Rich Froning Fittest Man on Earth

Rich Froning
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Juliet: [0:04:12] Rich, welcome to The Ready State Podcast. We are really excited to talk to you.

Rich Froning: [0:04:16] Thanks for having me. I am excited to talk to you guys.

Juliet: [0:04:18] So I just want to get started because obviously everybody listening to this knows you as Rich Froning, most successful CrossFit Games athlete of all time. I think it’s fair to say that. But if you could just let everybody know, you must have had some kind of a life before CrossFit, and what was that? What were you up to and how did you find CrossFit?

Rich Froning: [0:04:38] Yes. So, oh man, it was a really long time ago now. Getting older and older. I was thinking about this the other day. Yeah, so I grew up, I was born in Michigan way back. Born in Michigan, moved to Tennessee when I was four and a half, five, lived in Tennessee ever sense, in Cookeville, Tennessee. Grew up playing a ton of sports; not organized, I guess. The main organized sports that I played were football and baseball. Baseball kind of took the forefront in high school. And so did a little bit of that. Went to play college baseball; decided college baseball wasn’t where I wanted to be. Came home. I had a girlfriend that lived back home. That was a big part of it. Got homesick, came back. My dad was like, “All right, well, it’s too late to transfer so you’re going to work in a factory assembling airbags.” So I did that for six months. 

And the Cookeville Fire Department at the time had a student firefighter program where you worked as a full-time firefighter, they paid your tuition to Tennessee Tech. And so I did that for three and a half, four years. And in that process, kind of towards the last part of that, I also worked as a graduate assistant for intramurals at the end of the firefighting and found CrossFit. The head of the strength and conditioning coaches was a professor in exercise science and said, “Hey, you’re into working out obviously and then a lot of military, police, or fire are doing this. You should check it out.” And so like everybody else, started watching CrossFit videos on CrossFit.com and just started doing it because I enjoyed it. And then in the process of that, found out that you could compete in it. And I guess the rest is history, as they say. That was 2009; June of 2009 I got my Level I and then found out you could compete that winter. I guess it was July because I started watching the Games videos that they put out 2010 or 2009. And so 2010 I competed and have basically been doing that every year since then.

Juliet: [0:06:29] When you first started were you like us and you were trying all these random CrossFit workouts but in a normal gym and getting the evil eye from people or where were you going? Or was there already a CrossFit?

Rich Froning: [0:06:38] No. So yeah, there was a CrossFit gym, but I was a broke college student that couldn’t afford it. So we either would do them in the campus rec facility or we had myself and Darren, my cousin who I started CrossFit with, we worked at a corporate fitness facility, so we did some of the stuff in there. And then we started making our own stuff and doing our own thing at my dad’s barn. And so we trained a lot at the barn. 

And then from there, we decided to open a gym but we couldn’t afford to call ourselves CrossFit. And so we coached using CrossFit methodologies, but this was before it was cool to do that. Now it’s cool to do that and not be called CrossFit. Because we were broke. And then I won my sectional. Is that what they called it then? Sectional. And then won my regional. And then after that, Dave came up to me, Castro, and said, “Hey, where do you train?” And I told him, “Hey, yeah, we’re poor and we can’t do it.” And he’s like, “Email me on Monday and we’ll wave your fee.” And CrossFit Mayhem was born.

Juliet: [0:07:36] That’s a cool story. Did you know immediately upon starting CrossFit that you were good at it because you could just see and compare your times with other people? Were you like, “Wow, I have a knack for this?” Was that obvious to you immediately or you had no idea?

Rich Froning: [0:07:48] No idea really because in the beginning when I started CrossFit, like I said, I started with my cousin Darren and we would work out every day. And I’d say 50/50, he’d beat me on anything over 10 to 12 minutes, and I’d beat him on anything that was heavier, a little bit faster. So really had no idea. And then when we really started kind of diving into competing and I remember I’ve said this a couple times, but one of the first times that we did two workouts in a day and we didn’t die, because at the beginning you thought that-

Kelly: [0:08:18] You didn’t know if that was possible.

Rich Froning: [0:08:19] No, you thought, oh, well, they say only one time a day. If you do it twice, you might die. And so we did our second workout because we were bored. We had summer and we didn’t have anything to do. And so we worked out twice and we didn’t die. And then kind of the two a days were born after that. And when we started doing that type of stuff and then watching videos and watching Khalipa videos, I remember one of the workouts I did or we did, some of the 2009 Games workouts and our times were comparable. I was like, “Oh, man, maybe I should try this next year.” And that’s when I signed up for sectionals. And Darren never did. That’s always the joke. We want to make kind of a parody video where Darren falls asleep on the chair and goes back to that moment and he signs up and I don’t and I’m living his life, he’s living my life.

Kelly: [0:09:03] It’s like Narcissus and Goldmund. You’re going to end up at the same place.

Rich Froning: [0:09:06] Darren was an incredible or is an incredible athlete. We always joke that he’s one of the best athletes to never try, you know? He just didn’t care, just never had that. He does an incredible job for us behind the scenes and does our affiliate programming now and is the best coach and best kind of people person and can relate to any type of person, and so-

Kelly: [0:09:25] His body isn’t sore all the time, which is really cool.

Rich Froning: [0:09:27] I know. Exactly, right? He can walk without clicking and popping as much as my knees do.

Kelly: [0:09:32] Let me ask you this: If anyone knows you, you love to play. You ride bikes, you run, you’re in an intramural flag football league that’s pretty competitive.

Rich Froning: [0:09:41] Yeah. We travel.

Kelly: [0:09:44] I don’t know if that’s the right world.  You’re in a competitive football league.

Rich Froning: [0:09:46] Flag football. Yeah. We just got back from Tampa a couple weeks ago actually.

Kelly: [0:09:50] That’s pretty amazing.

Juliet: [0:09:51] Dude, it’s competitive. If you travel, that’s competitive.

Kelly: [0:09:53] Yeah, it’s competitive. And you guys take it really seriously.

Rich Froning: [0:09:56] Yeah, we do. It’s fun.

Kelly: [0:09:57] I mean your outfits are amazing.

Rich Froning: [0:09:58] Yeah. Cheap suits. It’s a tuxedo T-shirt.

Kelly: [0:10:02] One of the things that I’ve had the pleasure of just getting to train with you when you hang around the house and you’re always down for it. Have you always had this huge genetic drive to move? Because my ding on my genetics is that I have a huge genetic drive to move. Like I’m always like, “Let’s play, let’s play, let’s play, let’s twitch.” Juliet thinks I’m ADHD and this is how I cope.

Juliet: [0:10:19] There’s no thinking.

