Living with a SEAL: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet

by Jesse Itzler

“This ain’t a dress rehearsal, bitch.”

Every day do something that makes you uncomfortable. —SEAL

I’m trained to disappear. —SEAL

“The temperature is what you think it is, bro, not what your computer thinks it is. If you think it’s fourteen degrees, then it’s fourteen degrees. Personally, I’m looking at it like it’s in the mid-fifties.”

“Well, is it freezing? OR is your mind just saying it’s freezing? Which is it?” He laughs again. “Control your mind, Jesse.”

“In extreme heat, it’s a totally different mind-set, bro. You have to get medieval. Embrace it! Grind it out. Think about how others are suffering. Enjoy the pain.”

We head to Central Park and run six miles at a 9:20-mile pace.

“Give me ten. All the way down and all the way up. Let’s see where your pull-up game is at.”

SEAL tells me to take a forty-five-second break and do it again.

“We’re going to stay here until you do a hundred.”

Workout totals: 6 miles and 100 pull-ups

I like to sit back and enjoy the pain. I earned it. —SEAL

I’m the surprise-or. Not the surprise-ee. —SEAL

Workout totals: 12 miles in freezing rain

You need to feel the pace. —SEAL

Workout totals: 14.3 miles (8.3 miles in the morning and 6 miles at night)

I don’t do shit for applauses. I don’t do shit for fanfare. I do shit for me. —SEAL

I don’t think about yesterday. I think about today and getting better. —SEAL

We head over to the treadmill. SEAL hands me two twenty-pound dumbbells and sets the controls. Incline: 8. Speed: 4.0. He pushes the start button. I do this for eight minutes. It’s like a brisk walk up a moderate-size hill carrying a couple of suitcases. Then, every minute thereafter, SEAL increases the incline by 1. By incline 10 it feels like I’m walking up a steep hill carrying two camp trucks; by 15, I’m climbing the side of a mountain holding two minivans!

Workout totals: 6 miles, 15-minute treadmill test, 50 box jumps, 36 pull-ups, and 100 push-ups

It doesn’t have to be fun. It has to be effective. —SEAL

We do a hundred dumbbell bench presses (2X), no rest, and I start with thirty-pound weights but end with twenty-pounders. Total: 200. 100 lateral pull-downs (2X). 75 pounds. Total: 200 100 shoulder presses (seated). Total: 100 Like I said, that’s five hundred, not one hundred. Extra credit: 2X light triceps pull-downs and 2X curls It’s time to leave. We make our way out of the gym. “Well, that didn’t look fun,” Sting says.

We do fifteen sets of ten push-ups, with thirty seconds of rest between sets. Total: 150.

“When you think you’re done, you’re only at forty percent of what your body is capable of doing. That’s just the limit that we put on ourselves.”

Workout totals: 500 workout (bench presses, lat pull-downs, shoulder presses) and 150 push-ups

I don’t need new friends. I like to keep my shit lean and tight. —SEAL

He was taught that if you have a job to do, you do it with 120 percent effort. I have been operating under the assumption that if someone that works for me does something 80 percent of the way I would do it, that’s enough. SEAL is teaching me that we can all do so much more.

It’s really not that complicated. —SEAL

“Get up, motherfucker,” SEAL says.

He credits it to a philosophy and lifestyle called “natural hygiene,” and he lays out the road map in Fit for Life.

“Fruit till noon, brother.”

He explains that anything under ten minutes is solid, under eleven minutes is acceptable, and he finds over thirteen minutes is unacceptable.

(I’m a “get your foot in the door, figure it out later guy”)

“Failure is just life’s way of nudging you and letting you know you’re off course.”

Every half mile we do twenty-five push-ups.

Workout totals: 12 miles (6 miles “escalation” pace), 300 push-ups, and 100 burpees

If it doesn’t suck, we don’t do it. —SEAL

“There’s only one rule in training: If it doesn’t suck, we don’t do it.”

I get to do 275 push-ups when

we get home.

confused him. Just throwing words at him. It was Harry Truman who said, “If you can’t convince them, confuse them.” It’s a tactic I still use instinctively. It buys time.

“How ya legs feel?” he asks. “Terrible. They’re sore and tight.” “Cool. Put your shorts and sneakers on.” “No,” I say. “Oh, yes indeed.”

“Now you’re seeing what it’s like to train, Jesse. I hope you enjoy this shit.”

Workout totals: 17 miles and 275 push-ups in the morning

This isn’t piss time. It’s run time. —SEAL

“SEAL, man, I gotta pee… BAD.” “NOW? In the middle of the fucking run? On my time? Why didn’t you plan your piss BEFORE the run? What the fuck do you think you’re doing pissing now when this is run time? This isn’t piss time.”

Workout totals: 6 miles

I don’t like motherfuckin’ freeloaders. You better work hard for your shit or we aren’t gonna get along very well. —SEAL

Train for the unexpected. —SEAL

It makes me realize that SEAL does not do any stretching either.