Greg Hammond (00:00):
That’s awesome. How you been?
Sevan Matossian (00:02):
Awesome. So good. Bam. We’re live. Hey, are you in your office at concept two?
Greg Hammond (00:07):
I’m actually just off my office. I’m in a little conference room.
Sevan Matossian (00:11):
Is that where you do calls like this, podcasts and whatnot?
Greg Hammond (00:15):
I mean fancy ones like this. I do. Normally I do ’em from my desk.
Sevan Matossian (00:19):
Okay, fair enough. We’ll pick that as a compliment.
Greg Hammond (00:21):
I mean, I can show you it, but there’s not much in, it’s a lot of old motocross jerseys and some CrossFit paraphernalia from over the years, stuff like that.
Sevan Matossian (00:30):
What state are you in?
Greg Hammond (00:31):
Vermont.
Sevan Matossian (00:33):
Are you close to Fraser?
Greg Hammond (00:35):
Oh yeah. We grew up at the same town. I mean, of course I was decades before him, but Colchester, Vermont is where him and I grew up. And then actually Matt was just up here with HWPO and actually taught a couple of classes here for the employees, which is kind of nice of him, just so they’d come up and do it. And so we did in our new workout room.
Sevan Matossian (00:53):
That’s crazy. Cool. What kind of classes? Just like cross the Cross.
Greg Hammond (00:57):
He did sweat because there’s people here that don’t do CrossFit or even work out regularly. And so they hosted a sweat class and Jake and Josh taught the class and then Matt actually did the class.
Sevan Matossian (01:11):
Oh, that was fun. Cool. Jake Marconi and who? Who’s the other guy?
Greg Hammond (01:14):
Josh. What’s Josh? His last name, I forget. He’s part of the HWPO crew, but I mean, yeah. So when Matt first started, it was at Champlain Valley where I was going. I remember when he came in and didn’t know who he was. And then he actually, he didn’t even do CrossFit at first. He just went in the back room and was lifting weights and we’re just like, oh, it’s just another new guy. And then we saw what he was putting on for plates and we’re like, wait, that’s just not another guy.
Sevan Matossian (01:39):
Hey, is that Jim still there? Champlain Valley.
Greg Hammond (01:43):
Oh yeah. Yep, yep. So Jake, I mean Jade and Danny Harran. You don’t remember Danny.
Sevan Matossian (01:48):
Danny compete for years.
Greg Hammond (01:50):
Yeah, it’s their place.
Sevan Matossian (01:51):
Danny Harran still pops up now and again. Right. She’s a beast still.
Greg Hammond (01:57):
Oh yeah, she’s still a beast. And she’s doing a lot of other stuff too. They’ve been mountain biking a lot now and stuff like that. But yeah, the gym is still doing great. They’re killing it.
Sevan Matossian (02:07):
What’s a sweat class? Basically a cardio class, A moving class. I’m guessing you guys have a lot of machines.
Greg Hammond (02:12):
Yeah, I mean, thanks to Bill and Katie, our gym is sweet. We just actually redid it after Covid. When we came back to work, they asked me if I wanted to design the new workout room and we had built an addition. And so of course got ahold of Bill and Katie and they helped us out tremendously with that. So yeah, our gym’s pretty stacked.
Sevan Matossian (02:33):
That’s awesome. How big is concept two? Is there one location? It’s one world headquarters.
Greg Hammond (02:39):
There’s one world headquarters here in Vermont, which we think we have 80 employees here where we make all the carbon fiber racing oars. And then we have another subcontractor that actually does the assembly here too. A former employee of ours that went out on his own and they do assembly, which we used to build ’em all. I used to actually build rowing machines back in the day. Of course, of course. And
Sevan Matossian (03:01):
Take out the trash.
Greg Hammond (03:02):
Oh yeah. I mean, still do. I mean everyone here is cool. Everyone will do whatever needs to be done. It’s kind of a cool thing. But we have offices in Hamburg, Germany and Nottingham in the uk, Switzerland, Australia. I’m trying to think I’m missing some other ones. Yeah, Netherlands. So we do have offices in other places, but we outfit the world.
Sevan Matossian (03:28):
Did I meet, were you at the 2008 games?
Greg Hammond (03:31):
Yeah, actually I was thinking about that last night. I met you
Sevan Matossian (03:33):
Then
Greg Hammond (03:34):
I met you there. It was you. And then again Faster. John Gilson had a crew. So the only two people with cameras I think was you and then Pat that used to work for John. Yeah, but we met in Aromas. I think we had beers together that first year.
