Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 938 is my conversation with Ryan Crouser, the three-time Olympic gold medalist and world-record holder in the shot put — the first person ever to win that event three times. Ryan is also a serious fly fisherman, fly tyer, and public-land bowhunter. We get into how he trains at six foot seven and 335 pounds, the technique innovation he calls the Crouser slide, his regimented diet, and how fishing has helped him win gold medals.
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Ryan Crouser is a three-time Olympic gold medalist and world-record holder in the shot put — the first person ever to win the shot put three times at the Olympics. At six foot seven and around 335 pounds, he trains on his own five-acre property in Northwest Arkansas. He is also an avid fly fisherman, fly tyer, and public-land bowhunter who runs a YouTube channel mixing training with outdoor content.
Ryan balances raw strength with mobility and athleticism. His rule of thumb for being competitive at the U.S. level is the three-four-five-six: a 300-pound snatch, 400-pound clean, 500-pound bench, and 600-pound squat. His own bests are around a 352-pound snatch, a 425 power clean, a 550 bench, and a 725 back squat. He does a lot of flexibility and rotational work because throwing a 16-pound ball requires being a genuinely good overall athlete.
The Crouser slide is the technique innovation Ryan developed in December 2022 and debuted in 2023, breaking the world record that May. As one of the tallest shot putters at six foot seven, he is confined by the seven-foot ring. The extra lateral step shifts his center of gravity over his left foot and effectively makes the ring feel bigger, giving him more room to generate force without being pulled toward the toe board.
Ryan treats fishing as a mental reset that supports his training. As a professional athlete he can only train productively about six hours a day, so he sneaks away for half-day trips around Northwest Arkansas — trout on the White River, smallmouth, bass, and a strong striper fishery. He is primarily a streamer guy and a dedicated fly tyer who fishes flies he ties himself, having tied roughly 6,000 of them.
Ryan eats a tightly regimented diet to support five to six hours of daily training. In his mid-twenties he ate around 6,000 calories a day; now in his thirties he is closer to 4,400 to 5,000 depending on the season, and takes in roughly 350 grams of protein, much of it from wild venison he harvests himself. He eats to recover rather than to satisfy hunger and uses micellar casein before bed for overnight muscle recovery.
Ryan treats every competition as a standalone event, irrelevant to what he has done before. His motivation, the same one he had in middle school, is simply to be the best he can be on that day. He says if you walk onto the field knowing you did everything possible to prepare, you are very hard to beat — and even if someone beats you, there was nothing more you could have done.
Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 938 with Ryan Crouser is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and iHeartRadio. The video version is embedded at the top of this page.
I watched Ryan win gold this year and the time before that, and the thing that pulled me in was not just the medals — it was that he is a real fisherman and hunter who trains every single day, the same way I do. I found his channel by searching Ryan Crouser fishing, and his training looked nothing like what I expected from a powerful athlete: enormous amounts of mobility and flexibility work. I came into this one as a student, wanting to understand how the best in the world prepares.
Press play in the YouTube player at the top of this page to hear the whole thing.
Ryan walks me through the balance between brute strength and mobility that throwing demands. He lays out the three-four-five-six benchmark and his own jaw-dropping numbers, including a 725-pound back squat. But what surprised me most was how much flexibility and rotational work he does. He is, in his own words, just trying to be a genuinely good athlete who can also throw a 16-pound ball farther than anyone alive. Listen to him break down the program.
This is the technique the Olympic broadcasters kept talking about. Ryan came up with it on a cold December night in 2022, just messing around in the barn, and within months he broke the world record with it. As one of the tallest throwers ever, he is boxed in by the seven-foot ring. The extra lateral step makes the ring feel bigger by shifting his center of gravity. He explains the innovation, and the surprising geopolitical history of shot put technique, in the episode.
Ryan can only train about six hours a day before it stops being productive, so fishing is how he clears his head and stays accountable the rest of the time. He fishes a lot of half-day trips around Northwest Arkansas, ties his own flies — around 6,000 of them — and leans toward streamers and mousing. He even paddled a kayak miles offshore to the Texas rigs in his college years. Press play in the YouTube player above to hear how he fits it all in.
Ryan's diet is the most regimented part of his life, and the part he likes least. He breaks down a day of eating — half a pound of ground venison and six eggs for breakfast, a pound of lean meat and rice at lunch, casein before bed — and explains why he never eats when he is hungry. He takes in around 350 grams of protein a day, much of it from deer he bowhunts on public land. Listen to him walk through it.
Listen to the full conversation: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · or watch in the YouTube player at the top of this page.
The day after talking to Ryan, the thing I kept replaying was his mindset on repeating. I have won fishing tournaments and always found winning the second or third time the hardest part. Ryan has won the most prestigious event in his sport three times by treating each one as a standalone and simply trying to be the best he can be on that day.
The other takeaway is how normal he is about all of it. A three-time gold medalist who ties size 22 midges, processes his own venison, and sneaks away for an afternoon of trout fishing. The discipline is extreme, but the love of the outdoors is exactly the same as everyone listening to this show.
Press play in the player above, or grab Episode 938 on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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Ryan Crouser is a three-time Olympic gold medalist and world-record holder in the shot put, and the first athlete ever to win the event three times at the Olympics. A University of Texas graduate from the Pacific Northwest now based in Northwest Arkansas, he trains on his own property and developed the technique known as the Crouser slide. Beyond track and field, he is an accomplished fly fisherman, prolific fly tyer, and public-land bowhunter who shares his training and outdoor pursuits on his YouTube channel.
Full episode transcript. Section headings link to that moment in the video above.
