Sean: 00:00 – Hi everybody and welcome to another edition of Two-Brain Radio with Sean Woodland. On today’s episode, I speak with former NHL player and current CrossFit coach Scott Thornton. Two-Brain Radio with Sean Woodland is brought to you by Two-Brain Business. Learn more about creating your Perfect day as an entrepreneur, you can book a call with a mentor at twobrainbusiness.com. Scott Thornton spent 18 years in the National Hockey League after he was drafted third overall by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1989 entry draft. Thornton played nearly 1,000 regular season games during his career. He spent time with the Leafs, the Edmonton Oilers, Montreal Canadians, Dallas Stars, San Jose Sharks, and the Los Angeles Kings. We talk about his career in the NHL and how his lifelong love of fitness led him to CrossFit. Thanks for listening everybody.
Sean: 00:59 – Scott, thanks so much for joining me. How are you doing man?
Scott: 01:03 – I’m doing fantastic. Just to enjoying some nice warm weather out here in Ontario. It was a long, wet spring for us. So now we’ve got some sunshine and just enjoying life.
Sean: 01:14 – Yeah. What’s it like to have seasons? We don’t get a lot of that in California as you know.
Scott: 01:20 – I’ll tell ya now, it’s overrated. I lived in California for almost nine years and I thought I missed the snow and all of that novelty kind of wore off about a year into my retirement back here. I would trade it for California in a second.
Sean: 01:38 – Yeah, it’s nice. You know, not having to shovel snow. You went third overall to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1989. What was that moment like for you?
Scott: 01:50 – It was pretty surreal. We, you know, growing up in Ontario, I grew up in London, Ontario, just a two-hour drive from Toronto. So it was, you know, that was my team and you know, coming up, I had three older brothers that all played hockey and I just—it’s quite different now, where kids expect to go play in the NHL. I never did. I was playing junior hockey and still didn’t really think about playing in the NHL. I was thinking about what university I was going to go to and what career choices I’m going to make. And it was a big surprise to get drafted and especially getting drafted to Toronto. It was incredible. And the old Toronto Maple Leaf Gardens was still around when I was drafted, which is an absolute museum of a place back in the day with such history and all the guys that have played there. And so it was amazing; very, very intimidating to go into that old building and to be drafted to such a recognized organization. But what an honor and a thrill.
Sean: 02:56 – When that team drafts you, there are obviously a lot of expectations that come with that in that market. How did you deal with that pressure?
Scott: 03:12 – Not very well. It was hard. I was a little bit kind of naive to all the pressure that would surround being a high draft pick in the first round and then playing in that city. And back then there really wasn’t the support system in place the way it is now. You know, first rounders, they usually get billeted by a family if not live with a veteran on the team one of the management team would bring them in. You know, Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh. I mean he lived with Mario Lemieux for I think six years before he finally got a place on his own. I was quite different. I lived in a hotel for almost six months, about two blocks away from Maple Leaf Gardens. And you know, as a 19-year-old, I didn’t know how to cook or anything, and didn’t have the facility to cook and do that kind of stuff. So you’re eating in crappy restaurants and not to discredit some of the veterans on the team, there were some really strong vets on the team that kinda took me under their wing, but overall it was just getting kind of tossed into the deep end and just the emotional roller coasters and I’ve told people many times, it probably took me three or four years to come around from that, you know, before I finally realized who I was going to be and what kind of player I was going to be and regained some of that confidence lost.
Sean: 04:44 – What was your sort of welcome to the NHL moment?
