Chasing Excellence

The questions we’re answering this week: 📍 How can I improve my training to achieve better progress and keep up with the competition, considering my busy lifestyle as a self-employed PT and lack of easy access to a CrossFit box? 📍 Has the Fulfillment Framework process evolved for you and Ben since you first talked about it 2 years ago, including the macro-to-micro approach to goal setting and ch...

In this episode, we answer listener questions about working on weaknesses, combating habits derailing progress, and deepening connections with significant others. We also share personal experiences and advice on balancing pushing kids without over-scheduling, reflecting on legacy, and prioritizing meaningful moments. Specific questions we’re answering: 📍 How do you maintain good habits and routin...

The questions we’re answering this week: 📍 How do you advise introducing complex movements like the split jerk to people new to fitness and give them proper progressions, especially when trainers may be teaching them without proper mechanics? 📍 What is the best way to reach a protein goal of 160g while staying within a fat goal when tracking macros to lose weight? 📍 How can I address the priori...

The questions we’re answering this week: 📍 How can I increase my stamina for doing burpees during workouts? 📍 How can I avoid making snap judgments towards people? 📍 Should I wait until my baby can sleep longer stretches before getting back to CrossFit? 📍 How can I balance feeling unhappy with my career and wanting to make a change with being a financial provider for my family? THANKS TO OUR S...

We're answering three of your questions this week: 📍 Can a CrossFit athlete's performance become worse due to running, and if so, how much running is too much? 📍 Why is it important to stay informed about the news and politics, even if it can be seen as mostly entertainment and outside of our control? 📍 How can one build a relationship with oneself after spending many years focused on being who...

We're talking through 4 listener questions this week: 📍 As an aging CrossFit athlete, are there resources available to help me push myself to be better while ensuring that I am doing so safely, especially when it comes to knowing when to push through an injury and how to monitor my heart rate effectively? 📍 How can you determine the appropriate food intake to support exercise without promoting f...

This week, we discuss making strategic long-term decisions, embracing challenges, and prioritizing long-term goals. We emphasize the importance of structuring a training plan that prioritizes function and progress without causing injury, as well as the benefits of functional movements in CrossFit for maintaining strength and mobility as we age. Additionally, we’re talking about the challenges of b...

In our last Benchmark of the summer, we’re throwing it back to August of 2018 and a conversation about how to be more competitive in the sport of CrossFit. Topics include getting better at muscle-ups, tips for improving your double unders, and Ben’s best advice for athletes who don't have a coach. ===========  OUR SPONSORS:  ===========  🔗  Lifeforce   🔗  Momentous (code: excellence)  🔗  Better...

This week, we’re discussing whether pursuing excellence is selfish, the point of health, playing infinite games, and much more. =========== EXPECT TO LEARN ===========  📍 Whether we need to worry about recovery drinks 📍 The difference between (and value of) stretching, mobility work, and yoga 📍 Why how you read a book affects what you get out of the book 📍 Some recommended reading for parents...

In this episode, first published in November of 2019, we take a 10'000 foot view of how to make better decisions, discussing how to factor in our principles, priorities, & purpose to make sure our lives are headed in the right direction. =========== OUR SPONSORS: =========== 🔗 LMNT 🔗 Eight Sleep 🔗 Policygenius =========== GET A QUESTION IN THE QUEUE: =========== 🔗 Send Patrick a DM with yo...

This week, we’re talking about how the 5 Factors of Health look across the spectrum of Sick, Well, and Fit, why we want to make sure we don’t let ourselves get distracted in our pursuit of health, and much more. Also: listener questions about wall walks, charting your own path in life, feeding kids, and athletes who no-rep themselves to the top of the leaderboard.   =========== OUR SPONSORS:  ====...

In this episode first published in April of 2017, we talk about why happiness doesn't live on the other side of achievement, gratitude, & why relationships matter more than money. =========== OUR SPONSORS: =========== 🔗 LMNT 🔗 Eight Sleep =========== GET A QUESTION IN THE QUEUE: =========== 🔗 Send Patrick a DM with your Five Factors questions! =========== ABOUT US: ===========  📍 Ben Berge...

What do we do when we find ourselves working a job with people who don’t align with the healthy, meaningful life we want to lead? That’s the listener question we’re answering this week, talking about how to measure the strength of our relationships, why it’s so hard to prioritize, the importance of balance, and more. ===========  EXPECT TO LEARN =========== 📍 If focusing on fitness now (eventuall...

