All right, everybody. Welcome back to the best of their day podcast Jason Fern here with my good friend Megan Burns. We were just chatting before we went record and I was like, wow, this is good. We'll save it for the podcast, but I'll give Megan a brief intro and then we will go from there. So Megan level 2 level 3 and level 4. Are you level 3? Yeah level 3 Cross Fit trainer trained a lot of really good Jim's under aOf really good trainer so started at CrossFit invoke back in the day then was at CrossFit Reebok one working with the East Thomas and Austin and James was at CrossFit One Nation again with Spencer handle Austin CrossFit Morristown with Bill who is also going to be on the podcast that just want that one. Yeah, that's the other one that hasn't been released yet. And then and now is at CrossFit pregnant, which is a really cool thing that we're going to talk about and also is the assistant. Strength coach at Noble and green off Academy. Is that correct? Yeah, very cool. So you've coached a lot of gyms. Yeah. Yeah been around moved around a lot. What up? When did you actually start coaching? So I started coaching when I was 20 and 28 right now and that was down at CrossFit in Vogue and really just like Christmas Abbott took me under her wing. and there realized she was going to the internship process for seminar staff. So that's kind of how I got into thinking about seminar staff and then just kind of went on from there, but she definitely was the one that gave me the most I would say like mentorship back in the day. I don't I don't know if you or the youngest-ever, but I know for sure you were one of the youngest people ever to make it on seminar staff. It was me and Joey till we were like just freshly 21. And I think the only person who might have started younger than we then you might have been Pat Barber. Oh, yeah, all those he he was like he was on just the other day, but I think he was like 18 or 19 Maybe. But I think he was he was in that he was in that the The Nest at that point with Tony and Greg and all that so but yeah, I think he might be the only other one. That was that was younger, which I think is significant because Working on seminar staff is a is what I would consider an adult job. I remember being around like for my internship it was Joe and Courtney and Sarah and Kristen and all these people that I was like, I don't know what I'm doing here. But this is awesome. And yeah, I don't I had actually I I know for a fact I would have not have had the poised at the edge. Age of 20 and 21 to do that job to stand up in front of a group of people do public speaking have good. I might have been able to do the presence and attitude piece just because a lot of sports but definitely not the public speaking but I've seen you coach a lot and that's always something I've been super impressed with is like I always liked watching trainers who when they coach you're like that person fucking knows what they're talking about. Thank you. It's You know when you watch somebody coach, you're like that person's sharp. Like what they're doing is correct. They're competent in it. We're like What was that always the case or like obviously had to be pretty obviously had to be pretty good to get on seminar staff. Yeah. I actually I don't I don't even know if I was really that good. I just maybe I was just like friendly and then Joe was like, okay, we're just going to give this girl a chance. I don't know. I remember being like there's no way. I'm going to make it but I do remember there was like a point that I like people are telling me if you want to gain more respect. You need to be more serious so I kind of went from this. Always joking around kind of the look like little baby and then I went full serious mode. Like I remember one point Denise watch my lecture and she was like, I don't I don't think you went from like out of robotic mode with a completely straight face and like you looked angry out there one time. So then I was like, okay like shifted too far the other way because I was like, I just want everybody to respect me and that now I'm kind of like finding the groove the past couple of years, but it was definitely a weird. Shift of like the baby and then way too serious and then you know, even like I remember Bobby telling me like you need to stand up straighter. You need to be like there's definitely a lot of you know growth that's happened over seven eight years of being on seminar stuff that has shaped me into the person. I am now with a lot of you know, like we have so many good mentors on seminar staff the I don't know where I would be without having those people kind of guide me through that that point in my life. That's always been a fine. Wants to have is that being the authority while being engaging like that can be a very difficult. Kind of task. Yeah, particularly in front of the group. I like I know I struggle with it over the years like as a small female. It's hard sometimes to gain. That respects like being a small female not like it, you know one of the elite athletes working with like a James Austin Spencer and then like little Meg, so it was definitely like a, you know, kind of had to find my place and my voice a little bit like around a lot of those strong personalities and athletes to well. It's definitely not right but it's a thing right? So it's like one of these things we do. So have you acknowledge how the world works but like Carlene Matthews talk? Out this so she's also a small female but she's got that stigma of a games athlete. So people automatically give her respect whether that's Justified or not is a different topic which she actually acknowledge that it's not justified just being a good athlete but for somebody who's a small athlete who a small female athlete who is not, you know, physically imposing who's not a games athlete. There's which probably is the majority of female coaches in the CrossFit Community. How do you go about establishing that type of Rapport and that type of authority from a coaching standpoint? Yeah. Yeah and I get that question all the time at seminars people. Like how do you deal with tough clients as a female unlike what happens if you don't have the skills that you're coaching and all that stuff, which I went through not having a lot of the skills that I had to coach at first and now having them but I think it just took the moment that I realized that I needed to stop hiding that I didn't have a certain skill and just Embrace like where I was at and my ability level and be open to working on it with people in front of members and things like that gave me the confidence to be in front of a group and not be nervous about that stuff and then you know, it kind of worked in my favor because we even This happened last year like last year didn't have handstand walks. So I started working on it in class or after class with members and all of a sudden like all these members are joining in now. We have like every Wednesday night. We're all doing handstand walk together. I got handstand walks. Jimmy's get enhanced and watch the Kelly's get, you know, everybody's getting them and so it's like if you just hide the fact that you're like, well, I'm embarrassed that I don't have the skill and now I'm not going to work on it. And now I feel really insecure instead of just putting it out there. Like hey guys, like I'm working on this stuff, too. It makes you more relatable and that's kind of my strengths that I embrace is like my relatability and the fact that I can scale people maybe a little bit better sometimes