He’s Called CrossFit Thor (with Griffin Roelle)

…the CrossFit and my weights. My numbers had to come down in order to be the whole Castro thing run a mile in five minutes, back squats 500 pounds. In order to run that five-minute mile, you can’t be back squatting 700 pounds.

It’s not going to happen.

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.

Today, I’m talking to CrossFit athlete, Griffin Roelle, who competed as a rookie at the 2020 CrossFit Games. Griffin found the sport after a lengthy football career. He brought an immense base of strength in his CrossFit training, which is reflected in his results so far.

He’s one of the all-out strongest athletes in the sport, and he won the max front squat event at this year’s CrossFit Games, with a 490 pound lift.

We discussed the limits of programming for strength and endurance, along with what Griffin thinks athletes should prioritize to excel at heavy workouts. Also, we’re incredibly thankful that you listen 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.

Griffin Roelle, thanks for joining us today. We’re recording this a couple weeks after stage one of the CrossFit Games, where you had to do those seven workouts in two days. How did you feel the next morning after that kind of volume?

Volume was actually low compared to normal training for me, honestly. The online qualifier, like the workouts, weren’t that much volume, but the intensity was stupid high. They’re all more short workouts. The only endurance workout that we had was the Nancy workout, but that was still an intense…You had to keep fast rounds.

All I’ve been doing for training was a ton of volume, like the normal games, and long, drawn-out, 40-minute, 45-minute, hour workouts to be prepared for. It was a quick switch. Honestly, being used to that, the volume was nothing. It was the intensity. I felt fine, but my quads are pretty much in pain after day one.

[laughs] You front squatted 490 pounds, so a lot of people wouldn’t have working quads after doing that. We have to give you a little bit of credit there. We got to talk about the front squat.

The max front squat event, you came out with a bang. It was the second event, I believe? You won it 490-pound front squat, which a few years ago would have been unthinkable for a CrossFitter. Now, it seems like you’re just setting a new standard that people are going to have to catch up to.

Is that the weight that you were aiming for going into that event? Did you like have a weight in mind?

Honestly, zero weight in mind. I played football most of my life, and I have an injury, still, that’s going on, but I have to get around. One thing is I don’t really squat heavy very often anymore. Trust me, I spent years and hours dying and crying in the gym squatting.

Leading up to this, I was based off of the equipment list. They said we had to have a rack, and I was like, “It’s either a back squat, front squat or an overhead squat.” I’m going to go with it either front or back. I was like, “It doesn’t really make sense to do a back squat after the thruster workout. Go with front squat.”

I was hoping I was like a one rep max thrust or something, honestly.

I figured it’d been a front squat, and I hadn’t front squatted heavy since before I started CrossFit.

How long ago was that? Just to give people an idea.

My first open was 2016. I started CrossFit just before that, like two months. It’s been about four years. Now, I say “heavy” like, I put 400 pounds on the bar and squatted, front squat for 8, 10, 12 reps. I hadn’t put a one rep max on there, since I was 17. When I was in high school, I was 17, I weighed 180 pounds and front squatted 450. I was like, “Yeah, if you can’t front squat over that, you suck.”

I knew at least I’d be over that. I had no idea. I was like, “Whatever.” When I saw that, I was like, “This is a joke.”

Do you think the front squat is the strength of it that is best for you?

No. Any of them.

Really? Any of them? OK, let’s talk about this. You’re probably the strongest male in this year’s CrossFit Games field. What do you attribute to that? You’re a football player, you obviously built a level of strength, maintaining that. We see a lot of people actually lose strength, if they had that high level when they get into CrossFit.

It seems like you’ve pretty much kept that, maybe gone up a little bit. What are some of the things that you attribute to that as far as your training style?

There’s a couple things. One is my dad was a strength conditioning coach. He also coached football. I grew up around it. That’s why I said it’s been hours in the gym. I had a training program and it made me really strong. Honestly, I’ve gotten weaker since then, but it’s impossible to keep the strength that I had when I played football. I just back squatted 600 for 12.

Wow.

I used to be really, really strong. Now I’m just, strong.

Have you heard about the sport of powerlifting? Because if not…

…we have some listeners who would like to introduce you to that sport, sir.

