Dave Durante | Ep. 12

Dave Durante joins Sean and Nathan on the Cult of Recreationalism podcast! Dave is a gymnast, former Olympian, and founder of Power Monkey Fitness. They discuss Dave’s path through growing up in New Jersey, to competing at Stanford, to the Olympics in Beijing. He’s a girl dad, sneakerhead who never thought he would get into coaching who now runs Power Monkey Camp which brings in amazing coaches from all over the world to train coaches, athletes, and fitness enthusiasts alike. Make sure you check out the end of the episode for a round of rapidfire questions to get to know Dave a little better.

 

Chapters 

00:00 Introduction and Background 

13:26 Dave's Gymnastics Journey 

25:01 Transition to Coaching and Power Monkey Camp 

29:11 Power Monkey Camp: Building Skills and Relationships 

32:11 The Impact of CrossFit on Gymnastics 

36:15 From Gymnast to Coach: Dave Durante's Journey 

39:19 Learning from Olympic Athletes 

43:57 Personal Stories: From Snowboarding to Gymnastics 

46:34 Dave's Favorites: Bourbon, X-Men, and Sandwiches 

50:25 Navigating Social Media and Dealing with Negativity 

53:36 Dave's Sneaker Collection and Artistic Interests 

56:08 The Value of Shared Wins and Personal Growth 

58:08 Dave's Quirks: Being Loud and Taking Up Space in Bed 

 

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Follow us at: 

instagram.com/bubsnaturals 

facebook.com/bubsnaturals 

instagram.com/slakeo 

instagram.com/natebehavior 

 

Follow Dave Durante at: 

instagram.com/davedurante 

instagram.com/powermonkeyfitness 

instagram.com/powermonkeycamp 

www.powermonkeyfitness.com

 

Intro Music: Stock Media provided by eitanepsteinmusic / Pond5

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Hold on.
Here we go.
What's up everybody and welcome to theCult of Recreationalism podcast.
I am one of your hosts today, NathanMorris, along with Sean Lake.

(00:25):
And today on the podcast, we've got DaveDurrani.
Welcome, Dave.
Thank you guys for having me, good to behere.
Awesome.
Dave, I wrote up a little intro for you.
Let me know.
take it for a rip?
I want to jump right in and feel like Ican be a part of this conversation.
I kind of like how you primed them there.
So Dave is a husband.

(00:48):
He is a girl dad.
He is the founder of Power Monkey Fitness.
And we are going to dive into what itmeans to be a Power Monkey.
He is a gymnast.
Not like some of our friends, like saythey're a former something or other.
He is a gymnast.
Dave was the 2007 United States all-around gymnastics champion.

(01:09):
He was an alternate for the 2008 SummerOlympics in Beijing.
He speaks fluent Italian.
He's going to do this entire podcast inItalian.
And welcome Dave.
Thank you, Sean, I appreciate that.
There was some tidbits in there I don'teven have in my own bio.
Well, we're here to augment that and makeit a little something extra.

(01:33):
We're here to boost it up.
Nathan, I understand there's someinteresting facts that you would maybe
like to share about Dave now that I'vedone the intro.
well, there's just some stuff I had inhere.
They were kind of just more like free ranout of things to talk about, but no, the
first one, because all of us here doCrossFit.
Dave, you wrote the CrossFit gymnasticscurriculum.

(01:55):
I was part of CrossFit Gymnastics staff.
I was the lead coach for them for a fewyears back in the day, 2013 to 2015.
It was when I was kind of just starting upPower Monkey.
I didn't write the CrossFit Gymnasticscurriculum, I wrote the advanced course.
So there was a period where there was anadvanced course that had been put out

(02:17):
where we were doing some higher levelskills.
And I was kind of put in charge of puttingthat curriculum together.
After I left, I think that program diedand they might have tried to bring it back
together under a new name, but there was aperiod where I had written and developed
the advanced course for CrossFitGymnastics.
always a fascination.
I mean, at least originally in CrossFitwas just like this blend of the world of

(02:42):
gymnastics, which was like this, this partof people's fitness that was just, you
know, somewhat missing.
And it was like, you walk into a gym andyou're already intimidated and the people
are throwing a bunch of weights around andkettlebells and barbells.
And all of a sudden you see someone on aset of rings and they might be doing ring
dips and you're like, okay.
I've seen dips before like dips are in thegym.

(03:04):
But then you see someone throw a muscle updown and you're like, what the hell is
that?
And then you realize like, I'm going tolearn how to do that.
I'm going to get that like, okay.
And it's fascinating.
Like it definitely for me, and I know for,for folks around me, like it unlocked a
huge curiosity in, you know, functionalfitness in the, in the CrossFit space to

(03:27):
be like, well, what did, what did gymnastdo?
What did, what, it's not just a pull upand.
It's wild, man.
I mean, your ability to work your bodywith rings without rings is, is cool.
And I want to learn about how you got intoit all.
So you're from New Jersey, right?
Originally.
I'm really from a Jersey boy for sure.

(03:48):
Just outside of New York City is where Igrew up.
And, and, and was it Jersey where youdeveloped like, you know, Hey, your
parents put you in gymnastics at a youngage.
How did you fall into gymnastics?
I love sports.
I grew up playing basically everything.
Baseball, basketball.
My father and my brother were soccerplayers.
My father's from Italy and soccer is ahuge part of our family.

(04:09):
I wrestled for a long time.
I just love sports and gymnastics was oneof the ones that I picked up when I was
six years old.
And I was very fortunate to be, to grow upin an area where not just gymnastics, but
specifically boys gymnastics had a reallybig presence.
And I got to give a shout out to my gym,which is, you know, my.
my first gymnastics family, Surgeon'sElite, School of Gymnastics.

(04:30):
There's three locations, one in Garwood,the town that I'm originally from,
Westfield, and then Roseau Park.
And those gyms were just known for puttingout some of the best gymnasts, collegiate
gymnasts.
There was another former Olympian, two-time Olympian, Dominic Minakuchi, who
came through that gym, who was on 88 and92 Olympic teams.
And so you don't really find that toooften.

(04:52):
You don't grow up and say,
Hey, I wanna do gymnastics and justfortunately, one of the best boys program
in the country is within walking distance.
So it was a proximity thing that reallyworked out in my favor where it was down
the block and I was able to kind ofcultivate that love.
Well, they also, they kept you engaged,right?
Like I've got an eight year old son andI've watched him fall in love gradually

(05:14):
over three years with baseball.
And, you know, like I, why there was amoment there where he was on the fence.
It could have fallen off and he knows hehas to do activity, but I do give a little
bit of free rein on choosing it.
What do you want to play?
What do you want to do?
And right now, like the love of baseballis like riding an all time high.

(05:35):
How old is he?
Yeah.
in kindergarten, like, or preschool, Iguess.
So he's actually pushing four years withit, but really three years where the
skills are developing and starting to getinteresting at eight.
You know, I know I've seen the nine and 10year olds play, but just keep kids engaged
and to keep you engaged.
Like that's a testament to the quality ofthe gym also, because you didn't get

(05:58):
burned out.
You didn't like, you know, turn you off toit.
You kept going.
It's so easy to get burned out too.
You know, I see this all the time,especially as kids get into their teenage
years where hanging out with friends andgoing to parties and those things start to
turn up in your life and they become alittle bit more of a priority.
Going to the gym for five hours a daystarts to become less important.

