S02E59 TEAMS VS INDIVIDUAL TRAINING AND COMPETITION WITH NICOLE AND MATT MILONE

Team or Individual? Which is more fun in CrossFit? Which can make you a better competitive athlete? The answers may surprise you as we talk to elite athletes Nicole and Matt Milone @nicole.milone @shmilone, both CrossFit Regional Team athletes 2017 and 2018 as well as 2019 French Throwdown Sanctional team competitors with Coach Dave. Moth Nicole and Matt share their experiences on team training and competition, as well as competing as individuals at Wodapalooza and Granite Games.

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S02E59 TEAMS VS INDIVIDUAL TRAINING AND COMPETITION WITH NICOLE AND MATT MILONE

[00:35:54] David Syvertsen: All right. Welcome back to the Herd Fit podcast. Coach David Syvertesen here with doctor and coach Sam Rhee. I have two very special guests. We have Matt and Nicole Milone. All right. Some of you guys might, I actually met Nicole when her last name was Ninomaya.

Good job. And Matt's always been Matt Malone. I competed with Matt Nicole, a couple of different times. Once was for 18, that made regionals in 2018. That was the last regionals the cross had ever had. And then a year later we competed on a team in France at the French throw down, and we've also been pretty strong friends outside of the gym.

And here we are, we are now probably five years later, four years later. Still pretty good friends. We just had a workout. I really think ahead with this stuff. When we have guests in the podcast, I created a workout that I knew Matt would do really well in and Nicole would crush it as well. And I let him beat me in the workouts that his, his morale was very high coming into the podcast.

People, you know, people speak better when they're more confident. So you're welcome Matt for that. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having us. That'll that'll be the next time that we come on.

[00:37:00] Sam Rhee: what a sacrifice,

[00:37:00] David Syvertsen: Dave. Nice job. All right. We're gonna have these guys on for a couple of episodes, but number one is gonna be the team slash uh, verse individual competing slash training.

Both of these guys not to blow them up too much. I'm gonna have them intro the intro themselves a little bit. They're both very high level athletes. I've told them this in the past both personally and publicly they're the two best athletes I've ever competed with. And I would actually put them in that elite tier.

I don't put myself there. I put them in the elite tier and it was awesome to train with them, compete with them. They've both competed at the team level at regionals multiple times. And they've also competed by themselves at events like waap, ALZA granite games and it's just they're awesome people to learn from just their actions, not only their words before we go into what we wanna talk about.

We'll have Nicole go first. I don't wanna have make these intros too long. So how about you just kinda give us why and when did you start CrossFit and why are you still doing it?

[00:37:56] Nicole Milone: Yeah I started in, I think it was 2015. I was still in college. I really started just. I was playing soccer in college and I wanted kind of like something to go along with it in the off season.

And then I found out there was competitions. So I started doing competitions and then found out you can make money during competitions and then just really enjoyed the whole competition aspect of it. And like going into class and training for something. So that kind of just like catapulted the whole competition like career.

Yeah, I guess you'd call it. Yeah. 2016, is that when we started spot 2016, I kind of, that's kind of when Matt and I started dating. Uh, Yeah. And met at the gym? Yeah. Well, we met at a competition. Yeah. But then Matt reached out, asked me, so there was a team in, New York city that was looking for an extra girl.

Matt knew I competed. Long story short started there, and then that's kind of where it really started with the elite level competition. Yeah. Like trying for regionals and teams. And I didn't even know that was like a thing. And then we just kind of kept going along in the city and then we ended up at Coliseum.

Yep. Yeah. Anything else

[00:39:00] Matt Milone: you have to add? Yeah, so real quick, before I just start talking about myself, Dave don't sell yourself short you're on the elite level. And I, I don't see myself as an elite individual. I think I all my, like, I guess strengths are brought out in like a team aspect for sure.

Yeah. So I, I, I don't think I can like hang at the elite individual level, but I appreciate the compliment. No problem. Um, So I started I think so, I don't know if you know this, but it was my senior year high school. So 2010, yes. A long time ago. Me and my buddy Ryan, we were doing main site workouts, like crossfit.com.

Oh, wow. And I think like, that's like back in 2010, I didn't know anything else. I kind of just stumbled across this, I was always into working out and we had no idea what we were doing. Yeah. We, we grabbed a basketball and filled it with sand and we're like, we got a medicine ball, like let's do Wal that's awesome.

Like when I say form, I don't know how we're not broken in half. Yeah. Like we were just doing dumb stuff, but I love it. That's awesome. I mean, I, I always loved. Pushing myself in the gym. So that's kind of how I started CrossFit, I guess. But really in a box was like 2014 like spring semester of college.

Okay. I'm like let's try this CrossFit thing. I need to stay competitive. I was com you know, competing in sports my whole life growing up. I jumped in there and just caught the book, I guess, kind of like anyone that's probably listening to this. And then, yeah, kind of like Nicole said, I was graduated 2014, got a job in the city.

And we, I found a gym across its spot in the upper west side. Is that where Carrie Pierce was originally? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We, the stars kind of just aligned there and a lot of like, I guess you could say, like elite team athletes kind of got together and that's where it all started. 2016, actually, we.

Four, I think four points out. No. Yeah. Well, no, no spot four points. You know how like CrossFits corn works. Yeah. Yep, yep. But yeah, we finished, I think 16th and they took 15 teams or 20. So you finished

[00:40:47] David Syvertsen: 24 spots out of regionals in 2004.

[00:40:50] Matt Milone: We were the first team. Right. Okay. I mean, it's almost maybe a blessing we did put out cuz we would've, obviously I would've loved being there in 2016, but we probably would've looked.

You know? Yeah.

[00:41:02] David Syvertsen: Would've got your butt up too. I

[00:41:03] Nicole Milone: just learned bar muscle ups, like still doing like not butterfly. Yeah. But it was kind of

[00:41:09] Matt Milone: better. So yeah. Didn't mean to drag my intro, but that's kind. Yeah.

[00:41:12] David Syvertsen: That's awesome. Yeah. So that's basically, we, you guys have very similar backgrounds in that competitive athletes wanted to keep training, wanted to still compete, got into cross it and then hit the sport pretty hard.

Like hit the ground running right with it. It wasn't like you did cross it for a long time. And then you were like, oh, maybe I'm good enough for the sport. You kind of wanted to hop right into it. So 2017 is when you started at Coliseum, that's a gym just over the border in New York. If anyone doesn't know right by the Woodbury commons, the, a, the outlets up there.

And that was when 2017 regionals. I don't know if a lot of people know this was a team of six back then it was three guys and three girls. And then there was one guy alternate, one girl, alternate. So technically your team was eight people. And describe that experience. And then we'll kind of dive into some team training components.

We'll go into the individual stuff later, but what was it like, like that training environment? It was you Dan DOD, Russ scar G if I'm saying his name scry scry close. All right. Nicole Elise and the girl from Toms river, Kristen, Kristen Graham. Right? So there's you had that three really high level guys, three really high level girls.

When did you guys, did you guys start training together that January before the open?

[00:42:25] Nicole Milone: I think before that, I think it was that fall before they reached out. They needed another guy and girl. And yeah, we were like, it was a lot going to the city. Yeah. He was still working in the city. Right. Or did you switch to teaching?

I wasn't in college anymore. So it was a lot for me. Just keep going in the city. Yeah. So we're like, maybe it is a good switch. Yeah. It just closer. Wasn't really that close, but Yeah, and we just like everyone got along so well, it was just a good time all being together.

[00:42:52] David Syvertsen: How often did you guys train together per week?

[00:42:54] Matt Milone: We were up there. I mean, we honestly were following all across its protocol. So come January. It was what all weekend was like. Yeah, it was definitely Saturday, Sundays. And I wanna say at least once, sometimes twice during the week. Yeah.

[00:43:06] David Syvertsen: Okay. But you guys were all coming from all different places.

Yeah. So you guys were not all members at that gym and we can say this real quick. Yeah. Right. The, the rule back then was. You didn't need to belong to the gym that you were competing with, but starting in January of that year, the calendar year, you had to prove that you were working there the majority of your week.

So three or four days per week. And I remember when I was with you guys a year later, which we'll get into, we took pictures every single time of there. We put 'em on Instagram. So they had time stamps, like all this stuff. It was, you know, and there are teams that probably break those rules. Right? You had teams that have athletes that live four hours away from each other, somehow they're training together.

But that, that environment right there is that when you guys kind of went from all right, we're pretty good at cross it to like, alright, we really saw our games kind of increasing and multiplying simply because of the people you were around.

