Nick Mathew (00:00):
<silence> Not too much doing well,
Sevan Matossian (00:05):
Bam. We’re live. Hey dude, you look younger. Since the last time I interviewed you, I, I noticed that on your ig you look younger too. Are you getting something done to your skin? Like exfoliated or like <laugh>?
Nick Mathew (00:15):
I, I am not, I don’t, I don’t know about that.
Sevan Matossian (00:18):
Maybe just, or like rubbing
Nick Mathew (00:19):
Night up a little bit. Not as scraggly as some days
Sevan Matossian (00:23):
Or, or what are those? Uh, uh, uh, uh, a loofah. Are you using a loofah to like take off the dead skin on your face or something? A loofah?
Nick Mathew (00:31):
Definitely not.
Sevan Matossian (00:32):
If my wife knew what, where I washed my body with my loofah, she’d hate it. <laugh>, take your wife’s prized loof of her face and use it on your fucking dingleberries to clean out the Oh boy. <laugh>. What an asshole.
Nick Mathew (00:46):
That wouldn’t go over very well.
Sevan Matossian (00:48):
No, I have this, um, yeah, loofah. I have this, uh, uh, uh, bar of soap Nick that I got from, uh, there’s this affiliate, uh, called Portsmouth CrossFit. Uh, Dale King owns it, it’s like a rehab CrossFit, and they, they make their own soaps and they sell ’em and they have it. Okay. And he sent me a bunch of the soap. Yeah, it’s stuff like that. And he sent me a bunch of the soap and it’s like menthol or something. And I don’t know when I’m gonna learn, but I wash my ass with it. And I hate the fucking feeling <laugh>. I get like tingly cornhole. It’s like, dude, what? Who, why? Why would you ever make soap that makes anything tingle? Do you like tingly soap at all?
Nick Mathew (01:34):
Uh, no. I just use some normal gel soap.
Sevan Matossian (01:38):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so you just squirt a couple shots in your hand and, and rub it around?
Nick Mathew (01:42):
Pretty much. Yep.
Sevan Matossian (01:43):
Yeah.
Nick Mathew (01:45):
Nice. That’s quick. Get the job done.
Sevan Matossian (01:48):
Yeah. It’s, I don’t know why I make that mistake every morning. My buddy Andrew Hiller doesn’t even use soap. He said he hasn’t used soap in years. He just uses water
Nick Mathew (01:56):
Rinses off.
Sevan Matossian (01:57):
Yeah.
Nick Mathew (01:58):
Really? Yeah. I don’t know.
Sevan Matossian (02:00):
Wow. I think my butt needs soap <laugh>. Um, you’re going, you’re going to the CrossFit games?
Nick Mathew (02:10):
Yep. Round two. We made it
Sevan Matossian (02:13):
Crazy, dude. Uh, what a statement you made last year, huh?
Nick Mathew (02:17):
Yeah, it was a, it was a wild beginning to kind of the run for the games. Yeah. It was between, between getting in with the backfill invite and then like, pretty cool being able to get in there and win a couple events as well.
Sevan Matossian (02:30):
Yeah. You performed at, uh, at a crazy high level. Like you made a name for yourself. You put yourself, I, I don’t know how we say it and cross it, but, um, you put yourself in the, in the, if if it was, if it was the fight world, you put yourself like, uh, with a number by your name. You know what I mean? You’re in your top 15 player in the world.
Nick Mathew (02:47):
Sure. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (02:49):
Did you expect that?
Nick Mathew (02:50):
Um, when, when I first came in, I kind of said some things like, oh, I wanna win some events. I want to get rookie of the year. And just kind of like threw it out there. Didn’t attach myself to it too much, just because I did get the backfill invite. I did miss the games two years in a row by a point. And I mean, taking six plays at one of the semi-finals over the course of all the other semi-finals, I didn’t expect to be top 15 or top 14 at the game. So yeah, it was, it was pretty surprising last year.
Sevan Matossian (03:21):
Hey? Um, yeah. Crazy. Is that the, that was the sandbag,
Nick Mathew (03:27):
The sandbag event and the skills medley with the jump rope.
