Mark Bell's Power Project - Ben Alderman on CrossFit, Jiu-Jitsu, Fatherhood & Faith

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Ben Alderman, owner of CrossFit Iron Mile and pastor at Restlife Church, joins Mark Bell for a wide-ranging conversation on training, jiu-jitsu, leadership, family, and faith.Ben breaks down why being strong in the gym doesn’t automatically translate to fighting or grappling, what jiu-jitsu taught him about efficiency, leverage, and humility, and why CrossFit is still one of the best ways to build broad, real-world fitness. They also talk about movement variability, conditioning, striking, adapting as you age, and why “leaders are learners.”The conversation also goes deeper into fatherhood, raising kids around fitness, letting your children pursue their own calling, and Ben’s personal story of faith, repentance, and wanting to be a better husband, father, and man of God.Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK/TRT/PEPTIDES! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com and use code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off Self-Service Labs and Guided Optimization®.🧠 Methylene Blue: Better Focus, Sleep and Mood 🧠 Use Code POWER10 for 10% off!➢https://troscriptions.com?utm_source=affiliate&ut-m_medium=podcast&ut-m_campaign=MarkBel-I_podcastBest 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!

aspects of fitness get boring. To be perfectly honest, very boring, especially when you're just going in and doing the same things over and over with the goal of just getting stronger or getting a better time. If you want to be good at a lot of things, I don't think there's really anything out there that's better than CrossFit. If you don't wrestle, if you don't fight, and you think you're in good shape and then you fight somebody for a minute, that minute feels like 10 minutes. It's good to with your jitzy to figure out how to use enough strength or enough force to solve a problem, but not excessive amounts of it to bulldoze through it. I wanted to be a dad. I wanted to be a husband. And I wanted to walk with God faithfully. They kind of bifurcated my life.

And I fed this one over here and then I did this over here and convinced myself that those two people could coexist. Fitness, my faith, family. Those are things that are truly integrated to what I do. Do what you love. Do what you're passionate about. Do what you feel like God's calling you to do. So, okay, so an MRI, how many times you had one? Just once.

Just once. What was it? My elbow when I had to have my arm in there like this. I just did that one forever. I just did that one. I almost freaked out. Yeah. I mean, I was border.

I was freaking out. I was in there for like 45 minutes. Yeah. Because you got moving or? And my, it was just the technology when you had it done. I don't know. They just, yeah, they kind of claim they didn't get the imaging that they needed.

But I was like, I wasn't, I felt like I wasn't moving. But my arm started to fall asleep. And I'm like, if my arm falls asleep, then I can't push the button, then they can't get me out of here. It was kind of where I started thinking, you know, so I was like, yeah. Yeah. Did you push it in there for 30 minutes?

Did you actually push the button? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I did that the first, the most, the time before this, because I've had three MRIs, once on my shoulder, once on my neck, and then once on my elbow, which was this one I had last Friday. And the last time I had to push the button. And when it, when they immediately started pulling,

pulling me out because I pushed the button, it allowed me have the confidence to go back in. And so this time when I went in, I almost felt like just pushing the button to test the chick who was working behind the glass. You know, like, hey, is this, is this work, you know? But that, the elbow MRI is, they say it's the worst. Yeah. I mean, there's just, there's nothing else. I mean.

Did you have to do that too? Have your arm up? Yeah. And then they put it, did you have ears in a contraption? They clamp down so you don't move. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the whole thing.

And then you're laying like this. And I don't sleep with my arm over my head. I think I was like 280 or something too. So I wasn't fitting in there very well. That's horrible. And my arm, yeah, my arm just felt numb. You probably didn't go there well to you. No, no, I was like, all twisted in there.

I'm 225 right now. And I'm pretty broad. You know, so she's like, hey, you're not going to fit. So we're just going to kind of wedge you in there. And you're like, man, that's not anything I've ever had to say about anything. You know? And it's just like. It's kind of crazy, though, because they could tell you, like, no one's ever been

stuck in there. Like, everything's fine. But you're still like, yeah, but I want to know how people have actually had a heart attack an MRI Because that's I'm about to give myself, right? Like, I don't like it. I'm actually finding as I get older I struggle with I have the same phobia being trapped in confined spaces flying sometimes flying. Yeah, I'll freak out. Okay, it's pretty bad But like even to Vegas. So Blair my business partner in the Norocco Classic he books our flights. Okay, I book hotels. He books flights. When he books hotels we end up staying in motels with a that faces the parking lot, so he doesn't book those, but he booked our flights. And there was four of us.

Him and his wife sat together, it makes sense, right? Think me and my wife would sit together. Nope. Him and his wife sat together, and then my wife was at the front of the plane and I was at the back, in the rows behind where Blair and his wife were sitting. And I'm like, I was freaking out. And so I had this younger girl, and I don't know

if she was 17 or 20. And I'm just so, I'm trying to balance, like I might be talking to a minor, with, you know, because I'm, but I'm nervous. And so I'm just like, I'm just like talking. I'm like, hey, how you going? Are you like flying? She's like, no, I'm really flying.

I was like, I hate flying. And I'm like, it's weak. Yeah. And I didn't say it, but I was this close. So if I had known she was not a minor, I probably would have said, hey, so I've had one really bad panic on a panic attack on an airplane. They don't land for me. And the only thing that works is if I put a pillow down on my wife's lap and then she

takes a pillow and pushes over the top of my head and holds me. I almost told her that story so that she knew where to go if I started freaking out. But I didn't because I wasn't sure what age she was. You know? Thank God you did it. Oh, God. I know. But it's bad. I don't like elevators. I don't like elevators either. We were in, my wife and I, we were on vacation somewhere. I was on vacation with the kids and like they pushed a button and then somebody else got in the elevator and was messing around with the buttons like a little kid. There's a little kid. Little kids, they push, like, all the buttons.

And the elevator went to, and I'm like, I'm taking the stairs. I popped right out. Yep. We went down the stairs. We had one that, it was laughing at me. It wouldn't shut. It kept going like this. And then we sat there.

And then there's another guy. And he's just on his phone like this. And I'm watching the door. And it opens back up. And I'm like, what's going on with this freaking elevator? Do you? I'm like, babe, we're getting off. We just got off.

No chance. Have you ever had a bad experience on an elevator or? Not one. Okay. Okay. Not one. Yeah, I get it. I get it.

I had a bad experience in a bathroom. So the bathroom with the keypad locks. Okay, so that you push a code and then it lets you into the bathroom. It's not scare the crap out of a lot of people. I know. You push the button and it lets you into the bathroom. I always thought,

what happens if the battery dies or something like that? You know? And then you're stuck in a bathroom. It's made of tile and concrete. And you're just like, what happens? Stuck in there in forever. Literally, I was at the, there's this cool little coffee shop called Old Soul

that I'll never go to again. At downtown. Actually, I will go there again, but I won't use their bathroom. And literally, I thought that. And that time, I go in there and what happened was I was so freaked out that it was going to happen that I couldn't figure out how to use the lock when I was going back out. The lock on the way out is actually manual, right? It's not nomadic on the way out.

But I'm like turning it and I didn't turn it far enough and I turned the handle and it just and it's like doesn't rattle at all. It just sticks. And I'm like, no way. No way. I pull my phone out and it says, SOS. There's no signal. My son was in the next bathroom right over there.

And so I start beating on the door. And all I did was turn the lock a little further and let myself out. And my like face was just tingling. My neck, the hair on back of my neck was, it was bad. So I have a little bit of fear of trap spaces too, my friend. Another time I was traveling. I went to the bathroom and a couple of people like walked in me and then I come out and then my wife's like she's like two or three people walked in and you

want to lock the uh and she's locked the door I'm like no I don't want to lock the door I don't get stuck in there and uh and I and I didn't have my phone like she had my phone like in her purse or something so I was like I'm just not gonna lock it and I'll just take the risk of some people walking in on me yeah you guys both have like legitimate phobias and trap spaces planes right and I'm just scared of it's like wooden dolls they are scary though yeah no they are they're weird yeah They're too human-like with large eyes. It's not, it's not, they shouldn't exist in my opinion. I'm good with that.

I'll give up pneumatic locks. I mean, ventriloquist dummies in order to get rid of pneumatic locks. I just don't like it. Even on the way home from Vegas, same setup on the seating arrangement. So I went straight to the desk. I said, hey, you got two seats together. They said, we do at the very back of the plane. Do you guys watch Final Destination movies at all?

Ooh. I haven't seen one in a while. Really? You should watch the latest one. I really think you should watch the latest one, both you all. Because I can work myself up. Like I can keep talking about this for a little while and then you guys will see me get visibly agitated. You know? What about the free solo guy watching him climb that building? Did that, did you see that? I did not watch that one. I did not watch that one. No.

