Greg Hammond | The Story of Concept2 - The Machine Man

that's awesome how you been awesome so good bam we're live hey are you in are you in your office at concept 2 I'm actually in just off my office I'm in a little conference room is that is that

where you do calls like this podcast and whatnot I mean fancy ones like this I do normally I do them from my desk okay fair enough take that as a compliment I mean I can show you it but there's not

much in it's a lot of uh old Motocross jerseys and some CrossFit paraphernalia from over the years stuff like that what state are you in Vermont are you close to

Fraser oh yeah we we grew up in the same town I mean of course I was decades before him but the um yeah Colchester Vermont is where him and I grew up and then actually Matt was just up here with

hwpo and and actually taught a couple classes here for the employees which is kind of nice of them just you know so they'd come up and do it so we did in our new workout room that's crazy cool what kind of classes like just like cross class uh he did sweat because

we're you know there's a couple there's people here that don't do CrossFit or even work out like regularly and so they did hosted a sweat class and Jake uh and Josh did um taught the class and then

Matt actually did the class so oh that's crazy cool uh Jake Marone and who who's the other guy Josh what's Josh his last name I forget um he's part of the hwpo crew but I mean yeah so Matt when Matt

first started crossfitting it was at Champlain Valley where I was going like I didn't I remember when he came in and didn't know who he was and then yeah saw he actually he didn't even do CrossFit at first he just went in the back room

and was like 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 like wait that's just not another guy hey um is that gym still

there Champlain Valley oh yeah yep yep uh so Jake I mean Jade and Danny haran you don't remember Danny for years yeah yeah it's their place y Danny haran

still pops up now and again right she's a beast still oh she's still a beast and she's doing a lot of other stuff too like they've been mountain biking a lot now and stuff like that but um yeah the gym is still doing

great they're they're really they're killing it so what's a sweat class basically like a cardio class a moving class I'm guessing you guys have a lot of machines yeah I mean you know thanks

to Bill and Katie our gym is sweet we just actually redid it after covid when we came back to work um they asked me if I wanted to design the new workout room and we had built an addition and so of

course got a hold of you know Bill and Katie and uh they helped us out tremendously with that so yeah our gym is pretty stacked you know it's that's awesome H how big is uh concept to is is

there one location it's one world headquarters there's one world headquarters here in Vermont uh which we think we have like 80 employees here where we make all the carbon fiber racing ores and then we have a another

subcontractor that actually does the assembly here too a former employee of ours that kind of went out on his own and um they do assembly which we used to build them all like I used to actually

build rowing machines back in the day um but uh to take out the trash Oh yeah I mean still do all 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 uh hurg Germany and uh Nottingham in the UK Switzerland Australia um trying to think I'm missing

some other ones um yeah Netherlands you know so we we are we do have offices in other places but we outfit the world

so um did I meet you were you at the 20 8 games yeah actually I was thinking about that last night I met you I met you there uh it was you and then again

faster John Gilson had a crew so you had the only two people with cameras I think was you and then Pat that used to work for John Gilson uhuh um yeah but we met in AR RIS I think we had beers together

that first year crazy dude were you at the 2007 games seven I wasn't uh eight and nine

was still at at Aris right yes sir so I was at eight and nine uh there and were you there in the capacity of um working for concept 2 at that time or were you there just as a crossfitter no it was it

was for concept 2 so I already knew about CrossFit actually I met glasman and Dave at um they needed someone who was prior service to teach some rowing at a seminar that was going on at Bud

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 like triath and cardio stuff and you know some weightlifting and like who

wants to go to a Navy SEAL you know training facility I'm like oh I'll go in harbe so I went out there and actually met Greg met Dave got interviewed to CrossFit got my ass kicked in like three workouts and I thought I was pretty fit

and then I came home with just like the fire that every new crossfitter had and I was like man I got a lot of work to do did he know did did

um so so you show up there at uh in San Diego um what's the island called Coronado you show up there yeah um at the Navy Seals training ground there and

you had never met Greg and Dave before but you had you heard of CrossFit I probably heard the name like once before like a couple weeks before there was this

200 six seven probably six I was trying to think about it when Dave was on joo's podcast I'm almost thinking that Joo might have been in that class that I was at and I didn't know any of these guys

um right it was my first experience I went into was single podcast in the world at that time Greg I mean how old was the internet then have the internet I don't even remember I barely remember

YouTube back then yeah but it was um you know it was cool because I mean I what I knew about Navy Seals was Charlie Sheen and uh you know 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 was kind I thought was cool so my degree is in health science so I had four-year degree in Health Science with a focus on

on a corporate wellness and you know I'm not a great student I you know 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 more articulate and got me more fired up and everything he said was like spot on so I was I went home and I'm like yeah this

guy knows what he's he's talking about and you know 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 uh level one back then I think it was just Greg doing a

seminar but he did the Whole Health Continuum and you know all the the usual Spiel and everything and I was like wow this guy's on to something which is even more impressive because you were an

expert in your own right and you you probably had some push back like okay what's this [ __ ] guy gonna say like I'm sure lot right I mean you there as an expert also but then here you are

hear any guy talking you're like holy [ __ ] I'm very self-aware in the fact that I don't know everything so I usually go go into anything kind of with an open mind anyways but um yeah I knew I knew right away like uh you know we

did a little bit of talk about nutrition but you know keep in mind so I I graduated college in uh was it 93 so we were still doing like long slow distance training eating as many carbs as we

could you know uh wearing heart rate monitors all the stuff that I was told by my coaches that we needed to do and here's Greg offering this breath of fresh air saying wait a second I can eat

you know what I want to eat for the most part you know meat vegetables nuts and seeds and you know 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 this

guy's got it and you know to this day I still think unfortunately the cycle is coming back around of course we're all wearing you know heart rate monitors now again and all this stuff and I'm like

it's just like I want I want to see it come back around I want us to to realize that we don't need all this stuff I saw some number um that the average that the average person when they after they

purchase a wearable only wears it for like 45 days or something and I feel like that about Apple watches like I have one and I wear it like two days every of the month and then I take it off again it's weird no I'm with you I

mean I I wear my garment and I wear it to bed for like 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

yeah but yeah I mean it's I guess it is what it is it's I mean it's more of a habit now for me than anything so uh Dale King

the owner Portsmith cross new documentary just dropped uh sorry I don't use that word dropped just came out just published produced just uh it's on live on iTunes now anyway adale King

says I want to go on record it's saying Greg Hammond did I pronounce your last name right yeah Hammond yeah Hammond is one of the most underrated unappreciated people in the entire CrossFit space he and concept to are Rock Solid love you

brother it's great at least I know he got the check now that was cool so yeah Dale's one of that Dale's awesome actually I was stoked when now seeing all the OG stuff coming back out like

with Chase and him and we uh we did see it see each other quickly at the games but I love this kind of culture inside the culture of the ogs you know I really

I love that feel it's kind of nice um what tell me what is the name of the company is concept to right that's the umbrella company well there's no

umbrella that's us yeah it's concept to yep and is it privately own yeah two brothers family-owned we're still a family-owned business um two great guys still work out every day

they're in their 70s and will probably beat most crossfitters of any age in the 2K I mean these guys are these guys are solid and how long have you worked there

27 years yeah and when you started there how many employees were there uh probably 50 or so um it it was already big well because back then we

were assembling everything ourselves and so a lot of it was so the way the flow went you'd come in um you'd make you know like 30 machines from scratch from

parts and then you test row 30 or 60 machines so that was your workout then you'd maybe go make some ores or work with some carbon fiber and um and then we'd all leave and go play outside after

it was the owners are are amazing people they're they they want quality you sign everything that you make um and then when you're if you can get your work done and less than eight hours and your

quality is still good go do something go have fun go you know whatever the only other rule was that a day that something's not going right and you're there for 10 hours don't [ __ ] just stay

um so they they are really good managers and and they they would kill me if they heard me say manager they're just they're just the two brothers so um uh

so were the only two items back in the day ores and rower Row the rower and how many rowers were there back then just

one yeah uh when I came in it was the end of the model B which had the wire cage around it and then the model C's which when CrossFit first started that's

probably what most gyms had these gray all metal around the flywheel model C's 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 so so so the parts show up to concept too and then you guys would start putting them together yeah yeah I

mean the rule always used to be you know if we could get something from Vermont first United States second and if we couldn't get good quality there then we would go overseas so there are parts

from overseas but for the most part like the guy that bends our metals and paint them paints all the metal stuff I mean it's right down the road kind of thing so yeah I mean we could probably make a much more money and profit if we ever

went overseas but it just will never happen we're very proud to be here so who invented the rower well Pete and so Pete and Dick they're

the two brothers um they first were like 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

ores from when rowing was super popular like in the 30s and stuff so they came out with this Kick-Ass 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 so 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 so they gers uh come yeah so if you go to um where's on there there's one it should say like under contact or something you'll see history somewhere on there can't see the screen

is too small right now let me see uh photo gallery H not the galleries so I want to say history about concept to yeah about concept too and then so that's Pete and Dick it looks like a

really old picture but it's that's just because it's black and white but they they started it in a barn in Stover Vermont which is like 10 minutes from here and um this is before me but the original guys they would have to like

feed the cows start a fire and then start making ores back in the day we moved into this building in the early 80s and you've been there

since yeah we have I didn't get here until 96 so it's crazy I when I think of you I think of you as being there since the very beginning uh as people are retiring

there's it's getting to be not a whole heck of a lot of people have been here longer than myself except for the owners right but I'm a very loyal guy and I'll be here as long as those guys are

here oh wow look at these URS yep um so that's a Model A right there and that's the first what was called the crash bees so crash bees used to be the world