and someone that just like popped up on the Rings and got their muscle up for the first time. I think that's the worst coach. Yeah. Yeah, and then when it comes to like it, you know Advanced athletes and I will learn from other coaches things that I can say, you know when I'm watching like a Spencer, Austin. Like teach somebody How to cycle muscle ups or things like that before I had that skill and then I'm having a learn from them and kind of know where I'm at where I can give feedback but that I can still coach the movement and you know learn from other coaches that maybe have more experience with Advanced athletes or Advanced skills. I think that's one of the biggest hurdles. Probably more. So at the level two new coaches or less experienced coaches who are trying to figure out where they have that stigma about themselves that they don't have a skill and therefore feel that they because they don't have a skill that they can't teach it. Yeah. Yeah, and so it's just like embracing that and working your ass off to get it and doing it in front of other people, you know and not being like Oh, I'm going to do this privately by myself and be really embarrassed like Putting it out there to others getting help from others, you know, embracing scaling options, like can can really be something that helps bring you down to the members level almost but also, you know show them that like you're trying to work your ass off to get the skill and you're not just like, oh, I don't have a handstand walks and I don't care to work on them. Right? You're like I don't have them I care to work on him and I want you guys to work on them with me. So we're all going to do it together. Yeah. I think that's important to from just from a leadership standpoint of Of you know, you have to be willing to do yourself what you're going to ask of your athlete. So if you're like not going to work on that stuff, then you can't tell people. Hey, you can't do handstand push-ups because you don't fucking know how to walk on your hands. So, you know, and I love it. I mean, we do it like I've gotten some of the kids at the high school to like practice with me and stuff and it's cool that they're coach can work on stuff with them instead of like the typical high school setting where it's like, well the football coaches really never going to like A football with that. I mean they might but like they're off to the side and the players are playing whereas like for me. I'm working with some of these kids doing Hansen walks failing. They're doing it with me. They're failing. We're all getting better together. So it kind of promotes a sense of like nobody's better than anybody were all doing which is exactly CrossFit. We're all doing the same thing together were, you know working on her like on our own level what what sports do you coach at the at the high school? So it's a strength and conditioning program. So What they have is an after-school program where they split a group of kids that sign up for this afternoon program into three different groups are two different groups. So like in the fall and winter we have big groups, maybe it'll be groups of like 20 or 30. We take them through always a lift and accessory work and then one day a week, we have a team competition which is usually CrossFit. So that's where I get to program the strength coach programs. Although it's kind of more like linear strength work that they go through and they And in addition to that program will have teams come in. So it's any team that wants to go through strength and conditioning on the offseason or even in the in season, but I don't teach like a specific sport. It's just a strengthening. So my title is assistant strength and conditioning coach. My brain is up to questions the first so that's actually really cool. So this is not the program that you are coaching is not sport-specific obviously or just for sports. It's for any kid that just wants to get in the weight room. Yeah. Yeah, so I think they originally brought me in because they were having more girls sign up for the program. The strength coach is kind of like typical, you know, what you would think of strength coaches like big guy he can probably, you know bench press like 300 pounds plus whatever and then the Walls were a little timid and they like didn't really have anybody to relate to and so and then my experience would like Olympic lifting things that they don't really do. So we kind of are a good pair together because he has his strengths out of my strengths and then we put them together. That was actually my follow-on question was how does that relationship work? Because typically in my experience traditional strength conditioning coaches are extremely resistant to any mention of CrossFit. Yeah, Kevin the anything conditioning coach is really awesome and open-minded to pretty much anything. I mean, we follow his program like he has a set, you know, like what they're going to do for their lives and their accessory work, which is a lot of stuff that I've learned that is different than what we do in the crossfire world, like single life stuff all that stuff for injury prevention, which is good for me to know because it may not be the best for in season football players to do CrossFit right or two, you know, like they need to get their in Prevention stuff and all that in their programming but he's super open and also the athletic director is he's really into CrossFit. I met him through one nation and he is Heather Bergeron's ex-husband. So he's kind of like in the world of CrossFit and Kevin knows Ben and all that stuff. So I think it's kind of a unique situation with him, but the kids are definitely a little resistant meaning like like they don't understand the squat below parallel knock out your arms on pull-ups and things like that. So it's a little weird trying to get them to understand that especially again from a small female. You know, that's taken like two years for them to now start to listen like, oh she knows what she's talking about kind of thing. Give her just have to step up and grab a barbell and snatch it overhead and just embarrassed embarrassed teenage boys. Yes those I mean, there will be some times that I'll work out before the strength class and they'll see me and Start kind of asking questions like all right, what do you do or like you have to let almost like gain your respect their because they have they have some amazing athletes. Like a lot of them are already signed a top schools and they're sophomores but they're just not used to that world and they think it's really unsafe because CrossFit gets us, you know, like oh, it's super unsafe. I will say one thing. I've the amount of things I've seen in a high school weight room. I'm like, there's no way people can say crossfit's unsafe because like the think that it's decide to do like on their own and like That I know that that is a whole podcast by itself there. I mean again, I think CrossFit gets a lot of bashing probably just because we're a very large easy Target, but I was very fortunate to always have really really knowledgeable strength and conditioning coaches. Like my the guy who programmed for us in high school was a world-class powerlifters the first guy to ever break 2,500 pounds like multiple stage. So like squatting And deadlifting and all that stuff. I learned from a very young age. Then when I was in college, one of our strength conditioning coaches was Kurt Woolfolk, who is his daughter was an Olympian weightlifter and is married to coach bergner. He's married. I think she's married