Sevan Matossian (00:00):
Pumped. Hey, where’s that hat from?
Russell Allmandinger (00:03):
Oh, it’s a Durango Exchange. It’s like an outdoor store here in Durango, Colorado.
Sevan Matossian (00:10):
Oh, it’s cool. What a cool logo. Thank you.
Russell Allmandinger (00:13):
Thank you, sir.
Sevan Matossian (00:14):
Yeah. You know what’s funny is people were making fun of me for this hat because it got the rope in the front.
Russell Allmandinger (00:20):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (00:21):
But I’m a huge fan.
Russell Allmandinger (00:24):
I’m digging them. I’m a huge fan of the
Sevan Matossian (00:27):
Front.
Russell Allmandinger (00:28):
I like a bunch of these newer hats that are coming out.
Sevan Matossian (00:33):
Where do you live? You live in Colorado?
Russell Allmandinger (00:35):
Yes sir. I live in Durango, Colorado.
Sevan Matossian (00:39):
Hey, what’s Durango like? Is it like pickup truck town?
Russell Allmandinger (00:45):
No, it’s like a bike town bike scan Rafkin.
Sevan Matossian (00:52):
Oh, like bicycle?
Russell Allmandinger (00:54):
Yes, sir.
Sevan Matossian (00:55):
Outdoorsy town like Boulder. It’s like,
Russell Allmandinger (00:58):
Yes
Sevan Matossian (00:58):
Sir. Tons of people, people running around, all that stuff. Good, healthy vibe.
Russell Allmandinger (01:02):
Yes sir. It’s always busy. There’s a bunch of bikers in town this weekend for the holiday.
Sevan Matossian (01:08):
You got just a whole foods just filled with hot women.
Russell Allmandinger (01:13):
There is no Whole Foods? No sir.
Sevan Matossian (01:15):
No Whole Foods. Okay. Alright. Doesn’t seem very Colorado. What’s the store there in Durango? The spot where people go buy all the healthy stuff like the kale and the,
Russell Allmandinger (01:25):
Oh, there’s a natural grocer, natural Oasis. The Durango Co-op.
Sevan Matossian (01:34):
How big is Durango?
Russell Allmandinger (01:37):
So then I just moved up here about two years ago, so it’s all kind of new to me, but I think it’s around 20,000 people.
Sevan Matossian (01:44):
Durango. Okay. So it’s small. Why is it famous? Why do I know it? Was there some gunfight there or something? Or is it Some have some historical small city in southwestern Colorado near the New Mexico border.
Russell Allmandinger (01:59):
Oh yeah. 27 people. There was a kid named, I think Seth s that he does the world bike and stuff like, kind of like that Tour de France kind of stuff. And he won something in that this last year. He’s a local guy. I don’t know much about that world.
Sevan Matossian (02:21):
It says it was a historic mining town. Alright. That’s probably how I know it. I mean, it’s just one of those names. Everyone knows Durango, Colorado, but shit, with 19,000 people, you’d think no one knows it, but everyone knows it.
Russell Allmandinger (02:34):
Yes sir. Where are you from?
Sevan Matossian (02:36):
I’m in California. I’m in Santa Cruz.
Russell Allmandinger (02:39):
Okay.
Sevan Matossian (02:40):
Yeah, I was born in Oakland and then I’ve kind of been in this area the whole time. I went to college down south in Santa Barbara. It’s like 300 miles south of me. That seems like a lifetime ago, but I’ve always just been in this area.
Russell Allmandinger (02:55):
And you got a couple boys?
Sevan Matossian (02:57):
Yeah, three boys. Yeah. How old
Russell Allmandinger (02:59):
Are they?
Sevan Matossian (03:00):
Two, seven and one nine.
Russell Allmandinger (03:03):
Alright.
Sevan Matossian (03:04):
Yeah. How about you?
Russell Allmandinger (03:06):
Yes sir. I have two boys. I have a 22-year-old son and I have a 6-year-old son, Braxton and Quincy. Wait, how old? Old
Sevan Matossian (03:16):
You have two boys. Braxton and crazy.
Russell Allmandinger (03:19):
Yes, sir. Six. And what one? Say that again.