Speaker 4: 04:49 – Oh gosh. Geez, that’s a tough one. I mean, there’s a few standout things that were not necessarily on the ice, but I remember walking into my first training camp, Day 1 for physicals and there was a guy on our team named Al Iafrate, who was big, big, big defenseman. 6’4, he probably weighed 245 pounds. Back then everyone was wearing shorty shorts, right, so he had these great big legs hanging out the bottom of his shorts and he smoked. He had a cigarette over the top of each ear and he was shirtless and he was a super hairy guy. And he was standing outside the locker room talking to somebody as I walked down the hall towards the dressing room and he was the first guy that I saw and I immediately was like, “Oh shit. Is everybody like this?” I’m never going to survive in this league. That guy’s an animal. And of course Al turned out to be a good friend, super soft spoken guy and amazing. And not everybody’s built like Al Iafrate, but that was a scary moment for me and you know a number of things. I mean, you were learning constantly. Like every day you’re picking up things that you just go, OK, wow, I never thought about that before. And, you know, certain tricks on the ice the guys would teach you and stepping on your feet on face-offs, the insider things, you know, I had a guy stomp on my foot and cut all my laces on my skate right as the opening puck drops. Of course you kinda gotta hobble to the bench and re-lace your skate. And I’m just like, man, that was a brilliant move. That learning lasted 18 years. I was still learning stuff like that even when I was retiring.
Sean: 06:46 – A lot of people don’t, I mean, well the vast majority of people in this world, don’t have an opportunity to play a sport at the highest level possible. Your regular season career, I think you played nearly a thousand regular season games. What do you remember most about your time in the NHL?
Scott: 07:05 – I remember teammates, obviously I do remember hockey moments as well, but I remember the friends that I made, I remember arenas that I played in, you know, the best arenas, and I was really fortunate to play—I’m old enough that I played a lot of the old original buildings. And you know, Chicago Stadium for me was the best arena in the sport, super loud and really sad to see that building go. You know, things like that. The old Odd and Buffalo, and Maple Leaf Gardens of course, and Montreal Forum. So I remember all those buildings very vividly. You know, I remember cockroaches running through our equipment in Chicago in the dressing room. But to me that was all like character. That was just great stories to tell. On the ice, I remember playing in the Stanley Cup finals with Dallas and unfortunately I lost in game six, but you know, what an amazing playoff run. Another big highlight for me was having the opportunity to play with my cousin Joe in San Jose. Which was spectacular for us as the entire Thornton family, it was a big thrill. And getting to know him as a peer. You know he’s 10 years younger than me, so, you know, I left home at the age of 16 to go pursue hockey. And so Joe was, you know, Baby Joe kind of running around, so to connect with him, you know, 10, 11 years later after that was a lot of fun and could be probably one of the highlights of my career
Sean: 08:46 – And he’s still going, I mean, the guy’s a legend here in San Jose. What is keeping him able to perform at still a really high level?
Scott: 08:56 – Just the love of the game. I mean he is a kid at heart and I just actually went and golfed with him a couple of weeks ago up here and he’s back home for a few weeks and had a great conversation. He’s feeling healthy and he had some knee issues over the last couple of years that everybody knows about and he’s feeling great. His off-season training’s going really well. You know, he’s 40 years old, just turned 40, and he acts like he’s 20
. He’s the biggest kid in the locker room and that’s what keeps him going. And you know, he’s well aware that when you retire you can’t get it back. So you go as long as we can. And we have the rest of our lives after retiring to go and play and travel and do what you want to do. But you know, play as long as you’ve still got the fire in you and then just keep playing.
Sean: 09:50 – What did fitness look like for you during your time as a professional hockey player?
Scott: 09:57 – Jeez, it changed dramatically. We were, you know, in the beginning, bench press was a fitness test. You know, we did vertical jump test, VO2 testing, which I still think they do, was kinda your marker I guess. Push-ups, sit- ups, like the very basics, and you know, everything was I think more cardio based and less strength biased. And so for me that evolved a lot. Probably 10 years into my career, you know, where half the team would be out of shape in training camp it became like one or two guys. And then towards the end of my career, I mean, everybody was super fit. Everybody had personal trainers in the summer doing their own programming and you know, Olympic lifting started to really come in, you know, I would say early 2000s we started to see more and more guys doing some power cleans and things like that. Squatting has always been around, but it became more explosive and I had a big eye-opener. I broke my wrist in a fight in LA day late in my career. And typically—I was out for nine weeks and typically with an extension like that I would bury myself on treadmills and bikes and things like that. And I had a strength coach who said, listen, let me just take you under my wing. And we did a lot more strength work and less cardio. I wasn’t doing like heavy back squats, but I was lunging and heavy step-ups and bounding and plyo boards and things like that. And I came back after nine weeks, it’s the best they ever felt. And man, it was like, holy shit, where were you the last 18 years? I’ve been kind of doing this all wrong for so many years. Now I know what I know, I mean I’ve had nine shoulder operations, you know, 15 operations, surgeries total. And I just wonder how many could have been prevented by better preparation, better training methodology.
