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Inside the CrossFit Games Bubble (w/ Adam Neiffer)

Written by David Tao
Last updated on August 10th, 2023

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Today we’re talking to CrossFit athlete and coach Adam Neiffer. Adam has been in the competitive CrossFit space since well before it exploded in popularity, and with a competition history dating back to 2009, he’s one of the most experience team athletes in the sport’s history. More recently, Adam was a visible figure at the 2020 CrossFit Games Finals, where he served as coach to Rookie of the Year Justin Medeiros. Adam joins the podcast to talk about the unlikely call that got him back into coaching elite athletes, coaching in the Finals bubble, and much, much more.

CrossFit Coach Adam Neiffer

On this episode of The BarBend Podcast, host David Thomas Tao talks to Adam Neiffer about:

  • Why coaching in the “athlete bubble” was a positive experience (02:14)
  • Starting CrossFit before the days of elite coaching — or really, any coaching — around 2005 (06:23)
  • Why so many firefighters — like Adam and Bill Grundler — were originally attracted to CrossFit (07:25)
  • How Adam became Justin Medeiros’ coach years after he thought his elite coaching days were done (10:48)
  • Taking someone from a “really good” CrossFitter to one of the world’s best (16:07)
  • The family crisis that almost ended Justin Medeiros’ CrossFit Games season (21:00)
  • Adam’s coaching style (and does coaching style matter?) (24:05)

Relevant links and further reading:

Transcription

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

For us, fitness is our job, and to be able to go out and do work and work long hours. Go from doing hard and fast and heavy type of work to longer endurance type of stuff. We’re already working out, anyway.

 

Then you add CrossFit and the competitive flavor that rise to the tide of everyone within the crew. That’s something that we got behind early on, and it’s something that I think it’s a natural fit, similar with the military and police communities as well.

David TaoDavid Tao

Welcome to the “BarBend Podcast” where we talk to the smartest athletes, coaches, and minds from around the world of strength. I’m your host, David Thomas Tao, and this podcast is presented by barbend.com.

 

I’m talking to CrossFit athlete and coach, Adam Neiffer. Adam has been in the competitive CrossFit space since well before it exploded in popularity. With a competition history dating all the way back to 2009, he is one of the most experienced team athletes in sports history.

 

More recently, Adam was a visible figure at the 2020 CrossFit Games Finals, where he served as coach to Rookie of the Year, Justin Medeiros. Adam joins the podcast to talk about the unlikely call that got him back into coaching elite athletes, coaching in the Finals’ bubble, and much, much more.

 

I do want to take a second to say we’re incredibly thankful that you listened to this podcast. If you haven’t already, be sure to leave a rating and review of the BarBend Podcast in your app of choice. Now let’s get to it.

 

Hey, Adam. Thank you so much for joining us. The first question I wanted to dive into, just because I haven’t really heard much perspective on this, you were in the CrossFit Games bubble this year. Basically, the bubble they set up to protect the athletes and the event at the Finals in Aromas.

 

You’ve been to a lot of CrossFit Games in the past. What was it like operating in this kind of quarantine bubble?

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Man, you know what? It was actually a really cool experience. What I loved about it is, we got to spend a lot of time with the other coaches and with the other athletes as well. It was a really small intimate group. It was my first time ever coaching at the CrossFit Games, other than being on a team as a player and a coach at the same time.

 

It was all new to me, but, man, it was awesome. CrossFit, hats off to them for putting together on short notice an amazingly well-choreographed event that took into account the safety of the athletes and everybody involved. It was a lot of fun.

David TaoDavid Tao

I know you’ve competed at the CrossFit Games. You’ve been as a spectator. There’s that fitness-festival feel in normal years. This year, there wasn’t. It was just a skeleton crew. They weren’t even really allowing media there. Did you have to remind yourself it was the CrossFit Games?

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Honestly, no. Not at all. Not at all.

 

I always feel like any time that you get to go to the CrossFit Games — it doesn’t matter if it’s athlete, team, coach, spectator, whatever — it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Everyone is unique.

 

This year had its own set of circumstances that just made it so…Everybody was so appreciative to be there and to have the opportunity to make it happen that when you look over and see Matt Fraser in the warm-up area, it feels like the CrossFit Games. [inaudible 3:54] .

