Barbell Shrugged - 123- Building an Unbeatable Mind w/ Mark Divine of SealFit

Episode Date: June 18, 2014

This week on Barbell Shrugged we are honored to chat with Mark Divine, retired Navy SEAL Commander and founder of SEALFIT and U.S. Crossfit. Surprise, surprise, this show will leave you reconsidering your training, the true effort you’re applying in the gym, and the direction you’re heading. In short, its just what you need to hear.  For those who don’t know, SEALFIT is somewhat like Crossfit, only it’s more…Way more. Quite literally, this is what your whiteboard should say if the goal of the day is to prepare Navy SEALS for the rigors and chaos of military conflict. It’s also the sort of thing we should all experience from time to time if we want to be fully prepared for the rigors of civilian life. These lessons, to one degree or another, are for special forces bad asses and civilian warriors alike.  Mark’s training philosophy centers around the so-called “5 Mountains” of personal development. First, there’s the stuff any crossfitter, strength athlete or serious fitness enthusiast would recognize. The mountain of physical preparation includes strength, stamina, endurance, work capacity and durability. For the most part this is exactly what most expect out of a good strength and conditioning program. On the flip-side, this is usually all most would expect. Four mountains remain largely unchartered.  Full personal development and the realization of one’s true potential is impossible, until there’s awareness and an acknowledgment of what remains to be explored and cultivated. Incidentally, this act of discovery is also the first of the remaining mountains. The others are emotional control, intuition, and last but most important, Kokoro, which is the warrior’s unconquerable spirit.  Consider what your training might be lacking. Right now, be honest. When was the last time you ventured outside of the gym and trained in an intentionally hostile and challenging environment? Something like isolated woods, or perhaps rocky and bone chilling surf? Do you practice spiritually renewing activities like Yoga on a regular basis? Do you put the same amount of effort and intent into into breathing and meditation exercises as you do your snatch or back squat? If not, you should. After all, what good is a strong body if the seat of emotional and physical control is undisciplined and prone to failure? What exactly are you capable of if quitting is simply not an option? If there’s really nothing out there to fear?  We all need the barbell. We need to train with proven methods in order to develop ourselves physically. But those remaining mountains must be explored. These methods – as new and foreign and painful as they might be – must be included in the DAILY training plan. The warrior is strong, spiritually healthy, and as we also learned duringepisode 116 with Joe De Sena, has experienced, embraced, and disarmed suffering.  Indeed, that’s what turns the common athlete into a true warrior.  To learn more about Mark Divine and his methods, make sure to check out 8 Weeks to SEALFIT, Unbeatable Mind and The Way of the Seal. They are simply amazing books. Also, if you are interested in becoming fully aware and experiencing the SEALFIT experience for yourself, you should definitely check out some of Mark’s live training events. Just know ahead of time that this will most likely be the most difficult challenge of your life, but hell, you’re after the profound personal transformation and empowerment, right? …Right, so you know there’s a cost.  You’re capable of paying that price. Go ahead, do it, just start with the 20X Challenge, which is a one-day course designed to take your training and leadership skills to the next level. From there you can consider the SEALFIT Kokoro Camp, which is an intense fifty-hour experience modeled after US Navy SEAL Hell Week. And if you’re still hungry for more, there’s always the SEALFIT Immersion Academy, a highly formidable and extremely comprehensive 3-week course designed to install the core skills and traits of elite Navy SEALS.  Go on, what are you waiting for? Get up the mountain. Go find out just what you’re really capable of.  Cheers,Chris Moore P.S. During the break make sure to check out the latest episode of TechniqueWOD on squat fundamentals. After all, we want to be tough as SEAL warriors, but we still want huge squats, right? 

Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrug. For the video version, go to barbellshrug.com. Welcome to Barbell Shrug. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson and CTP behind the camera. We've traveled to Encinitas, California for vacation and then we got roped into doing things. Boo. I'm just kidding. Boo-hoo. No, we're hanging out with our friend Mark Devine of SealFit and U.S. CrossFit. Ooh, y'all.

If you've never been to SealFit.com, definitely check that out. We're going to be talking about the SealFit program, books Mark's written, just all sorts of stuff. It's going to be jam-packed, so don't go anywhere, but before you do anything, go to barbellshrug.com, sign up for the newsletter, and that's how you support the show, really. So make sure you check that out, and you can kind of see what we do, other than just podcasting. Now Mark, we got up really early this this morning and we joined you for a workout. I was thinking it was going to be about an hour long. You said seven o'clock, op wad. And I was like, I'm in. So we all got here.

Wait, was that amen or I'm in? I think I heard amen. Oh man. He wasn't that motivated so Doug we all came out to train Marcy Doug's wife she

she killed it she came out she stuck around the whole time ended up being three hours long and it was a lot of fun

actually still written on the board over there still written on the board yeah if you want to check that out

CTP for the folks so if you're just listening obviously if you board yeah if uh you want to check that out ctp for the folks so if you're just listening obviously if you're watching the video you get to see this plus i think chris is going to put together a bunch of uh footage from us working out this morning and probably some uh other stuff so definitely if you're listening to this you might want to go over to youtube or go to the website rather and watch the video there. Now, Mark, my first impression of SealFit was probably in 2008, 2009. Right. Logging on the website.

And we used to do SealFit Sundays at my box, me and a few guys. They were just like, we want to do some extra hard once a week. And we would do that. It was a lot of fun. But, you know, I always thought about SealALFED as just like a high-volume training someone might want to do if they're preparing for the military. Right.

But after getting to know you and paying attention a little bit better, I've learned that that's somewhat of the goal, but really the real goal is training the mind, and that's what you specialize in. Right. Yeah, I started with the premise that we've got to train the mind and we use obviously physical training methods to get to the mind. It's the most effective way that we found

really to get into someone's mind and to kind of forge that mental toughness. So we're, you know, are we athletic trainers? Absolutely. But am I trying to train someone for the CrossFit games? No. I mean, you guys do that better than me. But training someone for special ops really is a mental game. And the body obviously has to be there and it needs to be able to handle the volume and it needs to be able to work, you know, in extreme circumstances. It needs to be able to work when it's cold, wet and tired. Those types of things. Yeah. I want to give everyone like a, I guess a rundown of what we did this morning. So yeah, at seven o'clock we came here, we did a, a pre SOP. So pre standard operating procedure. One of the things that I really enjoyed that I thought was unique about, uh, about how you presented the entire workout, uh, was when you briefed us was that you said, Hey, as I describe what we're going to do today, I want to visualize completing this. And think about, don't just sit there and listen. Because I think a lot of people do that.

You know, the coach is going over the workout. He's like, uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, I'm going to do that, I'm going to do that. They don't visualize doing it. And then, you know, kind of like thinking about what problems might exist. It's like, oh, I'm not sure which piece of equipment I'm going to use. I don't know exactly how to do that movement or how long are we supposed to rest between these things.

There's all this stuff and if you're walking through, as you're describing, and I'm standing there thinking, okay, I'm going to do that, I'm going to do that, and then I kind of broke it down and then I had some questions

I might not have had otherwise and I just been like, eh. So I thought that was just, from the very get-go, you did it differently than most coaches where you said, hey, visualize it. I actually think that folds into being successful throughout the entire workout too. I'd love to talk about that for a second, may I? Yeah, go for it.