Sean: 12:10 – What possessed a man of your size to do an Ironman?
Scott: 12:16 – There’s a bit of a story behind that actually. I was away at the World Junior Championships playing for Team Canada back when I was, back in 1991, and that happens through the Christmas holidays. And so everybody’s a little bit depressed and you’re down and out. And New Year’s Eve we had a big team gathering and a movie showing. And so our team psychologist, sports psychologist guy, he played a movie about Ironman and it was in particular, it was about the Hoyt family, which I don’t know if you’re aware of that, the son has cerebral palsy and the father has done I think 25 or 30 years, maybe even longer of Ironman with his son. So he swims with, you know, he drags his son in a boat, puts him on the handlebars in a buggy when he rides his bike. And then he pushes him in the cart when he runs. And so of course we’re all young kids. We’re missing family, everyone’s crying, you know, it was emotional and I was really drawn to the sport, not for the finisher, like the early finishers, but for the midnight finishers. I just saw the passion and you know, the hurt and the suffer in those people that had lifelong goals. And ever since then, I always knew I was going to do one one day. And so it presented itself to me in retiring. And that was kind of the main driver for me to get into that sport.
Sean: 13:48 – How did you train for it?
Scott: 13:52 – CrossFit Endurance. I had my gym at the time up here in Collingwood and I spoke to Barrie Shepley, who is a legendary Canadian triathlon coach and still does voice for the Olympics and stuff and color commentating and that, and Barrie—first of all, Barrie said, well, we’re going over to Austria, you know, as a team to do Ironman, why don’t you come with me? And as soon as he said team, I was like, OK, I’m in. Like, even though triathlon is an individual-based sport, I was traveling with, you know, 20 or 30 other Canadians from Ontario going to do this epic event. So that was more special for me to share that with other people. But anyways, in the training we talked and obviously, I was aware of CrossFit Endurance and so I said, listen, I’m a gym owner and I still want to lift. And that’s where my passion is. And I want to test this and I want to prove to our community up here that, you know, this training works. I’m at 225 pounds, if I can represent pretty well in an Ironman, then that says a lot for our community up here, a big cycling and running community. And so that was another motivation for maybe doing it was to prove that methodology works, as if it hadn’t been proven already. But anyway, so Barrie, he struggled a little bit with how to program, but he would program me a 90-minute steady state run. And of course I wouldn’t do that. I would do some, you know, mile repeaters or like 1200-meter repeaters or some sort of a CrossFit endurance running workout. And I get a lot of running WODs during my regular training. But I still kept up all my lifting. I tell a lot of people, I actually PR’d in my deadlift two weeks before I did Ironman. And I never did a run—I never did a bike ride more than three hours and I never ran more than 90 minutes leading up to that race. And I only swam for an hour at a pool cause that’s all you have. So I went in and there was a lot of unknowns when I did the race. And I still remember Brian MacKenzie talking about muscle breakdown and as long as you have some muscle stamina, those people that are finishing late and they’re hobbling and broken, that’s not cardio base, that’s muscle stamina. And so I always kind of had in the back of my mind, as long as I’m strong, hold posture and position, I can just kind of go forever. And so that was my approach going into it.
Sean: 16:31 – How did you find CrossFit?