David TaoDavid Tao

You said it was very intimate environment. Did you get to spend time with people that maybe you hadn’t had a chance to meet or spend a lot of time with or talk to in previous years?

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Mostly, it was some of the other coaches, especially Justin Cotler, who coaches Kari Pearce. Man, I got to know him. I had actually not met him before other than maybe in passing. It was really cool. I’ve been a fan of Kari for years and got to know her on the 2017 CrossFit invitational team.

 

To get to know him and see the behind the scenes with how some of the other coaches at the top of our sport do things, interact with athletes, all those types of things, it was an experience that I couldn’t have expected, but I’m so grateful for having.

David TaoDavid Tao

I’m a little biased because Justin Cotler, he’s a friend and he’s a BarBend contributor.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

How nice. Heck, yeah.

David TaoDavid Tao

He also might be the most interesting person in the CrossFit space. He’s an accomplished singer. He’s released some albums. It goes deep when you learn more about him. I’ve noticed that about a lot of people in this space. There are a lot of hidden talents. It’s not just fitness all the time. A lot of people have interesting backgrounds.

 

I got to ask. What’s your hidden passion or your passion outside of the fitness community that people might not be aware of?

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Man, that’s a good question. I don’t really have a lot of hidden talents.

David TaoDavid Tao

Me neither. It’s OK.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

I wish I had more talents, but honestly, man, I’m what you see is what you get. The things that are important to me, my faith, man, that’s a big deal to be able to, hopefully, bless others and glorify God in everything that I do. My family is a big deal. I have two little girls that are amazing and wonderful wife at home.

 

Being involved in CrossFit, people see the sports side of things, but my passion, what I love about CrossFit, is the positive impact it has in people’s everyday lives. Most of the people in our affiliate, they show up just to be healthier, just to get a little bit more fit, spend some time around other like-minded people.

 

I obviously love the sport, but my day-to-day, it looks a lot like a lot of other CrossFit-affiliate owners and a lot of other CrossFitters days. I love it.

David TaoDavid Tao

How long have you been coaching CrossFit?

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Man, I started doing CrossFit on the main page in 2005.

David TaoDavid Tao

Wow, that is really OG.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

[laughs] It’s been a little while. Then there wasn’t really coaching, at least in my experience, happening in CrossFit at that time. Really, I would say, around 2007, I got my foot in the door and was able to at least just hang around CrossFit Portland, and learn from Scott Hagnas and some of the crew there. That’s where I had my eyes open to what’s possible through CrossFit.

 

At the time, I was working for the US Forest Service on a hotshot crew doing wildland fire. We started implementing CrossFit on our crew. I wasn’t officially coaching anything, but we were doing CrossFit together on our team. It was something that changed the dynamic of our crew, not just in terms of fitness but our camaraderie and our ability to do work.

 

That’s where I fell in love with the benefit of what CrossFit does for people.

David TaoDavid Tao

I talked to Bill Grundler the other day on the podcast, and he’s someone who also has a background in fire and rescue. My question is, what do you think about CrossFit caught on in firefighting communities so early?

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Oh, man. I’m coming from a wildland fire experience. I haven’t done structural or city-department fire. For us, fitness is our job. To be able to go out and do work and work long hours, and go from doing hard and fast and heavy type of work to longer-endurance type of stuff, we’re already working out anyway.

 

Then you add CrossFit and the competitive flavor that rise the tide of everyone within the crew. That’s something that we got behind early on, and it’s just a natural fit, similar with the military and police communities as well.

 

David TaoDavid Tao

People who were your livelihood and your safety are one and the same. It depends on your body. You’re going to be interested in something that makes you more confident in your abilities, no matter what Mother Nature throws at you, I guess.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

I would say that’s probably the glorified version.

 

The other part is we’re a bunch of dudes who like to work out, or gals as well. When you get humbled, thinking you’re in shape, and then you do CrossFit and you’re like, “Whoa, I thought I was a little fitter than I might be.” You either turn around and run the other direction or you’re like, “I wonder what this is all about. I want a little bit more of that.”