to Casey bergner. Okay, so, you know and then I and then I stumbled into CrossFit. So I've always I've always had and then in high school to spend some time with Gail hatch who's our world-renowned weightlifting coach to so like I was always just very fortunate to get that but the point of that weird tangent was I've seen some crazy shit in high school rooms, like stuff that people think crossfit's dumb like I've seen some people posting videos of what they're doing. Weight room and it makes me want to throw up in my mouth. Yeah. So like I never knew this could happen maybe because I never have two 45s on each side of my bar when I'm squatting, but you know that when you have two 45s on one side two 45s on the other side and you take the two 45s off one side, you know that the bar Falls over on the other side the flying Spear of death. Yeah that happens on a regular basis and I'm like, I've never seen that happen before until I was in that setting I don't know. It's weird. Well, I don't know that that only happens in the high school gate room. So yeah. Yeah, so Phil who like so Phil sabatini runs our weightlifting program at our gym. He's a phenomenal weightlifter former National Champion 96. Kilo, but he and I regularly joke that probably once every 10 days somebody dumps a weight off of the squat rack because they unloaded on properly and these are people who fucking know what they're doing, and I'm just Like what were you thinking just now? Yeah, it's crazy. So going back to the strength conditioning stuff. I'm curious. So I went the other direction. So I went from sport specific training to CrossFit. You're kind of going from Crossfit the sport specific training for people who are because I know a lot of people are trying to get into that now so like trying to get into straining sport-specific athletes, but I think there's a massive mistake that people are make is trying to lay a very gpp program onto sport specific athletes. What are some of the things that that you kind of previously thought about training that you don't say backtrack, but like you Kind of understand a little bit better. Now that may not be the best approach for a sport specific athlete. Yeah, I think you know, even though my background is CrossFit I try to kind of go in and not I didn't want to step on anybody's toes and just follow along with what you know, Kevin was programming and then tried to implement some stuff with some athletes and just talking with him about how in season is different than offseason and And the fact that you know, seeing so many of these kids get injured in their sport, you know gives me a little worried if I were to have them do some like super technical lifts and that injury risk there for them if they're not under my eye or you know, even if something just kind of off happens that that could take them out for the season that could then, you know be damaging to their career which like I said, a lot of them are like legitimate athletes that are going to go on. Two top schools, so I had to pull back and be a little bit cautious just because I was nervous about the injury risk for them doing like mostly doing more. So Olympic lifts like at speed or with high intensity, but, you know a lot of the stuff that we do for a team competitions. It's high intensity, but a little bit more of bodyweight movements. So I 100% think everybody should be doing high intensity work. I think it would make the athletes a lot better A lot of them are still like they're not into it. They don't like to work really hard. They like to live to not breathe heart, but I think it would make a lot of them better and then the full range of motion concept. That's like the one thing I'm just trying to hammer home to them is like let's take the weight down. Let's get full range of motion. This is why and having to explain it to them and I was talking to Matt to Brooke and he was saying that you know these kids that if they don't train for inch motion what happens When they fall or get pushed and they land in this weird position that they've never experienced because they don't go full range of motion. There's one. That's the biggest thing that I'm like, I feel like they don't understand that but if they did they would be like, oh if I actually trained full range of motion in my squat then I land in this weird position. Well, I've already been there before and I are you have strengths are I'm not going to blow my knee out because J the amount of injuries like with these high school kids. It's like insane and I'm sure this up Obviously, it's not the only school that like is like that but you know, there's injuries I left and right just from sport. It's interesting you bring that up because I think oddly enough. I think this is where like a really seasoned CrossFit coach probably has a massive advantage over most people just because obviously CrossFit is very a lot of it is very repetitive movement. So if you think about just the volume of movement that you're going to stack up on your eyeballs that you're going to get to see if you're a coach and I don't know call it 20K This is a week or 40 classes a month or something like that puts you at A major advantage to see movement and then when you walk into a weight room and you understand that pelvic shift in a squat valgus a knees and stuff like that our Prime predictors for ACL injury, and it doesn't take you any time to see those things. You're like we have to fix that squat. We have to fix that Squat and injury prevention's will will injury rates will just plummet. Yeah. Yeah, and I really think that like, you know in the string thinking I'm sure like when you were in high school like they don't really have like we do coach when we're in the strength and conditioning like class. But outside of that kids just come in by themselves and they're lifting they're not getting this like specific coaching and that's what I feel like the strength and conditioning World sometimes can take from Crossfit is that like nothing is being done. If you're at a good gym without being coached and you know, you're not going to look that way because that's the This is what you look like right. Now. This is what we need you to look like right now. This is how you're going to hurt yourself. If you live this way, you know, so on and so forth, but that's the one thing that I'm like trying to get a little bit more coaching on a regular basis for the kids that just come in there but selves Yeah, I think that. The coaching because like even even though I had good coaches a lot of it was just like do this and in a lot of people are just kind of hanging your hat other on the fact that like kids are just resilient. Like it's really hard to break youth athletes. However, in general it doesn't happen in the weight room. It happens on the playing field because of poor because of poor mechanics, but the way I try to explain it to kids and parents more importantly is what we're actually trying to teach is like physical competence, right and the difference between You know, you know unknown and known environments is like the weight room is known like I know you're going to do this and I know you're going to move in this movement pattern like everything there is understood and I can demonstrate when we leave the weight room everything at that point. We step onto the court or the playing field is an unknown environment. You have to deal with different planes of motion move in directions without prompt you have to deal with another athlete who's going to mess up or impede your movement