This is disabled girls who lift. We are reclaiming what's rightfully ours, one podcast at a time. It's mary Beth Chloe and Marcia bringing you the thoughts and unpopular topics to get you out of that. A bliss comfort zone. Mhm. I'm ready to welcome everyone. Another episode of disabled girls who lift, we got mary Beth with a new microphone myself here and a guest, let me introduce myself and then we'll go down the line. This is Marsha on Seminole tribe land in south florida, pronounce she, they it's mary beth come in with a new microphone. Hopefully it sounds just a little bit better than the last two I'm in standing on Aloni land up here in northern California. She her pronouns and we are super excited. You've probably seen her on our page before. Rebecca wise. A. K. A. R. Becks, she comes to us from Shinnecock land over in Southampton new york and as an indigenous and black cross fitter with M.

S. From the Hamptons um watches a lot of bad tv feels very strongly about it and built herself a shred shed y'all, You don't know what that means. It's a home gym during lockdown. Uh just like everybody else, we gotta train without everybody else's germs. Welcome Becca. Thank you. Have you. Yes, so Rebecca. Um yeah, so I'm from Shinnecock. I actually live on the Shinnecock reservation. I'm a Shinnecock tribal member uh and like full on tribal member, tribal employee, all of that good stuff. Um And yeah, I built a built a gym shred should what's okay, you know, I don't know geography. Um And you said you off camera, you said you live farther from Jersey City and like the main city, so you're in like mainland New york, like what does that mean?

Not even I'm from Long Island. Um And I live on Long Island on the east end of Long Island, so it's funny recently, I told someone I was from Long Island and they were like you don't have that accent at all, and I was like, yes, so the east end Suffolk County, the Hamptons. So like I live in South Hampton um that's where the reservation is, so we're way out east, it's like farmland and very big houses everywhere. Um And it's about two hours away from New York City. Um And most of my friends are from the city and I used to live in the city and it's funny, I tell them I'm like two hours away and I'm like, oh my God, that's so far, and it's like there's a whole hour long, there's a whole hour left of Long Island. Yeah, for the tip. I think I think Long Island is the biggest island in the United States. It's just huge. It's out there, it's wild because I went there once. Um some of my family lives out there and I just felt like I was in florida like it was like you guys have pauses, we got plazas.

So lows here is the lows here, you know, it wasn't like new york city skyscrapers. Like we're just chilling out here and it's beautiful grand. Right? Yeah, here we have a lot of farmland, we have a lot of trees everywhere. And it's funny because Long Island probably where you at Marcia, it was probably like nasa or like Western Suffolk and that's just like everywhere else. It's just like the rest of like Long Island, there's shops everywhere, those highways and all this stuff, like there's nothing out where I live, like I live in the country um And that's probably why it's like a big vacation area because there's just not a lot of stuff to do, You know there's not a lot of big crowds and we have a lot more space and stuff like to go shopping is like 20 minutes away, that's where the stores are. Um there's nothing in this area and then just think there's a whole hour east of me and like those people have to go like an hour and a half to go to like walmart.

Is that still reservation land? Er That's um not the hour, let's lift. Oh the reservation, we're kind of on like a little small peninsula kind of um in South Hampton. So uh there's there's like three entrances to the reservation and we're just kind of on our own little territory. Well we call it, you know they started calling it territory when I was growing up, it was the rest, that's what we always called it. But um, I guess this has always been our land specifically. You know, I'm sure you guys know about the trail of tears, you know, everybody had to move and stuff. But we have always been in this area. We've just been out of our land but we are still on our land that we've always been on. It's just, it's just wild because you hear about, especially with the pandemic, right? All these celebrities flying out to the Hamptons to escape from how populist new york is. There's way too many people. I got the money. I'm going to rent a, You know, $30 billion dollar home mention on the beach.

Yeah. So is there a lot of like, like interaction there. Um I know you said you're on the peninsula, but I don't know like it's interesting. I think if you look at out west reservations, they have a lot more property and they might have like a grocery store or something like that. They might have some schools. We don't have anything like that because we're just so small. So we do have to just go to town for everything. Um and you know, everybody from this area knows someone from the rez, everybody from the rez has, you know, not his friends and stuff like that. We went to the public schools. Um, some of the, a lot of the older generation specifically like, so like my grandfather and stuff. He knew so many rich white people from town because he would like walk their dogs and get their newspapers and stuff like that. Um You know, a lot of people back in the day used to clean houses for those people and stuff like that. So there's a lot of interaction um were very much part of the community and stuff.

There must be an interesting dynamic because that's kind of already what rich white people are. Used to write like black people being their servants, like not being real people, just being a person providing the service for their richness. And now you have an entire tribe of people. That's probably probably a lot of people, like that's how they bring food home to your table is doing that, I'm sure, but y'all were there first, you were there first like a wild, I think we were the first town Southampton was the first incorporated town in new york state. Um And yeah, so like growing up, like, well older generations used to do that now. It's a lot of um, latino immigrants do a lot of that stuff. So like Shinnecock people aren't as much doing that, but um, like just the whole time I was growing up, you know, my grandfather was like, I used to, I used to walk dogs at that house over there by the, by the ocean. Um But yeah, it's a very interesting place. The Hamptons are really interesting because they definitely have a reputation of being very very rich and that is true.

Um But most like it's expensive out here and there's a lot of big houses because people come out here for the summer, so they have summer houses. Um I used to work at a school in the technology department and I once sat in while some people try to send sell us some software for the kids, like a mass aid program and someone and the person who was there, she was like, it's kind of interesting that you guys need this because normally, you know, rich areas, they don't need a program for the ipads for their kids, their kids have tutors. You know, if they have an issue with math, they just they pay for tutors and then she went. But I've also noticed in rich areas, you need a lot of lower class people to like mow your lawn. You know, rich people aren't going to do with it. So the schools, the school I worked at here in Southampton, all the kids had ipads. I think they probably started, they think at this point they're probably all the way in kindergarten. K through 12 have ipads. Um The kids get a new ipad every time they go into a new building.

So in fifth grade and in 8th and 9th grade they get brand new ipads, But like 50% of the kids are on free and reduced lunch. Well it's just because all these rich people have big mansions out here that they play taxes on and they're never here aside from two months out of the year. But like all those taxes they pay go into the school district. So we have All these resources. There's a planetarium of my high school. It was a very small high school, there was 150 kids in my graduating class. But we had like a really small planetarium in this school and they rented out to other schools. So like people like take field trips to go to my high school to go to the planetarium. It's a different reality. Like. Yeah it's wild. It's wild. But like I said like 50% of kids on free and reduced lunch. Yeah. I mean it reminds me a little like I go back to L. A. Where I I grew up you know for 18 years and every time I go back every year something's been gentrified. You're saying a new whole foods, a new 345 story mall that wasn't there before.

Um But at the same time people that I grew up with have been pushed out or you know no longer living there. So what I mean you've been there literally all of your life pretty much have those same people kind of stayed as well or um people from the reds do say a lot of the white kids you know if their parents have a house and I don't mean the rich kids, I just mean like, you know someone whose parents bought a house in the eighties, you know, and they have a small house, those people are still here. Um A lot of the black people moved out. There was an area in my town. Um You had to kind of go up a hill that was named Hillcrest. So we call it the hill, that area. Um That the whole time I was growing up all the time before that was all black families and they're moving out, they're moving out. It's so expensive and it's not necessary. Like sometimes like every once in a while like a rich person will try to gentrify the hill, but like you know the people who are still there are still there and they're like, I don't care about this, I'm gonna be as long as I want.

Um But a lot of those houses that were historically, you know, the black families of Southampton. Um It turned into like a lot of Latinos have been moving up there. Um Not necessarily because it's cheaper, but like, you know, when I worked at the school, the kids did tell me that there would be like three or four families in the household, you know, and that's how they afford to live there while the black families, they weren't doing that, it was like a single family home for them moving a regular life and then they're like sense of now. Yeah, so now they're moving, they're moving to A town like 20 minutes away, or for some reason a lot of them are moving to Virginia. Like a lot of, a lot of black kids, I went to high school is just like live in Virginia now. Yeah, that's wild. So, I mean, where does, where does your like, crossfit and weight lifting weights? Is that from when you left and started living in the city? Or is that a part of like, is there a crossfit by you? And that's a part of the community or not really. So there was a crossfit gym in my town. Um I started Doing cross fit, I think when I was like 29, there was a there was a crossfit gym and in town it has closed down.

