Hungry Dog Barbell Podcast
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Hungry Dog Barbell Podcast
Greg Strootman
Greg Strutman shares his transformative journey from hockey player to full-time coach, discussing the struggles of identity and the beauty of coaching. The episode highlights key moments from competitions, philosophies on coaching, and upcoming events for his athletes.
• Transitioning from athlete to coach
• The role of mentorship in coaching
• Building a grassroots coaching approach
• Insights from coaching competitive athletes
• Importance of community in fitness
• Upcoming competitions and athlete goals
What's up, dogs? This week I'm joined by another great guest and full-time coach in Gregory Strutman. Greg is the coach of recent guest Evan Smith and he works for Golden Line Training. Greg and I dive into the ups and downs of building a career in coaching and also a little bit on this new season with some of the surprises and new stuff it has entailed. Have you, as a coach and athlete, or have you had any conversations with any of your athletes about the World Fitness Project, what they have going on over there? They have the pro card, but they have that competitor also and I see a lot of your people could probably be envisioning those spots. Have you had any conversations about that league yet?
Speaker 2:Not yet, just because I think we were letting everything just kind of play out first to see, like, what is actually going to happen. And, like I was just kind of saying, I saw that some got released. I think Rachel sent them over to me like a couple weeks back, so I've not had a chance to like sit down and honestly talk about like what versus what. I know a lot of like these sanctional events are kind of what is going to be on the forefront, but I don't want to talk too much on that just because I personally haven't done enough research on my underpad conversations with any of my athletes on like what versus what or like that world fitness project versus sanctionals, versus all those versus the open versus in person or in affiliate semis yet. So we're kind of starting to have a lot of those questions and conversations now, yeah, but I know the focus for us there's just so much coming up with.
Speaker 2:Like wadapalooza, tfx, fittest of the coast is kind of like the three back to back to back. Yeah, that we're like just focusing on. I know we have to have these conversations because it's going to be here before we know it, um, but yeah, I don't have much on the other one, yet other than I, from what I've seen. Um, it looks like it's gonna be kind of interesting the flow of it and like what they're trying to accomplish yeah.
Speaker 1:so, dude, tell us for the people out there listening maybe introduce you to you for the first time Like, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I coach full time with Golden Line. I do coach like part time or just a few classes per week. I'm out in Colorado so I work at CrossFit Coda Ironview. Kevin Schutz is the owner of that gym so I coach part-time there a few days a week. But yeah, I primarily full-time. Just coach with Matt Bryan and then just Goldmine training full-time.
Speaker 1:That's dope. So, dude, I see those are hockey jerseys in the background, right? Is that your athletic background Hockey? Was that your go-to?
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I've played hockey since shit I don't know, since I was like six, five or six years old.
Speaker 1:Was it in the blood? Is that where it came from?
Speaker 2:No, honestly, it came from Mighty Ducks. The movie oh yes, let's go no-transcript in hockey was the mighty ducks that's dope dude.
Speaker 1:I had someone else on the podcast that said the exact same thing. I think it was actually a girl. I want to say it was melanie washburn. She's another crossfit coach, just got on a seminar staff. I want to say it was her't. Remember someone out there Correct me figure out who it was that said they got in hockey through Mighty Ducks. Such a dope movie man.
Speaker 2:I tried to watch sense.
Speaker 1:I tried to. I mean, yeah, if you're in our age group, if you're like probably 28 right now, up to like 35, like that's that sweet spot, you know. Yeah, but dude, tell me about, like, how the rest of your athletic journey was. Like you said your dad was active, how was mom, like, when did you go into the weight room for the first time? Tell me that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've always been just in love with kind of the process of training and just one just trying to better myself outside of like the sport itself, so like weight lifting or doing any sort of strength and conditioning. I've been doing that since, oh man, I mean maybe like 15, like getting into, like middle school, high school, um, just doing it through. One we had to because of just sporting events, but two I always found myself enjoying it and wanting to do it, um, especially just in the summer as I got older, like throughout high school with a bunch of my buddies, so your team was having you do strength and conditioning stuff, like like in high school.
