Giovanni Svette: From CrossFit to Ruck Race League Finalist

0:00 What did that victory mean to you personally? That was like a stamp of approval for everything I've been working for. All the time spent, all the 5 a .m. getting up because I've got, you know, a kid, a year and a half year old. I've got to do everything before they get up. And just everything just fell in line and it was all worth it. Welcome to the Rucker's Edge podcast, a show all about rucking that is designed to help you develop a rucking routine, lose weight, and ultimately gain your strength and energy back. Whether you're an office worker with lower back pain, a fitness first -timer, or a new parent trying to get back to your pre -kids weight, this is the show for you. I'm your host, Spencer, and today I sit down with Giovanni Civetti, a CrossFit athlete who has made the leap to competitive rucking and is now heading to the Ruck Race League finals. We talk about how his rucking training evolved from moderate miles to structured event prep and how he dug deep and used familiar terrain and a determined mindset to win the Stairway to Heaven event, which consisted of rucking over 5 ,000 feet of elevation with 10 % body weight in just two hours. He also opens up about dealing with back pain, how he discovered rucking, and how he is preparing for the Ruck Race League Finals in November. All right, here's my conversation with Giovanni Savetti. Giovanni Savetti, welcome to the Rucker's Edge podcast. It's really nice to have you here. Yeah, thanks for having me,

1:31 man. I've been following you on social media for a little bit, and you've been posting some pretty incredible workouts. And then I saw that you made the Ruck Race League finals and have been wanting to get you on the podcast to have a chat. So I appreciate you coming on for sure. Man, I really appreciate it. Absolutely. So I guess I kind of want to start in the beginning. Before you started rucking, you were pretty deep into CrossFit. And I'm just curious, what drew you to that style of training in the first place? So, you know, randomly dropping my kid off and actually, you know, on the way to the car from jujitsu, which the CrossFit gym had like a little jujitsu gym on the side. And that co -worker, actually a manager of mine, Tripp McCall, was like, hey, man. You know, I teach CrossFit here and I was like, oh, I've always wanted to get into CrossFit. But, you know, man, you guys are in way better shape. You'd kill me. He was like, no, no, that's how you get better at it. Yeah.

2:31 And I explained to him, dude, I had a back issue from lifting a bunch of UPSs. There was over like 100 UPSs that were about between 50 and 70 pounds that I just installed for work. And I tweaked my back. Told him about that. He was like, I'll work around it. Just meet me at 5A. And two years later. No, no, three years. Wow. So three years. So UPSs, those are like backup batteries? Yeah, universal power supplies. Gotcha. OK, very cool. So, yeah, you're doing some exercise on the job and then you started doing some workouts after after working. So I'm curious, like how has the back been since CrossFit? Have you I'm guessing there's been a lot of improvement since you're still doing it three years after the fact.

3:21 I have I have absolutely no back pain anymore. It's amazing. Yeah, that's really cool. You know, I've noticed something similar. So I have a desk job. I sit at the desk all day and my posture definitely could be better. And I find myself hunched over a few times when I'm trying to read something small on the screen or whatever. And at the end of the day, I would feel like, you know, some lower back pain. But this is all pre -rucking, post -rucking. It's kind of just like cured it. I don't know if it's it's fixed by, you know, pulled my shoulders back. It's fixed my posture a little bit. And yeah, no, no back pain here either. But it's cool to hear other people have the same experience. How did you first get introduced to rucking? So, yeah, I was actually introduced into rucking because of Dave Castro's Instagram post saying that, you know, hey, CrossFit is sponsoring with GoRuck.

4:09 So I immediately was like, OK, I need to go ahead and get a ruck. And come to find out in about November, December, they had the long range rucker on sale for about a hundred and something bucks. So I sent that link to my wife and then forgot about it. And then she surprised me for Christmas. And it's been rucking ever since, man. That's awesome. I absolutely love that ruck. Cool. Yeah, it's great to have a support system like that, too. That's really awesome. What year would that have been? So it was about a two year and a half ago. Twenty three. OK, cool. And what was that first ruck like using the new rucksack? It killed me. So it was after it was after like a like a double under workout. So my shins already done.