Sevan Matossian (03:51):
Crazy dude. Were you at the 2007 games?
Greg Hammond (03:56):
Seven. I wasn’t. Nine was still at Aromas, right? Yes,
Sevan Matossian (04:01):
Sir.
Greg Hammond (04:01):
So I was at eight and nine there.
Sevan Matossian (04:04):
And were you there in the capacity of working for Concept two at that time or were you there just as a CrossFitter?
Greg Hammond (04:10):
No, it was for concept two. So I already knew about CrossFit actually. I met Glassman and Dave. They needed someone who was prior service to teach some rowing at a seminar that was going on at Budd School in San Diego. So they needed someone who was prior service just to get on base. And so at the time I was doing triathlons and cardio stuff and some weightlifting and they’re like, who wants to go to a Navy SEAL training facility? I’m like, oh, I’ll go in heartbeat. So I went out there and actually met Greg, met Dave, got interviews to CrossFit, got my ass kicked in three workouts, and I thought I was pretty fit. And then I came home with just the fire that every new CrossFitter had and I was like, man, I got a lot of work to do.
Sevan Matossian (04:55):
So you show up there in San Diego, what’s the island called?
Greg Hammond (05:00):
Coronado.
Sevan Matossian (05:01):
You show up there at the Navy Seals training ground there. And you had never met Greg and Dave before, but you had, had you heard of CrossFit?
Greg Hammond (05:10):
Probably heard the name once before, a couple of weeks before.
Sevan Matossian (05:14):
Was this 2006? Seven?
Greg Hammond (05:18):
Probably six. I was trying to think about it. When Dave was on Jocko’s podcast, I’m almost thinking that Jocko might’ve been in that class that I was at and I didn’t know any of these guys. It was my first experience. I went into this
Sevan Matossian (05:29):
Thinking wasn’t the single podcast in the world at that time, Greg.
Greg Hammond (05:33):
How old was the internet then? The
Sevan Matossian (05:35):
Internet? I don’t even remember. I barely remember YouTube back then.
Greg Hammond (05:39):
Yeah. But I was cool because I mean, what I knew about Navy Seals was Charlie Sheen and Hollywood and I get there and everyone looked very normal until I saw their fitness level and everything. And here’s the other thing I thought was cool. So my degree is in health science. So I had a four year degree in health with a focus on corporate wellness. And I’m not a great student. I struggled through everything, but I got through with my degree. But I watched Greg talk and in four hours he said everything that four years of my college said, and he said it better and more articulate and got me more fired up and everything he said was spot on. So I went home and I’m like, yeah, this guy knows what he’s talking about. And after that, I mean I’ve taken my level one and my level two years later, but I had listened to it then. It wasn’t a full level one back then. I think it was just Greg doing a seminar, but he did the whole health continuum and all the usual spiel and everything and I was like, wow, this guy’s onto something,
Sevan Matossian (06:39):
Which is even more impressive because you were an expert in your own right and you probably had some pushback, okay, what’s this fucking guy going to say? I’m sure, right? I mean you as an expert also, but then here you’re hearing a guy talk and you’re like, holy shit.
Greg Hammond (06:55):
I’m very self-aware in the fact that I don’t know everything. So I usually go into anything kind of with an open mind anyways. But yeah, I knew right away we did a little bit of talk about nutrition, but keep in mind, so I graduated college in, was it 93? So we were still doing long slow distance training, eating as many carbs as we could, wearing heart rate monitors, all this stuff that I was told by my coaches that we needed to do. Here’s Greg offering this breath of fresh air saying, wait a second, I can eat what I want to eat for the most part, meat, vegetables, nuts and seeds, and I don’t need to wear my heart rate monitor. It doesn’t matter. You’re only going to go as hard as you can. And I’m just like, ah, this guy’s got it. And to this day, I still think unfortunately the cycle is coming back around. Of course, we’re all wearing heart rate monitors now again and all this stuff, and I’m like, it’s just like I want to see it come back around. I want us to realize that we don’t need all this stuff.
Sevan Matossian (07:54):
I saw some number that the average person after they purchase a wearable only wears it for like 45 days or something. And I feel like that about Apple watches. I have one and I wear it two days of the month and then I take it off again. It’s weird.