Um and it's like some other sort of probably functional fitness type gym now. Um But I was working at the school and a lot of the teachers went to crossfit and you know, it was like the older teachers who were like, my mom's age were doing crossfit, and then like, some really young fit teachers were doing crossfit and that was kind of part of the deciding factor, It was like, okay, well if this six year old lady who's friends with my mom can do crossfit, I think I probably do crossfit to. Um But no, yes, that's how I started um you know, you know, I figured it has to be a different vibe because you're in like a small town, everybody knows each other and cross wits, kind of like, you know, like Starbucks was the coffee is crossfit was to gym, so I don't know how that hit small towns, right? You have a planetarium in your high school, I think not, but it's really small.

It only fits like one, like one grade at a time And it was very small grades. Like there was 150 kids in my graduating class. I don't think we could all have fit in the planetarium at one time. Just like, like 70 five people can sit in that planetarium. And the thing um they're like, I don't know what it is because I didn't ever, I never took astronomy, we had an astronomy class, but I didn't take that class. The thing, it lowers into the office of the librarian because the librarian's office, you know, I think they probably have to tell the library and like the schedule for when we're using it. But like, imagine you're just in your office and then some of this big thing, it was it damn it, Let me get out of here. I you just have a planetarium thing in your office. Like a very small school and just weird. We had a planetarium there also, Yeah, no, I don't know anything about small town vibes at all. I know about small communities per se.

Um you know, like immigrant culture, like all the immigrants know each other, you know, you introduce yourself like I'm the daughter of and they're like, yeah, I know her, I know that, but small town vibes does not, does not compute, its very strange. Like going out to a bar here, you're going to see so many people you went to high school with like just so many of them go out for thanksgiving at a bar. It's gonna be crazy packed and you're going to see all these people you haven't seen in years because everybody's home. That's so weird. It's weird and it's terrible. I want to see those people. So no. Yeah, I mean at least if I was, I don't know in a giant mall and I saw somebody, I got tons of malta walk away. Yeah. Did you see him everywhere? Let's go to the grocery store. You're definitely gonna see somebody, you know. Mm no thanks. And you mentioned being a, a tribal employee. Uh, what does, what does that mean?

So I, I work for the tribe. I am the director of communications for the tribe and for the most part, it's just, I said not a lot of emails all the time for other departments and I post up on facebook for other departments for the most part. Um, but like we have a newsletter. Um, that at some point was every month, but then like a couple communication directors later. We don't do it as much. Um Right now I'm trying to work on building us a website. Um But you know, I don't know, I'm just I'm very I guess very involved in the tribe. I don't do a lot of things. Like I don't for example dance at Powell, but like I always try to get as many outsiders to come to power. It was possible. I've worked um in our education department um like tutoring I did after school program for a while. I had a classroom for like 1st and 2nd graders and I was just making them do their homework for two hours. Um You know all those, I don't know it's it's a small community we have, we do all these things and one of them is I just, I just also work for the tribe now.

That's awesome. And it's all, excuse me? It's all paid work like like working for the city. Yeah. Yeah it's paid work. Um you know I have to put in a time sheet every everyone to say I work 9-5 Monday through Friday. That's not really the case. I do things on the weekend. I do things after work, all that stuff, but I just don't put a time sheet and they just paid me for it. This is since you've been back moving because of the pandemic and working from home or you are always doing that. Um Yeah, I think probably in like june or something. I was really sick of my job in the city, which I still unfortunately have and it's like may. Um But I was like I'm gonna I'm gonna apply to that job, I'm just going to come home and I'm going to do that. Um Also and so I came back um like I applied, they gave him a job and I came home and I'm unfortunately still working on my other job, but also I built a shed. So that's a plus side of you got time for that. So that's a plus side having fun jobs.

I'm surprised my boss at my other job hasn't been like how did you afford that? Because he must know he does not pay me enough money that much gym equipment. She must have a great credit card. Yeah, he knows that like a concept to thing is very expensive but he has not questioned like how I did that at all. Um But you know, I don't know, I was in the city, I had an apartment in Queens and then I was just in my apartment for a couple months and I was like, I don't know uh this is not for me, I've only been in the city for two years at this point. There's no reason that was still new for you anyway. Yeah, it was new and I liked it and then I was stuck in my house and I was like no, I'm going to go home just taking my house. I'm going to be stuck in my house where I have a yard. Yeah, just a little taste of the city gets moving on and go back home. No, no, I don't think, I mean I know it's like a certain lifestyle or whatever, but I don't think I could live for real like a real life in the city.

In the city. I couldn't do it. I don't know. It's a lot of new york city is very fun but like, I don't need to, I've done it. Yeah, I'm too chill for that. I did like a three month rotation once when I was when I was in school and I'm like, okay, that timeline is done with, I think it goes that alternate me and I'm moving on, we're not doing that. I'm not going to go to the store every day because my fridge is too small. The whole groceries. Yeah. Or your dishwasher, your dishwasher is under your bed closets, also under your bed. Can't know. It was like, yeah, I had to go to the grocery store and walk to the grocery store every week and it was like okay, you only get as many things as you can carry. Yeah, no, sorry if you want eggs and soda, probably can't carry those things like four blocks. That's a pass. It's gonna be for me. The only thing I miss is being able to sleep on commutes because you know you're on the subway set a timer and just that was great.

That was great. That was great. I read so many books. I read so many books when I was in the city. I had like a 50 minute commute, which was a decision I made because I didn't want to transfer. So I just had a longer commute if I just stayed on one train the whole time and I read like four books a month, a year and a half. It was great. I haven't read a book the second I was home all day. I was like midway through a book, What am I doing? High wow! The sheds for that's the shed. How is the numbers of the plate? I was the lockdown and the pandemic vibe on on the reservation, The reservation. It's interesting. We haven't had that many events. So this year, um, we didn't have our annual power. We have a big power every year. It's one of the last of the power of all season. Um, just throughout the country, all these different tribes have powers normally just throughout the summer and we're Labor Day weekend. So we're one of the last ones, one of, one of the big ones in new york state and stuff.

Um, so we didn't have Powell this year. We normally have a thanksgiving thing. We have at the community center, we didn't have that. So we didn't have a lot of that stuff. Um, but also a lot of people in the rest, they just, they live on the rest, they don't really have, they don't go off the road that much for things other than like shopping and things like that, you know, they might work on the rest or they just might not work and stuff like that. So like this whole time, there's been a lot of, a lot of people have like big parties the whole time, like a lot of big uh you know, uh baby showers and birthday parties and christmas. There was so a lot of people at a lot of, a lot of pictures of people at houses um for christmas and things like that, but but also because we're a small community and like a lot of those people who are having all those parties and stuff, they don't go so that many things off the roads anyway, you know? So it hasn't been, hasn't been that bad. There's been some cases, but not as many because you're just doing it with each other over and over, like you're not going to everybody's house all over the place, having dinner and parties.

Yeah, exactly. It's like, it's probably like, they're probably not think of it as in like pods, you know, I think like a white people turn all this is my pot, I'm hanging out like only hanging out with these people, but like that's definitely kind of what's been okay. Yeah, I think with a lot of people, it's just like, I always go to my mom's house, that's what I do. You know, I just go there and you know, but also if you don't working from home or whatever, you're not going out a whole bunch of other places. That hasn't been, hasn't been that bad. It hasn't been as bad as like, I think like the Navajos had a really hard time. Yeah. I've seen some tribes not doing is not doing that great. Yeah. We've had maybe like less than 10 deaths. Probably. Damn. But I mean, what's the population? Um, I'm not really sure about the population. There's a couple of 100 people on the reservation. Um, It's really hard to tell. There was so many less. There's probably, I think it's about 200 households on the reservation, but I'm not really sure how many people live here. Um, because a lot of people, you know, generational homes, I live with my parents, you know, a lot of people are like that.