patterns, and if athletes can't move well, In a controlled known environment, there should be zero expectation that they can do that in an uncontrolled environment. Exactly. Yeah, totally that's a great way to put it. How long have you been there two years and then have you seen again in the fall? Okay, and then have you seen a little bit more by in a little bit with kind of I don't want to say the CrossFit side, but with like just that the addition of that style of training since you've been there. Yeah. I mean, I think people now are starting to buy or the kids now are starting to buy in a little bit more to you know, why we do a full range of motion Squad. Why are we locking out our pull-ups things like that, but it especially High School boys that are maybe the more like Elite athletes would never come up to me and be like, hey, can you help me with this or that and so now I think just from me working out there and me coaching and you know, seeing results with the program that now kids will come up and be like, hey coach Burns. They have to call him Coach Burns, which is so weird. Hey coach friends. Can you help me with this or what do you think about this? Can you give me some accessory work and I'm used to them always going to Kevin and I think it was just like they know Kevin he's like the guy that's you know, obviously He like looks like he loves a lot of weight. You can lift a lot of Weights. So why would they come to me? So it's been cooled this year, especially seeing them open up just a little bit more and be receptive. They all like, I don't think I've had anybody really buy into CrossFit. I have a couple kids that like I'll give workouts to but anytime we do team competitions and we have to run like two laps around the track. They're like, no, you know, I'm like, okay and conditioning program. Like what do you think you sign up for their like you don't like So, you know get out of breath and that's that like yeah me neither like I would Implement more as like we need to like have them condition more and Alex who is the one that I said, it has experience with Crossfit. He would send his basketball girls to us and like want them to be conditioned because he's like last year we were really deconditioned and like we could play well, but we couldn't last for a long time. So all that stuff, you know getting people to see like there's carryover and it's not just like CrossFit is and its own bubble. Like how does CrossFit style training carry over into sport can be really helpful people just understand and keep their you know Minds open to it. I'm going to call you coach burns from now on. It's so weird. I like what she didn't like Mega coach burns the head of the school. Like you're not supposed to say the first names. I just saw a weird video of like some kid walking through the Halls just calling all the teachers by their first names and they're all freaking out. So on the on a different top 100 different topic, but just different question. What have you taken from that traditional strength conditioning side or have you taken anything from there into the CrossFit gym? Yeah, I would say definitely it's given me a lot. I would say it's given me a lot of knowledge on the injury prevention and accessory work that they do. They're all the lips are the same like we do hang cleans and at the school and back squat and deadlift but single leg Step Up Band and work like all that stuff to specifically prevent ACL and you know get you balance from one side to the other a lot of hamstring work things like that that sometimes we miss in the CrossFit gym. I've started to implement that a little bit more just you know here and there like after classes because I've learned that from from the school. That's what I thought you were going to say and that's something we started implementing like At CrossFit Rife like a year ago. Maybe it is what does two things a it kind of subtly and subconsciously gives people some of those pieces that they're missing and their movement either whether it's you know, whether its unilateral movement that they suck at and have imbalances or they have an injury or something like that. They've been compensating for that. They're not aware of but it also has helped us really scratching. The itch of people wanting to do more. Yeah and it helps us kind of eliminate that like I want to do multiple workouts and it's like well, are you doing all the accessory work? Because I mean I would tell you like virtually nobody does all of the accessory work, right? Yeah, and that stuff is hard if you do it, right. So it's like you're getting an injury prevention and it's tough. Well, I think it's also a different type of training that most people aren't used to which it generally you're dealing with like localized muscle fatigue, which is not generally what we do. With and Crossfit like Psych full metabolic conditioning or like the system just wants to shut down versus when you're doing accessory work. It's like my triceps can't press anymore or a my hamstrings are about to blow up from these banded hamstring curls. So it's different and I think that allows them to to really kind of take a step back and say okay. This is a lot of work actually. Yeah, so I want to back up and I want to talk a little bit about kind of how you got there and it and Of that Journey because I don't I don't think people kind of picked up on this one. I gave the intro but the gyms that you've been at are all good GEMS under good coaches and but I'm curious kind of like what if you look back on it now like What is that Evolution kind of look like was there something you picked up at each location or their certain skills that when you when you went from gym to gym that you realized you were you fishing at or what a door kind of how does that look when you look back at it now? Yeah, I mean each each one was definitely hard to leave because I was with such good people of such great mentors and they're all seminar stuff at each gym that I worked out, which was awesome. So they all I never had to Deal with you know, when people ask the question at the level one. Well, what if the owner of the gym wants to do five workouts? And you know, that's not the way or whatever. How do you deal with that gym owner? It was always like we are always on the same page which was really cool. You know, when I when I was at invoke that was when I was really just kind of like learning how to coach and being mentored by Christmas and then going up to Reebok CrossFit one. I was still really young and like so kind of learning and I ended up leaving Reebok CrossFit one. Leaving before I should have just from making decisions in my life who ended up leading me back to CrossFit One Nation, but I probably would have never left there in the first place it looking back on it, but I did really enjoy my time at Morristown of me a lot of good friends there. I love carry on and Bill. They're amazing gym owners and then going back to one nation. That was probably where I really like not had Uncomfortable moments but was surrounded by all these amazing athletes and I wasn't like in that group. So figuring out how to hold my own how to you know, scale my own workouts be okay with skills that I didn't have work on those skills be around a lot of amazing coaches that were giving me feedback a lot of times and learning from them, but also not being so nervous to coach in front of them. So that was probably when I got to One Nation like the most challenging. I mean I was with Greg, who's this? Our staff member and he would just