Kelly: [0:10:20] But I can’t recover. I don’t have the recovery skills that you guys do. 

Rich Froning: [0:10:24] Yeah, I’m one of… Just on my mom’s side there’s 32 of us first cousins. And then I have four or five cousins on my other side. But there’s 32 of us; 25 of us are boys. The girls are just as athletic as the guys. And when I was a kid, we always thought that there was this competition of who’s the best cousin. So “Hey, guys, go swim across the pond and see who can get back here from the other side the fastest.” Or, “Ride your bikes around the pond. Who’s the fastest?” And so we kind of built this competition up in our heads. And I never figured it out until I had kids, that they were just trying to wear us out. But in my head, I look back and I’m like you guys created these monsters that we all are now because a lot of us are still super competitive and uber competitive in what we do. 

And at the time I was thinking it’s who’s the best, and now that I have kids, because I did this the other night, we’re laying in bed at 7:30 at night, Hillary was out, she had a friend’s birthday party. So I had all three kids. Get them dinner, get them bathed, and all that stuff. And I’m thinking, all right, we’re going to go to bed at 7:30, we’re going to go to bed, watch a movie until everybody’s going to fall asleep. Everybody’s bat… Just crazy. Just losing their mind. Trice is… And he’s high energy anyway. But the girls are just, they’re fighting and kind of whatever. I’m like, “All right, downstairs.” They’re like, “What are we doing?” I was like, “Downstairs now.” They’re like, “Are we cleaning?” I’m like, “No. Lakeland, get on the AssaultRunner.” I made her move for a minute. “Trice, you’re next.” And I let the other two play while the other one was getting their minute on the assault runner and then rotated them through for a minute until they got a mile done. And then we go back upstairs. It’s terrible parenting. Terrible parenting.

Kelly: [0:12:04] But also genius.

Rich Froning: [0:12:06] Lake and Violet fall right asleep. Out. Trice, still batshit crazy. Just running, jumping, doing whatever. And I’m like, “Trice!” “I want to go back downstairs and work out.” So I’ve just created a complex in that kid. But it’s-

Kelly: [0:12:20] It’s called self-soothing. It’s how we feel better. 

Rich Froning: [0:12:22] It was funny. Not one of my finer moments. But yeah, I blame that on my parents and my aunts and uncles. But yeah, I have to move, I have to do something, I have to compete. Like you said, I enjoy… Well, what’s great about what I do is my job is to move. And so now getting into mountain biking over the last couple of years, really enjoy that. It’s been something that is fitness and I still get to… It helps my job, technically, but is a release as well where I can get out and just kind of go in the woods and get out and go fast and do things that are a little bit dangerous probably because I do have a little bit of that, obviously. Being a firefighter, you do have a little bit of… I just don’t have that switch that tells me that I shouldn’t be doing things. And so it helps. It helps mountain biking.

Kelly: [0:13:03] I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Juliet: [0:13:06] So I would just like to say, in my opinion, all bets are off when it comes to getting kids to go to sleep and be asleep. So I don’t think that’s terrible parenting. I think it’s amazing parenting. You know, we used to make our kids… They wanted to watch TV; we would make them do 100 kettlebell swings to watch TV. And people had sort of a mixed reaction. The internet was like, “Well, I mean your kids may be in therapy in their 20s about that.” And on the other hand, but I was like I think it’s awesome. But it remains to be seen. Because everyone always says, “Hey, you know, you guys seem to be doing a great job as parents. What’s your secret?” I was like, “No, no, no, no, no, come back and talk to me when my kids are 27. This is a full experiment right now. We have no idea if any of this is working or harming them.”

Rich Froning: [0:13:48] Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I would look at… I say it helps them. But then you look back and you’re like, dang, maybe that wasn’t. And sometimes you do stuff and you’re like, Mmm, I screwed that one up. Daily actually.

Juliet: [0:14:01] Do you remember, Rich, how you and Kelly first met? I mean I know I first met you at a CrossFit Games. But I don’t know, when did you and Kelly first meet? Was it during one of your teaching junkets or what were you doing? Do you guys remember? Neither one of you remember.

Kelly: [0:14:15] It’s the syphilis that’s eaten my brain. I’m senile.

Rich Froning: [0:14:19] I’m sure it had to have been at a Games.

Juliet: [0:14:23] Well, let me-

Kelly: [0:14:23] The world is a little different. I think people don’t realize that 10 years ago, longer, it was a smaller community. You reached out. You could actually just ask people for help. You ran into each other. It was just a very different world. Less professional.

Juliet: [0:14:37] Even at the Games, the athletes were just kind of cruising around with the spectators when they weren’t competing. Right now, there’s this very sort of the athletes are in one place, and the spectators, right? So it was very different back then. But what I will say is I do remember a time, and I think Kelly went to teach one of his courses at Mayhem—this is way back in the day—I don’t remember anything about it other than-

Kelly: [0:14:57] The Mayhem first gym.

Juliet: [0:14:57] Yeah. I don’t remember anything about it other than Kelly came home and said that Hillary had made these things called Oreo balls which had a deep and lasting impact on Kelly and something that he continues to talk about fondly.

Kelly: [0:15:11] Is that when I got fat and slower?

Juliet: [0:15:14] I mean that may have been the beginning. That may have been the beginning of it.

Rich Froning: [0:015:17 There’s some in the laundry room. She doesn’t make them, but she had somebody make some for Violet’s birthday. So they’re in the laundry room right now.

Kelly: [0:15:24] Oh, I don’t even need to know. I’ll be there in two minutes. Two hours.

Rich Froning: [0:15:27] Come on.

Kelly: [0:15:29] It’s really simple, everyone. It’s just like cream cheese and a bag of Oreos. Smash them together. 

Rich Froning: [0:15:33] It really is. Just drizzle them in icing, which are amazing.

Kelly: [0:15:36] It’s amazing. The only reason, everyone understands this, why Rich works out is so you can handle the Oreo balls. 

Rich Froning: [0:15:43] I think that really when I was a kid my mom cooked so many sweets that I was a little pudgy and I was like, I’ve got to fix this. I think it was eighth or ninth grade when kids come to that point where they actually care what they look like. I think that’s what started it all for me.

Kelly: [0:15:56] Thanks mom.

Rich Froning: [0:15:57] Yeah, thanks mom, dad, everybody.

Juliet: [0:15:57] So since we’re talking about food, I think you’re sort of well-known to have… I mean obviously, you eat well. But I think you’re also known sometimes as having maybe sometimes not the strictest diet and that you will eat an Oreo ball every so often. And like the two workouts a day, you have yet to die and it hasn’t impacted your athletic performance. So I don’t know. What are your thoughts on that?

