Pursuing Health

Bob Harper has an extensive background as fitness trainer and health expert, 3-time New York Times #1 Best Selling Author, and is perhaps best known for his role as the host of NBC’s The Biggest Loser. In February 2017, Bob suffered a shocking and near-fatal heart attack while exercising, and has since used his experience as a platform to educate others and to advocate for CPR training and AEDs. Following a slow, physician-supervised recovery process, Bob is back to doing CrossFit workouts with the community he loves. You can find him working out, taking black and white photos, or hanging out with his dogs, Karl and Vivian. For his second LIVE visit to the Pursuing Health podcast, Bob and I sat down at the 2018 CrossFit Games. We discussed how his experiences surrounding his heart attack have changed his life, and how he hopes his story can help others.

A former gymnast-turned sports psychiatrist, MaryEllen Eller, MD, works with athletes to optimize their performance through the development of athlete-specific mental skills training. Dr. Eller completed her undergraduate education at Andrews University in Michigan prior to attending Loma Linda University for both medical school and residency training in psychiatry. She enjoys specializing in high performance medicine and finds that the principles utilized to improve athletic performance can carry over into day-to-day life, helping individuals excel at work and at home. I recently caught up with Dr. Eller to talk about how athletes can use a positive mindset to improve their performance, the impact of perfectionism, and the importance of being intentional.

As the General Manager of the CrossFit Games, Justin Bergh is the man behind the scenes, overseeing details large and small to ensure everything comes together at just the right moment to create a phenomenal global fitness festival. With the help of his CrossFit HQ team and over 800 volunteers, Justin plays an instrumental role in setting the stage to find and crown the Fittest Man and Woman on Earth each year. A former aspiring major league baseball player, Justin suffered career ending injuries and used that challenge as an opportunity for growth. After graduating from a sports management program, he found success working for a sports technology company, but ultimately took a leap of faith and opened his own affiliate, CrossFit Southside, in order to pursue his passion of helping others become more fit. Now a prominent leader within CrossFit HQ, Justin has literally worked his way to the top. After starting as an affiliate owner, Justin found his way to a role as an intern eventually a member and Flowmaster on the CrossFit Seminar Staff. As the CrossFit Games grew, Justin was also able to draw on his sports management experience, leading him to his current role as General Manager of the Games. I recently caught up with Justin to chat about his role as General Manager and to get a peek behind the curtains at what it takes to produce the most anticipated CrossFit event of the year.

Since starting CrossFit in 2012, Dave Hippensteel has dominated the CrossFit Masters scene, rising quickly from winning the 2013 Open in the 55-59 division to standing atop the podium as the Fittest Man on Earth in the 60+ age division at the 2016 and 2017 CrossFit Games. This year, Dave will make his sixth CrossFit Games appearance as he heads back to Madison to defend his title. An athlete from a young age, Dave has pursued a variety of sports, from football to track & field, motocross and triathlons. A proud father of 4, Dave’s love of fitness has rubbed off on his children- in fact, it was his daughter, Heather, who introduced him to CrossFit! As a full-time dentist running two practices while training as world-class athlete, Dave brings a unique perspective to the table. We recently sat down to chat about how his training as a Master's athlete differs from that of his younger competitors, what Dave is doing to protect his health and longevity in the sport, and what advice he has for his peers seeking lifelong health.

As a young medical student, Rebecca Blonsky was morbidly obese, weighing over 320 pounds at her heaviest. Growing up as an overweight child more interested in music and debate than athletics, Rebecca had long-struggled with her weight, but had never found the impetus to make a lasting change.

With more Games appearances under her belt than almost any other athlete, eight-time individual CrossFit Games competitor Stacie Tovar eloquently left her shoes on the floor and stepped away from competition at the 2017 CrossFit Games. A former collegiate volleyball player, Tovar was introduced to CrossFit by her now-husband in 2008, and by 2009 she was competing in her first Games and making big lifestyle changes to support her goal of becoming the Fittest on Earth. Throughout her career, she was celebrated for her drive, her tenacity, and for redefining Beauty Beyond Strength. Now enjoying the next phase of her career, Stacie has shifted her focus to owning and running her affiliate, CrossFit Omaha. She is actively working to improve corporate wellness, and she is a fitness expert for the Omaha World-Herald’s health and fitness website, Live Well Nebraska. I caught up with Stacie at the 2018 Central Regionals in Nashville, where she was coaching individual athlete Josiah Naig and Team CrossFit Omaha.