Sevan Matossian (03:25):
Six years old and 21 years old.
Russell Allmandinger (03:27):
22? Yes sir.
Sevan Matossian (03:29):
Two.
Russell Allmandinger (03:31):
And then my oldest boy is a marine security guard. He’s done two things or two tours or whatever. Yes sir. At one in Saudi Arabia at the embassy and one in Africa.
Sevan Matossian (03:46):
Dang. And you’re so proud, huh?
Russell Allmandinger (03:49):
He is my favorite person in the world, sir. He is a pretty cool guy.
Sevan Matossian (03:53):
Dude. That’s awesome. Were you in the military, Russell?
Russell Allmandinger (03:58):
No, sir. I was born with disabilities. I started having my first surgeries when I was three days old.
Sevan Matossian (04:07):
When you say born with disabilities, what do you mean? What were you born with?
Russell Allmandinger (04:11):
So then I was born with a real severe case of bilateral club feet. And then I have issues pretty much from my chest down. I’ve had over 30 surgeries. I’ve been through the medical system a bunch.
Sevan Matossian (04:28):
Dude, that’s crazy. I would’ve never in a million years thought that. Looking at what the physical specimen you’ve turned yourself into, you are a freak. Oh, Caleb. Hi. This is nuts. So as a kid, were you all messed up looking?
Russell Allmandinger (04:53):
Yes, sir. I started out having surgery at three days old. I wore those Forest Gump shoes. I’ve done all that. Yes, sir. So then my legs are real skinny. That’s why I rocked that pink flamingo, figured I should pick a bird leg and I picked a pink flamingo one.
Sevan Matossian (05:14):
Dude. That’s dope. Yeah. And why were you born that was your mom on drugs or alcohol or is it just something that just
Russell Allmandinger (05:26):
Happens? It was just something that happened. I mean, you get all kinds of different things in the doctor world and the medical world. So then I’ve been told it was genetics. I’ve been told it was just bad luck. But yeah, I mean I don’t put really too much thought process into that. I just keep moving forward.
Sevan Matossian (05:49):
How is your spine, Russell?
Russell Allmandinger (05:53):
It’s not good.
Sevan Matossian (05:55):
It’s interesting because your spine looks straight as shit, which you would think would be like, thank God. That would be the most important thing. I mean, you look like you fell out of Baywatch.
Russell Allmandinger (06:08):
Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. Yeah,
Sevan Matossian (06:10):
Yeah.
Russell Allmandinger (06:12):
I’ve gotten some more news over the last couple months. I’m just deteriorating pretty bad from my chest down.
Sevan Matossian (06:22):
Is that part of the condition, whatever your condition is you’re diagnosed with or is it the training, what’s going on?
Russell Allmandinger (06:29):
It’s all of that. So from the time of birth, it’s pretty much my whole spine and legs. And then as I’ve gone on and gone to more doctors, it’s turned into all kinds of other things. I got complex regional pain syndrome, I got all kinds of stuff with my back. They think maybe right now they’re doing more testing and they want to go down the road of maybe thinking that some of this is an autoimmune issue or something like that.
Sevan Matossian (07:00):
How old are you?
Russell Allmandinger (07:00):
But like I said, I’m 39.
Sevan Matossian (07:03):
Okay, so you had your first kid when you were 19?
Russell Allmandinger (07:11):
No, so my oldest boy, my wife’s a couple years older than I am, Quincy’s from her first marriage, and then I’ve raised that boy since he was six. We’re best friends.
Sevan Matossian (07:25):
Damn dude, what a cool life. And then this youngest boy, what’s his name?
Russell Allmandinger (07:34):
His name’s Braxton and he’s my biological son. So he’s a little bit of a shithead.
Sevan Matossian (07:42):
Well, it seems like you love him to death from your Instagram.
Russell Allmandinger (07:46):
Yes sir. For sure.
Sevan Matossian (07:48):
And he must be so proud of his dad.
Russell Allmandinger (07:51):
Yeah, I think they are.
Sevan Matossian (07:54):
Yeah. It would be cool to have a dad like you. Hey, you said that you were born with two club feet, but now you’re missing a foot, right? You’re missing a whole calf.