David TaoDavid Tao

Everyone has that moment where you think if you have athletic background outside of CrossFit, you think you’re hot stuff. It could be you think you’re strong and you meet a weightlifter or a powerlifter.

 

In the CrossFit community, there’s always that story of someone who thought they were pretty fit. They’re like, “I can run. I can lift.” Then they meet someone who is clearly head and shoulders above them, and they just didn’t imagine that person existed. Was there a person who was that for you?

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Yeah, there was a couple brothers early on. Jeez, now I don’t even remember their names. They own CrossFit Rockford. We were following the main page, my brother and I, actually. We were following the main page, crossfit.com. It was, in some ways, what an affiliate community is now.

 

We would post our times and stuff like that in the comments. It was the Colson brothers, Brent Colson, those dudes. Me and my brother, we’d be like, “Oh, yeah. We did pretty good on this workout.” Then these dudes would post their times, and we’d be like, “OK, I guess we didn’t do so good.”

 

Then, they’d post more weighted vests. I’m like, “What? How is that possible? Who are these freaks?” I remember that, just maybe an eye-opening experience for me.

David TaoDavid Tao

Let’s fast forward a decade or more later in the CrossFit world. You are someone who competed in CrossFit at a high level, competing on a team. You’ve also done a lot of coaching. That’s actually how I first met you, years and years ago at this point. We’ll both feel a little bit old after this recording.

 

We were saying before the recording, “We have the same hair.” I’ve got the big afro and Adam’s got this great flowing locks. We’re nothing if not consistent. Let’s talk a little bit about coaching, because one thing I found really interesting this year. You were Justin Medeiros coach. He was rookie of the year. Fantastic, amazing performance at the Games.

 

In a video package that, I believe, aired on his YouTube channel before the games. You were a big focus of that and it was a story of how you were out of the elite coaching game. You were not necessarily training CrossFit games athletes. You weren’t training athletes at that level, you were more focusing on your own affiliate.

 

You got roped back into that and it happened to be via someone who burst onto the scene and finished top five this year. Tell us a little bit about that process, I’m curious, your side of the story there.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

In 2018, that was the last year I competed on a team. Over the course, the previous 10 years on CrossFit for Vancouver teams. My wife, Lauren, and our family, honestly made a lot of sacrifices so that I could do what I love do to, which was competing CrossFit. Before that season started, we had decided this is going to be my last year of competing, 2018.

 

That was pretty awesome and then I decided, I’m going to step away and focus more on family. Being a better husband and dad, and doing my job at the affiliate, which I had been neglecting for many years and that type of thing. I stepped away from the competitive aspect of things, until…Justin and I have a mutual friend named Sunchang.

 

Sun, was like, “Adam you gotta meet this kid, you gotta work with this kid Justin. He’s a good kid and he’s looking for a coach. He’s wanting to compete on the sport.” I was like, “Sun, man, that’s awesome, I appreciate it but I’m just not interested right now.” He must have known a lot more than he let on.

 

He kept at it, he was persistent, he asked me a couple more times. Until, finally I was like, “OK. I’m going to humor him and I’ll have a conversation with Justin and probably leave it at that.” Justin and I talked a little bit and I told him, “Write me a letter of who you are, what your values are, what you’re about and why you’re competing CrossFit, what you want to accomplish,” all of that stuff.

David TaoDavid Tao

Is he applying to college? This is like a cover letter.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Honestly, pretty much. I was trying to make it really difficult because I’m like, “This college kid, no way he’s going to do it. I’m never going to hear from him again and we’ll go on our merry way.” Literally, two days later, he sends me this really well thought-out, well-written letter. Even when I read that letter, I was like, “Wow, this is not your normal college kid.”

 

This is not your normal 19-, 20-year-old college kid. I showed it to my wife, Lauren, and I expected she’d read it and be like, “Oh, that’s cool, seems like a nice kid. We’ll see what happens,” whatever. Basically, she read it and she was like, “Adam, you should do it.” I was like, “What? I should…What’d you say?”

