Hungry Dog Barbell Podcast
Maddie Shockley
This week we have Maddie Shockley, CSCS on the show to talk all things strength training! We get into the beginnings of her competitive spirit, early days in the weight room , finding her passion and going out on her own to launch the Vault Group!
Transitioning from an athlete to a coach wasn't just about swapping a jersey for a whistle; it was about digging deeper into the essence of fitness and the human body. Join Maddie and I as I reminisce about her formative years under the tutelage weightlifting coach Barry, her collegiate struggles, and the entrepreneurial leap into fitness coaching that ultimately shaped her philosophy.
https://thevaultgroup.mykajabi.com/
This week we have Maddie Shockley, CSCS on the show to talk all things strength training! We get into the beginnings of her competitive spirit, early days in the weight room , finding her passion and going out on her own to launch the Vault Group!
Transitioning from an athlete to a coach wasn't just about swapping a jersey for a whistle; it was about digging deeper into the essence of fitness and the human body. Join Maddie and I as I reminisce about her formative years under the tutelage weightlifting coach Barry, her collegiate struggles, and the entrepreneurial leap into fitness coaching that ultimately shaped her philosophy.
https://thevaultgroup.mykajabi.com/
And I'm a very unserious person. So I want to say that before we even got into anything else, yeah, you're good.
Speaker 2:I've worked in a gym for the past four years, so like being like corporate level professional.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah for sure. So on that note, I want to ask you you just participated in the CrossFit Open in the quarterfinals. That's all wrapped up. Now Tell me what was your favorite workout from all of that the whole online competition season?
Speaker 2:Oof Honestly definitely standout. Favorite workout was quarterfinals workout three, the one that had all like the handstand pushup variations and the rope climbs, mainly because my coach I have my own coach and he has been really working with me on my handstand pushup capacity it's easily my worst movement and when I saw that I was like all right, like these are difficult variations but at the same time your partner you're not partnering it with like super heavy shoulder stuff, like the toe was a little shoulder heavy but it was manageable. So I found it to be like a super encouraging workout to actually test how my capacity is, because it wasn't like I got done doing the 10 wall facing handstand push-ups and could blame like the rope climbs for my shoulder fatigue, like my biceps were tired but my shoulders weren't right so for me, like getting through, I didn't make it to the rings.
Speaker 2:I actually super funny story I didn't think I was going to make it to the rings. The first time I did it I got through six wall facing handstand push-ups went to failure. I was like, okay, I'm gonna get through these. Like I just want to get 10 and be done. And I was at a local gym, crossfit Diamond State. They were nice enough to host us and, um, they had long straps on the rings.
Speaker 2:I've never, used straps yeah high up so you had to like jump off a box. So I get through my 10th wall facing handstand, push-up a minute and 15 seconds of spare and in that moment I'm like, all right, like we're, we got to do this now, like that was the time.
Speaker 1:That's funny.
Speaker 2:I'm like I'm looking at the rings and I'm like you're gonna embarrass me. I could feel it, that's so funny yeah, I went like sideways off a box and literally was just like swinging side to side for the entire minute and 15 seconds.
Speaker 1:Couldn't get a ring muscle up but that's so relatable, I love that yeah, it was hilarious.
Speaker 2:Like I, I couldn't help but laugh in the moment don't get me wrong. I was super frustrated. I'm like like cursing, like all mad at myself, and then I like went back and thought about it. I was like you know, that was pretty dope and it's gonna be really funny to watch over on video again.
Speaker 1:So like it so, oh man, I just learned so much right there. You, you just said that like you had a moment to like show off your hard work right and like prove the accomplishment to yourself. You know, like that's, that's really dope, and I want to revisit that again in a second. But did you practice any uh like long strap muscle-ups on those before you before you got to the workout, or did you just like plan to do it in the workout?
Speaker 2:well, like I channeled my inner moron and did not like. Like I, I actively walked into the gym, saw the long straps and was like yo, what's up? And did not practice on them at all like I had to acknowledge their presence and then, like as I was walking up to the rings and tried to get one, it all clicked in my head and I was like this is the dumbest thing I think I could have possibly done.
Speaker 1:He would probably fire me as an athlete all of the strategies that are available in life the absolute worst, one like I like double nodded my shoes like all the things that could go wrong.
Speaker 1:Didn't practice a ring muscle up like yeah, yeah yeah, so now it's one of those funny things that, like you're doing a workout yourself, your stuff you're right, right. Like you double knock your shoes, you get a separate box out to put your chalk on top of you strategically position your water bottle so that you can walk to the next thing and get the. Get your water if it's weed stuff for the transition aid, but you don't practice the long strap muscle ups Like one of those.
Speaker 2:It'll be okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's hilarious. So how many years have you been doing the CrossFit Open now?
Speaker 2:So I did it for the first time three years ago and I wasn't doing CrossFit at all. I was actually dating a guy who was really good at CrossFit and he was like, oh yeah, like I'd worked out in his gym a little bit, at his CrossFit gym, crossfit Rock Solid in Downingtown and he was like, yeah, just do the open. Like I think like you'll really like it. So I did it and my first I think my first workout was the wall walk double under workout. Oh my gosh, it destroyed me. It was awesome.
Speaker 2:And after I went through like the whole open, I just kind of got hooked. I was like this is super challenging and you know my background in athletics like I've always been craving a sense of competition and I like to kind of feel what it feels like to fail at something and then have to really work hard to get good at it. And I found that that day. So that was my first year doing it I didn't get into CrossFit following that. I kind of would like look at you know, some of like the local not local, but the big time CrossFit athletes what they would do for workouts and I might like do them by myself, but I didn't actually start taking CrossFit a little bit more seriously until about two years ago, and then I started competitively training for CrossFit. This was my first year of competitive training, so in all like three years, but about two years of actually like being like okay, we could do something with this.