Because I know a lot of people were getting freaked out. Yeah. Watching him climb whatever the hell he was climbing. Yeah. How do you do Hight 1-1? Heights okay with you or do you not like heights either? I'm okay with heights. I don't want to mess with them, but I'm not. I'm not. I'm, I'm okay with it. I'm not about to go cliff diving anytime soon. Well, here it is here. But when I was younger, I didn't care about any of that stuff for some reason.

I don't know why. This was so sick. You ever messed around with any rock climbing? I know you've done a bunch of stuff. Yeah, I have actually. Any good at it? I don't know. I'm better than the average person just because of physicality,

balance coordination, stuff like that. But now I'm kind of fearful of heights. So once I get above something I can jump off of, you know. Then you're like, nah. No. That's the coolest thing about like climbing because like it's not all about being very strong. It's about being able to also come like compress your body between different structures. Yeah.

You know what I mean? It's just body control and awareness, you know, and you don't have to like even he's mentioned. He is very strong to get me wrong. But it's not like he has insane grip strength. No. Or crazy stuff. He's just very, very good at controlling his body in certain positions. I couldn't be right there.

Oh, me neither. I'd die. Yeah. 100% even if somebody said hey hang on here and you will not die we'll come get you in 30 seconds no yeah just hang on for 30 seconds we know that you're going to be totally fine we did all the calculations so you've done you know crossfit and now nowadays you're doing some jiu jitsu with uh you know with that you know a lot of times when people get into jiu jitsu they're really shocked and surprised at the gas tank that it takes to be a grappler like once you you know it takes a while learn everything and and to be able to like even get to that point where you can even gas yourself out. How has that been for you? You know, being someone that came from CrossFit and being somebody that has kind of worked on that part of yourself for a long time.

Was that still difficult? Yeah, it was still difficult. I thought there'd be an easier transition where I'd come in and go, oh, I know what it feels like to be fatigued. But you've also fought in the past before. Yeah, you did some MMA. Yeah. But it's a lot different.

I mean, both those environments are, there's a similar type of feeling. And we've talked about this before. You guys, I'm sure, have talked about this. But if you don't wrestle, if you don't fight and you think you're in good shape and then you fight somebody for a minute, that minute feels like 10 minutes. It feels really, really hard. Feels like you're running on the beach in the soft sand. Yeah.

Legs just go out from you and you can't get them back. Yeah. And then part of what happens is if you have a background in fitness, in powerlifting, in explosive training, in CrossFit, and you go into the gym, you feel like, you feel like, you should be better than you actually are going to be. So you go at it with this, this mindset that it's going to get, you're going to give it 100% just like you give everything else. And that's going to help you win. Yeah, this guy that weighs 170. Right. I'm going to be able to throw them around because I throw around sandbags and I do all this other lifting. And then it's not the case.

It's not the case. So you still feel that. There's still an adaptation that has to happen because your mindset has to shift. Are all the physiological adaptations there? Probably. but your mental adaptations have not caught up, you know? And then, I mean, honestly, I've had the, it is a pleasure to Rolf Encema, probably 20 times now, something like that. Has to be more. Has to be more.

I would assume it has to be more. Yeah. 20 or 30 times, 40 times. And the cool thing about Encema is, because of his physicality, his mentality, and his training background, I can go really hard against Encema, right? And that's good for him.

It's also good for me. And so it helps me adapt to those situations. But you can go as fast or powerful as you want. Right. I just try and do it. What happens? What happens? Oh.

All that. So I've said this only once publicly. He just looks so heavy in this video that we're watching. And he's going so slow. This is probably a year ago or months ago for sure. It was like, yeah. Yeah, a year ago. And so I'm even worse.

I don't think we roll, we look like this when we roll anymore, but he's still just taking his time and right there. Oh, he didn't get that. He's got me on in that plenty of times, but he didn't get it this time. I've watched this video before. You almost couldn't roll over because your head's so big. Well, yeah, there's that. I thought it was built perfectly for jiu-jitsu until I realized my head was too big. But, no, the thing about grappling with Encema that's very different is, and like I said,

I've only said this once publicly, and it was about 20 minutes ago, is that InSEMA is as strong as you think your dad is when you're five. Right? Infinite strength. He truly is, though. I am very strong. There are not many people who feel. Yeah, you're throwing around 500 pounds in a deadlift and a squat.

And it's even more than that. Like, even within mixed martial arts and in fighting and in grappling and in my experience, people know that I am strong. because in Sima is also very, very strong and also understands how to use his body and the mentality that I was talking about, his and the concepts that he understands about Jiu-Jitsu and movement,

he feels three times stronger than me. To me. Now, I don't know if I, if he feels three times stronger to me than me to himself, but to me, yeah, to me, yeah, but to me he feels three times stronger, right? Like, I think that I could be in Seema

if he had my injury. But if he didn't have my injury, he couldn't, he didn't have to fight with an arm time tied behind his back in Jiu-Jitsu. I don't know that I could ever, to me, to this today, I don't think I've scored a point on Enzima. Right. It'll try to catch him when he's not looking or something.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. All kinds of things you need to try. But it's really nice to have somebody like that to train against. I could only imagine how good he'd be if he had somebody like that on a regular basis. How much do you learn when you,

You roll with something like him. You roll with Casio. You know, you roll with people that are just really experienced. You, sometimes I'm still playing. I'm an amateur. I'm a novice at this sport. And so I'm still trying to study them as people. So I'm actually trying to watch their approach.

I notice in Sima is very controlled in his breathing. He doesn't make hasty decisions. He puts his foot on the gas when he has to. And if he doesn't have to, he's trying to find a way to improve his position. and get to somewhere before I can get there. So that way he doesn't have to react in a way that is after the fact. Like after me, he's actually putting himself in a place where he can be proactive,

if that makes sense. He's several moves ahead and you're still trying to fight for your position. He's at least two or three because I know I've been like, okay, in my head I'm doing this, this, this, no, I'll do this. And then he's already there. So he's at least two or three, you know. With Cassio, very different because he's, He's impressive and for a whole other reason.

He's, he's 10, so Encema's 10 years younger than me. Cassio is 10 years older than me. Yeah. Right? And this is, you know, I don't know if it's exact, but it's pretty close. Encema's 30 pounds heavier than me. And Cassio is more than 30 pounds lighter than me. And so when you roll with guys, there's a different type of, of appreciation.

you know, that I have for both of them. So with Cassio, he's really good at pressure. He's really good applying pressure. He has been seen as much. Yeah, he's able to apply pressure that. That it feels like he weighs, you know, I feel like his pressure is better than mine also. He doesn't feel stronger than me, but his pressure feels better than mine.

Where in Seema feels better than me, stronger than me and his pressure is better than me, right? Because of his size. But Cassie, I'm like, where's this pressure coming from? Like, he just turned the gravity up in his little part of the room real quick, you know? And then like, that must be what it is. is. It's supernatural.

mathematically doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Physics, it doesn't make any sense. And so that's sort of the way I think about it. But yeah, Cassio is, and also he is sort of fighting with one arm tied behind his back. You know, he's got a bad shoulder. He's got his shoulder situation going on. I've tried to help him with it a little bit just from my background and what I know and having six screws put in this one myself.

But I think that just mileage at some point catches up to everybody. And, you know. And Sima, when did like your strength? When do you feel like your strength? Or maybe you haven't even felt it yet. But when did your strength and your technique sort of start to merge together? Like how did that take a really long time? That's a tough question because things are always getting better.

But I think like that idea, that idea clicked when I stopped trying so much to push through things. Something I tell Ben and I've mentioned to Pugh before is like it's good to with Jiu-B-4. figure out how to use enough strength or enough force to solve a problem, but not excessive amounts of it to kind of bulldoze through it. Because the nature of jiu-jitsu is it's kind of like a game. You guys are agreeing to play jiu-jitsu. If not, you punch me. You know what I mean? You just go berserk. So you're agreeing to play jiu-jitsu. And in my mind, when I'm agreeing to play jiu-jitsu with somebody, I'm agreeing to try to be as efficient as I can be. I'm agreeing to not bulldoze them, even though I potentially could bulldoze them.

And in doing that, that's where they've kind of met. I don't ever force things when I roll with people, even strong people. I try to think about being as efficient and as chill as possible to get from point A to point B and use as least energy as possible for me. And if you want to use the least energy possible, inherently, you're going to do less of this and you're going to figure out a way to have movements and leverage do the work for you versus pushing and being super taxing in that way. Right?

