Modern Wisdom - #004 - Dan Bailey - Mindset After Not Making It To The CrossFit Games, Current Training Methodology and Why Josh Bridges Is So Dangerous

Episode Date: February 14, 2018

I sat down with 4 times CrossFit Games Athlete and all round legend Dan Bailey while he was in the UK for Reebok's Nano 8 Launch Event in London. I was incredibly impressed with how candid, humble and honest he was. He's an exemplary character to the CrossFit community and professional athletes worldwide.  Find out how where his mindset is at after his toughest 2 years of not making it to The Games, why Josh Bridges is the most dangerous man in CrossFit and his approach for fighting an army of tiny horses. 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

Like the game is important to me and being that athlete is important to me and being the fittest man on earth is always something that I've been trying to do, trying to accomplish, but there's so many other things that I would like to be remembered for. Like if I die and all that's on my gravestone is, I here lies the fittest man on earth in the 20 and whatever. I've been pretty disappointed with myself. I think I would look at that as more of a failure than not making it to the games. I'm feeling in the UK, you good? You do? Yeah, yeah, it's my second time here. Not time-hunting, but time-hunting. I heard it's the only place I've ever been in the UK before, Manchester, right? Correct.

Yeah, I was on the same gym. That train? Yeah, train. We did a good dude's camp, Josh, Richard and I down there. Good. We had fun, yeah, it was good. We spent a lot of time in the gym, obviously, but... So, on Instagram yesterday, I saw Dave trying to put you off during a photoshoot.

Oh, yeah. Have you ever tried to just you off during a photoshoot. Oh yeah. Have you ever tried to just sort of give him a little no-show or whatever before he's got a workout or like whisper around the movements in his ear? We go back and forth every now and then on things like that, but no, Dave treats me like a little brother sometimes. So I appreciate it. You get a little bit of fun with it.

Yeah, that's cool. It's such a good interplay scene. you guys, you're obviously such good friends. Right. And I think that seeing the guys at the pinnacle of the sport, they're still so tight and you can kind of see yourself and the relationships. Yeah. Like it's really, really nice. And I think that sets a really good example for the community as well.

Which must feel empowering for you guys. Oh yeah, absolutely. It's good to know you guys see that. It's authentic, it's legit. So can you talk to me about your changes in training styles over the years? So what you do in different now that you were five years ago, 10 years ago? Sure. I think a lot of new CrossFiters, like right when I got in, obviously it's like volume, volume, volume. You know, you're trying to play catch up almost on all these different things that you have to learn. And then as you kind of get through some of that, you kind of start to figure out how to do muscle ups,

how to snatch properly, how to, you know, you get your technique down and your mechanics down. Then some of that volume I've kind of dropped off a little bit in specific times of the year and focused more on the quality, getting in more intensity, getting in more simulations of actual workouts that you're going to see than the open regionals or the games and not so much of the beat down.

You do have to get as much time under the curve maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, especially when you start looking at like the regionals Time frame in the regionals weekend is pretty set, right?

You know you're gonna compete for three days and you're probably gonna do two workouts a day Maybe it's three scored workouts, but they're it's really one workout that's crushed together or something like that So as long as you're training within those confines and improving your weaknesses and those in that kind of parameter You're gonna be doing enough. I guess I'll come to the experience as well, right? Sure, sure, it comes with the experience here. So Reebok's got a lot of bases covered with its range of cross-fit shoes now. So you've got nano-speed TR Legacy left it. Is there a shoe that you keep on finding yourself wearing all the time?

I love the nano. I'm actually kind of partial with the speed TR. A really big fan of any shoe that I can put on and go run three miles immediately as well as it's not gonna get torched on the rope. I'm pretty happy with, I'm excited with and that's kind of what I lean towards. You find yourself and those a lot then. Yeah like being a little warm mobile and that kind of thing knowing that I have the capacity to go back to the background for guess for yourself. Yeah and so I'm a little bit picky too when it comes to the shoe like my foot has to feel right. For sure.

Dave said, Dave is literally the opposite. Right. He's like, put a shoe on me, as long as it's a shoe. Yeah, he's good to go. As long as it's left and right, I'm sweet. Right, yeah. See, no, I'll get a little bit picky. I'll put it on immediately, start judging and that kind of thing.

Yeah, that's just the way it is. What do you think Danny Broflex thinks of the Mu-908? He's really focused in, he'd be really focused in on one word. It's right there. Yeah, I think. I don't know if there's like a subliminal thing there, like Reebok might have done that on purpose, I don't probably for him. If he'd probably think he would have written.