(06:19):
And so you lean into, one, the communityof the gym.
And that was, they had that in spades atSurgeons.
Like it was a complete family.
In fact, my mom still...
My mom's closest friends to this day,she's in her mid 70s now, and her closest
friends in the world are my gymnasticsfriends from growing up.
We were a family from eight years old.

(06:42):
She had a party this weekend at our shorehouse in Jersey, and she had 25 moms over
to the house for the weekend who were allformer gymnastics friends of mine from
growing up.
And that's a testament to the type ofenvironment that surgeons put together for
us that...
Not only did we want to compete and wewanted to perform, we wanted to get better

(07:02):
at gymnastics, but it was a place where weactually found our best friends and the
people that we ended up growing uptogether with.
So it was a really special environment.
I was very fortunate.
It's not always that way.
No, no.
And that's awesome.
Cause obviously like it kept you engaged.
It kept you wanting to go and hear you 25years later or 20, you know, yeah, I
rounded down for you.

(07:22):
yeah.
And, and keeping the torch alive backEast.
So tell me about being, you know,obviously you, you went into it.
Was there any discipline that you startedwith?
Cause you were the all around champion,which tells me that you were a Swiss army
knife.
You could get into any aspect, palm bars,like
you name it and be lethal, but was thereanyone that kept you going or was it like,
nah man, put me on anything?

(07:44):
Yeah, my strengths lied more in myperformance ability.
I was, you know, there are guys that arekind of like daredevils that do like huge
tricks and there is a big component ofgymnastics where throwing big skills
matters.
But I was leading into the sport being anartistic sport.
And so mine was more about precision andbeing able to perform really well and

(08:07):
execute well as opposed to, cause I wasn'tvery talented.
I wasn't the kind of guy that picked upskills like.
in a day and just kind of like naturallyhappened for me, I had to work my ass off.
And so like I leaned into my work ethicand putting in the time that other kids
weren't willing to do.
You know, my my high school coach gave mea key to the gym my senior year and I

(08:29):
would go into practice at six in themorning and just do strength sessions by
myself before school because I knew that Ineeded to work on those areas and I wasn't
going to get that time during my sessionsafter school.
So for me, it was like what am I
what can I do that everyone else is notgoing to do that they don't have the
willpower, they don't have the time, theydon't have the effort where I can catch up

(08:50):
talent wise and what these guys alreadyhave on me.
So as an all -arounder, I was definitelynot a lower body guy.
My legs are still pretty pathetic and Irarely wear shorts around most
CrossFitters because I don't want them toobserve the nothingness that is the Dureni
legs.
But upper body events ended up being mystrengths, but that wasn't until I got to

(09:10):
college.
And I started to develop more and I stillwas growing quite a bit as I went through
my college years.
So rings, pommel horse, parallel bars,high bar, those became my strengths.
Those are the ones I kind of contributedmost when I was part of Team USA and part
of my college team.
Floor and vault were ones that kind of Iwas solid across the board, but not really
ones that I would be looked at tocontribute as part of a team when I was

(09:32):
competing, you know, for USA or for mycollege team.
Got it.
And then you went to college.
Where'd you go to school?
I went to Stanford.
slummin' it.
Got it.
Well, listen, you know, some people skateby with a GED also.
Was that a gymnastics scholarship likerocket fuel in?

(09:55):
Was it like, hey, man, I want to go to theWest Coast.
I want to break out of Jersey.
Why Stanford?
I went to visit the campus when I was 13years old.
We had a national, the junior nationalchampionships in Oakland that year.
And I went to the West Coast and duringthat period, the mid 90s, Stanford was
unstoppable.

(10:16):
They won the national championship in 92,93, took second in 94 and then they won
again in 95.
And they had some of the just the bestguys in the country.
Josh Stein, Jai Erlinches of the world,Dean Bacharach and...
Mark Booth, these guys are big names inthe gymnastics world at the time.
And I fell, you walk on a campus, I wasactually there over the weekend.
I was with the team and got to do somecontent and see how the team was doing.

(10:40):
And you walk on a campus, if you've everbeen to San Francisco campus, it doesn't
feel real.
It feels like another world.
And I absolutely fell in love with theschool, with the team.
And I said, this is the only place I wantto go.
And actually I was a...
pretty good student.
I wouldn't say that I was Stanfordcaliber, but it was the only place that I

(11:00):
applied.
I put my heart and soul into thatapplication and I tell everybody.
Yeah, I didn't play.
I didn't apply anywhere else.
I didn't.
do not agree with that strategy.
Yeah, and well, I did go on recruitingtrips.
I went on recruiting trips to Oklahoma,Michigan, and Illinois, which are other

(11:21):
gymnastics powerhouse schools.
But I only applied to Stanford.
And I thought I would figure it outbecause I did early application.
And so I thought I'd figure it out afterthat.
And I always tell people that they saw myapplication, they kind of threw it out the
window and the wind gust just like blew itback in and it ended up on the accepted
pile.
But.
Even when the coach called me to tell methat I got in, he was surprised.

(11:43):
He's like, I can't believe it, but youactually got in.
So it took me out to the West Coast.
you know, the Italian, you know, they werelike, he really studies hard.
He's got Italian under his belt.
my summers growing up in Italy, most ofthem, and I definitely put that experience
of my father having grown up in Rome andall my family in Rome and both of my

(12:05):
parents being from a small villagesoutheast of Rome, that kind of, it's a
unique experience.
And I think aside from grades and asidefrom curriculum, and I get this from
parents a lot, like, hey, what do you haveto do to get into Stanford?
I don't know, but I do know that...
when you have 50 ,000 kids applying touniversity and you have under a 4 %
acceptance rate, that they look foruniqueness and not just test scores and

(12:28):
they look for people that have lifeexperiences.
And I think that bode well for me in termsof me having seen the way other people
live around the world and appreciatingthat part of being able to contribute
something to an already bright community.
Yeah, I'd say hands down.
I mean, I was making light of it, but thefact is like, Hey, if you speak two
languages and now, you know, understoodyou spent your summers going to Italy and

(12:53):
I can only imagine that you've got theinside line on all the hipster travel to
the Amalfi coast.
So when, when we're offline, I'm going tobe picking your brain on that one.
got it.
You got it.
I'll be there again this summer.
Now I'm starting to do the same for mydaughters now.
We lived all last spring in Italy.
I had them in school in Rimini on the EastCoast in a little beach town and we'll be

(13:17):
going back for this entire summer.
So for me, it's something that I can giveto my kids too.
This idea of understanding howappreciating so much that you get to live
in the United States, but alsounderstanding, hey, your family's from
somewhere else and...
other people around the world actually dothings slightly differently.
Sometimes better, sometimes worth, butit's worth observing.
hands down.
I, it's kind of cool like, cause Dave,I've gotten to interact with you.