Perfect. You know, we approach the workout, we try to win it in our mind before we start it. So that's an incredibly valuable component of training. It may not take three hours. The real work is taking the other two hours and 55 minutes. But you can win it or lose it in that five-minute pre-SOP. Oh, yeah. And like you said, if you're not paying attention,

if you brought some baggage along to the game and you're obsessing about it and you miss a critical component of the brief, then you may get injured. You may fuck up a teammate. And furthermore, you're just not going to be mentally prepared. And so you win each segment in your mind you're clear about what you got to do you see yourself performing you know all these questions come up how i'm going to do do i need to

scale what's my equipment going to look like and you answer those questions before you ever start training plus when you get into the workout you've had a very subtle performance indicator that you've been there before which helps you know helps your mental confidence confidence. Do you carry that over to the rest of your day? Like when you wake up in the morning, you see your schedule, you kind of like visualize the whole day that way, just like the workout, you can see what's in front of you. You visualize it. And that way you're more focused when you get to, even if it's something as simple as going to a meeting. Yeah. Yeah. We call, I have a, and one thing I teach to my unbeatable mind students is what's called the morning ritual. And part of that is to visualize your day and to make sure that what you've agreed to aligns with what you should be doing.

And so it's kind of a last chance to make some course corrections. You see yourself going through the day. You see yourself rocking it. And then once again, as you step foot into that day, you've already been there. You've already won in your mind. And it has a profound impact, you know, over time. It's a fantastic idea. I think a lot of times I hear this from a lot of people,

and I've been there myself, is get done with a whole day of work, and you're, like, busy the whole time, but you don't feel like you did anything. What exactly did I accomplish? Like, what did I accomplish? And if you visualize that at the front of the day, you'll go, okay, that lined up with what I visualized this morning, so then you'll have that feeling of accomplishment. Right, and it helps you see, like, what is the, you know, what's the major accomplishment

that I want to get done today? Like today it's hanging out with you guys and, you know, getting to know you and training together and doing this. I mean, done, you know, check and that's a successful day. We've won. Now, if I want to accomplish some other tasks, projects, that's all gravy, right? So you get very, that's a bonus miles, right? You get very clear on what it is that's going to move the dial toward your goals. And those goals of course are, are tight and they're aligned with, you know, where you really need to go. Did you get any bonus stuff done today while we were napping? Yeah, I got a nap. That was bonus. You knew that was happening, right? No doubt. Yeah. So that was the first thing was, and you know, it was interesting as I met Mark down in Miami a few months ago and, um, we, uh, I recruited some, I recruited Mark first to do

like yoga and swim some laps for a workout in the morning. Uh, and then I then told him hours later that I'd recruited people and he was leading yoga and he was leading the workout. And he's like, Oh, right on. And, uh, but, uh, when we did that, we, we did like a little bit of a meditation visualization session. It was like really, it was really powerful for me. And, uh, I like doing a little bit of meditation, but I don't do as much visualization like that. And, um, you know, we, we did this visualization exercise, like a warrior thing. And I started using that. I don't do it every day, but I use it sometimes. Like if I'm going to, if I'm going to in a workout that's really challenging, I go through like that. You know, the breathing that we went through that day and just the visualization.

And I visualize like completing each rep and hitting it hard and not having like that doubt in my mind, like whether I can do it or not, or, you know, the question of quitting or anything. And I've noticed that since I've done that, I've just been, like when I do that visualization prior to workout, like I'm much more confident throughout the workout. And I'm just like, I just feel better overall. I feel like I'm winning it as I go. I feel like a lot of people talk about visualization. You know, we've been training it now for seven years or so, but, um, they don't really do it. You know, it's just like

training, training, physical training. If you don't do it, your body starts to fall apart and you start to atrophy. You know, you can't hide with the physical training, but you know, I can't see you guys visualizing. So I don't know if you're doing it and I don't know if you're doing it well. And so it's very difficult to teach it and to train it. It requires a feedback mechanism. And we do that in our immersive academies because I have a lot of time to spend with the guys. But if you train it and you do it every day, it does have a profound impact. In fact, I'll maintain that it's as powerful and it's an incredibly powerful complement or let's say an equal part to the physical training.

And, you know know it's really the next frontier for um for growth yeah i think i remember when i was in college and i was in a sports psychology class and we were doing the visualization stuff nice and i was like no not nice i was i was not i was not uh very open at the time you weren't buying into it i was like this is horse shit i'm'm just going to go train. Right. That's what I was thinking. I was like, why would I do this if I could be training type of thing?

Right. But over the years, being injured and visualization kind of helps. Right. And then, I mean, I was obsessive anyway, so I was already visualizing, but didn't realize it was visualization. Right. Laying in bed thinking about doing snatches. It's like, oh, that's visualization in a way.

But, yeah, nothing, you know. And it's funny, as I look back on that class, I was like, man, I really wish I would have taken that more seriously. And I wish I would have, like, taken that away sooner in life. But now, later in life, it's a huge factor in how I do things. I was fortunate to have a swim coach at Colgate University who believed in visualization I'd be dating myself I told you the actual years

a long time ago I tell this story a lot because it was so powerful for me but he had me visualize my event which was the 200 meter breaststroke which is kind of a painful event and he'd have me do it at night with a stopwatch and it took me several

months before I could get through the entire workout. I mean, that's how challenging visualization can be to actually hold your attention, hold that visual image from, you know, the gun going off, jumping off the block, you know, doing your underwater pullout and swimming, touching the wall, turning underwater, swimming and doing eight lengths and then touching the wall. So when I finally was able to do it after I stayed with it, because you know, he, the coach begged me to, I actually tried to hang up my virtual swimsuit a couple of times. I just can't do this, man. He's like, stay with us, stay with it, stay with it. And I finally settled on being able, uh, being able to swim the whole race. And my time settled out to a time where, you know, I was getting within a fraction of a second every time I swam

it in my mind. Yeah. And then the last time I ever swam for the team was a championship race, and I'd had a big break in between, and I swam that time. I mean, I literally hit the time, which was three seconds faster than my fastest time ever. Oh, nice. So it really kind of hit home that, hey, there's something to this visualization. So I kind of rolled with it on faith at that point and had a powerful impact.

Yeah. It's not just anecdotal, but there's a lot of research to show that it's extremely, like more beneficial than you would imagine. I mean, it's like 70 to 8% as effective as actually doing the activity. Like it can be. I know with me, when I visualize things, I'm really trying to not just see it, but I'm trying to feel it as it's happening. And I think that's one of the major benefits is there's, there's some type of neural connections that are being made as you're, as you can feel your body going through that, through that same range of motion that you're doing, if you're swimming or if you're squatting or doing anything physical. So there's two, two ways to visualize you have first person and third person, right? What's your preferred method? Um, I switch off between the two right if i'm very

very comfortable with a skill so let's say i've mastered the skill then i'll use the first person you know which is if i had a little helmet cam on if i'm new if i'm new to a skill then it'll be third person as if i'm watching myself from a perspective you know you could actually make the argument that visualization could be more effective than actually doing the task if you're doing the task improperly right right because you can have perfect form in your mind and when you practice with perfect form in your mind that's better than practicing with shitty form yeah you know in real world right yeah you can get perfect practice right yeah so i think someday they should have the visualized crossfit games where you just do the whole

thing in your mind. I could totally win that. I particularly like it if you're injured and you can't do the physical part. Well, now you can still kind of stay on your game, still practice in your head. Right. It's not as good as being able to practice if you're limited where you can't do anything at all. Definitely not as good, but it's way than than not doing any visualization at all good

point it's going to keep you in the game keep you thinking about it yeah keeps you alert keeps you fresh yeah so we uh we did uh he had us like visualize the workout as we went we were standing there um and then we did uh for so for the warm-, we did box breathing, which is something I don't do a lot of. Uh, and so I, you know what I should, you know, I,

you know, and, uh, I've done it here and there with some meditation, like with different people. Right. Uh, but I've never like kind of done it on my own,

but I've done it with, with some, uh, teachers. I thought that was really good. If someone wanted to find out more about box breathing, what would that, where would they look for that?

It's sealFit.com and probably our online training. It's not something that we, that we throw a lot of that type of training out to the public unless they come on and join,

you know, it's like joining a newsletter at least. So if you come and get on our email list and you'll get more information. It's not usually something like, oh my God,

I'm going to go get box breathing information from SealFit. It's like you sign up for something else and you might get some information. Yeah, you've got to want to know what it is. You know, we lead with the physical, and we want everyone to know that physical training is pretty effective.