He thinks it was, yeah, he'd probably be like, we can ex out this, we don't really need any weed. Let's emphasize the flex, yeah. That's probably undilated. We're gonna be out. Um, I want to talk about your mental resilience after a tough couple of years. Yeah.

Um, can you talk to me about your mindset at the moment and how it's been over the last few years? So, in 2016 when I actually when I just didn't qualify, that was the worst. I mean that was the most disappointing and then, you know, I had my, whatever, two-week pity party or whatever it was. And it's like, okay, you know what, get over it, like, you didn't make it. It's what it is, move on.

And the thing that people, I think the thing that I was forgetting, or the thing that I have an easy way to like lose sight of, is that like, hey, you've been one of the best crossfitters in the world for the past five years. No, I can take that away from you. You did that. It's done and you accomplished it.

And you didn't make it this year. And you didn't deserve to go. Like those other guys did. They beat you. They did better. And they trained harder, trained better, whatever you want to call it. That's just the reality of it.

I'm a big, like, coming to terms with exactly what happened, like exactly what the reality of the situation is. It's not, oh, poor me, I was screwed in this event or I was whatever. And I was like, yeah, some of that might have happened, but you still lost. It doesn't matter. I know the reason is. So, yeah. But in terms of the resiliency, I kind of look at, like the game is important to me.

Being that athlete is important. Being the fittest man on earth is always something that I've been trying to do, trying to accomplish. But there's so many other things that I would like to be remembered for. Like if I die and all that's on my gravestone is, I hear lies the fittest man on earth and 20 and whatever. I've been pretty disappointed with myself. I think I would look at that as more of a failure than not making it to the games one year, never making it to the games again. So while it sucks, you have to have a short-term memory

when it comes to those things. It's done, it's in the past. What are you doing tomorrow? I think that's really admirable quality. Nothing that's probably what makes you competitive to be around for solo. Yeah. What's the coolest group chat that you're in? Oh man there's a I'm in a cool group chat called Ohio till I die

Right Ohio is a state that I grew up in in the United States and It's not very from the outside most people don't think Ohio is anything but my friends who I grew up with were real passionate about Ohio and we have like a handful of sayings that let's just like everything's earned in Ohio like you have to earn it everything has to hurt a little more if you want to accomplish the same thing if you're from Ohio for whatever reason and we're big on Ohio sports so how is the state of men right yeah exactly like Ohio State football the Cleveland calves Cleveland Indians and the Cleveland Browns and Cleveland is not known for being very good

at any of those things, right? But the calves are obviously a shining spot, like the fast handful years, because of LeBron James. And LeBron's from Akron, Ohio, which is really close to where we all grew up. So anytime there's a Browns game or an Indian's game, or something.

Oh, it's nonstop. Oh, it's nonstop. Like, I want to make a book. Actually, my buddy Dave, he brought up the idea of making a coffee table book with pictures from Cleveland sports because Cleveland Browns, for those of you who don't know, are the worst American football team. It's statistically in history. They are absolutely terrible. But we have a diehard, I don't care, we're still going to root for you.

But they're so bad, it's terrible. Couple more click ones. We tried 18.0, yeah. I have not. No. Are you looking for0. Yeah, I have not no you looking for it Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna do it I had a couple issues with my back recently, and so looking at that one. That's like a red line wind out Oh, yeah, you know backsmoak that ended that ended me. Yeah, so So back I'll hold off, but I will give it a try. Yeah, you're in the Hunger Games Okay, with only other games athletes, okay, who's gonna be the hardest to kill

with only other game athletes who's gonna be the hardest to kill. Who do you not wanna come up against? Based on experience Josh Bridges for sure. Time in the military. So he's got a particular skill there that most people don't have. Yeah. Who else? I'm in a mess. There was Stone Cold killer, aren't they?

Oh yeah, the stash. He'll never get rid of that. He's not, he made the shirt with his face on the back like he can It's your image now. Yeah, I don't know who else I would pick that's such a good question Trying to think of who else has been up there. I think Josh. I think Josh Bridges is is enough to end everyone's Well, I mean he's kind of the easy choice there. Oh, the American hero right? Yeah final one would you rather fight? 20 duck sized horses or one horse sized duck? Uh the 20 duck sized horses. Okay, you're gonna eat moment. Huh? You're gonna eat mom the horses? No for time. For time. Yeah, just we're just gonna go. Red line it. Yeah red line it. Yeah red line it. When you're talking about fighting life or death like yeah 90 seconds of all-out fury. That's what it's gonna be. That's all I have.

90 seconds of all-out fury. That's what it's gonna be. That's all I have. Man, thank you so much. Thanks for having me all. Really appreciate it. Thank you. you