Scott: 16:35 – I can’t remember. I think it was based around the Spartan movie, I think the Spartan 300, and the training of those actors and somehow through like the Gym Jones stuff. And then I think I kind of found it kind of through that. Little did I know I was already doing it. I used to do circuit training, we called it, and we would do 60-minute AMRAPs, and we would do different—I would do six of them a week and we would rotate them, one strength, one stamina and one cardio. And then we’d repeat them. Right? So I’d do six of these Monday to Saturday and they were 60-minute AMRAPs and there was four of us in a group. And so you’re sort of competing with—not sort of, we were competing with each other and you know, so if my buddy’s not stopping for a drink of water, then I’m not gonna stop, because he’s not going to get a round ahead of me. And on and on. And so the power of that group training and a bit of that peer pressure really elevated my game. And I started doing that late in my career, like my last three years playing, you know, 2005 to like 2009. And then when I found CrossFit and I started doing it a bit on my own in my garage and just kind of tweaking it a little bit, I was like, hey man, I’ve been doing these AMRAP things for a while, and then of course I became fascinated by the movement as a guy that, you know, played at a high level, I understand details and you know, my next passion became how good can I move and how can I learn these things and the ability to practice. I just fell in love with the kind of details of what it was.
Sean: 18:31 – And that leads you to take your Level 1, and you took that in Edmonton.
Scott: 18:35 – I did. Yeah.
Sean: 18:37 – What did you take away from that whole experience?
Scott: 18:42 – Just knew that I want to pursue it more. I didn’t take my Level 1 with the anticipation of opening a gym. I have friends in Edmonton. I played there and I was like, oh, there’s a Level 1 going on out in Edmonton, I’ll go out and I’ll visit with some
friends and I’ll take the Level 1 just to kind of see what it’s all about. And at the time there was nothing around where I was, the closest gym was about an hour and a half away, which I would go and visit on occasion, but I was really just training out of my garage. And that grew to a bunch of buddies, it’s probably a very common story that you hear. But you know, at times on Saturdays I would have, you know, 12 people training out of my garage and I wasn’t coaching them. We were just training. So I went into the Level 1, I came back and continued on, and then I started looking for a space to train with my buddies. Like, you know, well let’s get out of my garage and let’s get a little warehouse space so we can all chip in on rent and you know, get some gear and we’ll just continue. I was just doing CrossFit.com at the time, and we’ll just continue to train. And then, you know, it kind of evolved into, well maybe I’ll open it up and I’ll get like 20 or 30 members and then that just evolved. And I found that I really enjoyed coaching. I naturally have an eye for movement cause that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life in a different sport application. But I really kind of had an eye for things and I, you know, I was big on accountability and you self-policing and you know, so there’s integrity, there’s honor in your training and honor in your movement. And that’s really what I stressed. And we created a really good vibe in the little space that we had here. And that just kind of evolved. And at that point I was just reading and studying and taking courses and just continuing to kind of grow my arsenal of knowledge as best I could. And took basically every seminar I could through CrossFit HQ and as well as a bunch of stuff on my own, and also trying to apply everything that I had learned for the last 20 years of my sport training. And a lot of my coaches that I had throughout my career, I leaned on as well for different tips and things like that. So that’s kinda how innocently it happened. I always tell people, if I had a gym in town, I would have just been a member, I probably wouldn’t have started a gym, but there was a hole here to fill and you know, the YMCA in town is good for some people, but it just wasn’t cutting it for others. And clearly our town was ready for something like that.
Sean: 21:30 – At what point did your gym stop becoming a place where you know, you and your friends worked out, and start becoming a business?
Scott: 21:40 – It was probably maybe three or four years into it. I kind of went through the same thing that others have gone through. Like about 18 months in, I had a bit of a burnout phase there where I was just like, I was on the floor from 5:30 in the morning till 8:30 at night, and you know, I’d been on the road traveling for 18 seasons and I have two kids that were one going into high school and one in grade 8 and I was like, man, I haven’t had dinner with them in like six months. And so I made a choice to bring on a partner who was one of my coaches at the time, which was great. But that was sort of where I realized, OK, this is an animal, that this isn’t a hobby job anymore, this is becoming a bit of a business here and I need to treat it more like a business. I need to put, you know, software programming, more thought into my programming for my membership. And that’s kind of what happened. And after year four, year five, we moved facilities into a bigger—we moved into 7,000 square feet. And there was a big leasehold improvement there and all that growth kind of happened, all the while I was trying to manage my family life at home.
