
Chasing Excellence
Looking to build more than just physical fitness? Join Ben Bergeron and Patrick Cummings as they explore how daily practices create the foundation for lasting peace of mind. Through practical frameworks and honest conversations, discover how deep health unlocks the freedom to chase what truly matters. Learn the five essential factors - training, eating, thinking, sleeping, and connecting - that transform fleeting moments of clarity into a life of sustained fulfillment. If you're ready to move beyond quick fixes and build peace of mind, this is your guide.
Latest episodes

Nov 29, 2022 • 1h 48min
Developing Critical Power in CrossFit Games Athletes
We’ve got a conversation Ben had recently with Matthew DesRoches of the Oxidative Potential podcast. They geek out about training for the CrossFit Games and the psychology of being an athlete. EXPECT TO LEARN: 📍 The difference between first, second, & third wave adaptations 📍 Why CrossFit & MMA are so similar 📍 The timespan of a CrossFit Games athlete 📍 Why young athletes are so dominant in the sport now GET A QUESTION IN THE QUEUE: Send Patrick a DM with your Five Factors questions! ABOUT US: 📍 Ben Bergeron is a best-selling author, coach to 7 CrossFit Games champions, and founder of CompTrain. Find him on Instagram. 📍 Patrick Cummings is a long-time CrossFitter, podcaster, and creator of Functional Branding. Find him on Instagram.
[[]---[]] Chasing Excellence is an audience-supported project. To go deeper & to help us do even more, consider:· Subscribing to our newsletter to get our free posts and upgrading to our Chase Club to receive exclusive content.· Grabbing one of our books: Chasing Excellence, Unlocking Potential, or The ABCs of Being Happy & Healthy.· Supporting one of our fantastic show sponsors.

Nov 22, 2022 • 36min
F’d, Flow, Focus
We’re talking about how to start journaling, surrounding ourselves with fountains & not drains, Ben’s journey into his daily meditation practice, & more! EXPECT TO LEARN: 📍 What makes a shoe “minimalist” & why that matters 📍 Why teenage athletes probably don’t need much supplementation 📍 How Wim Hoff Breathing got Ben into meditation 📍 The number of workouts you need to ease back into full training 📍 Patrick’s five big questions to ask when making life decisions GET A QUESTION IN THE QUEUE: Send Patrick a DM with your Five Factors questions! ABOUT US: 📍 Ben Bergeron is a best-selling author, coach to 7 CrossFit Games champions, and founder of CompTrain. Find him on Instagram. 📍 Patrick Cummings is a long-time CrossFitter, podcaster, and creator of Functional Branding. Find him on Instagram.
[[]---[]] Chasing Excellence is an audience-supported project. To go deeper & to help us do even more, consider:· Subscribing to our newsletter to get our free posts and upgrading to our Chase Club to receive exclusive content.· Grabbing one of our books: Chasing Excellence, Unlocking Potential, or The ABCs of Being Happy & Healthy.· Supporting one of our fantastic show sponsors.

Nov 15, 2022 • 54min
Know Why You’re Training
We’re talking about how to balance parenthood and work, how to incentive kids without treats, advice to those in their mid-twenties, & more! EXPECT TO LEARN: 📍 The one question to ask to ensure you’re training smart 📍 Why it’s important to focus on never going backward in your fitness 📍 What expectations to have when training in high humidity 📍 How to adjust your sleep on non-training days 📍 How to know when to distance yourself from difficult friends GET A QUESTION IN THE QUEUE: Send Patrick a DM with your Five Factors questions! ABOUT US: 📍 Ben Bergeron is a best-selling author, coach to 7 CrossFit Games champions, and founder of CompTrain. Find him on Instagram. 📍 Patrick Cummings is a long-time CrossFitter, podcaster, and creator of Functional Branding. Find him on Instagram.
[[]---[]] Chasing Excellence is an audience-supported project. To go deeper & to help us do even more, consider:· Subscribing to our newsletter to get our free posts and upgrading to our Chase Club to receive exclusive content.· Grabbing one of our books: Chasing Excellence, Unlocking Potential, or The ABCs of Being Happy & Healthy.· Supporting one of our fantastic show sponsors.