[00:43:54] Nicole Milone: Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, I mean, you've been around it.

Yeah. Like just pushing each other. And doing that every single time you're together, you're bound to get like leaps better. I mean, just that environment alone. And then, yeah, we just wanted to, cuz like Matt said, we missed out on regionals by a point or a spot the previous year. So we just wanted that so bad.

And so did everyone, I don't think anyone else had been to regionals, right? Like Elise hadn't

[00:44:20] 2022_0710_0959: VIG

[00:44:20] Matt Milone: yet. Uh, Russ did as an individual when he was like out in Africa for something. Yeah. Like when he was in the military, he qualified as an individual out and like, I don't even remember what that regional was, but yeah.

Nice.

[00:44:31] David Syvertsen: So how did regionals go that year?

[00:44:33] Matt Milone: What did we finish? I say actually don't even remember. So 30 teams went and I know we did better the second year but 20, 21st.

[00:44:42] David Syvertsen: So you were kind there, you never that close to qualifying for the games mm-hmm but you were on that level with a lot of the same athletes.

All right. You have all these people coming from outside areas, your, your first attempt at trying to make regionals, you miss out by one spot.

[00:44:55] Sam Rhee: You guys were, you guys were 15th that year. Oh 15th. Yeah. Coliseum. Strength. Yeah. There you go.

[00:45:00] David Syvertsen: Nice shot. And then you were 12th the year after

[00:45:02] Matt Milone: that. Yeah. There you go.

If we would've kept going a couple more years, you know, come on. .

[00:45:07] David Syvertsen: So the 15th of 2017 this is when things got a little weird with you guys, but before we get into what happened in 2018, you guys, did you ever compete individually throughout the year, or once you got into this team environment? That was kind of like the addiction of like, Hey, I always wanna be on a team.

[00:45:25] Matt Milone: That was 2017. Yeah. I, that was the year. So after regionals, so waza, I guess they called it 2018 that year. Cause it happened in January. Right. I went individual that year. Mm-hmm to Waal. Don't ask me why cuz competing on a team is so much more fun. Yep. I, I think I did the online qualifier for individual and it was one of those things like, oh, I think I finished like, I don't know, like 15 spots outta qualifying.

I'm like, you know, alright. I guess that's out of the question. And then, you know, long story short between video reviews, people saying, no, I guess, or go on team, I got an invite and I'm like, Hey, like I'm, I'm gonna do this. Like I always, I guess wanted do like a higher level individual comp and you know, I was right after regional.

So I still was feeling good. I'm like, all right, let me go down and throw my hand in the ring. That was your best year

[00:46:09] Sam Rhee: in the open 2017. You finished 70th Northeast in 2017 and 7 27 worldwide in the open that year. So that was your best performance to date?

[00:46:18] David Syvertsen: Yeah.

Yeah, I guess that now. So what, what, when you say like let's, let's touch on that a little bit, when you say team is so much more fun. And, you know, if you qualified somewhere on a team, you'd be like, yeah, we're going, let's go individual. You're kind of like, I guess I'll go. Like I got the invite. What makes competing on a team more fun than the individual side?

[00:46:38] Matt Milone: Well, obviously just first and foremost, the company, I mean, we giggle probably 90% of the time other than when we're sucking wind down on the competition floor. But you just don't you have that like camaraderie and you don't wanna let the person down next to you. Mm-hmm and kind of, like I said, from the beginning, like, I don't think I'm an elite individual athlete mm-hmm , but we all have our strengths and weaknesses.

And you have, I would say this,

[00:47:02] David Syvertsen: you have elite traits. There are certain workouts you can be lead in. Right? Mm-hmm like any sort of like fast squat, burpee, handstand, pushup, muscle up workout. And you've done that. I think Matt finished one of the open workouts in 2018, fifth in the world, like think about the fifth in the world.

That's that's that would be called an elite trait for that kind of workout. And you get to use that more on a team. You know, where as an individual, that kind of gets hidden by the fact that you have to do everything by yourself. So eventually stuff that he's not good at, or is not a lead at kind of it bumps your overall rank down.

Right? Mm-hmm where you're on a team. If you have a, if the workout is set up correctly, You have people on your team that can kind of counterbalance your strength and weaknesses, you can really only use your strengths and just completely hide your weaknesses. That's part of what the advantage of competing on team is.

[00:47:49] Matt Milone: Yes. Although I do think competitions are getting a lot better at not letting teams hide weaknesses. Agreed. We've all experienced. Agreed.

[00:47:57] David Syvertsen: Yeah. Yeah. Touch on that a

[00:47:59] Matt Milone: bit. Ah, just I mean, I'm gonna call us three out. Yeah. That's so we're going to the well, not her. Yeah. So we the French French go down.

Yeah. Quale work out. I think we know that Nicole's favorite and her best movement probably is a heavy quale. Yep. I mean, not anything against me, you or Elise, but we kind of just like aren't as fast. Right. So there's things like that. Like, okay. Like each teammate, like you're gonna do. Like, you're gonna do the quale.

You're gonna do the muscle ups, right? Like, it's not like, okay, Nicole, you go and do all squawk cleans and we'll do everything else. Right. Right. Obviously how competitions program, certain events you're gonna get exposed no matter what,

[00:48:34] David Syvertsen: just for example, I don't remember the, the rep scheme of that workout, but just for, in terms of what Matt's talking about, there was a workout at French Throwdown where everyone had to do, is it 12 muscles?

It was yeah. Bar and ring. Yeah. So basically one guy had to do 12 ring muscles and then 12 squawk cleans at 2 45, 1 girl. And then there was another guy that had to do 12 bar muscles, 12 squawk cleans at 2 45, same thing on the girl side. So only one person's working at a time and you kind of have to be the ninja where you can do the muscles and the squat cleans.

It's rare to see someone that can do both at a really high level. So if you're a lifter, awesome, you'll crush the barbell. Maybe even go touch and go. There were athletes that were doing. But they were not doing the muscle ups on broken vice versa. There's people that do the muscle ups unbroken, but they get to the barbell like me.

I remember me and Elise really got buried on that workout. We were doing a squat clean every, I don't know, 15 seconds where there's people next to us going touch and go. And you know, years ago that might've just been like, Hey, the four of you get 48 muscle ups, 48 squat cleans done. Now these workouts, you know, and that that's where the sport sport is evolving.

They are trying to hide. Like if you do have warts as an. Even on a team, it will get exposed. At some point, remember there was a workout that had 60 pistols in that workout. Mm-hmm and me and Matt were like, that's back when, like, I'm still not good at them, but I can pass them with them now. But back then I was like, Matt, like, if I gotta go 30 of these, like we're screwed.

And there was no minimum work requirement. I think Matt did all 60, right? Yeah, really? Yeah. And 60 now I think even now the sports has evolved even further. Three years later, they would probably say, you know, you gotta go 10, you gotta go 10, you gotta go 10, because you don't want people getting to the highest level, unable to do stuff.

It seems like it was

[00:50:07] Sam Rhee: more grid league specialist set up for the teams back then. And now everyone has to be a fairly complete athlete. Yeah. The other thing it seems like that's different is, is that back then you could have four real or six really good athletes put 'em together and they do. Now there seems to be a lot of coordination.

Like you actually have to train together on all of these workouts in order to be efficient and get your transitions. Right. And not screw each other

[00:50:33] Matt Milone: up

[00:50:33] Nicole Milone: for sure. Yeah. And all the Syncro stuff too. It's like, you can't just kind of jump in there and hope for the best, like, right. We were training together so much.

That Syncro was just kind of like, it was like, you know, you don't really have to put much thought into it. Mm-hmm . But if you go with like another, like I did water Palooza this past year with two people I've never worked at with, and it was our first time meeting together. So it's like, Synco is difficult then you don't know how the timing is.

Someone's taller someone shorter. It's like, that makes a whole world of a difference

[00:51:01] Sam Rhee: too. What kind of programming were you guys following back then? Were you all on your individual? And then you would just train together and who would come up with this stuff or what? We didn't us

[00:51:09] Nicole Milone: for a while,

[00:51:11] Matt Milone: right?

Mm-hmm so no, we were all following sports specific.

[00:51:14] David Syvertsen: Yeah. Sports specific. You were with that guy right now. Here's the question. When you guys, you had, you had a coach for your team mm-hmm was that 17 and 18. I remember what happened in 18 with a coach. Yeah. You guys are gonna start working with the coach in 18 until after regionals were made.