That’s the thing with CrossFit, you can’t train like that. That was very, very specific. I could have done that but I wanted to do something else. I wanted to CrossFit. My numbers had to come down in order to be the whole Castro thing run a mile in five minutes, back squats 500 pounds. In order to run that five-minute mile, you can’t be back squatting 700 pounds.

It’s not going to happen. There’s a very fine line of what the body can do. While training honestly, I do a lot of squat cleans, I do a lot of biking. I’m honestly for fast switch muscle fiber people, which is me. I’m really fast, I can run a 40 really quickly. When you do more endurance-based stuff, you still get stronger.

You still keep that maintenance level that you need but the other side of it is your bone density. When you lift that much weight all the time for years, your body becomes accustomed to it, your CNS knows what it feels like and it’s so easy to get right back to it. Just touching something that’s relatively heavy every once in a while, you’re good to go.

Trust me, I do plenty of volume that’s heavy is perspective. I’ll do squat cleans well over 300, 350, 360 to 400 pounds all the time. I’m squatting heavy when I’m doing a bunch of reps. It just keeps it maintained, that’s all.

When you got into CrossFit, it was after your football career was winding down. Why CrossFit? I got to ask because we cover all the strength sports at BarBend. I talked to powerlifters and weightlifters and Strongman athletes all day and I have trouble looking at any of those sports and saying, “Hey, Griffin wouldn’t be good at this.” What attracts you to CrossFit specifically?

Honestly, my uncle, when I was playing football, the year of trying to figure out what I was going to do. Had my pro days had all that stuff, all the all-star games, traveling around the country. He asked me, he’s like, “Hey, I think you’d be really good at this. I want you to come out and see it.”

He had already been doing CrossFit. That year, I want to say he finished 32nd in the world or something. It was the 45 to 50 group at the time. He’s like, “Hey, you’d be good at this in case football doesn’t work out.” I flew out to California, watched the Games.

Just as a spectator?

Just a spectator. I had no idea what was going on. I knew nothing about it and just watching it I was just like, “Damn, this sucks.”

“These people are getting destroyed.” The events, when they were in the tennis stadium. I was like, “I got to be a part of this.” It’s like this is just too cool. I got to do it. The other thing was one, I’ve always played team sports, I love team sports. I still do love them more than individual, honestly. I also have always wanted to see what I can do myself.

Not having anybody else, whether they pick me up or put me down. I needed to figure that out. Just seeing the challenge that it would be. There’s a lot of football players in CrossFit but I don’t think there were any like that strong. I hadn’t ever seen anybody that came out of this overly strong people in the CrossFit. Can you adjust and change your body completely?

I just saw it as a complete challenge. The other thing is because you have to be so well-rounded at so many things. It’s not just one. You can be strong but you’re not ever going to make the games if you’re just strong. You have to be so good at so many things. I’ve always been able to play every sport I’ve ever played. I was like, “Why not? Let’s go for it.” Make a decision and go for it.

My uncle got me into it. I walked into a CrossFit gym, while I was there we did a couple of workouts. He was like, “Hey, can you do muscle up?” I was like, “What the hell is that?” I don’t know what that is. “Show me.”

I got up on the rings, did one immediately. He’s like, “All right, somebody sign this kid. He’s going to go to the Games.” It was one of those like, “All right. I’m already good at it. Let’s go for it.” It’s where it all started, right there.

Are there any movements that, or, I should say, categories of movements, that did give you trouble? I remember learning my first muscle up. It took me a hell of a lot more than just one session.

Are there any movements that did trip you up and that you had to, in the four years since you started CrossFit, really attack just to get up to that base level and get comfortable with?

 Honestly, none of the movements. The only thing that was probably the hardest, I’d snatched as a kid. I can move the bar but coming from football and no overhead mobility to squat snatch, power snatch all day long, couldn’t get under the bar. I spent about a year focusing on mobility.

Then my numbers, they weren’t attributed to getting stronger. They were just the fact that I could get in the bottom position better. I still have an issue with, when I go to snatch, I can’t walk in like normal Olympic weightlifters do and just knock out snatches. I have to stretch my shoulders out a ton.