Speaker 1:Push the needle like towards a goal, like overall, like focusing your programming and all stuff. Like how did you grow up in like athletics in general to be motivated like that?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, honestly, I would give a lot of my like athletic personality and drive. Give credit to my parents for that. Ever since I was younger, like my parents have had the biggest amount of confidence that anyone could have in an individual with me.
Speaker 1:Like, even when.
Speaker 2:I was like five years old. Anything I did, they would just tell me like Maddie, you will be the best at anything you decide to do and, almost to a fault, like I, could come up with something real dumb and they'd be like you're doing great.
Speaker 1:Like not warming up your muscle ups at all. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, like I like tell them when I have some like ridiculous dream and they're like yeah, maddie, go for it. They night, like should we, should we maybe lay off?
Speaker 2:yeah um, but yeah, I would accredit it to a lot to my parents. They just always told me that like I can do anything I want, I'm capable of doing anything I want, and knowing that like I had that support system through everything I did in my life, it made challenges become less of a challenge and more of like a stepping stone to something bigger. Like every time I face something that would humble me, I'd be like well, my parents believe in me and they said I can be the best at whatever I want to be and I can push past this to find the best version of myself. So I would say that, yes, like there is part of me that just loves like sport and competitiveness, but the way my parents raised me and the amount of confidence they gave me in myself and their support has really driven me to just look at, like my potential as being exponential. So I would say it has a lot to do with my parents, my upbringing.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I'm sure that influenced you a lot to all the things that you're trying to do now, like to kind of be that in a macro version for a bunch of other people like your clients, people that are just in your inner circle and all that. So it's all coming together. So what kind of sports did you play growing up? Like what was your go-to?
Speaker 2:Well, I of course played T-ball so I'm kidding. But no, my first like competitive sport was travel soccer. I did play basketball for a little bit. I was really good at defense, but you're my dad will tell you I was like the worst shot ever, like terrible, so that that that was short lived. But then I pivoted to travel soccer. I did cross country for a little bit but it started to kind of deter from soccer and I was getting to the point like my freshman year of high school where we thought I could probably play collegiate level. And then I was also like super skinny. I weighed, like I want to say, 118 pounds in high school. So I had gotten a couple people illegally reach out to me to recruit me. That were D3 schools, so they don't abide by the rules.
Speaker 2:And you know I had. I, when I went and talked to them, the biggest thing they told me was like my physicality needed to improve. I was like, all right, like I know I'll outwork anybody that you put me on the field with. Like I might not have the talent. I was never a super talented soccer player, honestly. I was just super athletic. I was good at passing and you know I would work harder than the person I was going up against and that was my advantage.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So around sophomore year of high school I started strength training at a local gym in Delaware called Train Hard, win Big.
Speaker 1:Highly recommend. So damn. All those conversations were happening in freshman and sophomore year, not even junior year. Okay.
Speaker 2:Well, I told my parents. I was like I'm going D1.
Speaker 2:Like if I don't go D1, like I'm not going to college because for me it wasn't worth it, like that's what I wanted to do, hadn't really decided on a major or anything at that point. And then I just started strength training three times a week. I had a great coach and I started getting recruited by division one schools. My junior year had about five offers and ended up settling on long Island university, honestly, just because it was completely out of my comfort zone. I was looking at a ton of Southern schools like college of Charleston, florida, gulf coast, and they weren't giving me a ton of money and for me the money was a huge factor because I didn't want to come out of school with a ton of debt. I knew I didn't want to be a doctor, I didn't want to be a lawyer, like jobs where I would come out and make a good bit of money to help pay off that debt. So I was like.
Speaker 2:I need a hefty scholarship to make this worth it for me, and Long Island University did provide that and I went up and visited New York City, like my parents never would have thought I would go to New York City See you later. Yeah, yeah, my campus was in Brooklyn and I literally fell in love with it and I committed to.
Speaker 2:Two days later and I had like people calling me being like, really Like it was like a lower level D1 school. Like they're like, wow, I'm like, well, I'm not going to go pro. I know that. I'm like, well, I'm not going to go pro. I know that, like I also don't want to go pro, I want to play all four years. I want to get playing time, I want to enjoy the process and I want to get my school paid for. So it made the most sense and it's close enough. My parents have supported me my whole lives. What am I going to make them take a plane to come see me play?
Speaker 1:An hour drive.
Speaker 2:That's where I ended up.
Speaker 1:That's sick dude, like. So, before we keep going with that whole journey, what did? What did 13 to 16 year old that's around the age where Maddie think and feel when the coach initially told you that, like your physicality wasn't enough?
Speaker 2:Oh, I knew it Like.
Speaker 1:I felt, you felt that.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, and then who flipped the switch?
Speaker 1:Who? Who was like I'm going to go strike train, like how did that? Oh yeah. And then who flipped the switch? Who was like I'm going to go strike train, like how did that? How was that the response?
Speaker 2:Honestly, I think it was my best friend, megan, at the time. Her older sister, maddie, was one of the best soccer players in the state of Delaware and she was like I want to say she was six foot. She might be 5'11". She might kill me for saying that on this podcast, but she was just a monster, Like in turn, not just her height alone, like she was just like a physically very fit chick, and I remember they made me mark her my freshman year of high school on varsity and I was like shivers down my spine.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't because she was better at me than soccer, it was because she was physically, you know, more intimidating to me and I wanted to have that impact on other people. So that's what kind of made me decide like you know, this is worth it. Like it might not directly make me a better soccer player in terms of skill, but the intimidation factor like I need that. So that's what made me decide to do it damn dude.