Speaker 1:How was the coaching back at that time?
Speaker 2:Honestly, the, from what I recall, like it wasn't terrible, but I also didn't know anything about anything at the time. So it was things like looking back. I feel like it wasn't terrible, but I also didn't know anything about anything at the time. So it was things like looking back. I feel like it was really good. I don't even know if they're still around, but summit sports was what I used to do. There was one in ice line which is out in westchester yeah, they had like the, the skating treadmill, um, that you could go on.
Speaker 2:So, like being able to do stuff like that, um, and then just being able to do a lot of like speed, strength work always kind of is what I lean towards. I really enjoy doing stuff like power cleans, power snatches, dumbbell snatches, all that stuff just kind of obviously translating into where I'm at now. But, um, being able to do a lot of just plyometrics, speed, agility, strength and conditioning from an early age. And I think summit sports is really where I kind of got involved when I was playing a travel hockey throughout high school and middle school. Not so much on the high school sports side did we have much just because it wasn't a affiliated school sport ice hockey wasn't at Garner Valley where I went, um, so a lot of what I did was just through travel hockey and then just camps and and what have you that's dope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've, uh, two PT clients that I've been training for four years now, man, and they are, uh, they're living that exact same life that you're talking about right now. You know, they grew up playing hockey at their high school travel teams. Now they're on the little flyers, juniors, youth, whichever whichever one is the youth team, like the under 18 team. Um, they just graduated high school so they're doing that full-time for the next two years yeah did, juniors did that whole route and I wouldn't trade that for the world.
Speaker 2:That was honestly the best two, three years my life so experience, I bet dude yeah, just being 17 18 off on our own, and it was like playing professional hockey without being paid right which is awesome right um, the all the nil stuff right now is changing that whole world to making that probably even more um enticing for for kids to go to.
Speaker 1:So is that where your head was at at that time period and your 17 year old time frame like? Is that what 17 year old greg wanted to do with his life? Play hockey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always wanted to play, uh, ncaa. Um was my goal from just early on, um, so that's what I ended up doing. Um, I went to Nicholas college, which is in Massachusetts. Um, it's NCAA division three, um. So that's kind of what I aspired to do from an early age in hockey, was to kind of end up there. And then obviously you have dreams of playing in the NHL. But the closer you get to some of that stuff, the more realistic um I had to be with decisions that I had to make.
Speaker 2:Coming out of college I did have an opportunity to play semi-professional hockey down in either Pensacola, peoria, illinois, or down in Knoxville where they actually host a syndicate crown. I had an opportunity to do that after my senior year, but I decided not to and just pursue. I went into corporate america at the time, just not really knowing much about anything. So I just got a job out of college, worked a nine to five, but I I kind of had to give up the. The dream of, like realistically, where I was going to go out of that, making it to the nhl, actually professional, was like, yeah, very far and few between. So so for me I've given enough of my life and love to the sport for the past 20 years that I was ready and in a spot to kind of hang it up in lack of better words so what was it like when you first stopped playing hockey and you, you?
Speaker 2:I lost my identity.
Speaker 1:You were right, you still have all that fitness, you still have all that motivation. It's like, all right, on Monday, you're, you have to go, be ready to be, be in a championship game Monday night. Right, then Tuesday, that's all over and you don't have any place to put all that energy. You know, like what's the first, like six months, like for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was lost and I honestly didn't really know what to do because that had been my identity since I was six years old. That's what I knew. That's who I was. I went to school wasn't really a priority to me. Being an athlete was um. School was always secondary to me at that time. So for me it was just an adjustment of no longer being an athlete and no longer being a hockey player. So it was like who am I now? I went through so much work and self-work to try to figure out who that was and, honestly, missing the competition side of things was how I found CrossFit um at the end of the day, cause I was like, oh, here's something I can compete in again, so right out of college, it was easy for me to just kind of throw myself into that Um right off the bat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's dope, like you're. You're. You know what question I wanted to ask. Actually, you keep talking about being an athlete. When does coaching come into it? It was that in the CrossFit time period. Was that in the college time period? When? When does, when do you start wanting to train others?