So it's more like doing jiu-titsu like a small person would do jit-sue be as a small person that's like 150 or 160. It's having a role with people heavier than them. They have to figure out angles and leverage better than guys like us who could just get on top of you and make it suck, right? So yeah, that's kind of how things have clicked.

But actually, I was curious, Ben, for you, when it's come to jiu-jitsu, you know, you've been doing it for what now? Two and a half, three years? Yeah. Yeah? Yeah, because I think it's getting even more popular. And martial arts in general are getting popular for people.

But coming from a lifting background and being super, like very elite, your extreme conditioning in terms of cross-off. I remember that video we did with Real World Tactical back? You remember that? Hey, man. If, right, if you could find that real world tactical came to Super Training Gym. It was Ben Allen Thrill and myself. And Ben was toasting us.

Like, I was over here wanting to vomit. And I forgot his last name, something Tim Somrador or whatever, I forgot his name. But Real World Tactical was like putting us through it. So you could tell Ben was strong, but Ben had extreme conditioning. Now coming to Jiu-Jitsu, what would your suggestion be to people on like how to maybe adjust the way they look at their own personal fitness, you know, with what you've had to adjust so far? Because you still coach.

You still own your CrossFit gym. You still coach multiple people. probably hundreds of people at this point. How would you shift people? Well, I think you've looked at the shortcomings of whatever methodology you're in because the reason why you like Jiu-Jitsu or the reason why I like Jiu-Jitsu is because it's so different from what I do. Yeah.

Right? It's a barbell doesn't move, a kettlebell doesn't move, a sandbag doesn't move unless I move it. Right. There's no reactionary component to lifting in the gym. Mm-hmm. But there is a huge reactionary element to, what we do, right? And so if you see every reaction and every movement

is like a lift, your heart rate goes up quite a bit. You know, because when I go to pick up a 200 pound sandbag, I may brace, I may take a big deep breath in Val Salva. I may, my heart rate may shoot up just as I even go to approach the lift. But if I do that in Jiu-Jitsu, it is. Oh. Yeah, I watched this this morning and yesterday morning. Did you do you know I'm just kidding I didn't watch yesterday morning this sucked so much

Yeah this is pretty good you know what's funny is I showed up mark actually I think text me and told me that Tony would be here and and uh Tony sentiment that's his yeah there you go and Tony's a savage i came in i had already worked out I had already worked out yeah I had already worked out i did I did uh 400 five ran rounds of 400 meter run and 50 air squats before I came here. So you worked out and still cooked us. Yeah, that was funny. And Mark and those guys are just standing there kind of probably laughing at us.

Because y'all weren't going to do this shit. Hell, now it was like bodybuilding. We had like a bodybuilder, a crossfitter and a strong man kind of thing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my goodness. To be fair, I was sort of at my peak of, no, I may not peak, but I was, I was towards my peak of this type of.

like how high the boxes that you're jumping on. Yeah. It's like you're just, you know, jumping on this super high box, like in between dragging a sled and deadlifting, whatever the hell weight is on there. You know, Ben, actually, I'm curious, man, because I think of like, you know, there's CrossFit gives you a bit, a bit of movement variability, high rocks gives you some. Jiu-Jitsu, again, there's the component of another human, right? And having to solve problems in a certain way.

Would there be any suggestions for people that don't want to do Jiu-Jitsu? but things that could give them those types of inputs, activities, because I think aspects of fitness get boring. To be perfectly honest, very boring, especially when you're just going in and doing the same things over and over with the goal of just getting stronger or getting a better time.

What would some of your suggestions be for people? Well, I think that part of it is what you're talking about, going and doing the same thing all the time. You have to do different things, right? That forces your body to at least learn a new pattern, a new movement, right? A new time domain. You know, you and I were talking a second ago,

and I was telling you that I just put a sandbag in my back and did weighted Cossack squats, you know, and the power lifters in my gym were looking at me like, I don't know if that's a really good idea. And I'm like, well, my body moves that way and might as well strengthen that shape too, you know, and try something else. For me, I'm obviously my bicep is torn right now.

Maybe not obvious. You guys don't know that who are listening, but my bicep is torn right now. But you could pretend like you can only use your left arm for it. a day. You know, things like that, that you are self-imposing either limitations or new boundaries on yourself. That's really, really helpful. And so if you can continue to learn, that sort of gives you that ability, you know, but you some people's capacity for learning, most people's capacity for learning is limited by just their, their comfortability, right, for learning. And most people don't

want to be uncomfortable. And they're comfort at like, sucking at something for, because like, yeah, I think something that happens in adulthood is you've, you've learned all these. things through your life and then you start something new and you're not good. Especially like even Jiu-Jitsu, it'll be the person who's pretty strong and has been a proficient lifter. They usually, a lot of times they don't last long. Right. Because it's it's weird going into a situation where you're once again the little fish who's getting messed up by people much weaker than you. You know what I mean? That's it's a hard mental barrier to get across for many. But that's true. But if you're a leader, you should be able to do that sometimes, right? And

In my mind, I did a leadership class recently that I put together myself. And my number one, my first week was leaders are learners, right? Not leaders have learned, but leaders are learners. You know, if you aren't in that place where you're constantly learning, then you're not really a leader. You may have some accolades. You may be somebody we can look to as an example, but you're not truly a leader in my opinion.

You know, I think that that's from my other background, you know, my faith background. I see that we are constantly being transformed. We are constantly growing. We are constantly doing that. We should be learning as we go. And so, yeah, I'm 43, and I've been to the CrossFit games. And at one point, I could beat in the same amount of workout, you know.

Probably could still beat me at certain workouts nowadays. Absolutely. Certain workouts. Yeah, you know what I mean? But it's like, but that doesn't mean I'm done. Yeah. And you can tell, by the way, I talk. I mean, actually looking at the things that I can't still do or I won't do anymore.

And I'm trying to figure out ways to figure that out again. And so have to keep learning. So I think that's a huge component for somebody who doesn't want to do jiu-jitsu. pick up the guitar, learn how to be coordinated with the guitar. You don't have to breathe heavy, you know, but you will have to learn how to make two hands do something different and sound right. And there is an unlimited potential for improving there,

depending on how much time you want to put in. I think there's things too that sometimes we have in our past that it's good to go back to. Like maybe as you recover from this like bicep stuff, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to go back to incorporating some striking because as you were mentioning the Cossack squat, you know, working the groin and stuff like that. And you just think, you know,

I was just kicking, I have a soccer ball in my backyard, just kicking this ball around. I'm like, I don't, like, I don't even really barely know how to kick. Like barely know how to kick a ball other than just like intuitive,

you know, and kicking a ball when you're like a kid. Right. And I was just thinking like, this is like healthy practice. And so I was kicking it on my left, kicking it with my right and trying to dribble it and stuff like that.

And so do you think for yourself that you'll maybe revisit some of the stuff that you used to do? Maybe there will be, because I think the skill set of CrossFit, I think, is amazing. You're like, I can squeeze in this workout, but I have to go to church, and I'm doing A, B, and C. But I could just squeeze in a 12-minute CrossFit workout, right?

And so sometimes utilizing those skills that you learned in the past could really help launch you forward. 100%. Yeah, I think about that all the time. Part of the reason I thought, I think I had an early success in CrossFit was because I had done so much striking. CrossFit is so shoulder dominant. You have to do so many things, and so is striking.

You know, you go to a boxing class. If you haven't done it in a while, it just doesn't matter. Your arms are going to be dead. You know, you feel like you have cannonball delts and not in a good way. They're just heavy. That's so true about CrossFit. Yeah, it's like a lot of arms, a lot of arms and shoulders. A lot of bending of the arms, right?

And then you're getting tons of that with striking. Yeah. So that's what I got from my MMA background was two things. One, I was never scared going into a workout because nobody's trying to punch me, right? And had really strong shoulders. I had good endurance in my shoulders. And so I think that carried me forward in the sport, especially early on. You were hoping someone would try to punch you.

Yeah, exactly. I was like, well, these guys aren't scary. Like, oh, that guy's so good. He's so big. He's so strongly. You're not that big. You know, it's like, whatever. It's like I can just kick him.

Yeah. I mean, when you've been punched by somebody who really knows how to throw a punch and you come back to the gym the next day, like, oh, it's hard to get scared of somebody who wants to fight, you know? Not hard, but you just kind of go. How does that feel? How does it feel to like, you know, you get done with a crossfit workout, you're kind of dead and you you know lay on the ground and do the sweat angel but how about when

you have an MMA fight or you do some sparring and you go against someone that really kind of took it to you um how's it feel it's scary it can be scary so I went so I've had multiple times where I've been against people who are who've outclassed me at every level it happens in jiu jitsu when I go with insima it's not as scary within Sema except for the fact that I know we've agreed to play Jiu-Jitsu, right? So that's, I, I can have a little bit of peace in that. I remember when I stepped in the ring in a pure boxing match against a golden glove. Okay.

