(insistent knocking)
(dog barks)
- Hey it's okay big guy.
What up, dude?
Come on in.
(western cowboy music)
My name is James Lawrence,
I'm the iron cowboy
and this is my gym.
It just came into my head 50-50-50.
50 ironmans,
50 states,
in just 50 days.
- That's about 10 you're good.
- Past 48 hours,
I did two ironmans
and five hours of sleep.
- I'm like how are you doing?
He's like, "done".
So I don't really think he's good.
- Ten, nine.
- Let's go from three.
- Yeah, three.
- Guys they've lost
(music drowns out speaker)
- James said he can't feel his legs.
- He'd sit down, he was asleep.
He was so crazy to watch.
- One, two, snoring.
You do one, two, three snoring on a bike
you crash.
- And all the sudden he's like,
"I can't do this".
- I stopped chasing society's dream,
and I went after my dreams.
- All right guys this is my gym.
I'm the Iron Cowboy.
This is where all of the hurt,
the sweat,
the pain,
everything happens.
I absolutely love it.
We built this
because I was sick and tired
of having to get permission
to go to the places,
and do my training,
and do some filming
and some social media
and all that stuff.
So we just wanted to workout in peace,
and have a good time.
So we'll start here this
Guys if you're not strength training
you're not performing to the level you can.
Everybody says this is a endurance sport,
it's not.
This is a strength sport.
This is a muscular endurance-strength sport.
If you've ever been at an Ironman event,
if you've ever done an Ironman event,
if you've ever done a marathon
when you get to the finish line
you don't hear people saying,
"oh man, I felt so good
" but I just couldn't get my heart rate
" where it was stopping me,
" my heart rate was so high my lungs were gonna..."
No they're not saying that!
They're saying my legs are so heavy.
I was carrying bricks around that course.
What was stopping them was their strength.
Their muscular endurance,
that was getting in their way.
Take out a swim and do strength training.
There we go, there we go.
- Yeah.
- This machine I love it.
It's my smith machine.
We do squats on here,
we do bench on here,
yes it's bench.
Here's one more rant piece I'm gonna do,
Women!
Ladies!
You cannot put on mass.
You cannot bulk up.
Lift heavy weights.
For crying out loud,
lift heavy weights.
You wanna be strong on the bike,
lift heavy weights.
It's okay you cannot put on mass.
Lean muscle mass.
You know why?
You wanna burn calories
when you're sleeping and what not,
you do your strength training.
You will burn calories
while just sitting there doing nothing.
While you're recovering,
while you're doing it.
You wanna be strong on the bike,
you wanna have power.
Powerful run legs coming off the bike.
You've gotta do this kind of work.
So off my platform.
Love the smith machine.
I love controlled things.
On this side of the gym,
we've got weight machines.
That I use specific for hamstrings,
specific for quadriceps.
One of the biggest mistakes
people make in triathlon,
in weights and strength training
is an imbalance between quads and hamstrings.
And so you've got to do single leg work.
You've gotta work the front and the back.
It's so important.
I know I'm getting a little bit passionate.
It's just who I am,
I get fired up.
Single dumbbells,
double dumbbells,
the med balls,
the stability type work.
We've seen a lot of people blow out their shins
and so we actually do all of our box jumps
on padded
mats that we stack up.
It really helps to save your shins.
And then off season I love to do CrossFit.
Now I get it CrossFit's the devil.
Stop it.
Stop with that nonsense.
CrossFit will make you an athlete,
CrossFit will make you functional,
CrossFit will make you look good,
but here's some hard hardcore rules
when it comes to CrossFit.
Forget 'wait for time',
scrap that.
Work on technique.
Be the last person in the gym.
There's no such thing as 'RX',
there's no such thing as the white board.
It's you and who you are.
And there's just so much value in being athletic,
different movements side.
In our sport everything,
Bop, Bop, Boom.
Straight, straight, straight, right?
That's what we do in our sport.
But movement side to side,
athletically doing the different movements
it's gonna turn you into an athlete.
It's gonna make you stronger.
We got a fun rig here,
obviously lots of TRX stuff.
The heavy bag is sometimes fun
to do some rounds on that.
And you know,
just again be agile,
be an athlete.
A lot of body weight stuff,
a lot of bands.
We got jump ropes that are great for calf work.
Stability,
just blowing stuff up.
Hanging doing a lot of ab work.
Dude, who doesn't love a six
eight pack whatever you want,
whatever your jam is.
But that's the thing,
you know what no offense to you big hardcore cyclists
out there.
But my goal is not to man-orexic.
That's just not my goal.
I wanna go out there I wanna look good,
I wanna perform well,
and trust me it takes strength training to perform well.
These machines right here,
obviously all of our heavy lifting are kettlebell work.
Which is a lot of fun.
We've actually got a really cool girl,
that's gonna be coming to Cross,
coming through this summer.
She's trying to break the world record
for the most kettlebell sessions,
three hours at a time.
She's gonna come here,
we're gonna throw around some kettle bells,
she's gonna teach me how to do it.
But she's gonna set a world record.
So cool to be part of that.
