Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 783 is a conversation with CrossFit Games champion Jason Grubb, who went from 265 pounds and a completely sedentary lifestyle to one of the fittest athletes in the world. We get into the catalyst that finally made the change stick, the brutal reality of the first 90 days in a CrossFit gym, the mental game of elite competition, and the nutrition and recovery work that most transformation stories skip over.
Update, July 2026: Jason has not slowed down. On July 23, 2026 he won his seventh CrossFit Games Masters championship, taking the Men 50-54 division at the 2026 Masters CrossFit Games. In the conversation below he is a three-time champion chasing his fourth.
Listen now: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · YouTube · or press play in the player above to watch.
Jason Grubb is a seven-time CrossFit Games Masters champion who went from 265 pounds and a sedentary lifestyle to competing at the highest level of functional fitness. He rebuilt his body and his mindset through consistent training, nutritional discipline, and mental conditioning, and his story is a study in complete physical and mental reinvention.
Seven. He took his seventh CrossFit Games Masters championship on July 23, 2026, winning the Men 50-54 division at the 2026 Masters CrossFit Games with 570 points. At the time this episode was recorded he was a three-time champion preparing to chase his fourth.
Jason Grubb committed to CrossFit after reaching 265 pounds, then strung together years of consistent training, progressive skill development, and nutritional change. He describes the specific catalyst that finally made the change stick and the daily disciplines that carried him from beginner modifications to Games-level competition.
The first three months were the hardest. Jason walks through the movements he could not do, the modifications he needed, and the mental battle of showing up when every workout exposed his limitations. He points to a mindset shift around the 60-day mark that changed how he approached the work.
Jason developed specific tools for handling competitive pressure, including visualization and managing his internal dialogue. In the episode he describes the fear of failing in front of a crowd and the psychological approach he uses to push through the most grueling moments of a workout.
Jason emphasizes that the transformation happened in the kitchen and during recovery, not just the gym. He breaks down how his nutrition evolved from his heaviest weight to Games-level competition, the early mistakes, and the sleep and mobility habits that made everything else possible.
Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 783 with Jason Grubb is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and iHeartRadio. The video version is embedded at the top of this page.
What pulled me toward Jason's story is that it has nothing to do with genetics or early athletic development. This is a guy who was 265 pounds and sedentary, made a decision, and then did the unglamorous daily work for years until he was competing at the CrossFit Games. I pay attention to people who completely reinvent themselves as adults, and Jason is one of the cleanest examples I have talked to. He is also honest about how hard the early days were, which is the part most people leave out.
Press play in the player at the top of this page to hear the whole arc in his own words.
Jason's change did not start with a grand plan or a New Year's resolution. It started with a moment of brutal honesty at 265 pounds. He gets specific about the trigger that finally made him commit, and why the fitness approaches he had tried before never held. The psychology of that turning point is the part I keep thinking about, because it applies to anyone stuck in a pattern they already know is not serving them. Listen to how he describes that morning early in the conversation.
Showing up at a gym carrying decades of sedentary living takes a particular kind of courage. Jason breaks down those first three months: the movements he could not do, the modifications he needed, and the mental battle of showing up when every workout exposed his limitations. He talks about the role his coaches played and a mindset shift around the 60-day mark that changed everything. Most stories gloss over this brutal early phase. Hear him walk through it in the early part of the episode.
Getting to the CrossFit Games is not just about physical capacity. It is about managing the psychological warfare of elite competition. Jason opens up about the strategies he built to handle qualification pressure, the fear of failing in front of a crowd, and the internal dialogue that either drives you forward or shuts you down. He gets into the visualization he uses before big events and what runs through his head in the worst moments of a workout. Listen to that section of the episode.
Everyone wants the workouts, but Jason is clear that the transformation happened in the kitchen and during recovery. He breaks down how his nutrition evolved from his heaviest weight to Games-level competition, the mistakes he made early, and the protocols that finally worked. He is candid about sleep, mobility, and the daily disciplines that never make a highlight reel but make everything else possible. Press play in the player above for the full breakdown.
Listen to the full conversation: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · or watch in the player at the top of this page.
What stays with me after talking to Jason is how ordinary the inputs were. No shortcut, no gift, just a decision and then years of showing up. The weight loss is the headline, but the real story is what changed in his head once he decided the new version of himself was permanent. Three titles when we spoke, seven now, and the inputs have not changed a bit.