David TaoDavid Tao

I got away from this, for you, for the family.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

100 percent. She always supported me, 110 percent, every step of the way. She was like, “You know what? I think you should give it a shot. I think it would make you happy.” At that time, I was like, “Let’s see what happens. I like this kid. I like what he’s about. I think he has a lot of potential and I think that I have maybe some experience that can help. Let’s see what happen.”

 

I told Justin that, “If we’re going to do this, I’m not a very good online coach. We’d have to figure out a way to get together in person.”

David TaoDavid Tao

Where was he at this point? For context, so the readers know where are you based out off. The listeners know where are you based out off.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

I’m in Vancouver, Washington. [inaudible 14:31] Fort Vancouver. We’ve been here for 11 years now, something like that. Justin is from Lodi, California but is a student at Boise State in Idaho. At the time, when we first met, he was like, “I have a couple of years left of college. My goal is to qualify for the CrossFit Games. I’m giving myself until I graduate from college.”

 

At that point — what he said at that time was — “If I don’t achieve that goal, that dream of making the CrossFit Games, I’m going to move on with my life. Get a real job and do whatever’s next,” that makes sense in his life at the time. I thought, “That’s pretty cool. Let’s give it a go, let’s see what happens,” and here we are.

David TaoDavid Tao

I actually haven’t talked to Justin. We should get him on the podcast, too. There’s a level of maturity there, because when I was a college student, first of, I wasn’t thinking beyond college at all. I didn’t have enough brain cells, I was killing too many brain cells. Let’s put it that way.

 

There’s this level of self-awareness to give yourself a timeline and a goal-based timeline. Obviously, Justin accomplished that with time despair. Where was he — athletically — when he started working with you? What kind of progression happened between that and his qualification for the Games?

 

He qualified for the 2020 games back in November 2019 at the [inaudible 15:56] 150. He qualified months and months before the Games. People had actually almost forgotten this guy had even qualified before the Games started.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

When I first met Justin, he was already a really good CrossFitter. Give credit where credit is due. He put in a lot of time and a lot of work into this goal. He started doing CrossFit when he was 11 or 12. Look, legit. He was wrestling in middle school. His mom was like, “Hey, you should come into my gym with me.” [laughs]

David TaoDavid Tao

It makes sense, but I feel a little dated now because the fact that it existed back when that person was 11 and 12.

 

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Mind blowing on my perspective as well. That’s when he started and he spent the next seven years initially dabbling in CrossFit to train, improve at wrestling. I think it happened when he was going to go wrestling at Boise State and between the time that he got accepted and enrolled, and when he actually got there they cut the wrestling program.

 

He was like, “Well, I guess I’m going to put more time and effort into pursuing CrossFit while I’m there.” That was the domino that fell toward him really giving everything he had to CrossFit. He competed as a teenager. Interesting enough, he had done pretty well on some of the skill-based workouts and even some of the strength-based stuff, to a certain degree as a teenager.

 

He had just missed making the CrossFit Games as a teen, a couple of times. Super close, just like right on the outside looking in. That happened and even as a senior in high school, he made it to regionals. We were at the same regional in 2018. Didn’t know each other.

David TaoDavid Tao

That’s funny.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Yeah, because they combined the West Regional with California and Canada West and all that. Then, in getting to know him early on, what was interesting is the stuff that he struggled with the most as a competitor of CrossFitter is some of the simplest CrossFit couplets when you think about the Open.

 

Things like thrusters and pull-ups, or Wall Balls and rowing, or some of the stuff that are like…The only thing between him and doing better on those events was putting in time and effort on those things. It’s not that he hadn’t been working on them in the past, it’s just that maybe he didn’t know exactly how to approach them to get himself to a more competitive level, having a [inaudible 18:36] .

 

On our teams, we have 25 team members that went to the CrossFit Games in 10 years. I got to work with a variety of different athletes in that setting. It helped give me some perspective on like, “Hey, where do we start with Justin?” and let’s see what happens.

 

We set the goal that he would qualify for the 2020 Games through the Open. Getting that top 20 spot in the Open. Prior to that, he got super close in 2019. I think he finished fourth at the Granite Games.

David TaoDavid Tao

One spot off basically, right?