Speaker 1:It's supposed to be my rest day. You got me fired up, right now.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to go train after this I'm going to run through walls, you know.
Speaker 1:Right, like I'm up right now, so tell me about the beginning of starting to lift weights and become that more physical person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, my gosh. It was honestly. It's hilarious to look back at, but it's so cool. I remember my first day I went in for like an assessment with this guy, his name's barry, awesome awesome guy coached a ton of d1 athletes.
Speaker 2:And I come in and he's like you ever lifted weights before? Like I can't, like clearly not my guy. So then he's like we're gonna, we're gonna do some planks. You ever done a plank? I'm like, yeah, I've done a plank. So he gets me to like hold a high plank and like I'm obviously fine. He has me do it for 60 seconds and then he puts me on a BOSU ball on the flat side. He holds it and then just starts moving my body around. He's like you got to stay tighter, you got to stay tighter. He's telling me all this stuff to do. He's really getting in my head. I'm like easy movements, easy movement power A little GPP.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, nothing crazy heavy, and I went home and I woke up the next morning. I remember going to my dad and being like I'm in so much pain, like am I hurt.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was pain and my dad was just like no, like this is you testing yourself and getting stronger? And you know, know, like there's this one quote by uh alex hermosi I don't know if you watch his stuff I've been watching a ton of it because I just started a business and he talks about how people always say they like want to do the hard thing, and like, when you're in the hard thing, what you have to tell yourself is like all right, I expected this to be hard, this is the hard thing and this is what hard feels like.
Speaker 2:Like when you sit there, like man, like I feel like this, I feel like that, and you're complaining about everything. It's like well, you wanted to do the hard thing and this is what it feels like. So are you going to continue to do it or not?
Speaker 2:And that feeling of like doing the hard thing and being in it, like just it fired me up. I was like this is awesome, like I would feel all the time I want to test myself and push myself. And you know, over the course I got to the point I didn't. I want to say I gained like eight pounds, um, from you know, like my sophomore year until I graduated and went to college. And I want to say my one rep max power, clean going into freshman year of college, was like 145 at like 123 pounds hell yeah he just made me like a very powerful athlete.
Speaker 2:I wasn't strong per se, but yeah, like explosiveness and just like overall functionality and athletics, like I was a new person, it was.
Speaker 1:It was awesome so when does it? When does it? I don't know if it switches, but when does the side of you that wants to train others and get into that take over more? What were you initially pursuing as your major when you went into college?
Speaker 2:So I actually was pursuing the accelerated physical therapy program. I absolutely fell in love with anatomy and physiology. In high school I had an awesome teacher and he just made me fall in love with the human body and at the time I was thinking, like physical therapy, like I'm going to get to help people, it's going to be a really positive environment. And then over time I found that like it wasn't always like that, like obviously, you got the clinical side of it.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:And honestly it's just. I wanted to have an immediate impact to prevent them having to go to physical therapy. Like that's what I found my true passion lied in. So my junior year of college I changed my major. I changed it actually to fine art. I know this is crazy.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:I grew up going to a fine art school. So I went to an art school in Delaware and I at that point had figured out I might want to try to do my own fitness business. And I went in and find art and I specialize in graphic design because I figured that would help me with website, build out logos, stuff like that. And then my other major was exercise science and I also had enough credits to where I literally think I had to take two more classes for exercise science. Like my degree was set my junior year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're already in that like minded thing before for two years, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and I decided to switch like really towards like doing more personal stuff, like personal training, that kind of route, mainly because my senior year of college, you know, I got done soccer and my entire life has revolved around soccer since as far as I can remember, like in high school, if people didn't know my name, they knew like Maddie on the soccer team. You know that was my identity and when I stopped playing in college about two weeks after the season was over, I like got seriously depressed.
Speaker 2:Like and it was. It was. Now I know it was an identity crisis. I just didn't know what my purpose was.
Speaker 2:I was like what am I doing? Like I, I didn't get out of bed for like two weeks. It was terrible. I ended up coming home for Thanksgiving break because soccer season in college for the girls is in the fall and I actually dropped into black ops. Fitness, which is where I've coached, for the girls is in the fall and I actually dropped into black ops fitness, which is where I've coached for the past four years, and I went. I had a similar relationship with someone there. I went, I did a class and I was like this is awesome. Like this made me feel like an athlete again. Like this gave me that purpose.
Speaker 2:And that's when I realized that, like so athletics and fitness is not just about getting in good shape, it's not just about how your body looks. It's about, like, finding your own purpose, finding your own self, like it can help people get out of the nastiest of situations just by moving your body for your health. My entire mindset changed. I came back to school, had a very crazy thing happen. I was, you know, about to sign my letter to the doctors at NYU saying that, like I'm no longer playing sports. I had a really bad ankle injury. I tore all my ankles or all my ligaments in my right ankle. So it was me signing off saying like I've done playing sports here. Any injuries after this they're not responsible for.
Speaker 2:And the lacrosse coach walked into the athletic training room and she looks at me and she was like you're Maddie, right? And I'm like yeah, and she was like, do you have any interest in playing lacrosse? And I was like wait, what? And I'm like in there with the doctor and the athletic and I'm like, sure, like why not? And like I've never played lacrosse in my life. And just like that I was on a division one lacrosse roster and that whole process, like I met like a whole new team of girls like the soccer and lacrosse team, kind of butt heads.