Russell Allmandinger (08:06):
Yes, sir. So it was like nine years ago that we decided that we should amputate both of my legs. We got through the first one and that hasn’t really gone the best. I can’t really wear a prosthetic the way that I would like to because of my issues and my limb is so bony and then my skin breaks down real bad. I have a tumor in my nub. So once I kind of went down that road, I wasn’t real interested anymore in trying to amputate the other one. I use a wheelchair a bunch to get around. And the main reason why I do that is just so I’m not dead in the water when my legs can’t get me around or when I can’t do the things that I want to, I use a wheelchair.
Sevan Matossian (08:53):
Oh yeah, I saw a Instagram clip where you were pushing blood out of the tumor. What caused the tumor? Why is there a tumor from the amputation? Is that a botch surgery or
Russell Allmandinger (09:07):
It’s called a neuroma and it’s like a collection of nerves or whatnot. So then just balled up in the bottom of my nub, you can get it removed, but there’s nothing that says that it won’t grow back in the spot. So they would shorten it, they would cut that spot out and raise it up. But there’s nothing that says that it won’t grow back there. And I’m kind of done with all that, sir. I kind of changed a lot of things over the last couple of years. It was around three years ago is one when I started my CrossFit journey, I changed my diet because the prior three years were the worst three years of my life. I started to, I never really took pain medication for none of my surgeries. And then it was around my 28th surgery, I started taking pain medication and then I just started letting those doctors give me whatever they wanted to.
(10:08):
And for the first year it worked out okay and everything was good. But the last two years, those last two years in coronavirus or whatnot is when I hit the worst part of my life. I got real suicidal. Everything was pretty bad. And then it was three years ago, I woke up one day and I quit eight medications, cold Turkey, and I just got back on track to doing things the old school way that I was raising that I used to. So then at that point, three years ago when I was still dealing with doctors, I needed five more surgeries and I just stopped all of that. So that first year trying to get my life back, I would wear my prosthetic leg no matter what. And I would open it up and I would get all these sores and I would just lance ’em and keep it going. I was trying to build back my mental game and I felt like that was important.
Sevan Matossian (11:09):
I want to go back to the first time. Did you say that was six years ago that they started putting you on pain meds or three years ago?
Russell Allmandinger (11:20):
Yes, sir. So it was about six, eight years ago is whenever it was around my 28th surgery that I first started to take medications for all my other surgeries. I never took any type of medication.
Sevan Matossian (11:35):
And what was the first medication they ever gave you?
Russell Allmandinger (11:39):
It was a nerve medication. It was a muscle relaxer. And then when they started me out on pain meds, they started me out on 150 milligrams of oxycodone a day.
Sevan Matossian (11:55):
Yeah, I mean, God, that’s crazy. That’s not even sustainable. That’s wild. That’s wild.
Russell Allmandinger (12:07):
It’s crazy, sir. So then I’ve started a charity. I’ve started a charity for all these types of reasons I think people should focus in on charities in America and why people even have these things and why it should be maybe a red flag to show that the medical system doesn’t work. We’re about to have this CrossFit games for the adaptive athletes. There’s a lot of disabled folks and these sort of things. But I just started going down a different road. I tried to start up this charity to give other folks real options because I don’t feel like through the medical system right now that they’re really doing anything to help anybody like me.
Sevan Matossian (12:51):
Hey, Caleb just pulled up that thing on Google and it said the dose on the high end was 15 milligrams every four to six hours. So even if you were on the highest dose,
Russell Allmandinger (13:03):
That
Sevan Matossian (13:03):
Would be 90 milligrams a day if you took it every four hours at 15 milligrams. And you’re saying they started you off on one 50?
Russell Allmandinger (13:13):
Yes sir.
Sevan Matossian (13:16):
Wow, that’s amazing. Hey, why then start you on, why did they wait so long? Why didn’t they just start giving you medication when you were a kid?
