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The Real Neal- All that AND a glazed donut
Turns out, you can have your cake and eat it too. Proof: Neal Maddox. The 35-year-old NorCal CrossFitter’s penchant for sugary treats doesn’t seem to be holding him back in his quest to sweeten his standings as a Games athlete. This 5’10” 205-pound wall of muscle, who owns and trains at CrossFit X-Treme Athletics in San Jose, says his nighttime cravings for fat and carbs are a bit of a mystery, even to him, but his “donut recipe” (a glazed donut and glass of milk at bedtime) helps him sleep at night. If your Uncle Wally had said it, you might roll your eyes; but take one look at Maddox and his stats, and you’ll start Googling for the nearest Tim Hortons.
In 2012, he blasted through the NorCal regionals, shattering the world record in Event 3—a merciless four rounds of 100-pound dumbbell snatches alternating with sprints. Only Maddox’s friend, training partner, and fellow CrossFit phenom Jason Khalipa came out ahead of him when the six events had ended. Both were on their way to the 2012 Games to take a shot at a $1 million purse—Maddox starting out at fourth place overall and Khalipa at second.
Maddox, competing with a partially torn biceps, turned in top ten finishes in three of the first nine events, but managed only a disappointing 35th place in the rope-sled workout. He came back strong in the next event, the clean ladder, hefting 365 pounds to snare first place. It wasn’t enough, though, to move him into the final day of competition, a goal that had eluded him in the two previous years’ Games as well. It was some consolation, at least, to see his buddy Khalipa fight his way to a fifth place slot.
When asked how he might train differently for the 2013 Games, Maddox isn’t biting: he’s sticking with what has brought him this far. “The injury was really the hardest thing.” He notes that rubbing elbows in the gym with people like Matt Chan (men’s second place in the 2012 Games) and Rich Froning (two-time and current World’s Fittest Man) didn’t hurt one bit.
The come-from-behind kid
If you doubt the man knows how to make up for lost time, consider his humble beginnings. As a child, he was partially deaf and unable to speak. “My mom always jokes that I was the youngest kid to go to San Jose State because I went there for my hearing appointments,” he fondly recalls. At nine years old, after learning sign language and taking years of speech therapy, his hearing began to return and he started talking. “They never knew what the cause was,” says Maddox.
As a kid, he looked up to his dad, a towering guy who worked out. His tender pre-teen years were divided between watching his father stay in shape, sneaking a peek at Hardbodies on TV, and learning how to do push-ups and sit-ups when most kids his age were avoiding them like the plague. And he never forgets that, during his rough start in life, “People went out of their way to help me.”
He’s paying it forward now in his role as a Level 1 trainer, and his excellent showing in the last couple of years at regionals and in the Games has brought some notoriety—and undoubtedly a few extra clients. “Being at the Games doesn’t necessarily make me a better trainer,” Maddox insists, but if someone wants to go to the Games, I know how to get them there.” He’s quick to add that only about 1% of those who train will ever get to the Games, although many more have expressed the desire to do so. “People say, ‘I wanna go to the Games,’ but they have no idea. There’s years of prep that got me to this point,” Maddox says. “I would never want to crush anybody’s dream, but . . .”
In addition to training the young, fit, and wildly ambitious, he also finds gratification working with clients who may be older, somewhat fragile, or suffering from limiting conditions like MS. “Going to regionals makes me a better competitor, but what makes me a better trainer is watching the client and how they move, seeing and correcting the movement on a day-to-day basis.” The consensus from client testimonials is that he’s a tough, down-to-business kind of guy who gets results by tailoring workouts to his client’s needs and abilities, then pushing hard to make sure nothing is held back.
Fuelling success
What do you feed a CrossFit machine? Well, Maddox feeds it whatever it asks for. “I eat clean mostly,” he says, “but if I want something bad, I’m gonna get it. I listen to what my body wants.” The machine likes to stay well-oiled, apparently: it asks for fat at every meal, and Maddox has been quoted elsewhere as saying, “I eat fat; in fact, I eat a lot of fat.” A recent day’s meal plan looked like this: eggs and toast for breakfast; a fruit and protein snack; lunch of rice or a sweet potato with protein; a Progenex shake with coconut water in the afternoon; dinner of salmon and zucchini; and a slice of carrot cake (substitute glazed donut or other bodily requests, as appropriate).
Like many top-tier CrossFitters, Maddox integrates his workouts with family time. “Slowly but surely,” he says, he’s making CrossFit a way of life for his teenage daughter. When he picks her up after school, they travel together to the gym, where she studies while Maddox works out. “When I’m done, it’s her turn to work out. I made it mandatory for her,” he admits, and explains why: “It’s more than working out—it’s fighting through adversity; it’s discipline, community, and structure.” He hopes the lessons she’s learning in CrossFit will stay with her through the college years, preparing her to go out and get what she wants from life—even if that is an occasional donut.
