I’ve been working with Ben Mayfield-Smith since the end of February on optimizing my nutrition and lifestyle so I can be in the best shape of my life by the end of the summer.
Ben is a competitive bodybuilder and the founder of Matter Athletica. Ben’s service is all-inclusive and covers training, nutrition and lifestyle coaching, among other things. He works with people in all walks of life, including competitive bodybuilders. Coaching people to perform on stage requires incredible precision and Ben is someone who is able to combine book smarts with actual “in the trenches” experience.
In addition to being a sender of great memes, he’s been a valuable asset to me. In a few months I will get into all of the things I’ve learned from Ben, but first I have to address a question I’ve been asked a few times:
“Why did you hire a coach?”
It usually comes with the follow-up question of “Aren’t you a coach?” It’s a fair question to be asked from somebody outside of the field, so I figured I would take the time to give a thoughtful answer.
To become a complete coach, there’s all of these buckets you need to fill. There’s a lot of them, but, for the sake of simplicity, let’s narrow it down to three: training, nutrition, rehab. In the past 11 years, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel all over and get the opportunity to meet and listen to the best coaches and practitioners in the world speak.
When you hear the best people speak on their respective area, you realize each bucket is deep and it only gets deeper the further you go down the rabbit hole. I’ve love to be a master of all, but it’s just not possible at the moment with two jobs. Because of my clientele being mostly youth and high school athletes, I’ve spent most of my continuing education on the training end of things.
Nutrition has always intrigued me. It started in 2015 when I met “The Guru” Tom Bilella and worked with him the next year where he took my bloodwork and taught me about food sensitivities. It continued with Justin Kavanaugh working on my own training program and giving me the 11-day diet plan that helped me shed and keep off 13 pounds. I learned the importance of proper supplementation from Jason Dhir of Ultra Human and Scott Mendelson of Infinity Fitness. Then, along the way, I watched Dr. Ken Kinakin show how food sensitivities altered muscle testing, Justin Harris break down carb-cycling and been blown away by all of Dr. Eric Serrano’s talks. They showed me how being truly powerful your nutrition and diet could be.
I was very fortunate to connect with Ben last year and have that lead to him coaching me this year. Let me break down why I wanted to be coached through my own transformation.
1-I ONLY WANT TO WORK WITH THE BEST
Most people will tell you that I am very cheap. I rarely buy myself new clothes or sneakers and keep my spending to the necessities and bills. The one area where I pull no punches is when it comes to my body or training. When it comes to my gym, I want the best equipment. For food and supplements, I’m always spending top dollar on what is the best on the market. For rehab and massage therapy, I only go to one guy who I know will have me fixed as quickly as possible. When you’ve been around the best, you’ll settle for nothing less. I’m a snob when it comes to that stuff.
Ben coaches everybody, but I highlight the fact that he works with competitive bodybuilders because that’s an art that requires everything to be precise. Every decision he makes needs to be perfect to make sure his clients show up on stage in the best condition possible. He’s also in the game himself so he utilizes everything that he preaches. He has a high standard for what he expects out of his clients because he also holds himself to the same standard.
Not only is he a great coach and competitor, he’s also a continuing student. He’s always taking some course or looking for ways to continue to get better. All of the smart practitioners I’ve been around and know are always looking to learn more and never settle. You hear it in the weekly recaps that he sends me where they are never the same and he’s always dropping some new nuggets of information.
Plus, I connected with him through The Coaches Room Mastermind. You can’t last in there as a charlatan. The BS detectors are on high alert there and you’ll be called out immediately. You also have to be a high-character person for Kav to let you in and Ben certainly checks off that box.
2-LEARN BY DOING
I’ve always heard that if you are new and want to learn how to train, ask the biggest guy in the gym. I don’t completely agree with that. I tweaked it a little bit. A saying that I believe in is if you want to learn about diet and nutrition, ask a bodybuilder. It’s worth double if you can find someone as smart as Ben. Bodybuilders know all of the diet hacks. They know what you need to do to put on size and they know what’s necessary to get super lean.
I’ve always wanted to learn more about nutrition and Ben is giving me the best of both worlds: I get to learn while getting into the best shape of my life. Every week Ben checks in with me and gives me my weekly podcast where he breaks down my week and what my next steps are. Every week he drops a new nugget of information that I didn’t know and answers every single question that I ask in detail.
I’m going to get into more detail on all of the things I’ve learned from this experience down the road. But, just to give you an idea, he gave me a whole stack of vitamins to take to help me with my seasonal allergies. Allergies crush me in the spring and I feel like a zombie. I’m constantly tired and my whole body is tight, no matter how much stretching or rolling I do. It’s enough to keep me out of the gym on certain days. His stack kept me moving.
All of this is making me a better coach. Nutrition wise, I knew what worked for me and was solid with the basics. I could give some guidance to my clients because they’re mostly kids and teenagers where just teaching them the basics works wonders for them. What’s helped with Ben is he’s given me the why behind a lot of what he does with me and it’s already helped me with consulting with my high school and college clients.
3-ACCOUNTABILITY
When I say accountability, it’s not that I need someone watching over my every move to make sure I’m doing the right thing. Anybody that knows me knows that I go hard whenever I’m trying to reach a goal, especially over the summer when I have a little more free time.
Without Ben, I know I could get into solid shape by the end of the summer. Most people don’t workout so when the average person sees me they’ll be pretty impressed. With that in mind, though, I could always slack off that tiny bit and have that extra cheat meal because I know, at the end of the day, nobody would be able to tell. I could even turn it into a cheat weekend. Even if I told them, they’d still say that it’s OK and it won’t make a difference. The average person will just see the before and after picture and be impressed.
With Ben, the goal has been raised higher. The goal isn’t just to be in good shape at the end. The goal is to be in the best shape I’ve ever been in. In order to do that, I have to be on-point with everything and keep my slip-ups to a minimum. Ben is an easy-going guy and he lets you know in a very nice way that you need to stay consistent. He knows how to make grilled chicken taste enjoyable for months, so he won’t except you saying that you need to go off the plan for a few days. He says it nicely, but you can read between the lines that you are expected to stick with the plan.
Also, this isn’t just about getting into great shape for me. I’ve told people that I’m working with Ben and it’s been posted and shared online that he’s working with me. I now represent what he does as a coach. I know that feeling as a coach where your athletes are a billboard for your standards. I want to make sure my results display all the work he’s put into me.