Russell Allmandinger (13:27):
I mean, they tried to push medication on me my whole life. I just never was interested in it. I never wanted it. I heard stories, I didn’t want to take a chance, none of those other sort of things. So then for the majority of my surgeries, I would maybe take pain meds for a day or two and then I’d flush ’em down the toilet and I’d just be good was I racked up like 15 surgeries in 10 years. I quit my job. My whole life just changed and I was worn down. So then they were trying to push ’em on me and it was around that 28th surgery that I was like, all right, I’ll do this. You know what I mean? I’ll listen to y’all. They were telling me that my quality of life would get better. So then I just started listening and they started putting me on three or four different types of medications, muscle relaxer, pain nerve, and I think like a Valium or something like that.
(14:28):
The combination of them aren’t as bad as it can get. So then I started out like that. And then for the first year I took those medication, I was kind of hard on myself. I thought that maybe my opinion of those medications because the first year on ’em, my life did get a little bit better and things started moving in a little bit better spot. It’s just not a long-term thing. And I really have never met anybody that is in pain that takes pain pills that hasn’t had an issue or those sort of things. So then when I was on that type of medication, it just started to get worse. Everything just started getting worse. So then they started adding more medication, my sleeping, my mental game, just all those other sort of things. And then at one point I was just as suicidal as you can get. I wasn’t happy about anything. And then the craziest part about all this as well is whenever I made that decision that I didn’t want to do this no more, I didn’t want to take medication and I wanted to try more natural things and stuff like that, the doctor that was writing me all those prescriptions didn’t even have a route for me. So that was another lesson that I learned in life.
Sevan Matossian (15:46):
He didn’t have an exit strategy for you to get off the meds?
Russell Allmandinger (15:49):
Yeah, no sir. So then when it comes to rehab or detox facilities in America, those are usually made for folks that have abused things. There’s not facilities like that for the disabled. If somebody that was disabled wanted to start taking medication and then somewhere down their road they didn’t want to take that, there’s really not nothing set up for us to go through that process in the right way.
Sevan Matossian (16:19):
Hey, were you on any psychiatric meds?
Russell Allmandinger (16:23):
Yes, sir. They started loading me up on those two the last year. Do
Sevan Matossian (16:27):
You remember the names of them?
Russell Allmandinger (16:32):
Not off the top of my head. I am not real smart, sir. And I don’t read real well, so pronounce things good.
Sevan Matossian (16:42):
Me neither. Me neither. I don’t read so good. Sometimes I get exposed on this show. I try to read something fancy and I get exposed on the show. What a wild, I
Russell Allmandinger (16:54):
Wouldn’t even try that.
Sevan Matossian (16:56):
No, no public reading for you.
Russell Allmandinger (17:02):
I can shoot from the hip. And that’s about it.
Sevan Matossian (17:05):
I want to go back to when you’re a kid. So you’re born and you already have the club feet and you have, what did you call it? Bilateral club feet?
Russell Allmandinger (17:14):
Yes sir.
Sevan Matossian (17:16):
And do you go into the public school system and they just try to keep you like a regular kid?
Russell Allmandinger (17:26):
Yes, sir. So first starting out, they tried to put me in martial arts when I was like four. There wasn’t much like therapy for those sort of things. They thought that that would be good. So I started out doing that. I grew up in the state of Texas in Hamilton, Texas. I played a bunch of sports there. I played football, basketball, baseball, power lifting. Wow. I did a little track in high school.
Sevan Matossian (17:53):
That’s fascinating. So your parents, instead of protecting you from that stuff, they just put you in the deep end. They’re like, Nope, kid, you’re going to do this. Good on them. What good parents? I
Russell Allmandinger (18:04):
Mean, I pushed court. I’m a little wild, sir. I’m a go-getter. My mom tried to get me to quit sports every year.
Sevan Matossian (18:16):
Yeah. If I were to judge you, you have a very, cause I would always
Russell Allmandinger (18:21):
Get banged up. I was always,
Sevan Matossian (18:23):
Yeah. If I were to judge you just by your looks, you have that, you got a little Connor McGregor in you, you got the square jaw and you got the fucking blockhead and you look like maybe you have an extra X chromosome. You look like you’re a lot of man to deal with
Russell Allmandinger (18:42):
Appreci, sir. Thank you.
Sevan Matossian (18:44):
Yeah, you look like you got a little bull rider in you. Can you hear me
Russell Allmandinger (18:51):
Okay? I’ve done a little bit of that.
