2479 - Scaling CrossFit to Help Everyone Train Safely and Succeed with King William District CrossFit's Dan Kachtik

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0:46Visit podverify.com if you'd like to be featured as a future guest. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it. With us right now, it is Dan Kostic. Dan, you are the founder and CEO of KingWilliamDistrictCrossFit.com. You also have online programs we'll talk about in a moment. But Dan, it's great to have you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, absolutely. So before we get going talking about your superpowers, I understand you're a fairly avid fisherman. and you're there in San Antonio, Texas. How is the fishing in San Antonio region? So far, it's been good. So I'm about an hour and a half from the coast.

1:29So I like to go down to Port Aransas and do some fishing in the Gulf, saltwater fishing that way. I really enjoy that. But recently I just turned 52 and me and a couple of buddies went up to a lake just a little bit north of me, Lake LBJ, went out with a guide on that lake bass fishing and had a great time doing it. We've gotten a lot of rain here. It's been very wet here in Texas this year. And so all the lakes are really full as well as my garden is doing really good. But yeah, I had a great time out there bass fishing. And I don't get out as much as I would like, but I still try and go at least every couple months.

2:01So any tips that you'd recommend for, let's say I've not gone, I haven't gone bass fishing since I was in middle school. Sure. But I'm going to be going out. My birthday is coming up. Going to go out with a bunch of guys on a boat. We're going to do some bass fishing. Nobody knows what they're doing. Help me out. Just give me a couple of high level tips. One, I would say if you don't go often, I'll just say getting a guide is well worth it. You finding a good guide on a lake, they're not that expensive. And you're pretty much guaranteed to get into some bass fishing that way. So even though I have been fishing my whole life and like doing it on this trip, I wanted to make sure we got into it.

2:41And it was a lake I wasn't familiar with. so I went out with a guide and it was well worth the money and doing that kind of stuff but you don't need a lot of equipment again there's bait casting reels and spinning reels spinning reels are going to be the ones I think if you think of what a reel looks like that's what you think is is it's a spinning reel and they're much easier to use bait casting takes a little while to learn how to use them so unless you're into fishing you're going to do it regularly that's more of a commitment to go down that road so using a spinning reel and then I would go to to the local bait shop or lure store around that lake and just ask for tips.

3:16So if you're not using a guide, go there, talk to somebody there and they'll say, go to this pier or go out in this little bay here or something like that. That's where I always go. Yeah, smart. So just ask for some tips and advice before you just go out there blinds. On any local lake, yes. Yeah. Well, Dan, thank you so much for that. What I'm hoping that we could talk about, so I know you own a pretty, a very successful CrossFit gym there in San Antonio and you've got online programs. I was hoping maybe you could spend a little bit of time. Cause I know you work with some, some folks who you know, they work their tails off during the day.

3:55You know, they work real hard. You know, a lot of folks that you know, kind of congregate to this show generally are a lot of founders, a lot of pressure, a lot of stress, ups and downs. it can be, and I'll speak for myself, it can be really, really easy to kind of take the ball off ourselves physically. And I'm maybe hoping you could just kind of talk to that crowd, myself included, about things that you've seen, because I know a lot of what you do is also involves nutrition as well. I'm hoping maybe you could just kind of teach us a few things. Absolutely. So that's actually not just who I'm speaking to.

4:36No, that's who is in my gym. If you go to a local CrossFit gym, one of the things, and I could talk forever about this, but one of the things that makes CrossFit as a methodology so effective is it's very efficient. I am in, I think, very good physical fitness shape for my age. I'm 52 years old. I work out four hours a week. I'm in the gym a lot because that's what I do for a living, but I work out four hours a week. and that's who's in my gym is busy adults people with families a lot of business owners that are in my gym and they don't have a lot of time but it's for people that still want to have a high standard for themselves in this area of their life that enables them to keep a high standard in all the other areas of their life if you want to work out as little as possible and get the most out of it, then how we train is how you do that.

5:24Because CrossFit defines fitness as having a large work capacity over time and modal domains. And that's a lot of gobbledygook. But there's a lot of different energy systems in the body. So when you work in different timeframes, five minutes, 20 minutes, an hour, you're hitting all the different energy systems in the body, as well as modalities. There's external resistance, what we would call weightlifting, but just that's any object, a ball, a band, any kind of external resistance training. Then there's body weight movement, gymnastics, sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, that kind of stuff. And then there's like biking, rowing, running, all the monostructural.