Speaker 2:Um, that was after, I think maybe just the athlete side of me kind of went the other direction. I went into CrossFit with full expectations of competing. That's actually how I got connected with Matt Bryant, who is the guy that I work with now. Um, yeah, he coached me for years back in like 2016, 2017, when he was still working at OPEX Um, and I was at Brandywine at the time. So I just started like anyone else, walking in the CrossFit, not really knowing what was going on.
Speaker 2:My first open thought it was pretty cool and realized that you could compete in it. So, um, I would say, about 2016, 2017, for about two, three years I went full in full on athlete, kind of sold my soul to that side of things. And then around maybe 2018, I was still like kind of coaching on the side, whether it was at Brandywine or working just like with PT clients, but it wasn't a full time, but it wasn't a full-time job for me I was just doing it to kind of supplement and get some cash in in my, in my pocket as well as being able to compete.
Speaker 2:So I would say, when I went over to OPEX upper main line, where I was working with Cody and Emily Leffler, is where I kind of made this shift of I wanted to coach full-time and that was like maybe 2018, 2019, around there do you remember what like, really like, gave you the passion to pursue that?
Speaker 2:yeah, I got close to like regionals a couple times back in the early on stage and then it was just like I don't know I'm, I'm a helper at the end of the day. I love working with people, um, and I love just kind of seeing people better themselves more than sometimes myself.
Speaker 2:So I was in a position that, like this, is something that I can do full time and it really fills my cup. So I think just being able to have the ability to move more into just individual design working with general pop people but also working with people that wanted to compete in this sport kind of made everything more realistic to me, knowing that this is something that I could pursue and it would again kind of fill a need that is important to me with being able to help people, with being able to help people. So that's kind of why I went all in to make it a full-time job on my end, which is to really kind of focus on what can I do to kind of get other individuals to the next level. I just kind of came to ties with myself of not really needing to be an athlete anymore. So this was another way that I could kind of throw myself into the coaching side of things for fulfillment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fill that cup, like you said, right? So did you have any idea like what it meant to be like a full-time coach? Like either when you first first started part-time at Brady? When I started at Brady that was my first full-time job, like coaching job. I had no idea what it really meant to to do any of this stuff you know like maybe like coach a bunch of hours at a time, like the whole schedule you know, clean the toilets and stuff like that, but to really turn it into a career I had no one in front of me as an example and no idea how to do it on my own. When you were first partaking in that, did you have any direction or did you just make it up as you go when you were first partaking?
Speaker 2:in that? Did you have any direction or did you just make it up as you go? Um, I did have a little bit of mentorship, just because, again, matt bryant was doing what I was expiring or trying to do at the time. I know he was working with a boatload of individuals. So just being able to have him as a sounding board, not only as my coach but also kind of learning from him and what he was doing, um, I think played a huge part into kind of what I am aware on that now.
Speaker 2:Um, but I think, like anything, you got to just be in the trenches and that's what it was early on of, you know, coaching every class of the day, cleaning the toilets, cleaning the gym, trying to work out yourself, learning while you're working out, taking on PT clients, and I think everyone's got to do that and I think that's just kind of a barrier to entry and just part of being in the trenches, of learning. And then I had 60 some clients at the time to like all individual all doing different things and individualized design. So again, I think that was something that really helped shape again where I'm at today and knowing of like I don't want 60 clients again. It's not sustainable.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, knowing like what is enough, to where I feel that I can give everyone, that I work with full attention and everything they need, versus what's just trying to get more money in my pocket on, like what not to do or where I don't want to be again, and that's something that we kind of pride ourselves on, now at least, is like we're capping ourselves at small numbers because we're not really after the masses. We're trying to, you know, really individualize what we do. So I think, just yeah, learning on what was too many clients versus what feels right is definitely something that played a huge part early on. But, you know, I think everyone's got to go through the trenches like we were talking about, and that's from cleaning toilets to cleaning the gym, to writing programming for a hundred and some members.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. I mean, dude, I was just on a another local coaches podcast the other day and he was asked about the journey. And I'm like man, it's, it's. I wouldn't replace any of it. You know it's a lot of ups, a lot of downs, but like it gives you the experience to go do what you are wanting to do. You know, like I was trying to find out from other people how to become a full-time coach and all these things, but I had to just go become it in order to be it.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's really a recipe. You can kind of make it whatever you want.