Kelly: [0:16:20] And let me throw in-

Juliet: [0:16:21] Do you have a conscious approach and you’re just like, hey, I’m living my life and I work out hard? What’s your sort of view?

Kelly: [0:16:28] Yeah, take a swing at that.

Rich Froning: [0:16:30] It’s almost like the 80 to 90 percent rule I guess of I try to most of the time eat really healthy or relatively healthy, I guess. The older I get, the more I’m trying to dial that in just because try different things and see if it helps with inflammation or certain things. But yeah, if there’s something there that I want to enjoy, as long as I’m not eating every day like that or eating I would say a whole sleeve of Oreos, but I can’t say that that’s never happened. If they’re gone, then you can’t eat anymore usually. So yeah, I think-

Kelly: [0:17:00] Making the family safe.

Rich Froning: [0:17:02] Exactly. You know, I’m trying to do this for my kids. And so to I guess pinpoint something, over the years I’ve actually tried to clean up my diet a little bit. But I still will indulge every once in a while. And I don’t want it to be this weird, awkward thing sometimes of Rich has got his own separate food, what’s going on here, kind of with the family. So the kids, luckily for us, the kids will… Trice, one of his favorite things are broccoli. He freaking loves broccoli, which is amazing, that a 4-year-old or 3-year-old loves broccoli. But we were at a restaurant one time and he was throwing a fit—he was tired—all he wanted was broccoli. It was the most bizarre thing ever.

Juliet: [0:17:40] It’s like a self-soothing mechanism. I think the other thing too-

Kelly: [0:17:42] That’s a Saturday Night Live skit where your 4-year-old throws a broccoli fit.

Juliet: [0:17:46] I would say too, we sort of have a similar approach with eating with our kids. We’re never going to be eating some pre-prepared food and make our kids dinner. We try to actually eat together and we think it’s even more important because we have two girls and there’s so much disordered eating and there’s so… I mean you aren’t-

Kelly: [0:18:04] Even in our community.

Juliet: [0:18:05] Quite at that point yet. But I mean it’s so significant in teenage girls that we really are like, hey, we obviously want to always have a healthy diet but we’re not going to be weird about having some treats around and be normal.

Kelly: [0:18:18] Do you and Hil talk about that?

Rich Froning: [0:18:19] You know, our kids aren’t really to that age yet. Like Lakeland this morning, like Hillary for some reason had these mini moon pies. Anybody who’s been in the South has had one. Lakeland’s like, “Hey, I’m taking these for snack.” And I’m like, “That’s not health… All right, you go ahead and take that. If you want to take that for a snack today, once every once in a while.” And she’s like, “All right, well, I’m going to eat one for breakfast.” I’m like, “You will not eat one for breakfast. You can have one for a snack but you’re not going to eat one for breakfast and for a snack.” So there’s that. 

You know, I think it’s just creating healthy boundaries and have them, they see me eating healthy. Hillary is not a huge… She loves pasta and those types of things and genetically she can handle that type of stuff. But the kids, I think we’ve just for so long, hey, I eat relatively healthy, they’ll eat whatever I’m eating, they love, which like I said, which is crazy, our kids love vegetables. They love good meat and stuff like that. Chicken bones, they love. Meat off the bone. Wings. They love wings but they call them chicken bones. So it’s cool. It’s cool.

Kelly: [0:19:17] You cannot get enough collagen in your kids. I think chicken wings and hot dogs are the world’s super foods for children. All the connective tissues.

Juliet: [0:19:24] So I just want to go back to your CrossFit career for a minute and say something I always think about whenever I’ve been sitting with Kelly watching you compete.

Kelly: [0:19:34] Sorry, Rich.

Rich Froning: [0:19:34] Uh oh. Hurry up.

Juliet: [0:19:35] This is Kelly’s commentary which is-

Kelly: [0:19:37] Hurry Up. Why is he still going?

Juliet: [0:19:39] Yeah. Kelly always says that you are not the only one, but one of the few athletes that will be on the floor that gets mechanically better the more tired you get. That’s always the commentary he has about you, right? Other people’s technique falls apart when they get tired and yours gets better. At least that’s Kelly’s view of it. Are you conscious of that? Is that something you’ve worked on or is that part of your genetic freakdom or what do you think about that? Because obviously you care about mechanics. You move really well. It’s probably not all just a genetic gift. But are you aware that that’s… Is that an approach you take to training or competing or it just happens?

Rich Froning: [0:20:20] I think it’s definitely a perfect storm of all of it. I think biomechanically my limbs are in pretty good unison I guess of the length and all that type of stuff. I think athleticism has a part to play in it. I think years and years and years of skilled practice and making sure that I’m doing things and then trying to stay away from things that hurt, you know. If something doesn’t feel right, I probably try to not lean into it or maybe flirt with that line of where I start to, you know, like they’ve always talked about in CrossFit seminar of technique versus intensity of staying right at that line of, all right, I’m going fast enough that I’m not breaking down too bad. But it’s just a perfect storm of all of those things. I can’t pinpoint one of them. And Kelly, you may be able to speak to it a little bit better. 

But I think, like I said, biomechanically, there’s probably some type of an advantage there. I do have a little bit longer limbs or arms, I guess. But years and years and years of practice. And then it was after 2000… I want to say going back to what we talked about earlier, how we met, I think I reached out to you, I had some back issues after 2010 and falling off that rope. And you gave me some couch stretch and… What do you call it, the Olympic squat stretch? I’m pretty sure it was after 2010 is when we connected. And what I’ll say is anytime I ever reached out to you about anything, for a while I’d try it by myself because I’d feel bad just always asking you for help. And then as soon as I’d ask, he’d be like, “Oh yeah, try this, this and this.” And then it’d fix it. I’m like, “Gosh dang it. Why I didn’t do that earlier?” 

But saying all that to say, in 2010 I backed everything down, looked at my movement, and was like, “Oh I could clean that up, do this, fix my squat. I was very quad dominant, very not using the hips, not everything, not moving correctly, not moving well. So I basically went down and was like, all right, nothing over 95 pounds. We’d do 100 air squats a day just thinking about, all right, how am I moving. Am I kind of staying in the planes I need to stay in? And just basically doing that, kind of a complete overhaul of my movement. And that helped immensely. And we used that method a couple times on a couple athletes like Angelo DiCicco who has been with us since he was 14. We wouldn’t let him go over basically 95 pounds until he would show us that he could do x, y, and z correctly. And I think it’s paid off in his longevity as well as he’s got a little bit of shoulder thing. Things are going to happen at a high level. If you’re a high-level athlete, it’s not safe. CrossFit is not safe if you’re doing it for competition. It is what it is. And that’s kind of a necessary or inherent risk you’re taking on. But CrossFit overall is safe if you do it correctly. And so that was one thing that we did with Angelo, like I said, in the beginning, is, hey, get you moving right before we allow you to go any heavier than say 95 pounds. 

