New Girl's Max Greenfield Is Obsessed with Watching People Do CrossFit

-You just spent last weekend --
I have so many questions about this.
You went to Madison, Wisconsin. -I did.
-To see a sporting event. -That's exactly right.
-But the sporting event is not a sporting event
I've ever seen live.
Will you please explain what you went and saw?
-I went to the CrossFit Games. -The CrossFit Games.
-Yeah. The Reebok CrossFit Games.
-The Reebok Cross-- Now, you did not --
-Does anybody do CrossFit? [ Cheering ]
-There you go.
-But there's, like, a hesitation, as if, like --
"Who's gonna be the first one to go,
"I do it, too!" -Yeah.
So, now, do you do CrossFit? -I do.
-You do? -Yeah.
-But you did not compete. You just went to watch.
-Watch people work out, man. -That's really it.
Okay. So, now, that's interesting
you framed it that way, because that's how
I would've framed it, and that's why I wouldn't have gone.
[ Laughter ]
And yet you went. -I feel I like -- I feel --
I'm surprised by this.
I feel like that's right up your alley.
-Look, I don't want to disparage the hard work
that CrossFit people do,
and there are a lot of sports I watch that I'm sure
other people wouldn't watch.
But this is the sort of the gist of what you were watching?
-Oh, yeah, for sure.
-So that's a person hauling weight.
-Yeah. I'm not -- I'm not sure who that is, actually.
-You don't -- Oh, you know them all?
-Oh, yeah, totally. -Oh, wow.
-Yeah, big-time.
-So you're not just like, "That guy's working out"...
-That's Matt Fraser. He's the fittest man on Earth.
-He won. -Yeah.
I got to meet him, and I was real excited.
[ Laughter ]
-It looks like he's jump-roping with weights.
-He's doing -- No, no, no.
-Okay. -No, Seth.
-Again, you're here to be the expert.
Clarify. -Yes, please.
He's doing what are called double-unders.
-Okay. -Yeah, where you jump rope
but the rope goes underneath twice.
-Okay. So you have to jump high enough,
and go fast enough that you go cwh cwh!
-That's exactly right.
-All right, good. [ Laughter ]
I mean, I'm not a fan of CrossFit,
'cause I don't think I can wrap my head around it.
-I don't know. I think you could.
-Is this -- I believe this is the woman who won the event.
-Yeah, that's Tia-Clair Toomey.
-Congratulations to her, as well.
-She's from Australia. -She's from Australia?
-Yeah, the Aussies had a good performance.
-Oh, really? So if you're in Australia right now,
you have a lot to be proud about.
-They're freaking out. -Really?
-I mean, I would think so. -And now --
-On the female side, they took first and second place,
and they had third place on the male side.
This guy Ricky Garard, who came out of nowhere.
It was very exciting. He looks like Mad Max.
A young rugby player. He went crazy this weekend.
-Wow. -Yeah.
-how many competitors were there over the course of the weekend?
-I think there's 40 on the male side and 40 on the female side.
-Okay, and that's 80. How many do you --
-And, also, there's teams, too.
There's teams for, like, the best gyms,
or the gyms put together their best teams,
and they make it there.
So there's a tremendous amount of competitors.
-All right, so it's the day --
It's the morning of you going to CrossFit.
What time do you get to the stadium or whatever?
-Oh, early. -Okay.
And what time do you leave?
-It's a long -- It's a long day.
But, also, it starts on Thursday and goes through Sunday.
I mean, the amount of volume that these guys are putting on,
you have no idea. -The amount of what?
-Volume. -Volume.
-Yeah, it's a lot --
There's multiple workouts every day.
-Wow. That's fantastic that you care.
[ Laughter and applause ]
And, again, I'm so --
Again, I really want to stress,
I think for the people who went there,
like, God love them. They worked out so hard.
-Here's the best part.
And I include myself in this group.
As spectators, you go there, and everybody's really excited.
And this year, it was in Madison for the first time.