5:04 And then I actually had like some pretty bad shin splints. Because I went straight for the 35 pounds. Naturally. Yeah, like everybody does, I'm sure. I'm guilty of that too. And that was not a good idea. Who did you, did you go with the crew? Did you go just with the coach? Oh, no, no. I just went by myself down downtown Albemarle, up and down. We have five points, which is uphill, downhill, uphill, downhill. And then you do another 400 meters and that's a mile. So I did that about three times. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So you, yeah, you strapped the 30 plus pounds. Plus you were going up and down hills for your first rock. That's like, yeah, let's get this. Yeah. It humbled me pretty quick. Well, yeah, I bet. And so you obviously came back, you enjoyed it enough. You're like, you know what? I'm going to, I'm going to get back to doing this. I'm curious, like what in rocking do you find so appealing that you, that keeps you coming back? Uh, just the, just the easy, uh, ease of use. You just put on the backpack. You can go anywhere with it.

6:08 It goes with you. You never have an excuse anymore not to work out. Like there's been several times where I've had like a little lunch break and rucked in the gym. Awesome. Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah, as long as you have the rucksack with you, you can get a workout in. At what point did you realize rucking was going to be more than just an occasional workout? Like when did it click? Like, okay, yeah, I'm going to keep doing this. Dude, it's going to sound pretty crazy, but after I started rucking, I noticed just my overall performance whenever we log what we're doing in CrossFit. All my numbers just shot up. Running got better. I guess it's called VO2 max. That's gotten better. It's just overall just peaked everything. I feel like I'm getting sore less. That's great. Yeah, I mean, that was sort of, you know, when I started doing this podcast, I was thinking of different names. And one of the things that I had also noticed when I started rucking was like it was giving me like that extra boost, I suppose. And so that's how it came up with the Rutgers Edge. I guess it's safe to say it's kind of given you an edge up on competition through completing all these different events with CrossFit and some of these events that I'm about to start asking questions about because I'm so curious. You have... quite a few competitive events under your belt. Uh, you've completed in several go rec events and a Spartan DECA events, possibly multiple, if I, if I remember correctly, but, um, which one of those events

7:40 stands out as the most challenging to you? Uh, well, not one in particular, they were all challenging. Um, one in particular that I was humbled with and, uh, uh, quick story about it was, uh, my, I told my wife whenever I signed up for the DECA, I was like, you know, I think I'm going to do the DECA, but I'm going to do it with a ruck. She's like, shouldn't you do the DECA without a ruck? I was like, no, no, no, no. I'm the ruck club leader at the time. I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to wear the ruck and I'm going to get a podium finish. And she's like, maybe you should just focus on finishing.

8:21 It's like, no, no, no. I got, I got this. I got this. And then I get there, man, and we're all lining up. And I don't know these guys from Adam. And they split us up into two. And then the main leader of, like, the whole DECA, he's pretty famous. He's on Instagram. His name's fleeting me at the moment. But he was like, hey, you know, who's trying to win this? Because you guys are going to be on first string. And nobody raised their hand. I was like. I'm going to try to win it with the rucksack. He just looks at me and kind of smiles. It was like, okay, you're in first string. Awesome. Dude, whenever we went off, uh, I got humbled really quick because I kept up with everybody. The first, the first lap, right? So I'm already pushing myself and, uh, we get past the first, uh, the first workout.

9:17 And then that's when it's settled in. So within that event, man, one guy that I was right behind was Mark Jones. I don't know. I think he might have won that event. And Bubbles, too. I didn't know who Bubbles was. I forget his real name, but he goes by Bubbles. He does like 50 cows in 30 seconds. But you had some humdingers in Concord, right? Mark Jones. Don't know if you know who he is. Yeah, yeah. He's actually agreed to come on in a few weeks. Oh, cool. Cool. Nuts. Humble, humbly up, dude. But he not only finished it, but as I'm doing the burpees, he's like, hey, you're the guy. The guy right behind you is is 11th place. So if you hold him off, you've got 10th. Let's go. And gave me the little bit of push that I needed, man. And afterwards, he's like, yeah, you're in this. You're going to be back. That's great. So that was your first DECA.