Sevan Matossian (03:31):
Wow. Like two, I mean, two, I mean, theoretically, not even theoretically two opposite events, huh?
Nick Mathew (03:39):
Yeah, I would say so.
Sevan Matossian (03:40):
Yeah. You can sow and punch someone in the face. Like what? Like you got, you got both ends of the spectrum. Uh, covered crazy dude.
Nick Mathew (03:48):
Yeah. Just gotta fill that middle ground now. Get good at regular CrossFit <laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (03:53):
Hey, hey dude. Were you, um, were you weird, strong as a kid? Could you do some weird stuff already? Like as a, as a, as a young boy?
Nick Mathew (04:02):
Um, I don’t know about weird, strong as a kid, I did a lot of things. Like I played a lot of sports, so, um, a lot of things like that pertain to like maybe the skills medley a little bit, being able to do a pegboard without my legs or, um, in just when I was younger, kind of like things in wrestling where we would just jump around and flip on the mats and I’d say become really body awareness, like have a lot of body awareness kind of came natural. And then I’ve been weightlifting since probably seventh, eighth grade. So it’s just been like a continuous like, um, kind of road to building strength and getting strong. And that’s probably one of my favorite things to do anyway. So that always stays in.
Sevan Matossian (04:45):
Um, the, the back squat, the back squat stuff is just kind of crazy.
Nick Mathew (04:49):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (04:49):
Oh, I didn’t send you a party. Really. Your back squats, your party tricks. Sorry, sus, I’m gonna send you these links now. I didn’t. Oh, yep. You already got it. Um, h how, how is that your part? How is a 500 pound ba back squat a party trick?
Nick Mathew (05:04):
Um, I mean, I don’t really follow any like, squat cycle to help like, increase my squat. Um, I mean, maybe I should, because maybe, I mean, I don’t know how necessary a, a heavier squat would necessarily be in competition, but, um, yeah, I’ve probably had the same pr, the same number for probably pretty while a while now. And I don’t ever really lose the strength to be able to do my squats.
Sevan Matossian (05:34):
What is your PR
Nick Mathew (05:36):
5 85 like all time pr.
Sevan Matossian (05:39):
And, and how often do you, do you, um, touch that?
Nick Mathew (05:43):
Uh, 5 85?
Sevan Matossian (05:45):
Not, yeah, once a year. That was,
Nick Mathew (05:47):
That was my lifetime pr so I was a little bit heavier when I hit that. Like normal CrossFitting PR is probably like 5 45 and I can get, I can get pretty close to that. Um,
Sevan Matossian (06:02):
And, and you enjoy, are you enjoying that right there?
Nick Mathew (06:06):
Um, other than it making me wanna pass out and destroy my collarbone, no. <laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (06:13):
What, what about, um, after I, after I, I was, uh, squatting with a hundred pounds the other day, front squatting with a hundred pounds. I was holding a hundred pound D ball. And after every set, I do like this thing like, like I feel like I might never be able to hinge ever again. So I have to like, do this thing, or I put my hands on the wall, or I feel like I have to stretch my cat
Nick Mathew (06:31):
Stretch out a little
Sevan Matossian (06:32):
Bit. Yeah. Like I, like I got mushed or something.
Nick Mathew (06:35):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (06:36):
I feel like that every time you’re done, do you feel like that every time, like you do a, a back squat with like 500 pounds or 400 pounds, like it’s like that, like you’re like, okay, I’m kind of stuck in this position for like a few seconds?
Nick Mathew (06:50):
No, not really. I’d say like a lot of it kind of goes to like bracing the core as well. Like, and I preach this when I coach my classes and stuff too. When you pick up weights and you pick up a barbell, you gotta like pick it up like you’re trying to manhandle it. Whereas sometimes when people go into like picking up a back squat, they’re kind of a little hesitant when they lift it off. And then I feel like they’re not braced and that can kind of compress their spine a little bit more. Versus if you get underneath it and you’re acting like you’re really tall and you’re like really extending, like your body can get a little bit, feel a little bit different.
Sevan Matossian (07:24):
Hey, when, when you saw the, um, the, uh, total and it being for Olympic lifts, have you, have you thought about what twists they’re gonna put on that? That it’s not that they’re, that there’s something that they’re not being, um, completely, um, that they may be being a little disingenuous, like that it could be a possible, uh, with dumbbells? Have you thought of that?