But, like, at every workout, you know, it says pre-SOP and box breathing. And so if you're doing the workouts, eventually you're going to ask, what the hell are these things? So what is it, though, for everyone that doesn't know? No, box breathing essentially is a breathing method where we essentially breathe through our nose into our abdomen. And what we do is we'll just breathe in a box pattern. So we'll inhale to a certain count. And beginners, I recommend four to five. You'll hold it for a count, four to five.

So the same duration. Then exhale all the air out of your lungs for a count of four to five. And then hold the bottom. And, you know, it's interesting. People are like, yeah, I breathe. Okay, everyone breathes. But how often do you practice breathing? It's kind of like practicing visualization.

If you don't practice it, then you don't do it very well. A lot of people breathe poorly. Watch them compete, see them breathing poorly. Right. And I just can watch them melt down. Right. There's a couple of key things here. First of all, it helps you relearn or learn,

for some people, how to breathe through your nose and to be able to maintain that even as your intensity thresholds start to climb. And so during most training stages of the seal fit, I'm working on breathing through my nose and that deep diaphragmatic breath. And if you breathe through your mouth, it kind of upsets the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

And so you can get a little bit of toxicity, which will then degrade your performance, especially over the long term. The other thing, this is not known by a lot of people, but when you breathe through your nose, it generates a little trace element of nitrous oxide, which helps deliver the carbon dioxide and oxygen to your cells. So it actually kind of boosts performance. Also, okay, there are, you know, nerve bundles. This one's most commonly cited. They're nerve, you know, behind your solar plexus region, kind of, I don't know exactly where, but as you breathe through your nose into your belly,

then it stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms you down. Doesn't happen when you breathe through your mouth. When you breathe through your mouth, it goes right into your upper chest. If you breathe through your nose, it directs it kind of deep into your belly. So it's constantly sending a signal to calm you down. And then the act of focusing on the breath helps you concentrate, right?

And so you're not thinking about what's for lunch or a big old pancake I want to have for breakfast. You're actually thinking about what's for lunch or you know big old pancake i want to have for breakfast you're actually thinking about the toughest part that's the toughest part is blocking out that i was visualizing pancakes and not the training and the box breathing help i think later on the pancakes help too so we're not writing off the pancakes no the pancakes are extremely you know uh beneficial for part of the training of course earlier you were talking about off off camera you were talking about off off camera you were talking about like guys getting water sprayed in their face and training and

trying to like really mess with people's heads and trying to teach them even when they're getting messed with there's a lot of distractions like they're staying very focused and so i'd imagine in combat you're getting shot out there's explosions all kinds of crazy shit's going on but you still need to focus on the task at hand or you're not gonna be around very long so right you've talked about focusing a lot what are other things do you guys do besides just meditating and calming your mind to help guys learn how to overcome distractions and pay attention to one single thing? Well, all that, you know, all those kinds of Eastern techniques are great if you're sitting at home and everything's safe, right? There's not mortars dropping all around you.

And so spending time in breath control and visualization, I mean, that is money to help really prepare you for that moment in combat. But there's other ways, you know, that the SEALs and other special ops have learned to use, and that is to induce like simulated chaos, to induce, you know, a firefight, you know, where you know you're going to live, but we ramp up the intensity, ramp up the perceived risk. And so the Kokoro camp, you know, the 50-hour camp that you guys are going to enroll in and have a blast. October or sometime like that. Did I get the door?

I'm all talk, Mark. That's one thing you'll learn over the years is I talk a big game and then I just never sign up for shit. I'm just kidding. Kokoro camps works. We're going to do it. Think about some of the games athletes who've been through like Valerie Volberow, Becca Voigt,

Kenny Leverich, right, who got first in the South Carolina regions, Lindsey Valenzuela. You know, six months off

of Coral Camp because they all came through in October. Actually, Lindsey, the private director. That'd be the perfect time to go.

Man, they hit it hard when regionals and the games come along because they're just so focused and so able to control their mind in the context of all that chaos. Now it is a perishable skill,

as you can imagine, just like the meditation and visualization. So it can, you know, over time, you might, you know, slide away from that ability. So that some of the tools we use, like you talked about, Doug, is, you know, we've got a complex task to perform as both as an individual, as a team, you got to focus on your performance. You got to focus on teammates performance and there's conflicting instructions and there might be even conflicting, uh, understanding of who's in charge. Right. And so things get really murky, but at the same time you have to perform, you have to figure something out. Yeah. Right. And so, you know, we have this saying that doubt can be ended by action alone. So you've got to be moving, but while you're moving, we're even ratcheting up the chaos a little bit more and the confusion with water, with sound, you know, with smoke and those types of things.

So really kind of induce that, you know, the external chaos so that what you're forced to do is go deep inside and find the internal control, the internal kind of peace, the internal warrior. So that you can, within all that's going on, you can still make really good decisions. You can still maintain your cool and be a good teammate. And that's pretty cool. And cold, wet, and sandy is a big part of that. I'd imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Cold is a great equalizer sand. You know, if you're, you know, if you're rucking or running on the beach and you got sand all throughout your clothing, cause you've been wet and rolling around in the sand and now you're chafing and it's hugely distracting and uncomfortable

as you can imagine. So again, we just find these little nitinoid ways to get under your skin so to speak. Yeah. So we did our,

I'm going to walk through the workout so people get an idea of how our day went. So we did the box breathing visualization. This is a three hour show? This will be a three hour show.

Yeah. Just post the workout. We did a shrink portion.. Is this a three-hour show? This will be a three-hour show. Yeah. Just post the workout. We did a shrink portion. So we had a hang squat clean into a thruster. So five sets of five, just kind of increasing weight over time. That wasn't so bad for us because we have a good strength background. Roger that. It was different than what I normally do, for sure.

The reps were a little bit higher and very, very taxing. And then we rolled in the stamina, which is four rounds of eight front squats, 15 weighted dips, and then 10-meter handstand walk. That got fun. By then, like, the third and fourth rounds, my pushers were so tired. I was, like, nervous to go upside down because I was just going to fall on my head. Yeah. And it's all concrete here.

Yeah, it's all concrete. No soft landings. We did not bloody anyone this morning, I don't think. my head. It's all concrete here. Yeah, it's all concrete. No soft landings. We did not bloody anyone this morning, I don't think. Nobody died. Nobody died. Nobody died. No. Yeah.

And then we did, what's that? Work. Work capacity. Work capacity. I know that word. We did work capacity. Oh, this was more of like the CrossFit. So that four rounds, the front squats, weight dips, and handstand walk was not for time.

Right. So kind of just make sure you had nice high quality reps and good heavy amount of weight. And then the work capacity was very crossfitty. 10 deadlifts, 50 double unders, 25 wall ball shots for time. Right. That was a lot of fun. And then durability, three sets of 800 meters, five minute splits there.

800 meter run. Yeah. You forgot to say the run part. Oh, yeah. It was not a swim. It was not a swim. It was not a row. Although when I saw the 800, I was like, oh, fuck.

Could have been buddy carry. Oftentimes, we'll throw in the team drills and the durability so all the all the physical training we're all fairly used to higher volume than what i normally do uh and then we went into the room over here and we did uh some uh warrior yoga and uh some more uh breathing and uh did some things that were, I say the hardest thing I did all day happened in that room. Uh, it was in a, was it a horse, uh, three, three minute horse stance, horse stance, three minute horse stance. I was, I was getting the shakes and I was shakes in the burn. It was pretty tough. It's basically just sitting in a parallel squat for

three minutes with your hands out in front of you. Right. It was getting the burn. And that's a breathing exercise to breathing concentration, you know, because the whole point is that, you know, you're not used to sitting in that depth for very long. We're used to the dynamic motion up, down, you know what I mean? Pushing load. And so when you do that, you're working your muscles in a whole different range, you know, a whole different way.

