WHOOP Podcast - Cristiano Ronaldo: The World’s Best Footballer Like You’ve Never Seen Him Before

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

On this week’s episode WHOOP Founder and CEO Will Ahmed is joined by the world’s best footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo. The legendary athlete is now an investor and Global Ambassador for WHOOP. The 5x Ballon d’Or and 5x Champions League winner describes WHOOP as a tool he cannot live without in order to perform at his peak. Will and Cristiano discuss Cristiano’s first memory playing football (1:23), being motivated by his father (2:55), talent vs. work ethic (4:19), being at the top for so long (6:56), how Cristiano uses WHOOP (8:08), his recovery modalities (13:35), mindfulness and visualization (16:22), and his partnership with WHOOP (18:35).Resources:whoop.com/cr7 Cristiano's WebsiteCristiano's InstagramSupport the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

What's up, folks? Welcome back to the WOOP podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, the founder and CEO of Woop. And we're on a mission to unlock human performance. We've got an amazing guest for you today, arguably the most famous and well-known athlete in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo. Cristiano needs no introduction. We're going to be sitting with him in just a second now. We discuss his early football career.

it took to ultimately become a global superstar, work ethic versus talent. We go deep into his Whoop data and some of the things he does to recover at a superhuman level. And we talk about our partnership in which Cristiano is now an investor in Whoop and a global ambassador.

It's a really fascinating conversation. Stay tuned. If you're thinking about joining Whoop, you can visit our website, sign up for a free 30-day trial. That's right, try Whoop for 30 days, no cost to you. here we go okay christiano welcome to the woo podcast thank you i'm grateful to be here with you we're here in your home we're going to talk a lot to think about training and data and recovery but i thought i would start just by asking you what's your first memory of playing football

well for me is a pleasure to be with you when i start to play football i mean yeah when i was very very young with probably seven, eight, nine years old. I start to play in home, in the street with my colleagues, with my friends. And I think this is where everything starts. You know, that you start to feel that the sport is fun. Did you fall in love with the game immediately? I think so, yes. I thought it was like the first love. When I started to play in the street, it was fun. And I said, listen, I like this. Now, did you know that you were going to be a superstar your whole life?

Did you have that feeling? Never. Never, never, never. I will be false if I say yes. In the beginning, when you start, you always have that passion. To enjoy yourself, to spend time with friends. And to have fun, but in the beginning, not even with 14, 15, 16 years old. I didn't feel that.

Maybe after that, with 18, 90s, 20s, yes, I started to feel everything was different. And in that time period, did you find there were a few people that you gravitated to or who gave you that sort of motivation to say, okay, I can do this? In the beginning, probably was my father. My father in the beginning pushed me a lot, not a lot, a little bit, to follow my dream. In the beginning, with seven, eight years, it was my father. Because he saw some, I had some talent, and he kept pushed me to play not only in the street, but we had a local team in Madeira that they call Andorina.

I don't know how you say in English, Andorina. I don't know how you say, but now they're going to think, is a club, a Madeira club that everyone knows if they're Andorina. I will tell you in English, is there a name of the bird? And I start to be with teammates and I start, you know, the rule of football. I start that there. Now, we talked when we first met about this difference between making it because of talent and making it because of work ethic.

And you said to me you felt like an enormous percentage of your success has come from work ethic. And that there's sort of an unfair perception maybe of you of just being hyper-talented and that's where all the success comes from. To be honest, I think both have to work in the same time. in the same time because talent without work is nothing and work without talent is nothing too. So I think the both mix up.

And of course I have two. I'm not to say that I have more one than the other one because if you see my old career for the last 20 years, my level was high. And this is, as you can know, it's really tough. Not only in a football, but in any area. If you are top for 20 years, it's unbelievable. And I do that, and I continue to do that.

For me, it's a big achievement. And my biggest motivation is to carry on, to still enjoy, to make people happy, to make my family happy. so for me I have both talent and work ethic do you think you got a lot of that work ethic

from your father him pushing you when you were younger maybe both my mom too mom and dad my brothers too I think it's it's this childhood to make you feel what you are

or make you be what you are the difficult of things that you pass through in your life make you be stronger mentally to challenge a hard life. And of course, the environment too helps. I don't know if you know, but I move with 11 years old from Madeira to Lisbon, which is it's hard to be honest. It probably was the most difficult part in terms of professional of my career.