Nick Mathew (07:47):
<laugh> with the Olympic lifts?
Sevan Matossian (07:49):
Yeah.
Nick Mathew (07:50):
Um, I have not. I did notice that there’s only two lifts. You only get two attempts at it. Um, I don’t know really how I feel about that too much, but I mean, we’ll see what happens when we get to the games with it. If they throw any twists or if we have platforms out there to be able to stay warm on or,
Sevan Matossian (08:09):
Because, because they always kind of change stuff a little bit, right? Like they’ll tell you it’s gonna be a five K run and then next thing you know, it’s really a five K hurdle event. There’ll be 800 hurdles out there or,
Nick Mathew (08:18):
Yeah. So that one’s actually a little bit more like curious about if they’re gonna have us just run a straight five K or if there’s gonna be like obstacles like bring back the o course kind of thing. Or if it’s just gonna be just a straight up five K
Sevan Matossian (08:31):
Look, I made, I made 20 bucks off of your lifters.
Nick Mathew (08:35):
Hey, let’s go
Sevan Matossian (08:36):
Michael Banyan. I have the same lifters.
Nick Mathew (08:40):
Oh yeah, those tear lifters. They’re, they’re good.
Sevan Matossian (08:43):
Hey, when you squat, um, uh, uh, do you ever do that barefoot? You ever squat 500 pounds barefoot?
Nick Mathew (08:52):
Um, I have, I just did a squat workout in the garage the other day. Barefoot, I do, whenever I’m at home in the garage, I do a lot of barefoot training for like my accessories and stuff like that.
Sevan Matossian (09:06):
Toe spacers. What’s that?
Nick Mathew (09:07):
Oh, toe spacers. Yep, exactly.
Sevan Matossian (09:10):
And you do really squat with toe spacers on, or did you just do that for the, because they’re your sponsor?
Nick Mathew (09:15):
Nope. I definitely do whenever I’m at home working out in the garage sometimes when, like going to the global gym, usually where I do my strength stuff, they don’t allow you to be barefoot, so I can’t do that. But I, yeah, whenever I’m at home I train,
Sevan Matossian (09:30):
Uh, hey, I got that toe space or spring thing too. I have my kid do pistols on it. That’s, it’s kind of, it’s it’s kind of wild.
Nick Mathew (09:36):
Yeah, it’s a little different. Creates like the, uh, gets the stabilizing muscles in your knees and ankles and stuff activated.
Sevan Matossian (09:43):
You ever fuck with it with those black springs? Did yours come with those black springs?
Nick Mathew (09:48):
I’m too heavy for those black springs.
Sevan Matossian (09:49):
You are. That thing will stretch down
Nick Mathew (09:52):
And touch the ground. I haven’t, I just put the, I put the silver ones on. What was that?
Sevan Matossian (09:58):
I said that thing will touch the ground if you get on it with those black strings.
Nick Mathew (10:03):
Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. No, I just put the silver ones on and I, I guess I haven’t really experimented or changed up at all, but
Sevan Matossian (10:14):
I’ll wear these toes.
Nick Mathew (10:18):
Go ahead. You wear what
Sevan Matossian (10:20):
I said, I’ll wear these toe spacers for like two hours straight.
Nick Mathew (10:24):
Yeah, for sure.
Sevan Matossian (10:26):
You’ll do that too.
Nick Mathew (10:27):
Sit around. Yep, just sit around the house when I do my programming or watching movies and yeah, I’ll just sit there with ’em on
Sevan Matossian (10:35):
Because in the box it says to only wear ’em for like five minutes and I’m like, five minutes. How pussy do you think I am?
Nick Mathew (10:42):
Makes my feet feel really good.
Sevan Matossian (10:44):
Yeah, me too. Uh, you were doing, you were doing in one of
Nick Mathew (10:48):
Those five minutes maybe at,
Sevan Matossian (10:52):
Oh, our connection is jacked up. Where are you? Are you in your garage?
Nick Mathew (10:59):
I am in my garage. We got the, the fans inside eating breakfast and all that stuff.