So it was after the opens. It was basically six, six weeks of, of regional prep. So you're right. I remember because this is an interesting topic that I think this is where competing on a team. A lot of people don't see, it's a struggle to map things out. Mm-hmm if, especially if you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen, right.

If you're not on the same program, that's fine. I think. But when you guys know that you're getting together Saturday, Sunday, and obviously you're gonna be doing the same thing. Everyone wants to know what you're doing that Saturday, Sunday, because it's gonna impact their Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, maybe even the day after.

And if you're trying to be smart about, you know, not doing too many repetitive moving patterns or keep your hands fresh or not squat too much, or my knee aches. Right. I think a real team that is really, truly in, it needs to be on the same exact program for, I would say the majority of the year, just for the sake of when you do show up together, you're all kind of feeling the same way.

Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. So yeah, like if Matt and I are very like polar opposite athletes, like if he needs to work on something, it's probably not something I need to work on and then vice versa. So I think that that's where the struggle of, of a program comes in. And I think that's where I think all high level teams should have a coach and they just kind of map that all out.

Like, Hey, I know these guys are gonna be together on the weekend. I'll map out Matt's Monday through Thursday and Nicole's Monday through Thursday and Dave's Monday through Thursday. They're gonna kind of be similar, but I'm gonna make sure they're all feeling the same way Saturday, Sunday. Mm-hmm thoughts on that?

[00:52:59] Nicole Milone: Yeah, no, I agree that it's how it should be. I definitely don't think we were doing it

[00:53:04] David Syvertsen: that way. No, definitely not. Definitely not. Yeah.

[00:53:06] Matt Milone: I honestly, I don't remember. I know at one point we were all following in. I think it was 2018. We were all like, we had the sports specific power we were doing, it used the workouts together, but I don't know, like you said, was, it was a Tuesday night and I was at my old gym and right.

I don't even know where you were

[00:53:20] David Syvertsen: training. I mean, we could fast forward to 2018 a little bit because I think we could probably all kind of contribute to the conversation a little bit in terms of what we did as a team. And that, that was the first time I was on a team that in 2018, I know that we got together every Saturday, Sunday, and I believe it was Tuesday nights that we met at Coliseum and a lot of the time.

So we would show up around the same time every Tuesday we'd kind of do a little strength piece or skill piece in that back room or lift before class, but then we would do a class pod. That happened a lot. Remember we would do a Coliseum class squad. Like the six of us would be in class together with their six o'clock class, whatever it was.

And we always had to kind of, I don't think we ever like, argued about it, but it was always a lot of back and forth on like all, like, what are we doing? What, what should we do? What should we do? And no, I think that the, the, the most important part was that we were all there together just getting after it.

Right. And like that I do remember that was probably the fittest I'd ever been. And I was kind of on bison program. I was on my own next level and I was on this thing col yeah. Yeah. You know, the co training team and. Yes. Were, there are a few things that I probably did too much of because I was on three different things.

Yeah. But I still feel like that's when I really started to dive into the, it's more important. The, the people are more important than the program. Yeah. I'm a big advocate of that.

[00:54:33] Matt Milone: Yeah. I know you can be good. You, as long as you push yourself, it, it does not matter what you're doing. Stop buying into. I need this program.

[00:54:40] David Syvertsen: Yeah. You know that that's a big talk now with the training camps. Right. SI's podcast just had Patrick ner on. Yeah. And Patrick Vener was like, it looks like these training camps were a bad idea. They're all starting to blow up now. And it's, it's really, it's such a deep conversation, but I do think that there's a lot of truth behind the program is not as important as the people you're around.

Mm-hmm agreed. So let let's touch on the 2018 process. So this is now your, you know, just to backtrack 2016, just ma just missed it. 2017, you got in you're around 15th place, 2018. We that's when the, the year that the CrossFit announced after we all came together, I was gonna be your next guy. Yeah.

How

[00:55:22] Sam Rhee: did you meet these guys and get involved with them. Sounds like you were kind of the hanger on, like, they were like killing it and you were just like,

[00:55:28] Matt Milone: oh yeah, for sure.

[00:55:29] David Syvertsen: Absolutely. Dallas Dallas kind of brokered the deal at, we were both gonna go up there with them, but how

[00:55:36] Matt Milone: did we know? How did we, I forget Dallas,

[00:55:38] David Syvertsen: I forget how that happened.

Maybe the

[00:55:40] Nicole Milone: bison competition that we

[00:55:42] Matt Milone: did. Ah,

[00:55:42] David Syvertsen: the bison bison class first bison classic. Yeah. First or second. The first one was the one that I didn't know. You guys, you guys came and like you tore it up. That the, I actually knew you back in 2015, I remember talking to her at steel fit. Remember that steel

[00:55:57] Matt Milone: fit.

I don't remember. Matt says the same thing. He says, we talked, I met my wife at steel fit. Oh yeah. I, I remember he was in scaled. Dan was, I came in second place, attention, second place at steel fit and ID and I won money. She didn't win

[00:56:11] David Syvertsen: anything. But I remember telling cold act that I think this was 2015.

If I, but whatever. I was like, Nicole, I was like, I, you don't know me, but you go to a gym near where my gym is and I was like, you're gonna be very good if you stick with this stuff. And here you are, it was 2015. It was. So that's my second

[00:56:26] Matt Milone: scale comment.

[00:56:28] David Syvertsen: but long story short, like we, we kind of came together and Dallas and I were both gonna go onto this team.

We were all gonna go for Dallas. I always were always trying to find a way to get to regionals. We weren't good enough individually. And we said like, Hey, I wonder if there's a team out there, you know, that it was hard to find, you know, like-minded individuals that wanted to pursue that. And then they crossed it announced that it was gonna be a team of four guy four people, two guys, two girls instead of six and Dallas kind of looked at each other like, oh, that stinks.

Dallas was kind of on the fence regardless, because living in Hoboken, it was gonna be really tough for him to get there. So I think he kind of took one for the team there and said like, Dave, you go. And it was like, and it was like, you better make it though. and I was like, all right. So we went out there and, you know, once we found out there were already three guys, it got a little awkward, right?

There's three guys and three girls. And there was only two guys and two girls that were gonna go, but we were all on the same team and they used three guys and three girls for the open scores to make regionals. So every everyone's scores were still needed. But we came up with the, we just said, whoever has the highest open rank on the website goes to the regionals.

That's true. I remember this. Yeah. Chris grant was one of the scores for why? Why would they do that? Because the team is still three guys and three girls. but the one of 'em was an alternate. Alternate. Yeah. So like that that's basically, if you go look at the leaderboard from back then, I don't remember that there's three guys through, how did

[00:57:47] Sam Rhee: you meet the qualifications for Coliseum strength anyway, because it was still kind of affiliate cup ish, right?

Right. Yeah. So you had to make like spend X amount of time there.

[00:57:57] David Syvertsen: So I, I had to train there three days a week. So you had to train there 50% of your training time. So six days a week, Or more. So I would go up every Tuesday night, every Saturday, every Sunday. And there were weeks where I would also go up Thursday by myself and train a Colly by myself.

[00:58:13] Sam Rhee: It's so funny. That's still an issue for teams now.

[00:58:16] Matt Milone: Yeah. Did you hear about that guy thrown out? What, what country is it? I don't remember somewhere in Europe. In Europe. Yeah.

[00:58:21] Sam Rhee: But he didn't make enough. He didn't

[00:58:22] Matt Milone: provide enough evidence. So they dis like, like what, like 90 miles or something there was, he lived pretty far.

There was a distance not saying that.

[00:58:29] David Syvertsen: Yeah, they didn't follow.

[00:58:31] Nicole Milone: I think about Kristen, she was down in Toms river, like technically was okay. And she really did that two plus hour drive every

[00:58:38] David Syvertsen: time. I mean, I was a 40 minute drive. I wasn't that far 40 to 45 minute drive to them. And again, life was a lot easier back then when you don't have a kid, like it's, you can just hop up there for a couple hours and come back mm-hmm

Um, but we took pictures. I remember I downloaded all these apps to prove like with timestamps on and dates that would automatically go in the picture that you took it. It, I think we

[00:59:00] Matt Milone: still have that uh, Instagram, Instagram. Yeah. Team Coliseum. Strength 2018. We had two, we got 141 follow. You could still go through all of our pictures.

If wants to go down. Look at it now.

[00:59:12] Sam Rhee: Crazy. Were you confident that you were going to be one of the top open scores aggregate

[00:59:17] Matt Milone: for the guys?