Juliet: [0:23:10] And I think that that’s such a fair statement about all athletics at a high level, right? Like the moment you start competing and training at that kind of volume at a high level, whether it’s running or football or really any sport, mountain biking, right, it’s like your risk of injury and catastrophe goes through the roof, right? It just is part of the game. It’s a risk you take.

Kelly: [0:23:28] Well, I think we’re also just beginning to roll into… I’ll put you Gen One. You’re like first generation competitive athlete. People like Annie, you, Khalipa, et cetera who are still around have had to figure out how to address efficiency, lifestyle, movement, just to be able to handle these intensities. You know, I think part of your success is that you’re really efficient and you’ve kind of continued to define the skill instead of throwing yourself at the fire. And sometimes it isn’t even a result of conscious decision. It’s the only way to continue to make progression. And then when you backstroke fill and people start to realize, oh, greater efficiency actually is a more effective way where you can train two or three times a day. 

One of the things that I think is interesting is as you have come around, I know you have a world-famous cereal bar after heavy squats and those things, but you do something that I think is a little bit novel and sort of anathema and sort of opposite of some recommendations we give to athletes, is you sometimes don’t eat breakfast. Will you talk about that for a second? And what you do on the back end of that?

Rich Froning: [0:24:36] Yeah, so I intermittent fast. And I’ve done it for four years now. Three or four years now. I could honestly probably count on one hand the number of days in the last four years that I’ve not intermittent fasted. Traveling different time zones; I don’t have a DeLorean. Traveling different time zones is sometimes tricky.

Kelly: [0:24:54] But they’re making an electric DeLorean, so soon.

Rich Froning: [0:24:54] I can see that. Actually, I did see that. It is just something that’s worked for me and it’s worked really well since I’ve been doing it.

Kelly: [0:25:00] Did you eat breakfast as a kid?

Rich Froning: [0:25:02] Yes, usually I did. Bowl of cereal. You know, the traditional just bunch of sugar. Bowl of cereal. And if there wasn’t any sugar type cereal, you added sugar with the spoon. And then even in my early years of competing, I would eat kind of in the morning, I would get super busy throughout the day. I’m the type that if I’m moving, if I’m busy, I don’t really think about eating, if there are things to do, then food is kind of an afterthought or a last type thing. And then end of the day, I would just take in a bunch of calories. 

But the hard part for me was the fact that early afternoon session or afternoon session I just felt a beatdown. I was tired, exhausted, because I wasn’t eating. And so off season is just kind of this weird time where you don’t want to put on a bunch of weight, you’re not training as much, so you’ve got to dial back your calories and all this type stuff. 

So I’d been reading a bunch about intermittent fasting and I might have this issue with my knee where I was having a ton of swelling. It was right after that meniscectomy that I wish I never would have done and all this type stuff. And so I’m trying to figure out ways to get rid of inflammation. So one of the ways that I’d read was intermittent fasting. So I was, I’ll give this a shot, see how it goes off season. When season starts back, okay, I’ll get my normal routine. Well, slowly, I actually really liked it. It took about two or three weeks to get used to. In that whole process, start ramping up the volume a little bit, just with machine type stuff, kind of a second session. And was like, all right, let’s see how this goes and how I feel. 

And I just felt really good. It made me eat middle of the day after my first session and then I was fueled for my second session. And then I think of after that second session as fueling for the next morning session. It just really worked and it worked with my lifestyle. It felt really good. In the morning, I drink black coffee. That’s it. Black coffee and water is kind of my only morning things, only morning I guess ritual. The hard part is sometimes on Saturdays or Sundays, if the kids are at the house and we cook breakfast, that’s the only real hard part. Actually, Thursdays are hard. I lied. We usually swim at 8 and the Thursday’s kind of our no… I would say no fitness day but you swim a lot and then we usually bike in the afternoon. So this kind of, we swim early and then we have a break where usually we’re training up until noon. So right now, I’m counting down. I’ve got 32 minutes until I can eat. And it’s just something that’s worked for me and I really like it.

Kelly: [0:27:19] Usually, last time I was there you had a gigantic shake and that’s what you were breaking your fast with. Are you still doing that?

Rich Froning: [0:27:24] Yep. Breaking my fast usually with a protein shake and then I’ll take in whatever a lunch would be. Usually, some type of chicken and rice or bring in some carbs, something like that. And so kind of cool, I’ve got this insulin real time blood sugar glucose monitor. Company’s trying to get into it. And my sister’s Type I diabetic. So I more was just intrigued on, hey, do I have any of those of issues with Type I diabetes. And so it’s been kind of cool. I’ve been wearing it for two, three weeks now, and just to see what my blood sugar does and the bottoms. 

And it’s kind of weird that… Not weird, now that I’ve looked into it, but I never would have thought it. If I’m fasting in the morning, we do a really hard CrossFit session, my blood sugar will actually spike to about 130 fasted. And it’s interesting I guess in the fact I might be able to change some stuff up when I’m competing to maybe get a little bit of sugar so I’m not breaking down that tissue. Because that’s what’s happening, is I’m either taking, breaking down muscle or getting some glycogen or cortisol and all that type of stuff, as fuel. So I don’t know. Geeking out on that type of stuff. I don’t know how much I’ll use. But it’s cool to kind of learn some of that stuff. And then if I’m doing a longer, steady state workout in the afternoon, my blood sugar drops to 60 or 70. And I feel completely fine. But it’s just kind of interesting.

Juliet: [0:28:44] I love to geek out on all that data stuff too, so I’m like, ooh, I want one of those, that sounds fun.

Rich Froning: [0:28:49] I know, right? At first, I was like, I don’t really care about that. And then the more and more I do it, I’m like, okay, this is kind of interesting, why is it doing that? Let me try this, you know?

Kelly: [0:28:55] Let me ask you, you’re doing something I think is really remarkable. You’re not just an athlete monk with a girlfriend. You have a really rich family life. You have a rich community life with your church. You have a competitive life which is real. And you’re sort of the head of an empire. And I know you have friends around you. But a lot of people struggle to manage two of those things. How do you manage four or five of those things? What is it that you and Hil do that you guys stay connected? How are you feeling that? And is this thing sustainable to keep Rich Froning athlete into Rich Froning, president?