Greg Hammond (08:10):
No, I’m with you. I wear my Garmin and I wear it to bed for sleep numbers, but I mean, I can wake up and tell you now I wouldn’t wearing it long enough, probably what my numbers are just by how I feel. But yeah, I guess it is what it is. It it’s more of a habit now for me than anything.
Sevan Matossian (08:28):
Dale King, the owner of Port Smith Cross new documentary just dropped, sorry I don’t use that word. Drop just came out, just published, produced. It’s on live on iTunes now. Anyway, Dale King says, I want to go on record as saying Greg Hammond. Did I pronounce your last name right? Yeah,
Greg Hammond (08:46):
Hammond. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (08:47):
Hammond is one of the most underrated, unappreciated people in the entire CrossFit space. He in concept two are rock solid. Love you brother.
Greg Hammond (08:54):
It’s great. At least I know we got the check now. That was cool. So yeah, Dale’s. Dale’s awesome. Actually. I was stoked when now I was seeing all the OG stuff coming back out with Chase and him, and we did see each other quickly at the games, but I love this kind of culture inside of the culture of the OGs. I really, I love that feel. It’s kind of nice.
Sevan Matossian (09:19):
Tell me, what is the name of the company is Concept two, right? That’s the umbrella company.
Greg Hammond (09:25):
Well, there’s no umbrella. That’s us. Yeah, it’s concept two.
Sevan Matossian (09:27):
Yep. And is it privately owned?
Greg Hammond (09:30):
Yeah, two brothers family owned. We’re still a family owned business. Two great guys still work out every day. They’re in their seventies and will probably beat most CrossFitters of any age in the 2K. I mean these guys are solid.
Sevan Matossian (09:44):
And how long have you worked there?
Greg Hammond (09:46):
27 years.
Sevan Matossian (09:48):
And when you started there, how many employees were there?
Greg Hammond (09:53):
Probably 50 or so.
Sevan Matossian (09:55):
It was already big.
Greg Hammond (09:57):
Well, because back then we were assembling everything ourselves. And so a lot of it was, so the way that flow went, you’d come in, you’d make 30 machines from scratch, from parts, and then you’d test row 30 or 60 machines. So that was your workout. Then you’d maybe go make some oars or work with some carbon fiber and then we’d all leave and go play outside after. The owners are amazing people. They want quality. They sign everything that you make. And then if you get your work done in less than eight hours and your quality is still good, go do something. Go have fun, go, whatever. The only other rule was that a day that something’s not going right and you’re there for 10 hours, don’t bitch, just stay. So they’re really good managers and they would kill me if they heard me say manager. They’re just the two brothers.
Sevan Matossian (10:50):
So were the only two items back in the day. ORs and rower. The rower. The rower, yeah. And how many rowers were there back then? Just one.
Greg Hammond (11:00):
Yeah. When I came in, it was the end of the model B, which had the wire cage around it, and then the model Cs, which when CrossFit first started, that’s probably what most gyms had, these gray all metal around the flywheel model Cs. And if you have a model C and you look underneath the front legs, you’ll see a handwritten date and an initials. And if you see one that says gh, then I made your model C.
Sevan Matossian (11:27):
So the parts show up to concept two and then you guys would start putting them together?
Greg Hammond (11:31):
Yeah, yeah. I mean the rule always used to be if we could get something from Vermont first United States second, and then if it couldn’t get good quality there, then we would go overseas. So there are parts from overseas, but for the most part, the guy that bends our metals and paints all the metals stuff, it’s right down the road kind of thing. We could probably make a much more money profit if we ever went overseas, but it just will never happen. We’re very proud to be here.
Sevan Matossian (11:57):
Who invented the rower?
Greg Hammond (12:00):
Well, Pete and Dick, they’re the two brothers. They first, they were the innovators in going from a wooden ore to carbon fiber, which will be, there’s a Boys in the boat movie coming out. You’ll see a bunch of old wooden ORs from when rowing was super popular in the thirties and stuff. So they came out with this kickass composite ore that just revolutionized the sport. These guys were, well, Dick was in the Olympics. Peter and Dick tried to make the Olympics together and missed it. And so they wanted to make a machine they could train in the wintertime. And there’s pictures on our website. They literally took a huffy, bolted it to the barn floor upside down with a sliding seat and made the first rower on there. So there was other ergometers back then, but they were nothing like what you would notice now.