Right. That's interesting. So are your parents using the shred shed then? Are they just like Rebecca, I got my mom to work out one time. Just once, one time I talked her into it. I think I picked a little too hard of a workout for her. But she did, she did come out and she did do it. My step dad has absolutely no interest, he's like, nah, I've worked out before and I'm like, I don't care. I know. So I'm not going back to that. Yeah, he's not into it whatsoever. But like everybody, anytime anybody comes over, I showed him my gym and if my mom is home at that time she'll come in and like she always gets on the bike or is she like hangs from the pull up bar? She couldn't hang from that for like a really long time. For some reason. That's really random. Well, um, do you have other family or it's just you and your parents? It's just me and my parents. I'm an only child.

Um, so it's just the three of us and a cat. Um, and it's not going to outdoor cat rick, that's fine. Wait, there's a case of action. Mm hmm. There's a cat is a cat allowed in the gym? No, so the gym is not attached to the house. Um, and our cat is an indoor cat. So, um, he doesn't outside. Um, but before I had the gym, I was working out in the room that I'm sitting in right now and I would normally just shut the door when I was working out because I was in the music and sometimes he looked in the door. Um, but he's scared of everything. So, you know, I think if I, if you move too fast and he's in the room, he gets scared. So there's no way he would ever watch anybody work out. Um, but also what I used to work out outside sometimes in the back heat. I look up and he'd be watching me through the door and be like, what is going on there? Hell is she doing out there? Yeah, I was like, what is she, why is she outside and why is she doing that?

Um But no, he doesn't come in and none of the when I say we have cats, we have one indoor cat and like possibly five or six feral cats that live in our backyard who we feed. Um They are, they are so scared of us and like have lived here their whole lives and feed, we feed them every day. They hang out in our yard, but like you open the door, they run. Yeah, very, very funny because I don't know how like shrove is always lifting. You just see like the cat in the corner. Just yeah, like no, no flinching, nothing. Just hanging out. They don't care about noise. No. And then there's some other people that have like their dogs like sitting in front of them while they're dead lifting. Like that couldn't be me and my dogs are not allowed in my garage gym. One of them is like, like your dog scared of everything. She wouldn't be anywhere near me. But the other ones would be like, all right. You put the bar down pets. Yeah, you're changing the weights. Maybe some pets like this. That wouldn't work. I see all these videos of chill animals and I'm like how, Yeah.

Yeah. I don't, I don't know how people do it. Yeah. My cat. He would, he would have a panic attack. Not doing okay. My old maples, not by your stuff when you were at home. Was she married about? She would actually, she, because when we would train, it would be super late at night and then she'd realize, okay 10 p.m. I'm going to get a bunch of playtime down there because like she would play all over the dead lift platform while we would bench and yeah, expect pets or jump on the bench, but would go away in the dead lift session. You know, you shouldn't trust it. Uh, get stuck under there. Oh wait, but Rebecca's a crossroads crossroads the bench. You guys bench. Uh Sometimes not often. I think a lot of jim's just don't have the equipment for it. Did you buy the bench? I have a bench have a bench. I've used it like twice. My, my first crossfit gym, We never benched.

We didn't have, they just, the guy who owned it. Just like didn't buy benches. Um Why not? Why would you just didn't do it? I guess we just like, where would we put them? Um And then my second gym, which was in the city we benched every once in a while, like once every like two months. Maybe there'll be a bench press workout, like very rarely. Yeah, no, that's the setup because everything is like, you can just like tuck the bars away, you can just tuck the weights away, but you can't touch 50 rows of benches away. Okay. You need that open floor wide open floor, pull up bars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They just have a lot of squat racks and like a lot of cardio machines, but boxes, a lot of plywood boxes. Crossfit gyms. Yeah, those are the guys are doing the stacking thing and then the, I can't I can't even watch those. I can't watch the fails. I can't, I don't watch the good ones either just in case it's a fail like a Yeah, I don't know, that doesn't feel worth it.

I have like a soft box, so like in case you fall, you don't destroy your sins, but like, I also don't want to fall at all. So just step ups for me. Yeah, that's my ballpark. You're not, you don't have any heat intolerance then because crossfit is never air conditioned, You know what I do? I do have a, he do have a heat intolerance. Um but like my, my symptoms started, so like my m s started September of 2019 and I was developing a heat intolerance and I would just like end the workout when I was working at the gym and just had to take off my shoes and socks, like every time. But obviously it was heat intolerance was just like, suddenly I was just getting really hot and like, and then I started switching to shorts. I think that summer I started wearing shorts a lot. Um, and like I said, I have to take my shoes and socks off all the time at the end of a workout, always had my shirt halfway off because they do not air conditioning those or they, it's not like they're air conditioned, they do not know.

You just, they just get big, giant industrial fans. That's why I could never do it truly. And you're already training for two full years before you got diagnosed. Right? It was, it was a year and a half. It was almost exactly a year and a half. Um, and then all my symptoms hit. Um, I think that whole, a couple months before my initial flare up, but I was starting to have some symptoms that I just kind of ignored, didn't really know what we're going on with them. But yeah, I had, like, a year and a half of crossfit before I got it. Well, did you notice your lips were not as quality as they were and you were like, okay, something is finally wrong. Like, what, when did you start paying attention to the symptoms? Um, so a couple of months. I think that whole, that whole summer. Um, All right. We just had some weird symptoms. It didn't really affect my training. Um, Like, my symptoms were stuff like there was a month where I was like kept breaking out in hives all over my body at nighttime specifically.

Um And stuff like that. Or like I have plantar fasciitis. So like, you know, like your feet and your calves are like really sore and that was so so bad the couple months before. So like still unsure if that was just my plantar or if it was my M. S. Um But I I remember this so clearly because I did a whole bunch of stupid stuff and then, and then my flare up happened. So my tribe's power, it was labor day weekend. Um I just drank heavily that whole entire weekend. I don't think I had any water. I was just doubting white claws for like four days straight. Um And also I lost my wallet, like right before then I was like really? I was like stressed out about a couple of things that I was like severely dehydrated. And um my crossfit gym had just started a OLLI class like the month before. So I was every two days a week. I was doing double classes.

Um And so I was like very tired from that and then I was just like really dehydrated and um like I came, I think how I was like monday, so Tuesday I went to the gym and I probably had not drank any water before that for like four days straight and I think I just counted a bunch of water and then, you know, I remember we did a class where we were, he was practicing, we're practicing gymnastics because normally across the class at the beginning of class you lift so you might, you know, we're just in general doing various kinds of lifts and practicing that, but that day we were doing gymnastics and we were doing like tumbling, I remember we're practicing tumbling and we were practicing handstands and I had done handstands before and that day I was like, I don't know, I feel well, I don't know, I'm not into this handstand stuff today, cannot be upside down today. It was just like something weird too, you're going on, I don't really like it and they were like tumbling and I still felt weird about that and then like the next day um we were in class, I think we're probably doing push prices and someone was like, wow, we're ready.

Your left arm shoots up there way faster than your right and then the next day my left hand was, it felt slow, like it just felt weird and then I was like, there's something weird's going on um and then I was like, maybe I'll go to the doctor also how I feel tomorrow and then like a couple of days later it was just like my whole body kind of shut down the whole left side of my body just shut down um and then I just, I didn't go back to the gym for like, I just never went back to that gym, honestly. Um But yeah, it was, it was weird, it was an initial flare up, I think a lot of people who have M. S. Have symptoms that they can ignore for a really long time. So I did have stuff like that and then just like, suddenly out of nowhere, just like one day someone was like, hey, your arm's moving differently than your other arm and then like, three days later, like, lost all fine motor skills in that arm. Yeah, types that you're fast. Yeah, it just like hit out of nowhere over the course of one day I was fine, I want to say like, on a Wednesday, I felt a little weird.

And then by the time, like the next monday I like had so many symptoms, like it just hit out of nowhere and it was all at once to you being uh not drunk, hungover, you know, it just takes the right amount of stress and then it was like, you know what now, bitch, Okay, You do not get to drink white claws for a whole week. Going to be okay. Today is the day joe said on their episode. It was like a time where they were working, like mad hours doing whatever lab job it was. And then also going to school I think, and they were like, just leaving the lab, like, I'll just go to the doctor real quick and then go back to work and then joe was like, by the time she got to the hospital, she felt like a head floating in water. What the buck like that quick? Just like the, The high I guess I'll go at that time. Was that 20 minutes? Yeah, it hits, it hits like, it's interesting because, like I said, my hand just felt weird.