That’s because with football, you’re internally rotated. Your pecs are too tight. Your calves and ankles, you’re not meant to be in that mobile position. I had to adjust that. Other than that, no. I can handstand walk. Not very far, I always screwed around. I could go about 10 feet. I picked that up practicing.

None of the movements but volume, my biggest weakness is overhead. I’m strong overhead but not for volume. It’s been more like those things, and I’m still working on fixing.

You’re not one of those CrossFit Games athletes that can walk into a random gym, see a 185 pounds on the bar, and start squat snatching it, like I’ve seen some of these folks do.

No.

You’re a normal person. You have to get by the rack and loosen up your shoulders. It takes about 40 minutes, and you’re like, “I’m good to go. I have about 10 minutes when I’m good to go.”

For sure.

Absolutely. Now I can walk in and go muscle snatch it, but that’s not anything. I got to mobilize. I got to. Otherwise, I’m going to hurt something. I’ve also been like that with every sport I’ve played. I always walk in. I make sure I mobilize, do the right things before. We do a lot better job after, but before you do a pretty good job.

You qualified for this year’s Games through the…It was the Norwegian CrossFit Championship. Was that correct? Was that your first time in Norway?

For sure.

[laughs] You go by crossfitthor on Instagram, and you have this vikingesque look. I don’t know. I was wondering if maybe…

…you’re of Norwegian ancestry and…

I am, actually, yes. I’m German, Irish, and then Nordic. It’s a straight lineage. I saw that one of the sanction events was in Norway. I was like, “I got to go. I can’t not go.”

It was a good time. I did not like having to run up a ski slope, but it was a good time.

We know how this panned out for you, your first year as an individual to CrossFit Games. Obviously, congratulations on the qualification and the performance in stage one. Heading into 2021, you’re not a rookie anymore. You’re a seasoned veteran.

The flash and the pomp and circumstance, you didn’t have any of that this year, because it was all virtual. You’re still not going to be a rookie, right?

No.

What are you working on, with one Games under your belt, heading into 2021?

There’s a couple things. The next day, I sat down and wrote out strengths, weaknesses, what are, as of right now, not what I’ve fixed. Honestly, there’s only a couple things that I really, really, really need to harness in, so I can go finish in that top 5, maybe podium, top 10, somewhere in there, depending upon the workouts.

It’s honestly just a couple specific movements. Handstand push-ups, simple, so simple. I have the strength to do all these strict ones, but, for some reason, the moment they go for me, they go. A lot of people, they’re fine. They can knock them out, doesn’t bother them. It’s like doing air squats. For me, it is just as difficult.

With football, you don’t do overhead movements that often. I’m so much better at squatting and gymnastics other than overhead that it’s night and day difference than if I’m competing against Matt or Noah. They’re so good at those movements. I’m going to get smoked, and I did. We had a workout that had deficit strict handstand push-ups, got smoked.

That’s one big thing I’ve worked on that I need to continue to work on. The other thing is, honestly, running. I run often, but I need to be able to run with the 30 fittest humans on the planet. Unfortunately, like with this online qualifier, it represented for a lot of athletes, not just me, maybe what they had gotten better at but maybe not everything.

It didn’t represent a lot of what I’d worked on. The Games are online, can’t test exactly what you’re going to test at the games. My biggest issue previously was being able to do 40-minute workouts at a fast pace. I would have liked to test that out, see if I really did fix it. I at least thought I did. What I didn’t do were all those fast, short workouts that I was really good at.

Probably, for me, I have to test those two. I haven’t done them in a while. I got to do a better job of making sure when I lead up to competition that I hit some of those extremely fast workouts that I’m good at, basically like Fran, and then harness in that overhead volume, which I’ve done, but at a fast pace, so they don’t blow up.

There’s a couple very specific minor things. One thing that will fix that, just like I said earlier, with mobility is, if you’re stacked in a better position overhead, you can pretty much eliminate your arms and shoulders blowing up as quickly. It’s mobility overhead, overhead in general, biggest thing to fix.

You have any goals for 2021 as far as placement? This year, you qualified for the Games. Is there a particular spot you’re eyeing in 2021 and then in 2022?