And it takes a lot of concentration. And the way to get to the concentration is through the breath, right? So if you notice when you came back and were breathing deeply and letting the breath kind of flow through you, which is using your visual capacity, then you could push it for another five, ten minutes. Also using the micro goals. That's how I get through that, Frank.

I've got 15-second increments. I can make another 15 seconds. I would say that was the first time all day where I started kind of questioning. I would say that was the first time all day where I was like, I started kind of like questioning. Like I was already losing it. I was like, fuck this. I was like, I'm going to go as hard as I possibly can. But I was accepting failure in my mind at that point.

So three hours in to the workout. Right. And then we went and got pancakes afterwards. Pancakes and eggs and bacon. That made it all better. Everything was good after that. That was good shit. And then I went and took a nap.

You don't know this. We went back and I was like, between three hours of training and pancakes, it induced a coma. And I went back to the house and I hopped in bed. And when I woke up, I didn't even know who I was. I was like, it was one of those moments where you're like, you wake up and you're like, where am I type of thing. So travel a lot. But I woke up and I'm like, I don't even know what like decade a year. I was like, I was like, I was like, am I in

the Navy? That was like a decade ago. I'm like, what is going on? I'm like, I was like, I was like, am I in the Navy? That was like a decade ago. I'm like, what is going on? I'm like, all I knew is I had a sense of urgency. I'm running around the house. I'm like, I'm like, we're supposed to go podcast with Mark. I don't know what's going on. But like, yeah, the hard training plus the carbs just ruined me. I had some crazy dreams. And then it took me like, I was like emotionally scarred from it. I was like, I'm sitting in the kitchen, like, Oh, I got to get my life together. I'd like to say something about that. You just hit on a good point. You know, like I said, it's not really about that. Op-Wide is not so much about, Hey, you know, I'm going to try to,

you know, max out my squat clean thruster. I mean, how often do we do that? It's about, that's a kind of a complicated movement and you know, we're going to do it a little bit different. And so we like to do things a little bit different. You know what I mean? And through that and through the challenge of the duration, the load, the unique things, and also working together as a team, you do develop and tax, right, your emotional capacity.

Hell yeah, absolutely. Even just the thought, if you're a good athlete like you are, you know, just failing on something're a good athlete like you are, you know, just failing on something, right? Like, you know, I knew we'd find something that you would fail at.

You definitely did. Eventually, it was just standing still. Which can be really hard. Definitely the hardest thing to do. The hardest thing to do for a lot of people. Yeah.

But so we developed that emotion, you know, one of my objectives is to develop people physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. And I toss intuition in there because over time when you work together as a team

and you're in high-risk situations, you really cultivate that ability to listen to your belly and trust your gut, so to speak. So you've mentioned the team a number of times now. One of the things that I thought was really unique about the workout was after we got done with strength and then we did the stamina portion, then we were going to do the work capacity portion, which is basically the Metcon where it's rounds for time,

which is more what people think about when they think of CrossFit than about doing Metcons. You mentioned that when you brought the team together and you were explaining it, you said that it wasn't just about you as an individual. It's also about the team. So you're not just trying to get a good time for you. We're here together. We're trying to get a good time for the team. We were sharing barbells and whatnot. And so it was more about the group than it was about the team. So you're not just trying to get a good time for you. We're here together. We're trying to get a good time for the team. We were sharing barbells and whatnot. And so it was more about the group than it was about the individual. And I feel like that's, from what I've heard, kind of a theme of the teams, of being a SEAL, being in the military. It's more about the team

than it is about the individual. So you guys kind of emphasize that in your daily workouts? For sure. Yeah. I mean, you have to develop this idea of coopetition. And we are trying to bust our ass and do the best we can individually, but not at the expense of the team and not, you know, just to get the win. Especially if a teammate needs help or needs some encouragement, then you sacrifice yourself a little bit to get them through the sticking point because the whole team needs to win. And so, you know, training together as a team is a very powerful motivator and it's a great way to grow as a human being. And so it's very different than being in a group of CrossFitters with a coach in front of you, and everyone's just trying to get the highest score on the board. In most settings, each one's just focused on the individual, and literally they're tripping over everyone else.

So team training and what we try to do here is really focus on the team. It helps you expand your field of awareness. You know, you might have to share equipment. In fact, a lot of times even if we have enough equipment

we'll force people to share equipment. Yeah. And a lot of times, you know, like if I'm training and someone is just about to finish up

they're, you know, maybe they have four or five reps left on a certain set and the next thing is an 800 meter run. I'll wait for them to get done

so that I can push him and he can push me on the run. You know what I mean? So it's a different dynamic. Very cool. A coopetition. Yeah, I like that word, coopetition. All right, we're going to take a break real quick.

We're going to come back. We're going to find out Mark's secret breakfast for being a Navy SEAL. Nails. This is Andrea Ager and you're listening to Barbell Shrug. For the video version, go to barbellshrug.com. Barbell Shrug is brought to you by you.

To learn more about how you can support the show, go to barbellshrug.com and sign up for the newsletter. And we're back in the most beautiful town in the United States. I agree. Encinitas, California. Don't move here because I don't want to get crowded because I plan on moving here. So we talked about steel fit being for the mind and not so much for the physical.

I mean, we find mental toughness through hard physical training. Right. How did you, like, get into training people for this? And you mentioned Kokoro camp earlier. What does Kokoro mean kokoro means um merging your heart and your mind into your actions and and frankly when i first heard the word i it was um sounds like a little history for navy seal i know well it's a well japanese word and if we had an english word that could capture you know another another word that might

do it justice is saisu. Right? Part of that. That was one of Miku Sala's favorite words. Saisu is Finnish for like, you know, just throwing your heart into the challenge and never backing down. You know, it goes beyond grit. It goes beyond, hey, I'm not going to quit. Okay?

That's a mental concept. The idea of, of Kokoro and, or, and, or Saisu, because I think they're really similar, even though they sound nothing alike, um, is that you really drop into your heart and you throw your heart into it.

And you're much less likely to even consider the quit option. And the best way to throw your heart into something is to have a really strong reason for being there to begin with. And so being very clear. You know, in the beginning of Kokoro Camp, which is a 50-hour nonstop training, I like to ask people, why are you here? And I like to go around the room and listen to their responses. And you can kind of tell who's really there, who's dropped into their heart, and who has that Kokoro spirit. You know, so if someone says to me, like a woman says to me, you know, I'm here to prove to my daughters that it's okay to be a strong woman and I'm always going to be there for them. Wow.

I'm thinking, I'll see you on Sunday. Hell yeah. You're going to rock this camp. You know what I mean? And then I might have a Navy SEAL candidate that's like, yeah, I'm here to prove how tough I am. Like, stand by. This is going to be a very long, you know, six hours. Would that candidate might get some extra attention?

They might. Just a tad bit. But they usually don't even need it. They pretty much weed themselves out. Once you get through six, eight hours of that training, you're just like, holy crap. What have I signed up for? Why am I here? And then you have to answer that question why.

It's like with any serious challenge. And so that's really what I mean by Kokoro. Kokoro, you've already answered the question. Why? Yeah. You've merged your heart into your actions and you're just throwing your heart at it. So if you've got a seal fit,

you got us CrossFit, us CrossFit, kind of the affiliate here. Yeah. Right. People can have a membership at your gym and take CrossFit classes. That's just a small piece of what you guys do. It's a pretty small piece,

but it's important. You know, the CrossFit members provide, you know, daily energy, daily burn here. And we run, you know, six, like a, like a regular CrossFit gym, we run six class a day. We consider ourselves a private membership. You know, we're not actively recruiting. We don't market at all. It's kind of a power of attraction. And when people start training here, we're like, as soon as the first, you know, SealFit Academy or Kokoro Camp comes on, if it's a new CrossFit athlete, they're like, as soon as the first, you know, SealFit Academy or Kokoro Camp comes on, if it's a new CrossFit athlete, they're like, what the, what's going on over there? What's happening at the gym?