Like, I remember I was at work and I was talking to my friends like, I was like, you know, in our group chat, and I was like, I don't know, man, might like, my arm feels heavy. Like, I don't know why I like me. And I was like, I don't know, it just like, it feels slow, like I'm typing and it's just awkward. And then like, but also, it was strange because it was such a simple thing, it was just like, my hand felt slow and I was like, that's not right. Maybe I should go to the doctor. I booked an appointment for the next week. And then by that next week I was like, drop foot, which is where like, you can't pick up the top part of your foot, like, you're just like, you can walk, but it's just like your foot drag because you just can't get your toes all the way off the ground when you step. So like, by the time I went to the doctor, I just had a lot more symptoms, and then I think I went back like, two weeks later, because, you know, like, I told her, I told her I was at the gym, we were doing handstands and I don't feel good now. And she was like, maybe it's a sports injury, I don't know, just like, lay off for two weeks. She was like, you know, lay off, come back in four weeks.

And then I came back in two weeks because it had, like, gotten significantly worse. I just went away. Like, all those things, like, they came in over the course of like, two weeks. I was really just a mess for, like, a month and a half, and then it just all started to go away. So you didn't get hospitalized in that period and nothing like that. No, I went to the hospital one time, she wanted me to try to get a spinal tap at a hospital. And I went one day and they were like, no, we're not going to do that for you. Um But I also might have gone to the wrong hospital. Like, she said, she called ahead of time and they were like, no, no one called, but like, I was in the city was in Manhattan, I was living in Queens was like, a billion hospitals right near me. So I think I would just run hospitals, You know, that's an order somewhere. So I didn't do anything for me. They were like, I don't understand why you're here. I mean, but in that moment though, you probably had a lot of cognitive symptoms to you probably were like, what day is it?

So, I don't know, it was at that point, I was like, it was weird because honestly, by the time I got to a neurologist in general, most of my symptoms have gone away, and then by the time I got to a specialist, almost all of them had gone away in this and I I got diagnosed super fast. Um and I got diagnosed, like, in september, I had seen my specialist by, like, late october um and it was really fast for me, but, like, I'm surprised I even got diagnosed because, like I said, by the time I got to a specialist, I was fine, you know, like a month and a half later. That's wild. So no, no predniSONE packs, like, no, nothing, no infusions. Like nothing is just, you just drink some water, you know, it, it went away for the most part of things went away and then I had a flare up in december and then I was on a lot of pregnant zone by that, like then, so it was weird, like, I was fine forever.

I had some symptoms that's like, okay, maybe that was m s hug, there's a symptom where you're just like, your chest feels really tight and I'm still trying to figure out if I've had that forever or not, and there's just all these different symptoms that I probably had for a real long time. But it was like, september, I got really sick than by october, it was good. And then I had another flare up again in december, which was another day, like, I was mad about something, and then I fell on some ice, and then like, the next day my feet were numb. And then, like, by then, like, a week later my whole body from like chest down was numb. Um So like, it's weird, it's really weird like that, it's like, you have a symptom one day, you're like, oh man, I hope this doesn't last, and then it just gets worse and then it goes away and then months later. Boom. Yeah, so, but it's been censored because then I started my medication, that january. So it had only been a couple months for my first flare up by the time I started infusion.

So I started infusion in january. Haven't had really any issues since then. I have some leftover symptoms, like my heat intolerance, right? You're not normal, quote unquote. Yeah, like my my arm and leg hurt all the time, but it's like not that bad, and it's kind of like, I forget a lot that like that, there's even that pain, but it's just like, it's very small, I think probably the tingling because like my second floor was tingling and numbness, and the like, you know, like when your foot falls asleep, you know that sort of tingling, but that was 24 hours for a couple months, it was like, knees down, and for the most part I went away, but like, you know, there's still like, a kind of kind of almost, you can feel a little bit of tingling every once in a while, but like, just stuff like that, but for the most part, a lot of my symptoms just went away. It's just like, a lot of brain fog, sometimes fatigue, sometimes tolerance at night is like, pretty bad. I keep it as cold as humanly possible in my room at night time.

Um It was like, I just can't can't handle it otherwise, but like, still that one sided used to have one side that's off, you said it was your left. Yeah, my left side, it was when I my initial flare up and it happens a lot with people with M. S. Is just one side of your body is affected. So um like my, during that first floor of my whole left arm and my whole left leg, we're just like shot, and now they're good. Um But like, it doesn't hurt really bad, it's kind of like, I can I'm always kind of aware that I have a like a left arm and the left leg, like, you know, like when things are good for you, you don't really don't pay attention, You don't pay attention your arm is there, but like, you don't molly is acting up again. Yeah, molly. Get your ship together. Yeah. How do you Think that you feel something? Hold on 1 2nd, someone is at my door, give me that's fine. You know what? Commercial break? But you know, perfect, Oh, my mom's answering the door.

Perfect timing. However, this will be on the Youtube because I'm not editing the video for Youtube, that's too much. You guys will be fun to get a special gift treat. Yeah. How do you train through that? Because I would think that your joint sense is kind of messed up, you know, like when you're throwing something overhead your head. Do you know what? Especially over the head. Yeah, so when I first started training again after, because I was like, I think there's probably six months, there were six months when I was out of crossfit, and then um and then I tried to go back to crossfit and then the next week new york city lockdown. So I got I got two days in uh and then had to stop. Um but then I spent a lot of time working with dumbbells and that helped a lot because I had a really bad strength intolerance for our strength and this balance for a really long time, like my left arm was just so much weaker than my right arm.

Um but then I just I don't know, I just spent a lot of time with dumbbells because I didn't have space, I don't have space for a bar bell for a while or if it was raining or something and I had to be inside because there was just months when I was just working out in the driveway. Um But for sure, I think the dumbbells definitely did help a lot with just getting my strength kind of back in, working that all out. Um But yeah, that was a big one, that's amazing and you use the same weight for both dumbbells right? Because I know I I mean I started off with like a lower weight on my left side uh because it's just not as strong as my right because I also had muscle imbalances, but I trained through just forcing myself to use the same weight. No. Yeah I use the same way I use the same weight and I only had for a long time of 15 and 25 and honestly the 25 was too heavy for a lot of stuff, but I think it probably did help like having to use that 25 because that, was it was either like go with real life or go real slow in between.

Like I very recently got a £20 dumbbell and it's like oh this is like the perfect way Goldilocks. Yeah, I was like oh this is the one, this is the way I should have had this from the beginning. Um but no, for sure, definitely like working on it with that overhead and like, you know, my, my workouts weren't great because I couldn't do a lot of stuff, but it definitely did help with getting a lot of that back. Um but it's also weird cause like my left arm is like way more flexible than my right arm, like even before, like it just had a way bigger range of motion with it and then that's the arm that's affected. Are you right handed or left handed? I'm right handed. Yeah, well I'm funky on in, in some ways like that also, and I feel like that ties in together like flexible because your joints aren't as strong. You get what I mean? Like my left, my left leg is my wonky, like I'm sorry you had to hear that. So like if I'm doing, you know like those 90 90 hip things like my left leg will go forever.

Yeah, but if I have to lift my leg up like in that same position, I can't do it with that one. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like it's loose and not trump. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of it. Yeah. Yeah, so that yes, but I think like dumbbell stuff helped a lot and then just in general the dumb bell because it had to work by itself, you know, you couldn't compensate. Yeah, you couldn't compensate. And so for a while I was just working on dumbbells stuff like yeah, if there was something with dead lifts, if my programming has something with dead lifts or certain things I wanted to use the barbell with for sure. But I definitely did focus a lot on just like using the dumbbells because my left arm had to do all the work by itself. But okay, honest question, you did that because you were kind of forced to do you think if you still had access to the regular old crossfit gym, like would your ego get in the way, would you just push through and try and do barbell everything? Um I don't know um Barbara, I don't know. Being across the gym is really interesting because the thing about crossfit is it's scalable, right?