indoor rowing championships and it stood for Charles River Allstar 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 2 200 meters and then drink beer after with your buddies um I think one of the reasons I liked original CrossFit so much it was a

lot like how we started like you'd work out hard with your friends and then you'd bro down with them after and have a good time and nobody took themselves too seriously and um yeah what you're

showing right now people should watch that there's some cool stuff on there why why do they call it the crash bees Greg it was just We Didn't Start crash bees 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 um and because they are they big dudes are those big dudes yeah they're like six5

or so yeah so just I mean anybody who I've met before will realize that I'm not a tall guy I didn't row on the water I was a rugby player that's how I found the rower originally um so when I go to

rowing events like everyone's like you were a rower skeptically as their eyebrow raises but there's the first that's the first uh rendition of the rower right

there this is ridiculous it started Revolution man we started a sport there was no sport of indoor rowing until these guys did it same with the skierg there was never a skierg until we invented a skierg I'm

gonna come I'm gonna come back to how you it got the name crash P but I want to look at this machine real quick so this is a a Huffy bike flip upside down

sitting on its Book Rack and then the guy sitting on a sled well that sled is an old tentu piston rower so there were some old piston rowers back then but it didn't give you the feel of rowing it

was essentially like a lever arm that you would pull back and forth like a a piston like would be on the hatchback of your car so when he pulls that does it pull

him closer to the tire the whole uh no I mean even on the rower now 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 um that's one of the cues that we do to get people to row better is we actually make them not strap in so that they learn to come

forward without pulling on their feet ah interesting okay so so God I don't even understand how that works I mean really and this is the

great thing about it this is why our machines last forever it's 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 Nappa Auto Parts speedometer cable and an old bicycle speedometer and there used to be a NAPA part number for

that cable that seriously yeah and there might still be we just don't use them anymore God that's crazy do you have one of those in the office yeah yep actually

just outside the door I thought for a second I had one in here but and is it functioning can someone get on it and ride it oh I did it yeah I did it actually for an Instagram post um what

was it for just this past winter I was here and um or maybe you know was in the spring uh 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 uh people loved it that was like one of the most popular posts I've done um I don't if you can see it on here but this is the old I can't see

it the old model B yeah and that's actually Judy Gear she's the wife of one of the founders here and she actually was in the Olympics as well hey how much

was this how much was this model A so here's the crazy thing uh it wasn't much cheaper than so I think it was like

maybe 825 to 850 okay and um and most of our time like the brothers believe in value and so they try to keep everything

as much as they can under $1,000 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 so did you guys have an explosion during um the the so-called pandemic did did were you everyone your mother yeah it's

it sucked yeah I mean so I went back from doing marketing because I wasn't traveling to helping with customer nervous and taking and it was it was like I started hating people cuz

everyone is freaking out and like 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 gonna get fat again because she has no

way to work out I had to explained to her what an air squat was and I said listen you do 100 air squats a day you wait that eight weeks I guarantee you're not going to gain any weight and she's like she was letting me have it I mean I might even hung up on her which is

pretty rare so but a good time though also right I mean financially yeah it was it was good we I mean it was it was hard to watch you know our friends that owned

restaurants and businesses that were doing shitty and meanwhile we were selling a ton of machines um but you know it's also one of those things there's also a back end to it everyone

bought then so like right now it's not like I mean we're we're not doing bad but it's one of those things everything goes up and then everything tapers off you know on there so um are are the four are there four

products is it the ore the bike the SK and the rower rower yeah so that's it and those are the

four yep wild uh Wayne short um is pm6 is that that's one of the is that what the monitors are called yeah the monitors are PMs and and everyone calls

them PMS but it's not it's just pm and it stands for performance monitor on there so is pm6 on the horizon hopefully with Bluetooth Wi-Fi firmware update

capability appreciate the updates to urg data and look forward to Future development um so right now if you have urg data which is our app and you have a

pm5 I think most all PM FS you can actually now if you do the firmware update you can download more firmware on there wirelessly from your phone takes a

long time but like 10 or 15 minutes but uh 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 wish list on it like okay you know because we all use

the equipment ourselves so if somebody has an idea they get out of the workout room they have an idea like they can go on the Whiteboard say you know 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 like well that

could work you know L and that um it's very open source here those poor guys usually hear it from me about Game stuff all the time like you know when Dave ask 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 and that's why we have like things like undefined rest in the monitors and all this stuff that's very that's 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 so so the that's how big the community is the

requests from the uh CrossFit Community have now made it as uh components on the um oh yeah but it not even so much that it's like it's crazy we're like a I don't know if it's maybe I hope all

companies are like this but maybe not like we really enjoy our customers like people who want to sweat and beat themselves up on our equipment will take suggestions from anybody I mean if you're willing to do that then we're

we're willing to put it on the board and and see I mean maybe not for just one request but if it comes up more than once then we would uh we would put it on there and try to make it happen for him Greg I remember back in the day there were like 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 Wi-Fi is that that's yeah no it's

possible actually so what we're working on now and it should be within this year um there could be an indoor race say in like 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 that everyone can yeah so everyone can race together and then there's you know are there events like that are there big God that seems

like a charity event dream so actually so uh what's the big Fitness Festival it's coming up in England uh the fitness fitfest yeah so there's a large Indoor

Race going on the same weekend at fitfest and it's um it's called The Brick it's the British indoor rowing championships and I believe that they're gonna use that technology there

so speaking of will that be the first time it's been used 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 so uh speaking of uh um sourcing uh just now one of the listeners in the chat cave dasto sent me

this isn't this crazy someone's listening to the show and then they send it to me I pull it up look they they found it for me I don't even need anyone helping me yeah I'm even repping I think

my Jiu-Jitsu Club shirt there that's great shout out to to- Jitsu that's a cool shirt hey Travis that's what I want see that crown on top of that I want a

crown on top of the CEO a gold crown oh that'd be awesome Crown yeah that's killer look at that thing that thing's humming so I probably shouldn't say it out loud but what always baffled me

about that is like how many fingers got caught in those things yeah you know a lot of us worked out have worked out with our little kids all over these machines and yet yeah you couldn't have your 2-year-old wandering

around the room with that thing going no no it's um 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 still is when it you can't see it when it's spinning

but there's actually plastic cards on the spokes yeah and that's what causes the resistance on there so it was pretty low you know so could you add more cards for more resistance is that how they did

it that's a good question I don't think so I mean I guess you could uh but there was gears on it so so I don't think you

could I don't know uh Jed snelson uh oh jeez competing at wheel wde yeah uh 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 WAP palooza yeah that was a 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 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 like put in some meters and it was it was

hard but yeah I've known Jed forever I knew Jed probably before either of us for crossfitting from uh the old Motocross scene because I used to do do a lot with Motocross I still do do a lot

with those guys so um Marco cder on I love concept two rower I've done Marathon row twice yikes twice that's yeah should be at least once a year Yik no [ __ ] you you

you'll mess with that once a year uh we do it's going on right now it's called holiday challenge um Katy henar is doing it I think uh couple other of the Legends guys are doing it every year but

uh so you you pledge to try to do 100,000 meters or 200,000 meters between Thanksgiving and Christmas and I do it every year just to you know keep the ipas and food you know from getting

around my waist during the holidays and um and so yeah we're like today everyone in the company here we're showing die hard and you can row and watch die hard and you'll either get a you know one movie you'll probably get a half

marathon two movies you could get you know takes about most people here it takes about three hours to do a mar you have a headset on or they have it really loud really loud um I got challenged to

uh by the guys at origin jeans to do 2,000 calories uh the first day on Thanksgiving before you had Thanksgiving dinner and I just did that on the ski

and that was 32,000 so almost the marathon and but I had to go help my wife cook before that so is that a psychological War for you dude oh it's

me yeah so I always say CrossFit gave me exercise add 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 you know 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 like I gotta I gotta get off I gotta go do something so this

is a good practice to kind of just get my mind to get used to doing one thing you know or even turn off so hey dude there's this spot around I'm going to

make this up 40 minutes that you just um run out of energy you're just um um I just noticed from being on machines do you do have you been on rowers so much

and these machines so much that you actually sense your body switching I guess this theoretical idea maybe it's not theoretical of energy systems like do you feel your body shifting like okay

I'm now going to my gas engine now I'm going to my electric engine okay now do you feel that I mean usually I go into these workouts knowing kind of long it's going to be yeah um so you know I'm if