Obviously, you have your top goal. Everyone wants to beat Matt. Be honest, good luck. He is unbelievable at the moment, but that’s still your goal. This year, I had a lot of goals for the Games. It wasn’t just qualifying. I wanted to qualify and do well.

Then there were some smaller goals. Go in. Have a couple top 10 events. Got two. Go win an event. Got that one out of the way. The next one, I honestly wanted to finish in the top 15, top 20. Didn’t make it. Didn’t happen. There were two big events that took me out of that. All I had to do is really do well in one more, and I would have had that happen.

Leading into 2021, honestly, again, qualifying for the Games, especially how hard is it this time in the sport, is extremely difficult. That’s always a goal. Make sure you qualify. Next, now let’s go win a couple more events inside there and finish into the top 10.

Every year the workouts are different. They’re always changing, even if you’re well-rounded. This year, you saw Vellner and Falkowski didn’t finish in the top 10. They’re really, really good. There’s a lot of dudes that should have. Honestly, it’s like just finish in the top 10, but obviously you want to try to beat Mat. Then, next year you want to try to make sure you’re on the podium.

I don’t know how long he wants to go. I don’t know if he’s trying to do a Tom Brady thing or not. I think right now, [laughs] the only dude that can stop Fraser right now is Fraser, at the moment. I hope that’s not the case. Hopefully, he’s around long enough that someone knocks him off. Hopefully, that’s me.

That’s still goals. You got to have the goals to go chase down, even if they’re unattainable at the moment.

My next question was, do you think any of the other top five men have a chance this year? It’s clear that your answer is probably no. What do you think the podium is going to look like for that bronze and silver position or silver and bronze position?

Yes, right.

Yes.

Here comes the next part. They’re all obviously stupidly fit. They made it. Honestly, we’ll see what Dave comes out with, because you never had workouts at the ranch like this, especially, this stage. He’s going to put the hammer down on some of these guys, especially with the new point system.

That’s where you’re going to see Mat pull away, because of how the points that will be set up. Jeff Adler is going to do really well. I met him in Dubai a couple of years ago when that was my first individual comp and [inaudible 19:38] there too, and we got to talk and since then, he has progressed as well.

I told him before the online Games I said, “My money’s on you to fit the top five. I have a feeling you’re going to. You’re so well-rounded now.” People are sleeping on him. They shouldn’t be. Now, beating Mat? That’s another story, but he is going to make some noise in some of these events. Then I was impressed with Justin.

I knew he was good, just like everybody else that was in there, but he…That dude’s solid, man. He really excelled in some events, and I was like, “Wow.” Then you have you’ve got Noah, but unfortunately, no. If you have like…If they do some crazy rowing event, that’s long distance. That’s one of his weaknesses. He’s got to find a way to cut that down.

Between the guys I think all of them are, I don’t know, second place. I don’t want to say which guy should be where honestly. I’ll tell you what right now. Matt will be in front. The rest of them are solid concept. They are very equal.

They all have a little bit of a hole somewhere, but if I’m going to pick one guy. I’m hoping Jeff gets there in that second spot. Noah’s obviously solid. Justin’s solid. All of them are solid.

They’re all good but I just think you’re going to have a toss-up right now between…I think Justin’s going to get on podium. He’s going to do it.

Speaking of Justin Medeiros. Do you have a chip on your shoulder because he might be the only one whose hair could challenge your hair for flow game?

If you’re listening to this podcast and not watching. Justin Medeiros, rookie at this year’s Games qualified top five. Maybe the best mullet we’ve ever seen at this level?

Definitely best mullet.

Griffin has this long kind of traditional [inaudible 21:37] like a Chris Hemsworth, Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe hair. Have you all talked about this? Is there a message or a DM thread you all have going back and forth about whose hair is better or something like that? Who’s flowing?

We should. We don’t, but we definitely should. We’ve been on some HQ Zoom calls and they’ll throw comments around, honestly. I’ve had people throw comments around with my hair.

Even Jacob having…That was pretty funny. There’s a video he’s done on his Instagram. He is making fun of me. That’s pretty good. It’s pretty recent. We don’t have anything going on back and forth texting. He’s got a solid mullet going. He doesn’t need to cut it.

