Monday 1.20.2020

Pausing Power Clean
Heavy set of 2

“Zoolander”
15 Minute AMRAP:
150 Meter run
15 Ring push-ups
150 Meter run
10 Power cleans (155/105)

Tomorrow’s Forecast:
Tuesday’s workout calls for overhead squats, chest to bar pull-ups, rowing, and burpee box jump overs.

Box Brief:
The 10-Week Habitap Challenge is coming! Here are a few dates to keep in mind as we get ready to start:
February 1st @ 10:45 AM – Kick-off Meeting
February 3rd – Registration Opens!
February 10th – Challenge Begins!

Congrats to Rob for being the January Member of the Month at Apollo! Scroll down to learn more about Rob.

Congratulations on becoming Member of the Month! I never get tired of highlighting all the incredible people at Apollo. Hopefully it’s as much fun to answer these questions as it is to ask them.

How long have you been doing CrossFit? Do you remember your first time trying a class?
This is actually kind of a tough question to answer, since I’ve stopped and started a lot with CrossFit. I first heard about it while living in Kansas in 2005 but there weren’t any boxes or classes around that I could find. Then a couple of years later I had a co-worker in Virginia set up some workouts for the office, but I missed out. I finally tried it a few times, on my own, using the CrossFit HQ website and the base gyms during a deployment to Afghanistan in 2009. I had no idea what I was doing, so you can imagine how things went! I liked it a lot, but needed coaching, of course, and there weren’t any classes offered while deployed that I knew of. I had a bunch of friends doing it in the Air Force at Nellis once we moved here in 2010 but for some reason I never started again. Finally, when I went through Southwest Airlines training in 2014 in Dallas, I had a classmate who was really into CrossFit and I joined him at CrossFit Big D (Chase Ingraham’s gym) for their Foundations class equivalent. It was tough to be consistent with it during training, but I was hooked! But hadn’t found a place here in Vegas to work out until my mom gave my brother and me the Apollo Foundations course as a Christmas present in Dec ’15. We started in Jan ’16 and have been trying to stick with it ever since.

I would like to start off by saying thank you for your service! I happened to know you flew the baddest aircraft around the A-10 Thunderbolt II. What was that like? Did you ever get tired of firing that 30mm cannon?
Thanks so much, Wes! And thank you back at you for your service in the Air Force, as well! It’s always nice when people are appreciative, but it’s even better hearing it from a fellow veteran. I absolutely loved flying the Hog! I always knew I wanted to fly but didn’t necessarily have a dream airplane growing up. I had a buddy in college a couple years ahead of me who was obsessed with the A-10 and a lot of our fellow cadets in ROTC would give him a hard time about it because most of the pilot candidates wanted to fly fast fighters. He ended up flying the A-10 while he was in the AF and we were even in the same squadron together in Korea for awhile, which was great. I never tired of firing the gun (or shooting rockets, or dropping bombs!) or any of the other cool stuff that plane can do…it really was a blast to fly. But it was also a really great community of pilots and maintainers (as I think you know!), which you obviously don’t necessarily think about at first when you’re young and dreaming about what to fly. And, of course, the mission was awesome: supporting the Army and Marines and special ops, working with Air Force tactical air control parties and combat controllers day in and day out to get the job done was amazing. I think you’d probably agree there’s plenty of military stuff I don’t miss, but working with kick-ass people to get important missions done is pretty awesome, and that was the best part of flying the Hog.