(13:40):
Like this isn't my, I know you just metSean today, like 15 minutes ago, but I've
been lucky enough to be involved with likePower Monkey stuff.
And I think it's cool that like when we'reat those camps, like your daughters are
there and they're a part of it.
And there's people from all over the worldand they're kind of doing their own thing,
but they are interacting with all those.
And I think it's cool that like they'realong for the ride.
They're not just like at home while you'reout doing things.

(14:01):
No, I want them a part of it.
It's part of their education to me.
Power Monkey Camp to me, I'm sure we'lltalk about it a little bit, but Camp is my
third child.
You know, my two little girls in Camp,which I also consider a daughter, so I can
be fully a girl dad across the board.
It's a beautiful thing for us toexperience as adults, but for my kids to

(14:24):
be able to experience the way that adultsinteract together.
when you can get like -minded peopletogether from around the world who maybe
come from diverse backgrounds, but allappreciate the fact of living a quality,
health -driven life.
And I think taking them out of school fortwo weeks out of the year is 100 % worth
it.
And my seven -year -old, after last camp,I think she came up to me and said, what's

(14:49):
going to happen to camp as you get older?
I was like, I don't know.
We'll see.
She's like, you like it here?
She's like, yeah, I think I want to run itwhen I get older.
And she put it out there.
And I was like,
And that was one of the most proud momentsI had in my life that maybe my kids want
to be a part of what we had put togetherall these years ago.
That's awesome.
How's it, and you're in Portland?
Is that, is that correct?
my wife's from Portland, Oregon.
So we moved out here a couple of yearsago.

(15:12):
Getting used to the lifestyle in thePacific Northwest is absolutely beautiful
out here.
But coming from the New York, New Jerseyfast paced mentality, I'm still getting
used to the driving speeds of the Portlandroads.
Not quite there yet.
I can only imagine the hell that you areinflicting on others just by laying on

(15:35):
your horn.
wife first thing when we moved out and shesaid you're not allowed to touch your horn
like you cannot honk at anyone like I waslike, what do you mean?
It's like part of the cars technology tobe able to let people know.
It's like no do not honk at anyone
a public service announcement when I jamon that thing to let them know they're
probably making a mistake.

(15:56):
They're camped out in the left lane.
I have to let them know.
exactly.
Nope.
That's just what they do out here.
I look at, I was born and raised insuburban Massachusetts.
So learning the aggressive driving was.
Yeah.
And I swear I've gone soft out here andI've been in California for 21 years.

(16:17):
It, it, it, it chips away.
You first, you get cold easy and yourealize you lose that hearty winter touch.
And then you start driving and you're justlike, eh, yeah, you know, and then you
forget the like, Hey, no, if you're inthat inside lane.
That's hammer time.
Get out of the way.
If you're not, if you're not the onepassing, get out of the way.
that is, that is not baked around the, theWest coast.

(16:41):
so, so back then, so we talked aboutbeing, you know, the U S all around
threat, but take me up to 2007 where I'massuming you're done with Stanford, right?
You've graduated or you're, you're,you're, you're finishing school and.
you're heading into a shot at theOlympics.

(17:02):
Was that by design?
Was it just, hey man, like I'm having agood run.
Tell me about that chapter.
Cause I think that's a, it's a fascinatingevent in anyone's life to be able to take
a swing, you know, at a spot in theOlympic team.
Yeah, sure.
So I graduated in 02 and then I stuckaround Stanford for another couple years
to 04 to train for the Athens OlympicGames.

(17:25):
And I just made national team in 03 and Iactually made a really strong run at the
Athens Olympics.
I made it to the Olympic squad, the last10 guys to be kind of finally selected for
the Olympic Games in Athens.
I thought I did enough, but I was theyoung guy on the team and...
Not much international experience and theteam that ended up going to Athens was one

(17:46):
of the strongest teams the US has ever putout on the floor.
They took silver medal, they're alegendary team in US gymnastics history.
But that kind of fueled my interest to tryto stick around for another four years.
And so I moved to the Olympic TrainingCenter in Colorado Springs in 04 and I
lived there for the next four and a halfyears while I trained for my last run.

(18:08):
At trying to make an Olympic team andduring that time, you know I was on a few
of the world championships teams duringthat quad as you mentioned I became
national champion in the all -around in2007.
I was the winner national champion in 05and 06 so that quad I was one of the top
guys in the US program and so leading intothe Olympics I had a lot going in my

(18:28):
favor.
I Definitely was one of the guys in themix all the way through to the end process
and
I don't know how much we want to get intoit now.
I've talked about it a lot over the yearsin terms of my unique Olympic
qualification process.
I had one that was maybe a littledifferent than others because we had some
issues with the original team that wasselected.

(18:50):
We had the two Haum brothers who hadalready been on two other Olympic games
and both of them were selected and thenboth of them got hurt in the time from the
Olympics qualification process through toopening ceremony.
And so there were three alternates thattraveled to Beijing and we had a lot going
on in terms of who's going in, who's notgoing in, or who's competing all the way

(19:11):
up until the day before openingceremonies, we didn't know who was
actually gonna be competing.
And so, yeah, yeah.
I was there the whole time.
I was there the whole time.
We were there for about a month, two weeksbefore the game start and training.
You know, in the village some and thentraining at the American College of

(19:33):
Beijing, I think it was called, is wherethe USA had their facilities set up for us
and the Chinese Gymnastics TrainingCenters where we were allowed to train.
And so the experience is one that wascompletely unforgettable.
But to say that it was an emotional rollercoaster, we'll be putting it fairly
mildly.
can only imagine like you're in, you'reout, you're in, you're out.

(19:57):
A buddy of mine, Mike Hazel, he threwjavelin in the 08 Olympics.
And, you know, he talked about it becausehe just, you know, that that wild, wild
ride about just like all of the years ofleading up to it for that pinnacle moment.
And, you know, like, for him, it wasn'this peak performance, his peak performance

(20:19):
actually came afterwards.
Hmm, okay.
That's interesting.
of just like leading up to it, making itor being an alternate.
And I have friends in snowboarding whowere all alternates on the US snowboard
team and a couple of guys who made it anda couple of guys who've gotten medals and
like just that whole range.
And it is just there's so much effort,energy and emotion put into that.

(20:41):
I can, I can only imagine.
And when, when you got back from Beijing,was there like, okay, I got one more run
in me or was it.
I think we're good here.
What was the takeaway?
man, I was ready to be done basically fouryears before that.
I knew that that was my end date.