I'm going to do a marathon I never get out of Zone 2 I just know that I'm you know I'm not going hard I'm just going um now like when Matt came up we were doing the ski and um I forget I think

we're were doing minutes on there I mean then it's just all Anor robic all out so I can't say I really feel it I mean I definitely feel the wheels come off like in any workout you know you don't ever feel yourself in the marathon row being

like okay I'm just out of energy like this is just like 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 know you might not have a great Pace but you can do it like remember we did the first year we did the half marathon or 2K into a half marathon and everyone lost their minds

you know 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 like on a regular basis and meanwhile doing half marathons on oh full full marathons yeah if you so we're probably the only sport that has age groups that go into to 90

plus age group on there and it and these guys log their workouts every day you know so dude that's crazy yeah well you think about we're one of the few

non-impact other than swimming right you know it's like you know you should be able to do it forever I mean even even when you go to full straight leg in the rad it's not under load so if you could have

bad knees and bad hips and still get away with rowing you know hey this is going to be a crazy question bear with me I'm probably gonna get pounded in the comments for this do 90y old

sweat that's a good question I I don't know I mean I've seen a guy I think he was in his 90s at crash bees one year orang uh he was going for it what was

cool is when you see somebody that old in their mind they are going as hard as any of the top Crosser like 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 and I love it you know he's the kind of guy I want to be 90 years old if someone talks [ __ ] I want to say I could take that guy

you know and that's what this guy was I love watching the old guys go so hey Greg have you noticed his um you know when you're young and you're driving

with someone who's old um they they think you're tailgating when you don't think you're tailgating and now as I get older I get it because I and I think it's because the reaction time now that I'm getting older my reaction time is

changing so but it's also when you walk have you ever noticed like um little kids five of them will go through the door at the same time some fat old lady if you get within 10 feet of her she gives you a bad look like you crowded

her just people's perception right of just like what they need yeah people are afraid they're going to fall off the sidewalk and my tumble off the sidewalk onto the street back on like they don't

give a [ __ ] right but like a a 60-year-old woman who's 70 pounds overweight she's freaked out by the edge of the curb and if you get close to her she'll flip you off I mean I I get it it's it's it's um that's one of the

things I like about you know seeing older guys do things like Jiu-Jitsu or gymnastics is you know I I am opting to twice a week throw myself on a mat and

roll and get back up and and so am I intimidated by a curb no I just assume I'm going to roll out of it right like I do then but you know you see other people who've never never done anything athletic in their life and they're

they're so tentative I think that makes it worse like they're almost unsteady because they're so scared of the potential of falling you know or whatever what's um do you ever you ever

seen a hundredy old uh compete on a rower you know I think that guy I'm talking about I think he might have been 100 because there was three generations that all competed so it was him the son

who was probably like in his 60s or 70s and that kid's that guy's son who was in college all were at crash be at the same time um I mean I'd have to check on

there but I remember he came he's wearing sneakers with like wool socks like the kind like your mom would knit you or someone's mom would knit him and then he had he had full-on leather like

wood you know wood throwing work gloves on when he sat down but he walked up to that thing like like he was going out for a heavyweight title match I mean this guy was gonna go out there and just

bust it it was awesome um do you have kids gray I don't no married no kids how long you been

married 20 let's see 23 uh 23 years wow congratulations I'm making up for you because you've got what three so we're that big makes that 1.5 that we're alled

to right thing is she is she uh is she a machine person does your wife row yeah I mean well she also crossfits um but yeah and it's on the machines um but yeah

she's been she was actually that's funny uh she was always a runner um that's how I met her was a blind date she was running around the industrial park at concept 2 and I needed a date someone dared me to ask her so I went out and

asked the running girl so that's a true story yeah true story yep and then she wanted to make sure it wasn't weird so I had to meet her for bagels first and we've been together ever since so it was actually for our our concept to

Christmas party which is actually happening this Saturday and our parties are typically epic like she she didn't know what she was getting into when she came to our party we we we we used to go hard back

then hey um that's kind of unheard of these days yeah meet to just see a girl and walk up to her and be like hey you want to go out I think like everyone I hear

it's like all on the computer now well I mean I mean I might be a little bit older than you we're the same age it's like I don't know it's like I feel bad for everybody that has to do it online you know it's almost like yeah it's

nervous to walk up to somebody and risk rejection but I almost think it's like it's like everything hard you don't if you don't do it you don't respect it so

um my nephew uh grew up on a uh a hunting ranch in Texas his his whole life and recently he's moved out to California and you know he's living in Santa Cruz and he's working and he's

surfing he's a young man 20 years old and and he's made a bunch of friends here and he was telling me a story that he was at the bowling alley and there was a pretty girl and he was with like five or six of his buddies and he went over and talked to her and he said they

were all completely freaking out right because he was there in person yeah who's the creeper yeah who's the creeper he said the girl was cool as [ __ ] she was completely blown away that someone talked to her but he said that guys were

flipping out like dude you can't just talk to a girl yeah nuts it's nuts and so I mean I probably should have waited that's I think you and I AO said that

would make a great podcast to just be two guys and just point out all the problems today versus when we grew up because I feel so lucky I grew up when I

did um you know everything from the movies to you know talking to people to you know but that's how I know I'm getting old you know I'm I start to

think about that stuff the the um I was actually talking with someone this morning about the uh the pressure of the um internet so when I when you and I

went to school there were 30 other kids we had to worry about their judgment right just 30 now it's your entire probably the entire High School knows everyone's Instagram everyone knows

everyone's business people are following your mother your dad your I mean the the social processing or what people have access to about you has got to be completely overwhelming I mean I'm going

to do everything in my power to protect my kids from it until the last minute and and it doesn't even a what's crazy is it doesn't even affect me because I came from that so like I someone will be

like like um there'll be a Reddit thread with 800 comments saying the worst [ __ ] ever about me it doesn't even affect me but I think it's just because of where I come from yeah that era but even too like think about it now if you walked

out without your phone you get this like panicky feeling like oh I left my phone somewhere we lived the majority of our life you know looking for a pay phone you know right right it's like and it

didn't bother us it's like you know in the morning you tell your parents when you're a kid um I'll see you after practice they didn't worry about you they just assume you'd be home after practice you didn't call yeah you know

it's um yeah there's just a a lot of stuff I you know and I don't want to talk bad about new generations it's just different um you know they just they

just handle things differently I like it when I forget my phone um which happens frequently and I like I do go through that I like that like 30 seconds of like

should I turn back home and get it and I'm like dude yeah chill but I mean you I mean also too with like your job um and in mind for them for the most part if it's something if I'm waiting for

something that's work related you know you got to get it done you need the phone and that is cool right because I can go like so when I'm done with you I'm going to go to the skate park and hang out for two hours but I'm also

while I'm there going to prep for my podcast and I love it because I'll do 20 minutes of just hanging out in the bowl with the kids and then 20 minutes I'll go sit over on the side and then work on stuff I love it yeah I enjoy watching

your feed because you know I grew up you know skateboarding with my friends and I see how what you're doing with your boys and I'm like man that that they are so they're so lucky that they can they can

do it that way you know that they can they can live that life where they go from Jiu-Jitsu to skate park to you know beating up their brothers in the in the workout room so yeah it's awesome it's a

good life uh Ernie Gaza um Garza Ernie Garza just an idea for the app you've never heard any ideas for the app before option to display what the monitor is

showing wanted to do a video showing the wattage to show my members oh like in real time kind of like the one wheel has are you familiar with the product the one wheeel yeah yeah but mean NS can do that now okay so you can look at your

phone and and and in real time kind of see what's going on on the urg yeah so you could have the urg set for meters and then urg data the app with watts and you could see the real time watts to to

meters on there oh okay that's cool so in real okay how the one wheel you got to be pretty close to the one wheel that's the only shitty thing you got but I guess it doesn't matter you're not the urg's not moving around yeah the one wheel I I've tried them a couple times

what I don't like about that is to go faster you have to dip the front end which is completely counter to my snowboarding skateboarding like I don't want to have the nose of my board closer to the ground when I'm going faster that

just seems like an accident waiting to happen so uh four you know what's crazy is four people died on the one wheel last year what I no I didn't hear that huh like 300,000 units sold and four

people died yeah I mean I guess I mean the scheme of things for how many they sold I mean I don't know I mean anyone ever no one's ever died of an injury on an

urg though right I mean maybe a heart not that not that we know well no like a handle hit him in the head and they're dead right no no nothing like that but so remember so you were there at the

year that we had the Jumbotron and aromis yeah um our big banner was called roadkill row POS 3D roadkill and it was

a Chalk Outline by a by a rowing machine uhuh we it was very popular but then we started working with the villages down in Florida you know the old people's

home yeah yeah one of my co-workers went down there and brought posters that had roadkill on it it was like and I'm like that's the one place where you probably could have someone that's kind of fall

off I'm like that wasn't that wasn't cool you know but um we got no one got hurt so it was okay so safest a safest piece of gym equipment out there uh get

with the programming uh Chase Ingram I did a million meters in 2019 was a hell of a year I think I remember Nicole Carroll did that too well Rich used to I think Rich would do a million a year

because he was doing 10K every morning when Rich was winning if I remember right okay I mean that's 40 minutes in the morning if you get up and just cruise for 40 minutes

you'd have 10K or or thereabouts I mean depends on how fast you row but um I mean if you want a good cardio base it's quick easy way to do it you use all the machines do you use them all I do yes I

use all of them I have all three at home too not to mention here but the ski is my is my jam that's I love it and why is that I I think I've done the ski twice in my

life uh well so and people are probably lose their [ __ ] on this so rowing because you're taking a long stroke if you're a tall guy with long legs and when we do the same amount of Strokes

they're covering more distance unless I you know add more pull in there so it's not as noticeable on the ski as it is on the rower um I'm not saying that's why I like the ski better actually the ski

helps me more with like I feel like with jiu-jitsu and then in CrossFit where we're always doing hip opening movements the skier is a hip closing movement so

it complement CrossFit I feel um better for what I do um but also I don't like to sit like I I don't have a seat a chair at my desk um I stand all the time

um I don't I don't like sitting for long periods of time even on the rower even though I know it's good I I'll do it for for wads but um like I'm going to do a

marathon here coming up on the you know for the holiday Challenge and I'll do it on the ski just because I can stand the whole time what's your official title there at concept 2 so no one really has titles

but I gave one to myself that I thought was really cool probably about 20 year goes I'm the director of motor and action sports oh I like it I like it yeah yeah yeah yeah the very Motocross of you yeah yeah well at the time there

was I would I gave myself that that was pre-c CrossFit so now it says that and then like CrossFit apostrophe or comma CrossFit at the end so um did you ever think when you started working there

you'd work there this long absolutely not my dad was a 30-year ibmr and I said that I go what poor bastard would ever work at one place for 30 years you know and I actually like