For you CrossFit has turned into a family affair. Your brother Gil and sons Alex and Noah can all be found working out at the gym. How does that dynamic play out in the household? (e.g, smack talk, convincing each other to try workouts, random displays of fitness,etc.)
Hahaha! This question completely cracks me up and when I tell Alex and Noah, they’ll laugh out loud, as well! Totally true, it really has been something of a family affair since Gil and I first did Foundations in Feb ’16. Gil and I are plenty competitive toward each other as the two only siblings in our household growing up. And it’s good to have someone pushing you to “go to the gym,’ since I’m one of those people who doesn’t have enough personal discipline to just work out without some kind of incentive. Also, as a parent, it’s great when you can get your kids interested in a healthy habit that will be good for them for life. Alex and Noah really got into CrossFit in the last year-and-a-half and have actually made me work harder and be even more interested in all aspects of the sport. As you know, Alex got his CFL1 cert last summer and he’s doing a coaching shadow program at CrossFit UNR. Noah wants to take the course as soon as he’s 17. And yes, plenty of smack talk between Alex and Noah (I can’t compete with them on pretty much anything anymore so they’ve stopped even bothering to chirp me!)…they tied each other in the Open this year so their tie-breaker is the Battleground SoCal competition in April. Noah (and Alex, when home from UNR) is constantly pushing me to “do workouts with him,” either at Apollo or in the garage gym we’ve been slowly building for the past year. And, “random displays of fitness?” Totally… We call them “feats of strength” at our house, with things like PR throw-downs in the garage, some crazy box jump to pistol thing that I’ll never be able to do, you name it. Now if I could only get my wife and oldest son into CrossFit, my work here would be complete! Which is a funny twist, since my wife Heather, as an avid runner, yoga instructor and yoga therapist for literally years has always been a huge fitness inspiration for me.

I think it’s fair to assume you’ve traveled a bit in your lifetime. Do you have any locations that stand out as your favorite?
Yeah, I’ve been lucky to travel quite a bit, although always excited about the next new location or adventure! This is a really tough question since we were lucky enough to live in Europe (Germany) for three years and everywhere was really wonderful, including the beautiful area of southwest Germany we lived in. That said, I think I would have to say The Azores (the Portuguese islands in the North Atlantic). Even ‘though I’ve only been there a few short days in my life a couple of different times during Atlantic Ocean crossings, it’s always left a lasting impression on me. The climate is mild and gorgeous, the towns and countryside are old-school Europe beautiful, and the people are super friendly with that relaxed southern Europe wake-up late, luxuriate over meals, siesta in the afternoon, drink Sangria late into the evening kind of vibe. I hope to take my wife there sometime in in the future since I’ve always talked about it to her.

If you were putting a bucket list together, what would be the first thing on your list?
I’m going to assume this is one of those, “reality is no object” kind of questions?!? This would undoubtedly be to go into space, even just low-Earth orbit would be fine, although a flight to the Moon or Mars would be a huge bonus! As a kid, I wanted to be a lot of different things when I grew up, but astronaut always was number one so this will always be on top of the list, I think.

I love asking this question. If you had to create your perfect workout, what would it be?
This is another one Noah will love! He’ll say, “that’s the make your own WOD question, Dad!!” Can I say 16 oz curls, Sangria cleans, and taco twists? But honestly, as I think about this, I realize I don’t love any single CrossFit movement…it’s all pain and suffering! What are we all doing?!? Somehow it works when it’s all brought together to bring us back again and again. I guess for me, it would probably be something like the named WOD Chief, that we did last week? Timed rounds with programmed rest of simpler stuff that my aging brain-body connection has a hope of doing decently like running, box jumps, deadlifts (or cleans), pushups, air squats. Ouch, even that sounds awful as I say it!

Now for my goofy question. If you woke up with all the skills (and budget) of a world class director, what movie would you make?
Not goofy at all! I love that one of my CrossFit coaches is as much of a geek as I am. This one is easy. I’ve always been a huge science fiction fan (thus, the bucket list answer) and one of my favorite sc-fi authors is Robert Heinlein. If you don’t know him, he’s the guy who wrote the book “Starship Troopers,” which is one of his most famous and best books. The movie adaptation of that book from years ago was fun as a stand-alone story but didn’t even remotely do the actual book justice nor the Mobile Infantry Marines who are the “starship troopers” of the title. Those guys use powered armor suits in the book that make the Spartans from the HALO video games/books look like push-overs. I’d re-do that movie as a gritty military sci-fi epic that tries to better capture the essence, story, and message of the original book.