Well, exactly. What is that? And they were kind of interested. So we explained to them. They're like, well, how do I kind of participate in that? Be patient. You'll figure it out pretty soon. Yeah.

So a lot of the CrossFit members have stepped over the plate and participated in Kokoro Camp or our shorter 12-hour 20X program. And so we like it that way. It's kind of, you know, it's all one family. It's just kind of one aspect of it. So you have the Kokoro Camp, you got a 20X program,

which is, I guess, just an abbreviated version. It's a 12-hour version of Kokoro for those, you know, let's say masters or for people like Mike Bledsoe who really can't handle the whole 15 hours. I don't think they can handle the whole 15 hours. We got that on tape.

Can I have that segment to use on our blog? Just kidding. Yeah, so you guys have those two programs. What other programs do you have? We have these academies, SealFit academies. So we have a three day a five day and a 21 day shit and that's where this has pretty much quit your job for the 21 oh i love those because it's it's you know yeah exactly yeah you'd be surprised who comes to

those like we have guys you know who are in their 40s and 50s you know yeah and they just want to experience you know what it is that that it feels like to train you know immersively in this tight controlled environment for for three weeks straight it's very powerful so they live here on site we can put up you know 20 people on site we feed them the train from five in the morning until eight at night sometimes we go around the clock and so you know whereas kakoro camp could be related to like hell week in the seals even though it's very different the academy would be like i'm going to buds right right and you know the the um the training is very much of a hard and soft you know we can't hit you hard you know for 12 hours a day so you might do like the op wad followed by

warrior yoga like you did this morning yeah followed by a class you know followed by a run you know a soft sand run you know back here some sand run, you know, back here, some stretching or, or, you know, a class on nutrition. So it's really well balanced. I know a lot of people, I mean, I've talked to, you know, older than myself. Um, and I guess now I'm getting older, uh, guys my age who really, you know, they never did the military and, you know, they're like, man, I kind of wish I would have had that bootcamp experience or that military experience. But sometimes people just don't want to commit four years of their life so they can have that. A little bit of a commitment, right?

Yeah. You know, it's like they want that experience, but they don't want that time commitment. And hearing about, you know, something like this is like, and maybe you are considering the military, this is like a really, maybe a good option to kind of see what it might be like. Yeah, I can. On that point, it's so cool. We have a lot of guys who come and say, hey, listen, I'm thinking about the seals.

I'm 27 years old. You know, I've got a very short window here. And, you know, they come to the academy and they cap it with the 50-hour Kokoro camp. And they come up to me and they're like, I'm so glad. Oh, is that common to do 21 days? Yeah. Is that always the case?

The 21-day includes the Kokoro camp. Oh, shit. And then the one-week academy, the five-day academy, we schedule the Kokoro camp the weekend immediately following. So it goes from Saturday to Thursday. So if you're bold enough, then you can enroll in both and kill two birds with one stone. Dude, I just got a really great idea.

I'm going to sign my wife up for this. Right on. And then I'm going to go... Go surf? Yeah, go hang out. Go on vacation. What do you hope to accomplish by doing this

I don't know a shorter marriage I did the military so I'm like yeah go do that you don't need that I'll uh yeah

no I would I know I would get a lot of benefit out of it but uh I was like you see what it's like you're always complaining

no I'm just kidding actually I love you earlier you mentioned that for Kokoro room and board is included right and you were kind of You see what it's like. You're always complaining. No, I'm just kidding. Actually, I love you. Earlier you mentioned that for Kokoro, room and board is included. Right. And you were kind of joking about it. Right. Explain how that works.

Well, room and board is included. You know, if you choose to sleep, you probably will. That means you quit. And we feed you. I mean, you have tasty MREs and all sorts of good stuff. You're basically training for 50 hours straight. So really there's no, no need for a bed unless you quit. You know, it's funny. I don't know how many people know this who are Kokoro grads, but they're, they're going to be kind of, they'll be interesting for them to hear that in the first few camps, I don't know if it was two

or three, we actually did have cots and we actually did let people get a little bit of sleep and was that worse for them taking like a 30 minute nap mostly just to kind of induce like what you experienced this afternoon like waking up and going where am i what am i doing and i was at a crazily disorienting right yeah not everyone knows this but i did go to buds i didn't finish um but i was uh on the third day. I was on Wednesday of Hell Week. Right. And on that day, they do, well, for my specific class, they let us sleep for like 45 minutes. Yeah, it's pretty common.

45 minutes on Wednesday morning. Wednesday or Thursday changes. Yeah, so they let us go to sleep. And, man, I've never been so exhausted in my life. And I remember laying down on the cot inside this tent on the beach and I actually woke up and there was a guy on top of me. Okay.

We don't need to go into that part of the story. What happened was like, I had laid down and just totally like disregarded his sleeping bag. And I guess he'd looked over and I was like shivering in my sleep. He's like, I'm going to like help this guy out. He's dying.

Interesting. And then, but when they woke us up it was like with flashbangs like came in boom boom boom you wake up and you're like where am I you're just like

running towards the beach with like your feet look feel like bricks like oh my god what is happening and like as I figured out

like started like assimilating all the information I was like okay it's hell week right uh I've been doing this for a few days I was like

I really wish I would not have gone to sleep I was like that was, it's hell week. I've been doing this for a few days. I was like, I really wish I had not gone to sleep. I was like, that was like the worst thing ever. That brings up a really fun memory. There was the same exact scenario. My hell week, we got to sleep a little bit on Thursday, I think for about 45 minutes. And there was a guy in my class named Hora. We called him the Hora.

Anyways, so Hora, he did a similar thing. He woke up and he just started bouncing off of walls like a pinball. He had no concept of where he was, who he was. And the instructors couldn't get through to him. You know, slapping him and throwing water in his face. And, you know, we're all out in the grinder

already running toward the beach and he's still back there like bouncing off of walls. And so they throw him into the ambulance and they're like, okay, this guy's done. Yeah, there's something wrong with him. D-U-N done. And so they take him over to the clinic and he's,

somehow like he starts to come to on the way to the clinic and he starts figuring out what happens. Right? And so the ambulance pulls up outside the clinic. He opens the door and just busts it out of there. He hightails it,

sprints all the way across the base, back down in the beach and just runs and joins the class. Oh, no way. And the instructors are watching him coming like, here comes Har. What are we going to do? Just let him go.

You know what I mean? He's got the presence of mind to run away from the medics. Back to join his class so he can finish up. Wow. He was a great guy. That was an interesting character. Yeah. For everyone that doesn't know anything about Hell Week,

when you say that you slept on Wednesday or Thursday, you're implying that you haven't slept for like four days straight, and then you get that little 40-minute nap. How does Hell Week work? 45 minutes of sleep the entire week. That's not per day, right? So we start training on Sunday. We finish up sometime on Friday, depending upon all the classes we're doing.

And the sleep, like Mike said, is just a really mess with you. And the rest of the time you're basically working out or you're like the guys on the poster behind you in the cold, wet water, just getting thrashed on in life. A lot of time in and on the water. You're wet and sandy pretty much the entire time. You're never dry.

You're never dry, yeah. And so that seeps into you and really gnaws at your nerves. So it's a test of mental toughness, a test of your emotional resiliency, and a test of your willpower. The physical part doesn't matter after a while. And the Kokoro's kind of simulating that? Say again?

That Kokoro is simulating Hell Week? Kokoro simulates 50 hours of that, and actually the volume, I think the volume of work in Kokoro is a little bit more than they throw at you in the first 50 hours of Hell Week because we can't, right? We're not the Navy and we also

know that you're not going for five or six days and so we throw a lot of volume. We've had SEAL candidates come back and say that Hell Week was easy for them, you know, and I think that's a relative term, but it was easy for them because they had been through that 50 hour Kokoro. It's kind of like this massive benchmark workout for them, you know, and I think that's a relative term, but it was easy for them because they had been through that 50 hour Kokoro. It's kind of like this massive benchmark workout for them, you know? Yeah. I remember not being as bad as I thought it was going to be until like Wednesday.