[00:59:18] David Syvertsen: Yeah, I was. And you know, and this is what made awkward and it's funny, like Dan's one of my neighbors now is Dan, myself and Matt were the three guys and we knew that two of us were gonna go and one of us was not going to go.

And it, it never got to the point where we had to stay for each other. And I'm glad it never did. I mean there, when, and this is part of where I wanted to touch on, like the whole team team competing. I've pushed myself hard as an individual. I've never pushed myself as hard as I was when I was on that team.

Mm-hmm and it wasn't because of my goal, even though. I wanted to compete at regionals and try to make the games on a team. Right? Mm-hmm it was that same thing with Matt said earlier, you don't wanna let the other guys down, but then it also, the extra intensity came from not only were we trying to make it as a team and we were very confident, we were going to, even though we were still petrified and nervous, right?

You guys always are same thing but the, but you also felt like you had to beat the other guys. And I knew I was a better open athlete conditioning wise, gymnastic wise general cross it than Dan, but Dan was so strong and there's so much value in having a strong lifter on a team. Mm-hmm enormous. And like, and trust me, I'm here.

I am years later still saying like, that's the biggest separator between myself and, and where I wanna be. And, but I always knew the open workouts, generally speaking. There's not that much lifting. Right. You know, it's conditioning, gymnastics, move your body. Well, it's supposed to be more accessible anyway, right?

Yeah. Mm-hmm and the. Workouts 20 18.1 went well, 18.2 went well, but 18.2 a was a one rep max clean after the after a workout, a nasty workout. And it was one of those like post squat workouts. Like your legs are shaking. You're trying to hit a one max clean. And I got some of that. I think I hit 2 86 and Dan hit 3 28.

And it's funny just guys in the Northeast that just Northeast region. I think if I remember this very well, I came in like 900th place and Dan came in like 24. So there was 900 guys between me and him between 3 28 and 2 86. And basically that was like a margin. This is where it got awkward being on the team.

This is where you have to be humble about it was, I basically knew after that second week, it would be impossible to make up the margin impossible. Even if I came in first place, you know, which you never would. But you still had to like, do your best on every single workout because the team was still nervous about not making it.

And I knew they would need my scores, you know, and two of the next three workouts mm-hmm . And, but that's, I think that kind of matures you a little bit that, you know, I think some, everyone, when they start cross, especially guys, when you start crossing, competing, there's, there's some immaturity there, you know, like I'm better than him.

He's better than this, blah, blah, blah. But then at that point it's like, Hey, we gotta get this team to regionals. And so like, those workouts became about the team and, and not about you making it. No, but that was, that was the FITT I'd ever been. And it was because of training with, with those guys. And also for those guys.

Yeah.

[01:02:07] Sam Rhee: I remember hearing this story and I didn't hear, I don't, I never fully realized that you still sent it for the rest of the workouts, even though individually, you didn't have an incentive to. Right. But for the team you did, even though you knew, yeah. There was no chance that you

[01:02:23] 2022_0710_0959: were

[01:02:23] David Syvertsen: gonna go no chance.

Do you remember that? Workout that 21 15 9. Deadlifts handstand pushup. And then three 15 does handstand walk? I did that time. I did that workout three times in three days. to, to be fair, to get a rank

[01:02:35] Matt Milone: better. I didn't as being one of the competitors too. I wasn't like, oh, I'm safe. Yeah. Yeah, no, yeah. I did not think that I, I still, and again, maybe it was like, I, you know, I wasn't really thinking, but like you don't ever want thing like that.

Like I could bomb this workout. Yeah, absolutely. You can do really good and or

[01:02:50] David Syvertsen: someone could get hurt. You always have to like kind, I'm sure Dan felt the same way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I just know the sport so well, like I kind of know when you're in it and when you're out know, unless something bad happens all to someone and you don't want as, as bad as you want that you never want something bad to happen to anyone.

Especially when you're on a team with them. So that's a great team lesson. I love that. No, it was, that was, that was a really cool experience. And then I also got to be a part of their training for regionals that's when they took on sport specifics coach, it was once we kind of made regionals as a team, you kind of knew Elise and I both knew that we were gonna be the alternate.

And then it was Julie, Nicole, Matt, and Dan. And like, at the end of the day, like you did, you felt like it was a responsibility to help them train for like, they had to do all the fun team stuff. Like the Sano, the worm, right. Freddy and that's a great white right now, by

[01:03:37] 2022_0710_0959: the

[01:03:37] Matt Milone: way. What's Freddy, Freddy.

Freddy's our, our worm. You ever seen him? He's been here, the green worm. The green worm. Yes. I do remember his name.

[01:03:45] David Syvertsen: Nice. So that, you know, and then that year, you guys actually, we finished the open, I wanna say, was it like top five? Yeah. Yeah. Like you guys started off, you guys started off regional weekend in that final heat, right?

In like the number one heat. Yeah. Yeah. And then you know, then you came in, I think it was 12 for the weekend and then that was it. No more regionals. Mm-hmm sad. Yeah, that, that was the last year. So you guys have find

[01:04:15] Matt Milone: it can't find, but I think you're right. We, we did really, really well. Yeah. You guys finished.

That year and at regionals in regionals

[01:04:23] David Syvertsen: in the open, I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure we were fifth, fifth in the regional

[01:04:27] Nicole Milone: it's partly, probably cuz we all were just fighting so hard

[01:04:29] David Syvertsen: for that spot. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We went so hard. Yeah.

[01:04:32] Sam Rhee: And that east regional was a really good regional, I mean the winner was Invictus Boston and they had to morpho who still competing on teams.

Mm-hmm for Iceland, right? Yeah. With Annie Thor's daughter mm-hmm and then you had CrossFit Reebok one with, you know, Spencer Hendel, Austin Mallo and all those guys. Why did team east Woodbridge

[01:04:51] Matt Milone: get deed? They had one of their females tested positive. Oh. Or something. Yeah, really? Yeah. Oh, wow. That real, real quick too.

Just to point out that as much as Dave wants to say it was cuz of him, the girls like absolutely destroyed it. Like I remember Nicole was, I think Nicole May have been the first female out yeah. Of making as an individual. And Julie was like right behind her that,

[01:05:14] Nicole Milone: yeah. Now that you say that, that's what we were kind of hoping that would happen because.

You know, me, Julie Elise were all such good friends that we didn't want anyone to be left out. So me and Julie were like, maybe we can make it like, yeah, we both were right there. And obviously it didn't end up happening, but that's what, like, the hope was.

[01:05:31] David Syvertsen: So like if Elise, I'm sorry if Nicole or Julie made regionals as an individual, they could choose to go compete by themselves.

And then Elise, the alternate. That's why you have an alternate would've come and compete, compete it feel

[01:05:44] Matt Milone: that's

[01:05:44] David Syvertsen: not.

[01:05:45] Nicole Milone: So they were all there, you know, obviously

[01:05:47] David Syvertsen: would you have done that? Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. Would you have done that because you wanted a lease to get her opportunity or because you wanted like, because would you have been okay with being the one that's by yourself, an individual,

[01:05:58] Nicole Milone: I mean, for like a lease to be able to go.

Yeah. And I remember I was talking about that. Like I would. You know, all of us to be there as many as we can at least. Yeah. Yeah, we knew that that was what was gonna happen if like me or Julie, once we saw how close we both were, that was the plant. Like

[01:06:14] Matt Milone: we knew mm-hmm you finished 31st

[01:06:16] Sam Rhee: in the

[01:06:16] Matt Milone: Northeast that year in the open.

And they took 30. I think they took 30, like with like back bills and everything, but like, to that was like the gold standard. I know, obviously the games is the gold standard, but like at our competitive level, I think like anytime I heard, like someone was like an individual regional athlete. let's say starting in 2016.

Cause no offense, but like making in 2013 was different, different. Yeah. Yeah. But I was like, wow, like gold standard, big. Wow. You're you're that you're this level. Right. So being even that close is incredible.

[01:06:46] David Syvertsen: Right? Yeah. And Castro

[01:06:48] Sam Rhee: mentioned that a lot of affiliate owners wanna bring back the regionals on some

[01:06:53] David Syvertsen: level.

Good. I was, I was just gonna bring that back because I didn't know that that year is, was the last regionals. It got announced in 2019 that it was out. What did that do to kind of take the wind outta your sales?

[01:07:05] Nicole Milone: Week. I don't even think I did the open that year.

[01:07:07] Matt Milone: There was completely, there was one year where I, I skipped the open too.

I still did the Airgas, but like I did not sign up for whatever reason was.