Speaker 2:So I was kind of the leader for going and playing lacrosse, but in that process it just like showed me more and more like how, like fitness, sport and getting better like goes beyond just playing soccer. Like the group of girls I met, the relationships I made like I learned about like why they play the sport they play, and I found that I wasn't the only one that was like struggling about thinking about, like after college, what they were going to do. And I made a lot of friends literally just through like taking them through workouts, like when we had days off, and what lit the fire in me to be like all right, like you know, everyone needs fitness and health outside of like, even like what sport they play.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Such a bigger role, and that's kind of how that happened.
Speaker 1:I love that, just like naturally developing. You know, yeah, popping up, uh naturally developing into like that, uh into like a new identity. You know so many people I've talked to have felt that exact same thing, like when you play your last game. You're like, damn, is this over for good, like, and it's like you're losing a community and you never want that to happen. So one thing I just heard right there is like sounds like you are, have always been a person that like cultivates and really develops community. You know, like you're the forefront of it. So tell me, how did you feel when you first heard about CrossFit and saw kind of the programming, like from the game side to what you see in affiliates and all that um, as someone with the background and like strength?
Speaker 2:conditioning and that side of exercising, yeah. So, um, in all honesty, when I first learned about CrossFit, I like I said I have my CSCS worth of the NCAA for a little while as a strength coach and I literally thought CrossFit was like Satan, like I was like I don't know what they're doing. Like this volume's too high. These people are going to get hurt. This is stupid. I don't know why they're doing it. And then, just after a while, I like started to see so many people I knew doing CrossFit and they looked the way I wanted to look and they just seemed so like in love with fitness and I was just like maybe I'll try it, like I'll give it a try.
Speaker 2:And and during that time, because CrossFit wasn't always as heavy with like accessory work at least in my opinion, like they definitely have like moved the needle a lot closer to like actual sports performance training, which I think is really awesome, and I started doing it and I was like you know what?
Speaker 2:Like this is fun, and like you're not gonna get hurt, like you could get hurt going into a planet fitness and using a Smith machine if you use it wrong, like you could get hurt doing anything, and that's kind of what I found. Like, yeah, like I could get hurt doing this. I could also get hurt bringing in my groceries. So it just changed my opinion. I'm like, no, this is a sport, this is cool stuff, and the people that are behind the sport are intelligent, they have knowledge of the body and why shouldn't anyone want to try it? Why do they get so much hate? And then after that I just kind of fell in love with it and now I train CrossFit athletes, but I also train everyday people that don't want to do CrossFit at all and I'm like, hey, that's okay.
Speaker 1:Like everybody has their own.
Speaker 2:But I'm definitely, I would say, like a CrossFit convert, like I was totally against it, like at all all means. Um, I like I love doing Olympic lifts and I remember I was working at Edge Fitness and Gia O'Keefe, who is the owner of CrossFit Diamond State, she came up up to me I was doing like overhead squats and she's like do you do CrossFit? And I was like no, she's like I see you in here every day and I think you would really like CrossFit. And she's actually the reason I went and got my CrossFit level one and fell in love with it.
Speaker 1:Hell, yeah, I mean, so many people are had any kind of dangerousness, then life would be so boring. But in a CrossFit class you're supposed to be under the watchful eye of experts and professional coaching, and I think that CrossFit has at least tried to make that the most accessible. One of their biggest things is, unlike so many other brands, they've made a thriving education platform. You know, with the CrossFit level one, level two and then the higher education levels of the three and four. So they have made a pathway for people to have safe, safe and accessible CrossFit classes. You know, so that's always good. And then, on the other side, for people that are training for a sport hey, you're training for a sport.
Speaker 1:What's going to happen is what's going to happen you just talked about. When you were in college. You had to sign off on a contract that said that these people were no longer liable for your body safety. You know that's what every semi-professional and professional athlete goes through. I mean, you go run a marathon, you run the risk of your body completely shutting down as that's, as that's happening. So that's just what's going to happen, especially on the training side.
Speaker 1:I love what you said about accessory work, which is semi a buzzword now because for a lot of athletes they can just call it training right for 20 years ago, but now we got to label everything is becoming more of a staple in people's training programs. I think what happened is that more intelligent people started programming the tests more like around 10 years ago, and so the things that you had to do to become better and be overall more of an athlete had to become more diverse. You know like you had to go train like people that were training to just be able to accomplish like a variety of different tasks, and so just doing your back swats or your back cons every day it wasn't going to be enough. You had to address specifically what was your ailments, whatages did you have in your chain and all those different things. So that's been great to naturally watch from the inside and from the outside of the games programming overall.
Speaker 1:Tell me about your beginnings in coaching CrossFit classes and programming for CrossFit athletes. How did that go for you in the beginning? What was your like methods of approaching that stuff?
Speaker 2:So I technically have never coached a CrossFit class. So my previous job they did some CrossFit style training but like they did the lower risk, higher reward movement. So like there wasn't like ring gymnastics, there wasn't squat snatches, there were some hang snatches, some power snatches. So I did the programming for the entire gym and the owner of the gym was very military background and like he loved that about his workouts, like he loved grunt work and he was like listen, like I'll let you program some stuff that's more CrossFit-y, but like I want to keep the integrity of my community to be like not as CrossFit. So basically I would program out in like eight weeks strength cycles. We would do all of the like accessory lifts to help with like power cleans and snatches AKA you know how if you get better in like your bench press and your front squat, it's going to translate over to your power clean, same thing back squat with snatch. And we would program in some of the Olympic lifts like power snatches, hang, power snatches, cleans into the Metcons. Now, over that time of being.
Speaker 1:And for all the people out there like, just because that's not, they don't call it a CrossFit class, Like that's how people work out. I don't know if you guys know that that's how people have worked out for decades.