Sevan Matossian (12:48):
TERs company.
Greg Hammond (12:50):
Yeah. So if you go to, where’s on there? There’s one I should say under contact or something. You’ll see history somewheres on there. You can’t see the screen. It’s too small right now.
Sevan Matossian (13:00):
Lemme see. Photo gallery,
Greg Hammond (13:03):
Not the gallery. I want to say history
Sevan Matossian (13:05):
About Concept two.
Greg Hammond (13:06):
Yeah, about concept two. And then so that’s Pete and Dick. It looks like a really old picture, but that’s just black and white. But they started it in a barn in Stove, Vermont, which is like 10 minutes from here. And this was before me, but the original guys, they would’ve to feed the cows, start a fire, and then start making ORs back in the day. We moved into this building in the early eighties.
Sevan Matossian (13:28):
And you’ve been there since?
Greg Hammond (13:30):
Yeah, we have, but I didn’t get here until 96.
Sevan Matossian (13:34):
It’s crazy when I think of you, I think of as being there since the very beginning.
Greg Hammond (13:40):
As people are retiring, it’s getting to be not a whole heck of a lot of people that have been here longer than myself, except for the owners. But I’m a very loyal guy and I’ll be here as long as those guys are here.
Sevan Matossian (13:52):
Oh wow. Look at these ERGs.
Greg Hammond (13:54):
Yep. So that’s a model A right there. And that’s the first what was called the Crash bs. So Crash Bs used to be the World Indoor Rowing Championships, and it stood for Charles River. All-Star has been just a bunch of guys that wanted to row and drink beer. What you couldn’t see in the background of that picture was just a row of kegs. So it was like row of 2K, actually back then it was 2,500 meters. And then drink beer after with your buddies. I think one of the reasons I liked the original CrossFit so much, it was a lot like how we started is like you’d work out hard with your friends and then you’d bro down with ’em after and have a good time and nobody took themselves too seriously. And what you’re showing right now, people should watch that. There’s some cool stuff on there.
Sevan Matossian (14:37):
Why do they call it to crash bees? Greg,
Greg Hammond (14:41):
We didn’t start Crash Beef. The guys that started in Boston, so the river is called the Charles River in Boston. And so there’s Pete and Dick when they first started this building and because they’re, are
Sevan Matossian (14:51):
They big dudes? Are those big dudes? Yeah,
Greg Hammond (14:53):
They’re like six five or so. Yeah. I mean, anybody who I’ve met before will realize that I’m not a tall guy. I didn’t row in the water. I was a rugby player. That’s how I found the rower originally. So when I go to rowing events, everyone’s like, you were a rower skeptically as their eyebrow raises, but that’s the first rendition of the rower right there.
Sevan Matossian (15:17):
This is ridiculous.
Greg Hammond (15:20):
It started Revolution, man. We started a sport. There was no sport of indoor rowing until these guys did it. Same with the skier. There was never a skier until we invented a skier.
Sevan Matossian (15:29):
I’m going to come back to how it got the name crash piece, but I want to look at this machine real quick. So this is a Huffy bike flip upside down, sitting on its book rack and then the guy sitting on a sled. Well,
Greg Hammond (15:42):
That sled is an old tu piston rower. So there were some old piston rowers back then, but it didn’t give you the feel of rowing. It was essentially a lever arm that you would pull back and forth with a piston that would be on the hatchback of your car.
Sevan Matossian (15:57):
So when he pulls that, does it pull him closer to the tire? The whole
Greg Hammond (16:02):
No, I mean even on the rower now and don’t realize is that you actually come forward on the rower, not by pulling up with your feet. It’s the weight shift of your upper body that brings you forward. That’s one of the cues that we do to get people to row better, is we actually make ’em not strap in so that they learn to come forward without pulling on their feet.
Sevan Matossian (16:22):
Interesting. Okay. God, I don’t even understand how that works.
Greg Hammond (16:30):
I mean, really, and this is a great thing about it. This is why our machines last forever. It’s a chain, it’s a bungee cord, some gears, and then all the magic or most of the magic is in the monitor. Although that model A, that’s actually a Napa auto parts speedometer cable and an old bicycle speedometer. And there used to be a NAPA part number for that cable.
Sevan Matossian (16:53):
Seriously.
Greg Hammond (16:54):
And there might still be, we just don’t use ’em anymore.
Sevan Matossian (16:57):
God, that’s crazy. Do you have one of those in the office?
