Coach Chris Mate has been an integral part of the CFH community since 2014. He has inspired all of us as an athlete and helped us improve as a coach. Coach Chris is moving on and we wish him the best but also know he will be sorely missed. We dug the below interview out of the CFH archives from 2023.Let’s see if Chris’s answers still hold up!
J: When did you start at CFH?
C: I joined in 2013 and started coaching a little less than a year after I joined.
J: When I joined in 2018, you were well into coaching and, from my perspective, you excelled as an athlete. Post pandemic, I came back to CFH in Oct of 2022 and you had become an absolute specimen. What did you do consciously or unconsciously that caused you to level up?
C: It wasn’t a full scope level up. I worked to get better at cardio, which I feel much better at now in light weight metcons, but I lost a lot of strength. My snatch in 2018 was as heavy as my clean & jerk is now so, I have lost a lot of strength but for me, at my age, I had to think about, “do I need to snatch 225 o would I rather start shifting, drop some weight and work on high heart rate cardio?” I had never done that before because I always skewed toward strength and whatever cardio I had was just left over. I decided to change my focus to be more metcon oriented.
J: Is there anything specific that you dialed while changing that focus? Diet? Training? Recovery?
C: First and foremost, was diet. I felt comfortable body weight wise and strength wise at 195 lbs but crept up closer to 205 and that feels heavy on my frame so, originally, I was going to drop to 185 but I was seeing so much improvement in my gymnastics when I dropped to 185 that I thought maybe I could drop a little bit further and get to a little over 170. The 170 that I was at during Battle of Baltimore last year (2023) looked aesthetically the best but I was NOT eating enough calories to sustain workouts during the day. I had to find a balance of the right amount of calories so I was eating enough and I have energy to work and work out at the gym. So, I pushed back up to 175 – 177 and have stuck around here because I feel really good at this weight. Some of my strength came back, cardio still feels really good and then I added in a little bit of additional work outside of the classes. I was trying to get in just a little extra straight cardio for a longer duration of time for example, 45 minutes during a lunch break.
J: For your longer duration cardio, what specifically were you doing?
C: I’ll do HIIT style lunch time workouts or bike for an hour at a high Zone 1 / low Zone 2 pace. I do alot of extra workouts with Joe and Joel on off days too.
J: When you were tracking your food and weight, how intensive was that for you and how doable would that be for other people?
C: It’s incredibly approachable to be disciplined but it’s also so easy to regress. There were times I would talk to Kate about macros and track everything in My Fitness Pal and my breakfast and lunch would look identical evefryday, dinner would be something that is different but the same. Overtime, I found this really off putting. I didn’t enjoy scanning everything I took out of the fridge or the pantry but, it was good because it gave me an idea of how easy it is to over eat something. So, it was good to get out the scale, weigh out the food, hit the actual serving size and get a better idea of how I can portion it on my own going forward without having to log everything. That and prioritizing protein at every meal is a big help.
J: Going forward, what is your goal?
C: If you ask my wife, she would say I should be squatting more and clean & jerking more and snatching more. I feel great right now and I’m really happy with everything I’m doing. I am loosely interested in another 18 months, if I still feel this good, I’m interested in maybe seeing what a more competitive masters circuit might look like. But we’ll see. For now, I feel great.
J: Is there anything that is harder for you in the whole scope? Like, what do you hate but you know it makes a big difference?
C: There’s movements that I hate. I feel like I haven’t improved even one reps worth in a thruster the entire time I’ve been here. To motivate yourself to do a thruster by yourself is impossible. And, that long form cardio. Like, trying to push a pace on a mile run. I don’t like doing any of that but I realize how necessary it is.
J: Let’s get into the AMA questions from the community! What is your favorite benchmark WOD?
C: There’s a couple and there’s a new one and I don’t know that I love it yet but I love the idea of it. Amanda has always been a favorite because I love a squat snatch. I am aware I have incredible mobility that comes from a lifetime of wrestling and being in weird positions. I also happen to love a ring muscle up and a short, sprint style metcon as opposed to a long one so Amanda works. And then the one they did in the games this year, Alana, I really like the idea of and I have to test that. Alana is 3 rounds: 400m run, 12 bar muscle ups and 21 alt DB snatches at 50 lb.
J: AMA question 2, What do you eat during a typical work day?
C: My workday meals look pretty similar everyday. If I don’t go into the office, for breakfast it’s 3 to 1 egg white to egg ratio, peppers, onions, some chicken or lunch meat and some kind of fruit. Maybe an oatmeal with peanut butter too. Lunch switches a little bit. I’ll do a lunch meat wrap with carrots and humus. For a while I was making a wrap with rotisserie chicken and cheese, peppers and onions. Because Ashlee and I work so much, we try to be thoughtful about meals with out full meal prep, we do Hello Fresh because it’s simple, you’re still cooking it and you can tailor it to yourself. And, if I GO to work…it’s CAVA.
J: What is your go to cheat meal or snack?
C: I stay really tight during the week but if I meet up with friends or Ashlee and I go out to dinner, I’ll still balance it but maybe get like a good steak. If I could cheat everyday though, it would be pizza and bacon, egg and cheese bagels.
J: AMA question 3: What is your favorite type of athlete to coach?
C: The best type of athlete to coach is one that listens, tries and tries to be body aware. It’s harder to coach a person when they don’t realize the positions they are in. I feel confident that I can coach athletes across a broad spectrum of abilities and skill sets to get movements that they wanted to get.
J: AMA question 4: What do your recovery days look like?
C: They vary from nothing to something. I started playing more golf, Ashlee and I will take the dogs on long walks, occasionally I will take long bike rides to Sprouts or do nothing. Sit on the coach and veg out on a Sunday.
J: AMA question 5: Do you have any mobility tips?
C: I say it to my classes all the time, if you are terrible at getting into the bottom of a squat, it’s not going to get any easier if you don’t spend some time getting uncomfortable. So, spend the time during the :15 ad that pops up while you are watching YouTube to hold the bottom of a squat.