Kevin Koester: A 3x CrossFit Champion on Mindset and Consistency

Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 774 with Kevin Koester.

Introducing Kevin Koester

Tom Rowland: We've got a great show for you today. There is a man in Seattle, Washington named Kevin Koester. Kevin is our guest today, and I chose him as a guest because he is a three-time Masters CrossFit Games Champion. That is a very, very hard thing to do. This guy is a physical beast, and he also has a lot of other things in common with the audience of this podcast. He is an outdoorsman. He wants to continue to do those things with his family outdoors for the rest of his life. Sounds a lot like Physical Friday to me, and Kevin actually embodies all of the things that we try to convey on Physical Friday. So whether you are someone who is looking at your fortieth or fiftieth birthday and thinking, man, I need to make a serious change in my life, Kevin has some advice for you. If you are someone who is a competitive athlete, whether that is CrossFit or other sports, Kevin has some mindset things that we're going to go over that will be applicable to you. And if you are just like me and thinking you might have a shot at the CrossFit Games, I talked to Kevin about what it takes to get there, what his mindset is, and where that comes from. This is a great conversation with Kevin Koester. I think you're really going to enjoy it, and here we go.

Kevin Koester: I'm Kevin Koester, three-time CrossFit Games Masters champion, and this is the Tom Rowland podcast.

Seattle, Family, and Building Apex

Tom Rowland: Kevin, how are you doing today?

Kevin Koester: Fantastic, man.

Tom Rowland: Where are you?

Kevin Koester: Seattle, Washington, and it's a beautiful day. It's going to be eighty and sunshine today. Believe it or not, it's one of the most beautiful places in the world when we get sunshine. I like to say it's like being married to a beautiful woman that's sick all the time.

Tom Rowland: That's quite a description. I've never heard that before. I visited Seattle one time — I was a trout guide in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, and when I finished that season we went to visit some friends in Seattle on Bainbridge Island. All summer I was looking forward to it, thinking it would be raining and cool the whole time. When we got there, it was sunny the entire visit, and our hosts told us we had no idea how rare that was. I came from the Rockies, so it was sunny there all summer too, and I was almost a little disappointed I didn't get the real Seattle experience. But it is a cool place — I really like it there. Tell me about the business you have up there.

Kevin Koester: My business is a steel erection company, a steel contractor. We do work here in Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii, and then we venture east toward Montana, Wyoming, a little bit in the Dakotas. We just got licensed in Utah, so we're headed that way. But basically the Northwest — we have offices in Seattle, Spokane, Washington, and Billings, Montana.

Tom Rowland: That's awesome. How long have you had that business?

Kevin Koester: I started in 1996, the same year I had my daughter. That was a rough year — an amazing year, but a rough year.

Tom Rowland: How many children do you have?

Kevin Koester: I have two. My daughter, Lex, is twenty-six, and her fiance is deployed in the country of Georgia right now. He gets back in September, and they're getting married in October, so we've got an addition to the family, which I'm stoked about — he's a great kid. My son, Dom, or Dominic, just turned twenty-one.

Tom Rowland: We're close in age. How old are you?

Kevin Koester: I'm fifty-six, fifty-seven in September.

Tom Rowland: I turned fifty-five in August. I have three kids — two boys who live in Bozeman, Montana, and my daughter, the youngest, is at Auburn right now. We're also having an addition to our family this coming weekend — my oldest son is getting married, just like you, to an exceptional person, and we're really looking forward to having her join our family. It's a very busy but good time.

Kevin Koester: Well, congratulations. Next will be grandkids, which I'm really stoked for. I was a busy man when my kids were young — always made them the number one priority along with my wife — but I'm looking forward to maybe being a little more mentally present when I have grandkids instead of thinking about everything I have to do.