Tom Rowland: Welcome to the Tom Rowland podcast. Today, we're brought to you by Star brite. Star brite is the maker of all kinds of incredible cleaning products to keep your boat, your RV, your gear in top shape. Definitely check out starbrightstarbright.com. You can go there and check out all of their different products. We have a really great guest today. Ryan Crouser, you may have heard of him if you watch the Olympics lately. He is the three time gold medalist in the shot put. Three time. He's the first person ever to win the shot put three times in the Olympics, and he is a gold medalist. I wanted to talk to Ryan mostly, because I know he likes to fish. He's got a great YouTube channel where he, puts, outdoor content on there. He's a fisherman. He's a hunter. He's got an awesome dog that he, travels with all over the place. It trains with him. It's really well trained, and he hunts with that dog too. Very cool. Ryan also has, a lot of knowledge about training. He's been training for, quite some time since he went to school at the University of Texas, went to his first Olympics. Four years later, he wins his second Olympics. Four years later, he wins his third Olympics, and he is now training for his fourth Olympics, something they make, history. So I wanted to talk to him about training, about nutrition, about fishing, and how fishing has helped him to win some of these gold medals. So that's what we have on tap for today. Ryan Crouser, three time Olympic gold medalist. Here we go.
Ryan Crouser: I'm Ryan Crouser, three time Olympic gold medalist and a world record holder in the shot put, and this is the Tom Rowland podcast.
Tom Rowland: Ryan, what's going on, man? How are you?
Ryan Crouser: Oh, I'm good. Yeah. Just hanging out at the house today, knocking out some some media stuff, and getting ready to train.
Tom Rowland: Man, I'll tell you what. I watched you win the Olympics this year, and I watched you win the Olympics previously. And I it's been so long that I don't even know if I watched you win the previous to that Olympics. But three time gold medalist, man, that is amazing. That is amazing. So, how did you I I I saw that you're six foot seven, three hundred and twenty pounds. How do you end up doing the shot put? Obviously, that's the sport that that you're you're the best at. I watched your videos this morning. You you are incredibly flexible. You're obviously incredibly strong, but it seems like lots of other sports would have drawn you in as a big powerful athlete. How did you end up with a shot put?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So I kind of found my path sort of on my own. Growing up, I played all sports and so would soccer, football, basketball, baseball. I started track. It's actually the one of the later sports I started The last one I started. And it was just because in middle school, it was the first sport I could go out for and represent my middle school. And that's at that age, in in sixth grade, putting on your middle school uniform was a was a big deal. They're wearing your school colors, and so I went out for track a to b with my friends, both b to represent my my schools. And it was 100 meters, high jump, long jump, so I put discus four by one. So I was doing everything, and I didn't focus exclusively on track until college when I got recruited to University of Texas to shot throw shot put and discus. And so, that was kind of how I ended up focusing on it. But, in the years between middle school and college, I was football. I was actually a quarterback through my freshman year. Dang. I was the tall skinny kid, so I was playing basketball as well. And, I found success in the throwing events, and it resonated with me on a personal level just because I felt like it was where I could judge myself well, if that makes sense, I could that feeling of getting a personal best, like, you you put in the work, you train hard, and you have a personal best. It's so cut and dry in track and field.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Ryan Crouser: You can you can see I'm the best I've ever been, when you have that that PR. And that's such a special feeling, that it threw me in at a young age and continues to motivate me to this day.
Tom Rowland: So what was it like to go, for your first Olympics? Were you still in college when you when you went to your first Olympics?
Ryan Crouser: So I had just graduated, and it's a funny story because I finished my undergrad in 2015. And I'd for me, I've never been a fan of graduations. They'd always felt a little bit frivolous. And so I skipped my undergrad graduation, and my mom was very upset. And she told me, like, you have to go. We're coming down to Austin from Oregon to walk. I was like, I'm not gonna go. You can go watch me not walk across the stage. Because at that point, I was already working on my masters, and then it was like, I'll graduate this next year. And so I graduated in May 2016 with my masters, and I actually skipped my graduation to go to my first professional track and field meet. And so my mom was mad because she never got to see me graduate college, undergrad, or masters. And so, 2016, I graduated in May with my masters, made the Olympic team six weeks later and was a bit of a underdog going into the Olympic trials and then was really a underdog going into the Olympics, but had a fantastic need. Preparation was going perfect, graduating from from university, and then that opportunity to be a true professional athlete, train every day, not have to be going to class for five or six hours, it made all the difference. And then so, yeah, I made I felt like a year's worth of progress in six weeks Wow. And kinda had that surprise victory at the Olympics in 2016.
Tom Rowland: Wow. That's awesome, man. And then from then to now, you've been a professional athlete, shot put in discus, and with with the world championships and the Olympics being your your primary competitions that you're preparing for all the time? Is that what
Ryan Crouser: you said? So I've been full time professional track and field athlete since 2016. And so I would say, like, our day to day, our bread and butter, our multiple meets, both in The US but predominantly in Europe because Europe is where track is a much more popular sport. And so I'll have anywhere from 10 to 20 competitions over in Europe, maybe four or five in The US, And then they kind of revolve around that major championship, whether it's the Olympics every four years or world championships every two years.
Tom Rowland: Wow. Man, three times. That's amazing. So one of the things that I was most interested in, in having you, obviously, is you're you you like to fish too, and you have some really good videos on your YouTube channel. If you're not watching, or if you're more interested in in Ryan, you should check out what is your YouTube channel that you have?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. It's just Ryan Crouser.
Tom Rowland: So Ryan Crouser on YouTube. Yeah. I I I found him by doing Ryan Crouser fishing, and it popped up your your a couple of videos right away. One, where you're training, and I train every day too. And I I I loved your training. Like, you're you're you're a big powerful athlete that trains. I don't know. Like, not what I expected. Like, you're doing a tremendous amount of mobility and flexibility, which I'm sure is incredibly important in the shot put, but I don't know. Do you train differently? Do you think you train differently than some other powerful athletes?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So there's there's a balancing act that goes in into throwing because you have to be big and strong. Strong. That's kinda
Tom Rowland: the Right.
