Catching Up with the Newest Fittest Man on Earth, Jeff Adler

How do you celebrate after being crowned the Fittest Man in the World? What do you do in the days that follow? How do you get motivated again to train after reaching the pinnacle in your sport? Nearly one month since his big win, we sat down with the 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Games champion Jeff Adler to ask him all of the above, as well as about how following the old school Zone Diet and three days on, one day off CrossFit.com programming is still working for him. This content is available exclusively to Members Become an member and start enjoying full access to all our community and sports content, and an ad-free experience. PROMO Exclusive content Ad-Free web/app experience Comments on articles Exclusive 15% WIT discount $1 per month for the first 4 months, $8 each month after Get Started for $1 Exclusive content Ad-Free web/app experience Comments on articles Exclusive private Facebook Group Regular coffee breaks hang outs Exclusive 15% WIT discount Get Started $5/month billed annually Already a member? Log In. Catching Up with the Champ So you just became the Fittest Man on Earth. How did you celebrate the win? Adler: I’m not a big party guy, so we didn’t party much, so (it was) a little bit like every year’s Games. The main difference is we had a private dinner with our closest friends and close family and we just had a nice quiet supper together, and then we went to the after party. But I mean, I didn’t go there to wreck. That’s not my thing at all. But we did enjoy some celebrating to our own level. What has your life been like since winning? What have you and (coach and partner) Caroline (Lambray) been up to for the last month? Adler: Very busy. We wanted to leave for vacation but we had so many media interviews post-Games. We wanted to take advantage of it so we stayed in Montreal for two weeks, and we just had to catch up on so much stuff that we delayed before the Games, just regular stuff like the gym and at home. (After that) we were able to leave for some vacation (locally in Quebec), but it wasn’t enough. And I just started training the day before yesterday. This is my first rest day after my first set of three (training) days on. What has your diet been like for the last month? Adler: We have (been eating) whatever we want, so if we’re feeling a type of food, we just go for it. We have been eating out more, a lot more. I guess we have (made up) for a full year of not eating out. Right now, I’m stabilizing, so I’m eating more at home (again), trying to get back on track, but without doing anything crazy. We’re not super strict. Did you take a full three weeks totally off the gym? Adler: Yeah, walking was the most activity that I did in those three weeks. I was at the gym for some media stuff, but I tried to (do) as little as possible. How has it been getting back to the gym this week after three weeks off and after coming off a big high? Has it been challenging to feel motivated to do it all over again? Adler: I mean, I’m not thinking about that long into the future…and I still have to prep for (the) Rogue (Invitational)…Eight weeks is not a lot of time to get back to full fire power, and I’m sore. I’m starting very slow. It’s one session a day. Not for time. Most of it is strict and slow. We’re just starting off nice and easy and we’re not going to ramp it up until Rogue. You mentioned your first rest day after three training days. I know you were following the traditional CrossFit three days on, one day off programming back in 2021. Is that still how you’re training? Adler: Yep, still doing Zone, still doing three (and) one. CrossFit methodology all the way. How many Zone blocks do you eat a day? Adler: So I have been doing it for so long that we still weigh stuff ish, but nothing is super precise and I don’t think it has to be. But I think I’m around 25 to 27 blocks of protein and carbs and at least triple that of fat. It may be more. I’d have to sit down and recalculate everything that I eat. With your primary focus being the classic three days on, one day off of constantly varied, functional movements done at a high intensity, how do you build in things like weakness training? Adler: I mean, we do work on weaknesses. We have to at this point. But we still do CrossFit.com 90 percent of the time…and sometimes I have our class programming in my program…It depends what the workout is, but a good workout is a good workout. And then you also follow an individualized program that Caroline (Lambray) writes for you? Adler: Yes, my (additional) programming is fully personalized. It’s for me and for no one else. It wouldn’t even be sellable because it’s so (focused) towards what I need to do. Speaking of which, after this year’s Games, it’s clear muscle-ups are no longer a weakness. You won the Muscle-Up Logs workout this year and your handstands have improved (15th in the Inverted Medley). So what do you consider your weaknesses now? Adler: I don’t know, I don’t know. I still think I could up my game everywhere, and I think that’s the mindset to have. I don’t consider that I have no holes…I want to be so much better at everything. We looked (back) at the CrossFit Games and we looked at the workouts and there are holes and we just have to figure out (the reason). Like Test 2 : Was it the heat? Was it because I pushed too hard at the bike? Was it the pig? The pig is a difficult implement to practice if you don’t have one. I remember Caroline telling me in 2021 that, because you are so strong at cleans, and also jerks, that she rarely programs them for you. Is this still the case? Adler: Yeah, I didn’t clean for the whole summer. Zero. And I think without working on it, I can still get numbers that are very relevant (he placed fourth on the Olympic Total). Could I add five more pounds? Yeah. But is it really worth it? Or is it (more) worth it to work on toes-to-bar and chest-to-bars and wall balls and pig flips and get fifth instead of 25th (on Test 2)? What are some of the pros and the challenges with having your coach also be your romantic partner? Adler: The perks are that we’re close, so it’s easy. It makes it easy for programming. We can adjust on the fly very fast, so I think that’s the biggest perk. And for us, there aren’t really challenges because that’s not really how we see life in general. If something doesn’t go well, then we change, and if it goes well, then great, we capitalize on (it). Everybody tells me, ‘I wouldn’t be able to be coached by my husband or my wife,’ and I’m like, ‘Well, why not?’ Anybody can coach you, because when you get coached, you shouldn’t have any emotions attached to it. This is a workout, this is how you should do it, this is how fast you should do it, and if you do, great, and if you don’t, well what can we do to fix it? There are no emotions attached to that, and I think that’s what we do well. Yeah, leading up to the Games there’s more stress…we’re both stressed so how we act is a bit different but it doesn’t impact our relationship. I lived with Caro for two years before she started coaching me, and maybe that’s why it works. One big thing Caroline has talked about is your confidence and how in the past a lack of confidence held you back from believing you could get to the podium at the Games. How were you able to get to a place this year where you believed you could get to the podium and ultimately win? Adler: If we look at last year’s Games (fifth), I had that injury in my neck that nagged me in two of the events, and just doing a little bit better there could have possibly gotten me on the podium, so I think I had the fitness for it. And to know that you have the fitness to do something makes it easier to do. I knew that I had the fitness to back up what I wanted for the Games this year, and that’s what I think made the big difference (this year). What now? Where do you go from here now that you have reached the pinnacle of your sport? Adler: For sure I wanted to win, but I would have been satisfied with a podium this year and then it makes it a lot easier to beat next year. There’s a way to improve, number-wise. Now we can’t improve from (number) one. But we can repeat, and that’s what we’re going to aim for. And that’s a part of the question, ‘Do you have any weaknesses?’ And my answer was to be better at everything. I think that’s what we’re going to try to do for next year is to try to be just better at everything, and hopefully the outcome is winning again. But there is no guarantee of winning again. It’s not because you’ve won once that you’re going to win twice, and it’s not because you won twice that you’re going to win five times. We have been lucky on the men’s side to have a Froning who won four times and a Fraser right after who won five times. I don’t think people realize how special that is and how not often we’re going to see that. But of course I want more than one. And I think we can do it again.

Catching Up with the Newest Fittest Man on Earth, Jeff Adler

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