10:21 Yes. Yeah. And you're like, yeah, you know what? Don't know what the rec set never done before, but I know I'm doing it with the rec set. And so how did, how did you finish? Uh, dude, it, it took everything. I had all the, all the, but what helped me was, uh, having my family there, man, that support system, uh, my wife, my kid, um, my little girl at the time do the like best support system in the world. Oh, that's great. That is so awesome. I have not competed in any of these events. I don't do I don't do CrossFit. I'm just a dad with a day job that rocks and does workouts in the backyard. So seeing you all compete at that level and, you know, set those times and accomplish what y 'all are is it's pretty amazing. And I bet having your family there gave you that extra push to to to really do as best as you could. That's awesome. What has been your proudest ruck -related accomplishment so far? Dude, definitely qualifying for the Ruck Racing League final. Yeah, that is an accomplishment.

11:26 That is so cool. Yeah, let's start talking about that. So how did you find out about the Ruck Race League? I think the same outlet, man. I think Dave Castro shared it out, and then I started seeing it in different areas. And I'm like, what? is this how would this even work and then i was kind of thrown off with you know uh the the whole uh i guess the whole model behind it because i'm like okay i'm paying a hundred dollars it's virtual i could just do these on my own but then i'm like but then there's still that competitive out yeah there's a leaderboard So I was like, okay. I told my wife, I was like, I know this is a lot of money, but if it's over five, I can either do the DECA or this. So that's whenever I chose to not do the DECA and do this instead.

12:22 And I'm glad I did. More with Giovanni in just a moment, including how he prepared for the Ruck Race League. But I want to take a quick break to say thanks for listening to the podcast. Please text this episode with a fellow rucker that might find it interesting or with a friend that could benefit from rucking. Sharing this episode would help the show grow and help more people improve their health and lives. Okay, back to it. So walk us through your training prep starting back. I think you started training in February of this year. Yeah, yeah. So training preps, just been doing CrossFit, try to get in there five days a week. the, the go rock training. Uh, so you've got go rock tribe on, uh, beyond the whiteboard.

13:11 Okay. So doing a little bit of those workouts. Um, I actually in between that, I, I'm pretty confident. Uh, I did also heavy drop training. Yeah. Uh, so I did a session of that and actually they got a leaderboard on that. So me and my partner won that session. So we go like, Oh, nice. I think we get like 80 % off the next session or something like that. That was, that was, that was effort in itself, man. I think within that session, there was like a mile of, uh, bear crawls, uh, a mile of broad jumps. There was some really cool events in that heavy drop train. Okay. That's, that's really cool. And so ruck race league has six events. Is that right? Uh, they have five.

13:58 OK, so there are five events in the regular season. And then how do you qualify to get into the finals? So you can either. So from what I've I've seen, this is the first year. So what I think happened is, you know, you've got your standings, the top 10 in each men, women division. And then you have five spots for each workout winner. And that's how I got mine was not the standings, but I won the stairway to heaven. which was max ascent that you can do with, I think it was either 10 or 15 % of your body weight for two hours. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I channeled everything, man.

14:40 I was praying. I was like visualizing my, my kid. And then I actually just recently lost my cousin and to some drugs and drug dealer gave him some, some bad stuff. And I appreciate it. But looking at the messages, I'm horrible with follow up and keeping up with family. But the last thing I was talking to him about was he actually had some back pain and he was unfortunately using pain medicine and to get rid of it. And he asked me if working out might do it. So I gave him a big, long story. I was like, hey, dude, meet me here. And I just never followed up with him. So I kind of did everything I could for him because he couldn't. Yeah. So I just channeled every one of that and I didn't stop at all. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And so let's see, your final scoring was 5 ,314. Now that's feet ascended.

15:43 Yep. Yep. Wild. That is wild, man. Walk us through that. How, what did you do? How did it go? So so I used the front line back. I actually got with the owner and talked to him about his front line bags, because at the time, like GORUCK really didn't have like a light bag. I was like, OK, any little edge. Right. And then I just I got a GORUCK shoes, brand new shoes, because the prep all month was going up that hill. And that's actually the same hill I use for my my rut club that we started. Thanks to Kelly, the owner.

16:24 She actually I reached out to her. I was like, hey, why don't we why don't we start like like a rucking club? And that's one of the main hills I love for that club meeting. And yeah, it's just running up and down that hill as much as possible. And using that lighter rock definitely, definitely helped. I can see that. And so I think the parameters were max elevation and two hours at 10 % body weight. So is that what you did? You did two hours and at 10 % body weight? Nice. Yep. And then you could only use, so you couldn't use any poles either. Thanks to Dave Castro.