(21:03):
And a few reasons for it.
One, I was old.
I mean, in gymnastics, they called me thegrandpa of the team.
I was 28 at the time and I was absolutelythe oldest guy by far on the team.
And I was held together by athletic tapeand Advil.
And...
What I didn't tell many people was thatFebruary leading up to the Olympics in 08,

(21:28):
I tore my ACL in practice, but I didn'ttell anyone except for my coach.
And so I didn't have repaired until I gotback from Beijing.
And so I had to have surgery basically assoon as I got back.
And so had to deal with and it wasn't Ihad already torn that one once before my
first day at Stanford.
I got into the gym, I fell and I blew myknee out my first turn, my first day as a

(21:50):
freshman.
And then 10 years later in February of 08,it's 98 and then 08, I blew it out again.
And so it's a different tear the secondtime you do it.
It's more of like, imagine like a piece oftaffy just getting pulled, pulled, pulled,
pulled, pulled to the point where it justkind of pops on you.
So I was able to do enough landings andenough floor and vault to be able to make

(22:14):
it okay, but it definitely needed to berepaired.
So.
had all that stuff cleaned up and then Imoved back out to Stanford to help coach a
team in 2009 and we ended up winning ourfirst national championship that year in
quite some time.
So that's when I started to get back intothe coaching world.
That's a nice punctuation mark.
I mean, the transition out, like you makeit to Beijing, you go through all that's

(22:34):
an emotional roller coaster, you're oneleg down, you grit through all of that.
And then you know, it's over, you comehome, you have to have surgery, which
takes you completely out of the running.
But then you get a completely differenttype of victory, which it sounds like was
the trajectory of leading you intocoaching, which

(22:57):
I mean, really since 09, whether it beCrossFit, Power Monkey and everything,
you've been on that path ever since.
Absolutely, and I'll mention one thing.
What the team did in Beijing, I don't getenough opportunities to talk about it.
A lot of time when I'm talking about myOlympic experience, it ends with the
qualification process and then not beingon the podium myself.

(23:19):
But what the guys did, the six guys thatended up competing in Beijing did there,
is still in my mind one of the mostincredible Olympic performances I've ever
seen, not just because I was the...
there and part of it in some capacity, Ihighly recommend everyone, if they ever
want to see an amazing moment, go back andwatch team finals from the 08 Olympic

(23:41):
Games, men's team finals, what the guysdid, the six guys on the men's team did
for USA to bring home a bronze medal thatday, when everyone thought that we weren't
even a top 12 team, was one that should bein the history books.
They did an incredible job.
So to come back from Beijing after thathigh of watching the guys perform,

(24:02):
outperform what the rest of the worldthought was capable was really impressive.
And then that led into me doing somethingI never thought I wanted to do and that
was coach.
I was never someone that wanted to coach.
I was always very athlete -centric.
I need to perform well.
When you're an athlete at that level,you're worried about yourself.

(24:23):
And unfortunately, that's how a lot ofpeople think because you want to optimize
your years as an athlete.
And I kind of fell into a love for...
for coaching, actually a little later downthe road, the Stanford contract was just
for one year.
So I was like, I just want to see if I canwin a national championship.
I want my ring.

(24:46):
And we were terrible when I was on theteam.
So I was like, this is an opportunity.
This team is really good.
They had finished second the year before.
And I was like, maybe I can give them alittle bit of something that can put them
over the edge.
And we ended up winning.
And then I moved to Italy right afterthat.
So.
It was kind of like, I need to figure outwhat I'm going to do after gymnastics.
And so it was a really nice way to be ableto kind of put a cap on that part of my

(25:10):
career.
It's interesting because it's almost whatyou recognize there.
There's a split, right?
There's selfish, selfish, selfish, whichis the professional athlete.
And you're doing everything for yourperformance and for your success and for
driving it forward and in the name ofyourself, your country, you know, like all
the, all the reasons.
What are you humanly capable of?
Like that, that, that push.

(25:32):
And then there's the selfless and thatidea that you just helped someone else
achieve.
their personal goal, their personal best.
And that can unlock a whole new world.
When you help someone else achieve theirpotential, they look at you.
And they know like, hey, if I'm left on myown, that doesn't happen.

(25:56):
But they look at you.
And I look at Nathan when I say thatbecause he has this experience every day
when he's at the gym.
And you're helping someone unlock theirhuman potential, you obviously have done
at the absolute highest level, but evenhelping someone do their first pull up.
I mean, I talk about it often like that,that joy that someone experiences, but
really the selfish joy and selfless joy ofthe coach.

(26:19):
I couldn't agree more with you.
And what I would say is that you are aselfish winner and you're an athlete, but
what I always appreciated about competingin what most people think of as an
individual sport, I thought of as a teamsport.
Gymnastics to me is a team sport.
And Power Monkey is a team environment.
And so the goal, the collective goal as wemove forward is to be able to bring your

(26:43):
expertise or something to the equationthat makes the group better.
And so...
Moving forward and everything that we donow, it's okay.
Is what I'm doing now going to get maybeyou a pull -up or a muscle -up, it's going
to make you individually better.
Awesome.
I love that technique part.
But I'm all about trying to get collectivewins.

(27:04):
Meaning, can we as a group, as an entity,work towards, you know, goals that we set
for ourselves as a team?
And that to me is so much more worthpursuing.
more than an individual goal.
And so I just love the ability to kind ofcontinue to work with my team with Power
Monkey and to see new people that want tobe part of the team and to continue to

(27:29):
collectively work toward team goals.
For me, that's my highest challenge movingforward is how can we continuously work
towards team goals.
That's one of the, I'm gonna cut in herefor a sec.
So that's one of the cool things aboutlike Power Monkey Camp is when you're
doing it, like the, I'll let you talkabout it in a second, Dave, but like
you've divided into like with you, it'sthe handstand station.
There's rowing, there's kettlebells, andyou're working through it as a group.

(27:52):
And my experience doing it, it was coolbecause like we were all, even though we
were different skill levels within mygroup, it was, we were working together,
like everybody's trying to level up one aswe're going through this.
And that was really cool to like do all ofthose things as part of a team.
like you're saying.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, the team aspect of camp and like thewhat has come out of camp is much more

(28:19):
than I think we ever envisioned when weput it together.
We wanted to put a good like technicalweek together.
We're putting all these experts in onespace and someone getting like an adult
fitness camp environment again.
But the experience of feeling like, youknow what, like we're better together than
we are individually.
And that's something that comes naturallyand organically through the week of being

(28:42):
able to say, you know, I might be from adifferent background, you know,
demographically, age group, fitness levelwise, it does not matter.
Like we are all here trying to become justincrementally better, just a tiny bit
better than we were yesterday.
And that is incredibly powerful in termsof when you're done, knowing that you have
people to lean onto.
and to be able to reach out to no matterwhere you are in the world, you have

(29:05):
somebody who's had a shared similarexperience and be able to say, hey, I know
that person knows what I'm going through.
I can lean into them and have them as aresource if needed moving forward.
And to me, that's one of the most powerfulthings that's come out of Power Monkey
Camp is you have people to lean into to beable to collectively move forward
together.
And connect.
Well, can you actually take two steps backand like for people who don't know, can

(29:25):
you explain what power monkey camp is?
yeah, absolutely.
So, Sean, I don't know how much you knowabout it.
Maybe Nathan's passed it along andobviously, Bubs is a part of it, which we
greatly appreciate.
You gotta come, man.
It's a blast.
But it's an adult fitness camp, you know,a full week adult fitness camp on the
woods of Tennessee.