6:01Most physical fitness methods only use one, maybe two of those. CrossFit combines all three of those into all the different time domains. And so it is the most complete fitness you can get. And it's all within one hour. And I tell my people at the gym, if you worked out three hours a week, you got more fit that week. That is three hours a week will do you well for your whole life. If you want to come five, six days a week, I'm not stopping you. But three days a week is getting you more fit. And I think in today's age, and you know this, with all the AI stuff and online, I think people are lonelier than ever.

6:36CrossFit gyms are one of the original places that give you that community where you get, just get to be yourself. You're meeting people from all different walks of life that they are still prioritizing their fitness like you. And being in that room where you're laying on the floor, gasping for breath and all sweaty, you get to know these people really well. And I find it is just a huge resource for business owners as well, because I have CEOs, I have attorneys, I have doctors, I have other business owners in the gym, and they all end up working together and making connections they would have never made.

7:10And they're doing this while they're getting more fit. When you're working with folks and let's say they're in their forties, fifties, sixties, injury prevention is, you know, one of the things, look, I've hurt myself enough times at the gym and trying to do things right, but just, you know, it just happened. And it kind of gets in my head a little bit, right? I, you know, because the biggest thing is like, man, I just do not want to be injured again. And because of that, I feel like, you know, and again, I'm just being pretty transparent with you and our friend who's listening right now. You know, that that fear keeps me from action.

7:48And that's too bad. And that's why I say, you know, a lot of people will get a personal trainer. And that is great. Like, that's a great way to go. Fairly expensive. There's other attributes. It's kind of limited to that thing. Unless you're going to, one, spend the time to really get to know this field, you can be doing it very sincerely. and trying to do it right and doing it wrong. And like a deadlift is a great thing to do for your lower back. If you're not doing a deadlift right, you're gonna hurt yourself, guaranteed. And so one, it's having somebody that knows how to properly coach you on these moves.

8:23And like yourself, you're busy in life, but I know I need to stay fit. I don't need to put a lot of time into this. Let me go somewhere where basically I just do what this person tells me to do. I'm going to get more fit and do so safely. And so that's my goal. and my average age in my gym is 39. I have people all the way up to 80 years old. My mother and father-in-law are at the gym all the time. I'm working with regular folks. And so I think sometimes CrossFit has the connotation that these are these D1 athletes or crazy people doing crazy things. Right. And that's a little bit of a misconception.

8:58It's kind of like thinking if you watch the U.S. Open that, oh, I can't golf like them, so I can't golf. That is the highest expression of what we're doing. But in the gym, it's just regular folks trying to stay fit and doing it in a safe way as possible. And there's a lot of different aspects to still staying active. We lose range of motion in our joints. You know, when we run, we lose stride length. We don't recover as fast. You need someone to help walk down that path with you that can help say, yeah, tomorrow is okay to take a rest day after what you did today. Or, you know, we're doing squats, but your knees are hurting you.

9:32Maybe there's another option that we shouldn't be doing squats today. And so, yeah, that's where I think having somebody to help guide you on that path, let you, and it needs to be someone that you trust that you've seen. This is person that's reliable. I can trust them with this, but then you just show up. You don't have to worry about it. You do your thing and then off you go about your day with the stuff that you're an expert on that you're handling. Yeah. And so the, the, the CrossFit model, like you've got your pricing, you know, right on your website, it's a couple hundred dollars a month, but you know, it's not like you're just going to a gym that's got a bunch of machinery there do you just for someone who hasn't been you know hasn't seen how crossfit normally works you mind just giving a quick overview sure so let me explain that because you're right if you go to lifetime you've got way more equipment than i do and it's 70 or 80 a month but if you if you go there and you know what you're doing great go there and do what you're doing and if you're showing up great if you're not showing up, lifetime doesn't care.

10:31At a CrossFit gym, it is a go between personal training and a regular gym, but at a more economical price. So for$200 a month, you're getting all the coaching of a personal training session. The workout is tailored to you. Because even though I have a workout of the day, when I have 15 people in class, 10 of them are doing something slightly different because I'm adjusting for this guy's knees and this guy's lower back. This guy's just not feeling that great today so I'm lowering the intensity for them doing that kind of thing so I'm tailoring it to each person that's why the price point is a little bit higher than lifetime and it's also the point if you're not coming you're not going to continue to spend that so I need to make sure the onus is on me to make sure you want to come and you're continuing to come to the gym and that's where the community aspect and the fact that I know you by name other coaches in the gym know you by name.