Ryan Crouser: Basis of it is throwing a 16 pound ball as far as you can. But there's a level of mobility and being able to use that strength that goes into it as well. So, you gotta be flexible. You just have to be in general a good athlete. You gotta be able to rotate. You gotta be able to jump. You gotta be able to sprint. So all of those play a factor. And so the rule of thumb that I throw out there, if you wanna be a good shot putter as in make The US, I don't know, try or US trials, The US champs. So, like, top 16, top 12 in The US is the three four five six. So 300 pound snatch, 400 pound clean, 500 pound bench, and 600 pound squat. And that'll get you competitive. Like, you'll be in there. There's a lot of guys that are stronger than that, and there's some guys that are a lot stronger than that. So I'm just trying to start with a little bit.
Tom Rowland: Where do you sit with those lifts?
Ryan Crouser: So I'm, like, at three fifty two, snatch, four twenty five, power clean, bench right at five fifty in squad. My best is seven twenty five back squat. Dang.
Tom Rowland: That's serious, man. That is that I mean, I wouldn't expect anything less from an Olympic athlete and certainly a three time gold medalist, but that's that's that's serious power, man. I mean, that's serious power. That's amazing. Thank you. So, I noticed that you also you I mean, I train with my dog every day. Like, you got Coda. What is Coda? Black Lab?
Ryan Crouser: Yep. She's a two year old black Lab.
Tom Rowland: Beautiful dog. You got her trained well too. Do you hunt with her?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So she's, I mean, that's what what she's made to do. So she's wired to hunt. And for whatever reason, we've also had that crossover to fishing. Yeah. So she it sometimes drives me crazy, but it's it is. She's a good boat partner because she has channeled a 100% of that drive into the from bird hunting into fishing as well. So, yeah, she watches every cast. She's I know. At your size.
Tom Rowland: I saw her. Yeah.
Ryan Crouser: If you swing and miss on a headset, she'll let you know.
Tom Rowland: Well, I had, my dog, Gus, he was a pointing lab. And, boy, like, with the lures, he wanted to bite the lures. And so I had to be real careful with him because he like, if if if you were getting ready to make a cast and he saw that, he would try to bite it. And so I had to be real careful with fishing with him, but I do everything with the dogs now. I got Moose, which is, which is Gus's nephew. I guess Gus's brother had had him. So we love Gus so much. And it was in this same bloodline, Like, okay. If we're gonna get another dog, we might as well, you know, get one like we like. And so Moose Moose trains with me every day and, goes kinda everywhere. Does Coda go everywhere with you?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So she loves going anywhere. If if you're walking towards the if she hears the keys, they come off the counter. She's right by you and going wherever. And so she's training with me at the house every day, but also if I'm running errands or whatever, she's loving just going anywhere.
Tom Rowland: Is that training facility that you had in your bass fishing video, is that your house?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So that's just in Nice. I'm on five acres. So it's it got a shop with weight room. And then on the backside of it, I have a throwing ring with the landing area.
Tom Rowland: Wow. That's awesome. I mean, that looks like you got everything in there that that you need. You've set it up. Do you is that what you prefer to train alone or to train in your own place rather than going to a facility or training with other people?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So I like training with other people, so I actually have a couple of athletes that come to my house and train. So I feel like I'm kind of the best of both worlds because you've got that intensity that training with other people brings in and that competitiveness. But also I can not have to worry about the schedule, conflicts, all of that. And I feel like I've overcorrected to an extent, but it definitely got gun shy during the pandemic because I was just locked. As a post collegiate athlete, you're so reliant on the university. So university shut down, and I was just training in my college coaches two car garage Right. For For the Olympics. Almost a year. And so, I was after that, I was like, I need to be independent. I need to be a kind of like I need to insulate myself from the events going on at the university. And so I've kind of worked to, you know, be be independent in that sense.
Tom Rowland: That's cool. Yeah. I like I like having the I've got everything at my house, and people come into my garage in in the morning. My wife is a saint. She deals with it every morning, but super early. Right? I had to go super early because I've got three kids. And so when they were growing up, that's that was my time. Like, super early in the morning. That's just that's Yeah. Otherwise, it just I mean, it goes away. But as an Olympic athlete, you got, so is sponsorship your gen generally, your your income?
Ryan Crouser: Yes. You have two main sources of income. One is one is sponsorship, and then the other one is is meets and appearance fees, prize money. So it's a different sport, and then it's a very fragmented because we don't have that league aspect like you have for the NFL or NBA.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Ryan Crouser: So you've got each meet is a separate negotiation. So, yeah, I have a agent that manages that for the most part. So I go to him with my schedule and say, these are the meets I wanna do. I need to reach out, negotiate with each of these. And so you kinda make make that work. But it it so you have the two main main pieces are the sponsorship, but then a significant portion is you're competing to make a living.
Tom Rowland: Right on. Well, a few Olympic gold medals don't hurt anything. Did I see that you had something going on with with with Coda?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So she's, she's the breadwinner at this point.
Tom Rowland: Really?
Ryan Crouser: But, no, we we partner with Nulo, and it's, it's been a fantastic partnership. And so for me as an athlete, the focus has been so long on nutrition. And I've known that that has been a key for my performance. And so when we got Coda, before I even partnered with Nulo, that was something that I was focused on was I wanna make sure there's no one that cares about you more than your dog, and so I wanna give some of that back to her and make sure that she is getting the best nutrition possible. And so as this new partnership came about, it's been fantastic because it was already something I believed in. And so Nulo's Fuel Incredible campaign, working with athletes and supporting their dogs through proper nutrition, has been absolutely perfect for us. And it's been great for Coda. I've I've noticed a difference. Just feeding her the highest quality food, has helped her so much because as a gun dog, as a bird dog, she's made to go.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Ryan Crouser: And so when you properly fuel that, it she goes, but kind of in the proper direction. When she's been on different foods, she's been a little bit erratic Really? And kinda moody. And so it's been amazing how much tweaking and changing her food has channeled both her drive, but also just her her focus.