(29:45):
I've been going to the facility for closeto 20 years now.
It's owned by two Olympic gymnast buddiesof mine, John McCready and John
Roethlisberger.
kind of legends in the sport of gymnasticsand they run it as a kids gymnastics camp
throughout the summers.
It's a 150 acre campus, 32 acre lake.
We now have 50 ,000 square foot of gymspace, 17 cabins.
We bring in an amazing chef from Rosie JoMeals, Katie Wells and her team who feed a

(30:09):
lot of the CrossFit Games athletes andhave done the games over the years and do
the NFL Combine now.
She's amazing and so she makes incrediblefood.
Yeah, the food's amazing and Nathan heldout a ton in the kitchen this time around
too.
Then we bring in experts in a variety ofdifferent training fields, specialists in
gymnastics and weightlifting andkettlebell training and rowing, jump rope,
running.
We do seminars on nutrition and mentaltraining and contrast therapy and sleep

(30:35):
optimization and programming.
We do yoga in the mornings.
We do rucks in the mornings.
It's kind of an all -encompassing adult,you know, like Disneyland kind of a setup.
And so...
Yeah, it's turned into something that, youknow, 100 participants, we bring out about
a 50 to 70 staff and guests and coachesand about 150 people.

(30:55):
We train and eat and bunk up together foran entire week and come out better on the
other side.
is awesome.
So was this born from CrossFit?
Because somewhere in gymnastics, youdeveloped a relationship with CrossFit in
general, and then from CrossFit into PowerMonkey, right?

(31:16):
But I feel like Power Monkey serves morethan just the CrossFit community, although
probably a lot of CrossFit in thecommunity.
It has started to expand beyond, I thinkinitially it was, we've always been, I
think all of my coaches will speaksimilarly to this, in that we've always
been eternally grateful to CrossFit forexposing people to our niche sports, as

(31:38):
opposed to some people within gymnasticsor weightlifting who look at someone doing
a muscle for the first time and saying,what the hell are they doing?
You know, like they're taking a beautifulmovement and they're making it look like
shit.
And it's just like, why are you doing itthat way?
And you're bastardizing our sport.
All of our coaches have always said, thisis incredible that we have somebody who's
50 years old that's never done a handstandbefore wanting to walk on their hands or

(32:02):
do a good handstand pushup.
Let's facilitate that process.
We look at it as an opportunity.
And so CrossFit gave all of us a chance atmaking careers out of something that we
loved that was not present prior toCrossFit.
And so, I mean, gymnastics specificallyprior to Glassman, you know, starting up
at Santa Cruz, what did we have?
Post -gymnastics, you have go to the stuntworld, which is what my business partner

(32:26):
does in Power Monkey, he's a stunt man.
You can go to the circus, which is what alot of my college roommates are doing and
did.
Or you can go and coach at a gym or openup a gym.
Those are your three avenues if you wantto stay within the sport.
CrossFit has completely given us a newavenue to be able to give our passion to
people who didn't grow up with it.
Not working with kids, but working withadults.

(32:47):
And so we've taken that idea and kind ofrun with it and say,
Let's try to make you as good as you canpossibly be and understand technique to
the absolute, you know, smallest level soyou can make changes that an elite athlete
would be doing and be able to pass that onto as many coaches, owners, and athletes
as we possibly can.
So we look at, you know, our communitygrew because of CrossFit, but now it's

(33:09):
expanding beyond CrossFit becauseobviously functional fitness has started
to grow just, grow beyond just, you know,doing wads these days.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And like the idea that CrossFit can openthat up again, that blending, right?
Of aerobic activity to gymnastics, to allthe different lifts and, and, and

(33:30):
leveraging weight for that unknown,unknowable.
Like that combination was magic then it'smagic today.
And it just gives your average athlete offthe street exposure to this much broader,
bigger world and sure the purist can hatethe idea that a guy like me.
at, you know, when I was 39 years old, Icould go into a gym and learn how to do
the ugliest muscle up you'll ever see.

(33:53):
Whereas to me, I now have thisappreciation for gymnastics that I never
had for 38 plus years.
And so all of a sudden I'm watching theOlympics in a whole different light.
I'm having kids and I want them to havethat exposure for body control, for
understanding what they're physicallycapable of.

(34:13):
And so I find it to be magical.
When you guys were thinking of the idea ofPower Monkey and like take me to like the
idea phase of like, we're going to dothis.
This seems like we're filling a gap andthere's an opening in the space.
What was that origin like?
You're saying specifically for our camp orfor...
Yeah.
Yeah, so...

(34:35):
Yeah, so camp grew out of, as I mentioned,I'd been going to the facility for close
to 20 years teaching kids in the summers.
And so I knew the facility, I knew howmagical of a place it could be for the
kids and for us as counselors.
And after hanging out with people likeChad Vaughn, two time Olympian on the

(34:56):
weightlifting side and Mike Service andother...
USA team member and then getting to knowpeople like Dave Newman at ArcSmart Gear
started to come to this idea of sayingthis facility is not being used in the
fall and spring very much.
We could turn it into something that, youknow, why not bring in all these experts
instead of doing, you know, we were doingweekend seminars of gymnastics and

(35:16):
weightlifting often and going to gymsaround the world and people were eating it
up and they were loving learning, youknow, technique from me and Chad and the
rest of our team who had put peacetogether at the time.
And we just said, you know, could we turnthis into a full week of camping?
And many of us had done camp growing up.
I went to gymnastics camp, you know, everyyear when I was a kid and it was one of,

(35:39):
you know, some of the great memories of mychildhood, learning gymnastics out in
Pennsylvania, IGC, InternationalGymnastics Academy, out in the Poconos.
And I just loved it.
I wanted to be able to create thatatmosphere again.
But now maybe with a beer while you watch,you know.
have a s'more at the campfire kind of athing.
And so we put it together and we didn'tknow what was gonna happen.

(36:02):
I always mention Dave Newman's namebecause Dave was critical in getting our
first camp off the ground.
He was such a believer.
He was actually friends in San Diego withone of the owners, John McCready, who grew
up down there and they had known eachother kind of growing up.
And so he was like, I remember McCready,of course, I'd love to be a part of this.
And he brought out a ton of games athletesto help promote the first camp.

(36:25):
and we ended up having like 30 coaches and30 participants.
And so the campers absolutely loved theexperience.
We didn't know what we were doing yet, butwe put on a great week and I didn't know
if people were gonna want to come back,but something happened at the end of the
week that told me that we had somethingspecial in our hands.

(36:46):
You know, we had a couple of internationalpeople.
We had some people from Italy, actually,some people from Ireland, some people from
the UK.
And that first camp, everyone was gettingon the bus to go home the Saturday after
camp and all the campers were crying andthey didn't want to leave.
They had become incredibly close with thisgroup of coaches and other participants

(37:07):
over what was seemingly a really shortperiod of time.
Over the course of just a week, theybecame lifelong friends.
And I said, you know what, for as much asthis camp was intended to be about
information around technique,
this camp is going to end up being muchmore about the relationships.
And that's exactly what ended uphappening.

(37:27):
And so people continue to come back, notbecause the content changes drastically,
but we have one camper that's been to camp14 times.
And it's because it's home for her andit's as much as it is home for us.
That's 14 out of 21.
Yes, 14 out of 21.
And she became staff this last time.

(37:47):
I gotta give a shout out to Karen Ward.
She's an affiliate owner in Atlantaherself.
She's an incredible, absolute gem of ahuman being.
And we love her to death with PowerMonkey.
But we have tons of people who continue tocome back again, not because of the
information so much as it is, just a partof who they are now.
Yeah, that's amazing.
And I mean, that's just inspirational.
It's like when you're, you're listening tothis podcast, you're like, you know what?