Family, Fishing, and Three Generations Outdoors

Tom Rowland: One of the things I noticed in your story — we don't know each other, we're just meeting for the first time today, but I've been following you. You came across my feed on Instagram, following different CrossFit athletes I know are competing, and of course you won the division I'm hoping to compete in one day. So I took a closer look and I see family, I see fishing, I see elk hunting, I see fly fishing out west, I see Montana. I'm like, man, I think we might be best friends, like in Step Brothers — did we just become best friends? And then you happen to be the three-time CrossFit Games champion. I really wanted to have you on selfishly to learn a little about how I could take it to the next level and compete at the level you do. But you also have this business with three hundred plus employees, and I'm fascinated by how you're balancing family, employees, a growing business, and training at the highest level to compete at the Masters level of CrossFit — which in my opinion is even more competitive than some of the other divisions, since you're only taking ten or fifteen people to the Games out of the entire world. How do you balance all of that? You're an avid elk hunter, you like to fish — how do you do it all?

Kevin Koester: Good time management. Unfortunately, I don't have the opportunity to be very spontaneous anymore — my schedule is booked in half-hour increments every day. I'm up early, I do get my sleep, that's the number one recovery tool.

Tom Rowland: How much sleep do you prioritize? Do you have a bedtime you hit no matter what?

Kevin Koester: Lately it's been kind of nine to five — getting to bed by nine, up at five or ten to six. I try to keep it fairly consistent regardless of what I'm doing, just so I can fall asleep. But yeah, time management is huge, and I put a lot of emphasis on prioritizing at different times, because I can't prioritize my workouts year-round depending on what's happening. My priorities in life are family first. Today, after we hang up, I'm running to the gym to get a lifting session in, then I'm grabbing both of my kids and we're headed east of the mountains to go fishing for the weekend. It's a tradition I started when my daughter was three — we did more playing with Barbies in the tent than fishing back then — and a couple of my buddies joined with their own kids, so it became a dads-and-kids trip, no wives allowed. We did that for fifteen years until she went off to college, and she's been out of the house for eight years. She just moved back home for six months while her fiance is deployed, so we decided to fire the tradition back up. We'll get some fishing and barbecuing in, and I'll get some fitness in too. When I get there today, I'm going for a four-mile run in the desert, then hit the lake for a two-mile swim, and then take the weekend off to just focus on the kids.

Tom Rowland: What kind of fishing will you be doing?

Kevin Koester: Just trout fishing, super simple. I've got a John boat, so we'll be out in that. I used to duck hunt a lot too, though I've gotten away from it some as my dog and my son have gotten older. We used to duck hunt all the time — pretty good duck hunting out here, mostly greenheads and mallards. We do get some pintails, though they're not as prevalent, plenty of widgeon, and some wood ducks, but we're pretty much greenhead guys.

Tom Rowland: We're in the Southern Flyway — Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas — and we've had some incredible duck hunts in Arkansas. This year I'm taking my dad, who's eighty-four and loves duck hunting more than any other outdoor pursuit. But as he's gotten older, wading through a swamp isn't the best idea anymore, so I've been searching for a place he can still hunt comfortably. We're going to a dry field up near the Saskatchewan border in Canada this fall — it'll cut into my elk hunting a little, but I'm really looking forward to taking my dad up there. He'll be able to step right out of the vehicle, and the greenheads come in with the pintails just swarming those dry fields. I've never seen anything like it, because all the duck hunting I've done has been flooded timber, swampy stuff.

Kevin Koester: That's my favorite too, the flooded timber. But probably the most epic duck hunt I've ever had was in a cornfield out of ground blinds — hundreds and hundreds of birds, and they don't come in until ten, so you get to sleep in, have breakfast, and then go.

Tom Rowland: That is not the duck hunting I'm used to — usually you're up and out there when everyone else is coming in from their night of partying. But there's still a lot of balancing going on between your growing business and everything else in your life.

Kevin Koester: Yeah, it's definitely a business, but before we move on, it's really cool that you're taking your dad. My dad passed right before the Games in 2017 — he was an avid fisherman. I grew up fishing, but I didn't hunt until I met a guy when I was about nineteen, when I started as an ironworker, and he got me into it. My dad and I did a lot of steelhead fishing in the rivers out of a drift boat, and he was the guy who made me cast in the backyard into a coffee can until I hit eight out of ten times before he'd take me on the boat — he wasn't messing around all day. We also took him over to the Bighorn in Montana for a fly fishing trip with my business partner, and this was while he was on a heavy dose of chemo but also steroids, so we called him "the Fishinator" because he would not get out of the river — twelve hours of just hammering fish, and we're saying, dad, how about some dinner at seven at night?