If you have been thinking about making a change, or you are already in the middle of one and need to hear from someone who has been there, this conversation delivers.
Press play in the player above, or grab Episode 783 on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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Jason Grubb · CrossFit · CrossFit Games · Tom Rowland Podcast
Jason Grubb is a seven-time CrossFit Games Masters champion who transformed from 265 pounds and a sedentary lifestyle to elite competitive fitness. He took his seventh title in the Men 50-54 division at the 2026 Masters CrossFit Games. His path from complete beginner to Games-level athlete is built on consistent training, nutritional discipline, and mental fortitude, and the strategies he shares apply to anyone pursuing physical transformation or peak performance in demanding pursuits.
Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 783: From Couch to CrossFit Games Champion, Jason Grubb's Transformation, with Jason Grubb.
Tom Rowland: Alright, Jason, what we're gonna do is put you on the hot seat and ask a couple of quick questions, so you and I can get to know each other a little better, and the audience can get to know you too. If it's an either-or question, you can pick one, say either, or say neither. Some of these are silly, some actually have some meaning. Country or rock?
Jason Grubb: Rock.
Tom Rowland: Breakfast food for dinner. Do you ever do that?
Jason Grubb: Absolutely.
Tom Rowland: What's the last book you read?
Jason Grubb: A Hundred Million Dollar Offers, by Alex Hormozi.
Tom Rowland: That might be the last book I read too. I was painting a fence while listening to it, for my son's wedding.
Jason Grubb: I listened to it too. I liked that book. Audiobook, for sure.
Tom Rowland: Three nonnegotiables in your everyday?
Jason Grubb: Coffee — Black Rifle Coffee, actually. I'm drinking it right now. Movement, I have to move. And a cold plunge every day. So: coffee, cold plunge, and movement.
Tom Rowland: Winter Olympics or Summer Olympics?
Jason Grubb: Summer Olympics.
Tom Rowland: Instagram or Twitter?
Jason Grubb: Oof, that's tough. Instagram.
Tom Rowland: Sunrise or sunset?
Jason Grubb: Sunset.
Tom Rowland: Cat or dog? Texting or calling?
Jason Grubb: Dog. And texting, 100%.
Tom Rowland: Best piece of advice you've ever been given?
Jason Grubb: I'm going to steal a movie quote on this one, because I think it counts as advice. It's from The Shawshank Redemption. Toward the end, Andy Dufresne tells his best friend, "Get busy living, or get busy dying." That one has always just resonated with me.
Tom Rowland: Love it. We're on the same page with a whole bunch of those.
Tom Rowland: One of the reasons I wanted to have you on is that you've taken CrossFit to an extreme level. You're a three-time age-group Masters champion (now 7 time champion), which is incredibly impressive — just making it to the Games is impressive enough. I was looking at your Instagram, and it looks like you posted your resume today: eight major titles and ten podiums since qualifying for the Games in 2018. Third place your first year. First place in 2019. Second place in Wattpalooza in 2020, plus first place in the Legends Championship that year. First place in the 2021 CrossFit Games, another first in Legends Championship in 2021. 2022 was a big year — a win at Wattpalooza and the Legends Championship. And in 2023, Wattpalooza again. For people who don't know CrossFit, the Games are the biggest event, Wattpalooza is probably second, and Legends Championship is third, and you're dominating in all of them. But when I first came across your profile a few years ago, your story was that you weren't always that fit. Let's talk about that journey. First, how old are you today?
Jason Grubb: Forty-seven.
Tom Rowland: And according to your Instagram, about nine or eleven years ago you were 38.
Jason Grubb: Yep. I was 38 with a three-month-old baby when I walked into a CrossFit gym. But it wasn't intentional — I didn't wake up one morning and decide I wanted to be a healthy, fit person. I wish it had been that deliberate. I didn't even know what CrossFit was, or what the CrossFit Games were.
Jason Grubb: I'd been a jogger my whole adult life. My dad jogged every day when I was a kid, so I figured that was just how you stayed healthy — nice and slow, four or five miles a couple times a week. It did wonders for anxiety and stress relief, but I hated running in the winter. It was November 2013, getting cold and windy in Colorado, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to run much through the winter. My sister-in-law kept telling me, "Jason, you would love CrossFit." And I kept saying no — I thought CrossFit was basically an aerobics class with weights, a group class with a coach, and I didn't want to go somewhere and be embarrassed. I don't go to hip-hop dance classes for the same reason. But she got me one night at dinner: her gym was offering a free month if you just came to one class. I said fine, I'll come.