Sevan Matossian (18:52):
You have done a little bit of that?
Russell Allmandinger (18:55):
Yes sir.
Sevan Matossian (18:56):
Yeah, I could see it. Okay.
Russell Allmandinger (18:57):
Yeah. But I mean, you grow up from where I’m from, you’re always jumping on the back of
Sevan Matossian (19:05):
Something. Yeah. Did you ever ride motorcycles? I,
Russell Allmandinger (19:13):
I’ve ridden some of those. That was always hard. My feet have always been fused. There’s really no range of motion in my feed. So that was always kind of hard. But yeah, I’ve ridden motorcycles when I was younger.
Sevan Matossian (19:26):
When you were doing these sports as a kid, Russell, say your last name for me.
Russell Allmandinger (19:31):
It’s all man dinger.
Sevan Matossian (19:34):
All man dinger. Yeah, that’s a great name. Russell Alman. Dinger Russell. When you were a kid and you were playing these sports, did they baby you at all? Were they like, oh, that go easy on him or any of that stuff in football or baseball or?
Russell Allmandinger (19:52):
No, sir.
Sevan Matossian (19:55):
So you’d hit the ball and
Russell Allmandinger (19:56):
You’d run, sir. Football was my main sport. Yeah, I would do all that. Yes, sir. I mean, not good. I mean, I can remember by the time I get to a freshman in high school and you get to finally watch film on yourself. Up to that point in my life, I thought I ran like Dion Sanders. And then the first day I see film of me running, I’m like, time out, bro. I got to quit. I can’t even believe that you guys are letting me out on the field with y’all. This isn’t pretty. This is embarrassing.
Sevan Matossian (20:32):
And your friends, everyone was cool. Everyone accepted you. It was, that’s just the way you are. You couldn’t hide it. Right. Anytime you walked, someone could see like, Hey, something’s up with this dude.
Russell Allmandinger (20:44):
Yes sir. I walked. Yes, sir. And then over the last eight years, I’ve developed balance and brain things and vertigo. So yeah, I look drunk all the time when I’m walking, sir.
Sevan Matossian (21:03):
And then, so finally, at some point, I forget what age you were, but you were in your twenties and that’s when they say, Hey, you should get on some medication to deal with the pain. And you started this three year journey of just more and more medication. Was it always more like each time you went to the doctor for three years it was just escalating the meds?
Russell Allmandinger (21:27):
It was always adding something else. For instance, I don’t sleep good in general, never have. And during that period, they added a sleep medication. And I could tell instantly that that was making me a little bit more suicidal, but in the same breath, I hadn’t slept in so long and I finally started getting a little bit of rest. So yes, sir. So then the whole medication, they just kept on trying to add more. They never ask you questions about what you’re really doing in your life, what’s your diet’s like? Any of those other sort of things. If you have a problem on this medication, there’s another medication that we can give you.
Sevan Matossian (22:15):
Hey, when you said you were getting more suicidal, what does that mean to be suicidal? What does that mean?
Russell Allmandinger (22:26):
Yes, sir. So then, I mean, I’ve had issues. I’ve had some of these thoughts my whole entire life, which would make sense I think for a person like me to have thoughts like that. They never were an issue or they never became realistic or things that I ever really thought that I was going to act on past that. But once I got on those medications and my whole life changed, I went from having a good job and being able to do a little bit more with my kids and all these other sort of things. And in that 10 year span I had had 15 surgeries racked up and everything just changed drastically. So back to your question again, sir. Did you ask
Sevan Matossian (23:15):
What does that mean if you’re suicidal, what does that look like?
Russell Allmandinger (23:21):
Yes, sir. So then at that point, it just got to a point to where I was just suffering so bad from pain and then the mental game and then I was spinning my wheels. I would try hard every day to try to get out of this boat, and it seemed like I would take steps back. So then it just got a point to me to where I felt like I was a burden and I didn’t feel that way. I was in a bad situation. I was in a bad spot. I wasn’t doing anything good for myself or my wife or my kids. And then that turned in. I didn’t think that I could get better. I thought that at that point when I’d finally started taking medication, that I was already hitting the worst spots of my life. So then it was never my goal when I started to take medication to take it.