like sit on the side of my classes and like write down all this feedback and you know, so that's where I probably developed most I would say as a coach with my confidence. Maybe how did you deal with feedback when at the beginning I've always been open to feedback. I mean, I don't that that's never really been hard for me. I was more like the The nervousness of having an Austin or a jeans or a Gregor somebody just like watching my class and that took a while to really like just be myself in front of other people watching my class and I think that's the biggest thing now that I'm in a role where I'm giving feedback to other people. I can tell that they give that get that same nervousness when I'm watching them. So I almost like step away like out of sight instead of just sit there and watch like, you know, Greg was Like an asshole and like sad they're just like staring at me with his whiteboard and my Greg really, you know, so like like trying to remember how I felt when I was getting that feedback and I think going through that process helps me to give feedback, but that was the hardest not getting the feedback just like getting watched and not getting nervous and like blowing my whole class. What do you think aloud you so that's so that's kind of an abstract concept, but it's very it's very valuable, but it can be hard to wrap. Your brain around is a new coach which is like just be yourself and you're like, yeah, but I'm about to piss my pants because you're over there jotting notes and this class is huge and it's the snatch and the muscle up so Like, how do you how do you go about getting to the point where like I'm comfortable being myself at this point? Yeah, I think you know one one thing that I definitely have learned from working with Austin is like you really need to practice what you preach and I think once I, you know started like dialing in my nutrition and working on skills, I need to work at and actually taking class and scaling. appropriately and all that kind of stuff and not just like working out by myself and doing my own thing or like, you know, being kind of Baden with the nutrition but kind of not like that's when I felt like I not had a leg up on other members, but like they respect me because I was you know, eating the way that I was telling them to eat and like working on myself and my workouts the way I was telling them to do so it kind of came a little bit more naturally once I started to do that. Yeah, I think one of the biggest things and you can speak to this too. But like one of the things that I really try to harp on in the level two particularly is people just are not putting in the work like they're not they're not putting in the work to do the stuff. That's not sexy like learn the points performance. Learn the false practice giving cues do dry runs on your lesson plan and that's what I try to really explain to people is like that is how you become comfortable in your own skin from a coaching standpoint is when you can start to develop that kind of unconscious competence where I'm not thinking about what I'm doing, this is just how I do things right right and like, you know getting uncomfortable like it is uncomfortable to go to a team training at One Nation with all these games athletes and have to like drastically scale down what you're doing in front of everybody, you know, and it's Uncomfortable to put yourself in a scenario where you're getting this tough feedback. Like I remember, you know, I would walk around the PVC pipe and Christmas would like interrupt my whole class and take the PVC pipe and like it was embarrassing but I was okay with being uncomfortable and just like learning from that situation. I think that at the level 2 and like when I'm giving feedback here, it's the ones that are just are open to the feedback or being uncomfortable that really struggle with it. And if they could just like, you know what this is going to kind of suck and be a little hissing and like not stuff that I would generally want to do that's going to make me better when you can start being okay with that then it really becomes a lot easier. Yeah. It's just such a hard thing to break through on because it's painful in the process. But you know Chuck brought this up on the on that previous episode, which was you know, that feedback peace and that uncomfortable. Peace like Is that critical piece that allows you to grow? Like there's no other way other than constantly being in that kind of cycle of like this is your feedback. This is where we can get better. This is using things you do well, but this is the things that you do like, okay, and then at some point like you just suck less and for in you and you probably spend a lot of time in the suck less category before you before you're pretty good and the things that you're talking about are largely Abstract in nature. There's like they don't stand that way like fucking smile occasionally, you know, like stuff like that. Yeah, and so now it's kind of it's interesting now that I'm in a role where I'm giving feedback and realizing like how challenging of a job that is to give feedback because not everyone responds to feedback in the same way and I respond to feedback like I want you to just tell me. Hey like this podcast sucked like next time you do it do it this way and I'd be like got it like will do another podcast. You know or versus like okay it was all right, you know like kind of beating around the bush and I'm realizing that not everybody can take it like that and I can't be so like paid that wasn't good like do it better this time do it this way or whatever with everybody because that just does not work with everybody. I think that's actually like perfect segue into the next piece which is a kind of wanted you to talk about your time and things you guys are doing at pregnant CrossFit now. Yeah, so for those people that don't know what pregnant what program is and what that program is all about kind of give them the run now and so pregnant CrossFit supports a non-profit, which is a phoenix which supports folks in recovery. So it's a free active sober community. So any membership for pregnant that's paid for just like any CrossFit gym goes directly to support the Phoenix which is a non-profit. So anytime someone signs up it paves the way for for people to come on the Phoenix side for free. So it's a really cool concept because the for-profit side is completely supporting the nonprofit side and then there are multiple locations. There's one here in Boston. There's one in Colorado. There's one in California. The Phoenix has been around and it is all over the us but the CrossFit Gyms that are attached are in those three locations. And those are all pregnant locations. Correct? Yep. Mike Brady runs the one in Colorado, right? Hmm. Yeah who runs the one in California Caitlin Honeycutt is the head coach over there. Okay, cool. So what does that I would imagine there's some people You freaked out just by the thought of trying to deal with addicts of any substance, but what? Kind of what is what are those classes? Like? Yeah, so we have one consistent Class A day that's free for people to come in that are either recovery or supporters of recovery. And we have a team member agreement that they have to abide by like 48 hours to sobriety. You're not going to see anybody like take their shirts off. We're going to have clean language on the music and just be respectful and all that kind of stuff and they always how the Phoenix works is they Is have appear in recovery coach those classes. So I'm never