And he said to me the exact same thing that you say, which is, hey, feel free to just go as hard as you want. It was the worst three minutes of my life. It was so terrible. And he didn't really hit me that hard. but I was I felt literally like a fish out of water you know I didn't know how to move my head I thought I was doing fine I had done MMA for a while I had done striking with guys who were in the UFC but a golden glove in pure boxing is a it's a different animal and golden glove there's a I hate to say it golden gloves are not necessarily black belts but there's sort of there's

there's a few people there's a lot of people who achieve that level and of course there's the professional what does that level mean it just means it just means means that they, I don't even fully understand their ranking system all the way, but it means they've put in time. They've done a certain amount of fights. Gotcha. You made it as far as you can as an amateur, maybe minus the Olympics. Okay, there you go. That's what Golden Gloves is, yeah. Okay. So we're talking about world class, but not like the elite of the world class and put me in my place. And I did my first mixed martial arts fight. Mark, you were there. And I beat the guy in like under a minute, you know,

and I felt pretty good. He didn't look like he was ready. I was ready. I was kind of thinking that I was fighting you. Like that's the way in my mind. I'm thinking I'm fighting the best guy, the guy who's, I'm a stepping stone.

So I come in there and I'm thinking, no reason to put their will on me. And so I had a whole different mindset than he had. But then I go against this golden glove and it was very uncomfortable. You know, and let me know that there are levels to this stuff. You know, so in mixed martial arts can be very, uncomfortable. And then what made you stop? He just didn't want to get hit in the head. It's kind of a

multitude of factors, but that really wasn't one of them. It's, you know, different seasons of our life. You go through things in your own personal life, your own personal development and your relationships and you start to go, you know what? I need to turn the page on some of this stuff. And for me, it was really hard. One of the things about that season in my life, one of the good things was my relationship with Ultimate Fitness, with Uriah Faber, with a lot of the guys who were fighting then. But as a whole, I wasn't as transparent in other areas of my life. And the people who were closest to me and being a little cryptic, I know, just to preserve some people's, I don't know, the integrity of them.

It's just like, you know what, I need to get all of this behind me, this whole season and I need to kind of move forward. And I'm still friends, thankfully, with a lot of the guys who do that stuff. If I need to text them for something, I will. If I have questions or they have questions, we'll talk. I was at Ultimate Fitness just before I came to Cassios for a little while and I trained with Uriah and I trained with Dustin

and I trained with those guys and that was a lot it was really fun to go back to that but I just I left it for that reason I just didn't want to be there anymore you know because I wanted the people in my life who I was keeping my life to know that I was a different person than who I was living as

so you see with me I had to go through this transformation where what but I was preaching on the outside. That's my faith. And this belief in Jesus in the Bible was all that I held dear. And it structured my whole life and my thought process. But when you compartmentalize little portions of your life and you realize like,

oh, I'm destroying both my witness and my relationship with God, but also my relationship with my kids, with my wife, with my friends. You know, I have a couple close friends, friends that you guys know, who had to look at me and go, huh, interesting, that was something that you were doing, you know, because it was so duplicitous. And so in removing that duplicity,

I let go of some of just my own joys to kind of come back and just go, hey, this is where I need to be. And so I wanted to be a dad. I wanted to be a husband. And I wanted to walk with God faithfully. And sometimes that meant just letting go of certain things and certain environments for me.

So you feel like maybe you were using religion? to like your advantage kind of conveniently and then not not really living it does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, I think there was a big part of me that thought

so within the Christian faith you come to a place where you accept the gospel and the gospel is that you're not good enough. Right? You're just not good enough. And you're a sinner

in nature and indeed. Like you've done. done things that you shouldn't do, you've thought things you shouldn't do. You're also born with this sin nature. So you're kind of guilty on all levels. And Jesus paid the price. And you go, you know, I accept that. But there's still this process of sanctification that happens where the old you, the carnal you, right? The flesh you, the worldly you, the you that most people know when you first become a Christian is still in there. And so what you do and what I did really well for a little while is I kind of bifurcated my life and I fed this one over here. And it was truly an aspect of who I was

and then I did this over here and then convinced myself that those two two people could coexist. Right. And God loved me too much actually to leave me there. And so he made me go through about two years of hell to kind of come back to the place where I could look people in the eye, you know, say that. I want to be a dad. Say that I want to be a husband. Say that I want to be a good friend. Say that I wanted to be the man that God has called me to be. So I know it took a pretty hard left turn on you guys right there. But that's sort of yeah, that's yeah, there you go. Is there any part of you because you know how I know we've brought in the aspect of also wanting to live in concordance with the Bible. But, you know, athletes purposefully develop alter egos so that

when they go in and do whatever their endeavor is, they can almost shut down a side of themselves. Like Kobe Bryant had the Black Mamba. Tiger Woods felt himself a predator. But then you see like, you kind of see the outcomes of what can happen with one's alter ego in a way, right? So in athletic sense, many athletes do that.

They turn something different on when they go into a competitive zone. What would your, I guess, idea beyond that. Like was what you were talking about in reference to that at all or it was also, it was in reference also to like life. Yeah, it was life. It was life. You know, I wasn't mature enough to do that. The dialing back of yourself in some ways to amplify other areas so you can be the athlete you need to be. You can go in there and be the killer that you have to be figuratively speaking. That is something that I had to learn later. You know, this, I was sort of trying to do that with my

morality. I got you. I got you. And that I feel like was just destructive, you know. So, but I think for the athlete, you have to kind of go there. I've actually watched it in my son, who's a really good athlete himself. And he goes in the gym and he hits the gym. I mean, he's serious in the gym. And I first saw it when he went to weightlifting, Olympic weightlifting. He went to Olympic weightlifting. And I saw him on the platform in the back when he was, when he was warming up. And it was a kid I had never seen before. He warmed up one way. And then he stepped on the platform.

And it was almost like nobody else existed. But he could listen to me because I was coaching him. Yeah, this is him in 2025. Kind of like, this is kind of cool, but what did I create? Yeah, exactly. This is him here. He is about to go to the CrossFit games, actually. in this.

He's been a beast for a long time. He has been. Yeah. He really has been. Even when he's a little guy. Yeah, he's, you want your kids to be better than you. So a mission accomplished.

You know, mission accomplished. He became better than me about three breaths into this life. So he did a good job. He did a good job. But he's an old soul and he's, he's super fit.

So he's a good kid to have around. Yeah. How do you get fitness? How do you get fitness into? to your family or how did you do it how did I do it it was just such a part of my life you know it really was it was something I did all the time I remember that's what I saw you had like a kids area and your kids were like literally with you all the time you and Stephanie were training people yeah coaching people so yeah and I had to show I gym they were at the gym that's exactly right

and I had to show the people that were in my life that they mattered to me as much as anything else did you know and so if I kept leaving I didn't know how to do that as much as a 405 clean Yeah, right, right, yeah. I didn't know how to show people, the people in my life that I loved them without being in proximity close to them a lot. So I did. I stayed very close to my family. We went to competitions together.

I didn't do a lot of competitions. There's a guy in our jiu-jitsu school who competes all the time. He's got like five kids. And he travels on his own to these places. And he goes and he competes and comes back and he's a dad. I'm not saying he's a bad dad. I just didn't know how to do that with CrossFit. So most of the time, 90% of the time, my wife would be like, hey, let's just extend out our

our competition days, two on the front, two on the back, and let's make a vacation out of it. Yeah. And like, sweet, you know. And so it kind of fit with her too. So it was like incorporated into their life. Yeah. Yeah. And it helped.

I have an amazing wife and she sees fitness and life as we're supposed to do it together. This is not my thing. Even though fitness is more my thing, but it's, It's not just me. What about when your kids didn't want to do it? What about like if your kids wanted to be, you know, quote unquote, more normal? Because I know that your kids are homeschooled as well. Was that ever a thing where they like, yo, like, you know, why are we trapped in this cult?

Yeah. Get me out of here. Not really. I had it pretty easy in that. They've said various things. They want to play different sports. And we let them. And they go out and they do pretty well.

