Modern Wisdom - #003 - Dave Castro - CrossFit Open 18.0, Pressures of Programming and Fighting Mat Fraser

Episode Date: February 13, 2018

I caught up with Director of The CrossFit Games Dave Castro at the Launch of Reebok's new Nano 8, as he announced Open Workout 18.0. After getting completely destroyed in 3 minutes by the workout, and once I got my breath back, I got time to sit down with the man behind The CrossFit Games and ask some questions which I've had for years. Find out how he deals with the pressure of programming for half a million people, which Games Athletes he doesn't want to meet in The Hunger Games and whether that new burpee standard will be in this year's open... Check out everything I recommend from books to products and help support the podcast at no extra cost to you by shopping through this link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's pretty cool because now you're going to have people assuming and they might be assuming rider they might be assuming wrong that that burpee that we just introduced will be the burpee in the open. Well you like to throw a couple of curve balls in right? Yeah and so this is this 18.0 is provided a nice little it's going to get people talking about what might be coming. This is just another Dave Castro Instagram post isn't it? Yeah basically. This is just another Dave Castro Instagram post isn't he basically?

Is the Dave Castro yes main man, how are you? Good. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Welcome, I London 18.0 has just ended me Can you explain where that came from? Yeah, so the idea of doing an 18.0 or a pre workout before the open stars has been something that's been flown in my head for years. I've always wanted to do it. We've never activated on it or moved on it within CrossFit. We've never made it a priority to execute on. And this year, Reebok asked me if I'd come out and do this event with them. And they reignited that idea. They said, would you be open to do a pre-open announcement?

And I said, sure, let's call it 18.0. And so we decided to do it here. And the workout had to be true for CrossFit. Simple, nice bite. Two movements that are common to the open, but with different twists. Yeah. The dumbbell snatch, we put a new standard on it, just bringing it down below the head before you make the switch.

And then the burpee over the dumbbell is something new. We haven't seen that. Yeah, so it's pretty cool, because now you're going to have have people assuming and they might be assuming right or they might be assuming wrong that that burpee that we just introduced will be the burpee in the open. Well you like to throw a couple of curve balls in right? Yeah and so this is this 18.0 is provided a nice little it's going to get people talking about what might be coming. This is just another Dave Castro Instagram post, isn't it? You're basically, but just for Reebok and live, and for this event.

The show. So yesterday on Instagram, I saw you trying to put Dan off during a photo shoot. Yeah. Have the guys ever tried to put you off during the games? Have they ever tried to come up behind you and whisper just random movements in your ear? So that you end up like saying the wrong thing

or forgetting? Not during the games. During the games, you put, they're pretty occupied with what they have to do. Yeah, that's true. And they respect that I'm pretty occupied with what I'm doing. Yeah. So during the games, no. But at other events and other stuff like this, yeah, guys,

especially the guys I'm close with will push me or poke at me and do stuff. But typically not at the games. Because everyone has their own things going on. Yeah, for humans. But maybe some of the open announcements or something like that, they might try and just know. I know the announcements will try to, they'll make little jokes, but they're also very nervous

at that point too. Yeah. Because they don't know what they're about to do. Yeah. And the open announcements are tough because they have to, I announced the work on and a few minutes later, they have to do it.

You gotta go. Yeah, so. To show. It's a demanding environment for them. For everyone. Yeah. Well, especially for those top athletes, because of the fact that like, you know,

if you're not doing an open announcement, you gotta watch the work out, then you get a process, and you get to see what everyone else is doing, then you get a, you know, a girl wanted to come on, and wanted to do a Friday, you get to do all, you get to set your own schedule. Yeah. Then you get a, you know, I don't want to do it tomorrow, I don't want to do it Friday, you get to do all, you get to set your own schedule. Yeah. If you're a part of the open announcement,

you don't get to set your own schedule. You have to do it within five minutes after it's announced. Especially last year with some of the new movements that we saw, some of the stuff like the dumbbell cleans and then the racked up lunges as well and stuff like that, the techniques that everyone developed, you get, the guys that do the open announcements, they're the worst. They get the no chance to prepare. They're not always the worst. So like you even look at Matt and Scott when they did, I guess

it was 18 point three, the snatch. Squats, not shit. Squats, snatch, event. Matt had the fastest time in the world. No, he, no, Ben ended up having the fastest time. He beat him at the last minute, but Matt had the second fastest time with no prep on his first go. Yeah. Do you know if he repeated that? I don't think he did. I'm pretty sure he did not. I think you know when you've emptied the tank, don't you? Well, I don't think, I hear it's not even emptying the tank. I don't think he emptied the tank. I think you're doing it on faster. It. It's more of, he didn't need to do it again. Have you done enough?

You don't need to end yourself already for next week, right? He's looking at the marathon. He's looking at the complete picture. He doesn't want to win just that event. He wants to win the whole thing. So he did enough for him to be set up for success for the rest of the competition. I understand.

So Reebok and CrossFit have got a really strong partnership now. Today's community, I think, is shown just how cool that can be and the sort of small events that you can do locally that affect CrossFit is on a local level. Can you explain what the partnership with Reebok is enabled you to do that you might not have been able to do without them? Is there been more access? Is what have you been able to do with Reebok?

Yeah, the partnership is a great thing, They've exposed us to a new community of people that traditionally that we wouldn't target or work with just in the mass fitness community outside of, you know, bringing media, bringing in people who aren't from your traditional CrossFit realms. We actively don't allow and try to promote ourselves. We let the brand promote itself organically. We let it grow by word of mouth.