[01:07:15] David Syvertsen: Yeah. Because it was like, what's the point, right? Yeah. And it

[01:07:17] Nicole Milone: wasn't the boycott or anything. Like, I don't wanna come off. Like I'm like, oh no. Yeah. I was just like, yeah, what's the point? Like we weren't training. So it was after French though.

Mm-hmm we just had nothing to train for. No regionals, no like open, no big competitions coming

[01:07:30] Matt Milone: up and don't get me wrong. The open in 2017 or even 2016. Cause we. I know you weren't involved, but like there was five guys. Yeah. And we were still competing for three spots. I was stressed out. Those were the worst five weeks of the year lost weight, the worst five weeks of the year, I, every day I was like, oh my God, don't wake up with a cold or like, I'm gonna get bronch.

You would make, I literally literally gave myself bronchitis. Yeah. I it's 2017 or 2018 when I was like, I have bronchitis. I went to the Medi merge after Coliseum. One night I go, I need to get good. I need the open. But yeah, I, I hated when the open

[01:08:05] 2022_0710_0959: actually

[01:08:06] David Syvertsen: matter. Yeah and that, that was a huge thing. I remember as an affiliate owner, when their regionals was gone as a competitor, I was like, that kind of sucks because that's like something, the huge thing I wanted to pursue through the open, but also as an affiliate owner, I knew how important the open was for our gym.

And I know that 99% of people don't give a shit about regionals. So there, so in my eyes, I was like, this shouldn't impact anything, but I knew it would mm-hmm because whether it was realistic or not, regionals was a driving force behind a lot of people that wanted to do the open and that increases the energy in every gym.

What weather people. And I think it's, it's subconscious for a lot of people that I really do feel like the competitive side for some people in the open. It, it elevates everyone else in the gym for those three, four weeks. And you kind of do it together. And I remember thinking like, this is gonna be the end CrossFit and I was trying so hard to like convince people.

There are some people in our gym that were upset about it that had no shot at regionals mm-hmm . But again, it wasn't about their shot at regionals. It was more like maybe this big long-term dream that was in their head. And when you don't have long-term goals, it's hard to stay motivated. And in the ballgame, and I think 2019 is the year you guys didn't do it because the, that was March of 2019.

And then I, I think it was that fall. The October is that one year where we did it in, in the in the fall. So basically there's a 2019 spring open and then a 2019 fall open, but that was called the 20, 21. Gotcha. Right. So is that the one you didn't do? The 20, 21? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I believe so. Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. Now, now that but you guys did eventually find some competitive outlets. Like we did the French Throwdown together, right. That was that before or after that opened, that was 29. So that was 2019 spring summer that we did the French Throwdown. Okay. So before the, the fall open? Yeah. Yeah.

That's the one that I think you guys didn't do a few months later. Yeah. That was still

[01:10:02] Matt Milone: a path to the games. Wasn't it? It was the

[01:10:05] David Syvertsen: first word it was, yeah, that was sanction. They were called sanctions back then. Mm-hmm so you guys still like, and I bring that up because you kind of, you brought, you found ways to still pursue that top end goal, that team compet in the elite level competing.

And I give you guys credit for that, because I think a lot of people kind of walked away. I know some people personally that kind of walked away from cross it at that point and they never came back. And now here we are, again, there's discussion of Dave Castro potentially bringing it back. And he said he was surprised how many affiliate owners had said that was a huge community event that you guys kind of stripped out from under our feet for no good reason.

Mm-hmm do you guys think it's gonna come back? Do you think it should come back? You go.

[01:10:45] Nicole Milone: I would be happy to for it to come back. Not even just like personally, I don't know. I think it's like, it was just like a community, like, like driving for something mm-hmm Yeah. I, I don't know. I didn't even know that that was

[01:10:58] Matt Milone: like in the talks.

Yeah. I, I think there there's no perfect answer, no matter what, like you remember people with regionals were moving like, oh, I gotta move to the Southwest. that regional is weak, man. I can make it as an individual or like Northwest, whatever it was. It's like, no matter what people are gonna game the system for, but there's something about like being in this area, like I'm in the Northeast, like, like we're going to Albany or whatever it is.

Like, it was cool. It was awesome. Going to the times union center, like that was probably like, you know, other than definitely competition wise, like that was the highlights, the two best competitions I've ever done. I mean, granted being in Miami, in January and everything, but putting that aside, like just pure competition, it's like, this is like, it was first class.

You just felt like, yeah, you felt first class, you felt elite, you know, no matter what. Right. So yeah. I mean, I I'd love to have that back,

[01:11:47] David Syvertsen: but, and I just think it's something that gives a lot of young people. Like I think one thing cross it's not completely cognizant of is there's. There's not as many young people doing cross it as there were 10 years ago.

And I, I think you have a lot of people that, you know, would be driven to try and cross it out training really hard in like thirteens and twenties, if regional were regionals were a thing mm-hmm . And I, I think like, I, I noticed this now, and I've talked to a couple people that run competitions, local competitions, the numbers are not what they used to be.

Mm-hmm like they used to run it comp and get minimum a hundred people sign up in three days. And now it's like, you run to these comps and there's, you know, four heats of five teams, you know? And it's like, Hey, if you sign up, you're probably gonna be on the podium, you know, because there there's only three teams here in division.

And I think that that's something. cross it long term. You're not gonna get as many young people involved. It's an expensive membership, but I think a lot of people that were young, like when I was in my twenties, like that was one of the main reasons why I did it. I know there were several others that did it as well.

And I think that it brings out a lot more camaraderie too.

[01:12:50] Sam Rhee: I just think the online quarter finals are not a good substitute. Like you gotta have something in person that's real. And that just means so much for, are you talking

[01:13:00] Matt Milone: strictly from like, like competition, like level is like, you know, to make things fair or like, or just cuz it's not in person for the experience?

Yeah.

[01:13:09] Sam Rhee: In person. I mean, I know we've all competed on the online side. Either in the open or quarters or whatever and it just, it's just not the same. Mm-hmm , it's not the same agree. And I mean, especially if you're a

[01:13:22] David Syvertsen: elite. Level

[01:13:23] Sam Rhee: athlete. You, you should have something to shoot for where you, you know, cuz like you said, that gold standard experience is something that I know you've always

[01:13:32] David Syvertsen: wanted to feel just like really

[01:13:35] Sam Rhee: Uh, and I can only imagine if I was a younger athlete and I was good or improving,

[01:13:40] David Syvertsen: I would be like, boy, what would it be like to really be out on that floor?

[01:13:43] Sam Rhee: Like that? For sure. I don't know if I could make the games because we only have a few number of people, but if I could

[01:13:47] Matt Milone: get

[01:13:47] David Syvertsen: there, right.

[01:13:48] Matt Milone: Yeah. It's a

[01:13:49] David Syvertsen: surreal experience. That's for sure. And felt, it felt much more realistic to get to when it was divided up by your region. Right? Like they did play around the numbers a lot. It was top 60, top 40 top 30, top 15. Right. But when you're competing against guys, just in your region, you're trying to, you know, let's say it's, you know, the number's 30, you're trying to make the top 30 guys in your region.

That just seems much more attainable than trying to finish top 125 in all of north America. Right. And that's basically the only, that's the only way you're gonna get past online competition now is the top 1 25 out of everyone in Canada, United States and Mexico. And it's just, doesn't seem realistic. And I think it closes the door on a lot of people's dreams and it kind of pushes them away where if CrossFit could find a way to open up that door and give more people, whether it's by state, you know, and make the numbers a little bit lesser, make it by region again.

I think it would. I just think it would open up a huge business opportunity for them, but also it would increase, just increase the, the bot the baseline of what CrossFit is. What

[01:14:49] Sam Rhee: made you guys decide to do the French Throwdown together? Anyway?

[01:14:53] David Syvertsen: I mean, basically I think that it was. we, we, Matt, myself and Nicole Elise at the time were actually like really good friends as well.

Like we competed each other, but we also like hung out. We went out a lot. It was fun. And we found a competi. We looked at, we wanted to go also on a trip, you know, like on a vacation. And then it turned into like, well, why don't we go on a vacation and try to compete at one of these, of course. Cause why not?

Yeah. , we're not normal. So we, we looked at all of these different international sanctions at the time and we're like, all right, would we want a vacation somewhere near there? Does it kind of, you know, open up do the dates align with what we have to do work wise with your schedule? My schedule Nicole's schedule and the, there were, I think there was only two options that really worked out and French throw down.