Tom Rowland: How has your diet changed since you won your first Olympic medal to now? I mean, you're talking about tweaking it and changing it, and we learn we're learning more and more about nutrition all the time as it applies to, you know, fueling athletes. But have you stuck with the same type of diet, or have you changed your diet?
Ryan Crouser: No. My mine is constantly evolving. I think, shoot, you'll see a change for two reasons. In part, you just hopefully get a little smarter. The the science gets better. You figure out what works better for athletes and people in general, but also for you as an individual. Everybody's a little bit different. And and then for me, at 24, 25 compared to in my early thirties, my diet changes. My a big thing is just caloric intake. My metabolism has slowed down. My goals are a little bit different.
Tom Rowland: How many calories do you think you were eating when you're 24, 25, and how many calories do you think you're eating today?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So I was right around 6,000 when I was 24 or 25, and I'm still around 5,000, especially right now because I'm I'm training with a goal of gaining weight right now, and I'm having longer sessions with it being the off season. It's a GPP phase, so general preparation phase. So, yeah, get get my cardio up to a respectable extent, but mostly, just working on my work capacity. And so that burns a lot of calories in and of itself. Yeah. And so yeah. But it'll vary. Once I get in season, I'll probably drop down to 4,400.
Tom Rowland: Wow. Do you have an do you have an optimum weight that you try to compete at?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. It's that's a great question. This this year was the first year I've ever felt like I was a little heavy. I've always been underway. And so this year, I got to three forty and cut down to three thirty three, three thirty five, and I liked where I was at. But I think this year, if I can be at that three thirty but a little bit leaner, that's kind of ideal for me. And so I felt like I overshot and then did and then I cut more than I needed to. So Yeah. If I can be three thirty five and cut to three thirty, I think it's probably my ideal weight.
Tom Rowland: So when you say you've always been underweight, is that underweight from what you consider where you should be or underweight compared to the competition?
Ryan Crouser: Both.
Tom Rowland: So As you're a big guy.
Ryan Crouser: Has been the tall skinny kid.
Tom Rowland: You're you're the tall skinny kid at six foot seven three thirty five. What are these other guys look like?
Ryan Crouser: But yeah. So, I mean, Joe Kovacs, he's six foot on a good on a good day. And but he's heavier than I am. He's three thirty five, three forty at six foot. And so there's for me, I'm I'm the one of the tallest shoppers out there. A lot of the guys are six one, six two, maybe six three, and they're the same weight as I am. Right. So maybe in four inches, five inches taller You think that's an advantage? Weight?
Tom Rowland: The the tall do you think being taller is an advantage for you?
Ryan Crouser: It can be if you use it properly. So, you have longer levers, but the ring is only seven feet.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Ryan Crouser: So if we can it can be a disadvantage because I can't sprint across that ring. It's much more confining for me. The the shorter guys can be more aggressive. They can be more dynamic. So if I if I can line everything up right, I can use it to my advantage. But if I make a mistake, it costs me much more.
Tom Rowland: So is that why you cut you came up with your technique, the Crouser slide that, I'm I'm watching that on the Olympics, and they're talking about that particular thing. You have, like, a little extra step in there. And is that because of your height, or did you bring that from another sport, or is it just something that you kinda figured you could throw it a little bit further like that?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So the goal is always to throw farther. But for me, the a large portion of adding in that step was to make the ring bigger in the sense that it gives me more room to work. And that lateral step gets gets things moving in the proper direction to then make the ring feel bigger. So if I can take that center of gravity out over my left foot, the ring feels bigger than if it's right between my feet and it's pulling me towards the toe board. And so that that was a a large portion of how I can help with it. Is sitting there and how do I throw farther is the ultimate goal, but also is there anything I can do to make the ring feel bigger? And I've got a bunch of space over to my right side that I'm not using. So if I can shift over, use a little bit more of that space, it's just it's free. It's over there. I might as well try and incorporate that and kinda just took its out in the dark, and then it actually worked out pretty well.
Tom Rowland: So did you have that the the Crouser slide on all three of your Olympic gold medals, or did you have it somewhere along the line of of your career?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So I didn't start I I came up with it in 2023, and I guess it would be I started using it in 2023 seats, and I started I came up with it in December 2022. I was just it was like a Friday night, late ish, thrown out in the barn in December. It's always cold, and I was like, let's just mess around. They this is not going particularly well. Just tired, beat up in December in the cold. Let's see if we can find something that works. And so it ended up clicking there in December and, yeah, switched to that, and and they're breaking the world record there in May with the new technique.
Tom Rowland: Wow. Super cool. It doesn't seem like a sport that has a tremendous amount of innovation outside of the you know, when when thrower started to spin, like, a disc is like, what the way you should throw the disc is I mean, I remember when I was, I mean, I'm a little older than you, but and it would be hard for you to believe that one time I threw the shot put. But it was, you know, in in fourth grade, you know, they they look for the strongest guy. I was a wrestler. And they're like, if you look like you could pick this thing up, just throw it. But we just kinda went forward and threw it. And then then later, it seemed like that's when, you know, the real throwers would start doing the spin, and you could throw it so much further. And, obviously, they're big and strong and but but that was an innovation. It doesn't seem like I mean, it seems like the basic throwing style has stayed pretty similar, right, until you come along and and put this extra step in.
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So I've I've tweaked it to an extent. It's actually interesting yet to grab a hole you can go way down, is the evolution of the shot put technique, and it actually gets into some, like, geopolitical
Tom Rowland: Goodness.