Rich Froning: [0:29:35] I think honestly all this extra stuff that I do is to kind of get away from the fitness side of things. I have an incredible job; I love what I do. I’m a competitor; it’s just who I am. But anytime you do anything for a job, it’s a job. And so over the last couple years having the farm, doing some of the things we do on the service side, like we, couple years ago through the help of Jim Hensel, one of the guys around here, we defined our values. And our values with Mayhem are faith, family, fitness, and service. And so as a business, we’re always aiming at those things. But those are also personal values for me. 

And so for me, what I’ve learned over the last couple years is at the end of the day, I kind of take a little personal report card of how was my faith today. Was I… For me, my faith is in Jesus and I try to read my Bible and do those things. So how was my faith today? Did I do those things? Family is number two on that list. How was I as a dad? Was I there for Hillary? Did I do those things? And then fitness is the third. And so every day I kind of take a little assessment on, hey, what did I do good, what can I work on. And I have a short memory when I do well and I have a short memory when I do bad. And so how can I fix those things? I have to actually really dive into and actually be critical: Was I good at those things and how can I fix those things? 

And so for me, that’s worked really well. We talk about the Mayhem side of things, we have a ton of good people that are doing really good things for us. Our media team’s incredible. Josh here at Mayhem does events, runs the gym, is incredible. Jake runs online programming, who you guys work with a lot, I’m sure, is great. And so those types of things, I just put people that are better than me in those areas in and I let them run with it. So that’s the easy side of it. 

And then the farm has been, it’s just fun. It’s something that’s not fitness related. My performance doesn’t necessarily dictate the success of that. And it’s something like last night I was saying, me and Violet, 5 o’clock in the afternoon are out riding on the tractor and just having dad, daughter time and it’s incredible. And Hillary has these stupid Highland cows that she absolutely loves. And you’ve known Hillary for years. And Hillary is not an outdoors person. She’s not a farm girl. She’s not any of that. But she loves these cows. And it gives her something to do outside. And over the last three or four months that she’s had them, it’s been incredible to see. It’s just something for her to do that’s anti stress. She goes out and pets and brushes these Goldendoodles with horns. And the other day she walks in and she kind of has this look on her face. I’m like, “What’s wrong?” She’s like, “It just pisses me off.” And I’m like, “What?” She’s like, “It just makes me mad that nobody loves these cows as much as I do.” They’re cows.

Kelly: [0:32:26] They’re tasty, tasty cows, hon.

Rich Froning: [0:32:28] It’s bizarre. And so basically, we’ve turned into a Highland rescue farm. But it’s awesome. So that type of stuff is easy. It’s kind of what I like to do and get out there, like I said, on the tractor, and have some things that we can do as a family that are work. They’re not sitting in front of a TV or sitting in front of a screen.

Juliet: [0:32:46] I am so fascinated by Froning Farms. What’s sort of the backstory? Did you just sort of one day think, I’m going to start a farm? What made you think of that and then what decisions did you make and how’s it operating as a business?

Rich Froning: [0:33:00] Yeah, so I guess I’m technically… Mom’s family was farmers; we’re farmers, like fourth, I guess technically fourth generation farmer.

Kelly: [0:33:09] You started as a watt farmer, a pound farmer.

Rich Froning: [0:33:12] Oh yeah. Exactly. And so we had this land and I grew up and we had horses. My dad had bought some horses for my sister because she wanted horses. And I actually despised horses for a long time because my dad was cheap and brought a half broke horse. And you’re not going to stick your 8-year-old on a horse, your 8-year-old baby girl. You’re going to stick your 13-year-old son who’s never ridden a horse or knows anything about horses to try help to break said horse. So I had some ill feelings toward horses for a while until we watched Yellowstone and then it was like, yeah, we need some horses. But anyway, so backtrack. We had chores; we didn’t have a farm. We had things I felt like my parents just made up so we had to do them and keep us busy, which I’m now super beneficial for. So I saw the value in that. 

And when we moved up to where we are now, we have 160 acres, something like that, and between myself and then my best friend in the world growing up, we grew up probably a half mile from each other, played sports, all that type of stuff, he lives a mile from us. And so we started having kids; they started having kids. And we thought, hey, let’s do something with this property. He was a firefighter the same time I was. On his days off, he would raise cattle. So he had the background and I thought let’s put some cows out there. So we kind of talked about the logistics of that. Let’s make some cool hats and shirts to support it so we don’t have to foot the bill on all this stuff and gives our family something to do. 

In the process, I started reading about bison. And I always thought bison were really cool and that was pretty much the gist of it, and said, hey, let’s do bison. Matt goes, “I don’t really know that much about bison.” I go, “It can’t be too much different than cows.” Let alone, it’s way different than cows. But bison are so cool. The more and more that we’ve gotten into it, the history behind how resilient they are, how incredible just a specimen they are. And it’s a little bit of a conservation to it, you know. We’re bringing something back that’s anywhere from 40 to 60 million across North America and now is less than I think 500,000. Right around 500,000. But was killed down into less than 1,000. So there’s just a ton of just cool stuff behind the bison.

Kelly: [0:35:33] What people don’t know is that before the Tennessee Vols, there were the Tennessee Bison.

Rich Froning: [0:35:36] Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. I mean it’s just a cool animal. And so that was kind of how the farm started. We wanted to make some T-shirts and stuff like that. And then we started doing meat products and healthy snacks, no sugar added, and fits into what we do. And as weird as it sounds, my kids freaking love… We can’t keep the bison sticks in the house because the kids just eat the crap out of them. They just eat them nonstop. But yeah, it gives us something to do together. And we really enjoy it, like I said. 

And from there, we had the bison and got way too into Yellowstone, and said, hey, yeah. Hillary’s always wanted horses. I was like, “Yeah, let’s get some horses. Now that we’ve watched Yellowstone, we can do that.” And horses are really hard. And Hillary got into these Highland cows, I don’t even know how. And happy wife, happy life. And next thing we know, we have seven Highland cows.

Kelly: [0:36:24] Do you think if I went into her Instagram account, it would just be cow porn?

Rich Froning: [0:36:27] It really would. Her reels and all that type stuff. She’ll send me these, she’s like, “Look at this cow, it’s so cute.” She’ll send me these auctions on these cows. So the big thing right now is mini Highland cows or micro Highland cows.

Kelly: [0:36:42] We have seen those in our family even.

Juliet: [0:36:45] I haven’t seen them.

Kelly: [0:36:45] Oh, Caroline was like, “Have you seen this cow?”

Juliet: [0:36:48] I’ve only seen like a mini doodle dog. Every dog is now in a mini. But I haven’t seen a mini Highland cow.

Kelly: [0:36:52] It’s pretty cute.