And then how would they play a sport if they're not part of a school? How does some of that? Some of those early on when you could just pay. pay and sign up, you know. And even now, there are ways because there are so many kids who are homeschooled or they do, I guess some version of homeschool that they can go to their district and petition or do something. I'm sure that there's some sort of, I don't know, hazing or ostracization that happens when you come in and you're like, hey, I'm homeschooled and I don't know any of you guys and I'm

going to try to take your spot, you know, but they could have done that. But with Mason and with Corbyn, my 15 year old, almost 16 year old. They get to do jujitsu. They do CrossFit. Corbyn, we've traveled for, for weightlifting, just like we did with Mason. Corbyn's run marathons or a marathon and half marathon. So they've done that kind of sport, but their exposure to... Give them choices.

Yeah. If you want to go play soccer, like, dude, we can go play soccer. I played soccer, you know? I can kick a ball in your backyard. Insima played soccer. If you watch, if Encema watches me kick a ball, he'll know I played soccer. Even if I kick it once.

Even I don't have to kick it super far. If I kick with my off leg, my left foot, he'd be like, oh, he played soccer. And it might even be a great kick. He would just know. It just looks different. You can tell the finesse. Yeah.

You've done it. 100%. Well, all those movements that you do in a sport, like it sort of runs through your whole body. Yeah. You know? With your kids, was like,

was it hard to get them to, like, workout or they just kind of wanted to do what you guys were doing? Yeah, with my kids there. Oh, that's a funny video right there with that. That's, that's a member's kid right there. That's not a member's kid. I just know, I know a lot of people struggle with like kind of having their kids, you know, getting getting their kids to work out. But in your case, you got to it so early that it was, they didn't know any different. Right. They're like, oh,

what, you don't, you don't lift, right? Probably by the time they're 12 or 10 and they maybe talk to other friends, they're like, you don't know how to do a back squat? To me, it's very natural. But maybe the reason why it's a good question is because for so many people, they spend time doing things that they aren't really all that passionate about. And so kids don't know what to grab a hold of from their parents. But for me, fitness, my faith, family, like, those are things that are truly integrated to what I do. And I don't do anything that doesn't check one of those boxes. You know, I just don't spend time doing that. And so my kids don't see it. So they think, like, oh, okay, it's very simple.

You can do whatever you want to do. I'm going to do these things, right? These are what's important to me. And so maybe there's just a lot of people out there working jobs. They don't like taking kids to performances they don't really believe in. I don't know. And so it's hard to get them to grab a hold of something. And your kids, like when it comes to, yes, fitness movement,

they find a level of enjoyment out of it. Yeah. I think there's a tough thing because you're someone who finds a level of enjoyment and so does your wife. But, you know, if a parent doesn't, and then they're also trying to get their kids to start doing stuff that even they don't enjoy, it becomes, I would assume it becomes a bit difficult to pass that on in a way that it sticks with them versus it's a chore I have to do to make mom and dad happy. Very true. I think with Mason watching him really enjoy it, but then talking to him, is he just, he's active duty military now. So he's at boot camp right now.

And he told his mom, because he has really meaningful conversations with his mom and myself, they just, sometimes my wife and I go back and forth about what he told her, what he told me. And I'm like, oh, he just talks to us, which is nice, right? But he said, mom, if I want this, because he would like to be a seal. If I want this, he's like, I went to the CrossFit games and I didn't even love it as much as I love this. Wow. You know, and so they enjoy it. You know, they enjoy it. They love it.

Their goal is to find what they love. So Mason, because of his background, top 30 in the world, sort of the next generation of CrossFit athletes if he wants to be. And he knows what that looks like. He's been out to Fronings Gym. He's trained next to the best of the best. He knows what the fitness world looks like. He's peaked behind that curtain.

He's lived behind that curtain thanks to what we've been able to do with our gym and with our competitions. And he's like, I want to go be, I want to go try to be a Navy SEAL. I want to go try to throw my hat in the ring in that regard. You know? And it's like, that's cool. You know, so do what you love. Do what you're passionate about.

Do what you feel like God's calling you to do. And don't worry about what your dad says. You know, I'm a tool now just to help him get to where he wants to go. Any military in your family or? There is, but it's not like we have a huge military family. That makes sense. You know, people who like, I was a known. Ohio State Buckeye and you know like it I don't have that kind of family but my dad was in the Navy

speaks very highly of his time in the Navy um my wife's uh grandparents or grandfather my grandfather served but it wasn't again there was no career military people it wasn't something they talked about but everybody looked upon it with like favor I should say but nobody was trying to program mason into that I gave him the book I gave him Jocco's book extreme ownership when he was like 12. It was my fault. You know, I was just trying to get him to enjoy leadership and seeing that his choices

are his own and that he needs to take ownership over his own life. And he was like, oh, this guy, Jocko's pretty cool. You know, I'm going to figure out what shaped him to being like who he is. You know, and he was on, Mason was on a podcast recently and they said, what would you do if you told Jocco, if you had a chance to meet Jock? And Mason's just like, I just tell him, thank you. you know for helping me kind of see this but then he comes to me off the side and he goes if i met

jaco he's like there's other people who have been more influential but he did get me started on this thought process so i'd be happy you know but like whatever like no big deal it's funny um what how did you take the news when he told you that he's uh and did he like just sign up to the military kind of on his own or because i know some kids will do that and they'll like sit their parents down and be like hey I signed up for this. Like, oh, wow. Your kid's got to do something, right? So at least you hope they do something.

So in that sense, I'm happy my kid wants to do something. The way that I use methylene blue is very similar to the way that you're using it. I don't use it every day. I think things that push that button to change your mood, you might want to be a little cautious with it. In my opinion and the feelings that I get from methylene blue, it does change my mood a little bit. It's a mood enhancer. When I go out and run, I feel like I do have a little bit more endurance.

I do feel like I can breathe a little bit better. But that could also be, I've been training very hard as well. So it could be an adaptation to that as well. But as we've had, you know, David Herrera and many other people have come on the show before. They basically just say methylene blue is a electron donor and it allows the body to utilize energy just more efficiently. And I don't know if I can feel that per se,

but I know that I feel better when I'm running when I'm using methylene blue. Yeah, post sessions of grappling. That's what I usually use. I use it two or three times a week. post sessions jiu-jitsu, I always feel like I have more energy, like much more energy than I typically have, which makes me understand that, you know, if I did want to go for longer sessions, I could. But it also helps me understand that I'm going to be recovering better for my next session the next day, which is a big deal. But yeah, I think that if you guys, first off,

this stuff is great because it's third-party tested, methylene blue in other sources, like the stuff that you'll see on Amazon or like random websites, there's no regulation. So a lot of people have levels of toxicity from the supplement because it's not dosed correctly. And there are other things in that methylene blue. Again, this is something that is lab made. It's not, you know what I mean? So you got to be careful. And this is why we like using this stuff because we know it's not going to mess us up. You can go on their website. You can go on the transcriptions website and you can get a report of the third party tested methylene blue and double triple check it for yourself. In addition to that, they have the canotene, which I have not used that much,

but when I have used it pre-workout, I did notice I get a zip from it. It has, I think it has nicotine in it, along with a couple other things to go along with the methylene blue. So do yourselves a favor. Check out transcriptions. Check out what they got.

Strength is never weak this week. This week, it's never strength. Catch you guys later. I didn't realize how different would be sending my son off to the military versus sending him to college, right? even if he was really, really hyper-intelligent and went to Princeton. I could still fly to Princeton every week if I wanted to to make him hang out with me and have a cup of coffee.

I don't get access to him. He gets to call me when they tell him he can call me. You know, that's, oh, that's funny. This is the, that's the Jocko. I think it'd be cool because, you know, whether that goal happens or not, it would be cool to pay him the appreciation to him. He's talking about Jocko. You know.

That's cool. Yeah. But I say there's more bigger figureheads. This is how he talks, you know. But yeah, he's a savage. And so watching him and doing this sport with him as his coach and as his father and being so involved in his life has been, honestly, it's been amazing. It's been one of the biggest blessings of my life. But I have to let him go, right?

And you got to let him go do their thing. And if he's going to be better than me, he's going to have to he has to go and so he goes yeah when um when he was leaving like he was still here and i was telling you about like when quinn left i was like man like it's really hard you know it feels like someone just punched in the stomach and then you message me like maybe a week after he was gone you're like it feels way worse than that man like yeah feels like there's a hollow you know spot in our family you know and it does feel that way but they're just they're just they're just a way you know and and um it's hard to communicate when they're in the military

right because you can only communicate so much but you know hopefully you'll get to communicate with them soon hopefully get to see them soon and all those things yeah to every other parent out there you know I'm going through those initial phases and it feels like a part of you dies when your kid leaves in this way but just like when somebody actually dies you're really sad at first. You're really sad and you can't think about them without crying. But after a little while, when you remember them for all the good that they brought into your life, you talk about them with joy, right? Like, that was the way we talk about my wife's mom. She was so hard to leave. She left way earlier than we thought she should have. But when we talk about her now, we make fun of her little

shortcomings that were all so beautiful, right? And we talk about how great of a grandma she was and how she embraced my little girls who we adopted. Like they were already, like, like they were just the same. Everybody's the same. Like they're my granddaughters, you know? And so that, and we can talk about that.