So, it's, like, a college town,
and everybody who came in was like --
You know, college is not happening,
so everybody's like, "CrossFit, let's go!"
So everybody goes to these events
dressed in their CrossFit gear as if,
just in case a workout breaks out,
I'm ready. -Oh, wow.
-It would be like going to a football game in shoulder pads.
[ Laughter ]
-The great thing is --
Here's the thing. Like, when I'm in the gym,
and every now and then, I'll be doing something,
and there'll be, like, a dude acro--
like, a creep just staring at other people working out.
That's what you did for a weekend.
-No, no, no, no, no.
-You were a guy watching other people work out.
-It's sports. -It's not a sport.
You watch people exercise.
You're a weirdo at the gym. You're a weirdo at the gym.
-But -- [ Laughs ]
Those people at the gym are not exercising competitively.
-Oh, okay. There you go.
-See now how it makes -- -You won me over.
-Now it makes sense to you.
-How many of the 80 people that competed could you name?
-More than I care to admit.
-Oh, my God. That's fantastic.
This movie is fantastic.
You're talking there about how you got punched in the face.
-Yeah, by Woody Harrelson.
-Woody Harrelson plays your father-in-law in this film,
or your girlfriend's father.
-My father-in-law to be.
-Father-in-law to be. -Yes.
-You're a huge Woody Harrelson fan.
-Yeah, it was nerve-racking, too.
'Cause, like, Woody's one of those actors
who are like so unpredictable,
and that's why we love him as an actor.
-Was he unpredictable to work with?
-Yeah. I mean, it's -- You're --
It's...
He's Woody Harrelson. -Yeah.
-And I came into the movie.
And, like, my character in the movie
is an outsider to the Walls family.
It's about Jeannette Walls and her life,
and it's an extraordinary film.
But as her fiancé, I'm like --
You know, I come from the Upper East side, New Yorker.
They're, you know, from --
had just moved there from the Adirondacks,
so it's obviously a clear difference in lifestyles.
And so I was an outsider in the film, as my character,
and then, you know, coming in, here's Woody and Brie,
and I'm, like, coming in to the last three weeks of filming.
And you're like, "Hey, man, how you doing?"
And I'm supposed to be very nervous in these scenes,
and there was not a lot of acting.
-Right, 'cause you were just genuinely that nervous.
-Yeah, totally.
-And did he really punch you in the face?
-No, he did not punch me in the face.
Although, going into it,
I didn't know how it was gonna go, and I was willing.
I thought, "If we're ever gonna do this,
this would be a good opportunity
and worth getting punched in the face by Woody Harrelson."
-To be able to tell people.
Like, "What happened to your face?"
You'd go, "Woody Harrelson." -Yeah, that's right.
And you, like, look in the movie,
and you go, "See that? That was real.
He gave me a real shot."
-He's really unpredictable, and he punched me in the face.
-But, like, it was good. We were in it.
-Oh, that's fantastic.
Well, congrats on the film. -Thank you.
-And again, where did you place this weekend?
I forget. -[ Laughs ]
-[ Laughing ]
-I placed first. I placed first.
-You won -- you won the Best Spectator.
-I won best spectator. Yeah, that's right.
If a workout had broken out, I was ready.
I was ready, and I would've placed.
-I want this for you.
Do you think you'll ever compete at one of these?
-No. I can't tell you how far away I am...
-Oh, really?
-...from the level of how fit these guys are.
-Oh, that's a bummer, because you're very fit,
and that makes me upset to know how far away I am.
[ Laughter ]
'Cause I thought, if there were 40, then maybe --
Oh, if there were 80, I'd do it. No.
-It's not even close. -All right, gotcha.
Well, I still wish that for you.
Thanks so much for being here.
It's great to see you, as always.
Max Greenfield, everybody!

New Girl's Max Greenfield Is Obsessed with Watching People Do CrossFit

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