Rich Froning: [0:36:55] One sold for 30 grand the other day. I was like, “Hillary, why don’t you do that? I’ll quit CrossFit, you can start selling these cows, you know? We can be done.” It blew my mind. But she loves… They have dwarfism and she’ll show me all these… There’s like message boards for Highland cows and auction sites for Highland cows. It’s crazy.

Kelly: [0:37:14] It’s all about just finding your people. Let me ask you this: First time I came to Cookeville, it was a little sleepier in 2010, 2011. And lo and behold though, last time I showed up, it was like the hippest, coolest place. And lots of micropubs, lots of brew pubs, great coffee. And speaking of good coffee, when did you swing around because I think I asked for a cup of coffee and you looked at me askew, and now the best cup of coffee in Cookeville is at your gym. Can you talk about that transformation?

Juliet: [0:37:46] Yeah, man, I was just anti coffee for a long time. I just never got into it. And then a couple years ago Josh Bridges was really big into it and we through Good Dudes talked about starting a coffee company. So I was like I can’t not drink coffee if we’re going to start a coffee company. And just through he lives in California, Dan lived in Ohio, I lived Tennessee. Good Dudes was just not going to work the way that we wanted it to, and we didn’t want to have any ill feelings towards each other, so we kind of just split up on that deal and Josh runs that and does a really good job with that. Well, now I’m into coffee so I’ve got to do something. And so we had this front space at Mayhem and a good friend of ours, Trevor Bayne, does all of our roasting. He’s a Daytona 500 champion. So he roasts all of our coffee and we work with them. And I have now become a coffee snob. My wife gets so mad. She’s like, “You can’t just drink…” If we go somewhere and she, “Can you just get a cup of coffee at McDonald’s?” I’m like, “Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I will not do that.” So.

Juliet: [0:38:49] You’re going to be on the deep middle of nowhere on a road trip and then you’re like, “Okay, okay. It’s my only choice.”

Kelly: [0:38:54] Not only do you make a great Americano, you guys have some kind of crazy thing that will take cold brew-

Rich Froning: [0:39:02] The Snapchiller.

Kelly: [0:39:03] The Snapchiller. What is the Snapchiller? This is the first time… I thought I knew what was up, but this is the first Snapchiller I’ve ever had in Cookeville, Tennessee. 

Rich Froning: [0:39:11] Cold brew is different. It’s brewed cold. So the Snapchiller was pretty cool. You brew your coffee hot so you get the same flavor. And then instead of usually what people do is they just chuck a bunch of ice in it. Well, it waters the coffee down. You don’t want watered down coffee. Nobody wants that. So this machine, you pour the coffee through it and it has some type of coils in it that chills the coffee as it goes through. And so it’s flash chilled. 

You can also buy this pitcher on Amazon, it’s called the Snapchiller, and it basically is just this… It looks like a pitcher and you leave it in the freezer, you pull the ice thing out, you pour your coffee in, and you drop it back in it. It just has like an icepack with just things that coffee can move through and it’ll actually chill your coffee. It’s the same idea, but it’s only a one-time use. And we have the machine here at Mayhem. So you get hot coffee, you get the flavor of hot coffee. Because cold brew just tastes a little bit different. Nothing bad, but it’s just different. So this is fresh coffee brewed hot; it’s just chilled without being watered down. I think the proper name would be Japanese coffee, I think is what they call it. 

Kelly: [0:40:18] I’m saying, look-

Juliet: [0:40:18] Fancy, so fancy, Rich.

Kelly: [0:40:19] I have loved Rich Froning for a long time, but then last time I showed up at Cookeville and I see this, and then I go, I’m like, oh, and there’s Topo Chico on the fridge, I was just like, it is-

Juliet: [0:40:32] And cereal bar? I mean-

Kelly: [0:40:34] I was just like, “And you want to exercise all the time?” I’m in.

Rich Froning: [0:40:36] Hey, sidenote, Topo Chico, I don’t know how it is there but here it’s incredibly hard to get your hands on sometimes, the lime flavored. Incredibly. I’ve found a good substitute. You heard of Spindrift?

Juliet: [0:40:49] Oh yeah. We can actually get Spindrift at our Costco. 

Rich Froning: [0:40:52] I love Spindrift lime and lemon. Those two are… Because you don’t… You know with LaCroix or anything like that, you take a drink and you expect flavor and you still are expecting the flavor and it never really shows up. It’s kind of there. But at least with Spindrift you get a little flavor, you know?

Kelly: [0:41:09] If everyone wants to know when I hang out with Rich Froning, what we talk about, this is what we talk about.

Rich Froning: [0:41:15] This is what we talk about, yeah.

Kelly: [0:41:16] We don’t talk about… We talk about our kids and cows and coffee.

Juliet: [0:41:19] I really like a grapefruit Topo Chico. That’s kind of my jam. 

Rich Froning: [0:41:23] Grapefruit is good. Have you had tangerine?

Juliet: [0:41:24] No.

Rich Froning: [0:41:26] We were in Texas and I found tangerine.

Juliet: [0:41:27] What?

Rich Froning: [0:41:28] Yeah. It was good. It was good.

Juliet: [0:41:31] Well, we’re going to be in Austin in April so I’m going to try to track that down. I bet I can find some.

Kelly: [0:41:35] One of the things that you figured out a long time ago, or I don’t know when you made this conscious change, but you were winning the Games, winning the Games, winning the Games, and then all of a sudden you were like there’s this notion of the super team. And it also I think is interesting that you started creating these team events because I think it really speaks to one of the reasons you’re so successful as a company, Mayhem as a company, because you just keep attracting rock stars. People move to Cookeville because you’ve created something really remarkable out of this community. When did you switch thinking, hey, I should do that, because we’re starting to see other people realize that maybe it’s longevity and more fun being part of a group training.

Juliet: [0:42:18] You did make competing on a team cool too.

Kelly: [0:42:20] For the first time.

Juliet: [0:42:20] Because I was on a team in 2010 and we were just like the bastard stepchild of the CrossFit Games. And then I was like, Rich Froning has a team. It’s cool. 

Rich Froning: [0:42:27] I still feel like we’re a little bit of the bastard stepchild, but we’re at least getting some notoriety every once in a while. I think that just growing up playing team sports, I’ve just always enjoyed being part of a group. I perform way better with people. There’s just a different mentality I guess when you’re doing it for somebody else than for yourself. And so I think from the competitive side, that’s easy for me. 