Greg Hammond (16:59):
Yeah. Yep. Actually just outside the door. I thought for a second. I had one in here. And
Sevan Matossian (17:04):
Is it functioning? Can someone get on it and write it?
Greg Hammond (17:06):
Oh, I did it. Yeah, I did it actually for an Instagram post. What was it for? Just this past winter I was here, or maybe it was in the spring, something was going on. I just walked by. I’m like, I don’t think CrossFitters have seen this before. So I got on it and people loved it. That was one of the most popular posts I’ve done. I dunno if you can see it on here, but this is the old, I can’t see it, the old model.
Sevan Matossian (17:31):
There
Greg Hammond (17:31):
We go. Model B,
Sevan Matossian (17:33):
And that’s
Greg Hammond (17:33):
Actually Judy Gear. She’s the wife of one of the founders here, and she actually was in the Olympics as well.
Sevan Matossian (17:40):
Hey, how much was this model A?
Greg Hammond (17:43):
So here’s the crazy thing, it wasn’t much cheaper than, so I think it was maybe 8 25 to eight 50. And most of our, the brothers believe in value, and so they try to keep everything as much as they can under a thousand dollars. It’s always been that way. And so I think at one point we had more price decreases than increases, and the only time we increases them is basically when our parts cost more.
Sevan Matossian (18:14):
Did you guys have an explosion during the So-called pandemic everyone and your mother? Absolutely. Yeah,
Greg Hammond (18:22):
It sucked. Yeah, I mean, so I went back from doing marketing. I wasn’t traveling to helping with customer service and taking, and it was like I started hating people. Everyone is freaking out. And I had this one woman that was basically telling me I was lying that we had machines even though we were an eight week backlog and telling me how she’d lost all this weight, but she’s going to get fat again because she has no way to work out. I had to explain to her what an air squat was and I said, listen, you do a hundred air squats a day, you wait that eight weeks, I guarantee you’re not going to gain any weight. And she was letting me have it. I mean, I might’ve even hung up on her, which is pretty rare.
Sevan Matossian (19:01):
But a good time though also, right?
Greg Hammond (19:03):
I mean financially, yeah, it was good. It was hard to watch our friends that owned restaurants and businesses that were doing shitty, and meanwhile we were selling a ton of machines. But it’s also one of those things, there’s also a backend to it, everyone bought then. So right now it’s not like we’re not doing bad, but it’s one of those things that everything goes up and then everything tapers off on there.
Sevan Matossian (19:30):
Are there four products? Is it the Ore the bike, the ski skier and the Rower. Rower.
Greg Hammond (19:38):
So
Sevan Matossian (19:38):
That’s it. And those are the four? Yep. Wild Wayne Short is PM six, is that what the monitors are called?
Greg Hammond (19:50):
Yeah, the monitors are PMs and everyone calls ‘EM PMs, but it’s not, it’s just pm. And it stands for Performance Monitor
Sevan Matossian (19:58):
On there is PM six on the horizon, hopefully with Bluetooth wifi firmware update capability. Appreciate the updates to ER data and look forward to future development.
Greg Hammond (20:09):
So right now, if you have ERG data, which is our app, and you have a PM five, I think most all PM fives, you can actually, now if you do the firmware update, you can download more firmware on there wirelessly from your phone. It takes a long time, but 10 or 15 minutes. But as far as a PM six goes, the way it works here is that we’re always working on stuff and we have a whiteboard in the engineering room and we put wishlists on it. Like, okay, we all use the equipment ourselves. So if somebody has an idea, they get out of the workout room, they have an idea, they can go on the whiteboard and say, you know what? I think this would be something that would be good. And it goes on the whiteboard, and then the engineers look at it as they’re working on stuff and well, that could work this and that. It’s very open source here. Those poor guys usually hear it from me about game stuff all the time. When Dave asks for something my go-to is to say yes, even if I don’t know. And then I have those guys try to implement it into the monitors, and that’s why we have things like undefined rest in the monitors and all this stuff that came because of CrossFit, because people wanted to get off a machine, go lift some weights and go back without the monitors turning off. And so we built that for CrossFit.