just I just had disdain for any company that would like lock their people down but like this is not a normal company and like this is my business attire you know like I could come in in my workout

gear and and work and do my day and um you know and everyone here you know especially for Vermont you know look at general population everybody here is pretty fit um some people are very very

fit and so just the culture here is um it's not like a normal business you know so um when you first started working there your job was to put the machines

together yeah yeah um I mean now it's more marketing stuff um you know it's working with crossfitters it's working with pro athletes um you know it's answering all

the emails of people who want stuff you know things like that now nowadays it's turning down influencers that don't really influence people stuff like that

know um that I'm glad you brought that up I want to talk about that in a second um so give me an an idea so if Rich is like hey where a charity event does he does Rich call you directly or Rory call

you and say hey Greg what's up this is Rory hey dude we're going to do a charity event and we're going to need uh 30 rowers do you guys want to be involved with us that's exactly what happens and what's I mean not that we

play favorites but if Rory texts me or Rich texts me or you know there's certain people in that OG crowd there's probably a better chance that we're going to be able to make it happen uh because it's not always easy because you

have to do something with machines we don't necessar want to take all the machines back we're not like Rogue where a big truck pulls in and machines go off the machines go back on and they come back to Vermont um you know we try to do

it in a way that uh either they they buy them at a little bit of a discount and then the money that they sell off for it can go to the charity you know try to figure out just a creative way to make

it happen on there and and that makes sense you have long relationships with people is the is the biggest relationship what is the biggest relationship concept who has is it with

universities is it with Crossfit is it with the Olympics what's your biggest relationship it's a good question um I mean me personally it's definitely

CrossFit but I mean as a whole globally I mean the on-water rowing Community you know they built us we're very loyal to them in the last Olympics I think it was

over 80% of all the ores in the Olympics were made here in Morrisville and all across all countries um so I mean oh actual ores oh oh okay okay I keep

forgetting about that okay yeah so I mean and then anybody who races on the water trains on our machines I mean any that's just like the standard where the

standard for them so I mean it's hard to say like at crossfit's biggest what were we at like how many I mean how many how many crossfitters are there in the world right now four million worldwide yeah

four million I mean it's got to be CrossFit then because I mean I can't imagine there's I don't know could be two million by the way it could be two million but but um uh there say there's

a let's say there's 10,000 gyms that have 10 rowers each but then there's also probably um uh 10,000 hotels that have one rower each and 10,000

universities that have five rowers each right and oh Harvard would have 200 rowers you know something like that yeah so if they have a large program I mean

actually um things like uh Texas DPS the police I mean they probably have close to 200 rowers or at least over 100 rowers in their Academy Department of

police services DPS that yeah uh Public Safety um but uh remember you might have been there Orange County Fire way back with was it Mike conteras you remember

that name y back in the day uh Orange County Fire had like 200 rowers that were all around the Departments and so that was like the first it wasn't

CrossFit but it was Crossfit because they're all doing CrossFit at Orange County Fire and they bought like 200 machines to disperse around the um the different fir houses and they would compete against you know one firehouse

against another firehouse and stuff like that and that was way back you know close to the start of CrossFit when that was going on and that was fun because

you know again I said my I'm lucky that the guys I work with the Departments I work are they all people I'd hang out with anyways so it's pretty simple do you know how many rowers have

been sold I don't actually um I get that question a lot but um I mean I I don't I bet you I think the founders would even have a hard time I mean I'm sure we could look it up but I mean they

probably don't know off the top of their head but it's insane well yeah I mean it's the truck pulls up every single day one truck and then and takes them to the post

office well I mean no I mean there's more than one truck I mean when Rogue buys from us I mean they're they're sending trucks pretty regularly and so a semi will just come there and just take [ __ ] a semi full of rowers to Rogue

and then from there they sell them yeah yep yep we're really lucky our relationship with well so when we met Bill and Katie it was the year Katie won the games and Bill at the time I think

was only making plywood jump boxes when we met those guys and so as much as I'm completely impressed and you know with the founders of our company I would I

would think like I hold build in very high regard like I'd put him up there with the Geniuses of Pete and dictor raker Greg Glassman you know what he built in the same amount of time it's

the Bezos [ __ ] of Fitness it's crazy what an amazing website what a it's a junk food [ __ ] hold on to your wallet before you go there throw your lock your

wallet in a safe it's it's it's amazing and yet you can still talk to those guys at the games and they're just still the same people that you met you know back at Aromas you know yeah walking around

with hard hats and moving [ __ ] and yeah I've gotten like some of people I consider really good friends are all people that work for them too that like because when I first started like remember they had the East Coast

champion ship at Reebok and things like that you know for the so I would go down for my event but I would stay and help the Rogue guys because I like I like turning wrenches I like moving heavy [ __ ] so I would help them and I got to

know a lot of those guys and to this day well like you know Kenny Castro I mean I actually know Kenny better than Dave just because you know I met Kenny Working doing stuff with Rogue and

helping out when I could and stuff like that and in turn those guys if I ever needed anything at any event half their employees could could do what I do at an event on our equipment they're really

knowledgeable so hey dude that is probably you take it for granted but that is really a [ __ ] incredibly unique relationship that that probably concept 2 and Rogue have yeah I mean I I

don't take it for granted that's the thing is like um so the way that our company is like when we went out to the Rogue invitation was in Columbus we brought the founders well we brought the whole us bathon team that's how we did a

skier and actual shoot event um there and even the um the owner son who's also an engineer you should have saw these guys geeking out on on Bill's Factory floor and all this I mean I mean it was

like Bill probably love that too because he knows how cool it is and there's probably very few people who can appreciate it so oh yeah Bill he's been here too and saw our operation too so

yeah he probably it's um you know it's like being into I don't know flowers and 90% of the people don't give a [ __ ] you find someone who's in the flowers and you guys geek out he's he was probably stoked oh yeah and at the time I think

he just just got some like new robotic welders and stuff and you know we're not we're not there you know here we still do a lot of stuff by hand and stuff like

that so yeah we are really into it uh just I think it's supposed to be just got three new monitors for my gym rowers the Simplicity of design and ease of

ordering parts is great Mark Mike arunan we're lucky if if anyone notices I mean the monitors are the most expensive thing but our parts are super inexpensive like that's another philosophy that the owners have is like

if someone's willing to give us their money on the machine we're not going to nickel and dime them for parts we want these things to last forever and it's it is true like where was that we were just

down at the Rogue imitational we went to what was it uh OC cross not OC cross um I forgot the what affiliate was but they had a 20 plus year old machine that

was they use every day in their classes in there and it just keeps on going so that's what that's what makes us feel good like our machines will never get thrown away hopefully so uh algra R I'm

in the street parking group and someone posted the first iteration of the rower on sale in Facebook Marketplace wish I could post pictures on it here oh crazy are those collector's items now they

they've gotone to be but here's a crazy thing we sell a pm5 which is our modern monitor adapter kit for that old bicycle

wheel rower so the cards on it yeah yeah and so there's someone with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on a machine that add cards in the wheel you know and it's uh they just don't they just won't give it up you

know so I think that's you know so you've heard engineered obsolescence we're just the opposite like we we we want these machines to get passed down when Dad gets too old to row it goes to their kid when that guy gets too old it

goes to their kid um and so you know it's kind of unique we don't you don't see that very often with other companies either hey dude remember this Daniel gity I had to call my mom collect to

pick me up from baseball practice and do emergency breakthrough do you remember doing emergency breakthroughs you call the operator from the pay phone and be like hey I got to talk to my mom you got to break into her into my phone I do

remember that or even like call or collect call yeah making a collect call or yeah I remember I mean I wasn't crazy yeah it's uh well actually uh I mean

this is totally off topic but we got a bunch of young guys that we just hired here and we had an old remember the credit cards You' go slide it back and forth and it took an imprint of your credit card yes yes so so we had that machine and I hand it to him I go do you

know what this is and he's he's looking at it he goes does it does it plug into the phone he couldn't figure out he had never seen a credit card machine that actually had like the carbon copy in it

hey dude those were um my dad my dad had a wine and cheese store and I remember as a little kid because you had to have some oomph in those yeah they were kind they were kind of scary not that they could injure you but like if you did

have your finger down there that [ __ ] would mash it right and you had to make sure that the copy went through hard enough to get the numbers or you couldn't see see it on there and my dad was always panicked if I would do it

because um I had never seen this happen but he said if you put the card in wrong it would just snap the card and half this is our podcast we just talk about old [ __ ] all the

time so many people probably don't even know what we're actually talking about right now ah that's all right Sean lman for any 300,000 mile vehicle sold there are probably uh more than four deaths oh

for every 300,000 oh yeah for sure yeah uh for sure that's a great that's a great Point going back to the um one wheeel um I um oh here we go uh algra R

saw the first model of a C2 rower on sale in Facebook Marketplace this week amazing how far you've come wish I could post a p oh sorry dang I read that for you for

free uh let's see um Olsen dudes absolutely amazing product the concept 2 products we've had two 24-hour challenges using

the C2 rower and two uh nc2 ski urg over 50 people using machines the full 24 hours yeah actually Dale King just did that with um with an affiliate over in the UK they did I think it they both did

a 24-hour row and to see who could get the most meters in 24 hours which I thought was an amazing idea I'd love to see gross gross that that idea of like sister Affiliates like just find

somebody different part of the world people rotating in on it yeah rotating in and out yeah yeah yeah I mean there are people we have world records for or 24-hour rows for single people single

individuals yeah that sounds horrible yeah it's we have it's worse than that we have stuff that are even long like longest continual row we have all those records on our website um uh for is

there any development you have from rowing that you think just of 20 years of messing with the ski putting them together rowing is there any development you have anywhere in your body you're like yep that's from rowing like your

hands or your back or your lower back or your glute anything specific that you're like yep that's that's exaggerated growth there from just me being a row junkie I mean not me because I do a lot

of different sports and lift and stuff like that but the guys that row sweep rowing sweep R always you know when you row with just with two hands on one ore and you're either on the porch side or the starboard side okay if you're an