And then I think on the business side of things, I think, yeah, like I said earlier, I try to find people that are better than me in areas. You know, like we have Rory here. Rory’s really good with the business, the partnerships and dealing with people. He’s a good people person. And then we have incredible media team, everybody back in there that just we wouldn’t be who we are without. I mean media is huge in this day and age. And those guys and girls do an incredible job of that. Like I said, we have Josh. Josh runs the gym. He runs our events. He does those types of things. And Jake with online programming and Darren helping him with that. So I really just found people that were better than me and they who were also good team players and get along well with people. And we’ve been really successful because of them. And so just have fun; try to have some fun. 

Juliet: [0:43:41] Well, it also seemed from my Instagram observing that there was a close connection to your competing as a team when you had kids, which as a mom, I really respected because I was like, wow, Rich is going to actually be part of his kids’ life and being on a team is going to make that more possible, right? I mean I’m assuming that was a factor.

Rich Froning: [0:44:01] It was a huge factor. As an individual, I was an asshole. No way to put it. Just in the fact that to be the best in the world at anything you have to be selfish. You have to eat, breathe, sleep, all those things, yourself and taking care of yourself and competing. And I won’t say that I’m proud of some times when I was an individual of-

Kelly: [0:44:23] You also were a much younger man.

Rich Froning: [0:44:24] Much younger. And early on, there were things that I missed out in marriage with me and Hillary early on in our marriage where instead of taking the extra vacation or doing something like that, 8 o’clock at night I’d be out on the rower or stuff like that. And I was just always thinking about training. I was obsessed with it. And it’s just who I was. And when we knew or found out we were having Lakeland, I knew I couldn’t do that anymore and be… I had really good parents and so I couldn’t be present in her life. And I knew that being on a team, I could still compete, I could still scratch the itch, I could still provide for our family and do the sponsorship type of things for the first couple of years, and grow what we were doing. But I could disconnect from training. When I was done training, I was done training. And I wasn’t thinking about the next thing that I needed to do. And it was a really good thing for me and for our marriage and for our family. And I don’t regret it whatsoever.

Kelly: [0:45:16] Yeah. We always say when you’re starting a business or doing any kind of these endeavors, there’s a minute where you have to just be a maniac. That’s the only thing you can do. But it’s not sustainable. You’ll burn out all your relationships, you’ll burn out all your contacts. You can’t. The thing that gets you there isn’t the thing that keeps you there.

Rich Froning: [0:45:34] Exactly. 

Kelly: [0:45:35] Mayhem continues to be an incredible juggernaut, bringing people in. It would be one thing if it was just Rich and Rich Inc. continuing to be great, but you keep attracting incredible athletes around you and building this incredible community, which I think is a hallmark of the quality of your program and your thinking. And you’ve really become one of the world’s best thinkers about programing. You’ve also just recently pivoted and realized that there’s a whole Spanish speaking population that isn’t being served well. Can you talk about there’s Mayhem global and now you really are trying to cast a bigger net? Can you talk about that?

Rich Froning: [0:46:12] Yeah. And this is, honestly, I’ll speak to Jake, Jake Lockhart who runs our online programming, and Facundo. Anybody who’s been around Mayhem or been around CrossFit knows Facundo. He’s incredible and speaks 18,000 different languages, if there were that many. But he’s fluent in many languages. And he does a lot of stuff with the Latin American community and with the European community. And so those two really just had a great idea. And like you said, the more and more athletes that we have here now, we have Sasha, we have Gee, who speaks Portuguese, and just kind of hearing what’s going on in those different areas and thinking let’s try to help out with what we’re doing and have these guys and girls in those communities and doing those things. 

And so I’m pretty fired up about how well received it was, Latin America. In the works, maybe we’ve got a French speaking or French offering and then also maybe even a Chinese one in the upcoming year. So I think in the U.S. or English-speaking countries they’re probably a little bit I guess spoiled with the amount of content that we get. And so if we can try to help and bring in some of those other athletes and grow some of those other areas that we’ve talked about for years and actually do it, that’s what we want to do. We want to try to help. But it’s cool having… Like you said, having Gee here now and then Sasha, just speaking to those guys, and Tyler Christophel, and Baylee Rayl, and more and more athletes that are just like us, you know? That’s the easy part of what we do. Everybody that’s here gets along well. We have a good time. We have a fun training group now. We’ve always had fun training groups. But it’s just cool that one goes away because they’ve either hit their time or moving onto something else and a new one steps in. And it’s a good time around here. 

Juliet: [0:47:58] So I’m assuming that you are ramping up for the 2022 Games season. Tell us a little bit about your team and who’s on your team and what’s your plan? What are you guys looking forward to?

Kelly: [0:48:08] And let me just start by saying I think Mayhem put the most Games athletes out into the CrossFit Games last year. Am I right about that?

Rich Froning: [0:48:17] Yes. I think so. I think we had the most individuals, but then also age group as well. And so Jake has a pretty ambitious goal this year. I think we have somewhere around 50; something like that. And so I think he wants to have 75 or 100. Jake’s pretty ambitious with that goal. But I think we can do it.

Kelly: [0:48:33] Is that greed to just take up all the spots and all the best athletes? I mean it’s-

Rich Froning: [0:48:37] Yeah. We want to take up all the spots. We’ll just make it the Mayhem-

Kelly: [0:48:39] It’s not even your fault you’re the best. You just woke up like that.

Rich Froning: [0:48:42] The Mayhem Games, you know? It is what it is. So yeah, training’s ramping up. It’s getting to that time of year. Open’s coming up next week. We will have the same girls. And then we will have an announcement next week on who the new male is. Chase has a new baby girl and is running a gym as well. And so it was a lot last year traveling back and forth within from Tennessee, I mean in Cookeville, to where he lived in Knoxville. So he did that four days a week last year. So he did an awesome job. It was incredible to have him on the team last year. But this year, we’re going to have a new guy. And so next week we’ll figure that out. Everybody will find that out. Pretty fired up about it. He’s pretty fit. Really good guy. Fits in well with who are and what we do here and has been with us for a while. So looking forward to that.

Kelly: [0:49:29] And I just want to give a shoutout to the-

Juliet: [0:49:30] Can’t wait to learn.

Kelly: [0:49:30] Two women on your team, who I am such fans of those two women, they are just monsters and just funny. Especially shoutout to T Will, who is going and getting her PA degree all the while being a monster. I just have so much respect. I think we stayed at the same hotel when we were there and she was training. And she was studying for a final before a workout.

Rich Froning: [0:49:54] It’s crazy. Yeah. It’s super impressive. I mean we were all kind of like, “Ah, what are we going to do next year?” and blah blah blah. And she was like, “Well, I’m going to have to have a real job next year so maybe I’ll do one more.” So we’re excited to have her. She’s actually going to do one of her rotations here with a gym member in Cookeville, so that’ll help a ton too with her in not having to travel as much back and forth. And so it’ll be good. But yeah, and Andrea. Andrea’s an incredible athlete and a monster and super incredibly strong.