James Maskell has spent the past decade encouraging a shift away from conventional western medicine and toward a wellness-centered, functional medicine model. To that end, he created Functional Forum, the world’s largest integrative medicine conference. He’s also the founder of the Evolution of Medicine, a community e-commerce platform that provides highly curated and customized resources, tools, products, and services, making it easier and more affordable for conventional doctors to embark on a new way of delivering healthcare. James lectures internationally, and has been featured on TEDMED, Huffpost Live, TEDx and more, and contributor to Huffington Post, KevinMD, thedoctorblog and MindBodyGreen. He serves on the faculty of George Washington University’s Metabolic Medicine Institute. In his second visit to Pursuing Health, I was excited to talk with James about his most recent project, a health cooperative called kNew Health and his upcoming kNew Vision Tour, both of which are poised to fight chronic disease through prevention and by using functional & integrative medicine.

Three-time Games athlete and owner of CrossFit St. Helens, Carleen Mathews isn’t your typical CrossFit Games competitor. A former collegiate softball player, when Carleen’s athletic career came to a close she found herself struggling first with an eating disorder and then with alcohol and substance abuse. With the help of therapy, her family, and CrossFit, Carleen overcame her addictions and self-destructive habits to return to competition, this time in a new sport. Since 2012, she has steadily risen amongst the ranks, progressing from a Regionals athlete to a multi-year CrossFit Games competitor. In 2017, she won the West Regional, but suffered an injury that forced her to withdrawal from the CrossFit Games on the first day of competition. For 2018, she is back on track, with her sights set on a top finish at Regionals and another trip to Madison. I caught up with Carleen to learn about her journey from athlete to addiction and back, how her body image has changed since starting CrossFit, and her advice for helping others who may be suffering from an eating disorder or substance abuse.

Ben Bergeron is the owner of CrossFit New England and has coached numerous CrossFit Games athletes including champions in 5 different categories (male and female individual, male and female masters, and team). He publishes programming for competitors for free through CompTrain which is followed by thousands of athletes around the world, and coaches Masters athletes through CompTrain Masters. Ben is well recognized in the CrossFit community for opening 3 successful affiliates (CrossFit New England and Tilt I and II), and he shares his best practices for affiliate excellence in seminars and immersion experiences for affiliate owners. He is also the author of the best-selling book, Chasing Excellence, a handbook on how to achieve greatness in your career, relationships, and life through mental toughness, character, and the process. I caught up with Ben to chat about his book and to learn more about how we can all take the principles he uses with his athletes and apply them to our everyday lives.

In this episode of Pursuing Health, I chat with physical therapist and pelvic floor health expert Julie Wiebe. Julie began her career focused on Sports Medicine, and through her own experiences and those of her patients, she identified a need for helping female athletes heal their bodies and maintain fitness before, during, and after pregnancy. Her mission is to revolutionize the way women recover from pregnancy and return to high levels of fitness. To that end, she has developed a unique and integrative approach to promoting women’s health. Her Diaphragm and Pelvic Floor Piston Science concepts apply to a variety of populations and have been successfully employed to help athletes overcome Diastasis Recti and Pelvic Floor Dysfunction. Julie has over twenty years of clinical experience in Sports Medicine and Women’s Health, is a published author, and an international lecturer. She maintains a clinical practice in Los Angeles, and also shares her approach to pelvic health recovery via online courses available through her website.

As a long-time CrossFitter and member of Valley CrossFit’s Regionals team, Lisa Ryan entered pregnancy in fantastic health. When she became pregnant with her first child shortly following Regionals, she continued to exercise with modifications as she “listened to her body” and followed the advice of her doctor and her coaches. Following her son’s birth, she slowly resumed working out, taking care to keep weights lighter at first and slowly rebuild her core. At 8 months post-partum, she found that she had lost all her baby weight and yet still had a hard, protruding stomach. After consulting with several doctors and getting no answers, with the help of a friend, she discovered she had diastasis recti, a separation of the abdominal wall. She began modifying her workouts and seeing a pelvic floor physical therapist, and with time, her separation decreased. During her second pregnancy, Lisa worked with a team of coaches and therapists to improve her breathing techniques and alignment, and to set up her pelvic floor and abdominals to work together and to be strong to support her pregnancy and recovery. Today, Lisa is still working to heal her diastasis recti, and she is on a mission to share her message with other moms and moms-to-be that pregnancy and postpartum recovery require specific training and rehabilitative protocols, and that the type of training you do during this time can have lasting effects.