I actually started to enjoy Hell Week toward the end. I mean, it was pretty miserable in the beginning, but by Thursday I was enjoying it and starting to get stronger. It's kind of weird that way. There's a point where people basically stop quitting. It's like everyone quits in the first two days or something like that. If you can make it past the first two days, then you kind of just ride it out for the most part. Everyone that's going to quit has already quit. There's this really weird tribe

mentality that develops at Bud's and maybe you experienced this, Mike, but up until Hell Week, you don't really give a shit about anyone else. No. It's like, it's all about making it through and through Hell Week. It's like, it's probably Wednesday morning, Tuesday night, Wednesday morning. And then halfway through Hell Week, you start, you realize that everyone who's going to quit

has quit or gotten injured. And now you have a team. And so you're like, okay, now I need this team to help me get through. And so then you really like have a 180 degree shift and you're really focusing on the team. Now, having said that, the good leaders, you know, are focused on their team and, you know, working on helping them get through training. And the bad leaders, when they get up and quit, you know, they take an entire boat crew with them, you know, because it's, if he can't do it, then how can I?

I mean, all these guys are looking at this guy and saying, you might be a Naval Academy, you know, football stud. Right. Throws him a towel. One of the most terrifying things that I saw was this guy's second time to Bud's. He was older. A lot of guys come back a second time and make it through. Right.

And this guy was, you know, mid-20s, and we called him Superman. Because he was just like, he was stud. Like, he just crushed everything. And then, like, we're in the tents waiting for breakout to happen on a Sunday night. And breakouts, you know, when Hell Week starts. And someone goes, we hear the bell ring before breakout even happens. Where was Superman? We're like, who fucking quit?

Like, oh, it was Superman. I was like, that was a huge mind fuck for me. I was like, he knows what's coming. he's already been here right like he and he's quitting he's he just quit he just checked out i was like oh oh no this can't be good yeah maybe he was a plant might have been because that would be a rather ingenious you know yeah who knows who knows yeah all right so uh you have seal fit obviously you have a you have an You're rather ingenious, you know. Yeah. Who knows? Who knows? Yeah. All right. So, yeah, SealFit, obviously.

You have an unbeatable mind. Right. Not just a book, but you have a program. Right. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, that came about because I had a lot of folks who started to follow my blog and started to follow SealFit, but they, you know, they weren't ever going to step foot in here. Let's put it that way.

Right. Something was holding them back. Maybe their age or their physical capacity, or maybe even a financial issue, whatever. But they were saying, you know, how can I participate in some of the warrior training that we do, you know, the soft part of it. And so, and I thought, well, you know, that would be really valuable to be able to package that and to give it to, or offer it to the folks who maybe aren't as driven by the physical training as we are. And so I wrote a book called Unbeatable Mind, which became like a self-published kind of framework of the philosophy for how to develop mental toughness and a warrior's mind. And then I launched an online program. Um, it's called the foundation course. It's unbeatable mind Academy. And you know, it's delivered every

month, right? It's one of these things that it's actually doesn't have an end. You know, I keep on offering new monthly content because it's just so much fun. And we, and we just, you know, Jeff, who's our full-time video guy, you know, he films what's going on around here and it's pretty cool and it's rich. And so we keep on you know it's kind of like plugging into what we do here at seal fit sounds like during an academy if you have done kukuru or something like that that'd be a good super value a good thing to be a part of just to kind of like right as you're saying before if you don't use it you lose it right maybe that's kind of just enough to keep you right it's a game daily weekly monthly i have people develop what i call their integrated training plan. And so I mentioned earlier these five capacities we try to train.

Physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual. Well, the whole reason it's so effective because these five capacities, you know, most people do, you know, they touch on in a fragmented manner. Right? You know, if I ask someone, say, hey, what do you do for emotional development? I know you've got an answer for me, but most people don't. No. Right? And so what do you do for intuitional development?

Most people don't have even a clue that it can be developed. And what do you do for spiritual development? Well, I go to church on Sunday or I believe in God and all that kind of stuff. And so I'm like, okay, this is all interesting. But if we don't train those things, then they think kind of atrophy or you just don't develop as a human being. And the other way to look at this is you can be, you know, intensely developed physically, but mentally weak or emotionally, you know, very, very weak.

One example of that is we had a guy come into Kokoro camp. This guy was a stud, right? He was just a stud. And within the first 30 minutes of training, he had quit. Because we had just got under his skin, right? And he wasn't finding his comfort zone. And his body, you know, I guess he didn't realize that it wasn't all just a performance art. You know, he was going to come here and be tested at all levels.

And, you know, he ripped his shirt off and threw it in one of my coaches' face and he was done. And it was all lack of emotional development, lack of emotional control that led to his failure. Yeah. Right. And so my principle is, or my, my whole philosophy is that we want to develop ourself first that we can develop and that we're capable of so much more. I call that the 20 X factor. That's why we call the 20 X program that. And so if you buy into that principle that we're so capable of so much more than the question is, how do we access that? How do we develop that? One way to develop and access that is by actually deliberately training ourselves in an integrated manner. And my integrated training tools are physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual.

And so each one of those has a series of methods and tools that I use to train. So I draw from yoga and the martial arts and breathing and visualization, you know, and mental drills and hard physical training and, you know, everything we've kind of talked about. And then I build that, you know, I have the athletes and the executives and whoever's doing the program,

I have them build their own five mountain training plan because I call those the five mountains. And so they, every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every year, they know what they're doing to develop themselves in those five capacities and they do it right. And they stick to it and they develop the discipline. And so what they're doing is elevating this idea of training the whole person to the same level as eating and sleeping. And so it's not just saying, I'm going to the gym to get a workout. We're going to the gym to do an

integrated training session that includes all the things you did. He're going to the gym to do an integrated training session that includes all the things you did this week. You're going to work on your intuition and emotional. Right. I can give you examples. Like if someone wanted to say somebody was emotionally weak, I mean, are they training that through like the SEAL FIT program or is there something that people can do to like There's a lot of ways.

Shore that up. There are a lot of ways. First, we've talked a lot about team training. Team training is a great equalizer, right? It exposes you and develop emotional control and emotional awareness when you have a team that is not afraid to hold you accountable. I love that about this special ops is like, you know, if you're fucking up, guess what? Someone's going to tell you you're fucking up, tell you why you're fucking up, tell you, you know, what you need to do to improve. And then basically come back, you know, later and make sure that you did it. Yeah. And we've lost that in our society. People don't hold people to a high standard, right? In fact, we try to push the standard down

and then we even blow it off when people mess up. Right. And so by training with a team and coaches who hold you to that much higher standard and call you out in a very, you know, compassionate, but you know, deliberate and powerful way when you're, you know, when you do something stupid, right. Or when you're not stepping up. So that's one way to develop emotional control. Uh, another is to, um, to take your place, take yourself to scary places that you don't want to go and you've been avoiding all your life. And that's why the crucible experience is so powerful.

The 50 hours of training. I mean, I have people who literally have had their finger on the button for years and they're like, I'm going to do it. Yeah. Can't push it. And they finally come like two years later and they're like, I don't know what held me back. It's like, I wish I would have done this sooner. I wish I had done push it. And they finally come like two years later and like, I don't know what held me back.

It's like, I wish I would have done this sooner. I wish I had done it sooner. Right. Who knows what I could accomplish in that time, you know, with all the mental toughness that I gained. Yeah.

One of the things I always tell people is like, you know, uh, the most growth I've ever experienced has been in the most uncomfortable situation. Yeah. And once I figured that out, like I try to sign up for uncomfortable situations as much as possible.