Sevan Matossian (11:03):
Is the router in the garage?
Nick Mathew (11:04):
Is it not good? The router is right in the kitchen inside the door.
Sevan Matossian (11:09):
Hmm.
Nick Mathew (11:11):
Not good. I’ll give you
Sevan Matossian (11:11):
A, I’ll give you a four outta 10.
Nick Mathew (11:14):
Four outta 10. Is that better than Rogue was or? No,
Sevan Matossian (11:18):
Be better than who?
Nick Mathew (11:20):
Better than Rogue was or? No?
Sevan Matossian (11:22):
I can’t remember. Rogue was rogue bad?
Nick Mathew (11:25):
I don’t know. I think my audio, somebody said something about my audio at Rogue. I don’t have fancy microphones or anything like that.
Sevan Matossian (11:33):
What’s that white thing? Um, is that a heater hanging on in your ceiling? Pointed kind of down at you looks like a speaker. Oh
Nick Mathew (11:40):
Yeah, that’s a, when it gets to negative 20 up here in Minnesota, the garage gets really cold.
Sevan Matossian (11:52):
Look, told me I should hang up on you. Wow. God. It’s a tough crowd.
Nick Mathew (11:58):
Uh, oh. Do you want me to try to move somewhere else?
Sevan Matossian (12:02):
If you can. If not, don’t worry. We’ll make it through this. You still sound great.
Nick Mathew (12:09):
Okay, well if it gets bad, then I can try to go inside and move around and go upstairs and
Sevan Matossian (12:16):
It, it’s, it’s, it’s better having a bad connection than talking with someone who, um, English is like their fourth language.
Nick Mathew (12:22):
<laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (12:26):
Hey, who would that be? There’s a, um, say that again.
Nick Mathew (12:29):
And who would that be? Like Liz,
Sevan Matossian (12:32):
We had, um, the other day, I’m trying to think, I’m trying to think of his name. We had Mikel Ky on the other day and he had a bad connection and English wasn’t his, uh, primary language. It was some, it was, it was unique.
Nick Mathew (12:45):
Yeah. That would be a little bit of a challenge.
Nick Mathew (12:47):
I
Sevan Matossian (12:48):
This, um, this shirt you’re wearing, uh, Susan, do you see the link? I put the, um, the half shirt that he is doing bar muscle up on? I think we talked about this before, but if your nipple shows, does that mean, do you feel like you let yourself down? Like you cut the shirt too short? Are you like, Ooh, like that There should be like this one. I I if the
Nick Mathew (13:07):
Nipples showing when my arms are down, then yes. But if I’m moving around like that, my hands are over. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (13:17):
You okay with a little nipple down there at the bottom like that?
Nick Mathew (13:20):
For sure.
Sevan Matossian (13:23):
God, I hope you start a trend with girls <laugh>. I’m surprised how many videos there are with you without the crop top on.
Nick Mathew (13:38):
Yeah, just depends on the day. I don’t wear it every single day, but it de it depends what movements I’m doing. I don’t put too much thought into it necessarily.
Sevan Matossian (13:48):
Um, are, are you Oh, right. Are are you working Nick?
Nick Mathew (13:55):
Yeah, I do. I work full-time at my CrossFit gym
Sevan Matossian (13:59):
And, uh, and, and what’s that look like?
Nick Mathew (14:01):
Um, basically head coach, general manager. So I handle everything from making sure the gym’s clean, the toilets, the, the equipment, making sure all that stuff works to help coaching my coaches on how to coach better or, um, meeting with members and having, uh, success management meetings and all that.
Sevan Matossian (14:23):
And your training full-time?
Nick Mathew (14:25):
Yep. Yep. And I coach classes throughout the week as well.
Sevan Matossian (14:29):
Do you coach every day?
Nick Mathew (14:30):
Uh, four out of, probably, probably four days a week. I think it is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday.
Sevan Matossian (14:38):
And and how many classes are you coaching?
Nick Mathew (14:42):
Uh, throughout the week, it’s more just in the evenings. Um, I coach, we have, uh, strength classes and Olympic lifting classes at my affiliate as well. So I, I like, I enjoy coaching those classes on top of CrossFit. And then Saturday we have like a run through in the morning of like Sam 8:00 AM 9:00 AM 10:00 AM and I coach all those every Saturday morning.