Obviously we've got our machine
that I talked about specific for quads,
hamstrings,
squats for the overall legs.
You've really got to emphasis those.
And you've got to separate them out
so that you can have that balance.
We get so so focused because of what we do
when it strengthens our quads,
that it leads to injury.
And so having that balance
between the front and the back is so so important.
And everybody has to have one of these in their gyms.
(western cowboy music)
This is the fun part.
And then when you get tired of riding your bike,
you jam out on one of these.
You go have some fun up in these mountains in Utah.
It's unbelievable.
Block weights.
Tactical training vests when you get too strong
and unbelievably massive.
You wanna add some difficulty,
you throw on the vest.
Do some running,
some intervals,
kind of a fun CrossFit thing.
Triathlon gets so boring.
So stagnant we repeat, repeat, repeat.
That's why I like to add in that cross training.
Doing different elements,
fun stuff.
We've gotta have some playfulness in what we do.
If not what's the point.
And this type of stuff we do a lot off season.
In the winter really get creative
and have fun.
Couple cardio machines here,
and then we'll head upstairs.
But this one is a lot of fun.
Stepper.
If you're going into a course
that has a lot of hills,
challenging terrain.
This thing is unbelievable to get your calves blown out.
Really get some elevation gain.
Rowers is a really fun,
different way to do some cross training.
Some good cardiovascular stuff.
I love these machines,
this thing cranks up to 30 degrees.
Which is a ton of fun.
And also all of the treadmills
that we have go to negative six.
And that's awesome to train for a race
that has maybe a marathon you're doing
that comes out of a canyon,
has a lot of elevation drop.
People are shocked they get up into those races.
They don't train,
they just train flat.
And then they totally blow out their quads.
And that sucks.
That leads to injury.
So you wanna kinda train
and do things that you would do in a normal race.
And you wanna try to simulate that.
And because we do have a long indoor season,
love the treadmills that go super steep
and super declined.
This machine is a ton of fun.
For all you data geeks out there,
this thing reads off of power.
So it demonstrates how much power you can do.
We do a lot of swim work,
that early catch is important.
Those lat muscles pulling down,
gives you out a good watt reading.
So you can get consistent pressure.
A lot of cable work can be done here.
Lot of side, core, stability.
Lot of fun.
I'm getting ready right now for a ski race.
A 40 mile back country ski race.
And so I'll be doing a lot of the pulling.
And so this is good,
good kind of cross training we do.
This is my downstairs playground.
We've got another area.
Let's go upstairs and check out the upstairs.
(western cowboy music)
So this is where most of the work gets done.
The stuff that matters,
the hard work.
The grueling long sessions in the winter.
Some are my favorite though.
Because I love riding our bikes indoors.
So we've got the two treadmills,
we've got two bikes.
Guys,
it sucks to train on your own.
You get inside you've got an early season Ironman,
you've got five or six hours worth of running
and biking to do on a long brick session.
So I said I don't wanna do it by myself,
so I created an environment where my friends would come
and hang out.
So we've got these two treadmills up here.
Again they go to 30 and six.
It's just fun.
You can break yourself on these.
Two spin bikes with power on them.
These are my wife's bikes.
We're huge fans of Fezzari,
they've been taking care of us for years.
Just a Cr3 road bike,
my wife's tri-bike.
This bike here they don't even make this anymore.
Ellsworth specialized in mountain bikes,
but for one year they came out
and built a tri bike that was called the Coefficient.
And this is actually the bike
that we broke the 2010 Half Ironman world record on.
So that's kind of a sentimental piece to me.
It was the beginning of my journey in 2010.
Which was a decade ago.
I'm just completely humbled to still have that
and to still be racing,
and still be healthy.
And having so much fun a long the way.
Actually these here is a decade worth of hard work.
Most of these are Half-Ironman, Full Ironmans.
Co2 over here, Kona.
On the wall, Kona 2014.
And 70.3 world champs.
I just realized today I am missing one metal,
it is gone.
And it's from another 70.3 World Champs
when it was in Clear Water Florida.
Cause I did Clear Water and I did Vegas.
Obviously some that are really special to me
would be my ...
very first ever full distance.
This little tiny guy right here.
2008 my very first ever full distance,
it was the Vineman.
And so this was really the start of our journey
where it has meant so much to us,
changed our lives.
It was the first time I did a full Ironman.
I was like this is what I'm supposed to be doing,
and it broke me.
Like I was a disaster.
Great swim, great bike,
but fell apart on the run right?
Like I had no idea what I was doing.
This one here is my PR.
Ironman PR.
Cozumel Mexico.
It's one of my favorite races ever.
I've done it five times.
Just had an unbelievable race that day.
It was a month before we went to tackle
the full Ironman world record.
This one means a lot to me, too.
It was my very first marathon.
Salt Lake City Marathon.
This metal right here was truly the start of our journey.
I had done a four mile fun run,
and it wrecked me.
Like four miles wrecked me.
I had no idea about running,
I'd never heard of triathlon really.
And my wife said, "Dude, you are absolutely pathetic.
" You're pathetic!
" Those four miles should not wreck you."