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Yeah, which was basically the same thing that happened when he was a teenage athlete and that type of thing. He’s knocking on the door. Then 2020, we’re like, “OK, the primary goals, let’s see if we can qualify through the Open. If that doesn’t happen, we will sign up for and travel to as many Sanctionals as it takes to punch that ticket.”

 

He finished in the 60s in the Open or something like that. The very first Sanctionals was Ireland. We were like, “Let’s do it. This is cool. When else would we ever travel to Ireland?”

 

It’s the first one of the year. I’m thinking like, “OK, this is going to be a competitive event.” We weren’t like, “Hey, this is a make or break.” It was like, “Hey, this is the first event of the season. Let’s go, let’s learn, let’s get better.”

 

He ends up punching his ticket right there in the very first one. Thank goodness, he did because we know what happened with the rest of the season. There weren’t that many more opportunities to get there.

David TaoDavid Tao

Now, he’s a young athlete and young athletes improve at a quicker rate than older athletes. You don’t have the city miles or the training age under you.

 

Between November when he qualified, and, when was it, September, when the first component of this year’s CrossFit Games occurred. That’s a really big stretch of training where I’m sure you all are putting in a lot of work. I’m assuming he was probably a pretty different athlete even more advanced, and then he was back when he initially qualified.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Absolutely. He definitely made a lot of progress, but interestingly enough it wasn’t a super clean, easy path. He qualified because [inaudible 20:48] in November, and we also had a little local competition out here called the CrossFit in Fort Vancouver Championship in January every year.

David TaoDavid Tao

They call that one the real CrossFit Games, by the way. That’s what I’ve heard.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

 [laughs] Anyway, we have a good time with it. Justin’s here in town, and he was going to compete in that. Literally, this is the type of guy Justin is. He was at the Event Center at the Clark County Fairgrounds here, just outside of Vancouver.

 

He was actually assembling skiers on Wednesday or Thursday for the weekend competition, legit turning bolts, turning the screwdriver, putting in nuts and bolts to help us get ready for the competition that he was competing in.

 

Then we got a call that evening. His dad had an accident where he fell off a ladder and had gotten hurt. Didn’t know how bad, but knew that it was a brain injury, and he was unknown as far as what was going to happen there. Justin immediately flew home. That’s the type of dude he is. His family is super important to him.

 

Flew home to be with his dad, and his dad was in the hospital for the next month, and Justin basically didn’t leave his side. He was there. Sleep in the lobby, doing whatever he could to be there for his family.

 

Obviously training took huge backseat to more important things in life. He also didn’t re-enroll for…He put his studies at Boise State on hold. Didn’t go back to school that semester and stayed home. We didn’t know what was going to happen with his dad. For a long time there it was kind of like, “Hey, training is very secondary.”

 

Within about a month, his dad started turning the corner and making some progress. Justin was able to start to focus on training and competing again to the point where he was about to do the West Coast classic and he was starting to feel pretty good at that point.

 

A week or two before that one was scheduled, boom, that one gets canceled. Here he is again just stuck in-between of what am I really training for? When is this happening? I don’t think that was necessarily unique to him.

 

All athletes handled that differently and Justin…He honestly, man, took it in stride and kept training. He had a really good summer. Train hard, was making a lot of progress.

 

Going into the first stage of competition, his grandfather who he is super close with, he grew up at his grandpa’s house all the time too, his grandpa passed away right before stage one. That was really tough too. It was, does he go home? Does he compete? What happens next?

 

He felt one of the ways that he could honor his grandpa was to make him proud, and give everything he had to what he’d been training so hard for. That was the process between when he qualified way back in November of the previous year, up to September when the Game started.

David TaoDavid Tao

Well, it was an eventful year. Things like that challenges not only the athlete, but it challenges the coach, and challenges your relationship. Knowing how to work with someone who’s going through things that are not necessarily on the field of play.

 

We all have lives outside the gym, and they impact what we bring into the gym every single day. I’m curious how you would describe your coaching style. You’re probably the most biased person to describe your own coaching style, but I’m still curious as to what your approach is, and maybe how it’s evolved over the years.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

I can only come from my perspective on that side. I don’t know how other coaches approach that. I would say that for me, putting myself in the athletes’ shoes comes very naturally for me because that’s the world that I came from. I feel I’m actually new to the coaching side of things, although I was coaching our teams. I was also competing at the same time.