Speaker 2:It's just not deemed a CrossFit gym. But in that process we would basically have a strength lift in the beginning of class, metcon in the middle and then your accessory work at the end. Now the accessory work that I would program for our general population was more so injury prevention than anything else would program for our general population was more so injury prevention than anything else my gym has. A bulk of the community is from like ages like 40 to 60 years old. We don't have a ton of super young athletes. So there was a lot of like knee prehabilitation, shoulder work. It wasn't as much about like getting them like stronger through accessory, it was about preventing future injury.
Speaker 2:And over the process of doing that I programmed for about two years in my old gym and then I started realizing like Ooh, I want to do like, I want to actually program for CrossFit athletes Like I want to like like on a sport level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started my own track at the gym called the competitor program and it was for athletes at the gym that literally wanted to go out and compete in CrossFit comps and they wanted to feel prepared to do that. When I started the competitor program and I got to like actually program people to get better at CrossFit as a sport, that's when I really fell in love with it. I was like this is so dynamic, it's so fun to program for, and just like seeing people do challenging things and get better at it. And then being able to like go to a competition and watch one of your athletes and be like that's my athlete, like they followed what I said and like they might not win on everything, but when they do win on some things it's like you feel like you just did what they did, like it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of how I found that like I really want to seriously program for CrossFit and that's kind of where I'm at now.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah.
Speaker 2:So I did that for a while. I just started to feel so part of the competitor track that I was doing. My agreement with my boss at the time was that it wasn't going to compete with regular class programming, so I could only really program them for Friday and Saturday. Fridays was open gym at the gym all day, so they would have like a full program by Friday and then Saturday we would have a competitor specific class after our group class and, um, I would make it lower volume so that they could do the group class and then come work with me after. And I did it really religiously for like a year.
Speaker 2:And then I got to a point where I was like I I can't get these athletes like where they need to go unless I can work with them like six days a week.
Speaker 2:Like there's so many when you want to get good at CrossFit, like there's just so many things you need to be working on over and over again and like progressive overload in order to get better at skills. Specifically and that was the biggest thing they all lacked was skills and gymnastics. And I got to the point where I was like you know, how can I, how can I do this on a bigger scale and I was kind of like teetering with this idea of like going off on my own. You know my my entire life as a strength coach, like everyone's always told me, like if you did something by yourself you'd be really successful and I've just always wanted to. You know, I wanted to play it safe, like I wanted to have job security, I wanted to have a set income, and just the idea of doing something on my own Like it was scary and I honestly didn't have the funds to do it.
Speaker 2:Like it's not, like I have all this money in the bank and I could go out off on my own and like support myself on an income for so many months, right an income for so many months Then about, I want to say, in January of this year I was like you know what, I'm going to try to start a side business where I can make some more money and maybe I can go off of my salary, my job, go to hourly still coach here but not be as involved, and just kind of slowly start to tinker my way into building my own business. And over time, like I started to realize, as I was like advertising for it, like there was a lot more people that wanted to work with me than I expected and I was realizing, like in order to give them the attention I wanted to, like I had to do that full time. So about two, three weeks ago now I took the jump and I quit my full time job and right now I'm working with about eight clients. We have, you know, 12 week programs we're working through and as soon as I got those first eight clients, I then also realized the program is, you know, training regimens. So I write them training regimens based off of their ability to train, so like if it's a CrossFit athlete and they can afford to be in the gym six days a week and they can do four hour sessions split in a double, then like I'll program for that.
Speaker 2:I also have athletes. There are clients I work with that have never lifted in their lives, who are working out at home with a dumbbell. So I work with all different spectrums of clients and I quickly realized, you know, I do the training regimen. There's also mindset stuff that goes into it as well, which has to do with weekly calls like this. And then there's a nutrition piece and I started, you know, programming for everybody, doing everyone's nutrition, doing the calls, and I was like a weekend. I was like I need help, like I can't. I can't give my all to these clients the way I've wanted to over the past year with my competitor clients if I don't have help. So I quickly decided to hire a coach to come in, a nutrition coach Steph McConnell Well, now Steph Swiatek. She is one of the owners of CrossFit Reconstructed. She is phenomenal as an athlete, a person has a great story and she's my nutrition coach now.
Speaker 2:So her and I call it two-to-one coaching because each of our clients has two coaches to one client. So we do bi-weekly calls. So I meet with them on Mondays and Tuesdays for about 45 minutes just to talk through the workouts, talk through like mindset stuff. Like you know, we're trying to ignite in these people that are like new to fitness that, like you know, like fitness doesn't always have to be like really hard and, like you know, you're doing things that like make you want to work harder.
Speaker 2:It's about like them knowing why they're doing the things they're doing and like programming and understanding why I'm having them do certain movements and how it's going to help them play with their kids. Like that's kind of one aspect of it. And then you know, when I'm talking to my CrossFit athletes it's like all right, like we're going to sign up for an Indy comp. What comp are we going to do? How are we going to prepare for it, what's our timeline like and what are our limiters? So one of my athletes obviously went through quarterfinals and I coached her through every single workout, was right next to her and we learned a lot about, like her limiting factors and she's got a big comp coming up in June her first RX comp and at battle by the bay. So we're training hard for that and I'm excited to see where that goes.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so I have all different spectrums of clients.
