got home I started doing CrossFit. Um, I was at Think Tank.
Sevan Matossian (23:12):
Okay, so you went back there?
Luke Parker (23:14):
Yeah, at the time I was kind of like, for a few months I was at a box, um, it was called CrossFit No Edge. Now it’s called like North Forsyth Training and Fitness in CU Georgia. And I would, my buddy, I used to help him coach a little bit when I first started cause I was trying to learn the sport, didn’t know much about it and I was like, um, kind of bouncing it out of his gym, doing think tank programming. And then I would go hang out with Travis up there at the boys and train at Think Tank. And then, um,
Sevan Matossian (23:43):
When you mean the boys, you’re saying Noah also?
Luke Parker (23:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Noah Chandler in them. And like, they actually, literally a week after I got home from the show, maybe, maybe not maybe a few weeks, uh, we did the games prep camp and I was hanging out. It was kind of interesting. It was like Lucas Parker with the Red Beard, the Canadian, like Aunt Haynes from Hong Kong who qualified for the games that year. A bunch of different games athletes. But cha the ones that are the most well known are like Travis’ friends or Chandler Smith and Knowles. And
Sevan Matossian (24:15):
Did you bond with Lucas Parker at all? Did you talk to him much?
Luke Parker (24:18):
Yeah, he was an interesting character, but we were, we got to be pretty tight for sure. He was, uh, man, he’s like a OG
Sevan Matossian (24:32):
For
Luke Parker (24:32):
Sure. That beard <laugh>, he’s crazy for
Sevan Matossian (24:35):
Sure.
Luke Parker (24:35):
His content is crazy, but it’s so funny.
Sevan Matossian (24:38):
Yeah,
Luke Parker (24:39):
For sure. He reminds me of the, what’s the guy, the liver king guy’s content. Oh, he’s like a OG liver king type of content. Yeah. And then I saw, I think I saw him the other day, like call out Liver King in one of liver king’s barbarian workouts.
Sevan Matossian (24:55):
Oh. I would like to see both of them in a, um, in a shot side by side. That would be interesting. Cause I think the liver king is smaller in person than maybe he looks in his pictures, you know what I mean?
Luke Parker (25:08):
I’ve heard he’s uh, yeah, a little shorter than what he looks
Sevan Matossian (25:11):
Like. Yeah. Like when I, I think when I saw him standing next to like Logan Paul, like he came up to like Logan’s shoulder. I, but I I recognize that Logan Paul’s a pretty tall dude. Yeah. Okay, so you’re over there and you’re doing that camp all, all good dudes, right? Chandler, Noah Travis seems like just easy,
Luke Parker (25:26):
Easy. Yeah. Such good dudes just yeah, young hungry athletes.
Sevan Matossian (25:33):
Except for Travis. You wanna be like him when you get older.
Luke Parker (25:37):
That’s right.
Sevan Matossian (25:38):
<laugh>. How, how, how old are you?
Luke Parker (25:40):
He’s the grandpa. He’s only a few years older than me. Uh, I think Travis is what, 30, 31 now? Maybe? I’m 28 so I’m actually on the grand scheme of things. I’m older. Um, but I feel really young because I’ve only been, I played sports college, baseball and then found CrossFit after like six months of triathlon training for fun with my brother. And then, yeah, I’m only like four full complete years in the CrossFit. So my knees and my body feel pretty fresh and new and young cuz most of my friends who are games athletes have been doing it for anywhere from eight to 12 years. And I feel like their bodies are just tore up. Like even like I love Angelo. He’s <laugh>. I mean, dude’s my best friend, right? So like, I gotta mess with him. Um, he’s, he jokes around, he’s like, I mean, you know, he is got a couple gold medals as a teenager and just did the games with me on a team and like he’s now, I, I don’t know exactly how many years he’s been doing it, but I think it’s north of 10 and he’s just like, yeah.
(26:46):
Uh, he always jokes around about retiring soon cuz of how long he is been doing it. But it’s a, it’s a real thing. Like it’s a lot of not just stressing your body but mental stress. And I’m already experiencing that as far as um, the day in, day out and I’m like starting my official fifth year on this season. So yeah, I mean I still got ways to go.
Sevan Matossian (27:08):
I I I’ve heard you talk about how the first six months were just you, they weren’t your words. But now that you’re saying mental stress, it sounds like the way I heard you describe the first six months that it was an absolutely insane amount of mental stress because there was so much work to do. There was nowhere to hide and you were kind of like, and you weren’t all in yet. You were still like, Hey I’m, I’m just taking this thing out for a test ride. And you, and I think I even heard you say every day or every workout you would think, okay, this is my last one, I’m quitting. And then after six months you got over some sort of hump
Luke Parker (27:40):
Accurate. Similarly. So part of me was like, I make the leap the leap of faith to go to Cookville knowing that training there in the barn. I was gonna make a decision quickly if this is even worth it in my life or do
Sevan Matossian (27:54):
Do I you have hard feelings from Think Tank when you did that?
Luke Parker (27:57):
No, I was really cool with all of them. Um, it was, it was rough on me though too, like, I mean you’re talking about a mentality of a guy who does team, a team with training think Tank. And I told everybody there like, I’m never leaving Think Tank. Like I’m committed to you guys, you can trust me because when you do team instead of individual, there has to be a trust, right? Because there’s teams all the time that happen and all of a sudden one person just bails out and they’re like, yeah, sorry, work came up her family stuff and I’m not committed. And that’s kind of scary, right? When you put your trust in other people’s hands as far as like, are they even gonna show up much less? Are they actually training hard and trying to be their fittest version of themselves? But anyway, long story short, I’m like at Think Tank I confirmed being on their team.
(28:39):
I’m like hyping them up trying to rally up the troops and training with my team there telling them like, Hey, I’m gonna lead us to like to qualify for the games as a first team through Think Tank to qualify for the games. And I want to eventually be an individual athlete, but I want to take the team to the games a few years and get some experience. And then that was when I’m, the 2019 games was my first time spectating. I was supporting Travis Chandler, Noah, cuz those were my boys at the time being at Think Tank. And then that was when I met Rich, met the cfo, Brian, and that goes into my story that, you know, met Hillary and all them and met some Mayhan people. And then that was when I went to visit for non-profit Maya mission stuff and got to connect on the all the things, right?
(29:24):
Faith, family, fitness, service, all that. And then yeah, I got kind of like a unofficial official invite and then I was just kinda like, hold up, this is for real. Let me know. I’ll pack my bags tonight. And then I back to U-Haul literally that night and launched my wife to Cookville and I’ve been there since. But it was cool. I, I got to pull all the coaches and Travis in the offices at Think Tank and they were all very supportive. Like, hey, like you need to do what’s best for you. Like we’ve, we’ve appreciated having you. So that was long winded, but I didn’t burn any bridges. I had good relationship.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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