Tom Rowland: How awesome is it to see your dad going for it at an older age like that. On this particular trip my boys are driving ten hours from Bozeman to meet us, so it'll be three generations, and that's incredibly valuable and rare — whether it's hunting or fishing, that time together is so valuable.

Kevin Koester: I appreciate that part of it. My dad started coming with us probably when my daughter, Lex, was about ten, and he was there for about eight years. When he passed, one of his last requests to me was to keep his grandkids together — he had four grandchildren between me and my sister — and that's something I'm trying to do, so we're taking the nephew this time and turning it into a grandchildren trip.

Tom Rowland: That's awesome, man. There are so many great things to do outside, and when you can turn the phone off or get somewhere with no reception, that's the best time in my opinion.

Kevin Koester: It is funny that we've had similar paths — my son, Dom, was over in Bozeman going to Montana State for a bit and working there for me, and he's actually headed back next week to build a new courthouse in town.

Tom Rowland: We ought to get our boys to hook up — we've got the whole drift boat setup out there, and the boys are crazy fishermen. Once we get past this weekend of the wedding, I'm in the rare and awesome situation of having all three of my kids home at once. As they get older it just doesn't happen as much, so I'm prioritizing that time.

Priorities: Family, Fitness, Iron, and the Outdoors

Kevin Koester: For sure — but getting back to those priorities, they change, though the big picture doesn't. It's always about family, and I think about that as my number one priority. Fitness I think about as my lifestyle — I live a very active, fit lifestyle. And my ironwork is my career. So I think about it like family, fitness, iron — iron is my career — and then archery, which is really my outdoors. Everything I love to do — I'd have to say elk hunting is probably my number one favorite thing, but I enjoy fishing too, and I got some great opportunities this summer trying to squeeze everything in. It's about every day prioritizing. I'm in a place with my business now where I've got a lot of good people — I've built a lot of really strong leaders over the years. You should have three to six direct reports; if you have more than that it makes it very challenging. I can't manage three hundred and fifty people, but I can certainly manage my six top leaders, whether it's in Montana, Spokane, my CFO, or my field operations manager. That's how you're able to grow — build people, manage them, and give them the power to make decisions.

Tom Rowland: So at this point you've understood the power of stepping back a little. Did you have challenges at any point letting go and allowing others to lead, or purposefully stepping back so someone else could grow? I have a bit of a lone wolf in me, and that's been one of the most challenging things for me.

Kevin Koester: I don't know if I had challenges letting go, because I wasn't doing it until I was ready, or until whoever I was training was ready. I think about my tower crane manager, Josh — he started as an apprentice over fifteen years ago, and we'd be out hanging iron together. I was more worried about him than myself once, standing fifty feet away, and I smashed my toe and broke it — the only time I've ever been hurt in the field. When we started the tower crane company, he came with me, and we worked together in the air every weekend, since putting up and taking down tower cranes in metropolitan cities means closing down streets. Eventually I handed him the radio and said, it's your turn, and I was in his hip pocket for probably a year before I realized he didn't even need me up there anymore, and slowly transitioned out. It's been that way with all the different positions — I can't say there's a position in the company I haven't spent serious time doing, other than maybe some of the CFO or project management work. I'm more of a hands-on guy. It's about building good people, being a person people want to work for, and taking care of them — which is why I started the company in the first place. Back in the late eighties, early nineties, I was working for a guy who was great, but watching how he treated his employees, I thought, these guys can be treated better. That was one of my original motivators for starting Apex.

Tom Rowland: I did the SEALFIT course with Mark Divine, and one of the big takeaways he instilled in me — you get these lessons when you're ready to receive them — is that in order to be an exceptional leader, you must be an exceptional follower. It sounds like that's exactly what you did when you handed Josh the radio and continued working with him while he was in charge — you were really leading him by saying, no, you're in the position now, you've earned this, keep going.

Kevin Koester: No, I appreciate that. It sounds like it's continuing to grow and mature, with your son in the pipeline and somebody else there too. That's awesome.

How Kevin Got Into CrossFit

Tom Rowland: I know you're on a bit of a tighter deadline this morning since you've got to go fishing, so I want to get to some questions about CrossFit specifically and your success there, and how that relates not just to someone like me who's an aspiring competitive athlete, but to everybody who may not be in great shape right now. What's your history with CrossFit? When did you start?