So everybody, the whole thing is that everybody can do it, you know, if you can't do a pull up then you can do something else. Um But I had, I think the, like once I felt like I was an experienced cross fitter, I started just like scaling more because when you start doing crossfit and they're like, oh you got to do this thing and it's like you gotta do this thing, you got to do with this amount of reps, you just try really harder than you just fail a bunch of workouts because like you can do lunge as well. Yeah, so then, and then I reached a point where I was pretty good at it. And then I was like, I'm just going to do, I'm just gonna scale whatever I want, like I'm not doing all these burpees. Um and I would just, and sometimes like we'd start to work out and be like, hey burpees, I'm gonna do really bad and then I'd like do pretty well and someone's like, I thought you weren't good at them and I was like, oh no, because I did half the number that they told us to do, I don't know what it was like. Yeah, I just, I wanted to finish the workout, so I just cut it back. Um and so I had started doing that before.

I think though if I was in a gym, like I missed a I missed the gym environment. I kind of miss being around and seeing like being with other people while they're doing it too, but I do take a lot more kind of like breaks now and I might use lighter weights or, and stuff like that and so, well I miss crossfit, I'm not totally sure how I would do in a class setting at this point just because I've been working out from home and I can pause the timer, I can take longer breaks and you know, without that pressure of other people in the room watching you. Yeah, I know when you're in a community, it's a different, like when everybody's like, yeah go ahead, lift it. I'll just try like I've definitely pushed myself too much when it comes to strong man more than anything. The power lifting, I would just keep sucking and I didn't understand and I didn't slow down. I just kept trying and sucking anyway. Um but the strong man is a little different because it's that same cross it by like no, I just pushed through its try it again like you still got time on the clock. Yeah. Instead of like all right, slow down, why can't you do it?

What else could you do instead? Like that doesn't exist. Yeah. Yeah, no crossfit. There's a lot of pressure. Like once it's great and it's terrible at the same time where the people who are really fit, you know, they finish those workouts if it's for time they finish them super fast. But then because it's this whole big community thing, they cheer you on. So you know, there was there was a very specific person, she would finish her workouts and then focus on me and stand in front of me and cheer for me. And then yeah, it was like miserable and it was part of it was like yeah this is great. I have my own cheerleader but then like you're the only guy to finish it. Yeah, but then like once what you're the only person still working and there's still a lot for you to do, you just are like, oh I didn't I'm done just just lie at the end of workouts because you're like I don't want everybody watching me and cheering me on. Like I'm not into that like flare ups. Like did they ever happen a lot more so in the gym environment because of having to push through it or?

Well I don't know, I don't know. I didn't I just I didn't really have that many problems when I was at the gym in general just because my symptoms hadn't really started that much, you know? And also just you know, two years, not even two years ago because it would have been this is like going up on two years of M. S. So like, you know, three years ago down to the gym if I just didn't feel well, it wasn't it was just like oh I just don't feel well it was real tired, you know? But also like I said I had gotten to that point where I just started lying in workouts and it wasn't because I was tired or anything, it's just because like I realized I wanted to finish the workout and I started scaling and so like I'm doing this at home program now, it's it's not necessarily crossfit it's just because crosswords like a brand, you know? Um But it is still very similar to that and like it's way easier for me to just scale stuff and paul and stuff and figure things out and do whatever I want because also they write in a bunch of subs um you know, and they just tell you like, okay this is the this is the gold time and we want you to do the gold time.

So if you if you're noticing you're not going to hit it, cut the reps in half, do something else and it's written into the program where like if you're at a crossfit gym depending on who your coaches, they might just be like, no, you got to do all those lunges, you know, even if they're wrong, Yeah, that's wrong. Who who's doing, who's providing the support and directing the community, right? Yeah, I had toxic my first gym had a guest coach one time and I don't remember what the workout was. I remember there was a whole bunch of lunges and running and I was struggling with the lunges like everybody else is on their third round and I was still in my first round and I asked her like can I just stop and go do the run? And she was like, no, I never even got to the run, I think it's just Lunches for like 10 minutes. I need to be in positions of power those people. Um but you know like if you have like a good coach, they're like yes, just like cut it in half and then like don't do the full distance of the run, like we just want you to finish.

So it definitely with who your coach is, the environment and stuff like that. Um So like, whoever that guest coach was, she would be a horrible coach for me now, but you know, I kind of other coaches who are like understanding that like not everybody is a top to your athlete and I know some cross cross wits have like a setup, like if you're new, you have to take these beginner classes, but I noticed not all of them do, some of them don't give you a ship, like, okay, here you pay, here you go, do whatever you want and that's it. Like I never took a fundamentals class. I just showed up one day and they're like, all right, uh yeah, here's do some dead lifts, but like, my first crossfit class, I just showed up and I was like very unprepared and halfway through the workout the coach was like, you can stop if you want, like once you finish this, once you finish this around, you could just like quit if you want. And I did and then I just sat down and watched everybody else work out. But then at the end of the class, all the other people were like, oh, like all these really fit people who finished the workout came up to me and they were like, you got halfway through and you didn't throw up my first crossfit class, I went and threw up afterwards, you know?

And like I, and so that's like a very cool thing about crossfit is that that's the thing I like about it is that everybody is trying the same amount. So even like some super fit person, they they're trying just as hard as you and they're doing way better but you're like, you know, working the same, wow, that's pretty neat. I think that's that's kind of what most people miss about going to gyms. Is that vibe some people can't really get into their lifting or the environment or the mindset without it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, but the first day for any class, I mean who the hell does come prepared? Right. You're expecting to learn something new the first day, get through it, but you got through half of it. That's that's, I don't think I'd get through five minutes of a new crossfit class. No, it's not Rough. It is rough, but like you kind of just learn to scale and work it for you, you know?

And also like crossfit crossfit workouts are only like maximum maybe 20 minutes long. So yeah, wow. Yeah. Yeah, very tough. Yeah. Higher intense. Yeah. Just hit classes. Honestly, Functional fitness. Non 20 minutes non stop for a pair. I got one rep in 20 minutes is like yeah, 20 minutes is like three sets of something maybe. Yeah, maybe I a little bit of, you know, five minutes in between each set. Yeah. Yeah. No, you don't you don't really get that many breaks and then and then like you do workouts where you have like a break in like a minute break and it feels like it's two seconds. Um It's rough it's just it's a lot of endurance stuff like even even the heavy, even the ones where you're like doing barbell stuff, it's still mostly just endurance and so so far you haven't had to deal with too many toxic terrible gyms.

It sounds like so for that guest coach so that's nice. Yeah just yeah just my guest coach, she was pretty bad but I've only gone to two gyms. I dropped in into a local gym here to do um the wheel wide competition. They just I needed a squat rack and um and a rower and then just like let me come in, it was fine. Um But no like my two gyms the to the to crossfit gyms I've been that were pretty good. That's neat. The other vibe that I had, it crossed with jim says there was a couple of times that I would power lift in the back of crossfit gyms. That was like a thing for a little bit but every every environment was like the hardcore, you gotta be paleo and like the whole you know like the crossfit booklet like the whole community like the whole culture. Yeah like they weren't just chill like hey you want to try a class or like yo lecterns bro you gotta go paleo bro. Like uh That turned me on 2nd Jim had like a partnership with like a meal prep company that like like we had a fridge that you could just like order food and they literally just bring it to the gym and you could just take it home and it was like there was two of them.

We worked with 11 is a paleo one, you know? I don't know the crossfit. Yeah there's like certain there's gear that people use you know? Yeah there's like the brands that and what's the energy drink? Um There's just like I know a specific brand that every every fucking crossfit sometimes nothing sometimes it's like before um there was some whole line of drinks that are always at everything. So you gotta drink that drink, you gotta be paleo, you got to eat our X bars. Alright. So many of them I guess. I don't know if I could commit to this. I don't even try a class guys. Yeah there's like there's there's three kinds of shoes you should be wearing. Your Mexico nobles are um nano's like what are you doing? You had me at nutrition plan and like I'm gonna eat what I want to eat. I'm here right? Yeah sure for sure like I I never really bought into a lot of that stuff but it was it was funny because in the crossfit community like when you're not a professional cross fitter, uh there's a whole, there's a whole genre, like a genre of cross fitters called heavy lifters and they're basically just like fat people who came to crossfit and have lost weight, but like aren't really doing the whole diet stuff, so we never got smaller, but because you're fat, you can Dead lift a lot.