In this episode, first published in September of 2021, we talk about putting our ladders up against the right walls and about the system Ben uses to chase fulfillment, accomplish big goals, and stay focused every day. =========== OUR SPONSORS: =========== 🔗 LMNT 🔗 Eight Sleep =========== GET A QUESTION IN THE QUEUE: =========== 🔗 Send Patrick a DM with your Five Factors questions! =========== A...

Cole Sager joins us as he’s preparing for his 10th straight CrossFit Games appearance to answer listener questions about how to know if you’re competing too much, how to stop hijacking conversations, what it looks like to live on autopilot, and much more. ========= EXPECT TO LEARN:  =========  📍 How and why Cole and Ben first started working together 📍 When competing too much might do more damag...

Ben recently announced that this will be his last year coaching elite athletes to pursue success at the CrossFit Games. We talk this week about why, the future of CompTrain, the three elements of resilience, and much more. ========= EXPECT TO LEARN: =========  📍 How to build an equipment-free, CrossFit-inspired workout program 📍 What to do when you realize you’ve been triggered but can’t get pas...

Chasing objective, easy-to-measure goals are one thing. But chasing subjective, hard-to-measure ones are another thing altogether. So, how do we get started making progress on things like improving our empathy or being a better spouse? That’s what we’re diving into this week. ========= EXPECT TO LEARN:========= 📍 How to training when your CrossFit gym cancels your favorite class 📍 Why the goal o...

We’re taking a listener question about helping our kids avoid some of the adversities of life and talking broadly about stimulus and response, being generation breakers, and why “what we do around here” is such a powerful force. =========== EXPECT TO LEARN: ===========  📍 How to improve our aerobic capacity 📍 Why your gym community can serve as a useful decisional filter 📍 How defaulting to sim...

We’re answering a listener question about whether CrossFit affiliates are offering a “watered down” version of CrossFit, and whether that’s a good thing if so. We’re talking about the CrossFit Games, standardization across gyms, Hyrox, and more. =========== EXPECT TO LEARN: ===========  📍 Whether our mobility work should be consistent or varied 📍 How to stop comparing yourself to your gym buddie...

Should we sacrifice now for security later, forgo security later and enjoy now, or find a balance between the two? Friend-of-the-show Julie Foucher joins us to talk through that and listener questions about why she’s training now, how to handle rep shavers, and more. =========== EXPECT TO LEARN: ===========   📍 How hard it was for Julie to transition out of being a CrossFit Games athlete 📍 Why “...

In February of 2021, we released an episode called “Overcoming Excellence Fatigue.” It started with a question about how to exist inside the gap between where we are and where we want to be. Here’s a clip about how Ben thinks about that gap. ==========SUBSCRIBE ========== Apple Pods:  tinyurl.com/3nu78tsh Spotify:  tinyurl.com/ekhp3cce YouTube:  tinyurl.com/9uktjdfs   [[]---[]]   Chasing Excellenc...

We talk about the five factors of health all the time, but what are the books, movies, and people we turn to to learn more about them? We’re giving you our list this week. ========== EXPECT TO LEARN: ==========  📍 The question to ask yourself before (or while) you’re watching the news 📍 How to combine CrossFit with seasonal outdoor pursuits 📍 Some strategies for eating clean when you’re days ar...

Way back in October of 2020, the writer James Clear (author of the wildly successful “Atomic Habits”) joined us on the show. In this clip from that episode, we talk about the patience required to build the kinds of habits that have real impact. Watch the full episode here. =========== Subscribe:  =========== Apple Pods:  tinyurl.com/3nu78tsh Spotify:  tinyurl.com/ekhp3cce YouTube:  tinyurl.com/9uk...

Life, business, and sport continually give us setbacks. How do we know when those setbacks mean we should quit or that we should put our head down and keep working? That’s the listener question we’re talking about this week. =========== EXPECT TO LEARN:  =========== 📍 How often Ben uses chalk in the gym 📍 Fueling strategies for a 24-hour burpee challenge 📍 Tips for getting over performance anxi...

Why is it so easy to get so busy? In this clip from a longer conversation Patrick had with the Digital Barbell podcast, he talks about some of the strategies he’s implemented to stay busy without getting overwhelmed. You can listen to the full conversation here. 📍 Subscribe: Apple Pods: tinyurl.com/3nu78tsh Spotify: tinyurl.com/ekhp3cce YouTube: tinyurl.com/9uktjdfs [[]---[]]   Chasing Excellence...