I was so nervous driving to that first class — a Wednesday or Friday night. I walked in, and the class only had three people in it, which brought my anxiety down quite a bit, since CrossFit classes can be huge or tiny. I actually liked the workout. There were some handstand push-ups, stacked on ab mats, and because I'd been a gymnast in seventh, eighth, and ninth grade, I could still kick up into a handstand at 38. Everyone was impressed that this somewhat out-of-shape 38-year-old could do that, and it stroked my ego just enough to get me interested. That particular gym was a little too far from home, so the next week I joined a CrossFit gym closer to my house.
My first workout there was something simple by CrossFit standards — power cleans and burpees. I finished it absolutely destroyed, hands on my knees, looking around in confusion because there were people there older than me, heavier than me, and so much more fit than me. Whenever I feel like I have a deficiency, or I'm confused about something, I go all-in to figure out how to get better. I don't like not being good at something. There was a fairly large woman working out next to me in that first class, and she beat me through the timed workout. I was confused — turns out she wasn't a large woman, she was a pregnant woman, pregnant with twins, as I found out later. Getting beaten by a woman pregnant with twins in my very first workout lit a fire: I decided right there I was going to figure out CrossFit. I went six days a week from that point on. I had no long-term aspirations, I wasn't even trying to change my body composition — it was just that I really enjoyed it, and I really sucked at it, and I needed to fix that immediately. That's how I do things: if I choose to do something, there's no half-assing it, I go all in. And it turned out that my build, my height, my body type, just suited this sport. Through a lot of hard work, I turned out to be pretty good at it.
Tom Rowland: What about that all-in mindset — what's your athletic background?
Jason Grubb: As a kid I dabbled in soccer, a little T-ball and baseball — hated both. I did track in fifth and sixth grade and liked it, but I had zero grit; they signed me up for an 800-meter run once and I just walked half of it. Around seventh grade, a friend was a gymnast, so I became a gymnast too, and actually had aspirations of maybe becoming an Olympian. I quickly realized in ninth grade that I was way behind the curve — I needed ten years of training I didn't have — and I had some injuries, so I stopped. I never did a high school sport; gymnastics was a club sport, and I was busy working. We grew up pretty poor, so if I wanted a car, I had to work for it, and pay for insurance, and pay for college myself. I took life very seriously from a young age. So, no athletic background to speak of.
At 38, something as basic as a box jump — men jump on top of a 24-inch box and stand up — was genuinely scary to me. I hit my shins multiple times missing my feet on the box. Same with double-unders, where the jump rope passes twice under your feet instead of once. After a month or two of CrossFit I still couldn't do them, so I stayed after class for fifteen minutes to half an hour every day for about six weeks until I had a consistent set of fifty. I just didn't want that deficiency to stick around. So: no athletic background, but "all in" for me means if I find a weakness, I attack it hard, without much regard for safety — which, looking back, wasn't smart. You shouldn't practice double-unders every single day; you'll get plantar fasciitis or hurt an Achilles. I didn't have anyone in that moment telling me to tap the brakes.
Tom Rowland: It's interesting you went all in like that. Was it the movements you were struggling with, and getting beaten by a pregnant woman, or was it the camaraderie, or the particular gym? For me, I was a runner before CrossFit, and I just needed variety — I thrived on that. What do you think really hooked you?
Jason Grubb: Initially, I think it was the leaderboard. I'd gone to the rec center and lifted weights before, and none of that ever stuck — I'd do three days and then disappear for months. But this gym, like most CrossFit gyms, posted a daily leaderboard for the workout. It's not that every day is a competition, but it's motivating — if there's someone in my 9 AM class I think I can beat, that pushes me a little harder. I started at the bottom of that leaderboard, and I am a deeply competitive person. I was competitive as a gymnast with my teammates, competitive in business and life — I actually played poker professionally for two years in my early thirties. So this leaderboard gave me something to climb. Over a couple of months I worked my way up. The gym owner was the fittest human I'd ever seen, a 52-year-old guy who worked out in our 9 AM class, and I started beating everyone else in that class except him. By around the eleven-month mark I was beating him consistently, and that was so satisfying. I opened my own gym at the twelve-month mark.