(38:09):
I wanted to learn a little bit more aboutfitness.
This goes way beyond gymnastics.
You've got rowing.
You've got Chad Vaughn participating or,or, or was participating.
Like it sounds like there's, there'sseveral different buckets here.
Nathan, what's your experience like whenyou go there?
I mean, you have a lot of experience inCrossFit.
You own a gym, you're a coach.
but you've gone a few times now.

(38:30):
Yeah, I got lucky enough to, I dropped infor one night once a long time ago,
driving an RV around the country.
and then I went out once as a camper.
And then this last time I went, I was likea campsite, like support staff.
and as a camper, it's awesome.
Like I mentioned, like you're working withyour group, you're all kind of moving
through these stations together.
But the big thing that I was actuallytalking to, I'm trying to get a couple of

(38:54):
my members to come out in the fall or inthe spring, Dave.
and I was talking to him and I was like,
You they have learned all this stuff bylike Google like learning it from other
CrossFit coaches or they're following likehigh level CrossFitters on YouTube who are
teaching not that they're going to teachrowing wrong, but they're not teach.
They're not learning rowing from someonewho's been to the Olympics for rowing or

(39:16):
been to gymnastics in like or sorry beento Olympics for gymnastics or
weightlifting and to hear it from somebodywho has been doing this like date like
since they were a child and.
Dave probably gave, I like this cue thebest, of if you're gonna set up, Dave
teaches the handstand station, Sean, forreference.

(39:38):
So when you're setting up for a one repdeadlift or a one rep squat, you don't
just run up and go into the bar.
You set your feet and then you go into it.
You set your feet first.
Well, in a handstand, your hands are yourfeet.
So why are so many people just trying tofly up?
into a handstand position.

(40:00):
And when you said it, I'm like, that makesso much sense, but I've never thought of
it that way.
So it's...
cues, right?
That just unlock the potential for whatthe movement is you're trying to do.
Yeah, and that was one nugget from onestation of 10 stations.
And that was what stuck with me.
I'm sure he said other things that otherpeople in my group, they were like, and

(40:23):
that was the light bulb for them.
But it is so cool.
It is the community.
I'm still in contact with some of thepeople I went to camp with, some of the
coaches who I formed a relationship with,like just texting random memes to and
stuff.
It's so cool.
So.
Not bad, not bad.

(40:43):
So Nathan and I in talking Dave, beforeyou came on, cause now I feel like we got
a good handle on the various elements ofPower Monkey, which is like, it's going to
be a dream for anyone who's curious.
Like I'm going to look this up and I wantto know more about what I would learn at a
camp like this.
And we're talking like, I don't, you couldbe at a, you know, Barry's bootcamp.
You could be at a CrossFit gym.

(41:04):
You can be at F 45.
Like these are skills that translateacross, you know, any gym.
setting or any athletic setting.
So it seems like anyone who wants toadvance their skills, let's learn more.
There's a home for you there.
It always amazed me how many people therewas two people in my group last year who
had never done CrossFit before and I waslike How did you find out about this like

(41:24):
I thought this was like a niche within aniche like how did you find out about
this?
Sorry
to expand a little bit more just beyondthe cross the setting, which is great.
But, you know, everyone is welcome.
And I think sometimes people get a littlescared when they see the promotional
materials and they see games, the athletesthere and, you know, some of the top
coaches.
And it's a little intimidating, but reallycamp is geared and put together with the

(41:49):
beginner and intermediate level athlete inmind.
The person that is scared to kick up intoa handstand or never has done a snatch
before.
How do you handle two kettlebells at thesame time?
And it's meant to really foster a verybase level understanding so that everyone
is welcome, no matter if you were at thetop of the podium or if you said you've

(42:09):
never picked up a barbell before.
So you'll feel welcome no matter if you'rethe fittest person in the world or not.
I mean, that's great because that removesa level of intimidation that would
probably be a barrier to entry where folkswouldn't consider spending that much time,
money, energy to go to a specialized areaif they're like, they think they're gonna,
they're not good enough to start.

(42:30):
It's like, one of the things I alwaysloved hearing in gym settings was, I can't
go to that gym.
It's too intimidating.
I got to get fit to go there.
So I have to not go to that gym to get fitto be good enough to go to the gym.
I'm like, well,
that doesn't really work.
That's called the excuse to not go at all.
Or you just take the step in and realizethat, hey, man, they're going to scale

(42:53):
things out for you and help you out there.
Well, Nathan, I'm going to turn this oneover to you because you had some
phenomenal one -off questions that I thinkDave is warmed up and ready to answer.
Yeah, Dave, clear your mind for me.
Just clear it completely.
Don't think of anything.
What was your first job?

(43:15):
My first job was, all right, I grew upJersey Shore kind of a guy.
I have a house in Belmore, New Jerseywhere they did some of the shooting from
Jersey Shore and that kind of stuff.
And around the block from my house, therewas a ski shop, like a ski snowboard surf
shop, Eastern Lines.

(43:35):
And Eastern Lines had in the summers atrampoline out front and...
One time I went over and I startedbouncing on trampoline and was doing all
this crazy gymnastics stuff.
And they were like, do you want a job?
And I was like, to do what?
And they were like, all you have to do isbounce on trampoline all day and attract
customers.
So for a couple of summers, I would justbounce trampoline and flip and get paid.

(43:59):
And it was right around the block from myhouse down the shore.
So I attracted customers to the surf shopin Belmont, New Jersey.
Did you know that Sean used to be aprofessional snowboarder?
Yeah.
No, you, you, so I've got a couple ofbuddies from Jersey that I'm going to hit
up.
One of them is like the director of sportsmarketing over at K2.

(44:19):
And another one's like a long timePatagonia guy.
And it literally, my nugget away from thisis I'm going to hit them up and be like,
do you guys remember Eastern Easternlines?
Do you guys ever go there?
They will.
That's amazing.
Well, so I, I, I worked a little bit withDanny Cass.
also, you know, proud Jersey resident toOlympic silver medals.
When I was referencing having friends insnowboarding who have made it to the

(44:43):
Olympics and perform there.
he's one of them at two and six.
but yeah, proud, proud Jersey representingon the podium.
I know a lot of people talk shit aboutJersey, but I love it.
I love it.
you know, as a, as a, as the mass hole onthis podcast, I'm restraining myself.

(45:04):
I'm restraining.
Nathan next question.
Yeah, so you talked about Jersey Shore.
Did you ever live that GTO lifestyle?
I did, and it's embarrassing if you goback and see some of the photos.
I mean, I was in gymnastics a lot, but myfriends, that whole lifestyle is very
real.
I don't know if it's like that anymore,but when I was growing up, yes, extremely
real.
And one of the main clubs DJs was, I couldsee it from my balcony in my house.

(45:28):
So I was very close to where a lot of thatnonsense happened.
Nathan key takeaway when you're assemblingthe social media assets for said podcast,
I expect a little Polly and some of theboys there to be flashing on the screen.
Just flame it out a little bit.
I'm gonna send some texts, I'm gonna getsome pictures of Dave from back in the day
to throw up there.