And we don't get teary-eyed. My wife might sometimes on, you know, various occasions. But crying, I think's good. Yeah, right?

It's not a bad thing by any means. Yeah. And so I started talking about Mason a lot, especially as he was leaving. And I would start crying. So I'd be like, hey, I got to go.

You know, and now if people ask me, I would just start talking about if I start crying. like, give me a second, I'll pull it back together, you know? And I just, and I actually enjoy the fact that I, that love my son, that he's worth missing, that he's, that so many people check on him, you know, through me. Have you heard about, if you heard from him? What's he been up to?

Yeah. No news. Like, oh, no news is a good news, you know, that kind of thing, you know, but it's, it's a challenge. But 2026 has been already very challenging, torn bicep, lost a friend, you know, my son went Yeah, the guy that you do jihitsu with, right? Yeah, that you guys both know, I think, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

And so, awesome guy. Really, really awesome guy. And went out doing something he loves, you know? So, which is cool. He just 60 years old and he's out skateboarding on a beautiful day. Collapses. Damn. You know?

But I got to spend the last year with him. My first year I spent with him was at Jiu-Jitsu. And then the last year, he was going to my church. Really? Yeah. Yeah. You didn't know that. I didn't know he went through church.

Mm-hmm. That was Corbyn, my 15-year-old was like, after he had this episode at Cassios, he said, hey, do you go to church? And Mike's response, like, no, but I know the Lord. And my son, Corbyn's just like, hey, I want you to come to church? And he showed up and he never left. You know, he never left. And I got to know him.

He's in my men's groups. And I got to sit there and talk with him. And he cared deeply about his kids. You know, he was a good father in that way. He just wanted them to know the same piece he had come to know. you know, through all of his health issues and whatnot and life's journeys. How hard is it for your other son to have your oldest son leave? That's probably, because they're probably like, right?

They're probably super close. Yeah. I mean, I've always seen them together. Right. I don't know if I was forced or if they actually enjoy being together. They enjoy it. They get each other's nerves, but not like me and my brother did. Me and my brother are close, but they are even closer.

We were at a, this is kind of strange. We were at an AA meeting. we being my whole family was at AA meeting in Kauai. So I have a friend who runs a ministry there and he works with people of all kinds of addictions. And he knew I was on the island and said, Ben, would you come share at the AA meeting? Now, granted, I don't have, I'm not an alcoholic.

I'm not a recovering alcoholic. I don't have, I'm not part of NAA, A, P, A, whatever, you know, there is. I'm just, just me. And so I said, sure, I'll come share. He said, 10, 15 minutes, top. So I said, great, no problem. 10, 15 minutes I share, then at an AA meeting, if you've never been to one, they go around they share all the way around the room.

And it could go ping pong back and forth depending on the structure. And so at that AA meeting, what they do is they say, hey, thank you, Ben, for sharing. And a bunch of people say, hey, thank you for sharing your story. And it's kind of the culture. And the guy who leads it, Aaron Hoff, really, really, really awesome, amazing guy. Says, all right, who wants to share next? So somebody else shares. And they start pointing at each other.

and, you know, people of all ages. And there's about 25 people there. And somebody points at my son Corbyn. And this is to answer your question. Your goal is to try to come up with what you're struggling with. And this was in December, this past December. And he goes, well, my best friend's moving out next month. Right.

And kids have a way just to destroy you. Yeah. And I was just like. And some of their actions sometimes. Keep my eyes. Yeah, the tears were just like, yeah. Because he could have said my brother's moving. Yeah.

But he didn't. He said my best friend is leaving. Damn. I have never heard him say that Mason was his best friend. But then he says it to this group, you know. And Mason's there too, huh? Mason's there. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And so how's he dealing with it? He's dealing with it, you know? And I think there's a part of him that's learning to adapt. And he said he's going to write him a letter last night. I don't know if he actually got around to it, but, you know, 15-year-olds. Yeah.

So, but. He's busy ripping apart bikes, he told me. Yeah, dude, that kid. Taking them, taking the engines apart and like. I think he's also building a car too. Yeah. I don't know if that's already a done project. No, he's building a car.

He's building a 9-11. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then he does e-bikes. And so he self-taught pulling apart e-bikes and putting them back together. Yeah, he told me he just looked up a bunch of stuff on YouTube. Mm-hmm. I was like, did you get inspired by like, Sean Provost or something like that or he's like nah just kind of looked it up on

YouTube I bet you he's also taking out those limiters on speed huh so yeah he can do that but he does that but he does not like a adrenaline junkie good he doesn't do that so he just put together one last night I should tell you about the one before the one last night isn't sold yet so I don't know how much he'll make on that one but he bought one maybe five weeks ago six weeks ago the guy came over he wanted 700 for it my son's like I got 450 you know and um It wasn't working. It was really, it was a pretty nice bike.

It probably $11 or $1,200 if it was new and working. It sounds like, I'm not paying $700 for a bike that's not working. He goes, why, I drove through some mud and, you know, and it got really wet. And he's like, this is electric. I don't, it can't get wet, you know. So my 15-year-old is negotiating with this guy who's like 32, 33 years old. And early 30s, I'll say, he gets the bike for $350. He spends 40 minutes taking it apart.

cleaning it, puts it back together, works. He turned around, he sold it for $900, two days later. This is just like what he does. This is not weird for him, you know? It sounds cool to you guys, but to me, I'm like, what are you going to do next? You know, I don't even know, like, what you're going to do next. Is he interested at all in engineering of any sense, like mechanical or any of that type of stuff? Or this is just a hobby for it?

This is just the way he thinks. Good for this. Good for him. Yeah. Good for him. I didn't even know how to describe him fully. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he is, he's actually a lot more like my wife.

He can see problems and then just find a way to fix problems. That is also his problem in like jujitsu. Okay, so he sees problems the way people move and he's like, I'm going to fix this. I'm going to figure out a way to get around it, which is what we do. But what he doesn't understand sometimes is the grind is the way through. Right. So hard work and stick-to-stitiveness is. is not always his strength.

Now that sounds like I'm just trying to find a nice way to say my kid is lazy. He's not actually lazy. He works really hard, but he spends most of his time trying to think of new ways, new patterns, you know, to get around things.

But sometimes I tell him you just have to go through, you know, and you have to figure out how to like put the work in. So he'll figure out a way to run a marathon. To train for a marathon, different, right? He'll find a way to do a jiu jitsu competition. And but to like train for the jiu-sitsu competition, but he's willing to just go, well, this is a new problem.

Shows up on the day of and everybody's fitter than him or faster than him or better. And he's just like, now figure it out. And most of time he does a pretty good job and figures it out. So I can't knock him for it. But I want him to figure out that balance of when it's trying to look away around, but jump over, go under. But sometimes you just have to go through and try to figure that up. But because the thing is, I'm like just go through guy. You know, I just want to just pound on the same thing until I'm through it, you know, which has helped me.

Yeah. Be resilient, but also it's limited me, you know. So I need an aspect of what he does and who he is. So I try not to limit it too much. They just say, hey, this might be one of those times. You've got to go through. So anyway. What are some of your thoughts on like CrossFit, like not being as much of a thing anymore?

Hmm. It was pretty cool. It was pretty cool when it was like, you know. Yeah, at its height. Yeah, I almost feel like CrossFit is a dirty word in some ways right now. Like it's just not, just has no cachet to it at all. Nobody thinks it's really all that awesome. I think if you said you were the CrossFit Games champion,

that would probably still be pretty cool. Enough people know what it is. But I think that there's been some issues with maybe the brand and leadership over the last few years that people have taken issue with. me in particular I know a lot of the people and a lot of the players and so I sort of just feel

like it's the normal thing that happens with any fitness fat at some point it kind of drops off and there could be other factors that help that you know unfortunately somebody died at the CrossFit games a couple years ago and that made things really really challenging

for the brand and they got drowned or something right yeah yeah yeah and I'm I am not here to say that that would have happened regardless of circumstance. Like it was probably, you know, you take the right precautions. And we don't know that that would have happened. You know, it wasn't a guarantee.