Sean: 23:05 – You opened in 2010 and that was before CrossFit was as big as it is now. How did you sell that fitness regimen to people in your community at that time?
Scott: 23:17 – That was hard. There was nothing, as I said, there was nothing here and we’re quite removed from Toronto. I can’t remember the number. I want to say I was number 34 in Ontario and now there’s a couple of hundred, but that doesn’t matter anymore. There’s so many CrossFit gyms everywhere that people know about it. But you know, it was hard. I went to schools, I ran gym classes for every grade and elementary school right up through high school in every school in town. I was at functions like 5-k run in town and I would bring half my gym out there and we’d do the run carrying sandbags and create a little bit of awareness that way. And you know, just kind of old- school kind of hands-on marketing, just talking to people about it. I went to physio clinics and doctors and athletic therapists and I had to kind of sell them on it and tell them what it was and offer to train them, come on in and I’ll train you, I’ll show you what it’s all about. And it was a slow growth, but you know, we got there and it kinda caught on. In the beginning people were—one is they knew nothing about it, part two is they were terrified. They were terrified. They were just like, oh my God. Like, I’ve seen what the Games are, they’ve gone home and they’ve researched it and they’ve probably seen the CrossFit Games and then they were like, oh shit, this is not what I want to do. And so it was a big thing and you know, probably still continues to be a bit of a struggle for gym owners, which is to them that 99% of your members are just everyday people just trying to get fit. And so that kind of was my focus.
Sean: 25:04 – You’re getting close now to your 10-year anniversary. You obviously don’t stick around that long if you’re not doing things well. What do you think the things that your gym does really well are?
Scott: 25:17 – Community is big. I mean—first of all, I better say that I sold the gym, so I’m now just a member, Chris Stoutenburg, who runs WheelWOD and stuff like that. So he was one a Paralympian basketball player, one of my members and super passionate. And so he kind of took over for me. And then there’s a couple of other owners in there as well. But they’ve maintained the community that we started to grow. I mean, when I started, I had two things in mind. I wanted to create a locker-room atmosphere, right? I come from a team sport. I wanted it to be super fun and free of judgment from your peers, you know, and in a hockey locker room I can say and do whatever I want and none of my peers are going to judge me for it. And that’s really the environment that I wanted to create. And that was really, I guess my mission statement. And so they’ve done that. They’ve made it a fun place to be. They’ve continued to raise money for charities locally and run barbecues and continue to remember who they’re training for, which is the bigger population, and not focus on, you know, trying to get one or two people to the Games. It’s about the 98% of your gym that are there to have some fun and forget about their work for an hour and stay healthy and fit. And that focus remains today. Obviously we’re in the right community to support it. It’s been great to watch that evolution.
Sean: 26:58 – You mentioned how much you enjoy coaching. How did your time in the NHL help you as a coach?
Scott: 27:06 – Communication is huge. I played with guys from every country you can imagine. A lot of language barrier there. Obviously you have coaching staff, you have training staff, medical staff, flight attendants and everything, right? Like we’re constantly learning how to communicate with all different characters and you start to, you know, you start to figure out that, hey, that’s very applicable to the real world. You know, I can find something in common with pretty much anybody in the room, you know, given the right conversation. And that connection I think is very, very important, you know, as a gym owner or coach, to have that connection with your membership and understand and legitimately caring for them, right? You’re caring for their families and their kids and their husbands or wives and how things are going at work and so to me that was kind of my biggest asset I think, as a gym owner and a coach, was just understanding how to communicate with everybody and truly care for them. And I thin
k that resonated with our group.