(45:50):
I've got numbers I can call.
What was your dream job growing up, Dave?
so I always dreamt of going out toCalifornia and growing up on the coast.
I love the ocean.
I want to actually do marine biology.
I ended up studying human biology andgetting into the human body and it's
helped with my career in fitness, but Ijust love the ocean.
I love being by the water.

(46:10):
And so marine biology when I was a kid wasalways a dream.
Do you surf?
I surfed a lot growing up in Jersey,believe it or not.
There are some good breaks.
So I did that.
And then when I was at Stanford, I used togo to Santa Cruz with some of my buddies
and we would go surf at Santa Cruz everyso often.
But I have not gone surfing in many, manyyears now, unfortunately.

(46:31):
that's because those wetsuits are realthick up in your neighborhood.
You're you're heading to Pacific city.
It's going to be a pretty brutal outingthere.
joke.
What's your favorite bourbon?
all right, excellent.
A Vermont -based bourbon whistle pig.
So I'm not sure if you know whistle pig,they're freaking phenomenal.

(46:55):
I actually, they obviously have a bunch ofdifferent, their boss hog is their kind of
top tier, which is amazing.
When me and my wife had our second weddinganniversary.
I convinced her that it was a great ideato go to Vermont and secretly it was a way
for me to go to the distillery and gocheck out Whistlepig.

(47:17):
So yes, while I spend a lot of time inTennessee for camp, I am more of a Vermont
whiskey guy.
So I love Whistlepig.
Sean, you wanna ask a couple of these?
Well, you know what, you're rolling rightinto my childhood here with this one.
Who's your favorite X -Man and why?
man, I'm a huge comic guy.
I've been, do you watch X -Men 97?

(47:37):
So this is the new show on Disney.
It's awesome, it's absolutely phenomenal.
It's so good, it's so good.
But I would say that my favorite X -Men isprobably Nightcrawler.
I love Nightcrawler.
I felt like he was a little bit of agymnast with all of his flips and I love
the teleportation.
What he could do is one of the...

(48:00):
things I wish I had if I was ever asuperhero.
So I'm a huge comic guy for sure.
Solid answer.
I mean, it's very on brand.
Nightcrawler would be my go -to for you aswell.
Just, you know, life in the circus andthen, you know, having to do all the
gymnastics.
You know, a genuine curiosity on the nextquestion.
What is a cookie rollout?

(48:23):
Hey, what?
What is a cookie rollout?
I don't know.
Sadie told me to ask that.
Or she said, she's like, maybe ask likethe thoughts on like, hey, like if there
was like something that like freshmen atStanford in gymnastics had to do, I don't

(48:43):
want to say hazing, but maybe that's whatit is.
Okay, yeah.
I don't think this is allowed anymore, butback in the day, one of the things that
the Stanford men's and women's gymnasticsteams used to do was roll out, and it was
a welcoming to the new freshmen to beingpart of the team, and it would be like,
you get rolled out at like three in themorning, and they bring you out to the

(49:05):
middle of campus, and one of the thingsthey said, Stanford gymnastics loves
cookies, and so they would put us into thefountains.
There's a one in the main,
main area by the bookstore, The Claw,which is a famous fountain on St.
Ambrose campus.
And you go swimming in the fountain andthen they cover you in flour and chocolate
and eggs and like just a mess.

(49:28):
And then you like play all these gamesaround campus like for hours.
And then you go to the first class, whichstarts at like six in the morning and
you're just covered in all this shit.
And you go and like welcome all thestudents as they come in.
And my freshman year, I was in the mainquad.
covered in this and the president of theuniversity was going to his office.
He comes over and he's like, what is goingon over here?

(49:51):
And I was like, we're cookies.
And it, you know, very professional, youknow, Gerhard Casper at the time, the
famous Stanford president, he loved it.
And he thought it was so funny and so fun.
He actually took a picture with us and Ihave a picture with Gerhard Casper and
covered in all, he's in a suit gettingready to go to.

(50:13):
you know, business meetings for the dayand we're just a complete disaster at six
in the morning.
So it was one of my favorite memories.
Yeah, it was a great memory.
of that is when he gets really pissed offand kicks you off campus.
But I like your version way better.
So next up, what is the meanest commentyou've ever received on social media?

(50:36):
social media.
I hate social media.
Unfortunately, I know it's a necessaryevil for our world.
But those things.
So this past weekend, I was back out atStanford and I shot some content with one
of the guys that just graduated, IanGunther, who has an enormous following in
the gymnastics world.
He has over a million followers on YouTubenow.

(50:57):
We did some content and we did some thingsaround lifting with him.
So I did like some gymnastics stuff,former gymnast.
current gymnast and then I had him pick upa barbell and had him try to squat and try
to do a bench press and he's like I'venever done a bench press before and so I
was like spotting him on a bench press andI was looking at the comments in there and

(51:18):
somebody's like this loser has no idea howto spot a bench press the worst spot I've
ever seen on a bench press in my life andI don't know if it's the worst one but
that's the one that I saw today and that'sthe one that stuck with me that I didn't
know how to spot a bench press I was likeI was actually I thought I was doing a
pretty good job.
The keyboard Cowboys are just ruthless,endless.
And it is what it's like.

(51:38):
I got slammed two weeks ago because I putup an Instagram story and I was doing a
little Murph workout prep and I had aweight vest on.
I was out in the park.
I just set up a camera because like, youknow, like everyone's why I want to like
fire it up.
And I'm just doing a round of like 20 push-ups and like, I'm just, I'm a puddle.
So apparently I wasn't locking out toabsolute full extension.
I was like here and sure enough, I'mgetting pounded on.

(52:01):
No rep, no rep.
And I'm like, I mean, yeah, if we're inlike a CrossFit paid competition, sure.
But I'm breaking a sweat and getting somework done.
So what do you care?
But.
right, you were in the park and your kidswere playing soccer practice.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, make use of your time.
My kids are in flag football.

(52:22):
I have an hour.
I have to stay on the field.
So I busted out my weight vest and I did abunch of work because I'm there.
And I'm sure that some of the otherparents looked at me like I, you know, was
from Mars, but I care.
Like I'm going to use that hour to thebest of my ability.
And, you know, like that's what you do.
All right.
you do the next one, Sean, Dave, becauseyou were talking about the videos you just

(52:45):
did, I went through the one that it wasthe collab one between him and Power
Monkey, and it was like gymnast versuscrossfitter.
And you got called out so many times oflike, this crossfitter points his toes
really well.
Like,
when we shot that, I said, you know, I'm aformer gymnast like 10 times.

(53:07):
And he's like, no, that's not gonna dowell.
You have to say you're a CrossFit athlete.
And I was like, I don't think I wanna saythat.
And then not because I love CrossFit, I'vebeen doing it for forever, but I don't
consider myself a CrossFit athlete.
But he's like, it'll just play better forthe video.
So he said, I'm a gymnast and I'm aCrossFit athlete.
And people were like, this lies, lies.
He's not a CrossFit athlete.
He's a former gymnast.