Olympic rower and you're always on the same side you will notied lat development more on one side depending on which way they stroke um but I mean sweep rowers are going to be Collegiate

athletes and then unless they go to the Olympics they'll probably stop after the Olympics um but your hands definitely take a beating but I mean I lift weights so to say if my calluses came from a bar

or came from the rower it's hard to say I mean I just have gross hands so uh Cave dastra says it makes your hog bigger that's absolutely true yeah it's um gets caught gets caught in the seat

rollers it's terrible you're in marketing just put that on a ro just makes your hog bigger I don't know who that guy is but that's great he got the cornrow picture

that's that's that's awesome oh dedicated y uh RB anyone see the video with Brian Shaw rowing with Ben Smith

crazy power yeah so we worked with Brian way back when he was when he and um on the original SK which is not the black one it was another one but yeah Brian

was probably the first strong man that I ever personally worked with and um still one of the nicest guys I've ever met just a solid dude I just saw him in Texas and he remembers you know me and

talking to him and yeah just a great dude and uh and and Ben Smith's one of the nicest guys ever absolutely yeah it's that's not a bad place to be I didn't realize he did it with Ben I know

he's work so I hope it's common knowledge but I think Brian's actually gonna do an MMA fight coming in coming up which are you kidding me I I think I think and if it's if I'm if I'm letting

something out then uh I think it's been talked about so wow wow uh which means he'll probably be on the machines more MMA guys really do a

lot on zgs both the ski and the rower oh yeah it says it here Shaw's MMA training has already begun high altitude martial arts in Denver Club [ __ ] that's a good place to train yeah I mean I

can't imagine the size of his lungs and the amount of air that guy needs but um wow yeah uh moo please um do squats not drugs Karma donation for the rower Greg

sent me during my brutal trauma rotation and residency oh That's Mike yeah so yeah he's another cvf guy yeah he's great at one point we had probably more

doctors on the floor at Champlain Valley because there's a medical school at University of Vermont and actually uh Candace Frasier Matt's mom worked out with us and so I think we had that

Vinnie con uh probably like six or seven doctors on the floor at any one workout you're sa safest place to be was that Champlain Valley Crossfit um Matt's mom's a physician yeah yeah she was my

Mom's doctor actually yeah crazy Olympian she's retired now but yeah she very well-respected Doctor around around um you know C Burlington Colchester that

area Vermont um uh so this um this whole phenomenon like I I don't know how to

give it context I'll take a stab but so there was a point when when I was working at Cross this where we had the loudest voice because of the blog and then this thing came around called social media and we had the loudest

voice because we had the biggest social media and then slowly you started realizing each person could have their own social media account so you know you would have these other big accounts in

the space now I know you can't compare apples to oranges someone's 10,000 followers is different than someone else's million followers you can't just say the million followers are more

significant especially now but let's say it is that way um so now you have all of these uh powers powers that be out there

that are influencing so the other day um I or or or or uh YouTube videos like when I went and film with mikoo he he was wearing wrist

straps and I immediately bought the wrist straps and then like 20 other people told me they bought them even though we weren't even trying that wasn't even I didn't even think anyone else noticed that besides me I never even use the wrist straps the other day Dana White's like hey when I fast I take

these electrolytes and he just held them up for a second and I paused the video and I went on Amazon and I bought them yeah I agree but but other people can tell you that

they're using [ __ ] like like it it doesn't always work like like not even close I feel like is that true I feel like sometimes dude I

would never like I don't I'm not even sure why I've crack the code on what works and what doesn't work but there's lots of people where I'm just like yeah I would never buy that [ __ ] no matter how like I don't know if your what your

relationship was with them but like there's shoes out there that no am amount of PE [ __ ] I could see God walking around in them and I ain't

buying a pair yeah it's I get I think I get what you're saying it is true and um we'll see I don't know how the whole algorithm work as followers and stuff

but I've SE with people with a lot of followers that will post something that you would think would just crush it for us right and then you'll get somebody

like Mo who people might not even remember anymore but the his followers are going to be more loyal to him because they know who he is and he has less followers but the overall effect on

us is going to be greater from somebody with less followers but with a more loyal following conversion it's called right we call it the conversion yeah I mean we have a lot of and this is

another for our new podcast where we [ __ ] about stuff um there's a lot of Fitness influencers that genetically were gifted with amazing bodies and

pretty faces and the only time you see him working out is for two seconds a clip and they have a lot of followers because people like to watch them and

look at them for Aesthetics reasons but are they really going to put that much money of their hard-earned money towards whatever they say is on there you know and I think we're saturated right now

with with those types of people and I still appreciate when they do their stuff and everything but I from the backend side I definitely see who really

holds influence and who doesn't on there yeah um uh no no it's not RADS I'd wear RADS I wasn't referring to RADS seon you'd love RADS I'd love to try on a pair of RADS I'm very picky about my

shoes though what shoes do you wear so right now actually I either Puma suedes or uh I'm still an 80s guy so or Adidas suedes or what I work out in now but

previous to that when Matt was getting free shoes from Nike he would bring in some free shoes I'd get free shoes from Matt occasionally so I had yeah Matt was very generous and then but before that

and I heard you said I still have two pair of Nano twos when they first came out one was the custom ones where you could go on the Rebox site and like customize the colors and I still think

those are the best shoes ever made like if they weren't so ratty I would wear them as everyday shoes yeah know and I still like Vans I like flat shoes you

know SK shoes so um uh what was this um oh Tanya Bowers uh what is Greg's involvement with Motocross our goals are

lauretta's next year yeah Loretta Lind is the reference there so that's the yeah yeah one of two or one of three of the amateur Nationals um so way way back

when so our machines are great for strength to weight ratio so if you want to get strong and you want to keep your body weight down you want to stay lean like anybody in a horsepower sport like

a motorcycle is very important um to be light and fast like a jockey almost think of that um so Motocross is always loved our machines plus it's a pulling

motion which you get on the bars and stuff like that and then a skier too so since I got here started with Travis pastron was probably the first guy we started working with with Travis and

then guy named Ricky carmichel and then it just all the top trainers in the world use our rowers even I know those guys those guys are like I don't know what they do but I know those

names some of the best in the world and and they and they they gravitated toward the con too they knew yeah well it's funny how it came about so I've always

thought Travis was great and um I think it was dirt Rider magazine that's out in California I think it was a waserman original or something Transworld maybe the guy went to Travis's house and

Travis had a rower already his dad was a PE teacher and he would challenge anybody to a 500 meter sprint and if you beat him he would give you a set of motorcross gear and I saw this in the

magazine like oh [ __ ] this is great and it was an old machine it was a outdated machine machine so through some friends I got Travis's email I said Travis do you want you know free machine if you're doing this this is helping us you know

now that's an influencer that's oh yeah he's the he's the influencer he's in the world so I drove down to Maryland and actually spent the weekend and almost died six or seven times they were

filming one of his Nitro Circus videos down there so I brought two machines down we worked out and rode uh mini bikes and dirt bikes and did crazy stuff

um and while I was down there I was like thanking him for having me down and all this stuff and he's like you know the fastest guy in the world on a dirt bike Ricky carmichel uses your rower every day and I'm like no I didn't know that so he puts me in contact with him and

his trainer at the time was Guy Alden Baker great guy great trainer who's still a number one trainer today then I got to know him and then it just kind of went kept going and going from there and it just kept and now I would say the

rower is probably one of the Premier training devices for Motocross other than Road cycling Road cycling is still the biggest what year were you a concept too during this oh that would have been

not long after I got here that probably would have been in uh 20023 something like that maybe earlier and did the owner did um uh uh dick and

Pat is that what their names Peter dick and Peter dick and Peter Di and Peter um uh did they um did they just trust was that just easy you're like hey guys I'm going here and they're like yeah go

ahead and they're like yeah go ahead did they just trust you how does that work because in the CR days we were growing so fast anyone could [ __ ] do anything like we I would just be like hey I'm going to Europe they'd be like yep just

bring back content so it's kind of the same way but I I myself and I realize I'm spending their money so I mean I'm not going to make any decision I think is foolish but right I'm explaining to these guys they don't own they never own

TVs they didn't they don't they don't own TVs they're kind of more of a I guess like a I want to say it like a hippie type thing ver you know

no TVs whatever um just really good guy so I I went to the local store and I bought a Travis Pon action figure kind with a bendy arms yeah and I brought in I'm like this is the guy I want to go

see he has an action figure have you ever had somebody with an action figure want your rowing machine and they're like nope very manipulative Greg very manipulative but it was it was it was

fun and uh and him like Brian Shaw being this big name and influencer was the most genuine person ever and and worked with him you know after that and

actually the car company that he still races for is in Vermont Vermont sports car makes his rally cars he still has some ties to Vermont so who Pisano yeah

hey so so going back to the job so you you earned the trust of uh um dick and Peter yeah but I mean that it's since they earned it you know if they hired you they trusted you like that's the

other thing when I got hired I was a temp for almost a year so I long story short I I sold my business I was doing corporate Wellness in in Maine and I absolutely hated it CU nobody really

wanted to get fit they just wanted someone to hold their hand and I was buying rowing machines because I could get people really fit in my my budget I had to spend anything I didn't spend on

equipment I could put in my own pocket so I was like oh I'm gonna buy rowing machines I can get people really fit they're not expensive and every time I called to buy one everyone here was either out skiing or trail running or having fun I'm like this place sounds

amazing and I was already from Vermont so I ended up coming back to Vermont but I was testing I also was in the Air National Guard as a firefighter so I was looking at being a full-time firefighter

so I tested for a fire department as well as working as a temp at concept 2 and um and so for a year it's how they kept jokingly keep the [ __ ] out if

you work with somebody for a year and they're still a good dude then they feel cool with hiring you um and so you know you pay your pay your dues and some guys that were tempts never got hired you know so so they did they do have this

inherent Trust of you when they hired you you're part of the family so um uh you were in the military uh the Air National Guard yeah paid for my college yeah so I mean it wasn't like

yeah I was in the air guard we have an F-16 unit here I did crash rescue firefighting and the only time I got deployed was to the azors for the Bosnian conflict and I was there for like I don't know nothing like it is

today you know it was it was pretty easy and it paid for all my college and you're not in it anymore I'm not no I when I started traveling for work it always so guard weekends were always like first weekend of the month and then

two weeks a year you know like they the old used to be and it always seemed like when it was a trade show going on or I was traveling for work so it uh ended up not doing that but I I still miss it and