Kevin Koester: I walked into my first CrossFit gym in 2015. A neighbor of mine was doing it regularly, three times a week, and kept telling me I needed to come with her, that I'd love it. I was in a management position at the time, still spending a lot of time in the field, but just working out at a regular gym. I finally went with her on a Saturday and really enjoyed it, but wasn't ready to commit to classes — I just worked out when I could squeeze in an hour or two. About six months later another buddy who was a triathlete started doing CrossFit at a different gym and invited me to work out with him, and that's where I really started to get into it. I ended up joining a gym a couple of blocks from my house in 2015, and after a couple of months one of the coaches asked if I'd ever thought about competing. I didn't even know there was such a thing as CrossFit competitions. He told me about the Open coming up in 2016 and thought I should try it. At the time I was forty-nine, so I was at the very end of the age group, competing against some of the OGs. He also told me to get some CrossFit shoes. I did the Open and finished around forty-ninth in the world, but I was one of the oldest in the age group. My coach crunched the numbers and told me if I'd been in the fifties bracket, I would have won. So I decided to put some focus on it — I was turning fifty the next year, and set a goal to make it to the CrossFit Games. I did classes all the way through the Open and the qualifiers, which was just one round at that time, and qualified for the Games in first place. At that point my coach, Mike, wanted to program specifically for me heading into the Games, and I changed my mindset from wanting to make it to the Games to wanting to win them — I knew I could do it since I'd just beaten everybody in my age group. I trained for three months. I wasn't a great CrossFitter — I was fit, fairly strong but not really strong, a good gymnast — but I had the mental capacity to push myself harder than anybody else was going to push themselves, and I had some good athletic genes. So I went after it, and in 2017 I won my first CrossFit Games.

Three Championships and a Change in Purpose

Tom Rowland: That's an incredible story. Then you didn't go back the following year?

Kevin Koester: Right — in my mind I had conquered my goal, so in 2018 I just went about living life. Heading into 2019, my wife and I were at a charity function for a children's hospital, and I asked myself, what is my purpose now? My business was up and rolling with great people running the different divisions, my kids were basically grown and out of the house, and I'd accomplished my goal at the Games. I decided my purpose was to inspire people to live a healthier lifestyle, to get more out of themselves and push themselves harder. I felt CrossFit was a good platform for that — to mentor people, to give back, whether financially through charities or through time. So I decided to go back to the Games in 2019 to see if I could win again, and I went down to San Diego, where my daughter was going to school, and worked out at Invictus. I was very impressed with the team there, and I realized I needed to become a better CrossFitter if I was going to keep doing this — I was three years into the age group and needed to be better. I started following the Invictus Masters programming, which took me to the next level, and in 2019 I did end up winning again. Then I took the pandemic year off — I'm not sure I would have gone back in 2020 regardless, but I did Wodapalooza right before everything locked down. Heading into 2021, I decided it would be cool to go back and win at the top of my age group again, now at fifty-four, almost fifty-five. I'm always looking for a different challenge — to be honest, I aged up and wasn't interested in doing jumping pull-ups and lighter weights. I wanted the hardest movements possible, things nobody else wants to try. I'm always looking to challenge myself and keep my athleticism, because I think it's so important as we age — use it or lose it. I want to be able to jump up on a log with my bow and heavy backpack and not think twice about falling, and that means keeping your balance and doing athletic things outside the gym too, like mountain biking and snowboarding.

Wrestling Roots and Mental Toughness

Tom Rowland: One of the other things that caught my ear on ElkShape was that you have a wrestling background. What was that like?

Kevin Koester: In high school I was a wrestler, a state podium finisher pretty much every year. I thought about wrestling and playing football in college at Washington State and had some scholarship offers at smaller schools, but when it was all said and done, school wasn't for me, and that's when I got into the trades and became an ironworker at nineteen.

Tom Rowland: Do you think the ability to push yourself further than most people comes from wrestling?

Kevin Koester: For sure. I was fortunate — my best buddy growing up was an absolute animal, wrestled in college and then got into MMA when it was really new, and we used to compete head-to-head every single day. He was a tough guy, still is. I went toe to toe with him every day for years.

