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

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 - Episodes You Might Enjoy: This Is How To Master Your Life - David Goggins - #577: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Goggins⁠⁠⁠ How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs - Dr Jordan Peterson - #712: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Peterson⁠⁠⁠ The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain - Dr Andrew Huberman - #700: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Huberma 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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Chris Williamson?

  Mr. Dave Castro?

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:07Chris Williamson?

  Main man, how are you?

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Good, thank you.

• 0:09Chris Williamson?

  Welcome.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 0:10Chris Williamson?

  Welcome to London. 18.0 has just ended me.

• 0:15Chris Williamson?

  Can you explain where that came from?

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the idea of doing an 18.0 or a pre-workout before the Open starts has been something that's been floating 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. You know, simple, nice bite. Two movements that are common to the Open, but with different twists.

• 0:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:10Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  It's pretty cool because now you're going to 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.

• 1:21Chris Williamson?

  Well, you like to throw a couple of curveballs in, right?

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so this 18.0 has provided a nice little... It's going to get people talking about what might be coming.

• 1:31Chris Williamson?

  This is just another Dave Castro Instagram post, isn't it?

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, basically, which is for Reebok and Live and for this event.

• 1:37Chris Williamson?

  For sure. So yesterday on Instagram, I saw you trying to put Dan off during a photo shoot.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43Chris Williamson?

  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 saying the wrong thing or forgetting?

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Not during the Games. During the Games, they're pretty occupied with what they have to do.

• 1:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  And they respect that I'm pretty occupied with what I'm doing.

• 2:01Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  So during the Games, no. But at other events and at other stuff like this, yeah, the guys... Especially the guys I'm close with will uh will push me or poke at me and and do stuff. But um but typically not at the games.

• 2:16Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Because everyone has their own things going on.

• 2:18Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, for sure. But maybe some of the open announcements or something like that, they might try and just.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Uh, they open announcements, they'll try to, they'll they'll make little jokes, but they're also very nervous at that point too.

• 2:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Because they don't know what they're about to do.

• 2:29Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  And the open announcements are tough because they have to uh I announce a workout and a few minutes later, they have to do it.

• 2:35Chris Williamson?

  You gotta go.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 2:37Chris Williamson?

  For sure.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  It's a demanding environment for them.

• 2:40Chris Williamson?

  For everyone.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, e- especially for those top athletes because of the fact that like, you know, if you're not doing an open announcement, you get to watch the workout. Then you get a process and you get to see what everyone else is doing. Then you get a, you know, do I want to do it tomorrow? Do I want to do it Friday? You get to do all, you get to set your own schedule.

• 2:56Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  At, if you're a part of the open announcement, you don't get to set your own schedule.

• 3:00Chris Williamson?

  For sure.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  You have to do it within five minutes after it's announced.

• 3:03Chris Williamson?

  Especially last year with some of the new movements that we saw.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:05Chris Williamson?

  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 no chance to prepare.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  They're not always the worst. So like you even look at uh Matt and Matt and Scott, when they did, I guess it was eighteen point um three, the snatch.

• 3:28Chris Williamson?

  Squat snatch, yeah.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  Squat snatch event. Um Matt had the fastest time in the world, I think.

• 3:33Chris Williamson?

  No.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  No, he uh, no, Ben ended up having the fastest time. He beat him at the last minute, but Matt had the second fastest time.

• 3:39Chris Williamson?

  With no prep.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  On his first go, yeah.

• 3:41Chris Williamson?

  Do you know if he repeated that?

• 3:43Speaker 01

  I don't think he did. I'm pretty sure he did not.

• 3:45Chris Williamson?

  I think you know when you've emptied the tank, don't you?

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Well, I don't think, I here, it's not even emptying the tank. I don't think he emptied the tank. I think he would have gone faster. It's more of um, he didn't need to do it.

• 3:55Chris Williamson?

  Have you done enough? You don't need to end yourself ready for next week, right?

• 3:58Speaker 01

  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.

• 4:03Chris Williamson?

  For sure.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  So he did enough for him to be set up for success for the rest of the competition.

• 4:08Chris Williamson?

  I understand. Um, so Reebok and CrossFit have got a really strong partnership now. Um, today's community, I think, has shown just how cool that can be and the sort of small events that you can do locally that affect CrossFitters that are on a local level.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:22Chris Williamson?

  Um, can you explain what the partnership with Reebok's enabled you to do that you might not have been able to do without them? Has there been? More accesses, what have you been able to do with Reebok?

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, the partnerships are great. 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 in media, bringing in people who aren't from your traditional CrossFit realms. We actively don't go out and try to promote ourselves. We let the brand promote itself organically. We let it grow by word of mouth.

• 4:59Chris Williamson?

  So this year it looks like more than half a million people might do the Open.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Hopefully.

• 5:04Chris Williamson?

  Four twenty or something last year, four hundred and twenty thousand?

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Something like that, yeah.

• 5:08Chris Williamson?

  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?

• 5:18Speaker 01

  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 the program being that it's, here's what I'm thinking about. Programming a test that's going to rank the fittest in the world, but also be appropriate for four hundred other thousand people.