You know, like I was ahead, I was a heavy lifter, like I could my squat, I reached £200 within a year and a half of squats, but I never got, never even remotely got close to a pull up, never even sounds like that would come on over to our side. Yeah, you can come, come hang out, just do strongman, it's cardio heavyweights. Yeah, no, that's the thing about crossfit, it has all those different things. So we did do strongman stuff sometimes we do like heavy sled poles, like every once in a while there might be a workout where we had sandbags and we were picking them up and carrying them and that sort of stuff. And I always, I always love that sort of stuff. Like we only did it maybe once a month, but like, you know those like five times. I did strongman stuff. I was like, this is awesome. It was everyone required to do it shirtless, no shirts allowed. You are not, but it's highly recommended. It was always drinking. Yeah, the heat intolerance.

Yeah, no, for like I always had my shirt like half off all the time. And then like now that I'm home and I work out like my shirt comes off so fast. Yeah, definitely. I'm with you. That's great for your parents were like, what's going on? You know? It's funny because my shed is in the front lawn, like the rest of the world, you couldn't put a shed in the front lawn, but like in my house, the shed is in the front and then like I have the doors open and I'm just like hot and like then my shirt's off coming in the house and my mom is like, why are you outside with no shirt on and I love it. Really hot. Yeah. Oh man, I got a wall unit in there. Yeah, you got to get the little, little portable one. I have a have a like really intense vornado, but it's still still not pop. That's hilarious that the crossfit vibes really sound pretty similar to everything. I mean every year, every strength whatever has like the deep cold culture. So it's not any, if your power lifting, then you have to buy grip shirts, you know, gotta wear chock, got you smelling salt, like everybody's got the ship, its funding them wearing your para lifting belt and your big old headphones around the gym, not listening to any CVS.

Yeah, if you're a power lift, you gotta have over over your headphones, bare minimum, if you're strong man, it's gotta be like metal music. If you don't have dealt you're out. I'm sorry, you're you're short like your shirt, if you have a shirt with sleeves, it's gotta be like pinned like right there like oh yeah that's the uniform right there. Well that makes sense because you're throwing stuff overhead too. Yeah, you want to be free and whatever but also like you know, you don't want to get a scratch right here. So a little coverage just a little bit that's the strong a uniform. That's hilarious. But I always forget that the crossfit thing is really based on whoever's coaching, they make up the programming. Like there's no head of crossfit programming. I always forget that. Yeah. Um Crossfit crossfit dot com every day has a workout on it and there are I think some gyms that do that, they just follow whatever his own crossfit dot com. But like when I was trying to find my programming that I do right now, I was, you know, I'm just looking up online crossfit programming.

I found a whole bunch of companies that like we make we make programming and they just like sell it to other gyms. Like there's some gyms where they don't write their own programming at all. They just work with some other company that gives them a sense. Weekly mexicans and all that. Hm And the crosswords are still cross fits over there. They haven't uh what's the word, be affiliated affiliated gym by me is still across the gym, my old gym, they did D affiliate. Um But like nothing changes with the programming. It's just that like because like he was always like the owner was always right in the programming anyway and you know they just kind of like use the crossfit name you know and participated in the open and like trained for murph and like we're probably still doing murph even though they're not crossfit anymore. Yeah it doesn't actually change anything and they can just call it like a cross training gym, right? That's yeah. Yeah functional fitness.

Like my gym was called Crossfit Unleashed and that was just unleashed. NyC like wow what a rebrand over here. Those are pet shops in California, we got unleashed pet shop. Yeah but you know, so like it's just it comes down to whoever is doing it and how like into the crossfit culture you are. But my programming that I do right now, it's not crossfit. But the owners, the people who came up with it, the owners of the company, their X crossfit games athletes like they were cross fitters, you know? And then they were just like, well we're gonna have this thing but we're just not going to call a crossfit but like it's the same exact workouts like and they and the owners they didn't compete this year but like the male owner, he didn't compete so he didn't sign up for the open, but like he did all the workouts and like was posting them, you know like um Doing 21.2 or whatever, you know what I'm doing exceptional at it. Can you, can you just, just real quick, you know, we're coming up on an hour here, but just real quick.

Can you play what the fact is the open police because I see it every year and the murph something, what the fuss is, what is that, what is happening? So there's a couple of things so murph is um yeah, okay, so one crossfit has a bunch of Hero Watts. So they do all, there's all these workouts um that are for various servicemen who died. So murph is moral day weekend, that's when everybody does it and it's for this, you know, some guy who was in the army and named Murphy. Um And it's it's hard, I think it's like a mile run and then like It's 100 member. It's like, yeah it's push ups, pull ups and in sit ups I think, but it's like 200 So it's like you do like 200 sit ups and then like 100 pushups and like, oh it's squats, so it's push ups, pull ups and squats and it's like this crazy high number from all of them, it's like 302 100 100 like if you do 300 squats.

Um so you do that and then you run a mile again. Um you run a mile do an insane amount of squats, push ups and pull ups and then you run a mile again. It's a very hard workout and I've never done it, but you can scale it however you want. So like if you don't want to run a mile, you can do that half a mile. If you don't run, you can row, if you know, you can cut the reps of other stuff in half. Um So that smurf, so that's just, it's just the thing that everybody does every year. Um The open, so the open is the first qualifier for the crossfit games. So the crossfit games is the big competition every year, that's the big worldwide competition, the fittest on earth. Um And they do insane stuff in the games. But the open is the first qualifier for it and everybody does it and everybody can do it. So like you're doing the same workout as someone who's who's won seven crossfit games, you know, you're, and it's a leaderboard, so you sign up, you it's like 20 bucks and you sign up.

Um If you do it and if you do it in class, if you do it at a gym or if you really are trying and like actually for real competing, you have to have a scorecard, you need someone to stand there and count your reps for you, like it's it's big. Um But everybody does it like every gym does it, even if you don't sign up for it, it's still One of the workouts every week. So like even if you don't pay the $20 to be on the leaderboard and really see where you are based on where like your region um you're still going to end up doing the workouts. Um And it's it's normally like four or five workouts and they just, it's once a week, so like just once a week and just have this really hard workout. Um And at the end of that, is there a certain number, you need to make it to the games or something? Well there's a leaderboard, so, you know, you have to put in your scores and you know, it just pulls however, But it's like the first qualifier, so it's like, you know, the for the top 10% of everybody's division then goes on to the quarterfinals and the nationals and division is like what age mm division is by what?

So there's a couple different divisions. I think the main one is like, you know, 18 to like 35, that's the main division. But then there's other divisions. So there's like a teen division, there's masters division. So if you're older, you know, like if you're 50 you're not competing against the same, you're not competing against 30 year olds, but not wait, it's not by wait, no, it's not by weight, it's not by weight. So um and then there's just all these things and so this year, this year because probably because of covid people couldn't really work out in gyms, they added a whole bunch of different divisions. So like I think previously it was just our X. And scaled. So it's like, you know, you do this, this is how it's written and even the scaled version, It's there's not that much difference, it's like instead of box jumps, you're doing box step ups instead of a £35 dumbbell, you're doing a £20 dumbbell. Um but this year there was like a division for if you were a beginner. Um So for example, one of the workouts was wall walks and I think beginners did bear crawls.

Hm. Um And so but and then they added in a bunch of different divisions, so they added in this year a whole bunch of adaptive divisions. So like I competed in the neuro division um And I was like for that, instead of wall walks, I think I did into worms, You know, depending on whatever wherever you are, you know, you're just scaled. So like also I was I'm in the neurobiological division, I'm 32, I was competing against the person number one, I found her on instagram, she's like 24 is like was a college level, she's in South Africa, so you know, they don't have division one, but it was like a basically division one handball player who Then had some problems and like, you know, had a couple surgeries and some other stuff and she just has stuff going on with her now. Like that was the number one person in my division 24 year old professional handball player this year.