(24:13):
But then as I’m starting to get into those bad years, it turned into, I didn’t think it was realistic for me to even try to quit medication. I thought that that was going to be the thing that could send me over the edge. So when I’m suicidal, you feel as bad, as bad, nothing good as anything. All you can think about is ending things and you really don’t want to do those things. So it’s like it gets you a little bit more sad, more stuck in your brain that you’re thinking this way and that these things are sounding like a good ideal. So then where my turning point was, was after about a year, two years of living that way, and I was already to the point of wanting to kill myself and maybe even thinking of some ways of getting the job done, I finally just said, all right, well we need to start over.
(25:12):
We need to quit all these meds. We need to get all this out of our system. If we’re already talking about dying, then we need to try this and we need to go down that road. So then I just woke up one day, I told my wife that I was going to quit these medications, cold Turkey, that I was done with them. That’s when I phoned my doctor and I started asking him for solutions for these problems. He told me he didn’t have a solution. He asked me how I was going to go about it. I said, I’m just going to quit these things, cold Turkey. He wasn’t too fond of that. He thought bad things could happen, but in the same breath, he was okay with me doing it. And he wanted to write me more Xanax and Xmas for me to detox those other medications. And that wasn’t the boat that I wanted to be in. So I just woke up one day and I quit ’em all. Cold Turkey. Turkey. I never cheated one time since then, I’m not interested in ever taking meds again. And my whole goal now is just trying to help out other folks not end up in some of these same boats.
Sevan Matossian (26:19):
It’s interesting. You said something that I haven’t heard before, but that resonates with me. There’s two things. You felt like a burden and then you also felt like there was no way out. Like, Hey, I’m on all these meds, I can’t get off and I’m a burden on other people. And I don’t think people realize. I think that’s why we have so many unhappy people in the world. They don’t realize it. They think they want to be helped and taken care of by someone, but they don’t realize the cost of that. That as human beings, we really, our only value here is what we contribute to other men. And you weren’t feel like you were contributing anything. You actually felt like you were a burden. So if there’s a baseline middle where you’re not a burden, let’s say you’re just sitting perfectly still under a tree, right?
(27:09):
You’re at baseline. But if someone has to wipe your ass or get you meds or bring you food or pay for you, now you’ve slipped the other way. And I’ve seen a handful of women who marry rich men who lose their value in life. They lose what their purpose is and they don’t have goals or direction anymore, and they just fucking go crazy. They think their life is going to be great because they got rich, but they just fucking lose their shit. And God, you just fucking nailed it when you are. I wish more and more people could realize that taking from other people, you have to sacrifice a piece of your sanity for that when you start slipping fucking in that wrong direction. Let me ask you this, when you had Braxton, where were you on this journey? Braxton’s your youngest boy, 6-year-old boy. Where were you in the journey?
Russell Allmandinger (28:15):
Yes sir. I was in the start of the worst spot of that. So me and my wife had some issues having kids, and then when Braxton finally popped up, we were kind of in the back end of, okay, we don’t think God wants us to have kids or whatever. We finally get pregnant with Braxton accident. I’m dealing with a lot of stuff surgery wise. I’m starting to get bad on the medications to where they’re affecting me different and all these other sort of things. And then my wife ended up in the hospital. Braxton was born premature. That was one of the turning points in my life that started making things a little bit more rough. At that point, I couldn’t even wear a prosthetic leg. I didn’t have a wheelchair that was a lightweight wheelchair. My wife was in the hospital and all this. So then I was just running myself ragged, trying to make sure I’m getting her fresh juice, that I’m making her and flowers and good food and all these other sort of things. Yes, sir. So then when he’s first born, I’m going through it pretty rough. And to be honest with you, for about the first year of his life, I spent the majority of the time with him. And then over the next two years of his life is whenever I got real bad. And I would try to distance myself sometimes from him or my wife because I didn’t want him to get attached to me too much. I didn’t think I was going to be around. But all of that has changed. That’s my wife.
(29:53):
All of that has changed and everything is really, really good right now.
Sevan Matossian (29:58):
Hey, so you’re still.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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