By The Numbers: The Dave Castro Interviews

July 25th, 2024

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Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up.

In today’s edition:

  • Nineteen hours, 46 minutes, and 34 seconds. That's the total run time of the 79 Games athlete interviews that CrossFit's General Manager of Sport and Education Dave Castro conducted between June 24 and July 22. Today, Mike Halpin, creator of Known & Knowable, breaks down "The Castro Interviews" by the numbers.    

  • Why does body contact matter so much in your Olympic lifts? Find out down below and learn how to improve your positions.

  • Brooke Wells, Gabi Migala, and Danielle Brandon have 10 top-10 finishes between them but no podiums. Is 2024 the year for one of them?

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“So I started this new series where…I'm going to try to interview all the athletes, all 80 of them, prior to the Games.” - Dave Castro on his Week in Review on June 24. Twenty-eight days later, he got the job done with 17 days to spare.

CROSSFIT GAMES

Credit: @known_Knowable / Instagram

The Dave Castro Interviews: By the Numbers

Once the Semifinals are over and the CrossFit Games roster is finalized, it's athlete interview season. 

Many podcast hosts jockey to line up athlete interviews, with many of these conversations topping over an hour each. 

  • Podcasts like the Sevan Podcast, Coffee Pods & Wods, Clydesdale Media, B. Friendly Fitness, The Barbell Spin, and others all compete to line up interviews with veteran athletes as well as Games rookies. 

In most cases, getting 10 or more interviews in the summer months is a large undertaking, as athletes prepare for the Games and travel across the country (or the world) to get to Texas and acclimate to their new surroundings.

  • Worth noting: Since the 2024 Semifinals began, the Morning Chalk Up has published 29 interviews and spotlight articles on Games athletes.

But no one thinks of interviewing all 80 individual CrossFit Games athletes. 

Enter Dave Castro, General Manager of Sport and Education at CrossFit, who can now add “Seasoned Podcast Host” to his list of titles. 

On June 23, Castro posted a short interview with Brooke Wells that launched the series. He then discussed it on his weekly show, Week in Review (WIR) on June 24:

  • “So I started this new series where…I'm going to try to interview all the athletes, all 80 of them, prior to the Games,” Castro said. “And [they’re] going to be from five to 10 minutes long [each].” 

He went on to say that since the 2019 Games onward, he felt disconnected from the Games athletes each year and hasn’t had a chance to get to know them.

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SPEED READS

🧑‍💻👩‍💻Now Hiring: Two major training camps/media teams have posted available social media positions this week. Check them out and get your applications in.

  • Mayhem Media Team — Requiring a relocation to (CrossFit Mecca) Cookeville, TN, the Mayhem Media Team is searching for a Social Media Videographer and Creative Editor.

  • PRVN Fitness — If you are looking to get your foot in the door, this might be the opportunity. PRVN Fitness is looking for a social media intern to work remotely. Apply today.

🎟️📈 Known and Knowable Games Ticket Tracker: The CrossFit Games start in two weeks, are you still looking for tickets? Mike Halpin, the mind behind Known & Knowable, is keeping an eye on the 2024 CrossFit Games ticket resale prices on StubHub, Vivid Seats, and Ticketmaster. Find the best available deals here.

🌡️🥵 Training in the Heat?: As the CrossFit community prepares to descend on Fort Worth for the 2024 Games, there has been a lot of discussion about working out in the heat. If you are training in a hot part of the world right now, check out these tips from Brute Strength.

ICYMI: Emily de Rooy almost turned down an opportunity to team up with her Australian CrossFit idols. Find out why and what happened next.

MEMBER EXCLUSIVE

Credit: @jaredenderton / Instagram

Why Mastering Body Contact in Your Olympic Lifts Matters

Do you struggle with making body contact with the barbell in the snatch and clean?

In this article, we're going to explore the importance of this key, split-second moment in every lift and how you can improve (or just start making) contact with your body with the bar. 

Why Body Contact

Let's address why making contact with the bar is a huge key to improving your snatch and clean. 

As your body drives aggressively upward through the middle of your lift, it's at the contact point where you can transfer all the power from your legs and hips into the bar. 

  • Without contact, there's not as much direct power transfer into the barbell. 

You can watch any lifting session of the best weightlifters in the world over the past 50 years and ALL of them make contact in both the snatch and the clean. 

If all of the best weightlifters to ever live make contact with the barbell, so should we!

  • Fun fact: Many top weightlifters use “no contact” snatches or cleans as an accessory exercise. Without contact, they can only lift lighter weights, so they often use it during de-load weeks to still work the same muscles, without overloading the system.

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CROSSFIT GAMES

Credit: @j_tega_, @josephsomakian, @alextrobough / Instagram

Will One of These 3 Veteran Women Finally Get to the Podium This Summer?

There are three CrossFit Games veterans in the women’s division who have 10 combined top-10 finishes and 18 total Games appearances, yet have never reached the podium.

  • They are Brooke Wells, Danielle Brandon, and Gabriela Migala.

OK so, between six-time Fittest Woman on Earth Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr and last year’s champion Laura Horvath, there’s a very good chance two of this summer’s podium spots are already kind of accounted for, but that still leaves one spot on the podium. 

Wells, Brandon, Migala: Who Has the Best Chance to Podium?

Brooke Wells’ first individual appearance at the Games was way back in 2015. Since then, she has managed to return every single year until last season when she failed to qualify out of the North America East Semifinals.

  • Wells’ best finish was fifth, which she has accomplished twice, the first time in 2020—during the second, in-person stage of the “Pandemic Games” at the Ranch in Aromas, CA—and again in 2022, when she was coming off a flexor tendon and UCL rupture, as well as a dislocated elbow, the year before.

On the one hand, after missing the Games for the first time last season, we expect Wells, 29, to show up to Fort Worth, TX, hungrier and possibly more grateful than ever to be there. 

  • On the other hand, it’s not that common for an athlete to compete at eight CrossFit Games before breaking through to the podium. In fact, it has never been done before.

In her five years at the Games, Danielle Brandon has never finished lower than 15th, her highest placing being fourth in 2022.

  • At this year’s Semifinals, 28-year-old Brandon looked calm and poised as she quietly cruised her way to a fourth-place finish in North America East.

“Boring isn’t bad. With no highs or lows made for a pretty smooooove weekend,” Brandon posted on Instagram about her Semifinals weekend.

HIGHLIGHTS

Celebrating a PR, hosting a fundraiser, this, that, or otherwise? Send us a tip.

  • 🤸‍♀️Check out this handstand-walk obstacle course from Dawon Jung. She’s getting Games ready!

  • Congratulations to Games athlete Kym Dekeyrel on the deadlift PR.

  •  Leonie, from CrossFit Kindred in San Jose, CA, has unlocked a new skill for us all to try. 🔥Nice work, Leonie!

  • Nice job to handstand-walk queen Andrea Solberg with yet another impressive obstacle course. We love these!

  • 💪Great work to all the snatch PRs coming out of CrossFit Rapture in Brightwaters, NY.