the one to coach unless they need some coverage and they're all there always needs to be someone else like a staff member that's there to assist me. If I'm coaching the class the parade and I'm classes are only for the paid for clientele and they do not have to abide by the team member agreement. So that's like the 5:30 6:30 a.m. Noon class 5 and 6 p.m. But But it definitely is letting we were just talking about it this morning it it is, you know a little bit of a different culture than you'll see maybe a regular CrossFit gym because we're all Under One Roof. So the Denver location has a program in one building and the Phoenix and the other building so they don't really mesh a lot of time. We're all Under One Roof. So there is some overlap. So, you know, when we had our Memorial Day Workout, we're not having like beers after and you won't see people with their shirts off and things like that. So, you know, we try to be pretty upfront with People coming in on like what we're about and what we support and we have a pretty small community now because we just open in the end of September but everybody's been super supportive and respectful and so definitely a little bit different than what I was used to at one nation where like people are taking their shirts off in the warm-up and like there's always beers after Friday night classes and things like that at all the other CrossFit Gyms. I've worked at so it's just a little bit different Have you ever had to turn somebody away from class because they violated some of the agreements. Yeah. Usually, you know, there are some awesome staff members that are here that are you know experience with dealing with people that may not be completely sober and abiding by the team member agreement. So I that is like not my experience that I've had to watch them deal with some of those scenarios, especially like where we are in town. Town were kind of in a rough area in Boston where people are like, you know doing drugs right around the corner, but they've handled it really well that I'm learning a lot from how they handle these tough situations how they talk to people what people look like when they're not 48 Hours silver and that's not something I've dealt with a lot because I don't have anybody in my family that has had experience with that. I'm not in recovery. So it's a You just a different after doing CrossFit coaching for so many years that it brings A New Perspective and it's cool for me because it's something new that I'm learning and having to like get feedback on like how I had to deal with that person and you know, tell them they can be in class or whatever has that helped you give feedback like in a normal scenario. Yeah. I mean we have now that I'm getting giving feedback to there's like six different people that I'm giving feedback. Back to you on a regular basis and some are in recovery some are not and it just kind of depends on like where they're at with their coaching career where they're at with their personal life and their recovery and like how they're used to taking feedback. And if you know, they are not used to that organ defensive or are completely open to it or a little bit more sensitive or not. There's definitely a lot of different personalities, which has been challenging for me. And also good because this is again. It's like new to me to be able to give feedback because I've never been in a head coach role before but just having to realize like pretty quickly on. Okay. This is not mine feedback Styles not going to work for some people that are giving feedback to Chuck brought out something really cool that I had started doing just coincidentally myself, which is just lead with a question rather than lead with your feedback, which is just like, how do you think it went? Yeah, and I'm Actually, the guy one of the guys that the pregnant like manager he oversees everything here. We are on a leadership call and he was like, I usually believe with that. Like, how do you think it went now? I do that in like is that's the best piece of advice I've gotten is just like ask first and then it usually leads to versus I was giving it more of like just what I thought right away. Sometimes people will tell you all those things. They're like, I had a shitty night last night and you're like, okay. Well cool. Then I'm gonna basically chop the bottom half of this. Back because we're not it's not relevant at this point. Totally. Yeah, but that's been one of the biggest things that I've learned is like just lead with a question first most of the time they're right on the feedback. Anyway, they already know what they did wrong. Like you can just now give them the corrective actions in order to do that, but they acknowledges that have you saying you fucked it up. What are some of the biggest things so like a couple things like a what are some of the biggest things that you've learned with dealing with with People in recovery and then kind of some do's and don'ts and then if people want to get involved with that because I don't I don't know a whole lot of people who are not affected by you know by that it's either whether it's you know, one or two degrees of separation, but like I think virtually everybody knows somebody who's in recovery. So first thing is what are some things that you've learned in dealing with folks that are recovery and then if people want to get involved, how do they go about doing that? Yeah. Well, Well, you know the the staff and the coaches here awesome and they're really open about their stories and where they're at in their Journey with recovery. And when we were talking about it this morning and how to like how do we intertwine the two groups? Like, you know, we're we don't want to tell a paid member. That's not in recovery that like, hey, you can't talk about what you did this weekend and like go out and drink and then we also want to be respective of people that are new to their recovery. And how do we like mix? doing my one of the coaches here was like, you know, I don't like to be put in this like separate category and he's like, I don't like that were like it's like the normal people and the attics so really trying to find a way to like mesh the two and that's what I think is probably a strength of mine is not really thinking about like where this person came from or what's their background or whatever and just treating everybody the same like everybody that comes to my CrossFit class going to get coach the same, you know, we're not going to put like people that are Are maybe a little bit more sensitive to CO2? I know sometimes people ask is that the lawsuit? Well, what if I hurt their feelings, you know, like you're obviously not trying to coach and like yell at everybody but everybody should be getting coached and and corrected regardless of who they are to then just like reduce that stigma around like hey, there's two separate groups and people in recovery still are you know out in the world and and living around people that are drinking or whatever it is and just being respected or respecting them, but also like not Treating them any different as a big thing that like Mike was saying today. He was like, I don't want to be treated any different. Yeah. I think I think that's hard to like it makes sense when you say it but like sometimes we just kind of unconsciously like act differently towards people like I was just thinking before is it even okay to call people addicts like and I should probably know this like, my mom is a recovering alcoholic and alcoholism runs in my family, but I'm like