Yeah. Bring on. Sometimes, you know, for me, who's been, you know, in a physical lifestyle,

like sometimes it's not a physical thing for me to do something uncomfortable. Sometimes it's signing up with, to go hang out with this group of hippies or something. Yeah. And I'm like, um, center for integral wisdom. That's right. That's right.

That's right. Like, that would be a very specific case where I'm in a room of people who, you know, they're talking about things

I have, I have to really put forth a ton of effort to connect with. Right. And I'm trying, and I want to connect with it. Right.

And, but that's something I, you know, I do lately. Right. You know, because I kind of like, I wouldn't say I mastered the physical, but like, uh, there's only tweaks to be made at this point. Right. But now I'm like trying to develop more emotionally, spiritually. Right. And, um, you know, emotionally and all that. And, and I guess intuitively, I've never thought about, you know, I've thought about training intuition, but I didn't think about putting it in a category like that. But yeah, definitely trying to challenge myself in those aspects now. But definitely some very uncomfortable situations. Sure. I mentioned earlier that I was at a two-day relationship retreat with my wife recently. It's called Emotionally Focused Therapy.

And I tell you what, there's a lot of people who'd rather go through Kikoro camp than do that. And it's pretty powerful stuff. It would be easier for me to sign up for Kikoro than to sign up for that. Right. And so those are the kinds of things that we try to push people to do and encourage, you know, therapy is a,

you know, it's a fantastic way to develop your emotional life and it's not really meant for when you're broken. I mean, it's useful for when you're broken, right? If you have a major crisis, but if you get to that point, then shame on you

because you can be doing the work, right? To really develop yourself at a deep level now, right? And you just have to step out of your comfort zone and really embrace the suck and just go do it. And then guess what? It's over and you've learned and grown. Huge insights accrue from that that then cross over and make you better at everything else and stronger person and all of that. Yeah.

I said you had the unbeatable mind, seal fit. What else? You got some books. Yeah. So I've written last year was a pretty cool year because I had a couple books that kind of coalesced. And actually I had to deliver the two manuscripts in the same month. Damn. It wasn't intentional, but it just kind of happened that way.

I'm not sure I'll ever do that again. Not recommended. So I published The Way of the Seal, which is really a leadership book, like mental toughness for leaders. And I love that book. It's really cool. I got a signed copy of that. No big deal.

And then I already mentioned that I had self-published Unbeatable Mind. And that's more of the philosophy and the framework for the Unbeatable Mind training program. And then I had a training manual for SealFit called Eight Weeks of SealFit that I had also self-published. Yeah. And my friend Brandon Webb, who's a seal author of the Red Circle, came and said, Hey, you know, I think my publisher would be really interested in that. So I sent him a copy. He spun around and gave me a contract like three days later.

Oh, wow. And so I rewrote that entire book, and I tried to tell the story of SEAL Fit and the training method through stories. It's pretty cool. Well, good. And so that actually hit the New York Times bestseller list when it came out. And then I've got another book deal coming along for two more books from the same publisher. You're going to publish those in the same month, right?

Same day. We're going to see if we can do it in the same day down in the same hour this time. So I'm going to do another book on leadership and a book on warrior yoga, the type of yoga that we promote here, that we do. It's not like a hodgepodge of a bunch of different things that I've learned that we kind of um i want to try to codify it a little bit in that book so what actually makes the yoga you guys do different than just going to any old regular yoga class it's really the intent behind it the audience and the intent so you know the reason i've been calling it warrior yoga is that it's really for developing a warrior mind and using

the yoga to support a warrior slash warrior athlete. Okay. So whether you consider yourself a combatant warrior, you know, a military warrior or not, it's, it's great for anyone who, you know, likes to do hard physical training, considers us some of the athlete. And so my approach is to include a lot of the tools that we talked about today through that practice and use that yoga as an integrated practice in and of itself. So we, we approach it from the standpoint of durability and developing, you know, core strength and joint strength, right. And flexibility, you know, which is not uncommon than a traditional yoga studio. But we also focus heavily on the use of

the breath, different ways to use the breath, right? Both for, you know, stress control for concentration and developing a warrior, um, kind of spirit, the ability to really muster a lot of, a lot of energy very quickly, very powerfully. And, um, also we'd like to use it for, um, stress post traumatic stress, you know, recovery because yoga, when done properly with the right mindset and with breathing and visualization and the move, the flowing movement can be really good for, you know, recovery because yoga, when done properly with the right mindset and with breathing and visualization and the move, the flowing movement can be really good for, you know, taming a nervous system. That's really out of, out of balance, which is what happens with PTSD. So, um, it's, it's, um, it's different in that we can modularize it. You know, I do, I like to do drills, you know like to do drills. I don't think most of us are really busy and we train really hard.

And so I'm not trying to replace a workout with my yoga. I'm trying to say, okay, if you want to use this for durability, then here's a shoulder mobility drill and a hip mobility drill, which might include five or six different poses. So we do this combined with box breathing, combined with the visualization. You got yourself a really nice 20 minute practice, which is just going to be super powerful, you know, a bookend to your training session. Okay. If you're on an active recovery day, then here you combine these three segments.

You're going to do the breathing, the visualization. Then you're going to do some, you know, a standing sequence to hit the areas you need. Then maybe a seated sequence that includes some core development that will integrate some navy seal style you know leg levers and flutter kicks and stuff like that and then you know finish up with your uh visualization and and you know that sort of thing so it's going to be modular and uh try to develop you know the whole warrior archetype and warrior spirit and i've been to quite a few yoga studios and I've usually been disappointed in like, uh, you know, it seems almost like, uh, uh, a big stretching session. Right.

Right. And like, I'm, I've been disappointed because my understanding of yoga is there's a big spiritual component. For sure. And when you walk into like the average yoga studio, a lot of times there is no, or it's very little spiritual component or the person leading the class hasn't developed enough themselves to like, you know, help someone who's in class. I've noticed that. I've done yoga with you twice now.

And both times I felt a connectedness to like an explanation. Like this is why. And like you've even kind of named some things that make more sense to somebody who's in a, you know, from a warrior background or something like that. They go, they can connect. Oh, this is good for this. Right. I'm connecting the dots here. Right.

Um, and then also let the visualization we've done and things like that really, you know, just kind of, you, you kind of bring more of a spiritual aspect to it because we already kicked our asses. Right. We don't need to get our asses kicked in the yoga studio. Right. And that's another thing is sometimes a yoga't need to get our asses kicked in the yoga studio, right? And that's another thing. Sometimes a yoga teacher wants to kick my ass because I'm a muscular guy coming

in, not a little skinny twig. And I come in and they're like, want to kick my ass? I'm like, look, my ass has been kicked already. I just need to get in some good positions, good meditation, some good breathing. But it's nice to do that with you and get more of that. Yeah. I think that you hit on a couple of key points. One is a lot of

people think that yoga is fitness and it can be. There's a very popular style of yoga called Ashtanga. That's one of the systems I've trained with. It was originally developed in India to train warriors and young athletes. And so it's very militaristic. I mean, there's a certain number of series. There's like six series. It's the same every time, right? Same exact every time. And you do it the same way every time.

And you fit your body to the pose, right? And the way I teach it is, okay, well, if you want that, great. Well, the functional training part's going to happen on the grinder with the barbell and all that. And then we'll do the yoga um you know more for the stretching and um and the concentration that that type of style will develop which is really powerful for warriors right but one of the things where i differ is you know we all have different body types and rather than i've

seen a lot of people get injured you know when they when they go into a yoga studio and the teacher says no the pose is done this way. Here's the perfect form. Now, you know, it's like you mold your body to that form. And a lot of people get injured, especially with hot yoga, where you can go really deep really quickly. And so my philosophy is that the form is designed to be molded to you, right? We use the form to to explore the pose right so i like to for instance uh rather than just going straight into a warrior two then i'll like flow into it and explore the breath and the

depth until we get to a point where we're like okay today is this is the full expression this is the full expression yeah we're gonna stay here and maybe work on some breath control or something like that i've heard that that uh uh hot yoga heard that hot yoga can cause some of the most injuries. For sure. You know, you just don't let the instructor push you somewhere where you shouldn't be. Right. Because it can be militaristic. And Ashtanga, too, is like, you know, you just got to know your body and be tuned in.