We just thought looked like a cool competition and it was near Italy. We were like, we can just go to Italy right after and vacation together. And that's what we ended up doing. We just, that, that was literally the decision making process is let's try to make a sanctional. That's overseas. We can vacation near and the dates line up, you guys

[01:15:55] Sam Rhee: were shockingly close.

Actually they took the top five to go to the games. Yeah. And you guys were 11th.

[01:16:01] David Syvertsen: Yeah, we were 11th. And honestly, we, I think we were even closer than that because, you know, I blew up on the last event, the snatch event, we were, we were like, we were like, I think eighth going to that event, we were doing really

[01:16:12] Nicole Milone: well.

Like,

[01:16:13] Matt Milone: wait a second. Yeah. We had a lot of hiccups, a lot of hiccups. They're involved sprinting postworkout for inhalers.

[01:16:22] David Syvertsen: Yeah. Yeah. What was that? So yeah, we could touch on the experience a little bit in France. The it was the, the, the worst heat wave I think they had had in 50 years. Yeah. At there at that time.

And we went out and site saw in Paris for three, four days. After looking back on it, maybe not the best thing in the world to do right before the comp. I don't think it impacted us that much, but it was so hot. So we were just constantly outside sighting and no air conditioning out there. it's Europe, no conditions.

I was not happy about that. And that, that one of, one of the events the first event that we had with the worm was also with chest water was basically thrusters with the worm. And that's basically four people doing thrusters with a 380 pound bag and with Che bars. So we're just going back and forth.

It's like Fran, it's like really hard Fran and the room, we felt like the room that we were in was 95 degrees. It was

[01:17:13] Matt Milone: that Villa. Was it a ? So they use it for, I think they've had the Olympics there before Olympic. Yeah. But like it's at the bike racing. And yes, there was no air conditioning, no air air conditioning

[01:17:24] David Syvertsen: there.

It was very, very hot picture. What the gym is right here at bison right now, without any fans on, in the middle of summer, like that kind of it's closed. Just like, like you just don't have any air to breathe, no moving air. And Nicole, you know, act that event, Nicole basically passed out on the floor. They were like rushing us off the floor.

So the next he could get on and Nicole was not doing well. Like she couldn't, she couldn't breathe. So Matt had to run a quarter mile basically to get her inhaler and came back in and we were almost like, I think we're done. I think we're outta the competition. Like she's gonna to go to the hospital tonight and she stuck it out.

This was the first event,

[01:17:59] Matt Milone: First day. It definitely wasn't the first event. First event was the paddle board. Yeah. Run. But needless to say, too, we just gotta touch on there. Go. Yeah, they'll talk about the paddle boy. They had trainers there and obviously the language barrier. They had no idea. I'm like inhaler inhaler.

Meanwhile, I'm sucking wind too. We just finished the event. The guy's looking at me like, yeah, I don't know what you're talking about, cuz I didn't say it in French. So now I'm sprinting to this tent trying to find her inhaler. I have no idea where it is in the bag. You know, I'm worried at the time, not for you, she's just my girlfriend, but still I care about her.

So wow. But were

[01:18:34] David Syvertsen: you that, that, that first day we actually ended up doing decent in that event and Matt and Elise, the first one they won. Yeah, the, there was the, we were involved. We were in, we were

[01:18:44] Matt Milone: place after the

[01:18:45] David Syvertsen: first event. Right. And it was basically because Matt, Nicole ran Matt and the lease ran six miles really, really fast.

Was it six miles? Wasn't it. Six? Yeah, it was,

[01:18:54] Matt Milone: It was a 10 K right. A little more than a 10 K I think. Yeah. What was our run? I couldn't

[01:18:59] David Syvertsen: remember a hundred, 800. No, I think it was, it was close to mile. More than that. It was close a mile, basically. Nicole and I started off the event by running a mile through the woods, kind of, we got to a paddle board and we, we were allowed on our knees.

We had to paddleboard around a buoy. I don't know, about a hundred, 200 meters out. And then I , I, I took a wrong turn.

[01:19:18] Matt Milone: Somehow

[01:19:18] Nicole Milone: I look out and I see this guy like across the lake, like going near no one I'm like whose partner

[01:19:25] Matt Milone: is that's my teammate.

[01:19:29] Sam Rhee: So the event I, I pulled it up. It's male, female pair. One, 1.5 kilometer run, 500 meter meter paddle, 1.5 kilometer run, then pair two male, female does an 8.5 kilometer.

Run. Okay.

[01:19:44] David Syvertsen: So basically I think Nicole and I came back like in fifth place from that first part. And then, and then Matt and Elise, just, we didn't that you

[01:19:51] Matt Milone: guys were not in fifth place. We passed at least 10 teams on that run 10 people, 10 people. No, which is five teams. We're not 10.

[01:20:00] David Syvertsen: We'll go back to the video tape.

It's on YouTube somewhere. But that, that was like, that's when Rory was there. He was one of the commentators, I think Vernon. Yeah. Mm-hmm and he was like team frat. Lee is in first place. And you know, so that, that long we, we started off that competition really well. We had a couple like highs and lows, like Matt was saying, we got buried in a squad clean event.

We got buried in the snatch event. I got buried in the the 200 double under event. But that, that, that competition though was so much fun in that it was so foreign to us. No pun intended, like language barrier. We were around some of the biggest names in the sport at the time.

[01:20:35] Sam Rhee: Yeah. CrossFit man.

Independence was there, mm-hmm, Invictus Boston, Nova three, all these guys

[01:20:41] Matt Milone: were

[01:20:41] David Syvertsen: on point. I mean, they're, they're still at the games right now. Some of these guys. Yeah. Like we're watching them compete and it's really cool. And I think that it brought out the best in us, but what I liked most about the training for that.

and also the competition was like, you really like went numb a lot when you were training to compete or actually competing. Because again, you weren't doing it for yourself. Mm-hmm, like, you really didn't care. Like when you're at competing by yourself or training by yourself, you do, you start to feel bad for yourself.

Oh, this is so hard. I can tap the breaks right now. I can tap the brakes because you're not hurting anyone else. Yeah. But when you feel that burden of like, if I tap the brakes real quick, I'm gonna hurt them. There was an event where it was Sumo dead high, the Sumo deadlift one and the shoulder overhead.

It was a guy, girl pair. Was it 10 rounds?

[01:21:26] Sam Rhee: It says five rounds, 15 Syncro, Sumo deadlift, high pulls, 50 kilos, 35 kilos. Mm-hmm then 15 shoulder overhead Syncro. Yeah. Then pair two. But it was different,

[01:21:38] Matt Milone: right?

[01:21:38] Sam Rhee: No, it was the same 15. Yeah. You guys did the same thing. 15 OC did love high pulls and 15 shoulder overheads.

It was the same time

[01:21:44] David Syvertsen: cap, 15 minutes. So Nicole and I went first and we had this plan in our head to kind of break things up right, right from the start. And we actually did really well, like we were like, and that was a fun event. Cause you can kind of feel that where you were with everyone else. And that was like a 1 15 75 barbell for us in, in pounds.

So we were moving it pretty well and that's kind of like class CrossFit. We're good at class CrossFit and the last round again, you're smoked, going to the last round. And Nicole looks at me right before we start the last round. She goes, unbroken

[01:22:14] Matt Milone: Dave's face. I've never seen it all before. Scared,

[01:22:16] David Syvertsen: petrified, like again, but this is the, this is the example.

Like if, if Nicole was my coach and I was doing that workout as an individual and she goes unbroken, I'm like, dude, I can't do that. Like, there's no way I, I need to break this up ten five again, but because you're doing it for a team, you don't listen to that voice in your head of saying it's too hard.

And like, it's like an out-of-body experience. And that's why I hope anyone listening can, like, we have the bison ball here coming up at, at bison in a couple weeks. And a lot of people have never competed for, they don't want to. And they're scared. They're petrified. I think if you can allow yourself to really kind of go into it with that mindset that you're really doing it for other people, you're not doing it for yourself.

You're gonna get much more out of it. Yeah. It

[01:22:51] Nicole Milone: changes it completely. I think also, cause we were all such good friends. Yeah. It like just made it even more. You don't wanna let anyone down. You never, literally like, not necessarily kill yourself form, but like. You know, go as hard as you possibly

[01:23:06] David Syvertsen: can. And it was healthy pressure.

It was pressure that like, you really wanted to do this for them. Like it wasn't like, oh man, like this person's gonna yell at me. If I, if up like I had, I had two really, really bad events. And like, I never wanted, like, the guilt that I felt was so bad, but I never felt like those guys were like mad at me or like, oh, they like why'd we bring Dave maybe they did.