I work a lot with the military guys now um which I enjoy I'm still I'm a incredibly patriotic guy so I try to do a lot with the military stuff um do you guys still do trade shows or you're too

big for that it's too it's not even necessary like do you guys even have a booth at the games uh we haven't lately I want to get back to doing a booth at the games

mainly because I'm always running from event to event and so I feel really doing like uh when you say running from event to event working like making sure Bill and Katie and Dave and crew have

what they need from concept too because you're okay yeah like with a beer in your hand no no not till after but no it's uh yeah because you

think about it in Madison I would have to run from the stadium to like that far Park and a lot of times there's overlapping events and so you know I'm running going team going and individual

going and they could all be using one of your pieces of equipment right it's actually it's me and usually one other person or two other people um and so we didn't have a booth but people would try to stop me and like explain they're having a problem with their rolling

machine and they you know legit question and I want to help them with their home like hey are you the concept to guy I got this machine in my garage like [ __ ] like that oh I get it all the time oh yeah absolutely yeah I mean on the

weekends I get I get Instagram messages from people I don't know saying my pm5 is not working and I'm like but um but so I want to come back to a booth where they can go and ask those questions to my co-workers and then I can keep going

back and forth but now we're going to be in in Fort Worth you know in one place I might who knows I might have time to do both you know work a booth and do the events right right should be easier I'm

hoping it's gonna be easier for us so God I hope I I hope they let me come back next year I I really want to see this new venue I really like the idea of a new what do you mean not let you come back you had what the hell very very

tenuous very T very very have to be very strategic and tactical I have a big mouth and I have to be very careful you know what you did to talk about big mouth it's

hilarious you interviewed me in a tunnel was it the marathon or was it the half marathon and I was so impressed like oh wow savan interviewed me I'm I'm a big deal now and all this stuff and then at

night I'm watching it on my phone and it said Greg Hamond owner of concept 2 oh I think in my brain still to this day you own it did that get you in trouble oh I

quickly uh text Peter and I go hey you might hear on the owner I didn't tell him that hey that's smart that is very smart but then Peter's like he goes that's fine he goes I want people to ask

you for free stuff instead of me so it's okay hey well the thing is is you TR for anyone who just maybe not for people who are in the audience but anyone who takes

one step behind the scenes um at the cross in CrossFit knows your affiliation with Concept 2 it's I mean because you're just you're I mean you've been like I said you've been around as

long as I have we both 2008 was my first games too and and and so like I see you as ubiquitous with Concept too I can't imagine you and a lot of people move

around you know someone will be at hwpo then at Reebok then at somewhere else and you just haven't you just like you always have like one machine on your back hey what's up well you know it's cool though I was thinking about this

too you know kind of run things through my head before I talk to you and it's like one of the cool things about well I mean I didn't want it to disperse but when CrossFit headquarters C started doing this little crumble down and

things were were getting a little weird for a while and everybody left or got fired it kind of helped because everybody that we knew were good dudes and good workers at one place went to some other place and you instantly had

that connection you know so it's amazing the number of people I'm like I wonder who works here and they're like oh Greg we've met I used to work for so and so and I'm like oh okay it's it's uh it's

pretty wild how people stayed in the space but just moved around to different companies you know there you you get to see people be really successful too based on their metrics of how many

machines they buy right so like you said bill was making P boxes now you're sending semis to him Rich Brony was just a a kid um living in an apartment with uh and and being an assistant strength

coach at Tennessee Tech and now he's got the Mayhem Empire uh you see Tia young girl from Australia now she's got these bought this massive awesome place in Tennessee so it's kind of cool right and

I love it yeah and you you get and you're associated with so many worldclass um eccentric people I don't mean Ecentric eccentric in any negative

way but just go getters yeah I mean that's that's one thing we've been lucky is that we're you know typically crossfitters are very positive people and hard workers and if you're positive and you work hard I mean you can do

whatever you want you know you're going to be successful for the most part but anyone ever try to poach you you ever get head hunted M me personally yeah you know

it's funny the the the closest it came and I don't even know if you're serious about it Tony budding went at way back in romis yeah was kind of feeling out he I mean he might not even been there

maybe he's just making conversation he's like so you like you like concept 2 I'm like yeah like concept 2 and he goes but you like CrossFit I'm like oh I love CrossFit I'm like is this guy asking me if I'd be interested but that was I

don't even know what I would have done um but he was always he probably was trying he prob he was he was the company was growing fast then he needed people he probably saw like you were Class Act

you worked hard he probably was trying to you know recruit you I I mean I would have loved it but I wouldn't have had the longevity clearly that I yeah for sure and uh yeah I mean it's

one things I am a a very loyal to my friends very loyal Lo guy and to the and to for Peter and Dick to take the chance on me um you know then you know

something they'd have to get rid of me because you know I'm I'm here for the Long Haul for those guys so God congratulations it's cool that you found your uh your home you're calling Alex person hey Greg I love concept to I

inherited some machines from someone in Naples that means they're they died but they were exposed to flooding last year during Hurricane Ian they

don't work 100% Can someone help with rep pairs yeah we get so we we help and that floods and stuff like that you know we we' fully aware of this stuff you really don't need anyone to help you

typically the machines are fine if you just clean them out uh it's just the electronics so you might need just new monitors on them but literally clean them out get all the silt and stuff off

of them and they should be fine I mean we have these machines have been through fires I mean I have pictures of them on the mountain tops of Afghanistan you know with Special Operations units with

dust and rocks and everything all over them and you know they've been flooded and typically with a good cleaning and a new some new a new monitor and pickup wire they're fine you know and seat

rollers typically seat rollers get all gross in there so but seat rollers like you know six bucks a piece I mean everything's pretty inexpensive except for that monitor which I think we're up

to like maybe 200 for that so um Jake Chapman uh Mr Hammond have you ever poured alcohol down your abs and had a lady lick it off

do I know you Jake no I don't think so just your mom Jake just your mom oh I should have said that no no I don't I don't think so I

and actually ABS is is uh being generous AB maybe is more accurate so over the ab over the ab yeah um Patrick Clark concept has become a huge part of

military Readiness uh thank you Patrick um especially in the army with the Imp implementation of the acft and the 5 K

row used as an alternate event oh the rowers is one of the test uh all the services yeah we've been lucky um to some extent in all different kind of

distances and stuff but yeah Army gets a 5k uh I forget what their time domain is for that um there's actually for the bike or maybe that is the bike he's referring to yeah the bike's in there

for the Army um I mean the Navy probably of all the branches probably buys more of our equipment than the other branches but but that's quickly armies get

catching up um Navy Special Operations probably had a lot to do with that so because of CrossFit and stuff that like you know Josh Everett and and

Dave did once the the Seal team started using our equipment a lot um you know it's almost like looking at your Heroes like the other guys in the military like oh I want to do what those guys do and

then it just started working up um from there and we also with the military acmy a lot of the guys in Pentagon were either rode for an Academy or they know somebody rode for the Academy so they

know the company they know what we do and stuff like that it's actually other than CrossFit working in the military guys is probably my most enjoyable well I shouldn't say that I like the Motocross stuff too but um the military

guys are great great job dude you just basically have a great job yeah I'm pretty happy pretty lucky you love coming to work yeah I mean not every day but yeah most days yeah so and when when you don't love coming to work it's

because you're being a [ __ ] it really is you got a good gig oh absolutely oh yeah I'm like everybody else you know some days you're just like you got those emails you just don't want to do and actually the hardest thing is saying no

I mean we get so many requests yeah for everything yeah I mean I genuinely would love to help everybody but we're still a business and we can't do that you know for everybody and so you know all you

let emails stack up that are all knows I'm sorry we can't help you I'm sorry we can't help you and those are the days that that suck because I'd like to and I

I don't know how they perceive me like oh like Greg can't help with our our CrossFit cancer benefit oh Greg must love cancer you know it's like I don't want that it's just we just can't you

just can't help everybody you know right right um and so I hope they don't feel that way and I think a lot of times I just put that on myself I've never had anybody you know you know mother F me

for not being able to help them you assle my son needed that rower yeah yeah it's oh we used to get that all the time too my son's going to be the next great Olympic rower and you look at his times you're like I have I have bad news your

son is not going to be the best rower I'm fine with telling kids that they're not gonna be good at of sport sometimes they need tough love so so uh

uh my buddy uh Travis bent the one who son and his son yeah I know Travis I met him when I met you that's right that's right okay so tra you know Travis's son went to the NFL right oh absolutely that

was amazing so he's he's talking to uh one of uh Tyson's trainers and he goes hey I want to show you some videos and he shows him some videos of my kids he's like what do you think these kids uh need to do to become professional

athletes he looks at Travis He looks back at the video he's all human growth hormone hey I mean genetically what' you give those kids I mean it's kind of your

fault D they're [ __ ] they're [ __ ] poor little [ __ ] the other day Josh Bridges is telling me he wants his son to be 5'11 I'm like dude if my son's 57 I will [ __ ] do a backflip yeah like I