11:24When we haven't seen you in a week, we're going to be like, hey, where you been? What's up? It's going to be a text or a phone call. What's going on? Or it's probably going to be from one of your friends in your 830 class or 530 a.m. class that are like, hey, where you been? And that community aspect is what's going to keep you from falling off the wagon and no one notices because someone's going to notice when you're in a CrossFit gym. Yeah. So the accountability there, it's kind of just naturally built in. Absolutely. You promise it doesn't get too culty, Dan? I hear you. And that is what we like to make fun of that as a cult too.

12:00And I always tell people, don't talk about CrossFit too much when you're out in the normal world because they get really excited about it. And I'm like, you're pushing people away more than bringing people in. But it's just regular folks that are prioritizing their fitness. That's why I think it is so addictive when you try it. There's a longer, there's a little bit of a barrier to entry in the fact that because what we do is so varied you can't it's not like a step aerobics class you come in and just do that every day but it's also why you don't plateau because there's a lot of variety to what we do but i tell someone if you make it past the three-month point you're never going to be able to do anything else you really aren't you're kind of stuck yeah that's high praise uh i also want to recognize you you've um I think you've done a really good job to welcome people in from all kinds of different age groups, backgrounds, nationalities, etc.

12:49And you've been recognized as such. Really kind of inviting a lot of people that might not normally see themselves as CrossFitters. But you've been you've been widely recognized for that. Do you mind sharing just a little bit more? So your website, KingWilliamDistrictCrossFit.com. And you even have clients that are not in the area. Do you mind just sharing a little bit about, you know, sure, if you happen to be in the area, here's how to work with you. You know, if you're not, here's the value that you can bring someone. So, yeah, we have two aspects of that. We do nutrition coaching. We call it functional feeding, where we're working back and forth with you multiple times every day on what you're eating.

13:30So it's not like at the end of the week, you're hearing from us two to four times a day as long as you're doing that. Because eating as we age, it becomes an even bigger and bigger factor. And again, it's not living on tuna fish and tomatoes, but it's also just not eating whatever you want because we can't get away with that anymore, especially as we get under our 40s and 50s. And then my programming is very universally adaptable. You could do it at a lifetime. You could very much do almost everything we do in a home gym, in a garage gym, if you have some dumbbells or a barbell, very limited amount of equipment.

14:03So I do remote programming with people all over the country. In fact, I have guys in the military. San Antonio is a military town. So I have former members overseas that are still following our program. And I work back and forth with them if they don't have a ski erg and we're doing a ski erg that day. I can provide some various options that provide a similar stimulus. But if you're limited to what you can do. And so, yeah, I do that with a lot of people. And that's just$40 a month. It's very cheap because you're not in the gym doing that. But it lets me still coach you remotely, not as much as if you were right in front of me.

14:37but I can still help you do the workouts and continue on that way. So if you like my programming and it started because I had a lot of members move away and they're like, I still want to do what we do. So I kind of grew organically and then I kind of rolled it out officially past that. And it's grown very quickly. Website, King William district, crossfit.com. When somebody goes there, what would you recommend? I would say, so if you're not, if you're not local, if you're going there, go to the coaches page or about us page you'll see my email address on there just reach out to me that way and we can start a conversation to help find what is the best fit for you so i would do that um you either mail me directly if you hit the general email i get both of those so they both come to me and i do that so that would be that if you if you want to come on you want to do remote programming the nutrition counseling i'd like to talk with you first and find a little bit more about what are you specifically trying to accomplish.

15:36I don't like to cookie cutter this too much because I want to personalize it for each person. And I have the ability to do that. I can do that with people because I can very quickly figure out, all right, this is what you're trying to do. And here's the path we need to go down for that. Dan Kostik, again, you're the owner, founder, CEO of King William District CrossFit found on the web at kingwilliamdistrictcrossfit.com. congratulations on 13 and a half years. Thank you. It's been great. Thanks for joining. Thanks for joining us, Dan. All right. Have a good one.

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