Looking back, what hooked me in CrossFit was that every day I could go in and go to battle. You can't win every battle, and you shouldn't push to the absolute limit every day, but having that leaderboard, that little competitive accountability — if I missed a day, people would say, "I didn't see you on the leaderboard, I thought you'd kill this one" — those were real motivators. If you want to motivate me to do something, make it a competition; that's hardwired into my DNA. And the byproduct of all that training was that my body started changing without me even trying. I remember being on a run around the fourth or fifth month, maybe the six-month mark, and the sun cast my shadow out in front of me on the road, and my shadow had shoulders. I hadn't been paying attention to nutrition at all — I was probably undereating — but I started leaning out. If you go to my Instagram, I posted a progression a few weeks ago: pictures of me at 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, going from a fluffy guy to someone who looks like he competes at a higher level in CrossFit.
Tom Rowland: That's interesting — you don't even realize what's happening to your body. I've seen that with people who find something they love, whether it's CrossFit or rock climbing — six months later they're a completely different person. If people want to check out your Instagram, it's Jason Grubb, spelled G-R-U-B-B, underscore fitness. It's a good account. So, what were you doing for a living before you opened your gym?
Jason Grubb: It's funny — I graduated college, got married fairly young, put myself through school, and got a master's degree in counseling psychology. I was a therapist for four or five years. I didn't love doing therapy, but I loved building that business — the income stream and referral network that kept me busy. I just hated the actual therapy sessions, and if you don't like doing therapy as a therapist, you shouldn't be one. So I stopped, around age 30, and played poker professionally for two years. I was a successful poker player for a while, but then the market crashed in 2009 and all the upside in poker dried up. I went broke — I had about $800 in cash as a 33-year-old. My rent was $1,200 a month, and I had to sell things on Craigslist to make rent.
So I transitioned into photography — a harebrained idea, since I had a good camera and liked taking pictures. Probably the worst way to start a business, but I quickly realized the way you make money in photography is shooting weddings: it's consistent, and recession-proof, even though I was starting during a bit of a recession myself. I entered a saturated Colorado market, and within a year or two, my wife and I were among the top five percent of highest-paid wedding photographers in the state. It was the same pattern as CrossFit: I entered a business full of people who didn't seem to know what they were doing, felt ill-equipped myself, watched hundreds of YouTube videos to get better, hired a business consultant, and built it into a very successful operation.
Once I started CrossFit, that whole trajectory shifted. I realized maybe I could build a business in CrossFit too — it felt like an area that couldn't be that hard, just needing a rented space, some equipment, good coaches, and 150 to 200 members. The reality is a wedding photography business is way easier than a CrossFit gym business. But I went for it anyway. We'd shot weddings for almost eight years, around 200 of them, and you get burned out on weddings. So at 39, I opened a CrossFit gym down the road from a building that had become available, and I ran it for about four years. It was the hardest business I've ever had — you can't just go out and sell like you can in wedding photography, where planners refer clients to you and it's buttery smooth. A gym is a brick-and-mortar business; you're stuck in one spot, and I had no foot traffic since I was in a warehouse district. I sold it in 2019 and moved into the online space, helping people get extremely fit — whether they're starting from scratch or already competitive — which lets me have clients all over the world.
Tom Rowland: Did the online business start before you won your first Games, or did you use the win to spring it forward?
Jason Grubb: I sold the gym before I won my first CrossFit Games. I sold it in April of 2019 and won the Games that August, and at the time I wasn't sure what I wanted to do next. It wasn't until 2020, when COVID hit, that the idea really took off — people were stuck at home and needed a training program, and while a lot of gyms were offering that too, I saw an opportunity, since I'd already been dabbling in online fitness. It was hard: people were scared, they wanted fitness, but weren't sure they'd keep getting paychecks. At first I brought my wedding-photography mindset to it — the more you charge, the more buy-in people have — so I tried to be a high-ticket fitness guru. I've since changed that philosophy, since I don't need to charge that much once things can scale. But it got my feet wet in the online space in 2020, and that's also when I started recording YouTube videos, really rough ones at first. You just have to start — grab a camera, start recording, start publishing, same as a podcast. One of my more popular videos, with tens of thousands of views, is just me sitting on my back patio talking into my phone about why I don't eat grain anymore. It took off out of nowhere.
Neither the online coaching business nor the YouTube channel has been a fast, shoot-out-of-the-cannon kind of growth. It's been more about consistency — "master the mundane," which is an Alex Hormozi quote. If you do the smart thing every day, day in and day out, it pays off in dividends eventually. I've found the same thing as a CrossFit athlete: if I just do the work every day, the results take care of themselves down the road, even if it's not nearly as fast as I'd like.