• 5:39Chris Williamson?

  Got to be inclusive, right?

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that anyone can do it.

• 5:41Chris Williamson?

  Do you find?

• 5:42Speaker 01

  You know, and here's the thing about the anyone can do it, that statement is true, but it's also misleading in the fact that anyone can do it if you, you need some experience, right? Like you need to have, you need to know how to do some basic CrossFit movements.

• 5:54Chris Williamson?

  Sure, even for scale?

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Even the scaled, 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 was set up that anyone can do it, we just have, you know, a walking competition.

• 6:18Chris Williamson?

  With no accomplishment, right?

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you'd have to do movements that are so basic that have no instruction.

• 6:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  And essentially all of our movements, our body weight movements, anything with a barbell, there's some level of instruction or some level of technicality to them that you have to do.

• 6:33Chris Williamson?

  For sure. So you've said that you test the Open workouts yourself, sometimes before sending them to anybody else?

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:43Chris Williamson?

  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?

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Well, here's what I fear with the open workouts, 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 pack time 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's scores.

• 7:16Chris Williamson?

  You're gonna watch that score go up?

• 7:17Speaker 01

  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 of-

• 7:23Chris Williamson?

  You're number one in the world, right? In every open workout?

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. 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. 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.

• 7:44Chris Williamson?

  I understand.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  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.

• 7:56Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I bet so. So new Nano8's been released this week, what is your favourite pair of Reebok shoes from over the years? Have you got a favourite pair that sticks out?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  I never really think of my shoes. I just move and like, I just, I'm good. And it's kind of how I've been brought up, it just, you want to be prepared for whatever you have.

• 8:18Chris Williamson?

  That's a seal mentality, right?

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, whatever you're gonna work with, whatever you're gonna use, you make it happen. So the, I feel the same way about barbells. Barbell's a little different, of course you want a nice one, but if you don't have a nice one, you can make it work.

• 8:29Chris Williamson?

  For sure.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I do like these, they feel great. And I thought the sevens were great, I think these are great.

• 8:35Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, a little bit more of a heel drop in these, I noticed, which feels quite good, really, really good. What's the coolest group chat that you're in?

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Coolest group chat.

• 8:44Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, on iMessage or like WhatsApp or whatever. Have you got some cool group chats that you're in?

• 8:49Speaker 01

  No, I I have some business text groups that I'm in with some of my core team and those I don't really. They're just all business.

• 8:58Chris Williamson?

  Okay, I got it. Um, so I wouldn't like to guess how many gyms you've been to around the world.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  I don't know anymore, but I've been to a lot.

• 9:05Chris Williamson?

  An awful lot.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:06Chris Williamson?

  Um, have you got a top three coolest?

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Gyms?

• 9:10Chris Williamson?

  Yes, any that come to mind?

• 9:12Speaker 01

  There's some gyms in China that were really cool that I just remember that were very unique and partly because they were in China and you wouldn't expect to find such nice CrossFit gyms. I mean, I didn't.

• 9:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  You can't, once I was there, now it makes sense, but before I went, I went a couple of years ago. I had no idea that I'd find some of the nicest CrossFit gyms in the world in China.

• 9:31Chris Williamson?

  Such an emerging market.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So that was, that was unique. Um.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't have a a favorite CrossFit gym. I just, I like, they all have such different flavors and such different looks and such different, um. Experiences that they're all unique in a different way.

• 9:49Chris Williamson?

  But also the exact same training methodology that's arrived in a, in a culturally different way, right?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Yep, totally.

• 9:57Chris Williamson?

  Um, you're in the Hunger Games and there's only other Games athletes there who's going to be the hardest to kill.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  I don't even know what the Hunger Games are.

• 10:06Chris Williamson?

  You know, like Battle Royale? You've got to like.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Like WWF?

• 10:10Chris Williamson?

  Kind of, kind of. Okay, WWF, who's going to be the hardest to get out of the ring, do you think? Out of all of the Games athletes from this year?

• 10:17Speaker 01

  From this year, out of all the Games athletes? Let me think about that. Well, I think Matt's pretty, here's what I respect about Matt. And why I can't remember, because he's really a fighter. And what I mean, I don't mean a physical fighter, but I mean a mental fighter is like, he really wants to win no matter what it takes. And in years past, there's been athletes who, and even now you still hear some. That I'm just competing against myself and I, you know, I want to do as 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 want to win. And Matt understands that. And when you watch Matt, and Rich Froning had that too.

• 10:55Chris Williamson?

  Hundred percent.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  When you watch those two, they're not trying to do the best they can. They're trying to beat the guy to the left and right of them.

• 11:01Chris Williamson?

  Absolutely.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  And sometimes that doesn't even mean they have to be the best that they can. It means they could be seventy percent of what they are and they're still beating the guys to the left and right.

• 11:09Chris Williamson?

  That's what makes a good competitor, right? As opposed to just a good athlete.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  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, uh, they want to win at all costs. And that's, that's a powerful thing. And it's, uh, it's powerful.

• 11:28Chris Williamson?

  Thank you. Dave, I appreciate your time.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 11:30Chris Williamson?

  Thank you very much, man.