(53:28):
So it was part of the video, but yeah.
Didn't go over the top of the crowd.
made me laugh.
Sean, let's do, Sean do the next one andthen let's just go back and forth, you and
me asking questions.
But you do this next one.
we're gonna go a little rapid fire on thisone now.
What's your favorite pair of sneakers inyour whole collection?
And I know you got a collection.
I do.
I love Jordan 1, so my J's are myfavorites that I have.

(53:52):
I have probably about 15 pairs.
Let's see.
Okay, I'll show you these.
They're right here.
So these maybe aren't my favorite ones,but these are the ones that I just got.
They're the favorite for right now, that'sall that matters.
These bad boys.
audio listeners, they are shiny.

(54:15):
Yeah, so these are the full silver ones.
They just came out recently.
I got them for camp because there's a campparty at the end of the week and I was an
astronaut and I thought that that wouldreally just put a cherry on my outfit.

(54:37):
So absolutely.
Absolutely.
get there with all the flair.
That is amazing.
He was an astronaut, I was a banana.
Okay, next one.
You've been all around the world, Dave.
What is your favorite place you've everbeen?
It's an impossible question to answer.
So many places are just magical.

(54:58):
I would be voted out of the family if Ididn't say Italy was top of the list
because from top to bottom, Italy is justa special place.
Absolutely love Rome.
If you can appreciate history, there'snothing like fall in Rome where the
tourists are a little down and being ableto appreciate the outdoor museum that is

(55:20):
Rome.
And part B, you've been so many places,where have you not been that you most want
to go to?
I would love to go to New Zealand.
It's on my bucket list.
I've heard so many amazing things aboutit.
I've been out that way, close by Australiaplenty of times, but I've never been to
New Zealand.
It's on my list.

(55:42):
All right, what's your favorite hobby oran interest that's completely outside of
fitness or gymnastics?
It's gonna be something you love to do.
so I love art.
I love drawing and spending time.
It was kind of my way of getting away fromthe sport when I was a competitive
athlete.
I did a lot of art.
I apprenticed a portrait artist inBrooklyn for some time when I was living

(56:04):
back in the city.
And I did a lot of work with him.
He was a pretty well -known portraitartist.
So I apprenticed him for a while.
And during pandemic, I picked back up kindof calligraphy as a way to kind of use
some of that artistic talent.
I haven't stuck with it nearly as muchbecause life kind of taken over, but I
would say art and that kind of stuff iswhere I would spend my time if I had a

(56:25):
little bit more.
Yep.
That's cool.
What's the best piece of advice you'veever received?
I mean, there's been so many over theyears that have really stuck with me.
Not one piece of advice, but going back towhat we were talking about prior, the idea

(56:49):
of shared wins being more important andbetter for the soul rather than individual
wins.
And I kind of live my life with that inmind.
Like, what is gonna be better for thecollective rather than me as an
individual?
And it's kind of how I run Power Monkey.
It's how I run my family.
What is collectively going to be betterfor all of us?
So for me, every day I wake up and say,what's going to benefit the group rather

(57:11):
than me as a person?
Nice.
I'm gonna take a little more lightheartedon this next one.
What's your favorite sandwich?
A tuna melt.
I am a huge tuna melt guy.
If you give me a good one right there, youknow, good cheddar on it.
All day I'll go with a tuna sandwich.
There we go.
What do you do that annoys Sadie, yourwife, the most?

(57:33):
Okay, I mean there's plenty.
Plenty.
I mean, we have another hour to go throughthis.
All right, I'll give you a couple.
One, I am loud.
I am very loud.
I am a loud New Jersey obnoxious Italianthat doesn't realize the decibels that I
speak of on a regular basis.
And so she is a very mild, modern PacificNorthwestern.

(57:57):
And so I'm very loud, which she doesn'tappreciate so much.
I also.
take up the entire bed.
And so like she hates the fact that like Iam a tiny human being and I am a starfish
like just all over the place, which shedoesn't appreciate very much.
But I'd say those are easy ones to kind ofknock out.
All right, well, you know, sleep on thecouch.

(58:18):
Fine.
Don't worry about it.
And this might tie into being on thecouch.
What do you do to relax?
Sports, I mean watch sports.
I am an enormous sports fan.
So especially my New York teams, myterrible Mets, my terrible Giants, my
terrible Islanders.
I love sports and I just am in misery allof the time because my teams have been

(58:43):
terrible for a good decade or so.
Well, hold on.
You have one glimmer of hope, but youmentioned the Islanders, which is classic,
right?
You mentioned the Islanders and the Mets,yet your Rangers, and I'll say your
Rangers, are your last hope standing here.
I know, and even the Knicks, I'm not aKnicks fan either.
I grew up like a Jordan Bulls fan, which Ihated the Knicks growing up.

(59:04):
I like to see when New York is doing well.
So like the fact that Nick had a nice run,awesome.
Brunson is amazing and I love seeing that.
And I'm excited to see what the Giants cando this year, even though everybody hates
Daniel Jones.
I want to see the guy do well.
I want to see the Giants do well.
So I just love sports.
Anything, Formula One, I'm a huge FormulaOne fan.
I grew up with my dad being a Ferrari fan,so.

(59:25):
You know, we used to wake up at two in themorning and watch Formula One races
growing up.
So I just, if sports is on, I'm watching.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Easy way to just wind down, still getinterested, still be fired up, but, you
know, a little bit more passively from thecouch.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Dave, is there anything else you wanted totalk about?
We asked you a bunch of questions, but isthere anything that you wanted to talk

(59:47):
about we didn't ask about?
No, I love these questions guys.
You're getting to know me a little bitmore than maybe even my wife knows about
me.
I might have to have her listen to thepodcast and say, hey, did you know that I
actually like this stuff?
Did you know I took you to Vermont so Icould go find a bourbon?
Like...
Skip over minute 18 to 22, just to deletethat part.

(01:00:09):
we kind of do these questions at the end.
I feel like we should start doing them atthe beginning just to get to know people a
little bit better.
So, all right, well, Sean, let me do thispart.
I'll let you do the sign off at the end,but Dave, like, thank you.
Seriously.
Thank you so much for taking the time andfor joining us today.
If people want to learn more about you orpower monkey, where should they go?
Take some time websites, Instagrams,promote whatever you want to promote.

(01:00:31):
Thank you.
You can head to PowerMuckyFitness .com orPowerMuckyCamp .com for all the events
that we have coming up.
Our next camp is going to be in the fall,September 22nd to September 28th.
We have a couple of spots left over forthat one.
We do two a year.
The following will be the end of nextApril.
Like Nathan, you mentioned earlier thatwe're in our 11th year.
So those will be camp 22 and 23 for us.

(01:00:53):
You can go to at Dave Durante and atPowerMucky Fitness for our social media
content on Instagram.
as well as our YouTube channel, PowerMonkey Fitness, for our longer form
content that we put out.
Well, as always, listeners, thank you forlistening.
You can find the Cult of Recreationalismon all of your podcasting services.
And don't forget to check us out onYouTube or our social media at bubs

(01:01:16):
naturals.
Just look us up and you'll find us andplease leave a thumbs up, maybe a five
star.
I don't know, whatever you're feelingyou're on and whatever you want to leave
for us.
And Dave, thank you so much for joining ustoday on the Cult of Recreationalism.
Thank you guys, appreciate it.