So this year it looks like more than half a million people might do the open. Hopefully. For 20 or something last year, 120,000? Something like that, yeah. How does it feel knowing that your pen and paper is going to influence the lives of so many people? Like, if you, what you write on a piece of paper is literally going to define someone's weekend. Yeah, it's I don't think about it like that too much, but it is like if I step back and think about it that is pretty cool, significant, but I think I don't look at it that way I'm

thinking more about the test and I have to have the program being that it's, here's one thing about programming a test set, it's's gonna rank the fittest in the world, but also be appropriate for 400 other thousand. Gotta be inclusive, right? Yeah, that anyone can do it. Do you find, you know, here's the thing about the, anyone can do it. That statement is true, but it's also misleading.

And the fact that anyone can do it if you, you need some experience, right? Like, you need to have a little, you need to know how to do some basic cross-fit movements. Sure. Even the scale, even the scale, you still have to have some concept. I would say not anybody can do the scale division, but a majority of the world can. You just have to have some understanding of crossfit and the movements to participate, which isn't asking a lot. And which is it makes sense, you know, because if it if it was set up that anyone could do it, we just have, you know, a walking competition.

There's no competition, right? Yeah, well, you'd have to do movements that are so basic that have no instruction. Yeah. And essentially all of our movements, our body movements, anything with a barbell. There's some level of instruction or some level of technicality to them that you have to do. For sure. So you've said that you test the open workouts yourself, sometimes before sending them to anybody else. Yes.

Do you ever find that you're fearing them as you write them down or wanting to back off the intensity as soon as you know that you're about to punch yourself in the face with it in about 30 minutes? Well, here's what I feel with the opponent. I just like, I fear not, I don't mind doing them when I'm creating them in that process. But I mind once scores have been established

and once people have done them, because now you see, oh man, a middle of the path is this. Now I have to do that or better. I get the anxiety from them when I have to actually do them and I know other people school. You're gonna watch that school go up. So when I do them in prepping for them

before anyone's ever done them, I'm not too worried about it because I know it's like, I'll get a sense in the world, right? I know every open worker. I'll get a sense of how it feels and how the movements feel and overall that it hurts, but then when I do them, because I'll test them, and then during the open week, I'll do them officially officially so like I don't use my scores from when I

tested it I make it official and I do it within the window with the judge and go through the whole process I understand and that's when I fear them but in the creation and you know some of them like I don't like movements like thrusters and the things people typically don't like. So when they have those in there too, I'm not excited about testing them. Yeah, I bet so. So, NU908's been released this week. What is your favorite pair of Reebok shoes from over the years? Have you got a favorite pair that sticks out?

I never really think of my shoes. I just move. And it's kind of how I've been brought up. You want to be prepared for whatever you have That's a same Whatever you're gonna work with whatever you're gonna use you make it happen So the same I feel the same way about barbells. So it barbells a little different I'm glad that you have a question on a nice one

But if you don't have a nice one you can make it work for sure. Yeah, but I do like these they feel great I thought the sevens were great. I think these are great. Yeah, a little bit more of a heel drop in these I know which feels good. Yeah, really really good What's the coolest group chat that you're in? Coolest group chat. Yeah on iMessage or like what's up? Oh, I have a if you got some cool group chats that you're in No, I have some business tech groups that I'm in some of my core team and Those I don't really, they're just all business. Okay, I got it. So, I wouldn't like to guess how many gyms you've been to around the world.

I don't know anymore, but I've been to a lot. An awful lot. Yeah. Have you got a top three coolest? gyms? Yes. And you need to come to mind. There's some gyms in China that were really cool that I just remember It was very unique and partly because they were in China and you wouldn't expect to find such nice cross-fit gyms

I mean I didn't you can't once I was there now it makes sense But before I went I went a couple years ago. I had no idea that I'd find some of the nicest cross-free gyms in the world in China It's such an emerging market. Yeah exactly. So that was that was unique Yeah, I don't have a favorite cross for gym. I just, I like, they all have such different flavors and such different looks and such different experiences that are unique in a different way. But also the exact same training methodology

that arrives in a culturally different way, right? Yeah, totally. You're in the Hunger Games, and there's only other Games athletes there who's going to be the hardest to kill. I don't even know what the Hunger Games are. You know like Battle Royale? Like WWE? Kind of, okay, WWE-WF, who's going to be the hardest to get out of the ring, do you think? How have all of the games athletes from this year?

From this year out of all the games athletes, let me think about that. I think Matt's pretty, here's what I respect about Matt and why I've come up with, because he's really a fighter, and what I mean, I don't mean a physical fighter, but I mean a mental fighter, he really wants to win no matter what it takes. And in years past, it's been awfully too, even now you still hear some, that I'm just competing against myself, and I wanna do this best as I can.

But the reality is when you get out there, you have to compete against those to your left and right, and you have to do better than even what the best you can is, or what it thinks it is if you wanna win, and Matt understands that. And when you watch Matt, and Rich Froning had that too. 100%

When you watch those two, they're not trying to do the best they can. They're trying to beat the guy the left and right of them. Absolutely. And sometimes that doesn't even mean they have to be the best they can. It means they can be 70% of what they are.

And they're still beating the guys in the last round. That's what makes it good competitive, right? As opposed to just a good athlete. So that type of mentality also would make the type of person I wouldn't want to fight in a cage or I wouldn't want to be within a scenario like that because they want to win it all fast. And that's a powerful thing.

And it's powerful. Thank you. Dave, I appreciate your time. Thanks. Thank you very much, man.