There are other styles that are a little less militaristic, as you said. Right. And again, the point being that yoga was originally meant for different purposes. And so what was necessary for the young warrior was not going to work for the 55-year-old householder. And so that form of yoga was much more about developing inner strength, developing spirituality. And frankly, yoga is the oldest personal development program known to mankind. I mean, it covers everything from personal ethos and disciplines to breathing and physiological control, mental control, concentration, meditation,

and ultimately what they call a union or bliss or samadhi, which is when you kind of yoke your ego with your soul. And that's kind of beyond the scope of our discussion today. But it's interesting nonetheless. The yogis really had something going on, and a lot of that got lost when it was brought to this country, and people just took it up as a fitness practice or just stretching. The other thing that I'll say is, uh, you know, I was this way. I, you know, I resisted going into

a yoga studio except for the hot yoga where the girls are in their spandex, you know, that was okay. Oh yeah. Once in a while. Um, but I resisted going in and, you know, having to, uh, chant and having to do all the faux spirituality. Um, not to say that that doesn't, it's okay for someone if you're really in tune with that. Right. But this is why, you know, people look at yoga and they think it's a religion. It's not. It's just a personal development program that uses gymnastics and breathing and stuff like that.

And if looking inside is religious, then holy shit. Right, exactly. Then yeah, we're all religious. You're screwed. But true yoga has no religious component to it. And so I thought that with warrior yoga, it really should be from a Western perspective. And so, you know, that's why I've been teaching SEAL candidates who are now Navy SEALs this warrior yoga stuff since 2007. And they're like, they're okay with it because it's coming from a commander, you know, Navy SEAL. Yeah. You made it cool. And I made it cool. And I took all the, I took all,

I say, I took the foo out of the Kung Fu, right? You don't have to put a robe on, you don't have to wear flowers in your hair, just come in and we're going to do this. And here's why, like you said, here's why we do this. And here's why it relates to you being a good leader and a good athlete, right. And a good person. Yeah. I remember when I was younger, it was, you know, yoga, whatever. Right. And I actually had a Navy SEAL instructor. Like, hey, you guys should probably try out some yoga. Oh, no kidding.

In your free time. Right on. And I was like, and that was the first time I ever tried it, was over on Coronado. And I was like, oh, I can really identify the benefits, even though I was 19. Right. I was like, this, I can really identify the benefits even though I was 19. Right. I was like, this is really beneficial. Yeah. And so the thing is, is I would have never tried it.

I would have been too macho for it. Right. Had a guy that wasn't a Navy SEAL like suggest it. Right. Yeah. So while we're all waiting for your book to come out, is there any like free routines or anything like that that you guys have on your websites?

All of that is in our seal fit online program and um i don't know if we have any free videos but i'd be happy to offer one to your barbell shrug community if you oh yeah hit me up with that let's figure it out yeah all right so you got anything else uh we haven't touched on see probably sounds like. Sounds like you got like, oh, yeah, I got this other program. No, we do also run NavySeals.com, which is the spec ops website for the SEALs. It's not officially the SEAL website, but most candidates will come there. And we have an online store where we sell cool gear and watches and shit like that. Awesome.

So if you come to Kokoro Camp, that's where you get your boots, by the way, in your pants. Oh, yeah. You told me, I want to cover this. You told me,

like, when people finish a certain level of training, I don't know if it's Kokoro, but you have more advanced training and people actually, like, they get suited up.

Oh, yeah. You just reminded me of something important. So we're on the cusp of launching a certification program for what we're calling certified. Totally forgot about that certification program I'm working on. It's the way I roll, man. I just completely forgot about that one. So we're certifying

SEALFIT mentors. And it's really, this is really near and dear to my heart because before I launched SEALFIT, I launched a nationwide mentor program for the actual SEALs, for the Navy recruiting. And I had, through my company, U.S. Tactical, I had, it was on contract, and I had SEALs out in recruiting districts. How many businesses do you have? This is ridiculous. Too many. I'm trying to streamline, you know, focus. But that business went away.

Blackwater came in and kind of, you know, they said that we'd rather have that. And so we're going to take that from you. And they were like a billion dollar company. Wasn't much I could do about it. Yeah. Anyway. So that's, that kind of led to me launching, uh, seal fit and, you know, training civilians instead of the military. But anyways, fast forward. Um, I'm now launching a, a, a seal fit civilian mentor program and which the reason I chose the term mentor instead of coach is to differentiate it from the athletic coach. Right.

Because we're going to be doing SEAL Fit training, but it's really about developing character, right? And so we're already getting a lot of traction in training high school sports teams. I'm going to, and college too, so I'm going to University of South Alabama next week and training them. And we've got a thing going with Nike next month

where we got eight high school or eight high schools here in Southern California, which are top performing high schools like Servite and St. John's Bosco. And we're going to train them. And these are like mini 20X programs, four to six hour 20X program. So really into that. And so I want to go out and train an army or a field force of certified mentors. And it won't be a simple certification to get.

It'll require SealFit Academy and then a follow on one week academy. And you got to do Kokoro camp and you got to get blessed by us, but very achievable for someone, you know, who's really into that. And then you go out back to your community and you can activate a SealFit program

where you can take people at a much deeper level with our support and trained character. Wow. Work with corporate teams, work with, you know, high school teams and with individuals. Sounds cool as shit, man. So that should be pretty cool. I'm excited about that.

I want to do it now. Yeah. Sign me up. Got to get through Kokoro Camp first. Yeah. Yeah, it'll be easy. Well, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah.

All right. So if people want to find out more about you and about what you offer, where should they go? I think we covered a little bit, but I just want a quick summary. SealFit.com is probably the most comprehensive. Tons and tons of resources. Check out my blog. And we have a weekly workout, a weekly podcast, a weekly TV episode. So that's really probably the best place to go. And then if you're, you know, say you're an executive listening to this and you're not, you know, willing or interested in coming, get your ass kicked,

then unbeatablemind.com is where you can learn about the books. Sign up for the camp. Don't be a baby. It's not for everyone. Yeah. And the books can be found anywhere books are sold, like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Yeah. That's cool.

Yeah. Excellent. Twitter or Instagram or Facebook. Yeah, we have books can be found anywhere books are sold, like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Yeah. It's cool. Yeah. Excellent. Twitter or Instagram or Facebook. Yeah, we have all that, too. Just look it up. Seal Fit. At Seal Fit.

Like you, I've got someone else who handles the Twitter account, so if you get insulted by a tweet that comes by, I know nothing about it. Yeah, one of your guys was picking on me on Instagram yesterday. Was he? I was like, oh, come show him. And then I almost threw up during the workout. All right, well, thanks for joining us. Had a blast. Oh, it's been a great day.

Yeah, and it's not over yet. We've still got dinner tonight. We're going to have some din-din, right? Yeah. Maybe a beer or something. Maybe a beer. All day at Seal Fit. It's not a bad thing.

No. It's tiring, but rejuvenating at the same time. Indeed. All right, make sure to go to barbellstroke.com, sign up for the newsletter, so you can get notified any time we do one of these really cool podcasts. Thanks, Mark. Ooh, yeah. Awesome, guys.

That was good. Good shit. People are going to love that, because that's a lot different than what we normally do. Is it? Yeah. Who? Talking about all the mental toughness, I think people are going to like. Because people focus so much on the physical, and then we're going to like post that,

and they're just going to blow their minds, I think.