Speaker 2:You know, like I said, people have never lifted in their lives and CrossFit athletes. And then I brought step on and kind of the premise of the vault group is I named it the vault group because it's a vault of information. You know, I've been a strength coach for about five, six years now across many different spectrums of the strength conditioning industry and I've learned a ton over that and I don't want my program to be like me giving my clients like secrets, like it's really about, like them having access to my vault of information and like I want them to learn. Like a big part of how I program for my clients is like I write a ton of notes on their workouts. Like this is why you're doing this, this is the stimulus I want you to feel, this is the intent of the movement. Like these are the muscles being worked, because I want them to come out of this 12-week program being like man, like I really want to work on, like getting my quad stronger, and I know exactly how to do that because Maddie showed me.
Speaker 2:So, it's really like a part like trainer, client, client, but also like teacher, student. Like I want them to like graduate the program with all of this knowledge that I can possibly give to them so that they never have to work with someone ever again. Like they handle themselves. Now with my CrossFit athletes it's a little different because obviously, like I want to coach them until they get to the level they want to go to. But overall, like the program is very education based and that's what I think is special about it. Like it's not about, you know, most trainers. They try to like keep their clients as long as they possibly can because it's income and I'm like, yeah, I want that income, but I don't like I want you to spend three months with me and then go out in the world and be like, hey, I'm super independent of a trainer right now. Like I feel safe when I'm doing movements, like I know how to scale things, I know how to get better and like if you want to go work with her, to go work with her. So it's more so, just like a short term, like educate people, get them to where they want to be, get them their results and then like hope they send more people my way. So that's kind of the premise.
Speaker 2:And then the people that I hire with the vault group, they've got to have like a special story. You know I don't want to just hire any coach that you know post on Instagram and like they might look nice and have the body and you know they post the workouts they're doing. But like I'm very, I'm just, I just like knowing people's story and I know that I have a story. Everybody has a story and in today's world it's very easy to you know, see how someone looks and just like make assumptions. And one of the things I pride myself in is I like to be very vulnerable on my social media and to my clients and like I want people like that by my side, like I want to be able to get on a zoom call with a client as a prospect call and then feel like they've known me their whole lives. And that's the people that I bring in under me to work for the vault group.
Speaker 2:Steph has a fantastic story. She went through like hell to get to where she is now, honestly, and she's not my story to tell. But that's a huge reason why I have her working with me, because I just the woman that she is and the hard work and dedication that came from her like pulling herself out of such a low point to be at such a high, and like the CrossFit Masters division is just inspiring. And you know that's I want to inspire people Like I don't want people coming to work with me just because they want to look good, like I want them to work with me because they want to change their life, like they want their mindset changed, they want to walk away from this feeling like the best version of themselves.
Speaker 2:And that's kind of why I decided to start the, why I'm doing everything I'm doing now and taking this big risk, because I think that, you know, I might not, you know, benefit a ton financially, but I think the amount of people I'm going to help by not limiting myself to four walls of a gym is just going to be, you know, exponential. Like I, it's infinite. I don't think I'll ever stop. And that's what I think I've been missing in terms of fulfillment is just being able to reach people that aren't walking in a door. So that's kind of why I decided to do it.
Speaker 1:I love it. I laugh when you said you're not just selling secrets, because one thing I hate is the hack industry. Like, oh, I'm selling the hacks to be able to do this. It's like, bro, let me tell you something the ways that you're going to get stronger and faster have not changed in the past 150 years. The things that worked then will work now and there is a ton of different methods to approach that, but they're all kind of doing the same thing, you know, like so, with the hack industry, and that's going to apply to if you're trying to strength, train, to become a competitive athlete, or if you're just trying to get healthy, if you're on the sick side trying trying to get healthy, like those methods. There's a ton out there. There's a bunch of information like stop trying to gatekeep it. That's what people are doing when they're, when they're selling hacks, like to uh, to cheat it, like uh. So I love the informational side and educational side of of the vault group and trying to empower people to go just live amazing lives.
Speaker 2:You know it sounds like that's what the root of it all is. Yeah, 100%. And honestly, that's the biggest reason I decided to make it a 12-week program is because I think our society has glorified instant gratification. I mean, everything our society revolves around is like getting things quickly, like we were able to schedule this podcast no problem and shoot it on a camera, like I didn't have to drive anywhere. I didn't have to drive anywhere.
Speaker 1:I didn't have to have four apps for that reason Exactly.
Speaker 2:You know all those apps were developed to make it easier.
Speaker 2:Like we're living in a world where, like, everything is easy and, like most solutions like you have access to right away, like to your basic issues. And for me, I wanted to make it a 12 week or three month commitment because, like anything in fitness is a long haul and I think there's programs out there that's like four weeks to lean out and get your summer body. I'm like, yeah, four weeks for them to put you in like a severe caloric deficit where your entire metabolism is jacked up and you come out looking great for a week and then double on the weight down the road, like it's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're going to have a crappy 12 weeks after that, you know exactly so kind of rebuild back after that. One thing I've really learned is I, as I've gotten older, like dude four weeks ago by so fast. A month is like that and you could either feel so accomplished at the end of that month or be like dude.
Speaker 2:I didn't get any of the stuff done that I want to this month, like yeah listen, like, you sign up for these 12 weeks and my entire life is going to revolve around you for that time. So you decide how you want to use me. Do you want to use me to get the most out of it and make the biggest possible gains in that period of time? Like, sure. Or like do you really want to spend money for three months and I'm full access to you and you don't use it at all? Like we all have 20, the same 24 hours in a day? How are you going to use yours?
Speaker 2:And that's part of when I get clients. Well, when clients inquire, I don't just let anyone join the program. Like I have discovery calls with them and I really go over like hey, this is what this is Like, this is a huge opportunity for you. But like you gotta be ready to go Cause. Like I'm going to give you all I got. Like I'm answering your messages 24 seven. Like you've got me.