It was all online, Right? So, I mean it kind of already set it up for itself because well in general, it's always, you know, you put in your score, you're doing what you're doing it. So you can go from home, you can do it at a gym, if you're at a gym, you have a scorecard and you have to have someone judging you if you were doing it from home, you needed um to videotape it. Okay, So like my, I have a YouTube channel and like there's seven videos and like five of them are just crossfit competitions because you need to post them and then submit it just so they could like double check your scores. But like, you know, they probably don't double check if I'm not sure on the top 10. I what do they need to look at my scores for? Okay, well that's how it is. There's a couple of, there's just one big strongman event where the qualifier is online and you have to video the lift and you can't has to be one long video the lift and then you unload the plates and show the plates of the camera, like all of that and that's how they're always set up.

So I wonder if they got that idea from crossfit because I don't know when, how long that's been running. Yeah, I think, I think especially because I think the big, the big cross fitters, you know, like you can look up matt fraser, he's won like five games, you know, he's really good. He probably doesn't work out at the gym, You know, So why, why, why would the number one crossfit be going to a regular crossfit gym? So, you know, people like that, I think we're always submitting it different than than how everybody else is because I'm not going to a gym. Number one Cross presents, they were always filming I think. And then they just like, you know, that's just how they did it. But yeah, they opened it up a lot This year. There was just so many more divisions. I think. Like I said, like last other other times there was just, you know, two or three divisions this time there's 20 divisions. Yeah, but that's what, that's what I do like about crossfit though, is that it's just always been accessible.

The fact that they just like, boom, there's an adaptive division. There's a subdivision for neuro and I'm sure for paraplegics as well and remotely it just ended up working out so well for everyone else that didn't, you know train at a gym for the past year. Whereas are lifting. we got gyms, I mean we have competitions inside jim's currently still going on and there was what, half a year pause on competitions, That's it. Any power lifting events have online qualifiers? Not ever. I don't think so because I saw that happened for olympic weightlifting and I mean that wants to um and it definitely already happened for some strongman stuff for the for the official strongman games, they were always online, but I did see some other ones do online qualifiers for nationals, but I feel like I didn't see that for parallel thing at all. But I could see it being possible because there are ways where you um you submit like video footage, it's not hard level, you know, you just have to record it a certain way.

No, it's not hard, it's just extra work. They don't want to have to work more for the same membership fees. Yeah. Yeah. Not through official federations, but I knew that there were some online meets That had happened through like um I think T. S. A. did one. Um uh You know, there's some I did see some that did online meets for power lifting, like it's doable, it's just shit show. No, this this one, it was interesting, there was a whole division for the open if you didn't have equipment. Um And so a lot a lot of the workouts, like I would always look at all the divisions and see what each division was doing, and like I said, like, I think there was a beginner and if you don't have equipment, like they did, you know, it was bear crawls um and stuff like that. So like this and most people I think were like, yeah, that's cool. There's a whole lot of things because if you're not going to a gym, you know, if you don't feel comfortable going to gym, you can still compete. And then, so crossfit is very inclusive and it's always been really inclusive.

But then you have like those really big deal cross fitters who like, don't like that sh it, like it's their sport. I'm offended you can't do, it shouldn't be here. Like, I can see that. Yeah, the guy who made crossfit, I mean he's a garbage man and they like, he had he got removed from the company and stuff like that, but his thing was always that it was for everyone. And so if you go online and you look up like crossfit how to do a snatch, right, there's all these videos that they have, and then for a hot second he made them remove all of them and made new videos with like old people and it was like, instead of like the normal Burpee videos, like an old man doing a scaled version of a Burpee, you know? And like instead of dead lifts instead of them using a barbell is like an old man lifting up like antifreeze bottles, like the proper form. Remember I saw that? I was like oh that's so cool, like they're just showing that everybody can do it and how it's functional. And then all the comments would be these like really mad, serious hospital offers a comment upset.

That is so funny to me. They don't want grandpa to get is like his gains. Sam, this is a crossfit. It's like no, that's that is literally exactly what Glassman wanted crossfit to be. So I really want had anything to do with that problem. And also it was like he made it for people in the military who don't have dumbbells. So like yeah dude, like yeah, in the field you don't have a barbell and you forget you forget a lot of veterans are disabled. Hello? Exactly, yeah and so like cross, it's great for that. And then like it is it is welcoming for for people like you know when I went back to the gym after being out and I only went to two days before we locked down, but I was like oh by the way, I have M. S now and I might not be able to go as hard and they're like all right, whatever, just do whatever you want. Like if you want to have an empty barbell go for it like, you know, wow.

No, no, it's good to hear that there's nice places. I personally have never seen them, I'm glad they exist. There's some nice ones. There's some horrible ones. Um, but no, like crossfit, you know, I think most of the most people Also like, I don't know if you just look at, you really look at cross fitters and like who's posting like there's a lot of fit people like on Instagram, but there's also like a lot of fat people who do crossfit. Like this is just for everyone. There's like a lot of, you know, 15 moms. It's definitely not what you picture when you hear across with a picture, like blocky white lady with abs like you know what I mean? The no curves lady, like height sports bra and flee Oh shorts like yes. The image, yeah, that's the image because those are, those are the, obviously those are the professional cross fitters, you know, and the people who are really good at it. But like most people who just go to a gym or just like regular people, I don't know, I want my first gym. I used to work out with this lady. She was definitely a mom, like a middle aged mom and she probably never, ever tried to lift heavy ever.

She was just like, I don't even care about that. I'm never going to lift more than this £10 of bill. Like she was not trying to gain any muscle whatsoever. She was like, this is an exercise class at a trading barbell, but I'm not gonna put any weight on it. Like that's how she's treated Crossfit was like, yeah, you can just do that well, you got to find the right coaches though, you know, like people don't know what a good coaches because if it's the first time working out, they're like, oh, it's got to be this intense and then they get scared and then they never show up the crossfit class or training class again. Yeah, so that's important. Yeah, that's that's definitely for sure. And then also with crossfit, a lot of times you're using like a lower weight than what you might do if you were at a gym. So like when I try to talk people into with him, you know, and some guy who's never really worked out and he was like, well I can lift the £75 dumbbell and it's like, no, use a 15. Yeah, you can't like what 100 times do it a lot.

Like Sure I can squat £200, but like I'm normally doing £55 for like a met con because I have to do it a billion times. Yeah, no, it's a different way of, of thinking, does not. I like to scalable, haven't, I have not heard that before, but that's that's like the most inclusive way. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like my training program right now, they program a lot of toes to bars, which, you know, if you don't have grip strength, you can't do if you don't have that skill, you just can't do it. Or if you just don't have like a pull up bar, you can't do anything. So it's like, okay, if you can't do the toast bar, you can do knees, you can do knee ups or you can do sit ups or if you can't even do a sit up, then you can do a dead bug. Like it's, that's, that's the good thing about crossfit is that like, you can just, there's a lot of things to do that you can change. You know, if you can't run the distance, then you can run a shorter distance. If you don't like running then you can row.

Yeah, you know, that's neat. I'm into except for not. I like my air conditioned. That's yeah. Yeah, that's definitely the worst part. That's why you work out at home. Air conditioner in your shit. I like my slow workouts. I, no, I don't because I don't mind working out like that, like on a timer. And just because sometimes that works out better for me, that's what I'm doing these days. That's closer to strong me do it. No, not and wraps, but like as far as timing, the timing goes a lot less because these days I'm feeling way too brain fog to be like, I'm going to go heavy, 80% 3 sets of four, like by the time I do my second, so I'm gonna be like, what's said in my own, oh shit seven minutes past like like I get lost in between like it's been working out personally for me to just be like a death. Yeah so I don't get lost, we're getting lost like I bought a little timer and everything.

That's good. Yeah. Yeah that's definitely the good part about crossfit. Also there's only ever like Maximum three moves and work out like you know you do too to a lot of times just two moves just go back and forth between two things a day. You just, all you have to do is like remember be good at counting. Uh Keeping track. Wait Hold on. So if your workouts are typically 20, no more than 30 minutes long, you're in the gym for no more than 45 an hour. Yeah so like if you go to across the gym you're in there, it's your class is an hour long. Um And you like lift in the beginning um You know like a lot of times you might be on like a program like gyms will program okay, we're going to really be focusing on squats and we're just doing Squats and accessory stuff like that. Um and then you know so whatever you're doing, you lift for a little bit and that's maybe like 10-15 minutes maybe you might lift.