It was hard to left my family in Madeira, to follow my dream in Lisbon, without your family, with 11 years old. I can see now my kids, Christiano, my older son. I don't know if I will be capable to let him go to, I don't know. At this age. In this age, two years more. Yeah. Will be tough. What's the cost, what's the sacrifice of being this good?

for that long. You know, what do people not see that you're doing? Life is a box of surprising and it's hard, you know. It's not easy, you know, to be in this level and still push and still motivate to carry on, you know, to score goals, to be in a good shape, to compete with the young lions. They're coming and when they play against me, they want to show me that they are stronger than me and faster than me.

You have to prepare very well, not in terms of physically, but mentally too. I think it's very hard. But in the same way, it's a challenge, you know, because as you can see, if you treat good your body, you can maintain so many, many years. And this is the big challenge for me. and it's great I feel proud for that to have this age and still compete

in a highest level for me it's it's great and give me motivation to carry on well a lot of your discipline comes through actually in your WOOP data and we're going to talk a little bit about that

when did you first discover whoop? I discovered whoop a few years ago and to be honest for me it's a tool that can help me. It's like to have a doctor in your wrist. And for me, I cannot live without whoop

because it's helped me as a lot, not only in terms of physically, but mentally, in a sleep way, it's a great tool, in my opinion. So I'm really pleased that I use it. It's like in the beginning, I've fallen gloves since I start to use it. So I feel good with that.

Well, a big thing that we've tried to do at WOOP is find people who authentically love the product and then amplify their story. And you've been on WOOP for 646 days now, it turns out. You've got 95% compliance. So you literally wear the product nonstop, it seems like. And for us, like what's amazing is now we get to show the world, how does Cristiano Ronaldo train? What's it like to be him? and what is all the dedication and work ethic that goes into it. So with that in mind, I want to talk a little bit about your data.

First of all, you have a resting heart rate of 43 beats per minute, which you know, but that's in the top 1% of men on whoop. And even amongst professional athletes, it's in the top 3%. So that's, as you say, top. Top? Top. That is good. Your sleep performance, 81%.

So that's pretty good. On average, your strain is 14.9 every single day. 14.9. Out of 21. So that's high. You're getting 51% of your days are in the green, and then the rest are in the yellow, and then a very small percentage are in the red.

So even with all this training, your body's still recovering, which is really impressive. What are you doing to recover so well? Well, I can say I can be cooking and say, I give you the map, you are willing to do that, it's the main point, because everyone wants to be Christiano, but I give you the map, you think you will do it that? It's difficult. The discipline. The discipline is the most difficult thing, not only in the sport, but in the life. So the Whoop Journal, which for people listening to this, allows you to input all sorts of behaviors and activities and lifestyle decisions, you actually track

43 different things in the WOOP journal. So, let's see here. From a diet standpoint, you're tracking carbohydrates, turmeric, zinc, caffeine, vitamin B, vitamin C, which of those components do you find helps you? I think it's all package. helps you to maintain a good nutrition, in my opinion. It's all components, not only these components,

but you have a few more that helps you to be good, in my opinion. So small details in the end of the day will make the big difference, in my opinion. So as you say, and I will keep repeat, the consistency is the most difficult thing. Just doing it every day. Yes, every day. Do you ever wake up and you're saying, I don't want to do it today? I fight against my mind. Yes, sometimes it's up and we are all human beings.

We are not happy every day. We are, you know, not in a good mood every day. It's normal. It's part of us. What do you do to overcome that? I fight against that. You know, it's the big challenge. It's when you're not willing to do something, but you have to do it.

This is the main point. This is why I say our mind it's a box of surprises and you have to challenge yourself to be consistent. I repeat, sometimes it's hard it's what many people say

you like to go to the gym every day. Of course no. It's not true. Nobody likes to go to the gym every day. But you have to do it. Probably yes. Because your mental strength is coming from that, from that moments that in a hard moment, you know you should do it. And I do it because after that, maybe in the beginning you feel hard to start, but after

when you finish the gym or cold plunge or even the training, you will feel better. I think it's the big key there. What's up, folks, if you are enjoying this podcast or if you care, about health, performance, fitness, you may really enjoy getting a whoop. That's right. You can check out whoop at whoop.com. It measures everything around sleep, recovery, strain, and you can now sign up for free for 30 days. So you'll literally get the high performance wearable in the mail for free. You get to try it for 30 days, see whether you want to be a member. And that is just at whoop.com. Back to the guests. Let's talk about some of your recovery modality.