Speaker 2:I'm basically like your, like guardian that's always over your shoulder even though I'm not there and um that's. But like that's what I just love. Like I love being there to support people. I know what it feels like to be super alone and I never want anyone to feel that way, even if they know nothing about me. I just want people to feel like I'm in their corner for 12 weeks and even beyond that, if it so happens that way, and that's why I love what I'm doing now. It's crazy. I've only been doing this business since I guess I started taking clients last month and I'm just like this is the most fulfilled I've ever felt doing anything relating to athletics or fitness at all, and it has nothing to do with my progress, which is really.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So you were talking about you have kind of a three-headed monster for the group, for your business, right, the vault group on one side you're working with, like maybe small group here, people on a transformative journey, whether it be physically, emotionally, spiritually, and then also the nutrition side, like you're going to have different coaches going to be able to work with them. Competitive athlete side. Another side that we've been talking about is, like I guess we could call it larger group affiliate, not even CrossFit gym, like regular gym programming that you're going to do on a macro scale of that and we heard already you have a bunch of years of experience with that. Right, you have programmed for strength conditioning, have programmed for a full gym.
Speaker 1:Um, what, what can people expect from that? We talked about it a little bit, uh, last night with hey. It might look a little bit different than what you're regularly used to Accessory work. First, metcon strength what can people expect with that If anyone's out there listening maybe opening a gym and they don't know how to program, or if they want a little bit of help with it, what do you offer with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when you're programming, obviously for a larger population, you can't be as specific with how you want things done. So the way I look at it is I, every day, is going to start with your strength lift, your major lift, so like your back squats, your bench, whatever you choose. I do accessory work after strength and I choose to do that because it is just important, if not more important than what happens in the Metcon.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people put so much emphasis on like oh, I had the hardest Metcon today. Blah, blah, blah. Like all they care about is like doing the tough thing and then they complain because you know they've gone like a whole year and they could still only do two bar muscle-ups and they don't understand why and I think a lot of people. There's all this like glorification behind skills progressions right now, like talking about different bar muscle up progressions, like using like bands and pvc pipes, and it's like it goes back to the foundation of crossfit, which is like, if you can't do it strict, yeah, really introduce kipping yeah you get to the point where you can do things strict by working on the muscle groups that are responsible yeah, the answers always get stronger.
Speaker 1:That's always the answer.
Speaker 2:Exactly so I like to do my major lift, which is, you know, a strength piece, the accessory work, which is strength as well, more focused on, like hypertrophy, isolating small muscle groups. Um, a lot of what I'm going to program for my large group is going to be like grip and pulling strength, because everybody knows, like CrossFit is extremely grip dominant and extremely dominant. Like how many times did we hinge in the open?
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, we. It's as a person that programs for like competitions. It's like sometimes I'm like testing myself to add a new, a pushing element into it. You know like, how can I add it to make it at least 33% pushing? You know, Right, it's incredible.
Speaker 2:It obviously is and, in the grand scheme of things, when you look at competitions, when you look at the games, it's like if you're not a strong pulling athlete, you're not going to be at the top run.
Speaker 2:For sure so a lot of my accessory work is around pulling body weight, like different chin-up variations, pull-up variations, different types of rows and then obviously the grip strength as well. So I do accessory work on that and then I do a lot of functional core accessory work and that'll kind of alternate day to day. So one day you'll have like pulling grip strength, the next day you might have functional core and some sort of like shoulder um, some sort of pressing. You know that's important as well.
Speaker 1:But it'll alternate accessory between those two things if you're crossing around there listening like, I have the hack for you right now. You need two things to get to the higher level. You need to be able to pull strong, like either hold on to a pull-up bar for a really long time, and then you also need a thick trunk yeah, that is that is the two things you need.
Speaker 1:If you don't have those two things, you are not going to the semi-finals. You may be a good quarterfinals athlete, but like that's just what it is. If you look at the top, the podium, for the past 10 years, that's the things they could do. You know, like they have that sturdy midline and then they also have the ability to pull a lot.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah absolutely, and that's that's kind of where the foundation of what I program for accessory comes from. And then the Metcons. They're not your basic Metcons, so I like to kind of rely on my CSCS a little bit on this and like how I learn strength and conditioning, which is that like it has to be sports specific, there has to be a period of time in like a macro training cycle. So if you're programming like a three month training cycle, it's not always going to be sports specific Metcons until you're trying to be at peak performance, to perform in an event, something like the CrossFit Open, when you're working with a large population. So I program out, I start with like a general strength phase and then I'll go into like a hypertrophy phase and that's what my Metcons show. So my Metcons I don't name them names. You know I'm not fun, I know like I'm not naming them after, like movies and stuff, but I do.
Speaker 2:I let my clientele, my members of my program, know, like what this Metcon is meant to get for the stimulus. So like it might be lower body endurance, it might be pushing endurance, it might be, you know, like overall aerobic capacity. So, for example, my first day of the programming that I have a bunch of people that are going to trial. It's a lower body endurance Metcon. You know it's a combination of doing dumbbell thrusters, row calories into deadlifts and it's quick, short bursts and it's like you got to kind of go unbroken or bust. But the stimulus is that we're training that lower body endurance. Now, once you get closer to like the open, you're going to see more open, specific exercises.