Tom Rowland: It seems like you've gone from zero to one of the very best in the world at CrossFit. So — how do you get good at anything quickly?
Jason Grubb: You have to live an incredibly imbalanced life to get good at anything quickly. It's often said that being a CrossFit Games athlete is like having a mental disorder — your whole life revolves around that goal, and once you qualify, around the next goal. Getting to the Games was a bucket-list item for me, and once I tasted that, everything shifted. The reason I have an online business is that I don't have time for a nine-to-five; I can build my lifestyle so most of my day revolves around training. Two years ago, my wife and I sold our house. We've got two kids, ten and six, and we now travel full-time in an RV, which, combined with the online business, lets me train three to five hours a day, every day, to stay the fittest Masters athlete on the planet.
A typical day: I get up, jump in the cold plunge, make coffee, get a little work done, train for a couple of hours, get more work done in the afternoon, train again for a couple more hours — two sessions a day — then in the early evening we head to the pool at whatever RV park we're at. Right now we're at a Jellystone. I roughhouse with the boys in the pool for an hour, which is basically a third workout since they want to be destroyed and I destroy them. Then it's back home for dinner, another hour of work, get the kids to bed, sit with my wife for an hour or so, and go to bed. It's completely imbalanced, but I think that's the only way to get great at anything or be the best in the world at it — and it's probably not sustainable for decades, just for a while. It also requires real compromise: I eat the same thing every day, no deviation. Before a date night, I'll often pregame by eating a pound of ground beef so I hit my protein macros before going out, so I can actually have a drink and enjoy dinner with my wife without worrying I'm short on food. I think about Elon Musk — he's the best in the world at what he does, and by all accounts he works something like seventeen hours a day. You can't be the fittest person on the planet in CrossFit without putting in the training, the nutrition, and the accessory work — cold plunging, recovery, mobility — consistently.
Tom Rowland: If you eat the same thing every day, you must know it cold. What's the daily menu?
Jason Grubb: Every day I start with coffee — Black Rifle, because I like companies that are just good companies, and they support causes I care about. I make a bulletproof coffee: a tablespoon of butter, a tablespoon of MCT oil, two scoops of creatine, and a dash of cinnamon. It's half-decaf, because I love coffee enough to drink a full pot, but I don't need a full pot of caffeine. Breakfast is about eight egg whites and two whole eggs scrambled, with two cups of white rice, plus fruit if it's in season — watermelon, raspberries, strawberries, apples, oranges, bananas. Lots of carbohydrates. Then I train mid-morning. Lunch varies a bit: usually shredded chicken and rice if I've batch-cooked chicken, or a filet Greek yogurt — 0% fat — with a couple of bananas. I don't love the thickness of Greek yogurt, but I need the protein, so I add a little water to thin it out, plus a sugar-free Crush drink-mix packet to make it taste like an orange Crush. If it's a 32-ounce tub, I'll eat about half of it in one sitting.
Dinner, after my final training session, is a pound of ground beef six days a week — four hamburger patties, grilled, with two cups of rice and a little cheese to help it stick together. One day a week it's fish or chicken instead. Four or five nights a week I'll have a small bowl of ice cream to top off my calories for the day; I love ice cream. All told, I'm looking to hit about 3,400 calories a day. I'm five-eight and a half, and I weigh around 203 pounds on average — that's what it takes to maintain my performance. I want to be as heavy as possible for lifting heavy, but as light as possible for the gymnastics movements, so it's a real balancing act, and around 200 pounds has been my sweet spot.
Tom Rowland: That's interesting — CrossFit has that sweet spot for weight and performance more than most sports, since you're running, doing gymnastics, and lifting all in the same competition. You and I happen to be around the same size, which makes us too small for most sports but just right for CrossFit.
Jason Grubb: Yes — that, or if we could run fast, maybe rugby.
Tom Rowland: Or wrestling, with weight classes — that was my background.
Tom Rowland: I have some questions I think will be interesting for the audience — and honestly, some might be more interesting to me personally, since I have my own aspirations of making the Games, and this is my first year up in the 55-year-old division, which has some advantages with lighter weights. But you were a 37, 38-year-old guy who thought you were kind of fit — were there indicators, other than being bored of running, that told you a change was coming? Or did your friend just talk you into a CrossFit class and you got hooked?