Sevan Matossian (21:18):
So that’s how big the community is. The requests from the CrossFit community have now made it as components on the
Greg Hammond (21:27):
Oh yeah. But it is not even so much that it’s like, it’s crazy. We’re like a, I dunno if it’s, maybe, I hope all companies are like this, but maybe not. We really enjoy our customers, people who want to sweat and beat themselves up on our equipment. We’ll take suggestions from anybody. I mean, if you’re willing to do that, then we’re willing to put it on the board and see. I mean, maybe not for just one request, but if it comes up more than once, then we would put it on there and try to make it happen for him.
Sevan Matossian (21:53):
Greg, I remember back in the day, there were these ideas and dreams and maybe it’s there, it shows how out of the loop I am. But you could be on a rower somewhere racing a guy somewhere else through wifi. Is that,
Greg Hammond (22:03):
Yeah, no, it’s possible. That
Sevan Matossian (22:05):
Should happen now
Greg Hammond (22:06):
Actually. So what we’re working on now, and it should be within this year, there could be an indoor race, say in Norway, and then you and I could be at home racing, but we would show up on their big jumbotron racing from home, but within that race, so everyone can race together. And then there’s,
Sevan Matossian (22:26):
Are there events like that? Are there big God, that seems like a charity event dream
Greg Hammond (22:31):
Actually. So what’s the big fitness festivals coming up in England? The Fitness
Sevan Matossian (22:36):
Fest Company Fit Fest?
Greg Hammond (22:38):
Yeah. So there’s a large indoor race going on the same weekend at Fit Fest and it’s called the Brick. It’s the British Indoor Rowing Championships, and I believe that they’re going to use that technology there.
Sevan Matossian (22:51):
Speaking of, will that be the first time it’s been used?
Greg Hammond (22:56):
I know it’s been tested and stuff, but as far as in a major competition, that might be, I mean, I might get my hand slapped from the engineers, but as far as I know, I think that’s going to be it.
Sevan Matossian (23:05):
Speaking of sourcing, just now, one of the listeners in the chat, caved Astro sent me this, isn’t this crazy? Someone’s listening to the show and then they send it to me. What? And I just pull it up, look it. They found it for me. I don’t even need anyone helping me, the audience.
Greg Hammond (23:23):
I’m even repping, I think my Juujitsu Club shirt there. That’s great. Shout out to Kingdom.
Sevan Matossian (23:28):
That’s a cool shirt. Hey Travis, that’s what I want. See that crown on top of that? I want to crown on top of the CEOA gold Crown.
Greg Hammond (23:37):
Oh, that’d be awesome.
Sevan Matossian (23:39):
Yeah, that’s killer. Look at that thing that thing’s humming,
Greg Hammond (23:42):
So I probably shouldn’t say it out loud. What always baffled me about that is how many fingers got caught in those things.
Sevan Matossian (23:53):
A lot of us have worked out with our little kids all over these machines and yeah, you couldn’t have your two-year-old wandering around the room with that thing going.
Greg Hammond (24:01):
No, no. It’s a great machine though. And actually it sounds amazing. It’s got a lot more of a whoosh than the new machines do, but literally you can’t see it when it’s spinning, but there’s actually plastic cards in the spokes and that’s what causes the resistance on there. So it was pretty low.
Sevan Matossian (24:19):
So could you add more cards for more resistance? Is that how they did it?
Greg Hammond (24:22):
That’s a good question. I don’t think so. I mean, I guess you could, but there was gears on it, so I don’t think you could, I don’t know.
Sevan Matossian (24:31):
Jedi Nelson.
Greg Hammond (24:33):
Oh geez.
Sevan Matossian (24:34):
Competing at Wheel Wad currently. Maybe he’s on the floor with his phone right now. One of the coolest events I did was the Pace Race when all the rowers were hardwired together at Water Palooza.
Greg Hammond (24:44):
Yeah, that was a custom build that cost us a lot of money to build that software to do that. But that was specifically for that one event. People loved it. So basically if you didn’t make a certain time cap, you were out and so it got filtered down and filtered down. So the guys that made it to the end put in some meters and it was hard. But yeah, I’ve known Jed forever. I knew Jed probably before either of us were CrossFitting from the old motocross scene. I used to do a lot with motocross. I still do do a lot with those guys.
Sevan Matossian (25:13):
Marco Calderon. I love Concept two rower. I’ve done Marathon Row twice. Yikes.
Greg Hammond (25:19):
Twice. Yeah, it should be at least once a year. Yik
Sevan Matossian (25:22):
Yik, but no shit, you’ll mess with that once a year.