Speaker 1:Right, right. That's the beauty of it, right? That's why you're chasing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. When you first link up with Matt even when he's doing your programming, right, he's your coach. Had golden line started yet, or was he just under like no kind of brand? Not yet he. When he was coaching me and I was working with him as a mentor, he was still with um, opex and james fitzgerald and that whole like og crew. Yeah, um, I think it was maybe around 2019, 20, or maybe even 2020 into 2021 is when Golden Line had started, because I had moved out to Denver at that time.
Speaker 1:Nice. So do you guys work with only and predominantly CrossFit athletes? Like, tell me about a little bit more about Golden Line now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we I don't want to just, I'll say fitness enthusiasts at the end of the day Like, yeah, we absolutely work with, um, high level CrossFit athletes. We also work with CrossFit athletes that don't necessarily want to make the games but they just enjoy the process, they enjoy being coached and they enjoy having somebody just help them get better. Um, but we also work with I have a few just general population clients too that, just again, I think are more fitness enthusiasts rather than just like general population. They really enjoy the process. So we kind of work with a whole mix of individuals. But I would say, yeah, primarily we focus and not even focus, but we do work a lot with CrossFit athletes. I think they just tend to come and work with us more so than not.
Speaker 1:That's the client you've attracted so far the most.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, and we've just kind of run with it, especially with how competing is the last few years with online qualifiers qualifiers and gyms aren't really like.
Speaker 1:it's not the old school way of like you go to the games by doing the class at the gym, like it just has shifted, so like not good or bad, it's just.
Speaker 2:I think that's kind of why we've moved into more just working with athletes or clients that want to get better at the sport of CrossFit, versus like PT clients and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I 100% agree. I think especially it's it's grown and become exponential over the past few years that the CrossFit group class is it what's going to get you to the CrossFit games right, like I think one hour of fitness a day could push you high up into the sanctionals regionals category, even if it's in a like a class kind of setting. That will be tough. But to get to the games, I don't think that one hour a day with their kind of warm up and and cool down is really gonna cut it for most high level people. So you, you guys get together, go to line forms. What's the process like at the very beginning? You're like you're now on full time, you're working with different athletes and stuff like that. Tell me about the very beginning of that process for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was very grassroots and it very much today is still grassroots at the core of it. I started with maybe one or two clients that I was just kind of working with on the side before Matt started GoldenLion. Same with him, he had a handful of clients, so we just kind of started it from. I don't even say we started it, it's his company, but I got in early with him to help him. So he really built this up kind of from the ground, with clients just trickling in slowly, you know, month after month after month, and I think kind of now we're at a good spot.
Speaker 2:But it's, it was never this big thing and I know his goal is not to make it. You know, the masses. Like I mentioned before, we're not looking to just get as many people in the door, collect as many paychecks as possible, to have a hundred thousand people doing what we're doing, because it's very niche, I feel, what we're doing. So, yeah, man, it was just super grassroots with taking it slow what we're doing. So, yeah, man, it was just super grassroots with taking it slow. Really organic growth, just trying to figure out the whole social media or like what do people want to hear? Type deal, like we're always talking back and forth where it's not this buttoned up company by any means. That has everything streamlined. So we're just kind of taking it week by week, day by day and working with people that we feel want to be here and are actually a good fit for us.
Speaker 1:I love that. So do you guys. You guys don't have a social media team or anyone like that yet.
Speaker 2:No, we do it, he does it. I mean, I do it like we all kind of just pop on. And like I said, it's very grassroots and I think that's kind of what I enjoy about it. It's very startup, very entrepreneurial. It's not this streamlined company right now, but I kind of enjoy that process and being able to be by his side during it too.