Sean: 28:20 – You’ve been around plenty of coaches from all kinds of different sports, from hockey to triathlon to strength and conditioning. What are the things that all really good coaches have in common regardless of what they’re coaching?
Scott: 28:36 – 100% to repeat what I just said, the ability to kind of relate or communicate with every single person on the bench. And that’s difficult. You have superstars and then you have, you know, somebody down at the far end of the bench making minimum wage. To keep the guy motivated that only gets two shifts a game, to keep him fired up the same as your superstar that’s playing 25 minutes, is a very hard skill to have. The best coaches can do that. As far as strength coaches that I’ve had, again, keeping people motivated. Some guys would get—you’re hurt, you’re banged up, you’re sore, you’re tired, fatigued, you’re sick, any number of reason or excuse not to get a bit of work done in the gym and somehow—maybe you’ve just lost five games in a row and you’re bummed out. And my best strength coaches are the ones that can listen to that and then turn that around and make it a positive experience. And two hours later you walk out of the gym feeling great. And I’ve watched guys do that. My best strength coaches did it on a day-to-day basis with 23 guys on a roster. And that’s the stuff that I really try to pick up on. All emotional based, less important about programming, more important about emotion and you know, and that’s I guess what I was trying to do in our gym.
Sean: 30:08 – What are some of the coaching moments that you’ve had that you’re the most proud of?
Scott: 30:16 – Gosh, right off the bat we had two different members lose a hundred pounds in a year. And you know, one guy, Shawn, we had a great big workout for him after 12 months in the gym and a hundred pounds and a lot of tears. You know, this guy was back skiing again on the hill. He was riding a bike around town. He’d really got his life back. And the same with, you know, we had a female as well that did the same. And you know, when they come in broken with fractures in their feet and chronic shin splints and knee issues and then 12 months later you see the way they carry themselves and the smiles on their faces and doing box jumps and running, you know, doing 400-meter running WODs and you know, that stuff to me, those are like the two highlights of that. And then I’ve also watched our teenagers grow up to be, you know, leaders in their sport. They’re off at university now, they’re team captains on varsity teams. You know, some of them are working now, graduated from school, really turned out to be great characters and I like to think I had a small bit of that influence on them in the gym every day and trying to instill the fact that you can hold yourself to a higher standard than everybody else out there. There’s nothing wrong with that, you know, don’t cheat, don’t cut corners. I don’t care what everybody else is doing. This is the way it is in here and you’re going to be a better person for it. And I’ve been around long enough now to watch those kids grow up and it’s a very, very humbling thing to watch them. But rewarding nonetheless.
Sean: 32:05 – You are now in your late forties, I think a third degree master, along with me. So welcome to that club. Actually, you’re a little ahead of me on that one. But what’s the—people ask me this all the time. What’s the key to training effectively as a master?
Scott: 32:20 – Oh gosh, stay healthy, which is a hard thing to do. Recovery. I’ve changed dramatically. I come from the world where, you know, unless I’m absolutely gutted, you know, crying in a pool of sweat on the floor, I didn’t think it was a good workout. And I’ve really evolved and I’ve really kinda cherished listening to my body, you know, understanding you know what, today’s not going to happen. You know, maybe I’m just gonna stretch or maybe I’m going to get a massage or go for a swim or something. And I like to tell people I train what’s available that day so, you know, if I’m feeling strong and then you know, I’m going to lift some weight and pull some weight and do some things like that. And if I’m beat up and sore or injured, then I’m going to evolve into something else and just, I try to sweat every day. But you know, it’s a bit of a shell game as you get older and you just want to stay healthy, smart and try to forget the way you used to train when you were 20.
Sean: 33:25 – And I mean in hockey players are notorious for, you know, tape it up, I’m going to go regardless of what the injury is. How did you kind of get rid of that mentality and I guess for lack of a better term, mature in your training?
