Mat Fraser Has Won 5 Straight CrossFit Games

The physical strain that you guys put your body through is fucking insane. And until you watch like you guys compete and do all the shit like rucking, like running with the weight vest on. Everything. Yeah. It's insane. Yeah. Yeah. The games. So like the games are like the big competition. It's like it's it's a wild show because it's sometimes it's five days, sometimes it's three days. And we'll have like usually between 12 and 15 events over those days. Do they let you know in advance what you're going to have to do? Some like we might find out an event sometimes a week or two ahead. But then like we'll have others where we're literally finding out the event as we go, like as we're competing. So we don't even know what we're doing on the competition floor. They'll be like, they'll be like, all right, start lifting that weight. We'll tell you when to stop when you hit your number of reps, you know, stuff like that. It's it's interesting to train for because you don't know if you're training for a one rep max or a hundred. You don't know if you're training for a 40 meter dash or a marathon. You know, it's yeah. It keeps it interesting. Like we've had we've had events that are like 20 seconds long. And then a couple of years ago, we had to row a marathon on like the stationary concept to rowers. So like forty two thousand meters. So was that twenty six point two miles rolling? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Forty two thousand something. I think the average time was about three hours. I think a couple of people were like three and a half hours. Yeah, because you can't row as fast as you can run, right? Kenya. I mean, I would prefer to row a marathon than run one just because it's easier on the joints. OK, like your ass goes numb just from sitting on the seat. But yeah, I mean, it was just easy on the joints. They did it because they're like we tested it and like after you run a marathon, like you can't walk for a couple of days. Like your body's just trashed with rowing a marathon like you're sore, but you're good to go the next day. It really doesn't really, though, depend on the person and what kind of condition you're in. Because my friend Cam Haynes, that motherfucker runs a marathon every day. Yeah, I think if you're conditioned for it and that's all you're doing. Yeah, you know, and but he lifts weights, too. Yeah. Yeah, I've met Cam. I met him a couple of years ago. He's got problems. Does he? Yeah, he's crazy. Oh, yeah, legit crazy. Like David Goggins crazy. There's a few people that I know that I'm like, what are you doing yourself? Yeah, you know, yeah, I I'll watch Cam and yeah, it runs a marathon every day. It's like, why? What are you doing? Well, he seems terrible. He likes those ridiculous ultra races like those the mall at two forties and stuff like that. Yeah, I got a buddy that does all those like 200 mile couple days long. Yep. And it's like, all right, like I get that. That's your thing. I don't get it. But but more power to you. They're just testing me for Cam. He's just testing his mind. Yeah, he wants to find out when it breaks, you know, and he can't break it. Yeah. And every day strengthens it. So every day is running massive amounts of miles. He'll run like 19 miles in the morning. Yeah, I'll run like six miles in the afternoon. And I mean, I wonder if like if he's ever played with like other challenges, you know, instead of just running because I know like if I'm practicing the same thing over and over, you know, you adapt to it, you get better at it, you get more comfortable with it. And it's like when those curve balls get thrown at you of something that you're not used to. And I mean, that's basically that's CrossFit, right? That's what our training is. Like we're trying to think of different things that can be be the test for us and figure out like, all right, if this comes up, how do we deal with it? How did you get involved? What was did you just walk into a class one day and get a sonnet? So I have a background in Olympic weightlifting, did that for 10 years, lived at the Olympic Training Center. Like my goal was to go to the Olympics for weightlifting. And then that didn't pan out and like started focusing on school. And then I just kind of I guess just gained the freshman 15. So I was like, all right, either need to start working out again or change my diet. So I was like, oh, I'll start working out and, you know, trying to find an Olympic weightlifting gym is there like a needle in a haystack. But CrossFits are everywhere. And so I just like googled CrossFit near me because they use all the same equipment like the barbells and bumpers. And so I just showed up, introduced myself was like, hey, like I don't want to do your CrossFit thing. I'll be in the back room just doing cleaning jerks and squats and just kept doing that kind of showing up on a irregular basis. And then one of the girls from the gym who was a competitor was just kind of like bribing me into workouts every once in a while, like, oh, you might be good at this one. Give this one a try. Give this one a try. And the the owner of the gym actually signed me up for