Speaker 1:It's great because you can put a lot of your own personality into it and make it reflective of your morals and beliefs and all the things that you want to put into the training.
Speaker 2:Make it bigger. Yeah, and I think he does a great job at that Like his message and what he really believes kind of shines through, not only like the people that we work with, but really just kind of the message that he's trying to get out. And I'm also trying to to relay as well, just being fully brought in with that that's awesome.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about a little bit competitions now. Dude, um, I know from following golden line and you guys for a little bit, that you've been to some higher level comps, like your semi-finals, your wadapaloozas, granite games, like we're talking about before, and uh, tfx, like, do you have any top memories, like maybe for an athlete involved or like something that you got to experience at any of those events, uh, that you want to share out there?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, I think let's man semis. Two years ago I was there with mitch griffith and then rachel fricker. Both were there down in tampa and the east. Um, it was just special being able to see those two make it to where they were trying to get, cause I've worked with them for a long, long time since they were teens and and all of that. So just for me, that was probably the most fulfilling thing.
Speaker 2:You're getting the call from both of them that they qualified for semifinals back in 2023. It wasn't even like a particular moment that happened down there. The whole weekend was just amazing and beautiful. But just the pure joy and fulfillment that they got from being like, holy shit, I made the top 60 at the time was probably the greatest moment as a coach for me personally, because they were my first two clients that I was able to you know, full time get to, I think is a pretty high level. Yeah, the CrossFit world for somebody, or both of them, whom I have known for so long, being able to see all of their hard work since they were teens kind of pay off and hit a pinnacle for them was, I mean, that is that's. That's it. That's what it's all about.
Speaker 1:I mean for real. You know, like that right there would be enough for a lot of people. You know, like dream actualized that's, that's so dope. So what do you guys have coming up? I fit is water palooza. The first thing that usually happens at the top of the year is that, like the first comp you'll be at, yeah, so the tour day january.
Speaker 2:I know me and probably a thousand other coaches out there are getting ready. We will really not be home.
Speaker 1:All of january, starting with water palooza pack that raincoat for water, palooza hopefully not, but you never know but, um, it probably will.
Speaker 2:I feel like it always does. But um, yeah, waterpalooza is first, then the following weekend.
Speaker 1:How many people you got going down to that. What's that look like?
Speaker 2:um, oh boy, let's see, I know we have like rach is on a team. Um, who else we got? I'm gonna say about like eight people maybe around there competing between individual and team. Six to eight people. We have abby, abby, domit, traven, benton, um, who else? I got? Rach going down, julia cook, so yeah, I would say about eight, eight around there nice, that's dope.
Speaker 1:What's up next after that?
Speaker 2:tfx, which has kind of grown into like this huge competition where we like to get a bunch of our clients going. I think we had like 25, 27 people there last year. Um, we're around the same probably this year. Um, it's just a good competition for us to kind of get together as a group because we're all over the place, yeah, um, and that's just kind of grown into a competition that we like to do, a lot of our clients like to do it, and it just really gets everyone together. So I think we're around like 20 high 20s again going back this year so that's the second week yeah.
Speaker 1:I've never been to TFX. People keep saying that it's like one of the best competitions out there.
Speaker 2:I love it and I think Bryce does a really good job with it. He's involved with, like Coda out in Oklahoma and then, obviously, the gym that I go to out here in Denver are associated all those Coda gyms, so I think he does a really nice job with it. The qualifiers are always good. It's a good time of year. Um, the movements in there, sometimes in the workouts, are things that you don't typically see or sometimes I think have like a semifinals, quarterfinals type feel.
Speaker 2:Um, so I've really enjoyed the competition and now it's one of the events in may or june, I think, of 2025 out in oklahoma. So this, so this upcoming year, I think might play a big part from what I was discussing a little bit on. Possibly I don't want to like speak or misspeak on it, but I think like if one or two top one or two out of this january, one might be going or may have qualified for, like the tfx one in the 2025 yeah, whatever they're gonna do for the other section, yeah, so it kind of makes january a little bit more exciting than I think it already is yeah but yeah, it's a great comp and they've had great people there years past, like daniel brandon's been there, chandler smith, I believe, has been there.