Sevan Matossian (15:03):
Uh, um, do you think that, um, you, do you think you could be even better if you didn’t have to worry about work as much? Or do you think that the work actually keeps you like, sort of in a, in a lane that allows you to be who you are?
Nick Mathew (15:18):
Yeah, I think I’ve cut back a lot on coaching. Um, and a lot on, yeah, I mean mainly, mainly just a lot back on coaching, um, over the last year. Um, to be able to like not miss things in training or not have to rush things if I’m like feeling good. Um, I would say that it helps me kind of stay in a routine. So like every day I’m at the gym at 10 o’clock because I know I have to start working at noon, so I gotta get a couple hours of training in the morning and then I work for three hours or so. And then at three o’clock I have like an hour and a half window before classes start where I start training. So it keeps me in a nice routine and, um, yeah, I feel like if I had the whole day to just sit around, I’d kind of waste a lot of time.
Sevan Matossian (16:06):
Does, does everyone at the gym know that you’re competing at the games?
Nick Mathew (16:09):
Yeah, we actually have, heck, I think like 50 people going out this year.
Sevan Matossian (16:14):
Wow.
Nick Mathew (16:15):
Yeah, there’s a lot, a lot of people that’ll be out. We’re all wearing these. We, they all got bright, bright pink shirts this year. So
Sevan Matossian (16:23):
What state are you in?
Nick Mathew (16:24):
Minnesota.
Sevan Matossian (16:26):
And how far is that from, uh, Madison? Your town? Is it driving only five hours? It’s a five hour drive. Five hour drive?
Nick Mathew (16:32):
Yep.
Sevan Matossian (16:34):
Wow. Holy cow. Hey, how many people went last year?
Nick Mathew (16:38):
Last year? I would say maybe like 15, 15 maybe 20 people that were kind of in the affiliate. But yeah, this year they all got Airbnbs and they’re all getting houses with 10 people in ’em and yeah, they’re, they’re getting wild this year. <laugh>,
Sevan Matossian (16:56):
Hey. Oh yeah, that’s close. Um, do you like that or is there, is it, is it, do you feel the pressure of that many people going?
Nick Mathew (17:05):
Um, no, because I mean, they’re going ’cause they wanna have a good time as well. So I mean, they’re not there just for me. They’re there to get away with each other, have a great time, and, um, just kind of see me do, do what I’m gonna do in the process. And no, I don’t feel really too much pressure about it. I think this is actually less stressful. The games is less stressful than like semi-finals is
Sevan Matossian (17:29):
Because
Nick Mathew (17:29):
Even quarterfinals, just because it’s kinda like the pinnacle we’ve made it to the games like, we’re here, this is the spot, and now it’s just going perform your best and whatever happens, happens.
Sevan Matossian (17:43):
Hey, are there some weird stresses around the quarterfinals and semifinals that like, oh shit, did, did I not film this? Right? Did it not upload? Right. Like some weird stresses that like kind of almost don’t need to be there or shouldn’t be there. They’re not related to, well I shouldn’t say shouldn’t be there, but they’re not related to your athleticism at all.
Nick Mathew (18:00):
Yeah, for sure. Like I’m always stressed out about, oh, is this tape line measured on the right side of the tape or is Duke die me halfway through again? Or Yeah, there’s a, yeah, quarterfinals is probably the most stressful then uploading a video too.
Sevan Matossian (18:19):
Yeah, it, it’s crazy. I, I can’t, the people who missed the games, um, the, the two that, I guess the one that sticks out the most to me is Annika Greer, I guess. I guess it happened to a man on Anese, uh, and, uh, jelly, um, hostess, Hosty, yellow Hosty. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> last year. But, but the ones that are really crazy or how many people didn’t make Rogue because of that, right? Like someone like Colton Mertens didn’t get to go to Rogue because of some camera debacle or something. I can’t remember exactly, but it’s kind of crazy when high and there was another high-end athlete that got jacked up, didn’t get to go to Rogue ’cause of some weird camera shit.