I tell people I'm 5'10 I'm not 510 I'm I'm shorter than that but my I'm the tallest guy in my family so I mean I was screwed when I was playing rugby my goal is to be six foot 215 and run like the

wind I ended up at like 5'9 like at my heaviest like 190 and I was slow as death you know so I never really never really did well um being the tall I I think I was

pretty much the tallest person in my family too which is kind of cool because I never it truly wasn't until I went to college uh I went to UC Santa Barbara

that I was like oh [ __ ] I'm short so it's kind of cool so I I'll take you to an indoor rowing event sometime you and I and we'll go in an elevator and we'll be looking at belt

buckles how bad it is damn look at that guy's hog his hog he just do three inch from my no don't mind my friend savan he's

just really looking at your belt buckle uh Magnus homr uh Mr Greg uh can Greg

fix something so I ordered a pm5 display to me do you send p uh pm5 do you send stuff to Mexico I'm not sure we have a we have a a reseller in Mexico City that

handles all that yeah uh Santiago Fuentes it's yeah Remo Mexico um but yeah they they handle everything down in in Mexico for us although I did I I did want to get the uh the resort Market

that's my next marketing gig I'm gonna start doing stuff with the resort so I can go down to Mexico um I um there's this hotel I stay at in um

Arizona when I go there to visit Greg and it's called the valley hoe and they have a rower and it's awesome I use go there yeah I use the rower there more than I use my rower at home that's yeah

yeah I love a rower when when there's a rower in a hotel gym you're like this is a serious gym yeah I mean a lot of times they're pretty rough shape but yeah it's always I mean because I me what do you mean if you have a rower and a dumbbell

yeah there's no excuse to miss a workout you know so um um Magnus uh go ahead and write whatever you were trying to say again and I'll try to reread it again I I'll look for because you deserve a

better reading than that but I think I'm G to give you 50% uh blame for that okay um I hate to do this to you Greg what's that this really sucks to do this to

you what the [ __ ] is a damper oh man you had that how come no one can [ __ ] explain the damper why can't you just be like

one is and 10 is hard why can't yeah I know I know I I can explain it it's easy to explain it now whether or not somebody else can understand it that's that's different but it's it's

literally like and so and this is a go-to I I use like a chimney flu type of uh reference but then I realized that half the country doesn't know what a chimney flu is so basically I do so who

cares I know what a chimney flu so basically when it's open all the way on a 10 it gobbles more air in the more air that gets sucked in the faster that weighted flywheel slows down between

Strokes okay that's a tricky way to say it the faster it slows down yeah meaning does that mean it's also harder to pull well that's the thing so depending on

your stroke rate because if you take a a higher stroke rate there's also less time to slow down so the damper really is personal preference like how do you want it to feel but you can end up with

the same time and that's literally you know if you're a big if you're Brian Shaw you could put it on 10 and you could row and you have enough swing weight of your body going down the rail that that's that's helping him okay so

he can he can afford to have a high damper it's gobbling a lot of air he can pull it guys like you and me we're going to be at our sweet spot at like a three or a four on a new machine which

actually correspondingly has a damper a drag factor number which would be like a 117 so really it's just basically that damper has no wires that connect it to

the flywheel on a rower it literally is is how fast it slows down between Strokes because that's a weighted flywheel so if you remember inertia from yep yep whatever so it's a

weighted flywheel that has a known weight and if it slows down as it's slowing down and you go for your next stroke it's going to take more energy to get that weighted Flywheel spinning

again yeah okay but if you if you have a stroke rate that's pretty consistent it's not really slowing down all that much right right right so it's like so

remember when Lucas what was Lucas 's name uh last name that won the marathon row Lucas h no um no no yeah um hogart

yeah he was from Switzerland yeah hogberg I think so he won that with the weirdest technique i' ever seen he was doing a series of two hours and 50

minutes of deadlifts with a rowing machine he would pull it and he would stop at the end and then he'd take another pull and he'd stop and so he went the same distance and he got a good time but he was doing it in a weird way

where he could have made it a lot easier on himself if he just didn't let the flywheel so let me if you're going to use see let me see if uh if this is uh

um if I understand this if I can put it application if you're going to use that technique you would want the damper on one no the opposite You're Gonna Want It

On on 10 because but then it slows down faster on 10 it does but like you and I could get two or three Strokes in that same time it took him to

do the one and we would use less effort on it because we would have to pull as hard right no but I'm saying for for him what do you okay let me ask you then what what should he have had

the damper on to do that I mean he's a big guy so he could have gone a little bit higher what I would have done for a marathon is um you know I'm about 190 pounds yeah I would probably would have

been on a new machine like that probably like around a four or five um and then I would probably be at about 27 to 32 Strokes a minute what I think he was at

was at a 10 and he was probably like 15 Strokes a minute so he still did great and he's strong enough to be able to do it but like you and I couldn't do that I mean that's not the way he did it you

know anyway do you actually un let me let me go back do you actually understand the damper or do you have to do you have to make it up in your head and it's abstract no I mean I understand

it um it's what I don't honestly that I don't have the physics chops understand it and that's what it is I can't convert what you're saying into practical understanding like I could make it up

and like and like trick myself into thinking I know it yeah if you and I were together in the workout room you you'd get it and I think a lot of people make it more confusing than it is yeah

um especially for how they're using it yeah um on there I mean and it's the same thing too is like I'm not one of these nitpicky guys like I want people to have good technique but if their technique's not perfect or they don't

understand damper but they're still getting a good workout and they're not going to injure themselves then I typically are like what are your goals if your goals is just to get fit and have at it if if you're a competitor and

you want to finish the rowing workout with some extra energy for the next workout then yeah you got to look at efficiency both on damper and technique so it's really what the athlete is

looking to do um like I said my technique I think is pretty good over the years but I mean it's not compared to my co-workers that rode at a very high level I don't have the off icy they

do you know on there so who who's the bike for for me I'm G to tell you my biased like real like I love I love bike riding

I used to bike ride like a like since I've been a little kid I've been bike riding but when I exercise if I had the ski and the assault bike next to each other I I would or the Echo Bike I would

all I would be like why would I do the why would I do the urg bike yeah and and I and I agree so you know we're all mountain bikers here and and and that sort of

things so we we always do we make machines for sports we do the rowing machine came because Pete and Dick were Olympic rowers the skier came because their kids were Olympic by athletes and

Nordic skiers the bite came about transl that ski I thought that was a joke that thing translates to [ __ ] cross country skiing oh absolutely yeah matter of fact that's what we made one a

prototype ourselves for for us that raced and then Peter or Dick came down and saw it and you know he's an engineer and we just cobbled this thing together and he's like no we can make that better

and then the skier one came out and their kids were both training for the Olympics and it uh in Nordic ski racing they call it skate skiing so it's not like the old Nordic Track it's different but um they would get compartment

syndrome in their shins and so they needed something to keep their cardio up while they couldn't actually ski so they would sit on a box and they' use the ski and they could use the same muscles of their upper body and keep their cardio

going um so that's kind of how it came about uh I know we were talking about the bike but let me take you back to the ski what what when who developed the first ski and why did they do it it wasn't even for sale it was just a no no

in our walkout room we made it for ourselves to use to get better at skiing no [ __ ] yeah yeah yeah matter of fact flipped up I think I remember that I think I remember seeing some pictures

someone just like flipped up one of the other like the rower or something right I think I remember seeing some early yeah it was really bad for the chain so people would do it they're like oh I'm just going to flip my rower and it's going to be a ski and it's not like that

and it's actually not great for the rower um but we we did it so before there was a machine like that we had a thing a slideboard so you'd basically lay on a skateboard on this inclined

piece of plywood and you'd have two ropes and you would pull yourself up kind of like the old Chuck Norris uh Total Gym thing yeah um but we wanted a monitor we wanted to see how many watts we were putting out we want to see all

the stuff all the stuff the rower already could do so then we tried the turning the rower up against the wall that didn't quite work and then Dick came by being the engineer and if you

want anything made here you got to make it shitty and then the engineers come and get mad at you and they make it better there's like a trick to it manipulation yeah so we got the skier

that way and then because we're all mountain bikers and of course you know we're in Vermont so it's like snow on the ground now we can't mountain bikes we wanted something for the offseason initially everybody wanted us to make a

bike with arms and actually we had a prototype to do that um because they wanted monitor on that yeah but we also knew that Bill and Katie had an idea of making the Echo Bike and we would never

do anything to compete with those guys and so we actually said we can make a really good bike and we didn't like spin bikes if if you notice our bike is going to be more like biking outside it doesn't have that that flywheel that

continuously spins so your feet go flying around yeah so you can actually stop pedaling and the flywheel still moves on our bike so we made a bike that's cool that's cool it's made for

like real biking and so that's a it's and that's the thing too so when I went to the found people love it dude people [ __ ] love it I'm I'm blown away at how many people like

really I mean people love that bike well yeah and it's if you don't feel like working out it's great because there's no it's low barrier to enter you just sit on it and just pedal and then um you

know like urg desk made the UR Des top for it and now you see people on the bikes doing their work during the day and pedaling and and all that stuff so the urg desk was was a cool addition for