Kelly: [0:50:23] And I love that she’s also a coach. Those women. Getting to know those women the last few years has just been a total treat. And they may be better than the men on the team. They may carry the men.

Rich Froning: [0:50:33] I think so. I think this year we might be able to at least close that gap. Last year they were significantly better. I think we might be able to close the gap this year.

Kelly: [0:50:40] I have independent friends who are around Mayhem. One of them, Rory… I won’t say his name—Rory—hinted at that maybe in the future, you’re thinking an MBA. Is that possible?

Rich Froning: [0:50:50] Yeah, I’ve thought about-

Kelly: [0:50:52] I don’t know if I’m getting him in trouble, but-

Rich Froning: [0:50:54] No, no. Over the last couple years… My grandpa went to Notre Dame, so I grew up a huge Notre Dame fan. And I’ve thought about trying to get into their business school there, kind of as a legacy to my grandpa. I don’t know. It might be in a couple years. I’ve actually reached out to the admissions department. So I’ve had two interviews and just kind of talked to them. Kind of figure out on the timeline when it will work and when I can make it happen. But they have a-

Kelly: [0:51:19] You have time right now. I mean what are you even doing?

Rich Froning: [0:51:21] I know, right? I got nothing else. Take Trice to class with me. They have a pretty cool program in their business. It’s where it’s more of a senior business… I forget the actual name of it. But basically, one weekend a month you go up to campus for three days and it’s pretty group oriented. And like I said, you go to campus, I think it’s 22 months or something like that. So it’ll be a big endeavor. But in the next couple years, hopefully.

Kelly: [0:51:48] Do you think most people go to business school already being really good at business and having six businesses.

Juliet: [0:51:52] Yeah. And already owning like six other businesses?

Rich Froning: [0:51:55] Yeah, but you can always refine your skills and it’s always nice to learn from other people and other people’s mistakes. And I think, yeah, my next chapter of when I’m not a competitive athlete, being able to grow the business and create something for other people, my kids, and take care of everybody here and be a better leader, I think would be a valuable asset for sure. 

Kelly: [0:52:16] Amazing.

Juliet: [0:52:17] Well, Rich, what are you looking forward to in the coming weeks, months? What’s next?

Kelly: [0:52:21] What are you living for?

Juliet: [0:52:22] Yeah, what are you living for?

Kelly: [0:52:22] That’s what Juliet and I say, what are we living for?

Juliet: [0:52:23] Yeah, what are you waking up for?

Rich Froning: [0:52:55] Daytona 500’s this weekend. You’ve got the 125 Duels. I’m a big NASCAR guy. It’s just something we did as a family growing up so I still have a little bit of that holdover. I mean the Open starts obviously. We’ve got a flag football tournament coming up in Nashville March 12 and 13 so I’m looking forward to that. Maybe a little spring break with the kids, maybe in Florida. So got some good stuff coming up. Father daughter dance next weekend.

Kelly: [0:52:51Oh man.

Juliet: [0:52:53] Cute.

Rich Froning: [0:52:52] Yeah. Yeah. We’ll have some fun with that. The girls love that. 

Kelly: [0:52:55] I want to just point out that Georgia, who’s turning 17 here in a month, now asks me for programming. She’s like, “Hey, I-

Rich Froning: [0:53:04] Oh, nice.

Kelly: [0:53:04] Off water polo. Today I sent her some videos of a high-level Olympic athlete snatching, and I was like, “Hey, I want you to work up to a heavy single and then chase some heavy doubles on the front squat after.” She’s like, “Cool.” And I was like wow, that just happened.

Rich Froning: [0:53:19] Heck yeah. That’s awesome. 

Kelly: [0:53:19] That was this morning.

Rich Froning: [0:53:19] Love that.

Juliet: [0:53:20] Dreams can come true, Rich.

Kelly: [0:53:22] Just hang in there.

Juliet: [0:53:22] For Kelly Starrett.

Rich Froning: [0:53:22] Lakeland will do it. She’s like, “Hey, dad, watch this.” And she loves doing some cleans and she’ll throw some jerks in there. It’s been fun. It’s been fun. She’s getting there.

Kelly: [0:53:31] I call it planting seeds and traps. My kids didn’t realize they stepped in trap years ago and now the kids just drag it around, you know.

Rich Froning: [0:53:40] Now you’re stuck, kid. Awesome.

Kelly: [0:53:42] It’s so good. It’s good. Rich, tell people where you are on the socials, where people can find out more about what’s going on with Mayhem, Farms, with the rest of it.

Rich Froning: [0:53:49] Yep. Just @richfroning, my Instagram. @froning farms. @ hillaryfroning; she’s got a bunch of farm stuff on there as well. And just then mayemnation.com and froningfarms.com is where we’re at, the interwebs. YouTube. We’ve got… We’re a pretty good media team here. And so if you want to get overloaded and annoyed with how much content we put out, just CrossFit Mayhem and then we also have a farm YouTube, which is Froning Farms.

Kelly: [0:54:13] So last thing because I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it. how good is Haley Adams?

Rich Froning: [0:54:18] Haley Adams is incredible. The big thing is, I think, she’s just an animal in between the ears. She just wants to win and wants to work and nobody’s going to out work her. So she’ll be a force to be reckoned with. She knows what she needs to work on and we’re working on that daily, getting a little bit stronger, getting her positions a little bit better. I don’t really even think it’s the strength as much as it is positions. So she’s awesome.

Kelly: [0:54:45] Everyone knows there are these things called Training with Rich Weekends but there’s going to be a first Training with Haley.

Rich Froning: [0:54:52] Yeah, yeah. Women only. Women only. 

Kelly: [0:54:54] Women only. I’m trying to drag Georgia out there. We’ll see if we can make that happen. Hey, Rich-

Rich Froning: [0:54:57] Come on. We can drop her off at the gym and we’ll go up to the house and make Oreo balls. 

Kelly: [0:55:03] And once again, if you wonder why I’m friends with Rich Froning.

Juliet: [0:55:05] You have no idea how excited Kelly is.

Kelly: [0:55:06] And you know, there’s a little workout area inside the house.

Rich Froning: [0:55:09] Yeah. We’ll work out in the barn for sure. Or the basement. Or the studio in the back. Pick your three. 

Kelly: [0:55:16] Rich, thank you so much, man. Best to your family.

Juliet: [0:55:16] Thank you so much for being here. Thank you.

Rich Froning: [0:55:18] Awesome, guys. Thank you so much for having me.

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