But like, you know, that that's kind of like the, that that's, that's the perfect situation. If you're looking for like a team or just like, if you want stay out of the sport, you want people to, to train with on Sundays at open gym. Those are the people you wanna train with. It's the people that push you, but they don't put pressure on you to the point where if you fail, you're gonna feel like you let someone down.

Mm-hmm

[01:23:47] Matt Milone: yeah. And you, you held, I tell you this all the time, but your composure during that snatch event was like barn on, like, it was, it was incredible. I would've had the belt throw the couple, some profanity in there

[01:23:59] David Syvertsen: probably, but no one would've understood it out there. Anyway, look at this guy. That's true.

Let's fuck me. But yes. And that was so let's touch on this, the, the individual side. Do you guys. Have any desire right now to compete individually? No, because you just made Nicole just made quarter finals. Yeah.

[01:24:19] Matt Milone: On the individual side this past

[01:24:21] Nicole Milone: year. Yep. Mm-hmm and it was not fun. Like. Like going into it.

I was like, I mean, we have no other like, team is so hard to find people around mm-hmm and girls are just so hard to

[01:24:31] David Syvertsen: find. Let's dunno why let's about what makes a team hard to, to put together. I think the girls elite elite women, so that,

[01:24:37] Matt Milone: so now, I mean, CrossFit makes it harder. So you have to be in affiliate, right?

You have to be a part of that gym. Yes.

[01:24:43] David Syvertsen: Right. And I think, is it now 50 miles? Yeah. Yeah.

[01:24:46] Matt Milone: It's 50 or

[01:24:47] David Syvertsen: a hun. I thought it was 50. I could be wrong, whatever it is. It doesn't matter.

[01:24:50] Matt Milone: It's still like, you know, it's enough miles where. Let's say an hour, right? Like you find anyone an hour, but there's just like, we've like done it.

We've looked around. We're like, there's nobody really around. And, and I don't want anyone take offense to that. No, no,

[01:25:03] David Syvertsen: no, no, no, no, no offense taken whatsoever. Mm-hmm like, you know, and I I've we've talked. So they were on our bison team last year in the open mm-hmm we, we tried to run it back. Right. Mm-hmm and then you guys got COVID but like, but even then it was so hard to line up schedules for them to get here enough to train us together.

Mm-hmm to be on same programs. Mm-hmm you know, you know, we had, yeah, we had, we had a kid at the time, like it was, everything was just so tough to line up and that I think that's what everyone needs to know that if there is a desire to compete on a team, you have to find the people that are really like ready to put down everything.

Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , you know, three to four days a week and like no excuses. And if you can't, it's not worth it. Yep. But Nicole touch on, you said it's hard to find the girls. Yeah. What does that mean

[01:25:50] Nicole Milone: again, like you said, I mean one the skill level and no offense to, you know, just anyone in the area reach out if you want to and then just lining up.

Do they wanna go team? Like some people just wanna strictly do individual do they like schedules match up and then the guys, sometimes they're tied to like two guys. Yeah. But like mm-hmm right. Yeah. It's just like a lot to line up. But team is just so much more fun. Like doing quarters. Yeah. Alone.

It's like, I'm doing it for myself. Yeah. Which I don't know. For some people it's like enough to, but doing it for a team is a whole nother just level. I, it wasn't

[01:26:27] David Syvertsen: fun. Yeah. Is there more or less pressure? Competing for a team that needs your scores or by yourself more.

[01:26:34] Nicole Milone: Yes. Cause again, you're letting down them.

Like if I let down myself,

[01:26:37] David Syvertsen: it's like a cash 20 too. Like I like competing the visual because I feel like if I F up, like I just screw myself over. Yeah. Like, and I, I can live with that. I can sleep with that. But like I, sometimes I think the stress is higher when you feel like you let someone else down. as much like there, there what's the difference.

You have more fun with the team. No question. Mm-hmm but you also feel a bit more pressure, a little bit more stressed with the team. Yeah. And I think that every individual out there you're gonna have to kind of figure that out. What, what do you wanna deal with more? What do you wanna do with less? Yeah,

[01:27:06] Matt Milone: I do real quick.

Wanna just tie in. I don't, I don't know when you wanna talk about it, but our individual experiences at like her at granite games now and me at waap PZA. Yeah, because I think those two are like a very good at waap. Yeah. So that was, again, I think it was 2018. Yep. So January, 2018, right after regionals felt like I was in great shape.

I actually looked up on the way here, how many events? So it was eight events. Technically, I think they scored nine, but it was one of those, like the very first workout was like a seven K run. And then there was like a rec bag mile within the run. Right. So it was like nine scored events, but like one workout, two scores, eight, eight events over three days.

Got it. And I competed in the RX division, so there was the elite and then there was the RX. So I was even like the step down when that weekend was over. I thought my body was broken. Yeah. I have never, ever in my life been so sore, I think I was even sore. Like, so that the event started on Friday on sat like Saturday morning.

Like just after that I go, how am I gonna do this? Right. And I remember there was a bar complex on Sunday. They waited, it was like called the pro Genix, like bar complex. And it was like 3, 2, 1, like, yep. Whatever that works. 2 25, 2 45, 2 65. Yeah. It was like, hang, hang cleans, front squads, shoulder overhead.

Yep. I was in the warmup area and I'm like, I can't do this with 1 35. Like, how am I gonna do this? Like I did it at Cosmo. I was like, oh, just gonna be easy two minutes. Like whatever

[01:28:24] David Syvertsen: says it like that too.

[01:28:25] Matt Milone: Meanwhile, meanwhile, I got C in the workout, but it's just like those, like, just from an individual standpoint, obviously it's always gonna depend on what the programming is, but the

[01:28:35] David Syvertsen: demand's

[01:28:35] Matt Milone: higher.

I was wrecked and I've never felt like that at any team comp regionals. Yep. French throw down, whatever, whatever we've competed on, on a team, local level comps.

[01:28:45] David Syvertsen: Yeah, I, so that's a good thing for someone listening to take on. Like, if you're in that position where you're trying to figure out team and individual, the individual is probably more physically demanding.

The volume's gonna be higher. No doubt. And you don't get to rely on anyone. So if you're just looking at workouts like strict workouts, individual team, the working period, the time in which you're working is going to be much more than you are on a team, because obviously on team workouts, there's a lot of inter it's like very interval styled, right.

And Syncro, styled the volume and the time under tension as an individual will be a lot higher mm-hmm . And you know, if you're trying to. Sustain long-term health, right? Like that's, that's gonna be something you have to think about.

[01:29:26] Matt Milone: Yeah. And, and just for the record, I the last event I beat Justin Maderas.

Ooh,

[01:29:30] David Syvertsen: really? Are you serious? So Maderas was in RX that RX

[01:29:34] Matt Milone: 12? Yeah, he was, I think he was like 19 years old, but,

[01:29:37] David Syvertsen: That's pretty cool. I didn't know that plug. He never told me that. That's right. Nice.

[01:29:40] Matt Milone: So

what place did

[01:29:46] David Syvertsen: he come in to? I

[01:29:47] Matt Milone: think he got like secondary

[01:29:48] David Syvertsen: or like guys. Did you come in? Do you remember?

[01:29:51] Matt Milone: No. Okay. No, I don't

[01:29:53] David Syvertsen: remember not. I remember, but he remembers being the workout an hour ago. Yeah. That's I don't forget that for sure. That's so cool, dude. That's what actually, Nicole, your experience at granted, you actually did pretty well out there didn't you?

No,

[01:30:05] Nicole Milone: I thought I was just trying to survive at the

[01:30:07] David Syvertsen: end. Was it the same thing? Like same experience. It was

[01:30:10] Nicole Milone: four days. Mm-hmm so first individual competition, four days. I don't know what I was not prepared. Okay. The first. Workout was, I don't remember if it started with the hill run or if that was second, but they, so the first day it was G D some sandbag cleaned and then run up this enormous ski resort hill with the sandbag.

Talk

[01:30:31] Matt Milone: about how they brought you there. It was like an offset event. Like I couldn't even go watch. Yeah.

[01:30:35] Nicole Milone: It was like on a bus. Matt couldn't come watch. So I'm there alone. Obviously don't know any of the girls and this workout just wrecked me. I remember thinking like, what am I doing here? And it's a first workout first day.

I'm like, this is gonna be miserable. And then they bring us to another site. We do an 800 meter swim like 5k row and then some run through the woods. I remember I was cramping. My calf was cramping on the rower. I'm like, I am

[01:30:59] David Syvertsen: not ready for this weekend.