Scott: 33:39 – It was hard. I still struggle with it truthfully cause I still want to just keep hammering away. I love the gym. I’m a gym rat by nature and I love it. I was always the last guy on the team to leave the gym every day and I’d hang with the strength coaches. They would always be my best friends on the team. So for me that’s been a real tough thing to get over. But it comes from necessity. It’s like, man, if I want to exercise till I’m 70, these are the things I have to do. And I’ve always been into yoga. So I do, you know, even when I played, I did a lot of yoga. So I continue to Yoga practice. I’ve gotten into a bit of meditation and I’ve always done, you know, hot, cold contrast all through my playing career, which is kind of gaining some momentum now. But that’s all recovery stuff that I’ve always worked on. And you know, for me, the interest comes in the just the learning phase of any sport. And I’ve recently taken up Jujitsu as a sport and it’s just, you know, continued to be the beginner mind and evolving and that keeps me engaged in what I’m doing every day.
Sean: 34:54 – Would you ever consider becoming Games-level competitor or trying to achieve that?
Scott: 34:59 – No I can’t. I’m too broken. Like I said, I’ve had 15 surgeries and the main thing holding me back is my shoulders. And so I’m pretty limited with what I can do with a barbell now. So most of my stuff any of my Olympic lifts are done with kettlebells and you know, and usually kind of single-arm stuff. So I’ve had to really evolve as kind of an athlete. I’ve had my competitive days, those are all kind of behind me now. And I think if I was healthier, it would be right up my alley to try and be more competitive. But, I don’t know. All those guys are animals, man,
Sean: 35:41 – Yeah, they are. That’s no doubt.
Scott: 35:44 – I’ve gone to the Games almost every year since about 2006, 2007 I guess. Well, first year in Carson I guess, was when I first went, was that 2007?
Sean: 36:00 – I think it was 2010.
Scott: 36:01 – Anyway. I’ve always watched the masters and the teams as well as the best, but it’s impressive. Those guys are absolute animals and you know, even the 50-plus athletes and 60-plus, they’re a special kind of breed, and my days of doing that are over. I train so I can play hard on the weekends, that’s what I train for now.
Sean: 36:30 – What does your fitness journey now you think, look like over the next five years?
Scott: 36:37 – Good question. I want to really pursue the mind-body connection more. I’m really intrigued with the meditation side and the recovery side. I continue to get better and better at. I’m continuing to explore, you know, like I watched—we had a competition last weekend up here and I watched the WheelWOD competitors doing single- arm snatch, or sorry, single-arm clean and jerk with barbells for the standing one-armed athletes. And you know, I’m looking at that going, OK, so I haven’t been able to rack a bar for a while cause I’ve had a wrist surgery, elbow surgery, shoulder surgery, all on my left side. So now I’m watching that going, oh, maybe I can do a single-arm clean and jerk, maybe I can start to evolve a little bit and get a barbell back in my hand. And so, I’m always playing, I’m always experimenting. The basics are still there. I still like doing, you know, EMO
Ms and on-the- minute stuff and you know, I still like the premise CrossFit programming, which is still at my heart, but I just continue to try and evolve and explore different movements to keep this old carcass moving, as I say.
Sean: 37:58 – Yeah, no doubt. Scott, listen, thank you so much for your time, man, I really appreciate you doing this and you know, best of luck moving forward.
Scott: 38:06 – I appreciate it. All the best, and if I get out to see the Games, I’ll stop by and say hello to you guys this year.
Sean: 38:10 – Sounds great man. Thanks a lot.
Scott: 38:13 – All right, thanks. I’ll talk to you later.
Sean: 38:16 – Big thanks to Scott Thornton for taking the time out to talk with me. If you want to follow him, he is on social media. You can find him on Instagram. He is @thorty27. Two-Brain Radio with Sean Woodland is brought to you by Two-Brain Business. To learn how to generate profit and take your business to the next level, check out “Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief” by Chris Cooper. It is available now on Amazon, and if you’d rather have someone read it to you, I will do that in the audio version, so be sure to check that out. Thank you so much for joining me, everybody. I’ll see you next time.