Jason Grubb: There were strong indicators. I'd picked up chewing tobacco during my poker-playing days, so at 38 I was eight years into that habit, and honestly hiding it from my wife and family, though I got caught multiple times a year. Anyone whose audience chews tobacco and hides it knows exactly what that's like — you tell yourself all kinds of stories, that you're going to quit, switch to pouches, whatever. I couldn't quit. I actually did quit for three weeks right around 38 in order to pass a blood test for a life-insurance policy, and I thought I'd finally kicked it — then the day after the test, I was right back in the deep end.
I also lived in a really social cul-de-sac neighborhood at the time, and at 4 PM every single afternoon, rain or shine, there was a happy hour in the cul-de-sac — if it was cold or raining, we'd be drinking in someone's garage. We weren't drinking Coors Light either; it was heavy IPAs, three or four beers a night, sometimes four or five, every single day, so I was dropping close to a thousand calories a night on beer and getting thicker and thicker. I actually had anxiety on days I wasn't drinking. On top of the chewing tobacco and the drinking, I wasn't losing weight, and I had a three-month-old at home — I also have a 25-year-old and a 22-year-old from a previous marriage that I'm still very involved with. With this new set of kids, I remember thinking, three months in, that I felt very old, and that I needed to be a healthy, active human being so that when this new baby turned 18, I could still do things with him as a 56-year-old man. Those were some deep internal triggers starting to show up on my radar, and I think CrossFit came along at exactly the right time. When I walked into that first class, I could immediately picture myself doing it for a long time, and I let it become pretty dominant in my life. The byproduct is that now, at 47, I can train four or five hours in a day and still go destroy my kids in the pool for an hour with plenty of energy left over.
Tom Rowland: That leads into my next question. Once you determine a change needs to be made — maybe you don't even know what it is yet, or maybe it's CrossFit, or something different for somebody else — what's the mindset shift and the behavioral shift that turns you into a regular exerciser? Something that isn't just a fad, but becomes an actual lifestyle?
Jason Grubb: On the behavior side, I really believe in the idea of tiny habits, or atomic habits — making small micro-changes that build into major habit change. For me, it was simple: go to the 9 AM class, every day. I didn't know yet that 9 AM would end up being fun; I just decided 9 AM made sense because it was early in my day and wouldn't disrupt the middle of it, and I'm not a 6 AM guy, so that was out of the question. Really, the actual micro-habit was leaving the house by 8:30, since it took fifteen minutes to drive there and another fifteen to warm up before class. If I could just get out the door at 8:30 every day, I'd build the rest of my life around that — meaning bed by around 11 PM, up at 6:30, breakfast, get the kids ready, and out the door by 8:30. I think that's what's most important about making big behavior changes: start with something very small. Get up, drink water, eat food, out the door at 8:30, go to the CrossFit gym — it became something I did whether I felt like it or not. Once I got there and started moving, I'd start to feel better. I'm a CrossFit Games champion now, and there are still days I feel every bit of 47 years old and would rather nap than train at the level I need to. But I don't. I get in the truck, or if I'm training outside the RV, I get out there and start warming up, and once I start warming up, my body follows along. That's behavior change: a major commitment to one small thing that snowballs into bigger change.
The funny thing is once you start exercising every day — CrossFit, running, whatever — other behaviors start cascading on their own. If I build up to running three miles four days a week, I don't want that effort to go to waste, so I'm not going to follow it up with three candy bars. You find yourself going to bed a little earlier, eating a little better. One slight change ripples into others. As for mindset change, one of the biggest accomplishments of my adult life was quitting chewing tobacco. The CrossFit Games are wonderful, external battles, but the internal battle around tobacco was so much harder. It was almost like a safety blanket, especially since it was a secret — I'd pack cans of tobacco in my travel gear when we went somewhere, hide them outside the main pocket, and worry TSA would find them and throw them out. Traveling to Mexico, I'd wonder what I was even going to do about tobacco once I got there. It was a strange internal struggle.
Jason Grubb: The actual shift happened when I qualified for the CrossFit Games in 2018 — maybe a week after qualifying, I was sitting in a hot tub with a can of tobacco, and there's nothing better than a big dip and a hot tub, that's paradise. But I remember thinking, sitting right there, a CrossFit Games athlete doesn't chew tobacco. That was it. I spit it out, got out of the hot tub, threw the can in the trash, and told myself: a CrossFit Games athlete does not chew tobacco. It was really about identity — I'm the kind of person who... That was the whole shift. I'm the kind of person who works out every day. I'm the kind of person who doesn't chew tobacco, who takes care of his mouth. It had to become that internal identity shift at the right moment, and once it did, I quit.
