Is Mat Fraser fit enough to win his third consecutive CrossFit Games title? Oddsmakers believe so, and have installed him as the heavy favorite to win the championship at 1/4. The next closest competitor is Brent Fikowski at 11/1.
So why does Fraser have Golden State Warriors type odds? Well he is the two-time reigning champion, and considered the fittest man in the world. As a warm up for the Aug. 1-5 contest in Madison, Wisconsin, he competed in a triathlon on July 7 in Vermont. He finished third.
Working out is full-time job for the 28-year-old, who said he trains five to six days a week. He told CBS DC that all of his training includes a variety of exercises that help him in competitions.
“Volume gets cut down a little bit. I’ll stop doing workouts that could have an adverse affect on the next day,” Fraser said. “If there’s a lot of pull-ups or muscle-ups there’s a big potential for tearing your hand or something like that where, if you tear your hand, it’s going to affect your training the next couple of days. So, I try to avoid things like that.”
Dominating Performance Despite Injury
In last year’s games, Fraser won six of the 13 events and finished 216 points ahead of Canada’s Fikowski. It was an impressive performance, made even more incredible by the fact that Fraser was injured.
He was stretching after the first day of competition when he heard a pop in his knee. He froze for a moment, not knowing if he would be ready for the next day.
“It was pretty scary. It was loud,” Fraser told CNN Sport. “If I lifted my leg up to the side my knee bent the wrong way like it just drooped and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s not good.’”
Informing the on site doctor might have been an end to his chance to repeat, so he kept it to himself and hoped it wouldn’t affect him. Fortunately he was able to mask his injury and continue with the event.
“I didn’t know what tore,” Fraser said. “I didn’t know how bad it was, but I knew it was bad. Odds are I’ll need surgery, so if it blows out, it blows out. I didn’t want any of the sharks smelling the blood in the water, So I just put on my face and not let anyone know I was hurt.”
Heal Thyself FTW
The knee injury healed itself and Fraser is ready for this year’s competition. He won five of the 13 events in the regionals and placed first. He said he feels he is ready for the finals, but knows his chances at staying at the top won’t last forever.
“I know there’s a timestamp on what I’m doing. So I want to take full advantage of what I’m capable of, so that when I’m at the end of my sports career, I’m not looking back and wondering: could I have been capable of doing more?”