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

00:06Mr. Dave Castro? Yes. Main man, how are you? Good, thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Welcome to 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 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 simple, nice bite two movements that are common to the open but with different twists the dumbbell snatch we put a new standard on it

01:03just 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 so it's pretty cool because now you're going to have people uh 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 curveballs in right yeah and so this is this is this uh 18.0 has 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 basically which is for rewalking live and for this event for sure um so yesterday on instagram i saw you trying to put dan off during a photo shoot yeah um have the guys ever tried to put you off during the games have they ever tried to come up behind you and whisper

01:48just random movements in your ear so that you end up like saying the wrong thing or forgetting not during the games during the games people they're pretty occupied with what they have to do and they respect that I'm pretty occupied with what I'm doing so during the games no but at other events stuff like this 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 their own demons but maybe some of the open announcements or something like that 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 opening announcements are tough because they have to announce a workout and a few minutes later they have to do it. You've got to go. Yeah. For sure. It's a demanding environment for them. For everyone. Yeah.

02:41Well, especially for those top athletes because of the fact that, like, you know, if you're not doing an opening announcement, you get to watch the workout, then you get to process and you get to see what everyone else is doing. Then you get to, 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. Yeah. if you're part of the open announcement you don't get to set your own schedule you have to do it within 5 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 no chance to prepare they're not always the worst even look at Matt and Scott, when they did I guess it was 18 point

03:25three the snatch squat snatch event um matt had the fastest time in the world i think 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 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 here it's not even emptying the tank i don't think he'd have gone faster it's more of um he didn't need to do it again have you done enough you don't need to end yourself ready 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 for sure so he did enough for him to be set up for success for the rest of the competition i understand um so reebok and crossfit have got

04:11a really strong partnership now um today's community i think has shown just how cool that can be in the sort of small events that you can do locally that affect crossfit is that on a local level yeah 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 yeah the partnership's been 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 so this year it looks like more than half a million

05:01people might do the open hopefully for 20 or something last year 120 000 something like that um 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 uh 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 tests that i have to program being that it's here's what i'm thinking about programming a test that'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 and here's the think about the anyone can do it that statement is true but it's also misleading in the fact that

05:47anyone can do it if you you need some experience right like you need to have a you need to know how to do some basic crossfit 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 yeah 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 can do it we just have you know a walking competition yeah well you'd have to do movements that are so basic that have no instruction yeah and essentially all of our movements our bodyweight 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 um so you said that you test the

06:37open 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 seeing as you know that you're about to punch yourself in the face with it in about 30 minutes well here's what i fear with the open look is i just like i 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 score you're gonna watch that score 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 number one in the

07:24world right in every open workout i'll get a sense of how it feels and how the movements feel and overall that it hurts but 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 i understand and uh 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 um so new nano8s been released this week um 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 like I just I'm good I've

08:12and it's kind of how I've been brought up it just you want to be prepared for whatever you have whatever you're going to work with whatever you're going to use you make it happen so the same I feel the same way about barbells barbells are a little different I'd rather that of course you want a nice one but if you don't have a nice one you can make it work for sure 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 noticed which feels quite good really really good what's the coolest group chat that you're in coolest group chat yeah on iMessage or like Whatsapp or whatever have you got some cool group chats that you're in no I have some business text 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.

09:03I don't know anymore, but I've been to a lot. An awful lot. Yeah. Have you got a top three coolest? Gyms? Yes. Any that come to mind? 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. 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 such an emerging market yeah exactly so that was that was unique um yeah i don't have a a favorite crossfit gym i just i like some of those they all have such different flavors and such different looks and such different um experiences that they're all unique in a different way but also the exact same training methodology that arrives in a culturally different way right yeah totally

09:56um 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 you've got to like wwf kind of kind of okay wwf who's going to be the hardest to get out of the ring do you think um out of all of the games athletes from this year 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 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, there's been athletes who, and even now you still hear some, that I'm just competing against myself and 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.

10:45And 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. 100%. 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. Absolutely. And sometimes that doesn't even mean they have to be the best that they can. It means they can be 70% of what they are, and they're still beating the guys to the left and right. That's what makes a good competitor, right? Exactly. 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 at all costs. And that's a powerful thing. And it's powerful. Thank you. Dave, I appreciate your time. Thanks. Thank you very much, man.