It wasn't some happy, easy transition — I was sad, mad, and angry. I wanted to chew tobacco. I loved it. I know people who've quit smoking say the same thing, that a cigarette with coffee was the best thing in the world. It was a hard week, a hard couple of weeks. But it shifted, and it was done. Now I can say it on a much broader level: I'm a man who doesn't chew tobacco, a man with a healthy mouth who isn't putting cancer-causing junk directly against my lips anymore. I think that's what a mindset shift really is — you're the kind of person who does or doesn't do something. Sometimes there's a strong external trigger for it, like the CrossFit Games were for me, wanting to be the best I could be there. But underneath it, just like starting CrossFit changed my body, quitting tobacco became about choosing healthy things — not just because of CrossFit, but because I want to be around as a dad, and eventually a grandfather, for a long time. I don't want anything getting in the way of that.
Tom Rowland: That's awesome, and I know how difficult that is — my dad chewed tobacco most of his life, and he said quitting was the hardest thing he ever did. A lot of people feel the same way. Good job with that.
Tom Rowland: Okay, so now you're a regular exerciser, and somebody mentions there's a 5K this weekend, or a marathon coming up, or a local CrossFit competition, and you start thinking about actually competing — maybe a Spartan Race. What's the mindset and behavior shift to go from just showing up to the 9 AM class to taking it to that next level?
Jason Grubb: A few things. First, an awareness that becoming competitive in almost any sport as an adult — maybe except golf — increases your risk of injury. That's just a reality across all ages, so you have to keep that in mind and work to minimize or mitigate it. If you're going to run a marathon, or do a triathlon — I've done a couple of half-Ironmans for fun the past two years, and I'm doing a full Ironman this September — you don't just keep training as usual and show up. I actually take a full month off from CrossFit after the Games each year, since the training volume leading into the Games is so high and my body needs to heal, and I switch to triathlon training for that month, then ramp toward the half or full Ironman.
The same logic applies to something like a 5K: work backwards from the date. If it's six weeks out, you need a plan that gets you from where you are to surviving that 5K in six weeks — maybe starting with time on your feet, walking, walking with a weight vest, then running a mile every two or three days and slowly increasing mileage. Being methodical and working backwards from the goal to today is the key, and frankly you can use Google or even ChatGPT for this now — AI is good enough that you can type in your age, weight, body fat, and race date, and get a real training plan, the same as you'd get from a lot of free online "couch to 5K" or "couch to 10K" programs. But I think the real mindset shift happens the moment you swipe your credit card for that event — because now you're committed, you've put money behind it. That's true for the CrossFit Games too: once you're locked into qualifiers, it's time to lay down the hammer and figure out what you specifically need to shore up before qualifiers open. The most powerful thing, honestly, is when I put $800 down for a full Ironman in September — that's it, I'm not wasting that money. As soon as the Games are done in early August, day one of my eight-week Ironman build starts, and as soon as the Ironman is done, my sights shift to the Legends Championship in December, then Wattpalooza, then the Games again the following year. I always have to have a destination to work toward.
Tom Rowland: Once you're comfortable in that competitive environment — running, Ironman, CrossFit, whatever it is — there's usually a single biggest event: qualifying for Boston in running, Kona for Ironman, the CrossFit Games in your sport. What kind of mindset and behavior shift goes into chasing the very biggest thing there is?
Jason Grubb: You're going to go all-in — think about what astronauts go through to prepare for a launch, the regimented training required for everything they might experience. You have to give that level of dedication to whatever you're chasing. For CrossFit, that starts with making sure your training program actually serves the goal. I don't think it's necessarily about finding the exact right program — it's about following a program to the letter, rather than trying to build it yourself. I'm actually about to release a training program aimed at helping Masters athletes make exactly this jump, from everyday CrossFitter to seriously competitive CrossFitter. But whether it's my program or someone else's, a genuinely good program, followed consistently, builds well-rounded fitness — you can't cherry-pick. You can't decide to just swim more in a triathlon and let the run take care of itself; there's no way that works when you're finishing a marathon at the end of an Ironman. Same in CrossFit — a well-rounded program means you complete every piece of it.