Ryan Crouser: Because you had the East German and the European model of but they're state sponsored athletes. So they only compete at the majors. That's what they're evaluated on, and so the Glide thrived under that. The Americans couldn't compete with that, so we adopted the spin very early, which led to bigger throws, but it underperformed at the major championships. But the Americans are self funded, so you gotta compete a lot more. And so it's interesting how the sport political support systems influence the technique in in shot put for all the way back from 1950. And you're starting to see a change in the last ten, fifteen years, with the Europeans and getting away from the glide technique and adopting the spin. And so it's it's yeah. The technique has had a number of factors. The biggest one is the the political support system of sport, among a lot of the the countries that are federally funded sport programs.
Tom Rowland: How is the So
Ryan Crouser: it's it's a rabbit hole you can go down.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. I'm sure it is. And, you all sports have interesting history like that. One of the things, that I noticed on your on your channel when I was watching is that you were using fishing kind of as, you know, as kinda your training. You were talking about how it kind of gives you an opportunity to get away from training and clear your head. How is fishing how did you even start fishing?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So I've I've been fishing as long as I can remember. So I my dad has pictures of me in a backpack, and he's got a small mouth bass that he's holding up.
Tom Rowland: Nice. And
Ryan Crouser: I'm, like, reaching out for it at six or eight months old. And so I've yeah. I got pictures of me, trying to pick up a limited trout, but I'm just learning how to walk. And so it was a challenge. You can tell.
Tom Rowland: So where'd you grow up?
Ryan Crouser: I've been fishing my whole life.
Tom Rowland: Where'd you grow up?
Ryan Crouser: I grew up in Oregon.
Tom Rowland: Alright.
Ryan Crouser: And so it was really good smallmouth fishing, but salmon and steelhead were king for sure.
Tom Rowland: I mean, it's interesting that you go right to the smallmouth in Oregon. I I've never fished for smallmouth in Oregon, but I know, you know, salmon, steelhead, like, trout fishing, that's what I would think of there. But they you have good smallmouth fishing.
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. There's some really, really good smallmouth fishing in Pacific Northwest.
Tom Rowland: And then Idaho, I know, has really good impoundment, smallmouth fishing. But I don't know about the rivers and creeks. I've never found smallmouth in too many rivers. All my trout fishing has been in Idaho has been trout fishing. All my fishing in Idaho has been trout fishing, I should say. But I started out as a guide on the South Fork Of The Snake River, which is Okay. Kind of over there by Jackson and, did that for a long time. And it was that that's amazing river.
Ryan Crouser: But Yeah. I actually did a shot put competition in Pocatello, Idaho.
Tom Rowland: Oh, yeah.
Ryan Crouser: That was in shit at the January.
Tom Rowland: Oh.
Ryan Crouser: And so I competed and then went down to Sportsman's Warehouse and shoot. I bought it some warm clothes because it it would you're single digits. And and I went out and I did some fly fishing there on the snake just outside of Pocatello.
Tom Rowland: Oh, nice.
Ryan Crouser: There's this a yeah.
Tom Rowland: It's a good situation. That's the South Fork that goes down that way. And, then there's also the snake proper that runs right through the Teton National Park. And then they'll they'll meet up, and the the snake proper that turns into the Henry's Fork, and then there's the South Fork, and then they meet up and make the make the snake, again, the snake proper. But, great great fishing there. Do you like, fly fishing or spin fishing, or what do you like best?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. It's that's a tough one for me to call. I'm just if I'm fishing, I'm happy. I do a lot of fly tying. At at this point, I pretty much only fish flies that I've tied. I think I've tied I 6,000. Nice. I tie for about an hour a day almost every day. And so a lot of fly fishing, but I love bass fishing. Anytime I'm on the water, I'm happy.
Tom Rowland: So, do you ever do any saltwater fishing?
Ryan Crouser: I love saltwater fishing as well. Unfortunately, in Arkansas, we're a little bit more aways Yeah. From from any saltwater.
Tom Rowland: Airplanes fly all over the place, man. You should come down. We should do a we should do a show. We got a show called Saltwater Experience, and we film in the Florida Keys all the time.
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So I, I I went to University of Texas. And so the when I was not competing, every weekend I could, I was going down to the Texas Coast in the summer and, kayak fishing. I was doing an offshore kayak fishing, going out the rigs
Tom Rowland: Oh, wow.
Ryan Crouser: One to three miles. Yeah. Kings, Cobia, caught a couple of Mahi out of the kayak. So that was that was a blast.
Tom Rowland: So you're paddling out there a mile and a half?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. I think the farthest I went was nine. But the closest rigs is small. All rig is 1.3 miles.
Tom Rowland: So did your coach know that you're you're paddling out nine miles in a kayak when you're preparing for the Olympics?
Ryan Crouser: This was I love it. Once I was all in in 2016, I I couldn't do that anymore. So that was a lot of, like, 2013, 2014, 2015 summers.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. We're gonna need to get you a boat with an engine. And a if if I was your coach, I think that you're gonna win the Olympics again. I'm thinking, we're gonna need to get you a little bit bigger boat.
Ryan Crouser: There's something special though about hooking into a fish that's pulling you at three, four miles an hour.
Tom Rowland: There is. But what do you think the biggest fish you caught out of the kayak was?
Ryan Crouser: Oh, shoot. I got a couple of really nice cobias and nice kings. I mean, sharks are gonna be the biggest things. I think well, I had a a black tip that would have been pushing 70 inches. Saw a couple big, big tiger sharks Oh. Out out of the race. And they were big tigers, and they were I didn't want anything to do with those. They're Right. Yeah. Eight, nine footers, and you're a 12 foot kayak.
Tom Rowland: Yes.
Ryan Crouser: You're they're
Tom Rowland: So do you keep are you keeping the cobia when you catch them in the kayak? Yeah. Because, dude, those things go crazy in a boat. I can't imagine what they do in the kayak. I've never kept a kaya a cobia on a kayak, but what what's the technique there?
Ryan Crouser: You just Yeah. You just got
Tom Rowland: a You're a big guy. You're just gonna strangle it when you get it in there?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. You just gotta tire them out and then get a good grip on the mouth and just hold them and right. You're kinda wrestling them. Yeah. They're in your lap.