Nov 8, 2022 • 32min
What It Means to Chase Excellence
We’re talking about how our definition of what it means to chase excellence has changed since we started this show, how to help yo-yo dieters, what we think is wrongly socially unacceptable, & more! EXPECT TO LEARN: 📍 How to get a great workout without any equipment 📍 Why you need to get over whatever adversity you’re facing 📍 Whether lots of snacks or fewer meals are “better” 📍 Why we always default to bigger, next, & more 📍 Why it shouldn’t be so weird to sit quietly without a phone GET A QUESTION IN THE QUEUE: Send Patrick a DM with your Five Factors questions! ABOUT US: 📍 Ben Bergeron is a best-selling author, coach to 7 CrossFit Games champions, and founder of CompTrain. Find him on Instagram. 📍 Patrick Cummings is a long-time CrossFitter, podcaster, and creator of Functional Branding. Find him on Instagram.
[[]---[]] Chasing Excellence is an audience-supported project. To go deeper & to help us do even more, consider:· Subscribing to our newsletter to get our free posts and upgrading to our Chase Club to receive exclusive content.· Grabbing one of our books: Chasing Excellence, Unlocking Potential, or The ABCs of Being Happy & Healthy.· Supporting one of our fantastic show sponsors.

Nov 1, 2022 • 51min
Vacation is not Recovery
We’re broadening one of our Five Factors of Health, discussing how to keep cardio up when nursing a lower-body injury, creating a Five Factors scorecard, introducing a brand new format, and more! EXPECT TO LEARN: 📍 How to stop competing during every workout 📍 Whether cold exposure is a useful recovery strategy 📍 What to do about a loved one who’s stuck in their old training ways 📍 Why we’re expanding one of our factors of health from sleep to recovery 📍 How we score ourselves across the five factors of health GET A QUESTION IN THE QUEUE: Send Patrick a DM with your Five Factors questions! ABOUT US: 📍 Ben Bergeron is a best-selling author, coach to 7 CrossFit Games champions, and founder of CompTrain. Find him on Instagram. 📍 Patrick Cummings is a long-time CrossFitter, podcaster, and creator of Functional Branding. Find him on Instagram.
[[]---[]] Chasing Excellence is an audience-supported project. To go deeper & to help us do even more, consider:· Subscribing to our newsletter to get our free posts and upgrading to our Chase Club to receive exclusive content.· Grabbing one of our books: Chasing Excellence, Unlocking Potential, or The ABCs of Being Happy & Healthy.· Supporting one of our fantastic show sponsors.

Oct 25, 2022 • 1h 31min
My Current Morning Routine (Rare Sense Rebroadcast)
We’re sharing a conversation I had recently with Chris Irwin of the Rare Sense podcast. We get into a lot, including the power of visualizations, adapting the elite athlete mindset to everyday life, and what my morning routine looks like these days. Find us on Social: Ben | Patrick 👉🏼 Ben Bergeron is a best-selling author, coach to 7 CrossFit Games champions, and founder of CompTrain. 👉🏼 Patrick Cummings is a long-time CrossFitter, podcaster, and creator of Functional Branding.
[[]---[]] Chasing Excellence is an audience-supported project. To go deeper & to help us do even more, consider:· Subscribing to our newsletter to get our free posts and upgrading to our Chase Club to receive exclusive content.· Grabbing one of our books: Chasing Excellence, Unlocking Potential, or The ABCs of Being Happy & Healthy.· Supporting one of our fantastic show sponsors.