do you say they're in recovery do you is are they an addict like Like does that offend people like what's the PC way too? Ya know that we do are really cool. So before any of the Phoenix classes, they do a circle up which is like you say your name and you say whether you're in the terminology is whether you're in recovery or your support and recovery, and so each person can go around and say what they want to say and that was another thing that I you know, kind of had a question of like what if people don't want to say or do they like to say or you know, sometimes people come in there? Like I'm an addict like it. Usually we use the term recovery, but we're not going to like shut somebody down for what they want to say. But you know, Mike was saying and to this guy he was like, it was really empowering to me to be able to stand in front of a group and be like, I'm in recovery and fit in with the community of people and work out in the same space is maybe a supporter or someone that's not a recovery and be proud of that versus like outside the gym walls. Sometimes it's like this weird thing where you know, you have to kind of keep it private or people don't understand or you know, he was like, I feel really comfortable in this gym to be able to say that and I think that's the cool thing about CrossFit is like it again, like it just promotes that nobody's better than somebody else. We're all working out doing the same thing. And so that's typically what we'll say when we go around the circle. That's cool. I'm like looking at your resume right here, which it's probably safe to say that very few people in the CrossFit world will have will have a resume that looks like that right like meaning it coached at these gems coached under these people like the coaches that you've coached under like big names and there's no shortage of them for people that don't have access to that. What do you what would be your advice in order to? Start developing yourself as a coach meaning like a I don't have access to either a seminar staff member or somebody who's really good or be. I can't just pick up and move to Boston, right? Yeah. I mean, I would say the first step the thing that helped me. The most is the whole Practice What You Preach like that is that should be like the the platform that anybody does anything from because then when you're practicing what you preach, but you're also Getting to learn from you know your members as well as like you're not just only learning from other coaches. You're learning from Members because you're in class with them or you're working on your weaknesses with them and learning from maybe somebody that has something that you don't so doing that at the at the base and then gosh like It the more you can just wash other people. I just remember I when I was at invoke like I would just try to watch every coach has class and get as much experience watching because you learn what you like and what you don't like and even when I watch here like new coaches, I'm picking up new cues all the time and that's not from anybody. That's a seminar staff member that's from someone that just started coaching that thinks differently than I do that's explaining something different then I'm like, oh, I'm totally gonna steal that. And I don't see people a lot of times watch just watching other classes. And I remember when I was at invoke the Christmas had to be like, hey like you need to go home. Like you've been here too long like go and because I just wanted to watch people's classes. So if you don't have experience that you can still learn from other coaches and if anything you're like, this is definitely what I don't want to do by just watching the way somebody else coaches. It's funny you bring that up because people have asked me in the past. They're like use you. If you look at somebody's career. There's like a pretty specific period of time where they made like big jumps in their development and I remember specifically when mine was and it was when I started Giving people feedback because I would sit down and I was watching two to three classes a day of other people coaching and from a practical standpoint. If you're not the person that's going to be giving feedback. You can still sit down and jot two to three pages of notes of the class the things that you're going to learn in one week. If you do three classes a day of that is going to be so much information that you probably couldn't take action on. All of those things in a six-month period yeah, and I think like from you know being at one nation and then being here and what we require here is like doing the whole lesson plan and preparing for your class. I definitely did not do that until I came to one nation and I honestly do not know how I ever coached a successful class without doing that. Like I have no idea did I just like look at the board and I was like Mom today, we're going to run 400 meters and as a warm-up and then like just get right into it. Like I don't know how I ever ran on time. I'm like anything like that. So, you know making a lesson plan and really like preparing for your class. Just like you would go into work and meet with your boss like you wouldn't be unprepared for this like really important meeting. It's the same thing with this and so even if you're not watching somebody else that's super successful with their coaching is like preparing for your class like you would prepare for out and like, you know, the business world is something that I think people forget to do because so easy to just look at the board now, I'm just going to do this today and wing it. Yeah, I mean I'll just tell you my experience like I did not coach any good classes for years because I wasn't prepared. It wasn't like a how did I ever do that? And it's like the class went down but it was just a goat rope, you know like but nobody died and we everybody did some Fitness for like at no point. Did it resemble an effective? You know kind of impression of what coaching should look like. Yeah. Yeah cool, if people want to find any information about the about the Phoenix project or pregnant, like where's the best place for them to search for that stuff? So the best place is probably on the website the Phoenix dot org, or they can just go to Prague them CrossFit.com and then they'll see information from Bose. There's an explanation on their pregnant CrossFit of what we support and what our mission is and then there's more details with the Phoenix side that you know, the Phoenix is is also at locations like we have a guy named Ben who's on the cape and he has one Phoenix Class A week that he holds at his gym that so he's not a pregnant location or a Phoenix location, but he's still holding that class. He's in recovery himself. For people to just come in for free. So, you know, you can have that at your gym right and like have one class on a Saturday at 10. That's a Phoenix Class where people can come in that are in recovery or supporters of recovery. So that's a pretty cool thing that they're doing to yeah, that was kind of like question. Is it like an affiliation process or you just kind of try to put it together because Carlene Matthews she was saying she does something very similar because she's in recovery as well. But I don't I to my knowledge. She's Not involved in that project. Yeah, so that's a different side of it. That's the Phoenix Rising side and it's not through an affiliation, but that I don't know exactly how it works, but they would just open that class up but I do believe it needs to be someone that's in