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

by Jesse Itzler

Most of my successes in life have come from learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

This is a habit I have. When I see or read about someone interesting, I call them up and basically ask them to be my friend.

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

“Exactly. Enjoy this shit. If you want it to be seventy and sunny… it’s seventy and sunny. Just run. The elements are in your mind. I don’t ever check the temperature when I run. Who gives a fuck what the temperature on the computer says? The computer isn’t out there running, is it?”

I convinced Sara two years ago we should move in because the building had a pool. “We can swim every day, honey.” Well, here we are two years later. We bought the apartment but we have not been in the pool once.

No matter how you slice it, six miles is going to take me fifty to sixty minutes. That’s a long time to be running.

I recently started a company called the 100 Mile Group. I’m fairly good at identifying trends and predicting the next big thing. The 100 Mile Group is set up to take advantage of that. If I find a product or service that I know customers will want and I have authentic passion for it, then our company will invest, market, or launch it.

“Holy shit,” she exclaimed. “What the hell was that?” Several months later “that” moved into our house.

He reluctantly keeps his shirt on, and we walk over to the pull-up bar for what he has coined “nickels and dimes.” We do five pull-ups (nickels) and then ten push-ups (dimes) “every minute on the minute.”

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

We jump on the elevator and head down to the gym. There are already three other people working out when we get there. While the gym is fully operational and is loaded with equipment, it’s rare that more than a handful of residents are ever there working out at the same time.

“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.”

He was taught that if you have a job to do, you do it with 120 percent effort.

I eat only fruit until noon. That’s been my thing since I read Fit for Life by Harvey Diamond in 1992. For over twenty-five years, just fruit till noon.

Silverback gorillas, for example, are thirty times as strong as man and three times our size.

Fruit till noon!

SEAL doesn’t watch much TV. I feel like he just watches me watch TV. It’s very uncomfortable. And it makes me not want to watch TV.

Any success I have ever had in my life usually occurred when I was not chasing the money but was doing things out of passion. And as far as music, I was never in it for the money.

Our workout is basically the same routine as the morning, a loop around Central Park, except tonight comes with a bonus: Every half mile we do twenty-five push-ups. The other difference is that SEAL wants the pace to escalate, meaning every mile has to be slightly faster than the previous mile.

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

“How ya legs feel?” he asks. “Terrible. They’re sore and tight.” “Cool. Put your shorts and sneakers on.”

It’s our third run of the day. I’ve previously done some two-a-days while training for long races or to try to get in fast shape, but three-a-days is new territory, especially at this intensity. And especially at my age. And really especially at 8:45 p.m. at night. One and a half miles into our six-mile run, SEAL talks for the first time. “You okay?” “No. I don’t feel well,” I say as I keep pace. “Fuck, yeah,” he celebrates. “Now you’re seeing what it’s like to train, Jesse. I hope you enjoy this shit.” He begins to laugh, which soon becomes an all-out cackle. “You look like a pile of spilt fuck,” he says.

But it’s Sara who asks, “SEAL, are you on a diet?” “Nah, I just like to go to sleep hungry… so I wake up hungry. Life is all about staying out of your comfort zone.”

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

see SEAL in the living room writing something down in his tiny workout log.

It takes me a solid three miles to get going, but surprisingly, once we find our pace and break a sweat, my legs really loosen up. In fact, I go from feeling like a stick figure to someone performing in Cirque du Soleil—okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I feel good—real good. Odd. I mention it to SEAL as we run and he just replies, “Jesse, I really don’t give a fuck.”

If you want to be pushed to your limits, you have to train to your limits. —SEAL

There’s generally a moment in every endeavor I undertake, be it business, love, or fitness, when I say to myself: What the hell was I thinking?

I know my friends think I’m insane right now, and they’ve seen me do some crazy stuff before. But this has to be at the top of the list. My whole path has been nontraditional. Any time when you live a little outside of the norm people look at you: (a) with some admiration and (b) like you’re crazy. I never cared about that and I still don’t.