Lindsey Valenzuela has been an athlete all her life and played collegiate volleyball at California Lutheran University. During that time, she began Olympic Weightlifting to train for volleyball and quickly fell in love with the barbell. After her collegiate career was over, she began competing in Olympic Weightlifting and then found CrossFit. She has since become a seasoned CrossFit Games athlete, competing in 4 CrossFit Games, finishing as high as 2nd place in 2013 and most recently finishing in 7th place in 2015. She also represented Team USA in the CrossFit Invitational in Berlin in 2013. Lindsey has coached at several affiliates in Southern California and in August of 2015 fulfilled her dream to open her own affiliate, Autumo CrossFit, with her business partner and former NFL player James Townsend. In 2016, Lindsey discovered she was pregnant and took the year away from competition. What followed was a difficult pregnancy, during which Lindsey developed preeclampsia, gained 90 pounds, spent 2 months on bedrest due to complications, and had a C-section delivery. Following the birth of her now nearly 2 year-old son, Arsenio, Jr., Lindsey slowly returned to training, focusing on healing her core and pelvic floor. With time and patience, she gradually built volume and intensity, ultimately returning to competition and placing an impressive 11th at the Callifornia Regional in 2017, less than one year after giving birth. With another year of training and recovery under her belt, Lindsey is poised to make another run at the CrossFit Games in 2018. Lindsey and I sat down after week one of the 2018 CrossFit Open to chat about her approach to training during and after her pregnancy, how her life has changed since starting a family, why it’s important to her to return to competition, and what she hopes other coaches and pregnant athletes can learn from her experiences.

Coach Greg Glassman, known to many as simply "Coach" grew up in southern California as a gymnast and he supplemented his training with modalities including weightlifting and cycling. When he began his career as a trainer in 1974, he brought innovation to the industry ultimately redefining fitness with CrossFit, otherwise known as constantly varied, high intensity, functional movement. He was kicked out of several globo gyms before finally opening the first CrossFit gym in Santa Cruz, CA in 1995. Shortly after, CrossFit.com was created where he posted Workouts of the Day, or “WODs.” Athletes from all over the world would complete these workouts and post their scores online. Beginning in 2003, CrossFit affiliate gyms began to open and CrossFit experienced exponential growth over the following decade such that there are currently more than 13,000 affiliates worldwide. During this period, we’ve also witnessed the growth of the CrossFit Games, the ultimate proving grounds for fitness which identifies the Fittest Man and Woman on Earth each year from a pool of hundreds of thousands of athletes across the globe. We’ve also witnessed incredible stories of transformation in the affiliates, with participants losing weight, gaining confidence, and ridding themselves of chronic disease. Coach is currently working to shift the public's perception of CrossFit from a fitness company to a health company with an elegant solution to the world's most vexing problem - chronic disease. For his second visit to the podcast, Greg and I sat down after the first Level 1 seminar held exclusively for CrossFit Physicians at the CrossFit Ranch in Aromas. We discussed the importance of networking CrossFit doctors, why CrossFit is about so much more than the Games, how he’s using the business of CrossFit to fund public health activism, and his vision for the future of CrossFit.

Samantha Briggs is a six-time CrossFit Games athlete. She earned the title of Fittest Woman on Earth in 2013 and has had five top ten finishes from 2011-2017. At 35, she is setting the standard for Masters Athletes and implementing smart training strategies to ensure her longevity in the sport. Sam comes from an athletic background, having played football (soccer) in England’s Northern Premier League, and competed in triathlons. A firefighter for 10 years, today Sam is a professional CrossFit Games athlete, known as “The Engine” for her indomitable work capacity. She has overcome multiple injuries, including a debilitating knee injury that forced her to take a year off from competition in 2012, time she used to focus on refining skills and improving her movement quality and weaknesses. I sat down with Sam at the 2018 Reebok Athlete Summit to chat about how she got started in CrossFit, how she turned an injury into a growth experience, and what’s in store for her in the coming years.

Dr. Perlmutter is a Board-Certified Neurologist and Fellow of the American College of Nutrition. He received his M.D. degree from the University of Miami School of Medicine where he was awarded the Leonard G. Rowntree Research Award. He has published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and is a frequent lecturer at symposia sponsored by such medical institutions as Columbia University, Scripps Institute, New York University, and Harvard University. He also serves as an Associate Professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.