You've got massage therapy, cold showers, cold plunge, sauna, steam. There's 208 days where you've logged cold showers. 35% of the days you're recording a recovery modality. Talk a little bit about these different habits. For me, it's right now, it's a normal day in office, as you say, sometimes. sometimes. It's part of my life. You know, it's like some people they don't brush the teeth every day. They don't take a coffee every day. So I take cold plunge every day because it's part of my

routine, my journey. You know, it's and it's it's not a sacrifice for me to be honest. I enjoy to do that. Seriously, I'm not, I'm not say that just surprising people. No, no, I'm in joy to do this kind of stuff probably for some persons a sacrifice is a nightmare but for me no I really enjoy to be honest

because I felt after that I feel good what's your routine like which order do you do things we are animals of routines you know and my routines it's 90% of my days they are very similar you know you want to know

you want to know since I start let's do it So in the morning, I wake up, I have my cold plunge, I have my machines, I have my showers and everything. I wake up, I go there, first thing I diving. First thing in the cold. First thing, yes. I prepare my water to drink because, you know, as you know, during the night, we've been dehydration, it's very low. So I take my water, my shower, my cold plunge.

I'm coming down, you know, be nice with my family, with my kids, I give a hug. I coming out to have lights in my heights. Morning sunlight. Yes, two, three minutes. Just to give the information to my brain that it's early day. Time to wake up. Yes. And after that, I take my coffee when I start my day, a nice conversation.

it's my routine what I like to do it it's like in the morning to sit take my coffee speak with my kids with my wife and start the day this is my routine after of course during the day I have thousand things to do it but this is the basic point this is the that gets you started yes and do you have any form of mindfulness

meditation breathing practice I don't do it every day I do it for example For example, the breed I do it in meditation when I feel a little bit more stressful, especially the day of the game. Game, yeah. When you do meditation before a game, do you visualize the game at all, visualize moments in the game? Yes, sometimes I do it to visualize a few points that can happen in the game. I like to do it, and sometimes it's my subconscious, they do it by himself. So it's nice. You visualize a few things, not even during the game, but during the period that you go to the stadium, to warm up, you know, before the game, during the game.

And it's fun. It's fun, to be honest, and I like to do it. It's amazing how they can come true. What you see can come true, right? Many things. Even sometimes I speak with my friends and I tell them, I say, listen, today in the game, we're going to have a place. penalty. I felt the day of the game that they're going to give a penalty and something will happen in the game. I felt so I go more prepared because if you visualize before you will be more prepared for that moment. So it's fun. I notice when you do a free kick or a penalty there's like a moment right before you kick the ball right or you go like breathing because make you calm when I do it that make me

my art rate comes down. Is that something you practiced? Yeah, you have to practice. But the routine of it, everything leading. Because even in the training, I do it. I don't do it only in a game. I do it even in a training. So because it's the habits.

When you do so many things, one thing, you become a habit. So this is what I try to do it every time. Well, it's really exciting to get to know you more, Christiano and talk about all of this. Tell me why Whoop? Why this partnership? Why? Because I think, as I told you before, for me is a fantastic tool. Help me a lot to be a better man, better person, better athletes. And you can see what you do during the day, during the night. So it's a fantastic tool. And of course, that I know, Theo, that you, the company, they're going very well

and the perspective for the future is seems very bright. So this is good. And I really love the product. So it's easy, match up for me. And to meet people like you, good people, I know even better that my decisions was perfect. So I'm really glad for that. And congratulations for invent

this tool because helps so many people and one of these people it's me so thank you very much i'll just say like for me and everyone who you know works day in and day out to build this company and it's it's many hard hours these moments and getting to work with people like you make it very fulfilling so thank you christiano and thanks for coming on the work podcast thank you very much all right if you enjoyed this episode of the podcast, please leave a rating or review. Please subscribe to the WOOP podcast. Check us out on social at Woop at Will Ahmed. Have a question once you answered on the podcast. Email us, podcast to WOOP. Call us 508-443434952. If you're thinking about joining WOOP, you can visit

our website to sign up for a 30-day free trial membership and take the first step to unlocking your own best performance today. New members can use the code Will, W-I-L, to get a $60 credit on W-W-A-A accessories. And that's a wrap. Thank you. all for listening. We'll catch you next week on the World Podcast. As always, stay healthy and stay in the green.