recovery running that class or someone that's trained on that because they do like the peer-to-peer model there. So Ben can do it at his gym because he's in recovery and And he can also leave that class. Got it. Okay, cool last thing. What podcast or documenting your series? Are you watching currently you watch TV? Yeah, so I just got done watching the final table on Netflix. Have you seen that the cooking show right? It's really good. And then I just got into that Sherlock Holmes Show on Netflix called Sherlock. Oh, I know you're talking about but I haven't watched it. I don't watch a ton of TV, but I know you're talking about it's really good and then the podcast I've been liking. Do you know who? Dr. Anthony Justin is? You got a keto podcast. Okay. Let me see what the name of it is and I'm not a big like this is not because I'm keto or anything but he's a really knowledgeable guy and he's got some great. Oh the keto answers podcast with dr. Anthony Gustin and you know, he's a big hero guy but he's got a lot of other like great nutrition information and he's in a CrossFit. He was on a brute strength podcast and stuff. So he's got a lot of good information and kind of breaks it down into a number. Sciency way of talking I Like It Cool last thing anything Ackerman likes this question and I like it too. Is there is there something a belief or idea that you've had in the past that you no longer believe? I think probably I mean I guess it's just like Fitness related, but that although I work for CrossFit and I'm all about CrossFit. I love the CrossFit lifestyle. It's not that that's not the only way and so my idea has shifted because I was very even when I started working at the high school my it's only CrossFit like you only do it this way. It's not that and well that is my belief a lot more open-minded to other areas of Fitness because at this point I really just Care that people work out and that they eat healthy. So it's less about like this is the only way even though I think CrossFit is that's fine, but more that they just work out and eat, right? I like that and I've kind of come to that same realization over the last couple years that like if you're going to ask me like what is the best possible program to get people to Peak Health CrossFit Bar None? However, there is a TENS of millions. If not billions of people that are never going to do CrossFit. So maybe I just have them do something else. Yeah, and we had like a we had a boot camp class at one nation that the guys would come in. They like could care less about Fitness there, you know. A lot of them are overweight and like the middle of the workout. They start doing push-ups and there no push-ups written in the workout and it's like what are you doing man? They're like just trying to bring arm pump and you're like, you know, go ahead like rather. You cannot be here. That's a good idea. I'm gonna join you back in the day. I would be like no like you're doing it, you know, and it's not that we let everybody do whatever they want. But it's like those guys. They just want to come in and like they want to get their pump on like they're working out rather than be there than not be there Pat. Who's I think Pat Sherwood said this a while back? Back when I was talking to him. He's like listen because If people want to be Gym Rats, yes, just let them be Gym Rats good like it's clearly making them happy. So don't try to impose your will on them. Like just trying to have like gracefully guide them to good decisions. Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, cool. All right. Well, hey, I'm going to ask you a question. Okay. All right. So we all went because we always do icebreakers and that 11 o'clock class. And so you use like every possible Icebreaker like on the planet. Do you have one Icebreaker? Question, that's your go-to. That's not just like what's your favorite food? Ooh, yeah. So this one has to do with the zombie apocalypse. So you just yeah, you have to look around the class and you just say hey you get to pick one person in the group to take with you on the zombie apocalypse. Who's it gonna be but you have to say why? Okay, I love that we're going to use we're doing this at the like new trainer Summit years ago with it was like me Tosh who actually when you To get touch on the show. There's no time. Yeah, it was like Andrew Charlesworth and a bunch of and like Nicole Carol was there and toss basically said he would kill Nicole because he would rather her die by his hand then by like the by the zombies and stuff like that. It was so funny because she was she was so offended him like it was it was incredible though, but Andrew Charles with all we also didn't choose talk and I like immediately went to Tosh. I was like I'm taking Tosh like Tasha's going with you on this one. It's all And Charles work was like I you know, I don't really know you I don't know if you're good in pressure situations, and I was like, okay use the Google machine and you might find out some information. Yeah. But anyway, I like the old zombie apocalypse like who you going to take with you? Why? Okay, that's cool. Hey. Listen, thanks for your time. This was awesome. There's a ton of good stuff on here and hope to work with you soon. Yeah, you too. All right. Yeah. Thanks for listening to best our of their day. If you haven't heard about anchor it's the easiest way to make a podcast. Let me explain. First of all, it's free. How cool is that? There's a creation tool that allows you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer. So it becomes super simple some of these episodes with Fern or Todd or myself chatting with one another we've done right within the app itself. Anchor will make it easy to distribute your podcast to all platforms Spotify apple and many more and you can make money from your podcast with no minimum listenership. It's everything you need to make an awesome podcast in one place. All you have to do is download the free anchor app or go to Anchor dot f m-- to get started today. 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On today episode Fern sits down with Meagan Burns. Meagan is pretty cool she’s one of the youngest females to have made it on to seminar staff at just 21, she now on her 8th year of being part of staff. Her Crossfit journey all start when she got a job at the front desk of a Crossfit box, after a few months of being that working out Meagan’s says she feel in love with it all; not coming from a fitness background in her youth. Meagan has a long list of Credentials, CrossFit Level 3 - Certified CrossFit Trainer, CrossFit Kids, CrossFit Goal Setting, and CrossFit Aerobic Capacity. Recently Meagan started coaching at Crossfit Per Ignem which is as amazing. Meagan is a cool person and an amazing coach. “I knew right away that helping people and coaching were two things I wanted to do! I started coaching at a gym in North Carolina and eventually ended up getting a job working for CrossFit Headquarters on the training team for the Level 1 and 2 seminars—an absolute dream job! I love being able to help people reach their goals and achieve things they never thought were possible! I am so grateful to get to do what I love every day and I am excited to be a part of/build the community here at Per Ignem” - Meagan Check out the extra content about this episode on besthouroftheirday.com Rate/subscribe in Apple Podcasts! Find us on Instagram: @besthouroftheirday + @thejasonackerman Check out our website - besthouroftheirday.com - to learn more about our private coaches development group. 