people too if they weren't actually going to work out but they wanted to burn calories and move and that was a nice addition Sean Lenderman the ski makes you more efficient uh uh pivoting

in the circle jerk oh I mean that's an that's just an added benefit we didn't actually design it into that the byproduct you have the you

have the penis they have the penis hand you can buy on on what's it Etsy handles on

that y yeah um the the rower you cannot hide on the bike obviously you can hide on you can always because you're sitting I don't the in the ski You Can't Hide

on the bike really is for kind of also in in my opinion for like older people like like if you're an older person like me or you're a slow warm-up person or you have a bad back and you need to be drenched and sweat like I do before you

start working out the bike's for you although I've never hurt my back on the rower ever and it's so rare it's almost myth at this point rowing's bad for your back what I've found over the years is

that even if you have horrible technique you you're not in a decent enough body position to generate enough Force to do that if someone hurts their back rowing it's pretty existing yeah yeah and you

kind of have to be an idiot like you the rower if you're being [ __ ] on the rower and the Chain's doing anything besides being taau you have other problems yeah exactly and and well you remember Pro the first year that we were

in a RIS we saw weird people and this we still see this a little bit but if you look at the games the progression of technique and Rowing has gotten so much better than the Aromas days I mean Aroma days was pretty ugly and then people

realize if you want to compete at CrossFit at a high level one of the easiest things to do is improve your Technique on the rower um but we had um oh who was the girl from Nebraska uh way

back then that was really good Lizzy something anyways she was short and she heard that rowers to Joe westerland's wife she's a cop now super hot chick she was pretty good looking yeah everyone

was hot de deio yeah that's it liby liby deio yeah well she would row and she was pulling to her chin and laying way back and I know I understood in her mindset

she's she was correct she was thinking oh tall people do good on the row I'm gonna make myself as tall as possible but that was a bad body position which ended up hurting her in her Strokes you

know so but yeah we saw a lot of that back in the day I think moo was the moo and Sam Briggs were the out of the gate like better rowers although moo had the this weird thing where he'd rest the

handle on his legs and I swear to God next two weeks everyone was rowing like Mo where they'd stop rest on the legs and then go forward again and influencer well like the butterfly on the skier

which is completely inefficient and and but uh Rich butterflied I think in one video oh this thing yeah no you do like this which my shoulders are so tight I can't even do that anyways but um that

became a trend for a while and luckily that's gone away not all not everybody some people do I think I think some people still do it remember seeing it so

mouthpieces Rich has sold how many what mouthpieces I bet you he sold [ __ ] gazillions I never talked to Rich about it but remember he endorsed that little thing called a whipper it was like this

little box and it was could be used to be a rower and a skier we will not talk about that we will not talk about that I hope they paid him a lot of money for that yeah I mean I don't blame any

of these guys because you know you got to you got to you got to pay the bills and stuff like that but I I always respected him that he would i' he' pop up on my Facebook on the Whipper and then I would go to his Instagram and

he's training on the concept too and like and Sam dancer um uh endorse some product that like you like he said was equivalent to deadlifting or back squatting 500 pounds or something some

ropes coming out of a platform you stand I'm like come on come on I mean it's but you know we don't get our income the same way they do and they need to do it you know if you're gonna be yeah I beg

people for the on the internet for it $1.99 at a time right yeah they pay me to ask read questions to you well I appreciate it anyways and I

still think we need to have our our old man uh Fitness [ __ ] podcast uh uh Mr uh Greg Hammond from Tyler Greg Tyler Greg

to Greg Hammond uh ask about the concept to dino strength trainer what's that yeah we had a strength machine for a while called it yeah the dyo uh and it

was cool it it only did leg press a row and a bench press um but you could get over a th000 pounds resistance just based on trapped air and the whole

machine only weighed about 120 pounds what happened that thing uh functional fitness uh happened and uh nobody wanted to use a linear machine so um yeah there

you go it's still a great machine we used to have a lot of fun so we used to do it was called centuries and you would do a hundred reps on all three movements and it used to give you your average

poundage so like no matter how many reps you did it would give you the average of weight that you moved and so we would have like King of the gym and so whoever could get the highest average of the

three movements was King of the gym in there oh I like it yeah it was it was great we used to take it to strength and conditioning shows we sold a lot to the British military they would deploy they

would deploy with it um oddly enough a lot of them ended up in Brazil not sure how that happened um yeah it's uh it was a great machine um I should have scheduled you

for three hours unforunately I have to go you're you're awesome uh I have to have you back maybe I should um are are you going to W paloa

I'm not gonna be at w paloa no I'm not sure next time I'll run into you um you said I'm not going there either but I was just wondering if you were gonna go there we could talk about I'm trying to find an excuse to talk to you hey

did do you do you go to you don't go to every big event you don't go to we we have a lot of bus when they used our equipment um they're not us anymore oh

okay no so so we're not going there some else sponsors them like someone else like airrunner or salt or someone sponsors them so they use their stuff right yeah exactly so um it also was a

tough time a year to go for me to go down there anyways but like um but like also too like right now Kevin Ogar and the wheel wad guys they're using our equipment I I would have liked to have been there but I'm not there so we do

send equipment to events that we don't go to um on there but um yeah probably the next time I see you you know might be you know maybe games I don't know so hey um what about the um semi-finals I

mean I'm not going to them but do you go to those yeah I mean if I if there's a need if they're doing something with our equipment and they need us to be there then I I typically try to go you know traveling for me I used to do like one

trip a month which didn't seem much to somebody was travel a lot but like the older I get the more I like the quietness of Vermont like when I come back from the games or like Rogue imitational it's so nice to come to

fromont where there's just like nobody here like the roads are empty you know I can be on my back porch I'm looking at the woods you know I know I'm getting it's getting old I'm starting to look at

Birds now I get it yeah Birds history books yeah uh final question totally out of your um world so

um or adjacent World why can't the echo why hasn't the Echo Bike or the assault bike solved the problem for pedals and have you guys solved that problem on

your bike like I had a Tim Murray on here he's like the fittest dwarf in the world and it's like we're like my kids like like what the [ __ ] how come people how come that can't someone can't crack the cat on that [ __ ] so our pedals we

did they weren't always great now they're they're pretty they're they're good they don't really have an issue but when we started messing around with a bike with arms can ride your bike or

little kid so yes they do we have a shorter rear leg so for like middle school kids or someone who short we do have a a a shorter rear leg that is one problem with a lot of our equipment and

everything here is built for tall people because right right right and I get it I'm I'm not I'm not I'm not like hating on it but there's got to be a market for kids and dwarf dwarfs are kind of funky I didn't know this until he was on the

show the other day he got the Torso of a man yeah so his legs maybe are even shorter than like a kid's legs but there's got to be something that you can there's I guess like Jeff burfield said I don't have the physics chops so I

guess I don't have the mechanical chop but you would think that there's something that could something you put on the handles of these bikes and then something you put on the pedals yeah I mean I think our bike's going to be better than than to say a bike with arms

for somebody that size right and and actually when we started messing around with building a bike with arms they have a lot more um torque issues than what we have on our bike because of the fact that they're going back and forth so

like you know that rattl that all the bikes end up getting I mean not so much Echo echo's built pretty tough um sounds like something the fans loose yeah I mean because has more torque whereas on

our bike everything's going in One Direction you know everything's um but also too it's like I never liked on those bikes how your arms assist your legs and your legs assist your arms you know with ours you know when your legs

are done you're they're done you know kind of thing so um yeah I mean that's like riding it for kind of Fitness I guess I ride it just to get warm right

that's why I the arms it's just it's just a old man machine to me do uh do like all out like you know thousand meters and box jumps and you'll you'll fail every box jump it's

awesome nothing but bloody shins for days uh I appreciate your uh 99 minutes today I I appreciate it man I I I could

talk to you forever too I mean there's fewer and fewer of us that have been around for the whole show yeah and um you know and there's a lot to talk about especially with like a lot of the

changes going on in in the CrossFit space you know and I feel like you and I can almost get away with talking from the outside we still love it as much as ever but the changes seemed odd to me

still compared where it was you know what 20 years ago now it's like it's crazy how long it's been yeah and and kind of Perpetual big changes always happening now we still haven't settled

things haven't settled down in the last four years five years six years it's been it's been it's been a weird six years five years it is and I don't envy like the the the the decisions that dawn

has to make now you know I agree it's there's no easy answer and that's the thing is like I'll never throw any shade on decisions being made because I don't have an answer either but I know I want to see it grow and I know that crossfits

helped a lot of people live a much better life um I plan on doing functional fitness until I can't anymore you know and I do think it's the answer

it's the business side of it that seems tough so yeah um thanks for coming on uh begin sometime I'll bug you uh great to the longest we've ever talked I guess when I have people on the show it's

usually the longest I've ever talked to him but uh you you met my exceeded my expectations do good I don't hear that a lot so thanks saon that's nice that you

said that all right brother have a good day have a good day man ciao bye Greg Hammond concept two dang he's cool uh no

politics time is today at four o'clock I am going to uh read as many as the DMS hundreds of DMs I got from Affiliates in

the last 48 hours if you want to send any more send them in uh I will it is surprisingly uh I maybe surprisingly I shouldn't start like that is very is actually much more positive than but

yeah surprisingly than I expected uh the um and and and that's with people's initial reaction so I think things are only going to calm down more and more but I will see you guys today at four o'clock I've invited a bunch of people

on but it looks like they can't do it um I really wanted to get Jr and grundler on but it looks like I'm going to um uh it's gonna be me and soua just

reading uh DMS to you guys we'll open up the phone lines don't be scared to call in um all right guys um you will read aloud any DM we send

you no not not no let's not get carried away all right