I’m someone who normally has my hair is, as you can see it’s pretty long right now. It gets to the full like eight inches high. I get a real, real solid height on the hair.

Anyone who’s rocking the long, curly hair especially, I got to give them a little bit of credit for that. If you’re coming out with a mullet, like Justin Medeiros was, good for you, man. You’re flying your own flag. Absolutely love it.

For sure. You’ve got to make a statement and he did.

I’ve got to ask, because this actually happened to me when I was in weightlifting. Sometimes the bar would catch on my hair in a turnover. Snatch. Does your hair ever catch? Has it ever get in the way on any movements?

No, my hairs so straight that pretty much I have it always tied up at the back. No, I have the same issue girls do with double unders, hair popping out, getting caught on that or having to go everywhere, and handstand push-ups. But other than that, no. Not on a bar.

Now if I’m doing a back squat or something like that. I got to make sure I tie it up nice and high on my head so it won’t get caught. That’s about the only thing. You don’t want that thing caught on a back squat.

That would be, that’s no bueno for anyone. What I will say, a tip. If you have long, curly hair, grow it out because if you can get the Afro, it helps on handstand push-ups.

Nice,

I’m not kidding. It’s like having an ad mat on your head. It’s the best thing. What are some events — getting back on track here…

…that you would like to see in Aromas? You’ll be a spectator. You’ll be watching along closely, I’m sure. What do you want to see Castro throughout these athletes?

 Honestly, they didn’t test any of those long workouts. You have to. You have to test that type of fitness. I hope they make it fun form. I hope it’s not just, “Hey, let’s kill them and see what happens.”

[laughs] It might be that.

It really might be who can suffer the most here. I hope that’s not where they’re aiming. I think they’ll make a spectator-friendly Castro, make it a pretty cool event to go and watch. I honestly think that they need to have a swim. They need to go ahead and take a bus and go out there. When we were planning on going out there originally, I was like, “It’s not that far from the water.”

They’re going to put us on a bus and take us out there. You know what’d be cool? Do a sprint tri. Do a sprint triathlon. It’s a good test of all fitness. We only had a short run and Nancy. You get a decent distance run, you can have a bike ride and you can swim. Unfortunately, you’d have to map that out but you only got to take tear of 10 athletes’ total.

They’ve done that before, we’ve seen the sprint tri the Games. Spread almost a decade ago at this point.

I think it’s time to bring some version of that back. Even if you had to ride the bike through the hills of Aromas, make something a little bit. If you’re doing this for the one time ever, make it a cool event. Make something real interesting. The other thing is you need to hit more heavy lifts.

Even though it’s the top of the CrossFit pyramid, people said the overhead squat was heavy at 185. Almost every athlete went unbroken. The girls were 125. They almost all went unbroken. It’s not. That wasn’t a heavy event. The deadlift to 315, that’s not heavy for the Games athletes.

You had one heavy event, which was your front squat but there’s no skill in that. There’s no high skill heavy movement. You need to test being able to snatch heavy under fatigue, or clean and jerk or whatever, under heavy fatigue. Go ahead and do that sprint tri directly until one rep max snatch or something. That’s like they did that long run in Aromas and did the deadlift ladder.

You can make it something similar to that. That’d be pretty cool to see. Honestly, we didn’t see any gymnastics on the rings, other than Chester to bar on the bar, you need to be seeing toes to bar. Bar muscle-ups and you see higher volume for that. That’s what I’m assuming I’m going to see but y’all should just like you normally do.

It throws out some events, some movements, something you’ve never done. They should bring back something that not makes something like the pig. Can you move that? That’s a Strongman event. You didn’t see anything Strongman or in the games always something like that. It would be pretty cool to see something like that tossed into Aromas.

What is an event or a movement that might be a little more uncommon that you think you’d be the best in the world at? Design your perfect Games workout, the Griffin Roelle special.

Something…Oh, man. Some high-box jump overs, you can’t touch the box. Roelle is going to eliminate a lot of dudes. Anything power, whether its heavy power snatches, heavy power cleans. I like doing those better because you know what, anybody can get under a bar. Are you strong enough to be explosive enough to pull the bar up?

In sprint intervals and honestly, it could be anything with a heavy yoke. That sounds like a fun workout. I’m going to write that and I’m going to do that offseason.