As an entrepreneur, I love exploring and creating new things, but as a CrossFit athlete, I'm great at simply following instructions — whatever the program says is what I'm doing that day. If it calls for a thousand-meter swim, I go find water. Traveling full-time in the RV, that's a real logistical challenge: last Wednesday I was in Amarillo, Texas, and needed a pool for a morning swim. Amarillo isn't a huge town, and most pools require memberships, so I sent about five texts to people I know in the area and posted online, and within an hour I was in the water. Whatever the program says, you make it happen — there are no more choices. Thursday is recovery. Wednesday morning is swimming. Tuesday morning is rowing intervals, before breakfast, because that's what the program says. You follow instructions and put yourself in painful situations on schedule, and then it's just a matter of what cards get dealt at qualifiers and hoping you're ready.
As a Games champion, part of my mindset now is knowing my competitors are watching me — I'm very public on Instagram and YouTube, I share a lot of my training and behind-the-scenes, so they can watch closely. That means I have to push even harder in training, put myself into deeper, appropriately painful places, to keep an edge heading into face-to-face competition. It's always been hard for me to really know where I stand — I just try to do my best and get back to the Games again. This is my fifth year qualifying, and I'd never won an online qualifier before, but this year I won quarterfinals and semifinals, and I'm about halfway through my age group, so I've got some confidence. But that doesn't take away the fear — the mindset that they're coming for me, so I have to be willing to hurt worse than them.
Tom Rowland: As a three-time champion (now 7 time champion), there has to be a real reason to go back and try for a fourth, because it's clearly not easy — everything we've talked about here is incredibly unbalanced, almost like a mental disorder. What is it that not only pulls you back, but gives you the passion to compete at the level it takes to win? What drives you to defend the title?
Jason Grubb: That's a really good question, and I don't know that I have a great answer beyond: because I can. There's an internal expectation that this is just going to keep going, but also, why not go for four? Four sounds better than three. The risk, of course, is that I don't win, and then I have to deal with whatever story I tell myself about that — honestly, that's my biggest fear going into this year, how my own brain will process it if I don't win. But I'm going to go, and I'm going to do everything I can to win. I have a very strong fear of failure, like most people do, but mine is pretty acute, and that fear provides real motivation in training — it pushes me into dark places to make sure I don't fail out on the competition floor.
On a lighter note, it is just a competition, just the CrossFit Games, just a sport — this isn't life. But when I'm actually on the field, it feels like life or death, like battle, like our own coliseum. We don't get many chances as human beings to put ourselves in harm's way like that, and there are probably more noble ways to do it than competing in CrossFit, but when I'm on that floor, I will die before I lose an event. If I have the power to move, I'll grind myself into the ground, and if that means I pass out, so be it — I went out swinging. But I try to remember that underneath all of that, it's really fun, and I love to battle more than almost anything else. The feeling after a competition, or after a single event at the Games, is pretty wonderful. So I'll keep it lighthearted: I just love it. In the moment it's very serious, and I'm giving it everything, but when it's all said and done, it's a sport, a hobby — I just take it very seriously.
Tom Rowland: You've clearly done incredibly well at it, and it's coming up soon — when are the Games?
Jason Grubb: We're about six weeks out. The Games start for Masters athletes August 1st, and we compete for three days in August. Then we'll know where we stand.
Tom Rowland: We'll be watching and cheering you on for your fourth title — that's very impressive, especially since your age group is incredibly competitive. There are guys who've been doing this since CrossFit started, and it gets more competitive every year — the weights get heavier, everything gets harder, and you keep winning. You've given us some great advice for athletes chasing the top and for people who know they need to make a change in their life. For anyone interested, go to Jason Grubb, G-R-U-B-B, underscore fitness, on Instagram. Do you have other social media or a website where people can find your programs?
Jason Grubb: Sure — they can go to jasongrubb.com, again with two B's. They can also search Jason Grubb on YouTube, and you'll find dozens and dozens of videos: instruction, motivation, behind-the-scenes, lifestyle, all kinds of fun stuff.
Tom Rowland: Awesome, man. Jason, thank you very much, and thanks for doing this on the spur of the moment while you were driving — I really appreciate it. I look forward to meeting you in person; I'll come up to Cookeville sometime, or if you're ever in the South, Florida, we can get together down there. Good luck to you, man — six weeks out, I know you're gonna do great, and we'll be watching.
Jason Grubb: Thanks, Tom. Appreciate it, man.
Tom Rowland: Thank you. See you.
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