The Ready State Podcast

Dave Werner co-founded the first ever CrossFit affiliate. Dave is a Navy SEAL veteran, a highly experienced strength coach, founder of moveSKILL.com, and a long time leader in the fitness industry. He authored the Athletic Skill Levels© in 2006, a tool for gauging general fitness, which is now used by athletes and gyms all over the world. MoveSKILL.com, is an online resource for people seeking improved general fitness and helping them reach the strength and conditioning goals described by the Athletic Skill Levels. Before joining the U.S. Navy at age 17, Dave grew up wrestling, working on farms, and playing the cello in Oklahoma and Oregon. We talk to Dave about the earliest days of CrossFit, how affiliation came to be, and even hear the origin of the first named workout.

Brian Mackenzie was involved with CrossFit from the very beginning as the SME of CrossFit Endurance. He is an expert in the development and application of custom protocols to optimize human health and performance. His work harnesses and integrates respiratory, movement, strength and endurance-based training approaches to elicit unprecedented positive results. His protocols have been used to accelerate and raise both mental and physical performance in world-class Olympic and professional athletes, top executives, and operators, as well as to improve the health for people suffering from various chronic illnesses. Everyday people have also used Brian’s tools to reduce pathologic stress and to vastly heighten their mental and physical well being and performance. He has gone on to be the Founder & Creative Director of Power Speed Endurance, and the Co-Founder & President of the Health and Human Performance Foundation. We talk about everything from early CrossFit days, to how his methodology has evolved, to his sourdough bread baking practice.

For more info on Brian, follow him on Instagram and Twitter, and check out PSE and follow them on Instagram.

Mike Minium started coaching when he was only 14, coaching adults and kids in tennis. He played competitive tennis through college, but never strayed too far from coaching, eventually focusing on general strength and conditioning. He discovered CrossFit in 2003, and was amazed at the impact it had on his fitness. He immediately got certified to coach and opened the very first CrossFit gym in the Bay Area. Mike has now expanded the CrossFit Oakland family to three locations. In this episode, we hear how Mike got started with CrossFit and discuss the importance of using CrossFit to improve athletic performance outside of the gym.

For more info on Mike, check out CrossFit Oakland or follow them on Facebook.

Annie Sakamoto was one of the first women to take up CrossFit and she went on to become a trainer, affiliate owner, competitor, and one of the most beloved icons of the sport. She was one of the original “Nasty Girls”, pushing the limits of human performance not just for women, but humans in general. She placed in the top 10 three of the four times she competed in the CrossFit Games and was awarded the spirit of the Games award in 2011. Most recently she placed 3rd in the Legends division of the Rogue Invitational. In this episode, Annie runs us through her first experience with CrossFit (and consequently her first case of abdo), her affiliate journey, and what she is up to now.

For more info on Annie, check out CrossFit Santa Cruz Central or follow her on Instagram and Facebook.

Tom Brose took a trip to Santa Cruz in 2005 to check out something called CrossFit. He trained alongside some of the earliest CrossFit legends, and learned directly from CrossFit founder, Greg Glassman. The intensity stunned him and the insights transformed his view of fitness. But what impressed him the most was the community. Tom has kept this in mind running his affiliate, and the people around him gush about what an amazing community of coaches and members he has built. We get to hear how Tom discovered CrossFit, what the early days were like, and how CrossFit DC has evolved over the years.

For more info on Tom, check out CrossFit DC, or follow them on Instagram and Facebook.

Hollis Molloy has been part of CrossFit from the beginning and is one of only a handful of Certified Level 4 CrossFit Coaches worldwide. He is the co-owner of CrossFit Santa Cruz, and believes that everyone is an athlete, regardless of current ability or past experience. He does not tolerate subpar movement in his classes and works to inspire athletes to become the best possible movers. For Hollis, CrossFit is a way of expressing our true potential as human beings. When not in his gym, he travels the world as a CrossFit Seminar Staff member teaching both the Level 1 and Level 2 Seminars. Kelly has always said that “there are few coaches that are able to effectively blend technical ability, passion, and the capacity to understand and address an athlete's weaknesses as well as Coach Hollis”. In this episode we hear about how Hollis went from an unhealthy weight to taking over the original CrossFit HQ space, and running it successfully for over a decade.

For more info on Hollis and CrossFit Santa Cruz, check them out here, or follow them on Instagram and Facebook.

Mike Burgener is known by most as Coach B. After excelling at multiple sports in high school, Coach B headed to Notre Dame to play football. This is where he began what would be the most influential relationship of his life, weightlifting with Father Lange. He went on to get an MS degree from the University of Kentucky and was a Captain in the United States Marine Corps. But Coach B’s passion for Olympic Weightlifting is what he has focused on for over 50 years as an athlete, coach, and mentor. He is a Level 5 Senior International Weightlifting Coach, a certified strength and conditioning specialist, and got involved with CrossFit early on as their weightlifting SME. He runs Mike's Gym, the 5th CrossFit affiliate, out of his garage with a special emphasis on training "The Geezers".  He has been named coach of the year by United States Weightlifting but maybe more importantly is considered family by the athletes he coaches.

For more info on Coach B, check out his website here, or follow him on Instagram and Facebook.

TJ Cooper has been a lead trainer in tactical topics since 1987 and recently retired in 2016 after 34 years of continuous service. He still serves as a Lead Trainer for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, and now works for the University of North Florida Police Department as a Police Officer leading the Training division. TJ teaches civilian, law enforcement and military agencies on demand. As a lead tactical trainer, he continually trains, attends and teaches high liability topics in criminal justice academies, colleges and training forums. TJ opened the second ever affiliate, CrossFit East, and was really the first to bring CrossFit to the tactical community with amazing results. In this episode we learn about how TJ got into CrossFit, how he has grown the community spirit CrossFit by creating the CrossFit East Family, and how CrossFit is a necessary skill set that can be applied in life and death situations.

For more info on TJ, check out his website here, or follow him on Instagram and Facebook.

We are kicking off this season with one of the best and most beloved CrossFit Games athletes of all time. Jason Khalipa has competed in the CrossFit Games on 8 separate occasions - as an individual for 7 consecutive years, and wrapping up an 8th year as a team competitor. Throughout his CrossFit Games career, Jason has only placed outside the Top 10 once, has won every Regional competition he has participated in, and he won the Spirit of the Games award in 2009. Not only has Jason held all podium positions at the world championships, but he was also named to Team USA 3 times. Jason opened his gym in 2008 after winning 1st place in his first CrossFit Games appearance and 11 years later has expanded to over 20 locations. Jason and his wife Ashley live in Los Gatos with their 2 children Kaden and Ava. Ava’s 2016 leukemia diagnosis has led them into a life of philanthropy with the intention of supporting other families faced with the same adversity.

For more info on Jason, check out his website and podcast here, follow him on Instagram, and definitely learn more about the Khalipa’s non-profit, Ava’s Kitchen.

Season 4 of The Ready State is a "Where are they now" of early CrossFit. Juliet and Kelly are coming up on 15 years of CrossFit affiliation and a lot has changed over the years. CrossFit literally revolutionized how we think about fitness and the limits of human performance. Its innovative training style, combined with a focus on community, completely upended the fitness industry. It has led to the creation of thousands of companies that support CrossFit affiliates and athletes, and has produced countless thought leaders. With more than 15,000 current affiliates, it is arguably responsible for creating the boutique fitness industry as we know it today. This season we talk to some of the earliest affiliates, Games athletes, and SMEs that helped shape this movement to find out their CrossFit origin stories, how the journey as been, and what they are doing now.