Greg Hammond (25:26):
It’s going on right now. It’s called the Holiday Challenge. Katie Heer is doing it. I think a couple other of the legends guys are doing it every year, but so you pledge to try to do a hundred thousand meters or 200,000 meters between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I do it every year just to keep the iPASS and food from getting around my waist during the holidays. And so yeah, today everyone in the company here, we’re showing diehard and you can row and watch Diehard and you’ll either get, in one movie, you’ll probably get a half marathon, two movies you could get. It takes about most people here. It takes about three hours to
Sevan Matossian (26:01):
Do a marathon. Do you have a headset on or they have it really loud?
Greg Hammond (26:03):
Really loud. I got challenged to by the guys at Origin Jeans to do 2000 calories the first day on Thanksgiving before you had Thanksgiving dinner. And I just did that on the skier again, that was 32,000. So almost a marathon, but I had to go help my wife cook
Sevan Matossian (26:23):
Before that. So is that a less psychological war for you, dude?
Greg Hammond (26:27):
Oh yeah. So I always say CrossFit gave me exercise a, d, d. So when I was not doing CrossFit, I could just turn my brain off and do something for an hour trail, run for a couple hours, stuff like that. And then did CrossFit for so long that if I’m on a machine for 20 minutes, I start to get edgy, I got to get off, I got to go do something. So this is a good practice to kind of just get my mind to get used to doing one thing or even turn off,
Sevan Matossian (26:55):
Hey dude, there’s this spot around. I’m going to make this up. 40 minutes that you just run out of energy. I just noticed from being on machines, have you been on rowers so much and are these machines so much that you actually sense your body switching? I guess this theoretical idea, maybe it’s not theoretical of energy systems. Do you feel your body shifting? Okay, I’m now going to my gas engine, now I’m going to my electric engine. Okay, now do you feel that
Greg Hammond (27:24):
Usually I go into these workouts knowing how long it’s going to be. So if I’m going to do a marathon, I never get out of zone two. I just know that I’m not going hard. I’m just going now. When Matt came up, we were doing the skier and I forget. I think we were doing minutes on there. I mean then it’s just all anaerobic all out. So I can’t say I really feel it. I mean, I definitely feel the wheels come off in any workout. You don’t
Sevan Matossian (27:53):
Ever feel yourself in the marathon row being like, okay, I’m just out of energy. This is just like I’m done.
Greg Hammond (27:57):
No, because I mean, you think about it, it’s not even an air squat. You’re sliding on a rail. So as long as you can straighten your legs and pull your arms to your chest, you might not have a great pace, but you can do it. Remember we did the first year, we did the half marathon or 2K into a half marathon and everyone lost their minds. Top elite CrossFitters were losing their mind about having to do a half marathon. Meanwhile, we have 95 plus age group on our log book, and these 90 year olds are doing this on a regular basis and
Sevan Matossian (28:30):
Meanwhile doing half marathons on the
Greg Hammond (28:32):
Oh, full marathons. Yeah. So we’re probably the only sport that has age groups that go to 90 plus age group on there and these guys log their workouts every day.
Sevan Matossian (28:44):
Dude, that’s crazy.
Greg Hammond (28:46):
Yeah. Well I think we’re of the few non-impact other than swimming. It’s like you should be able to do it forever. I mean, even when you go to full straight leg in the row, it’s not under load. So if you could have bad knees and bad hips and still get away with rowing,
Sevan Matossian (29:03):
Hey, this is going to be a crazy question. Bear with me. I’m probably going to get pounded in the common first. Do 90-year-old sweat?
Greg Hammond (29:09):
That’s a good question. I don’t know. I mean, I’ve seen a guy, I think he was in his nineties at Crash Bees one year
Sevan Matossian (29:16):
Pouring what
Greg Hammond (29:18):
He was going for it. What it was cool is when you see somebody that old in their mind, they’re going as hard as any of the top crosser. When they sit down that rower, he’s got game face. He’s like, I’m going to tear the chain out of this machine. Now you see it real world. It looks like he’s barely moving, but in his mind he’s going as hard as possible and I love it. He’s the kind of guy I want to be 90 years old. If someone, shit, I want to say I could take that guy. And that’s what this guy was. I love watching the old guys go,
Sevan Matossian (29:47):
Hey Greg, have you noticed is when you’re young and you’re driving with someone who’s old, they think you’re tailgating when you don’t think you’re tailgating. And now as I get older, I.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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