Tom Rowland: That'll create the mental capacity to handle just about anything. I also have a wrestling background, and that caught my eye too — it's one of the things I enjoy about CrossFit. I got away from wrestling, tried marathons and other things, but nothing really got it for me until I entered my first fishing tournament — there's a lot of adrenaline in that, a boat race at the start, racing to the spot, then fishing competitively, and it doesn't sound like wrestling, but I got the same feeling as before a wrestling match. That had been missing from my life, and it's what got me into fishing tournaments. But even as I transitioned out of those, I wondered what was next — marathons had some butterflies, but it wasn't until I started CrossFit that I really felt that same wrestling-workout feeling again. It's very individual, very technique-focused — there's a million things you can work on, and you can always find a weakness to improve.

Kevin Koester: In '19 I did end up winning again.

Tom Rowland: And then you took another year off?

Kevin Koester: I did — that was the pandemic year, so I don't know if I would have gone back anyway, though I think I would have. I did Wodapalooza right before it, in February 2020, before our state locked down. So I took 2020 off, and heading into '21 decided it would be really cool to go back and win at the top of my age group for a third round.

Training, Strength, and Mobility

Tom Rowland: What do you think were the holes in your game — where were you weak as a CrossFitter?

Kevin Koester: Honestly, that was it — I was just weak, though that's all relative. I'm not a huge athlete — five-eight, one-seventy.

Tom Rowland: We're about the same, maybe six or seven pounds apart.

Kevin Koester: Back then I didn't even know what my one-rep-max back squat was — three hundred pounds seemed impossible, though I was able to do it shortly after. Today I back squat three seventy-five plus, deadlift four sixty-five or so, and train at four hundred. It was really the strength movements that held me back — I usually ended up in the bottom half, like twelfth out of twenty competitors. So my goal when I went back in '21 was to place in the top half on the strength movements, since I hadn't lifted like that before — growing up I mostly benched, like everybody does.

Tom Rowland: How much time are you putting into mobility?

Kevin Koester: Every day. I follow the program Pliability, the old ROMWOD, every single day, and then usually do a couple of other things based on what I need that day.

Tom Rowland: I've had a similar experience — I ran into Joe Hippensteel's work down in San Diego, and it's helped me so much. I do his program every single day. It might not even be so important which program you do — it's more about whether there's a program you're doing every single day, which might matter more than which one you pick occasionally. I used to just find free yoga classes online, and one day would be okay and the next would be really challenging with no consistent goals. What I found with Joe's program is there's a standard for every movement — like being able to cross your legs and put your head on the floor — and if you can't, that's what you work toward. That structure has been so helpful, just having a guideline, kind of like knowing what a good back squat should be for your body weight rather than just doing three squats and adding a few more in two weeks without any real target.

Advice for Anyone Turning Forty or Fifty

Tom Rowland: With all your experience of not doing CrossFit, then doing it, making it to the Games, changing your program, and winning three times, I'd like to ask — there are a lot of people out there approaching their fortieth or fiftieth birthday who look at their life and think, man, I don't know how I ended up sixty pounds overweight, and by the time I turn fifty I want to lose fifty pounds or accomplish something. What advice, mindset, or execution plan would you give someone like that?

Kevin Koester: It's unfortunately about consistency — the individual has to want it. I've talked to many members at our gym about this, and there's really no secret. It's not about the supplements I take or the sleep alone — it's about everything I do. It's a lifestyle, but when it's all said and done, you have to be consistent, every single day. How many people do you see lose twenty or thirty pounds, look amazing, and then the next time you see them they've put it all back on? It's about a lifestyle — you have to decide for yourself, not for somebody else, that you're ready to change your life, and ask yourself, am I committed to this? Commitment is huge. When I train for the Games I'm at a whole other level compared to the years I take off, though I'm still doing fitness every day and living that lifestyle. But during a training cycle, it becomes a real commitment. So I'd say it's about consistency and committing to your goal.

Tom Rowland: And then you have that person who's committed, doing some CrossFit, and their coach says, hey, you're pretty good at this, maybe consider a competition. How do they make the jump to being a competitive athlete? Is there something specific to hone in on?