And she said, "I just signed you up for
" the Salt Lake City Marathon."
And we trained together for like four or five months
and suffered through this.
And so this metal means a lot to me,
because it really was the start of my journey.
One of the very first tough things
that I did as an endurance athlete.
And it's really where I fell in love with the sport.
And I was like I am not gonna allow this moment
to define who I am.
And if you had met me on that day,
no chance you would've said
that I would've went on to have and do,
and experience what I did.
And so I'm grateful for the suffering,
I'm grateful for the failures.
I'm grateful that I didn't give in to that moment,
and not go on and do
what I believed I was capable of right.
So that's a really cool win.
(western cowboy music)
But let me take you through some of our bikes.
This one here Fezzari will get mad at me,
but this is a prototype.
It's not even out on the market.
I've been playing with it.
It's a one piece frame,
super light-weight,
27.5 tires,
tons of comfort,
hard tail,
lot of fun on the mountain.
All mountain.
So I love, love riding this.
This is the new version of the bike
that I rode up Mount Kilimanjaro.
20,000 feet in the air
that was an unbelievable experience.
This is one of the Wingman Air,
this is one of the versions of the T5
that Fezzari makes.
This is very similar to the one that I rode
in the 50 which we set that record on.
These two bikes here.
This is my wife's and then this one's mine.
It's called the Empire.
It actually won bike of the year.
Road bike of the year unbelievable bike again.
One piece frame, molding, disk brakes,
the 28 tire thickness.
Dude, so stable. So fast.
I absolutely love it.
I don't know, do you remember power cranks?
(laughing)
You remember those?
- No.
- No? Oh man.
- What is that?
- Let me show you.
So the bike is obviously a one speed.
You seriously don't know about power cranks?
- Not a clue.
- So these are probably the best training tool
on the planet,
I don't even know if they make them anymore.
But it's got adjustability for crank length,
right?
But what's interesting is each of these
is independent of each other.
You know when you're doing a single leg drill,
and it goes like, "click, click."
and there's that dead spot, right?
And if you learn to be an efficient cycler,
cyclist you eliminate that dead spot.
And you become so more efficient.
And that's how these guys produce power.
If Triathlon Taren didn't know about it,
and dude it's a special piece
and he should know about it.
This is my T5.
My racing bike.
I have found that this combination of tubeless
without a disk is so much faster.
This bike is just raw speed.
But any aggressive fast bike is rarely super,
super comfy.
We were just on the largest film production in TV history.
A race called the Eco-Challenge.
It was in the back country of Fiji.
It's gonna be 10 episodes on Amazon Prime,
coming out in September of this year 2020.
And trust me it's going to be a must-see.
I am not allowed to say how we did.
What we did.
But just know this bike was unbelievable.
Full suspension, two niners, eagle eye on the back.
This thing was unbelievable.
This thing was caked in mud.
This thing did everything we wanted it to do.
And it's one of the most fun bikes
I've ever been on in the mountain here.
So a lot of cool stuff coming.
Fezzari does an unbelievable job
cranking out different bikes.
Taking care of us.
Been partnered with them for at least five years,
and just stoked to be with them.
So this is kind of upstairs playground.
What we do,
where we do a lot of the work,
a lot of the sweating.
And I'm just stoked
and blessed to have such a playground
and to be able to do this.
You've seen my gym,
you've seen my house,
you've seen a little bit of my bling,
and now it's time for you to get out.
- So what's up Trainiacs,
that is the Iron Cowboy's studio.
Thanks for having us here,
you've got something special to share with us
for what's coming later this year though.
- I have hopefully a gift for everybody.
And I have gone through my career
and one of the best things that I got to do
was suffer.
- This is what we as human beings can actually do.
- We have designed a race,
here in Utah.
And you've experienced a little bit of Utah,
so far it's unbelievable,
it's rugged.
We're standing at 5,000 feet.
Our race goes up to 13,000 feet.
I wanna invite every Trainiac
who wants to challenge themselves,
wants to find out who they are,
wants to have an experience.
We have a half distance and a full distance.
It's called the Guardsman.
So it's a challenge you're gonna do it,
we wanna extend an offer to all you Trainiacs.
50% off.
We're gonna probably have a link in the description below,
and the code is gonna be, "Trainiacs".
We invite you out to Utah.
It's August 1st,
and it's gonna be an experience.
You wanna challenge yourself,
you wanna have a good time,
you wanna see some unbelievable views
come visit us in Utah.
We're gonna put on an unbelievable event.
I've invited Teran,
we'll see if he comes or not.
I don't know.
I know he's a got a goal.
A big goal.
We always try to make it to Kona.
Kona's a magical place
but so is right here in Utah.
Another cool thing we're doing cash prizes.
We're gonna be on the race course,
you don't have to win.
Just you got a smile on your face,
you get some cash.
You're in last place,
you get some cash.
And if you finish the course,
last year we only had 10% finish,
if you finish your name goes
in the drawing for more cash.
So come to Utah, have an experience.
Link below, click on it.
Register, August 1st.
50% off all you Trainiacs.
- Awesome, man. - Thank you.
- Thanks for having us. - Absolutely.