Nick Mathew (18:59):
Yeah. I think it was what Travis Mayer had something, some issues.
Sevan Matossian (19:01):
Oh, that’s right. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. I mean that was their fault, but still
Nick Mathew (19:07):
For
Sevan Matossian (19:07):
Sure. Say it again.
Nick Mathew (19:08):
There was something with like weights, like not being measured or It was just a lot of stuff that like, yeah, it didn’t have anything to do with your fitness. Um, and it just completely adds to the stress of it. And then again, like how are you supposed to perform at your best when you’re completely stressed out about if the camera’s gonna go out or not too?
Sevan Matossian (19:29):
Uh, Kelly Gibbons. Uh, let’s go Nick making Minnesota proud over here. Yeah, let’s go. Do you have, do you have training partners?
Nick Mathew (19:40):
I do. I have, uh, I mean I, I I usually just rope a bunch of the affiliate members in with what I’m doing every now and again, but they enjoy it, they love it. And then I’m a big believer that just about like trying to make training fun. So I do a lot of my program, like, I mean, my entire program is what my affiliate does too, so I every, I mean, everything’s modifiable anyway, so it’s not about like what workout comes up. Oh, if Nick’s doing a really hard workout, you know what I mean? There’s levels, there’s rx, there’s RX plus, there’s scale. So I program what I do for classes and they really enjoy that as well. And they just, they just modify things that are a little bit different than what I do.
Sevan Matossian (20:23):
Hey, so, so
Nick Mathew (20:24):
Then it makes training fun and Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (20:27):
Yeah. You know, I think it, it’s interesting that you do that and I like that you do that. ’cause I think that’s where the brand value is for CrossFit. I think people, regardless of their age, whether they’re five years old or 80 years old, um, they’re proud to wear their CrossFit shirt because everyone knows they’re doing some hard shit. And what a cool thing to say is like, yeah, I’m doing the same programming as Nick Matthew.
Nick Mathew (20:48):
Yeah, for sure. I mean, and yeah, I hate that when people like just, oh, CrossFit’s not for me, or I have to get in shape to do CrossFit. I mean, I handle that whole side of things talking to people when they come through the doors as well. So like, yeah, I, and then, and then when they get in it’s like, yeah, you are doing the same thing that I’m doing. But everything notifiable like sure if you can’t do a handstand pushup, we have hundreds of variations for that or whatever movement it will be. And yeah. So keeps the community together too when we’re all doing the same thing and somebody’s knocked off in the corner doing their own thing.
Sevan Matossian (21:26):
T tell me, tell me the, the, uh, let’s say RX plus is, is that the one you do RX plus? If they see it on the board and they wanna know, oh, what’s coach uh, Nick doing, he’s doing the RX plus?
Nick Mathew (21:37):
Uh, yeah, we do le we have like level one, level two, level three with kind of how we’ve doing it. ’cause a lot of people are ticking like RX and scaled as either like a pass or a fail. So I wanted to try to eliminate that a little bit outta their head. So I kind of made level two and level one or le and level three so that they can just kind of figure out where a level is versus being like, oh, I scaled so I failed to workout
Sevan Matossian (22:00):
A verbiage to manipulate their egos.
Nick Mathew (22:03):
Yeah, a little bit.
Sevan Matossian (22:04):
Yeah. Fair. Yeah, I’m cool with it
Nick Mathew (22:06):
For sure. Of course.
Sevan Matossian (22:08):
Um, and tell me, tell me, so if you’re doing um, uh, bar muscle ups, what would, and and that’s level, that’s the highest level, what would the next level down do?
Nick Mathew (22:18):
Um, they would do a less rep scheme. Usually if, if I’m doing 12 muscle-ups in a workout every round, they would do more like six to eight, something like that maybe. Um, and then, and then down from there would be burpee pull-ups usually. But when we get to like, when we get
Sevan Matossian (22:37):
To scale, that’s kind of an asshole move, Nick, that’s kind of an asshole move. They’re being that, that throwing that burpee look at Susie’s disagreeing with me. Yeah. Making ’em do the burpees kind of like, Hey, fuck you. I don’t know buddy. It’s like the four to one with single unders and double unders. They say it’s scale, but it’s like four. You asshole.