Oct 18, 2022 • 34min
Benchmark: 10 Principles of Sleep
In this throwback episode from 2018, we’ve got our top 10 ways to improve sleep. We’re talking about why optimizing our sleep is really optimizing our health and how spending money on better sleep is a worthwhile investment. Find us on Social: Ben | Patrick 👉🏼 Ben Bergeron is a best-selling author, coach to 7 CrossFit Games champions, and founder of CompTrain. 👉🏼 Patrick Cummings is a long-time CrossFitter, podcaster, and creator of Functional Branding.
[[]---[]] Chasing Excellence is an audience-supported project. To go deeper & to help us do even more, consider:· Subscribing to our newsletter to get our free posts and upgrading to our Chase Club to receive exclusive content.· Grabbing one of our books: Chasing Excellence, Unlocking Potential, or The ABCs of Being Happy & Healthy.· Supporting one of our fantastic show sponsors.

Oct 11, 2022 • 33min
We Are All Chasing the Same Thing (2:00 #38)
Your questions are back! We’re talking about the anxiety that comes with being a hard charger, eliminating gossip from a work culture, my thoughts on whether a coach has to be the fittest person in the room, and more! Find us on Social: Ben | Patrick Questions About: 00:55 - Dealing with the stress of being a hard-charger 12:55 - Taking care of yourself without guilt as a parent 16:04 - Healing a back injury without feeling lazy or undertrained 17:40 - Learning how to deal with comments about weight loss 09:00 - Recommending healthy snacks 21:50 - Ridding a work culture of toxic gossip 25:25 - Knowing how often to max out your lifts 27:10 - Being a coach without being the fittest person in the gym 28:55 - Becoming competitive in CrossFit without PEDs // About Us: 👉🏼 Ben Bergeron is a best-selling author, coach to 7 CrossFit Games champions, and founder of CompTrain. 👉🏼 Patrick Cummings is a long-time CrossFitter, podcaster, and creator of Functional Branding.
[[]---[]] Chasing Excellence is an audience-supported project. To go deeper & to help us do even more, consider:· Subscribing to our newsletter to get our free posts and upgrading to our Chase Club to receive exclusive content.· Grabbing one of our books: Chasing Excellence, Unlocking Potential, or The ABCs of Being Happy & Healthy.· Supporting one of our fantastic show sponsors.

Oct 4, 2022 • 36min
Colin O’Brady on the 12 Hour Walk
Colin O’Brady is back to talk more specifically about his new book, the 12-Hour Walk. Patrick and I give our own experiences doing the walk, we talk about self-limiting beliefs, identifying your personal Everest, and more. Find out more about Colin’s new book, The 12-Hour Walk, here. Find us on Social: Colin | Ben | Patrick 👉🏼 Ben Bergeron is a best-selling author, coach to 7 CrossFit Games champions, and founder of CompTrain. 👉🏼 Patrick Cummings is a long-time CrossFitter, podcaster, and creator of Functional Branding.
[[]---[]] Chasing Excellence is an audience-supported project. To go deeper & to help us do even more, consider:· Subscribing to our newsletter to get our free posts and upgrading to our Chase Club to receive exclusive content.· Grabbing one of our books: Chasing Excellence, Unlocking Potential, or The ABCs of Being Happy & Healthy.· Supporting one of our fantastic show sponsors.

Sep 27, 2022 • 32min
Colin O’Brady on Crossing Antartica Solo
We’re joined by explorer and author Colin O’Brady. We chat about life as an explorer, the zone of comfortable complacency, his belief that we all have reservoirs of untapped potential, his new book, and much more. Find out more about Colin’s new book, The 12 Hour Walk, here. Find us on Social: Colin | Ben | Patrick 👉🏼 Ben Bergeron is a best-selling author, coach to 7 CrossFit Games champions, and founder of CompTrain. 👉🏼 Patrick Cummings is a long-time CrossFitter, podcaster, and creator of Functional Branding.
[[]---[]] Chasing Excellence is an audience-supported project. To go deeper & to help us do even more, consider:· Subscribing to our newsletter to get our free posts and upgrading to our Chase Club to receive exclusive content.· Grabbing one of our books: Chasing Excellence, Unlocking Potential, or The ABCs of Being Happy & Healthy.· Supporting one of our fantastic show sponsors.