Speaker 1:so maybe it's not just training lower body endurance but it's going to mimic more of a crossfit style workout, which is just like a complementary style of movement patterns, you know yeah, yeah, exactly or things that commonly appear in crossfit, like they just like to put certain things together, like whether it be like a dumbbell snatch and a total bar, you know, so that full pull from the floor to all the way overhead, like that full range of motion plus folded at the midline, you know, like that's just something that you can usually usually like see or like a double hinge you know, like a and that would be like the CrossFit, like the sports specific Metcon.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I just I don't, I don't incorporate them until we're ramping up, because I think that volume is super important. I think that getting an athlete to the peak time at the right time is super important and not something a ton of programs really take into account. So that's kind of you know the thought process behind. You know the strength accessory and, of course, how I program out the Metcons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's for everyone out there listening again. Like no strength conditioning coach would program for the athletes for them to do like 150 wall balls and 150 burpee box flip overs, like, unless they were going to do CrossFit, like that would just be like, oh, did you get bored to this day when you wrote my workout?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no thought into this, whatsoever. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It makes sense as a test, you know, but it does not make sense as a training piece for 95% of any kind of other athlete, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like you do honestly, like if your coach is testing you every day, like you might want to get a new coach, like that kind of shows. They don't know you well as an athlete. Like if they're like if they're just making up stuff to see how you do. It's like they don't know what your limiters are. Now, obviously I'm working with a large group so like I don't know I can't sit there and program for a specific limiter. But I know the sport and I know what you can expect from the sport. So that's kind of my time on my basis.
Speaker 1:And then you have to put in the intensity that you want for them, like we're talking about with the notes that you provide for the stimulus and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:There's so much that goes into the body and performance, like it's not just like the workouts that you do and, honestly, it's not just the way you eat. Like it's it's starting to become a big thing to focus on recovery, but like recovery is so important, not just for your central nervous system, not just for your muscle central nervous system. Yeah, it is a very explosive like dynamic sport and like it fries your central nervous system. That's why after competitions, like sometimes I can't even think straight, like my body's tired but I'm like my I can't process like normal thoughts, I like can't speak the english language. Second thing that doesn't happen, but like kind of it's like it shocks the system, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally hear that. So, Matt, now that you've broke it all down to me, like, tell me, what are you hungry for next?
Speaker 2:What's really driving you right now? Honestly, I just want to cultivate a group like a community of athletes in the tri-state area that like almost train together virtually. I think that'd be so dope. I think, especially, you know, in Delaware there's there's a lot of really good athletes, but they never meet each other, they never compare themselves to each other until the open. And I think something really cool that um Dallin Pepper actually did this year was he got, like other elite athletes, to do the quarterfinals workouts like in the same room, like everyone's always like kind of smoke screening, like all the big athletes. That's like how their scores went and they were like no, like this is what it is like.
Speaker 2:We're gonna go head to head and it is right and I just think it would be so cool to cultivate like that sort of environment in the tri-state area with all like the top level athletes, like we can all challenge each other and get better together. So like we're not just seeing each other in competition, but like we're seeing each other and get better together. So like we're not just seeing each other in competition, but like we're seeing each other via training, via our results and like pushing yourself that way. Like I think the big reason everybody craves the open. I know this is why I crave it.
Speaker 2:I create the open and quarterfinals because I want to see where I stack up. Like I know I'm working my ass off at the gym, I know I'm doing everything my coach says I'm eating right, I'm recovering, I'm doing all the right things, but I have to wait a whole year to see where I stack up against people that I see in a competition, you know, two, three times a year. So I think it'd be really, really cool, specifically with the large group, to cultivate like some of the best athletes all following the same programming, just like getting fueled by looking at the leaderboard every day. I think that'd be awesome.
Speaker 2:That's kind of where I'm going with that, and my big, big dream, like far reaching dream with the bulk group is I want to get to the point where you know I got a lot of clients institution, whether it's like a Pilates studio, yoga studio, crossfit gym, like whatever they're into, Because I think that a huge reason why I'm where I am today is because I walked into a CrossFit style gym, but I don't think that happens to everybody.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of collegiate athletes get lost and it's true. I mean, you'll see college athletes and, like some of them, they get out of school and they look the same, they even get more fit, and the other half it's like it goes downhill quickly. So for me, that's that's my overreaching dream is I want to partner with the NCAA, I want to have a nonprofit and I want collegiate athletes to come out of school and, yeah, you might not be an athlete anymore, but you're going to get to do an internship at a place where you get to see a ton of adults that were never athletes in their lives and they feel like just as much of an athlete as you were, and you can continue that too.
Speaker 2:So, that's kind of my big dream.
Speaker 1:Help them transition with finding their next identity, just like you struggle with back in the past.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Well, man, this has been a great conversation. Like I said, like I'm fired up now, like I actually have, I'm going to do some of my accessory work from tomorrow, today Now that'll help me not go like super overboard there.
Speaker 1:I got to go do something. Now I've got like a 45 minutes by the time I get to the gym in between that and my next client. So I'm going to hit hit up some accessory work. We'll dogs out there listening. We'll get all the contact information where you can find Maddie at the Vault group and all that access stuff, maybe even a link to the trial for you guys in the show notes so you can continue the conversation on like that. Maddie, do you have anything else to drop on the people at the end of the episode?
Speaker 2:Golly. Well, only thing I think I could drop on everybody is just like whatever you're going through, if it's difficult, you're having a hard time, you're not alone, and if you need someone that wants to help you through it, I'm here for you. And if you are hesitant to start your fitness journey, this is your sign to start it now.
Speaker 1:Boom. This is your sign. Oh, and I want to say at the end of the episode shout out to Steph. Mcconnell, how do you say her her new last name now? I've met her at the master's fitness collective two years ago. Awesome athlete, super cool. To judge, she's one of the only people that really suffered and crushed. The workout gave a little smile at the end of it as she was walking off the floor, so shout out to her dogs Peace.