Then throw in some high-volume gymnastics, whether it’s bar muscle-ups or whatever.

This sounds like the world’s most grueling chipper.

You got to do 50, 30-inch box jump overs. There’s no touching the box, into a heavy yoke carry across the field, into 60 chest to bar pull-ups, and then bar muscle-ups. What else am I missing here? I mentioned…

Some heavy power cleans.

Then 295 pound power cleans for 15.

Or you can make it get heavier every round. I’m cool with that, too.

This sounds terrible. I don’t want to ever train with you. It sounds awful.

That sounds like a great time.

This is like a full afternoon for most people. [laughs]

People don’t realize when you get ready for the Games strength is different. It’s extremely high volume. You’re just working out all day. The volume is on another level.

You have to simulate an experience at the Games, because it’s fine if you can do it for one day. Guess what? The game is never just one day…

It’s normally about four.

You have to be able to get up the next day and do it again. As we saw in stage one.

For sure, and that’s why I said at the beginning, there was not that much volume. You saw Matt was like, “This is easier than training.” Other than he had to go as fast as he ever had to go, because you can see people’s scores.

Volume-wise, that’s why you saw him put up some times that were just unreal, like on the Fran workout or the Diane workout. He’s just so fast.

The Fran workout, he got three minutes and eight seconds or something like that?

Yeah.

That blew my mind. I actually did not think that was possible to do that workout that quickly.

 I had a bad feeling he was going to go that fast. I broke it down in my head time-wise, if you go unbroken, you could almost fit it all each round in a minute. Can you hold that?

The only person I think that could do that would be Matt. He did it, and I was like, “Wow, all right, great.” The rest of us were within eight, nine seconds of us from second to nine. It’s like we’re mortals, some more are in that workout.

He was averaging 40 movements a minute, basically, because 21 thrusters, 20 chest to bar pull-ups. He averaged a little over a minute per round. He’s averaging roughly 40 reps a minute, which is just a pace. It’s a factor ahead of everyone else right now on that workout.

Even a 115 and 95 on a thruster change, isn’t that much. In that speed of a workout, it’s drastic. If you had changed that workout, and made it a little bit less reps at 135, it doesn’t matter. That’s an entirely different workout again.

Castro found a way to put the right stimulus that put people to wanting to just die. I wasn’t OK for about an hour after that workout. Having to turn around and go do a front squat. I grabbed the bar and was like, “I don’t want to do this. This is terrible.”

Well, we’re glad you recovered from that. You’re back to training. This is the last day of your vacation. Are you going to be back to training and back to feeling that terrible, awful, awful…

Yeah.

Where is the best place for you for people to keep up to date with your training? I know you’re a prolific poster on social media. You post a lot of cool stuff, especially some heavy barbell movements, which we all love to see. How do we follow you on social?

Honestly, just go to my Instagram, CrossFit Thor. I’ve had a million people ask me about strength programs, because that’s what I’ve done my entire life. I decided, you know what, all right. I’m going to actually release what I used to do to get strong.

You want to get strong, it works. It’s not for the faint of heart. You’ll probably shed a tear. My dad used to yell at me while I was squatting and I cried in the middle of this great time. I’m going to give that to people if they want to buy that and use it.

I’m also going to give out Olympic lifting programs. Just a squat program, an accessory program. I didn’t squat for the past couple years. I’ve only been doing accessory work to make sure that I was OK to be prepared in case that ever showed up.

I’ll get stuff out like that, too. I had a lot of people ask about it. People asked me to start a YouTube. I’m going to start a YouTube where not to be working out, because you can watch that almost anywhere.

I’m honestly going to break down some of the videos, break down some of the lifting. What I’m good at. How to do it. How to fix things. I know there’s a lot of stuff out there, but if people are coming to me and want to hear the right things, I’ll tell them the right things.

I don’t want to have misinformation out there. I’ll be throwing a YouTube together along with what I already do. Hopefully between that everyone’s getting enough content that they can one learn, and enjoy what I’m doing for them.

Awesome. Thanks so much for joining us today, Griffin. Really enjoyed getting to talk to you.

Yeah, man. Appreciate you having me on here.