Tom Rowland: I'm sure in the kayak.
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. Get a good grab. Get a good grip on their mouth and you're just kinda hugging them until they and then yeah. Until you get them subdued.
Tom Rowland: So in that, in that video where you're bass fishing and training, where where was that? What state was that?
Ryan Crouser: Oh, shoot. The it depends on which one. Probably
Tom Rowland: Well, there was one that you were training. Yeah. You got a a really you caught a lot of nice fish on that. And and one of them was on top water, at least one. And before that, you were doing some training, and it was mostly a mobility day where you were you were really, doing more stretching than than strength work.
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So I was over in Oklahoma. That was at Lake Eucha on that day. And I have a love, paid relationship with that lake. It's shoot. I've got some really good fish out of there, a lot of fish over five, six pounds. But then for every great day you have at Eucha, you you one or two danes.
Tom Rowland: Well, I mean, you caught some really good fish there. I was thinking, I was wondering where that was because I had read that you were from, the Northwest, like Oregon. And then but then I thought you said, Northwest Arkansas. And I'm looking at the vegetation there, and it's not really it's kind of neither. And I'm like, I wonder where this is because, that looked that looked really good. So were you training in in Oklahoma for a while?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So so just to clarify, I'm from the Pacific Northwest Okay. But now living in Northwest Arkansas.
Tom Rowland: Okay.
Ryan Crouser: And so we're right in the corner. So I'm, like, thirty minutes. So Oklahoma.
Tom Rowland: Right on. And then you went to Texas in Austin. Yep. You're having a great year in football right now.
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. I was at the great year I was at the Georgia game, and so that was not the one to go to. But, I mean, it's time for the Longhorns. Were you
Tom Rowland: on the sidelines? They have you down there?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So they they recognized the Olympians at the first quarter. Alright. And now I stay down there for the rest of the game.
Tom Rowland: Well, Texas, Georgia football game, that's that's that's the real deal. I just, my daughter goes to Auburn, and, she's a senior. So we've been trying to go to a lot more games. And we went to we went to the Auburn, Kentucky game. And, you know, it was at the Kentucky Stadium, and it's it's a nice stadium, but they don't do it like they do in Alabama or Texas as far as football. I mean, big stadiums, really loud music, big jumbotrons. Like, I don't know. It's just a different presentation. But Georgia, Texas, that was a great game. That'd be a great Yeah.
Ryan Crouser: It's the the whole experience has changed so much just in the last ten years. It had been a while since I went to a Texas game and, just the lights, the breeder board, but then the drone show, and they've got fireworks on the drone.
Tom Rowland: Wow. It was unbelievable. Those drone shows are incredible. I mean, they they I've I saw the one, there was there was, like, a social media video, and it was the new world record. I don't know. They had 10,000 plus drones. And the things that they can do with that, I mean, if I was in the fireworks business, I would be kinda one worried a little bit. So I think the drone shows are gonna take over. What they can do with those things is amazing.
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. And I've never seen it at Texas. They had a the drones up in a Longhorn, and then all of a sudden, they had fireworks going off of the drum.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. And so
Ryan Crouser: it was yeah. They if you're in the fireworks business, you might have to be working with the drums.
Tom Rowland: I think so. I think so. What's a what is a, an international track meet? You said that it's it's much bigger sport in Europe. What what kind of, do they put on a show? Or how many will they fill a stadium? Like, what does it look like when you when you go to the biggest event? Not the Olympics. We we've all seen the Olympics on there, but, you know, like a big track meet what you would consider a big track meet. What what kind of, a show do they put on? What kind of, do they fill the stadium?
Ryan Crouser: So, yeah, they'll it's a much bigger event. And so it's a lot of corporate type of you guys get off work. They go, with a corporate group or whatever it might be, but they'll get thirty, forty, 50,000
Tom Rowland: Wow.
Ryan Crouser: People out for an an event. And a lot of it is when American thinks of attract me, they're like, oh, it's a Saturday, and it starts at 9AM, and it gets done at dark. But they it's much more viewer friendly than Europe. So it's two and a half hours fast run time. Something's going constantly. You've got races going much faster, and then you've got two key field events going. So there's always something to watch, much more viewer friendly. And, yeah, we get good turnouts, but then it's also just you've got mascots. You've got fireworks. It's a much more for the fan experience.
Tom Rowland: Gotcha. So, what what do you have on your bucket list as far as fishing goes? Is there are there a couple places you'd like to go or you have a species that you wanna catch?
Ryan Crouser: So for me, tarpon on the fly
Tom Rowland: Nice.
Ryan Crouser: Is definitely up at the top.
Tom Rowland: That's what we do. That's what I did for so long, as a guide in Key West. Tarpon on the fly. So you wanna catch a tarpon on the fly. What else you wanna catch? A permit?
Ryan Crouser: Permit would be up there. I'd say that at the top next to a tarpon will be a GT.
Tom Rowland: Yes.
Ryan Crouser: So Christmas Island, North Shore, Australia, any any of that section of the world. Have you been to any of those places yet?
Tom Rowland: Have you been any of those places yet where there are GTs?
Ryan Crouser: I haven't. The farthest I've been, Salvador wise, is Mexico.
Tom Rowland: K.
Ryan Crouser: So went to Mag Bay.
Tom Rowland: Nice. That's amazing. A little
Ryan Crouser: bit. And then I've been down to the Amazon as well. So I did the Amazon for peacock bass on my fly.
Tom Rowland: Did you catch anything other than the peacocks when you were down there?
Ryan Crouser: We got some arowana, which is a lot of fun. It's crazy. We got some, actually, some red tailed. I got a pretty good size red tailed cat on a fly.
Tom Rowland: Nice. That's a that's a crazy looking fish, and and people are are, catching those. What about Mag Bay? How was your trip there?
