Laird Hamilton, Gabby Reece Talk About Their XPT Empire in the Making

When RealClearLife profiled big-wave surfing god Laird Hamilton, we wanted to give you the full picture. Of course, had we done so, you’d still be reading our feature.

So we’re handing off the storytelling to Outside magazine, who recently caught up with Hamilton and his wife, Gabby Reece, on a new podcast, to talk about their ultra-endurance exercise program, XPT.

A post shared by XPT (@xptlife) on Sep 27, 2017 at 11:46pm PDT

We’ve teased out some of the best moments from it below.

-Remember when we told you about Hamilton’s penchant for ice-baths? He apparently has four tubs in his backyard, along with an ice machine to stoke it.

-In 2016, both Hamilton and Reece had joint-replacement surgery—the former for his hip, the latter for her knee. They scheduled the surgeries to be done on the same day. “That was her idea,” says Hamilton.

-Reece says she believes she’s impacted Hamilton “more personally than athletically.” As Hamilton puts it, she brought “structure” to his life, which was sort of all over the place.

-Hamilton says of his XPT training regimen, you can’t just wake up one day and be in shape. “There has to be some pain and suffering involved.”

-Hamilton doesn’t buy into the “cryotherapy” phenomenon. He’d rather just sit in a tub of ice, he says.

-The people who visit Hamilton and Reece’s Malibu home to take part in XPT training have to be invited through a friend of a friend. It’s a real community. But if you don’t bring your all, they’ll just as easily give you the boot from it.