 

My perspective comes from, “Hey, I know what it feels like to be where you’re at right now. My job is to help you,” in this case, Justin, is to help Justin to realize his greatest potential. Part of that is, what’s his day-to-day programming look like? What does his training look like this month and this quarter? Leading up for bigger, longer-term goals.

 

Like you said, another big part of that is a life outside of training, and how do you approach that. There’s a lot of conversations that we have about your approach, your mindset to training, your perspective on what CrossFit and what competing in the sport means.

 

I would definitely say that’s evolved a lot over the course of the time that Justin and I have been working together. For me, personally, I feel super fortunate because when Justin is here, we spend a ton of time together. We live together and we play a lot of PIG out on [laughs] the basketball court.

 

We get to spend a lot of time together outside of training. In fact, a lot more time together around the dinner table, or just hanging out, than necessarily in the gym. That allows us to have a relationship that goes a lot deeper than just athlete-coach. For part of us, we’re friends, we’re buddies.

 

You might say that in some ways it’s more of, I don’t know, a mentor or mentee relationship because there is the age difference. He is a younger up-and-comer, and that type of thing, but it’s a lot of fun. It’s a privilege for me to be able to do it, and to be able to share some of my experience with him.

 

I think I can help him anyway. That’s what my job is. Honestly, perspective on coaching is really simple for me. That’s controlling what we can control, and not worrying about the other stuff. His attitude and his effort, or his…He is focused, and he does that probably better than anybody I’ve ever worked with, and myself included. He is wise beyond his years, and a lot of fun to be around.

David TaoDavid Tao

Now, here is the most important question. I know someone is hoping I ask this on this interview. Did the mullet exist before you were his coach, or did he take some style points from you on the long hair?

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

You know what? Yes, both.

 

Yeah. You’re going to have to ask him. I don’t remember the initial, how he got a mullet. He lost a bet or something. Something happened. When I first met him and he showed up here in Vancouver, he told me this later.

 

He came, he meets my wife and my family. When he was driving here, we were driving from the airport. He said what was going through his mind is, “Oh, shoot. I forgot to cut my mullet.” I blew it.

 

Of course, I didn’t have a mullet at the time but I have had one many times in the past. My wife is a pretty big fan. When he met Lauren, she was like, “Oh my goodness, do you have a mullet?” He was shy about it, he was like, “Yeah, I lost a bet or whatever. My friends made me do it.” Something like that. She was like, “I love it. He can stay, he’s one of us, he’s part of the family.”

 

Right away.

David TaoDavid Tao

Welcome home. [laughs]

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Exactly. Then I’m like, “All right man, once you qualify for the games, I’ll bring it back.” That’s what happened.

David TaoDavid Tao

Listeners, aren’t able to see it but if they follow you on social, they will be able to see it [inaudible 28:41] . Speaking of which, Adam, where is the best place to keep up-to-date with you and to follow you?

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Following my social media is like watching paint dry. There’s not much on that. [laughs]

David TaoDavid Tao

You got to sell it more than that, man. You got to sell it to the listeners.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

Honestly, RGM CrossFit Fort Vancouver is probably the best place. I think it’s CF for Vancouver, I’m just on there as Adam Neiffer. Following Justin and his story, is definitely where people should focus their attention. As you guys all know, any fans of the sport knows, this was a better year for him and a break out year. Not to put pressure on what he can do in the future.

 

The 2021 Justin Madieros can be better than the current version of himself. It doesn’t guarantee anything, but he obviously has a potential and we’re pretty fired up about it.

David TaoDavid Tao

As you should. Adam, I really appreciate you taking the time. It’s awesome to catch up and your energy for what you do is infectious. I appreciate you sharing that with us, today.

Adam NeifferAdam Neiffer

[laughs] David, that’s awesome man. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

About David Tao

BarBend's Co-Founder and CEO, David is a veteran of the health & fitness industry, with nearly a decade of experience building and running editorial teams in the space. He also serves as a color commentator for both National and International weightlifting competitions, many through USA Weightlifting.

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