Nick Mathew (22:55):
No, so we <laugh> the
Sevan Matossian (22:56):
Burpees a little tough. You’re kind of punking. I’m like, oh, okay. You don’t wanna learn to bar muscle up but make you do burpee in there.
Nick Mathew (23:02):
Yeah. So the, so the level one, we try to change the scaling progression so it’s not the same scaling progression when they’re doing it. Yeah, yeah. So like one day Yeah, it’s burpee pull-ups next day maybe it’s if I’m doing 12 muscle-ups. Okay, you’re gonna do 12 strict pull-ups and then 12 dips or 12 pushups.
Sevan Matossian (23:24):
Oh,
Nick Mathew (23:24):
Okay. And kind of try to switch that a little bit.
Sevan Matossian (23:26):
Yeah, he’s gotta throw the dip
Nick Mathew (23:28):
When they do, they do a lot of burpees.
Sevan Matossian (23:31):
Hey, and then, and then what about the guy? What about the guy who can’t do anything? He comes in there but he wants to get at it. Uh, you know, he’s, he’s um, I don’t know, let’s say she, she’s 16 years old. Uh, she’s in, she’s in, you know, good, she’s a swimmer or something. She’s in good shape, but she can’t do a pull-up and it’s, she can’t even do one pull-up and it’s 12 bar muscle up in the workout somewhere. What’s she do?
Nick Mathew (23:54):
So we do, I mean, banded assisted pull-ups, put the band up so that they can do ’em and get the range of motion there. Ring rows. Yeah, there’s, I mean, heck you could even go down to, if somebody’s really unathletic, you can just do bent over rows or p v c lat pull down.
Sevan Matossian (24:09):
Oh,
Nick Mathew (24:11):
And there’s, and there’s endless endless ways to scale.
Sevan Matossian (24:14):
Do, do you, um, do you like the banded pullup, uh, more or less than the jumping pullup? I’m a jumping Pullup fan before bands
Nick Mathew (24:23):
I, yeah, I think we use the banded pullup more often. Um, I’d say we use the banded pullup option more often just because people feel, I mean, and this can be can coaching related or it could just be per person where they don’t want to resort to jumping pull-ups.
Sevan Matossian (24:41):
Yeah. Uh,
Nick Mathew (24:42):
So I mean, it, it depends on the person, depends on willingness to kind of meet the intention of the workout. ’cause sometimes like if there’s a set of 15 pull-ups and somebody jumps up with the band and they just do 15 unbroken every time, they miss the intention.
Sevan Matossian (24:56):
Right.
Nick Mathew (24:56):
So yeah, it, it can depend on the person at times.
Sevan Matossian (25:00):
I always get scared with jumping pull-ups too, when someone else is doing ’em. I always think they’re gonna, that they’re gonna be an idiot and hit their head on the way up.
Nick Mathew (25:07):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (25:08):
Yep. Especially the older people and the younger people, the people in the middle I’m not too worried about, but like kids and old people I’m worried about they’re jackasses.
Nick Mathew (25:16):
Yeah. They get a little wild sometimes.
Sevan Matossian (25:18):
Yeah. What are you laughing at Susa? What do you have him do? Susa. Do you have him do jumping or bandit at your affiliate jumping? Uh, Allegra r uh, what a great way to start my day. Such a humble dude. Yeah, he’s too humble. I want, like, he needs to say something. Are you gonna talk any smack Remember when Tiger Woods gave that tampon to like the, did you, did you see that?
Nick Mathew (25:38):
Um, I do not know what that
Sevan Matossian (25:40):
Is. He, he was, um, he was on the golf course with a guy last year and with one and he slipped a guy like a tampon like to say like, you hit like a bitch and, and the cameras caught it even though like he was just slipping it palm to palm. Yeah. That’s Would you do that? Would you do that to anyone out there? Like, you know, like walk out there and right before the, uh, right before the events starts, you know, look over. Oh there it is. Look at, look at Bizarre Moment Tiger Woods’ hands. What’s it say? Hands Justin Thomas a tampon. I don’t think that’s bizarre at all. What are you talking about? What a great move.