Ryan Crouser: It was fun, but we didn't get out.
Tom Rowland: Oh. So it was we were there
Ryan Crouser: the same time that the hurricane was hitting Tahoe last fall.
Tom Rowland: Oh, man.
Ryan Crouser: And so we had a good time in the mangroves. Got a lot of snug. A lot of diff couple different groupers, like, ringtail and then, oh, shoot. Snapper, blanking up. Not burning. Blank on the snapper.
Tom Rowland: Oh. Sounds like he must have gotten at least if you could get Broomtail grouper, he might have gotten out at least kinda near shore.
Ryan Crouser: No. We were just in the the mangroves, but the mangroves there are deep.
Tom Rowland: Okay.
Ryan Crouser: You're, like, 20 foot mangroves.
Tom Rowland: Oh, that's cool. We don't have the the broomtail grouper like that, but we do catch the goliath grouper around the mangroves in the Keys. That's fun.
Ryan Crouser: Okay.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. I mean, that's And then
Ryan Crouser: we did
Tom Rowland: Bass fishing, but, you know, they're big and they're babies. You know, they're like baby Goliath groupers, but they could be fifty pounds, which is a tiny, you know, as far as the species goes, but, fun because we use kinda bass tackle.
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. I've seen the videos of Cirque du Soleil, so you can make them bowl.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. So, do you what is your time frame? Like, when you're training all the time, you are you able to take fishing trips? Do you have off time that you could go, like, to Australia, or do that what is the track situation in Australia? Maybe you could maybe you could compete there and then go.
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. I wouldn't mind going down there because it's their summers or winter. Right. So couldn't couldn't write it off and say I'm going down there to get some summer training then. But in in all honesty, the the fantastic thing about being a professional athlete is you can only train six hours a day and have it be productive. And so you have to be accountable the rest of the day, but you can sneak away for a fishing trip in the afternoon. And so I get to fish a lot, but it's a lot of half day trips. Mhmm. And so I'm going around and a lot of stuff within an hour. So being in Northwest Arkansas is fantastic for that because we have some really good trout fishing, good small mouth, good bass, a fantastic fishery. And so I get to fish a lot, but I have to put off those big trips because I'd only take off about two weeks in the fall. And so it's tough to they're not only two weeks that I'm off of the year to convince friends and family that, hey. I'm going to Australia.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Ryan Crouser: But I'm I'm gonna just wait. When I'm retired, I've got a whole list of trips that I'm gonna be doing.
Tom Rowland: What is that? So I'm taking What
Ryan Crouser: is that? Six months.
Tom Rowland: Like for you retirement. Are you thinking about maybe trying one more Olympics, or what's your plan?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So I'm I'm all in through LA twenty twenty eight, and then I'll be done. So the the goal will be to me for me is retire after my fourth Olympics with it being on American soil. That's kind of the dream come true.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Has anyone won four gold medals in the in the shot put?
Ryan Crouser: No. They have not. I was the first to win three.
Tom Rowland: No one of any nationality is one one three. You were the first
Ryan Crouser: one in in the shot put. Men's or women's. No one had ever won three.
Tom Rowland: It's amazing. One of the things that I wanted to ask you about, and I know we're about to run out of time here, but the mindset of of repeating, like, certainly in fishing tournaments, I've won fishing tournaments. I've always had a hard time with winning them twice or winning them three times. Like, you've won the most prestigious athletic event three times. What's the mindset for repeating? How do you stay so hungry that you can compete at that level for this amount of time?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. I think a a lot of it for me is treating it just as a stand alone. Like, you learn a lot from the process and being kind of veteran in the sport. You definitely use that to your advantage. But when you sit down and think about why am I doing this or what is the goal of this outcome, it needs to be irrelevant to what you've done in the past. This is a stand alone Olympics, world championships, US championships. I wanna go in and I wanna win. But what what has motivated me in track and field is trying to be the best that I can be. I can go out there. I control what I do. I can't control what the other guys do. And so if I go in focusing on myself and that same thing that motivated me when I was in middle school of wanting to be the best I can be, if I can go out there and throw a personal best, I won no matter what. And so that mentality is what has made me be successful year over year, Olympics over Olympics is I'm trying to be the best that I can be If I go out there and I prepare in that way and I walk out on the field knowing I did everything I could to be the best I can be on this day, you're not really gonna lose. Because even if someone beats you, there's nothing better that you could have done. And so that level of confidence, that level of preparation, you're gonna have a hard time losing if you actually check all those boxes and you a 100% said, I did everything I could to be the best I could be on this day.
Tom Rowland: Wow. Well, you obviously done it. Do you do you like the process of of preparing and training for a big event, or do you like the day of competition better?
Ryan Crouser: Tough question. I like I like them both. I think you have to love the process. But but to be honest, nothing compares to that feeling of preparing for six, eight, twelve months, and you walk out on the field and you just got that blast of adrenaline, and you feel like you can do anything. There's something about preparing for a long period of time physically, but especially mentally that when you walk out, when you walk out there and you just you know you got it on that day, that makes all of the preparation work. And like I said, you have to love the preparation. If you're struggling through motivating yourself every day and you're not gonna get to that level, so you have to find that passion in the day to day, but nothing compares to that feeling of walking out in the field and feeling like you're Superman on the day of it.
Tom Rowland: Wow. So right now, you're eating 5,000 calories. Someday, 6,000 calories. A lot of times when you see a a professional athlete like an offensive lineman, a defensive lineman, some big powerful athlete, when they retire, they don't wanna eat as much, and and they start losing weight, and they get they look like a completely different person. Right? Do you do you foresee that with you? Like, when if do you have a hard time eating 5,000 calories? Or I mean, like, sometimes so for some people that are trying to gain weight, that's a real problem.
Ryan Crouser: Oh, for sure.