my first competition because he's OK. I think you have potential in this. You should give this a try. And so we made a deal that he signed me up and paid my entry fee. And then if I won any money, he I had to buy a pair of CrossFit shoes. What are CrossFit shoes? I mean, at the time it was like the Reeboks, like the minimalist shoes. Like I was working out in Air Max 90s. And so he's like, anything's better than that. And what year was this? This would be back in like 2012. And so anyways, I won the competition, got a couple hundred bucks and was like, yo, this is kind of cool, like just pocket money for a college kid. Like, are there more competitions like this? And so they showed me where to find these competitions. And I just kind of started driving around the Northeast, like all of New England. And if there was prize money at a competition, I was signing up. And so I basically looked at it like a part time job of like while I'm in school full time and broke, I can make some pocket money. And yeah, just kind of I was like, all right, if I want to keep winning these competitions, I need to work on my weaknesses, get better and then just kind of fell in love with it. And it just ratcheted up bit by bit until like I'm at the World Championships. And I'm like, oh, shit, how did I get here? And then you won over and over and over again. Which is crazy. Yeah. It's a weird start, man, to something that you not just excelled at. I mean, I think you're the winningest guy ever. Right. Yeah, I've won one. Been on the podium seven times and I've won it the last five years. That's bananas. Yeah. I mean, someone who started off as a lark. Yeah, I'm not blind to it. Like I'll be sitting in my fiance, like, you know, just when these cool opportunities get plopped in front of me, I'm like, how how do they end up here? Like this wasn't supposed to be my life. You know, I was a mechanical engineer, you know, like I thought my sports career was over with Olympic weightlifting. You know, I broke my back like it was a whole. What did you do to your back? Broke my L5 in two spots. Oh, yeah. How? Just training too heavy too often. And it just fractured the actual bone. Yeah. Yeah. Like little wings off the side. Oh, and it was on two separate occasions, too. Oh, no. They were like a week or two apart from each other. And so wait, hold on. You broke one and then you kept lifting. Yeah, I didn't really have a choice. So I was living at the Olympic Training Center and like there's a lot of pressure on the program to like produce and I was on the Junior World Team. I was leaving for Romania in a couple of weeks compete and yeah, just I don't know. I wasn't training as smart as I should have been. And so the first one was doing like a clean pull. So just like a deadlift with a big explosion at the top and like loud pop on one side. I dropped the bar and like it. Have you ever seen those heat packs have the little clicky thing in them? Mm hmm. It was that's what it felt like when it like clicked and then it just like the inflammation just spreading. Oh, and and so, you know, go to my room, lay down for a couple of days and then you know, it was it was I knew someone was wrong. Like I've never had an injury like that. You know, I couldn't move. Did you get an x-ray? Did you get an M.R. No, because it was like I was leaving for the competition in like two weeks. So it was like too late to call the alternate to replace me. So you wait. Wait, do they know that you're this injured? I mean, I told them like hey, I know like suck it up. I'm injured and I was told like hey, there's a difference between pain and injury and I was like, okay, I'll get back to lifting. And so then a couple of days goes by and I'm being super cautious. Like basically stripped all the way out of my training. I'm just moving and then what was it was heavy back squat and like load up and you're going for like a new one rep max like a week before you get on the airplane and yeah, hit the bottom of the hole left side goes. Oh Jesus. And so anyways, I got went to the competition did terribly, you know, like the coach was like, hey, what's your goal for this competition? I was like, I just don't want to bomb out. I just want to make one lift one lift in each and he's like, okay, we'll make sure that happens. I only made one snatch one clean and jerk and then it was when I got back. I like put my foot down. I was like, hey, I'm not I'm not lifting shit until again x-ray and like they x-rayed it and they're like, oh, yeah, there's break right here right here. And what did the coach feel bad? I mean, I feel for him now that I have a little more life experience and like, you know at the time hated the guy. But now that I know the situation he was in he was under pressure for keeping his job to like, hey, you need to produce athletes like none of the American athletes are doing well on the world world scene. Apps and can download episodes to save on data cost all for free. Spotify is absolutely free. You don't have to have a premium account to watch new JRE episodes. You just need to search for the JRE on your Spotify app go to Spotify now to get this full episode of the Joe Rogan experience.