And so you just have to look at that. But those are some challenges that did they take enough precautions? And some people now looking back, of course, would say, no, you did not take enough precautions. But that's easy to say in retrospect. But that's the way most people hear about things is in retrospect. So that, I think, hurts. There was supposed to be a sale of CrossFit recently, and then now there's no sale.

And I think that that was sort of a, it was going to be like this new resurgence where somebody knew was at the helm. But I actually don't think CrossFit needs to sell. I don't think it needs to change its methodology. I think that it needs to show that they are learning lessons as they go and keep doing it for the people who love it. You know, and that's what we do. So one of my companies, we run a CrossFit sanctioned event. And we love it. And I really enjoy it.

And I love being part of that ecosystem. I think it's really awesome to see the community that still enjoys pushing themselves in that way. It's a good blend of weightlifting, body weight movements, and cardio. I think it's probably the best that there is out there as far as a training methodology. If you want to be really good at high rocks or really good at power lifting, then you probably should do those two things. that's what you should do. But if you want to be good at a lot of things, I don't think there's really anything out there

that's better than CrossFit to help you get there. I think it's a proven methodology has helped a lot of people get in tremendous amount, a tremendous shape. And then you've also seen, you know, tons and tons of people just gaining strength doing CrossFit, which I think maybe years before that, people wouldn't think that that would be a thing,

that you could blend that high level of endurance, that high level of, you know, being able to just have a high V-O-2 max and be able to, like, back squat and bench press and do all these things. We never really seen it before. Right. I mean, would you say maybe 10 or 15 years ago you used to say this? I don't know if you still hold to this, but if somebody was like 225 and jacked, they were for sure on steroids.

Ah, yeah. Right? But. It's a barometer, 225 and like 10% body fat. Okay. Do you still think that's the case? It's, it's, it's still, it's still a barometer that ends up, you know. It could be right most of the time.

Yeah, I'm not saying like 100% of the time. But if you even look at a crossfitter, a lot of times they're like 210. That's true. You know, 2.15. So you start getting towards that 220. And I know we got my man over here. Claims to be natural. Claims to be natural.

Well, it's really rare. I mean, he also was a professional bodybuilder. Right. You know, I think people sometimes, like, you worked on that for a really long time. That was a big phase of his, of his life, you know, so most people aren't putting that amount of time in like that. And also learning like straight bodybuilding. Right. That's true.

And I think that if you, if you look at CrossFit and if you go, you know, I'm still going to hold to that 225 and 10% body fat as being like a, you're probably on the juice. I think you'd still say that. Right. But I think that if there's any community, any methodology that's going to challenge that, it's CrossFit. Yeah. Right? Because guys take pride in being stronger and being faster. Yeah.

They take pride in being explosive and having endurance. And I think that in order to do that, you have to have a certain amount of muscle to be able to be strong. And the endurance tests that we have aren't 100 mile races. They're more like 5Ks, 10Ks, right? Maybe a marathon for a few cross-year. CrossFit athletes that spend that time in adaptation. But for the most part, I think that there's any community that's going to challenge

what you can look like as a superhero. Natural. I think CrossFit is it. You look at the women? Unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, I don't even know what would the equivalent be for women, 225 and 10% body fat for the women to be like, what,

160 and 15% body fat? Yeah. You know? But I'm like, look at some of these leads. And even just on the flip side, some of these girls are like 180. Yeah. they're and they then they look awesome they look absolutely incredible and they're able to perform all

this crazy crossfit shit it's pretty unbelievable what's your uh it seems like you have um it seems like you have kept a great relationship with rich froning it seems like he is a friend seems like he's maybe a mentor um it seemed like it's been really important for you to keep that relationship with him uh what's he like and and you know what are things that you learn from him because he won the CrossFit games, I think, four years in a row, right? I'm just curious, did he say that? Yeah, yeah, he set me up.

Okay, cool. So I consider Rich a friend. And he does talk a lot of trash. He does. He's good at that. Rich and I's relationship isn't as deep as it is with many people, but the few interactions, the number of interactions, I should say,

that have had with him have been so good. You know, he is genuinely who he seems to be on his podcast. He's just himself. He's very authentic. He's very genuine. So if you feel like you know him, you probably do really know him

because he's just who he is. And so I brought Mason out there when we were training for the CrossFit games. I went out there and he helped us with our business a little bit in terms of with Blair and I in terms of programming. And so he gave work out before and after the conversation. You know, you work out before and after conversation,

you know, so it's like, oh, I get to do that with Rich and must be really good friends. I think he does that with everybody, right? But I would just say this. I trust him. He's, I consider him a friend. I trust him with my kid. I was at the coffee shop,

typing away on my sermon that had to get due on Sunday when I flew back. I said, May, so why don't you just ride with Rich and go get lunch? And, you know, so I trust my kids with him. You know, he's a good guy. As a mentor, I did have him give me some input into our creative process with the NorCal Classic. And I'd say that's as far as that relationship.

goes. If anything, I would always like to let him know that I'm there if he has questions about going deeper in his faith. That's who I want to be to the community nowadays, right? Like, whether it be rich or anybody else, like, I don't want to be the guy who knows the most about CrossFit because, number one, I don't. I don't know the most about CrossFit. And I also don't know that much about my faith, but it's growing. And God keeps using me because relationships are sort of my chief end. Like, I love relationships. I love maintaining relationships. It would take a lot for me to sever a relationship. I won't do it for money. I won't do it for anything but a relationship that's higher, if that makes sense. That's the only time I would

ever do that. And so I really like maintaining my relationship with Rich, which is primarily a text three or four times a year. And then if I get a chance to go out there or be in the same place as him, so either grab a bite to eat or go work out with him or do something like that. What do you think makes that guy like so freaky still? Because his training volume is just high. It's really, really high. He trains a lot. He loves to train.

And when you say trains a lot, like what do you think, what is that? How many times a day is this guy? I mean, I could look. I have access to see what he does. Oh yeah.

But he trains, I would say, I haven't looked at in a while, but he trains at least twice a day. Yeah. You know, I would think that that happens regularly. But he does,

but he enjoys. It's like we're talking about doing the new things. He enjoys the new things. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's kind of fun to watch, kind of fun to watch him think through it because he just, you know, I mean,

there's a little bit more to it than him making stuff up, but he's kind of just like making stuff up. He's like, let's do this, this and this. And even with me, like I'm kind of limited on some of the stuff. I can't, you know, I don't have proficiency in like a lot of the CrossFit movements. And he was still scaling stuff for me. And, yeah, he was just.

a savage. I mean, I was out there for, I was just with him for just a few hours. We worked out like three times. Yeah. He's really intuitive. You know, and I think that he's backfilled that now with enough of his own experience that he almost seemed scientific in the way he does it. Right. But I think that he knew early that less is more. I'm sorry, more is more. Not less is more. And, and he leaned into that and it allowed him as as his body stayed together for the, for a long time. I know he's had some issues with his knees in the past, recent past, but he is, I mean, he's a freak. He's an anomaly and he's, I'm just,

I'm not telling you guys this as his friend. I'm telling you guys this is just somebody who can just watch him and see what most of you guys see. He is, he is impressive. He's genuinely impressive. Yeah. I remember asking him about, you know, like heart rate monitors. No.

You're asking him about like Chris Henshaw and like, I know, you know, I know they communicate and, you know, but just doesn't really, subscribe to any, any of that. He just is like, he's just going. Like, I know that sometimes maybe he might in his head say, okay, well, I need a workout that's maybe a little bit backed off a little bit more. I'm going to run a little slower on this particular run. I know he does some stuff like that and maybe, you know, but he's not really, like you said, he's not like really trying to be super scientific with it. But it seems like it's scientific because he's figured it the hell out. Yeah. And I think

that who he really is is a champion. Right. He's, he really truly is a champion. Like inside and out, he's a champion. He's, him being his best is the CrossFit Games champion. But nobody knows him, him better than him. You know, just like there's nobody better than being in SEMA than in Sema. Or Mark Bell than knew. Just the byproduct of that for him, because of the environment he was in was in

was to become a champion four times over and then many more times as a team and then the fittest man in history. Regardless of what anybody says. And there's some people who don't like to say that. but I believe he's the fittest man in history for sure. And he showed that because he's an individual athlete, but then also showed it on a team athlete, which it shows a layer to it that other people have not proven. So at least not yet.

I guess Tia Toomey would maybe take that throne. Yeah, because she's won like five or six times. But I said fittest man in history. So there you go. You know. Where can people find you? Where can they find out more about your church? If people want to find out more about my church

and just go to rest life church on Instagram, find about me, Ironisle. Rest life? Yeah, rest life. There we go. Yeah. Our church is actually named Restoration Life, but we go with Rest life church. And there it is.