Nick Mathew (26:13):
Yeah. That, I mean, that adds some fun to it. That adds some excitement.
Sevan Matossian (26:17):
Yeah.
Nick Mathew (26:17):
Yeah. I talk, I mean, we talk trash a lot in the gym. I don’t know about in the middle of competition. Some it depends on some, some people just, some people can get offended really easy. You,
Sevan Matossian (26:30):
You got any plans? Do something that you should do something to Falkowski? Yeah. You should have a plan for Yeah, right before like an event starts
Nick Mathew (26:37):
Right. Before something. Yeah. I don’t know. I’ll have to come up with something to
Sevan Matossian (26:41):
To to get into his head. I’ll
Nick Mathew (26:43):
Take some ideas.
Sevan Matossian (26:45):
Right, right. Um, if it is, what, what do you think you, you could dumbbell snatch Nick, you think you could dumbbell snatch? Um, uh, uh, let’s say a 1 75 or one 70. You think you could dumbbell snatch one 70?
Nick Mathew (26:59):
I don’t know about one. Um, I don’t, I don’t know. I did a 1 55 with a barbell
Sevan Matossian (27:05):
With one hand.
Nick Mathew (27:06):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (27:07):
Wow.
Nick Mathew (27:08):
The ones, the barbells that have the narling in the center.
Sevan Matossian (27:10):
Yeah.
Nick Mathew (27:12):
Yeah, I’ve done that. And then at, um, CrossFit Mayhem, we, when I did the Mayhem Classic years back, they had 120 pound dumbbell for like 12 reps or something like that in there. So
Sevan Matossian (27:25):
If you could do 1 55 with the bar, I mean that sounds like it would be significantly harder than a dumbbell.
Nick Mathew (27:33):
That one’s just like balanced with the barbell up overhead, so Yeah. Yeah. I, it’d be, it’d be cool to see I like playing with the strong man equipment. I have to get my hands on a big circus dumbbell <laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (27:46):
Someone, someone someone told, what did someone tell me yesterday about Kakowski? Someone made it seem to me like he didn’t like me. Someone said something to me, I was afraid to fall. I was talking to someone and they’re like, oh yeah, don’t worry if Kakowski doesn’t want to talk to you or something when you’re doing the behind the scenes. I was like, wait, what? No, of course he’s gonna wanna talk to me. Whatcha talking about?
Nick Mathew (28:09):
Yeah, everybody’s gonna wanna talk. So you’re coming to the games this year?
Sevan Matossian (28:12):
Yeah.
Nick Mathew (28:14):
Didn’t see that.
Sevan Matossian (28:16):
I’m really excited about it. Who’s your coach, Nick?
Nick Mathew (28:20):
Uh, Matt Burke. I work with the proven team. Um, but Matt Burke is his wife also works with the proven team and he’s not technically a coach with proven, but when we were down there, me and him just like hit it off right away. Uh, and then that kind of just started developing a relationship with us. And over the last two years, he’s been my guy that comes with me in my competitions and helps me get warmed up, helped me, helps me make sure my mind is right. Yep. That’s the guy telling me to wipe a booger off my nose right there.
Sevan Matossian (28:54):
Oh wow. That’s a crazy booger. Yeah,
Nick Mathew (28:57):
Dude.
Sevan Matossian (28:58):
Hey, imagine there being so many good people in the gym that like you pick up someone as your coach, that’s not even a coach. That’s how many just amazing athletes there are at Proven, just standing around
Nick Mathew (29:08):
For sure.
Sevan Matossian (29:10):
How did you sign up for Proven? Tell me how that works. You go online and you just start like creeping for a while and then how does that work? Yeah, I
Nick Mathew (29:16):
Did the, I did their tia compete track for two years after the, I think I saw it after the 2020, the Covid games. Um, and then I, I did that for about two years by myself and then I can’t exactly remember, but I got some kind of invite to come down and do their training camp. And then after I went down with the training camp, then we kind of chatted and I started chatting with Matt too. And then they told me that I was able to kind of come down, use the facility whenever, and just make a trip out of it throughout the year. So I go down, I just got back from Tennessee, um, two weeks ago and I just usually go down as like a tuneup before Maine come.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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