Speaker 2:So they've had some like big name peoples in the year in the years past and I think they do a great job and it's just a great time of year to kind of see where crossfit's at leading into the season for sure, or? What? What the season is now versus what it was last year.
Speaker 1:So yeah, man, I mean it does kind of suck that we we don't get more answers sooner and more transparency, but you know, hopefully that'll keep changing and growing as the years go by, at least as this year goes by. Man, I was supposed to. I was supposed to volunteer at tfx like two years ago, maybe 2021, so maybe three years ago, right after covid happened and and I had to cancel it. People keep saying it's one of the best out there. I wish I could.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you can make it down this year. I mean, it's probably getting a little late now, but it's it's a blast. I like it. It's a it's kind of in the middle of nowhere, but other than that it's a great competition. I think it's like Taylor Texas or something like that, like that it's not actually austin, but no, it's promoted austin you're like 45 minutes.
Speaker 1:That's what you gotta do, bro. You know, don't, don't know. I know what these small towns don't know, where norris town is and pennsylvania, you know. Just I say I know, you know. So that stuff's coming up on the calendar, man, but like, what are you really hungry for? What are you motivated by right now?
Speaker 2:Right now it's just trying to get the lay of the land of what it's going to look like, qualifying for some of these sanctionals and obviously, just the whole semifinals. So nothing really changes for what our plan is as coaches, but also for our athletes. Obviously, the year has shifted a little bit, but I'm still hungry to get the people that I work with where they want to be. I mean, that's, at the end of the day, what I'm doing and what I want to do, so I'm ready to go like with whatever is coming out. We're still working towards the same goals, whether it's you got to go to a sanction or versus whatever it was last year. So, um, the work doesn't change. It's just a little bit of a different path to get there that's dope dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, continue on with the mission always yeah, so nothing.
Speaker 2:Nothing changes in that sense. It's getting them at their highest level when they need to be at their highest level heck yeah.
Speaker 1:When is water polo? Tell us the date so we know like when everything's going down.
Speaker 2:You guys got like eight athletes out there yeah, the weekend of the 23rd, I want to say, and then the following weekend, it's what? The 23rd, 24th, 25th, or the 25th, 26, 27th that friday yeah that friday, saturday, sunday, um, I don't know the exact dates, but but that 23rd through like the 26th or 27th, and then the following week through the 31st, is TFX Right, and then fitness at the coast is yeah, through February 7th or 7th through the 10th. Are you going to fitness?
Speaker 1:to the coast also.
Speaker 2:Yep, I'll be down there as well.
Speaker 1:Are you even going to go home in between all those things, or what are you going to do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I am, so I fly out. It's like a Wednesday Monday type schedule. So I'll fly out Wednesday, spend Wednesday through Monday or really Wednesday through Sunday, fly home Monday, be home Monday afternoon Tuesday and then Wednesday I'll fly out again.
Speaker 1:Come back Monday, and it's worth it, though. Yeah, I love it. See you in march, though, bro yeah, so I will.
Speaker 2:Uh, I'll be shutting off for a little bit post, uh, or end of february for sure, after fitness of the fitness of the coast. I'll be going nowhere and everything's online right now. So, yeah, that's good, you get to chill for a few months yeah, so I'll be kind of just hunkering down in my home and not not traveling anywhere until until we see what happens into into the spring so what's up, dude?
Speaker 1:well, I'm excited to hear more about the season and and follow along with glt as you guys are going. Man excited to see golden line out there.
Speaker 1:Bro, greg, thanks for coming yeah, absolutely yeah, I appreciate it dudes, dogs out there, be on the lookout for golden line as they're hitting that competition floor we're gonna get out of here. Peace. All right, dogs. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode. That was greg strutman of golden line training again. Be on the lookout for all of his different athletes on the crossfit and functional fitness scene in this upcoming year. Peace.