Then I remember the one condition I agreed to when I hired him: Do anything he asks. SEAL built his career around honor. At a minimum I have to honor my commitment to him. I go change into my workout clothes.

This is our push-up routine: Do one push-up then stand up and wait fifteen seconds, then go down and do two push-ups and wait fifteen seconds and so on, until we get up to ten push-ups, and then we start taking thirty-second breaks. For push-ups sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, SEAL allows us to take forty-five seconds between sets.

Then we go and run quarter-mile intervals. We run the quarter miles at a fast pace. Then we walk one minute. We repeat this for two miles. Quarter-mile sprint… one-minute walk.

“If you want to be pushed to your limits, you have to train to your limits. If you get hurt, you will recover. What the fuck is the problem?”

“Keep up the program while I’m gone,” he says. “Do six-mile runs in the mornings and three at night. And don’t forget to hit the push-ups. Make sure you get two hundred in every day. I’m going off the grid. Do this shit on the honor code.” Roger that.

I’m not into sit-down dinners and fancy shit like that. I’m into fueling up and being on my way. —SEAL

I earned it. Now I’m going to enjoy it. —SEAL

“Man… that looks bad. You gotta do something for it,” I say. “Nah, I’m just gonna sit on the couch and enjoy the pain,” he says. “I earned it. Now I’m going to enjoy it.” He starts to laugh to himself.

I never ran on a treadmill until I met SEAL. I’m an old-fashioned, lace-on-the-kicks-and-run-out-the-front-door kind of runner. SEAL thinks a treadmill is a good training tool because it’s controlled.

“I did five pull-ups on the minute for two hours.” “You just did six hundred pull-ups? Just now? Just like that?” “Roger that. So go fuck your bullshit shoulders,” he says. “Whatever you got going on, someone else has more pain. You gotta learn how to fight through it. No matter what it is… Think about someone else and take a suck-shit pill.” I think he means a suck-it-up pill, but I don’t question him. “Suck-shit pill” sounds good to me!

At 12:30 a.m. my alarm goes off. Now, I know I didn’t set my alarm. I know my wife didn’t set the alarm. And I’m damn sure Lazer didn’t set the alarm. “Trick or treat,” SEAL says. He’s sitting in my room on a chair four feet from my bed in his running gear. I think he’s eating a banana. I rub my eyes to make sure I’m not dreaming, and, sadly, I’m not. I’m more freaked out than the first time I saw Silence of the Lambs. The only way this could be worse is if he told me to put the lotion in the basket.

If you can’t do the basics, you can’t do shit. —SEAL

SEAL believes push-ups are the single best exercise for strength. He also believes proper form is the key. You get more out of ten push-ups the right way than thirty done improperly.

Proper form: back straight, ass up slightly, neck straight (don’t drop your neck). Go down and break ninety degrees with elbows, and make sure your chest hits the floor. Go all the way up (until arm is fully extended).

You can get through any workout because everything ends. —SEAL

SEAL greets the FedEx guy at the door. It appears Christmas has come early for him, or maybe for me. He ordered me my very own fifty-pound metal-plated weight vest for push-ups and to “increase the level of difficulty” of my runs. You’ve got to love SEAL. I didn’t even know my runs needed a higher degree of difficulty.

As we look at the jewelry in the glass case, I ask SEAL what he likes. “Man, this shit doesn’t make any sense to me. Who would want a gold snake on their wrist for a few weeks’ salary?” He has another point. “I mean you work one hundred twenty hours and you go buy a bracelet? Shit is crazy to me.” And another point.

Don’t get too comfortable. Ever. —SEAL

“No matter what, you can never let them ‘boo’ you. You have to control the situation.”

“I kept throwing out T-shirts until they were all gone. “Then, before anyone could even react, I said ‘Good night, Atlanta. Love you guys and enjoy the show. Color Me Badd is on next.’ Then I walked off the stage. “Didn’t sing a word. But I didn’t get booed either. Remember when you told me to ‘control my mind’ the first day you moved in with me, well, I’m telling you in business… ‘control the situation.’”