Um And then that's that's normally a partner thing so that's one thing about crossfit they normally will pair you with someone for that stuff. Um And then, and then you like Put everything away and then you take out some different equipment and then you have like a 15 Like there's certain workouts are like seven minutes long. Like some of the some of the benchmark ones. Um There's all these workouts that are named after, like have girl names, like Karen and stuff, like, I don't know why, but like there's a lot of those, so like a lot of those benchmark workouts, some of them are pretty short, like there's like some seven minute one that's like really rough that like, you know, a gym, my program once a year. Um And people use that as like retesting. But yeah, like maximum, like I'm just, I have my phone out, kind of like looking at my workouts and like No one I have to, tomorrow is 21 minutes. And like, that's long. We're like for crossing. That's cool. That's interesting. Like the benchmark idea because you're not really trying to pr in terms of weights more like quality and reps and time.

You look at the work out like, oh, I did this in how many minutes? Or I did this many reps last year, That sort of thing. So like my program right now they have this thing called the Vault. So it's like 25 weeks and it's just, you know, it's just every, every monday there's work out and you just do it and then they're going to repeat it at the end of the year. So like it's 25 weeks of these workouts, these various things and then we're just going to restart after 25. So then like I have a piece of paper near me, a piece of paper, it's like you put like what you did over here and then like your time and then when you do it again later on in the year. Okay, well how, how did you do later on in the year? You know, and like this is like weights and mods. So like a lot of this is just like, oh yeah, I did this other thing instead of that. Um you know, so then months later when I do it again, I can see if like, I did any better at it. No, that's great because then it's not just the crossfit culture, like, oh, did I lose weight and get abs Yeah. If something else.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's like, see how, how you improved in stuff. Like how how did how did 25 weeks of training affect me when I go back to do that first number one workout that we did in the beginning of year. That's the, so that stuff, that's that's the fun crossfit type stuff. I'm into it. I'm okay with that as described within those parameters. Yeah, yeah, maybe go to a gym and everybody's super fit and they're all like doing muscle ups and it's like, I can't, no, I don't even fun with those, these spaghetti joints. You crazy. Oh, you should be out. That's all I pictured before today. Yeah, the kips, kips and the toe or whatever. And the handstand push ups and everything shirtless, shirtless. Yes, Cleo short part is true that the air conditioned. I mean that is the truth. A hot. Yeah, but you get hot, take off all of my clothes.

That's why that's why most girls were in booty shorts. You're just hot. You just Just done a lot in 20 minutes. Um, but no, yeah, I don't know, crossfit. Cross, it's interesting, you know, that it's power lifting. Its ali it's gymnastics. It's general fitness stuff. Yeah, it seems to be um like a bit of a gateway drug to, because I definitely know a lot of people that are like, oh, I did crossfit and I decided I actually really like the days that were heavy snatches now I'm an olympic powerlifter weightlifter. Like, or I really like, like you said, I really like the sled and the sandbag days and now I'm like, Number one International Strongman. Like, yeah, I definitely know people that started and they started with the aesthetic thing in mind cause oh, crossfit is a diet and the thing, you get abs in like a couple of months. Great. Yeah. Crossfit. I like to say that like, I'm a cross fitter. So I do like everything, none of it particularly well, but you do everything.

No, no, it's pretty neat. Just trying to get a good gym or program or, or set of people and you'll be all right. Yeah, it's definitely, it's like everybody could do this. Um, if, if it works for you great. If it doesn't, you know, it doesn't, but like everybody can do this. Crossfit stuff neat. Well, is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to to just get off your chest for the listeners? Um, I don't think so. Yeah. You know, you're always welcome back to the show at any time. It's never too much chat about whatever more about you or more about anything else you have in mind. Or maybe, you know, next time some games roll around, we can talk about that. Who knows? Yeah, I don't know when they happened. So I just know, but I just know when it, when it floods the feed. Yeah, it's open season again. Yeah. It's funny because like I said, everybody does the open and then like the games come around, which is the big, like the end of it and everybody's like, I could not, what are they doing this year?

They made them like run Like three miles through a trail. There just like running downhill. There's some videos, some of the personal cross fitters like fell towards the end going down a hill. That's gonna be a no for me and like you like, you should, you guys should watch games clips because those, that's the craziest thing, like the game and what they do in the games, like they'll make them do like, okay, do a handstand walk For 20 m. All right. And now we got to do a heavy snatch and then do the handstand walk again and do a heavier snatch and it's like, they don't do that in class. Like normal people don't do those things. Um, but then like the games that just make them do like insane absolutely insane stuff. Opening like totally different workouts then because the way it must have a whole separate programming.

You know, the professional crossfit. So like, I guess that's normal Crossfit class is an hour or you could just be doing that cons with just 20 minutes, like you're in and out of gym in 45 minutes matt fraser. He just retired. He's the big, you know, this guy was the guy who kind of made crossfit crossfit. He just started his own programming and I've looked at it like a sample day that it looks like a two hour training session. Like mm, we're gonna, We're going to do 15 different things and like normal people don't do that. Normal people are like, I didn't give this an hour of my day. Yeah, no thanks, thanks though, appreciate you. But no thanks. Yeah, hard pass there. That looks fun if I didn't have a job I guess. Yeah, that's another thing you do nothing else. Yeah. Mm Well I guess that's about it then. Yeah, catching that was great. I learned so much back. Thank you. Yes, I love Crossfit.

It's great crossfit culture. Like the owning of Crossfit, the people who own crossfit kind of a mess. There's been a lot of messy things with crossfit, like the exercise itself. Cool ship. You know, I can get, I could get behind that. That's the same thing with what we love to do anyway. The people in charge and all mostly trash. Yeah and I mean my favorite is wheel wad. Oh yeah, that's it like point blank. Yeah, we don't, no one else has that. No. Well God will, God is great and I think Will would always, I think well God worked at the same time as the, as the open and stuff but it just wasn't really part of it. But this year, this year one we opened up a lot of more divisions. You know, it was like upper, lower wheelchair and I think that's what they always did before. And then this year they did like neuro short stature, you know, I think there's blind, there's definitely one where kim was in vision or something.

Yeah, there's a vision, there's a vision division. Um and then, so I think this was the first year that will, wow did that stuff where they just had way more divisions and then also will wide is now like really working with crossfit. So like Crossfit took all those divisions, They better time. What? It's a great way to make more money. Yeah, for sure. You gotta pay like $20 to do the open or you could just like do it and not be on the scorecard, but like 20, I mean that's a lot. Yeah, So they definitely definitely get a lot more people. Um But yeah, crossfit super adaptive accessible to everyone. I'm like, I said, I got my mom to go one time. I'm definitely getting once. Like I'm fully vaccinated, which is going to be like in a month. Um Like I'm definitely gonna have like people from my tribe come work out, you know, whatever your limitations are, will figure out a way around it because that's what crossfit is. That's right. That's a slogan. Put that on a shirt or start your own team build another shed on the rest and shipped on the wrist shot on the rest.

Yeah. I could, I could feel like one other person in my shed. It's not that big. But there's a couple, it's funny, there's a couple of really big deal fitness people on the rest who are really into it and all of them have crossfit experience. Like they moved like, you know, someone, it was there, someone said their introduction to fitness was crossfit and then she went on to do like Bodybuilders shows and stuff like that and now she's just kind of like a personal trainer, but she was like, I started at crossfit, that was like the first thing I ever do, a gateway drug. Yeah. Get a little taste. Alright, well, where can the people find you on the internet? Um on the internet? Uh My instagram is our underscore Becks be eks Becks and that's pretty much all where I am. Like I'm on twitter, but like I just be talking on twitter like that's not. No one needs to follow that on their arguing people in the comments, so it's not interesting. Um But yeah, our underscore bets at instagram on instagram.

Sounds good. Great way to stay in shape. All right, fantastic. Mhm disabled girls out, Yeah. Cool. Thanks for listening to disabled girls who left. We appreciate all of your support and everyone who's taken the time to show us some love. Don't forget to subscribe, rate already. Review of our channel. We're on apple podcasts, Spotify player FM, google podcasts and more. You can also find us on instagram at disabled girls who left. Wow, II