Kevin Koester: Two things. First, I would follow a program — there are a lot of really smart people in the industry with great programs out there. Personally I'm an Invictus athlete and follow Invictus Masters, which works you through progressive percentages week to week, and that's how you make gains. Second, it's about your mental capacity. There's a difference between the general member population, who just want to get their workout in without thinking about transitions or movement efficiency, and someone who's decided to compete, who thinks about everything in that workout — for example, in a workout with three-minute rounds done five times, if it takes two minutes the first round, the goal becomes beating that two minutes on the next round without working any harder, becoming more efficient. So there's definitely a change in mindset.

Tom Rowland: And then there's another jump — from being a good CrossFitter happy to be in the top two or four hundred in the world, to trying to make the Games, which means being in the top ten, fifteen, or maybe twenty-five some years. Is there something you'd change or focus on for that jump?

Kevin Koester: At that point you have to be willing to train like you're going to compete, and that's very difficult, because it hurts — it hurts worse than going to a class, worse than just being consistent. You need to get in and train, not necessarily every day, but with that mindset. For instance, I was doing a workout recently with a hundred-pound d-ball pickups, throw-overs, four-foot boxes, box jumps, and burpees for fifty reps for time — just a grunt workout. In my mind I break it into pieces: do the first ten, look at the clock, see where I'm at, and stay on or beat that pace for the rest. It was sickening, but you have to be willing to do that and push yourself every day. Good training partners help, but I can do the same thing with or without one.

What Separates the Champion

Tom Rowland: And then there's a final jump — you're a competitive athlete, you feel like you have a shot at the Games, you make the Games. There's a level right at the top, one or two, then another level at three, four, five, and another level down at seven, eight, nine. What's the difference between somebody who wins and the guy who's just happy to be at the Games?

Kevin Koester: Just that — they're happy to be at the Games. I'm not happy unless I win. To be honest, that's a hundred percent mindset — saying I will do whatever I need to do on the floor to win. You've trained your body, taken care of it, slept, eaten right, taken your supplements, worked out, trained, then trained harder, gotten to the efficiency part — you've done all of that — but there's another level in your head where you're saying, I will not be beat, I don't care what I have to do out here and how badly it hurts. I've been pretty vocal about this — in 2021, heading to the Games, talking with Bryce from Invictus, I put it out there: a hundred percent, I'm going to win. That's my goal. Saying it out loud is my commitment to myself that this isn't just in my head — there's no plan B.

Tom Rowland: That's awesome. And then, to defend a title — a lot of multiple-time state champions or wrestlers, there's a big pool of people who win once, but very few who win twice, and the people who win twice often go on to win three or four times, because they have something in their mindset that says they have a reason to win a second time. For you to go back and defend, you mentioned looking hard at your purpose and your why. Is there something else that goes into defending a title?

Kevin Koester: I've been thinking about that a lot this year, heading back to the Games for the fourth time. I've obviously aged up, and it's no secret — I won the Open and the Quarters by over fifty points, and won the Semifinals by over a hundred points, so people are expecting me to win, which puts a lot of pressure on. But at the same time I don't think about it too much — this is about what I can do this year, and I plan to be in better shape than I've ever been going into the Games, because I know there's an expectation. My goal is to absolutely dominate, whatever the workouts end up being — you never know. There are some fantastic athletes in this age group I've competed against, and they all have strengths, so I won't win every workout, but overall my goal is to dominate this year, and I know I'm working harder than I ever have. I'll be in better shape and be a better CrossFitter than I've ever been going into the Games.

Closing Thoughts

Tom Rowland: Well, I'll tell you what — this audience will be watching you and wishing you the very best. I know you've got to get on to your fishing trip. I could talk to you all day about business, life, family, CrossFit, fishing, hunting, and archery. I hope you'll come back on the show after you win the Games this year and we can talk about that. I wish you the very best — it's been great getting to know you a little and connect, and I look forward to doing it again. I hope you have a great fishing trip with your family. Thanks so much for being on the show.

Kevin Koester: Thanks for having me, Tom.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, man. Maybe we can get together and hunt or fish one day, or train. But thank you, Kevin. If people want to look you up and find you, where can they do that?

Kevin Koester: It's at Kevin J Kester on Instagram — pretty much the only platform I use.