[01:31:01] Nicole Milone: So that was the start of the weekend.

[01:31:03] David Syvertsen: And then was your training leading up to it different?

Yes. Was that because you weren't on a team just didn't have that same fuel?

[01:31:11] Nicole Milone: I didn't even know I was gonna do it until what, like a couple weeks before when Matt found out that they were doing it and then I was like I reached out and I was like, well, I'm gonna go anyway to watch Matt and them. Okay.

Yeah. So I was like, lemme see if they have any spots. So I, you know, I listed out I've been to regionals, blah, blah, blah. Cause they're not just gonna like let anyone. Right. And they ended up having someone drop out and. Okay. They were like, yeah, it could come. So it

[01:31:37] David Syvertsen: wasn't like a long-term training thing for

[01:31:39] Nicole Milone: you.

Okay. No. And yeah, so when I got there, I was like, this was a horrible mistake. Like, what am I doing was not ready training wise. Yeah, but I mean, it was definitely good for the experience. Right. You know, that whole individual, I haven't had anything like that since mm-hmm it was, yeah, it's been a while though.

[01:31:54] Matt Milone: Yeah, it was brutal. There there's so much more that goes into being an individual competitor at the high level that people don't even realize. Like I was listening to it on a podcast the other day, an athlete, when they go to the games as an individual, their job is to show up and do the workout, their manager, whatever you wanna call it.

Oh, I have all your food prepped. Oh, you're gonna get body work here. Oh, we got an ice tub here for you. Oh, you're gonna, you're gonna nap at this time. Like literally, like your schedule is done. Even the warmup area we do is breathe and workout. Yeah. That's it.

[01:32:22] Nicole Milone: I mean, I remember being in the warmup area, like looking around, like, what do I even do?

[01:32:25] Matt Milone: Yeah. Like I don't, we're not prepared. We don't have like, I, we get better as the years go on, but this was so early on. It's like. We had like, maybe like a pudding and like an RX bar or whatever it was. And like our protein, oh, we're ready. We're good. Like, we didn't know like, oh my God, we need car.

Like, you know, now you just know so much more the, well you have to. Yeah. They're, they're treating

[01:32:45] Sam Rhee: you as a thoroughbred and you're the race horse. And they, the racehorse is not expected to do all of the logistical stuff. And I think that's the one thing I think with PIRO, when we talked to him, he's transitioning into that.

I now have to have

[01:33:00] David Syvertsen: this support, this support system around me to

[01:33:03] Matt Milone: compete at that a hundred percent. You need to 100%, if you want your body to feel good, that's what the that's what half the game is, is how well can I recover

[01:33:12] David Syvertsen: attrition the next day? Yeah. Mm-hmm how, yeah. How strong are you on the next day?

Yep. For that. All right. So let, let's just wrap this up with, where do you guys kind of see yourself in the sport? Like I know you guys just, you know, Life change is potentially coming up in the next couple years, but are you guys still, and maybe advice to other people, you guys still train pretty hard and in my opinion, and you're still very fit.

You don't have to say, I will. You're very fit now, Matt and I are competing together in September at the east coast. Classic. Do you guys, how important is it for you to kind of just keep your foot in the door a little bit? Right. Maybe not train as hard as you did two, three years ago, but just keep that engine going for the sake of the fact that at some point an opportunity might come your way.

Like, I mean, if I, if I was a coach of an elite team and I needed a guy and a girl, I'd be hitting you guys up, say like, Hey, next year, we're looking for a guy and a girl, you know, that opportunity might come your way at some point. How important for you, or does that feel your training at all right now that Hey, something might come up that you don't really foresee.

[01:34:11] Nicole Milone: Yeah. I don't know. Maybe like subconsciously we're still trying to, yeah. I didn't even think of it that way, like in case an opportunity does come up. Yep. Like, I didn't even know about the regional thing, but it's like, if that becomes real, it's like all we wanna kind of be ready. Yeah. Cause I would wanna, you know, go for it, throw it in.

Yeah. Yeah. Go for it. Absolutely. But yeah, right now, I mean not doing anything insane. Yeah. Like sure. We're like competitors, so we're just always gonna kind of like have that I think. Yep. At least for now, like you said, until like life gets in the way or whatever it might be. Mm-hmm . But yeah, still trying to

[01:34:43] David Syvertsen: stay in it, trying to keep that base wide.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the biggest thing is keep your base there so that when you do need to EMP it up, who do you follow programming

[01:34:50] Sam Rhee: wise or do you guys, what, what do you guys

[01:34:52] Matt Milone: do? I

[01:34:52] Nicole Milone: do mayhem, like just on the, you know, the app, the sugar web mayhem thing. Mm-hmm I like, so they have an aerobic capacity and you had Hinshaw, Hinshaw.

Yep. I like, this is the whole reason I ended up doing mayhem is because they have that piece of it. Yes. And I love that. Like, I'm not an endurance kind of person. Like Matt said, I like cleaning. I like like lifting. Yeah. So I like having that and just going out and doing, I love their biker workouts. Like they have intervals and just getting on that, we got a biker.

Just kind of throwing those pieces in. So I follow that. And then Matt, I guess what follows up when I do

[01:35:27] Matt Milone: it? Yeah. I don't have a specific program. I, I'm not good with that. I, I should follow something, but like, if I'm training with Nicole, I'm like, all right, what are we doing today? Like, I'll follow my ham.

And then like, I'll take, you know, my, my gym's like workout of the day or, you know, we jump in there a good amount. I'm like I said, I said it back then. I know you have to, you gotta learn your body, but I'm very like, if, if the workout, whatever you write down for the workout, you can get better. Yeah.

It's about how you push yourself. Like a lot of people are on this concept and it's been, probably talked about like, oh my God, I need a 20 minute am wrap and I need to leave your sweating. My shirt needs to be drenched. Like that's, that's not what it's always about. Right? Like, you can get good in five, two minute am wraps or like, you know, you can do grace and, and have a three minute workout and it's okay.

Yeah. That your body needs that. Like, yeah.

[01:36:13] David Syvertsen: Don't, don't always over. You need a

[01:36:15] Matt Milone: work on volume sprints. Yeah. Like it, it, you know, those fast Twitch fibers, like, it's there's good

[01:36:20] David Syvertsen: question. I don't have a program. Yeah, no, because no, but Matt does well, because he doesn't always like he's. I think he kind of auto programs himself to just say like, Hey, I gotta make sure there's days where I just lift mm-hmm there's days where I go long.

Yeah. There's days that I sprint. And you can sprinkle that with a bunch of different programs. He's more like a macro level program type guy. Yeah. Like as long as I'm touching on everything, big picture. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like I'll

[01:36:41] Matt Milone: make sure like, Hey, I snatched on Monday, like, Hey, I need a clean Wednesday.

Or like, obviously my deadlift, like I need a deadlift or like, and then I always like to squat. So like, I, I know I've been doing this long enough that I know I need to hit the lifts and then conditioning. I just need to, you know, Conditioning's a big piece. So you gotta keep your conditioning. That reminds me a lot

[01:36:57] Sam Rhee: of Patura where the way he thinks about programming, he does linchpin programming, but he also is very practical about his programming.

Yeah. And you know, I know you have a job in law enforcement and you have to fit everything else around that too. Yeah, for sure. So

[01:37:09] Matt Milone: that's, it's a lot of difficulties with that, for sure. Especially like, you know, it's 12 hour days, especially, you know, every like the, you know, whatever shift I'm working. Like if I'm working the day shift, I need to be at work by like six 15, which means I'm leaving my house at like five 50, which means if I want to do anything I'm waking up at, I don't know.

I think I usually get up at like 4:55 AM and it's like a 30% a workout. And it's usually just me riding the bike very slowly. Mm-hmm or like going for a run. And it's like those four days that I'm working, it's like, I don't, I don't feel like I'm like getting better. Right. I'm just like. Doing something to like, keep the blood going,

[01:37:47] David Syvertsen: right.

Yeah. But sure. It

[01:37:48] 2022_0710_0959: says

[01:37:48] Matt Milone: just

[01:37:48] Sam Rhee: doing that. Yeah. Is

[01:37:49] Matt Milone: something, as he says, like fitness was achieved, right. Fitness was achieved,

[01:37:52] David Syvertsen: All right. Well thanks, Matt, Nicole. That, that was a lot of fun. I hope lot. You guys cut something out of that, just from the team side, the individual side, how you can blend the two, how you can go back and forth and sounds like we'll be having you guys on for another episode next week.