17:11 He was like, it's funny seeing the guy who programs the CrossFit. The CrossFit Open and all things CrossFit really steamed the lines. It's like, I guess he played the athlete, right? I was like, well, you didn't necessarily say you couldn't use poles. He actually used poles for Atlas, which was funny. But so the owner, Bill, he cracks up about it. He's like, well, I'm going to call that the Dave rule. I did see that implemented. Yeah. That's probably going to be another rule in the in the finals as well. So what did that victory mean to you personally? So that was like a stamp of approval for everything I've been working for all the time spent, all the 5 a .m.

18:00 getting up because I've got, you know, a kid, a year and a half year old. I've got to do everything before they get up. And just everything just fell in line and it was all worth it. That's awesome. I'm really happy for you. Congrats again. That's so cool. And OK, so, yeah, you're headed to the Ruck Race League finals. What's your mindset like going into an event like this? Dude, I'm just going to get at everything I have. Like I've already been humbled once with the DECA. So I know. I know what I'm going up against.

18:41 I'm going up against the best of the best. We all deserved, obviously deserved to be there. And I'm just trying to train the best I can, try to get more miles. That's another thing is I have no idea what the event's going to partake, like whether or not sandbags are going to be in it, whether it's going to be several little, is it going to be like the whole Ruck Racing League events all in one day? Or is it going to be one big distance? So I'm trying to train for all of it. I've actually, my wife is kind of pushing me now because I mentioned going over to like URI trails and they have a 11 .5 loop that has like 11, 1100 foot elevation. And I was like, yeah, I probably need to do that like twice before then. And I was like, well, why don't you just do it tomorrow? I guess I got two. That's so great. Yeah, that's like I guess that's sort of like the there's like a mystique around Ruck Race League, right? Because they don't announce all the events before the regular season starts, right? They announce them. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure the events are announced like the first day of the month and you have that entire month to complete the event.

19:59 And then results are posted. Yeah. So you can either spend that time prepping a training or. You know, trying that event, seeing what you need to work on, trying to prep for it and then go after it again. Yeah, that's cool. So you could like try to do the event multiple times and I guess you can submit your best time. Yep. Cool. Oh, that's that's great. All right. So what would success look like for you at the finals? Is it about winning or is it is it about something else? Do you have anything to prove or are you just just really excited and happy to participate? I would like to prove to myself that I, I belong in the top 10. Um, that would, that would be really great. So out of 15, if I can place, you know, like better than better than last, um, just, I just don't want to quit. Um, yeah, I don't think I will. And just, just really honestly, like just enjoying the moment. Yeah. socializing with the best of the best, like how often would I have a chance to actually talk and like swap stories and maybe get some training advice from the big dogs? Yeah, that's going to be a really cool experience for you. Wow. Yeah, I'm excited for you. I'm going to be pulling for you. Let's move on to community aspect that you're trying to facilitate through your rec club. I know you're

21:31 trying to grow it, it sounds like. Why is that important to you, and how is that going? Dude, it's going absolutely awesome. I think it's brought not only the wrecking aspect, it's given an outlet to the CrossFit people because they always try to talk to each other before the workout, but not all of them get there super early. It's really nice to hear, OK, what events are you shooting for? What goals do you have? And it kind of I've noticed it even pushes other CrossFit elites at the gym to maybe partner up because like we don't really talk to each other outside the gym.

22:12 And just building that whole community of like just awesome people that want to do the next big thing is pretty cool. So how often are y 'all meeting up? Are y 'all y 'all rucking before each workout every day or once or twice a week? So we're doing twice a month on a Saturday and it's right before a workout. Most of the time. There's been maybe one or two weeks that maybe they've done like Wadapalooza or another event that they got to travel to. So we didn't have everybody there, but anybody that wanted to do a workout, we've done a workout. And then we've also done what's called a go -ruck takeover at the gym, too. I got with Bianca and the guys over there at go -ruck. And they sent us some patches over and gave us a little bit of, like, media out. So we might be able to get a few people from outside the gym. But that was good to lead some CrossFit people into, like, a boot camp workout. And they enjoyed it. Your Instagram.

23:19 I guess, handle is rucking dad. I'm so curious, you know, what do you hope your son takes away from seeing you train and compete at this level? I just, I just hope he, you know, he can, he can do everything, everything he puts his mind to it and not to ever give up. And with your rucking experience and at your level, I'm just curious if, if, if someone listening wanted to start rucking today or wanted to improve their rucking, what advice would you give them? The best piece of advice I can give somebody that wants to start wrecking is just grab any backpack. You don't need a go wreck. You don't even need a front line, even though front lines really hitting that best bang for your buck outlet now.