Tom Rowland: Like, those big strong men and stuff like that, you watch them and they're like, man, I would I just don't wanna eat that. I don't wanna eat that. And when they retire, they don't, and then they lose a lot of weight. Is it hard for you? You think so?
Ryan Crouser: Oh, yeah. I already, you the thing I look forward to the most when the season ends is getting away from regimented eating. And so if you're feeling hungry in my training program, that's you're not doing it right. Because you never wanna eat when you're hungry because that means your body is catabolic and eat you're eating muscle. You're not recovering optimally. You're not gaining muscle optimally. So you never eat when you're hungry, which is and people know you eat till you're full and then you have to finish what's on your plate. That's pretty miserable. Yes. And so for me, when I I do a cheat meal once a week, and my cheat meal is just skipping a meal.
Tom Rowland: So that Okay.
Ryan Crouser: For me, it's that's the thing I hate the most about training is the regimented eating.
Tom Rowland: So regimented eating, walk me through just quickly, like, what what that looks like on a day, regimented eating.
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So it a lot of it boils down to is what I eat when to still be able to train for five to six hours. And so it's easy to get 5,000, 6,000 calories. It's hard to get 5,000 calories that's not gonna make you feel bad.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Ryan Crouser: It's not gonna take you out for the next three or four hundred hours. And so, like, this morning was what would it be? Half a pound of ground deer and six eggs, two pieces of toast. So that was the breakfast. And then, I'll do some yogurt in between about now as soon as we get off this, and then I'll get ready to train. Yogurt in a protein shake, and then lunch will be one pound of lean ground either beef or deer and and 12 ounces of rice. And then dinner is kind of whatever the fiance is is making today. I think it it's her, her dinner. And she she doesn't want to eat like me, and nobody in their same mind would want it just be like, oh, yeah. It's a pound of beef and a pound of rice for dinner. And so she she knows kind of what my caloric needs are for the day. But once or twice a week, I still took, and I I have to make sure I get away from the regimented eating of a pound of beef and a pound of rice.
Tom Rowland: Wow. And so there's no snack before bed?
Ryan Crouser: I do micellar casein. So just protein in whole milk, and micellar casein is the longest breakdown. It's like a four hour breakdown. So your body's recovering, has available protein while you're sleeping. Mice yeah. So for me, micellar casein before bed is is a big part of recovery and maximizing my muscle building.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. And so you're at a body weight of three thirty five. So how many grams of protein do you think you're eating in a day?
Ryan Crouser: Right around three fifty.
Tom Rowland: Three fifty. Wow. That's amazing. That's a lot of protein, man. But you're getting a lot of it from from, wild sources like the deer that you've shot.
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So, actually, just last night finished up processing, and we had 80 pounds, of venison. So that'll be it'll get me through couple months.
Tom Rowland: Nice. And and is that because the season is going right now and you just went?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So November is kind of as deer hunters know, it's prime time right now. So, yeah, out there archery season, I'm mostly archery on public land here in Arkansas.
Tom Rowland: Really nice. Yeah. So you're a fly fish you're a six foot seven, three hundred and thirty five pound bowhunter, fly fisherman, fly tire, shot putter, three time gold medalist. Man, what it what else do you do? Do you play a musical instrument?
Ryan Crouser: No. I haven't got no musical talent. I
Tom Rowland: mean, dude, that's that's those are those are different things. Like, the the fly tying, the fly fishing I mean, I don't know. I saw a lot of clients, you know, big powerful guys that like fly fish. And but, I mean, I don't know. That just seems like it seems like it would be hard to tie flies at a at at 320. You know? I mean, some of the flies are tiny. Right?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. It's, it's it's ironic. So my fiance is in med school. She's an m four. And during her surgery rotation, they were doing work on their stitches, all of that stuff. And she's always been blown away because, at my hand dexterity and Yeah. From fly tying, I guess, at a young age, it's come naturally to me. I have very steady hands, and she's always been like, you should be a surgeon. You're way better at this than I am. But, yeah, you you get used to tying 22 midges.
Tom Rowland: You could tie you're tied 22 midges?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. Down to a 22 blowing olive dry. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Dang. And are you fishing those on this on the White River? Is that where you're going?
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. So the White River is a lot of midge fishing. Yeah. Like, any tail race like that, you've got steady water temperatures, and you'll have that one midge that just thrives. Yeah. And so, there's if nothing's working on the White, you can you can almost bank on a midge being your go to. But to be honest, I'm more of a streamer guy. I'm tying big big flies. I'm throwing throwing meat on heavy weighted lines. That's my go to. Or or mousing are my favorite.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. Well, man, I know you got a busy schedule, and I wanna thank you for coming by. We should do a show. We should do something.
Ryan Crouser: I'd love to.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, I don't know. I'm gonna have to catch you on one of these two two weeks, that you have, but we could get you down to the keys for a couple of days.
Ryan Crouser: Yeah. Every every month, I take three consecutive days off, at the end of a four week training block. So I might have to sneak down there for a Saturday, Sunday.
Tom Rowland: Alright. Well, let's stay in touch, man. I'll I'll make sure you get my contact information. We'll stay
Ryan Crouser: in touch. Yeah. That'd be great. I'd love I'd love to go down
Tom Rowland: to the keys. Very cool. All right. Well, thanks, Ryan. I appreciate it. And congratulations on your third Olympic gold medal. I'm sure you're gonna go and get another one and be the fourth. It'll be so awesome. Thank you. We'll have to we'll have to wait for another four years to watch you win it, but, I'm sure there'll be something else. We'll watch you go fishing. Alright. If you guys wanna, follow Ryan, check him out on, YouTube. He's got a YouTube channel. He's doing some fishing, doing some training. You can see him throw the shot put and and train, but he's got fishing on there. Fishing and hunting and all kinds of stuff. Alright. Thanks so much, Ryan. We'll talk to you later.
Ryan Crouser: Alright. Thanks for having me.
Tom Rowland: Alright. Cool, man. See you.
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