I'll tell you guys a funny story. Look at that. 141 followers. And I'm not even on there probably. Blowing up. Yeah. We've been in a process of revamping our social media and making sure we put a good public-facing look out there.

but in reality, we are a group of people who love each other, who love God, get it wrong sometimes, get it right sometimes, and invite anybody who was willing to come to come and hang out. And if you want to see me, I'm just Iron Mile Ben on social media. It's easy to find. And I haven't posted in a little while either, but, you know. Do you still have multiple gyms? I think for a little while you had a couple going.

I'm not sure how many. Yeah, I have, now I have one gym. We had the Overcome gym, which was about 15 miles away. and that program was doing really well, but we found that we were getting even more traction with kids because that's where we work with at-risk youth. We have more traction with kids in our Natomas facility, and so we just basically brought everybody in-house

because we have a new 15,000 square-fired-so-you-still-out the program. Yeah, we still have the program. We still have a new 15,000 square-foot facility, and it just fits so many more people. It's more versatile. The experience for the kids is better. And tell us a little bit more about that. Well, we use fitness, our passion for fitness and everything that we've been talking about, the lessons that come from that, the relationships we've built from that.

And we try to leverage that and teach these kids who are either part of a group home or maybe in some other situation that makes them an opportunity youth, which is a new kind of catchphrase versus at risk. But really, these days, I kind of feel like any youth is sort of at risk. You know, there's just a lot of messaging out there that's harmful on social media. A kid you think is doing just fine is actually not doing just fine. A kid that's hurting might be hurting a lot deeper than what you can actually see. And so we. So many levels to that too. There's so many levels to that.

It could just be a kid seeing some violence on social media, which we wouldn't think would be like too crazy. But for a nine-year-old kid, that could develop into something pretty shitty. Yeah. And so we just try to pull them into the gym. And I mean, that was transformative for us, for me. And, and then I use that and I try to connect the dots for them that this is not just what you do in here.

There are lessons in here that you get to take out there. And then I bring in other lessons from scripture in a really light way and maybe in a more understandable way. You know, like, you know, in your mind, what does the word overcome mean? You know, when you ask an 11 year old that or a 12 year old that, they have this idea. And then you can tell them what you think it means. and then you can be like, yeah. So this is what it is. And then this is what the Bible says it means, right?

And then, I mean, honestly, work out for an hour, talk to them for about 10 minutes. And that's about the dose they can handle. And I think it's about the right dose because I don't want to make it church. I already do that somewhere else. Was this, like, how did this idea come to be? How did you?

So we adopt our two little girls when they're three months old. And so we got to see what that world looks like, the foster care world, the amount of kids that are out there. that actually need a home. And there is just a call for us to be a part of the solution. And I think so many of us have a lot more than maybe even we would deserve. Many of us know we have more than we deserve.

And so to be able to give back in a way, and that's what we want to do. I just want to take my passion. Because like I said, if it's not family, if it's not fitness, if it's not faith, I don't want to do it. Well, this is a way to kind of put all three together for me, for people who I'm paying it forward. They don't they can't they can't come in and pay

They don't know I mean that's that's what other people do we have we do have donors who say hey I want to give this one time Donation to help support the overcome project or monthly donations and things like that But that's how they get taken care of so these kids never pay It doesn't matter if 10 of them come from a single group home and they come Every week for a year they're not going to pay a dime It's pretty admirable You take two kids into your own family And then now you're providing for other kids even outside of that

Yeah That's pretty remarkable. Yeah. I mean, thank you. That's encouraging, but I don't know how to do it any other way. You know, my wife and I have been given a lot. You know, we've been given a lot. We've been, people have overlooked our shortcomings, you know,

in order to help us get where we are now. And so we just, like I said, we're happy to be a part of it. And my little girls are amazing. They're incredible. They have their own little. I couldn't believe it when I saw them. I was like, I mean, of course. course, you know, a bunch of time went by since last time I saw them, but I was like,

and then they don't remember being at the old super training, which I was like, I mean, again, a lot of times gone by, but they were, well, they're bigger and you're smaller. They were, yeah, they were there. That's true. Yeah. So we were, I was recapping a little bit of some of our conversations from this past week, uh, with my wife. And, uh, the associate pastor at my church is named Mark. You met him, you know. Oh, where is he from, by the way? South Africa. Oh, yeah. I couldn't identify the accent. I'm like, yeah. I was like, he's got a cool accent, but I don't know where it's from. Yeah, he's South African.

Okay. Yeah, super cool. And so I said, Mark. And then she said, my wife said, wait, which, which, Mark Bell, okay? She's trying to figure it out. And then Piper was listening, the one who was like, I don't remember you. And she goes, that was Mark Bell. He is a lot smaller.

So. All right. Anyway, yeah. I have to have a conversation with her. Yeah, yeah. So now, now you know that they did find, they, they remember. Mark Bell, but they don't remember Mark Bell. They're Pillsbury Bell.

Pillsbury Bell. Exactly. They remember the bloated. Yeah. More bloated version. Yeah, the power lifting bell. How was it, like, what's the foster care? What's that look like? How do you adopt?

Like, how does? So the hard part is getting started. Okay. The easy part is there's plenty of kids. Okay. So getting started both first the decision to get started. So many people like the idea, admire the idea of adoption. A lot of people have experienced having kids themselves and they love their kids.

I mean, they genuinely love their kids, right? You do anything for your kids. You die for your kids. And then they see this other kid and they go, I don't think I could love that kid as much as my kid. I feel guilty bringing them into my home. And so they actually don't because they're like, I could never love them like my own kid.

Now, let me just say this. That may be true. But that doesn't mean the environment you're bringing them into is worse than the environment that they're in right now. You know, so a lot of people see that as a barrier because of themselves. But how does the kid... You might have an opportunity to change their life.

Yes. How does the kid themselves, how would they be transformed by coming into that environment? Yeah. You know, but then also there's this idea that that love that you have for your kids is sort of a two-way street. But sometimes love is actually a one-way street. And you have to love first in order to be loved, right? And so you, you, and love is an action.

And that happens with your own kids. It does. It really does. They don't, they don't know anything. They don't know what's going on. I mean, not until they're like three or four. Do you get a hug back and they tell you that they love you and all that? Mm-hmm.

And what's different to is for my wife and I. I don't really say my adopted daughters. I don't ever do that. It's obvious when they walk in. Like, who's your wife? And Seema? No. You know, they just, they just have that skin color, you know?

You know, it's like, but they, it's the only time I really talk about them being adopted. Or if I'm making a joke to try to get across to an audience, you know. But that's, that's really it. Other than that, they're just my little girls, you know? So for me, God's been really good. He's opened my heart, a whole other aspect of my heart, just like my kids did. if you never had chocolate, somebody tried to tell you how amazing chocolate is.

They're like, oh, it's like, you have this certain flavor. And you'd be like, oh, that sounds pretty cool. Maybe I'll try it someday. You know? Like, you don't know what you're missing, you know,

or ice cream. You have no idea what you're missing. It's the same thing with kids, right? You try to tell somebody who doesn't have kids, how amazing it is to have kids. And they're like, yeah, maybe someday.

Maybe that'll be for me. I don't know if it's really for me, but maybe someday, right? That's the way you think about it. But when you have kids, And that portion of your heart that's unlocked, that happened again, but it was actually more incremental with the girls.

Like there was another aspect of my heart that got opened up, you know, when we adopted them. So Mason flung that, kicked that door open when he was born, right? And I thought, that's never going to, there's nothing,

never going to top that, you know? It's like, boom. And then Corbyn kicks down this other door. And I'm like, whoa, this is crazy, you know? And they get my little girls, and they come into this environment where I know what's possible.

And then over time, God did this amazing thing where we just love them like our own. So it's really cool. I think adoption is something everyone should consider. When I say everyone, I mean, if you're like 75 and you still have all your faculties, oh, there's my old girl's right there. Consider it.

Because you being a 75-year-old mom and dad, the kids all gone, you know, and you're raising your grandkids, that's a better environment than so many of these kids have. Yeah. You know, if you can't have your own kids and you're spending thousands and thousands, and thousands of dollars on in vitro.

I'm not here to judge you for that, but I'm just here saying, like, there's a lot of kids out there. And you can solve a problem by going and helping them, you know? So, anyway, I think I'm watching like an adoption promotion video, but this is just my life.

This is just what we do, you know? Awesome, man. Thanks for having, thanks for coming out today. Appreciate it. Yeah, happy to be here. Thanks for having me on you guys. Strength is never a week. This week does never strength.

Catch you guys later. Bye. Thank you.