24:04 But you just need just need dumbbells or even brick like rocks. And you can buy a bag of sand at Lowe's for. Nothing. Maybe like three, four dollars and just start walking, walking with weight. That's great advice. Now, if one advice I'd have for somebody for improvement is it took me a while to learn this, but socks, socks are really, really, really important. And merino wool is where it's at. What's your go to sock these days? Uh, so my go -to socks are the, the go -ruck Marina wools. Uh, I've, I've got a bunch of them. Uh, the wreck, um, mud gear actually makes a pretty awesome sock. Um, darn tough makes a, uh, a good sock, but it's kind of loose for me. Might be less loose for somebody else. But I definitely start playing with different socks.

25:08 And actually, I've I've got a side project that I'm working out with a sock mill and hopefully designing my own sock soon. Cool. Oh, that's exciting, man. Yeah, I'd like I'd love to hear more about that some other time whenever you whenever you get the chance. That's pretty interesting. Absolutely. Well, we're getting close to the end here before we jump into the rapid fire round. Giovanni, I wanted to thank you again for coming on the podcast and talking about your rucking experience. I'm crazy happy for you. Congrats again on making the finals. And I can't wait to follow along in your journey and see how things turn out for you. The best of luck to you. I'll be pulling for you. I appreciate it. Absolutely.

25:48 You know, if people are interested in following along in your journey, where should they where should they go? Yeah. So just follow me on. Most social media, I've changed them all to at Rucking Dad. Cool. Okay. And I'll put a link in the show notes for everyone to click and go straight there. Okay. So we're going to finish this up with a rapid fire round. You've already sort of talked about your first rucksack, which is really cool to hear about. If you could only ruck one trail for the rest of your life, what trail would that be? Probably the URA trails. Where's that? Uh, so it's right off of, uh, like Troy, Troy, North Carolina, Montgomery County. Uh, it's, it's free Austin trail. They have a big four wheel trail.

26:37 I didn't know that it was in my backyard. That's awesome. Okay. Well, that's convenient. What's your favorite non -rucking workout? Uh, probably, well, I guess that's kind of a Chad would be my favorite workout. Gotcha. You can do it with the ruck, but you can do it with the vest too. Gotcha. And so you go on some pretty long rucks. You have the headphones in, you have the headphones out. And if you're listening to anything, what are you listening to? I've got the headphones out and just completely unplugged. Cool. And lastly, bucket list rucking trail. What's yours?

27:20 Actually, I'm listening to, what is it called? Cameron Haynes' new book, Undisputable, Undeniable, something like that. But he's talked about during his podcast, one of the reps that he does is he actually does what he does every day, which is I think it's run, lift, shoot. So him and whoever he's doing a podcast with is running up Pisgah, Mount Pisgah. And I want to do Mount Pisgah. It's only like three and a half hours away. So like that, that's within reason. I can go do that. I might actually do that for the prep. Nice. Yeah. Have you seen a side note?

28:08 Have you seen his son, what he's accomplishing wearing jeans? Truett is absolutely amazing. He's inspired me to do something with some origin jeans. That's another local company that's over here in Asheboro, North Carolina. And he just released some cotton jeans that are all American, all made here in the United States. Everything from buckle to everything. It's nuts. Cool. Cool. Well, Giovanni, I think that concludes our conversation today. I really appreciate, again, taking the time to have this chat with me today. And best of luck to you at the finals, man. Going to be pulling for you. Absolutely. I appreciate it.

28:54 And I just want to give a quick shout out to God, man. It's the only reason I'm able to do everything in the CrossFit. Albemarle owner, Kelly, and my family. They're the best support. That's great, Giovanni. Well, thanks again, and I'll be following you on Instagram. See ya. See ya. All right, that wraps up my conversation with Giovanni. You can connect with him on Facebook or on Instagram at rucking underscore dad. I'll drop those links in the show notes. If you want to reach out to me, head on over to theruckersedge .com or on Instagram at theruckersedgepod. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you follow or subscribe to The Rucker's Edge so you're notified of new episodes. All right, that's it for today.

29:39 Thanks again for listening to this episode of The Rucker's Edge.