The MaxFit Games 2026

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Talking to the words of methods to the mannets. My name is Rob Maxwell, and I'm an exercise physiologist in personal pinetics. I'm the other Maxwell's Fitness Program, and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really worked and most importantly why things work. Hence the name is a method to the manage. Before I get started today, let me thank Jonathan and Lynn Gilded of the Gilding Group ELT Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412. Welcome to a Saturday edition of the show. It's a special day. That's why I'm doing the podcast today. So the games are all fresh in my mind and we can fill everybody in on the great MaxFit Games of 2026. I believe this once again was our best ever. We had a super competitive event. So let me give you some of the rundown. Um, just a minute backstory here. This is about the 16th year or so that we've been doing this. Um, one of my former students came to the event today, and she works down in Miami. She uh works as a fitness instructor and also part of corporate America. But in any event, she was um talking to me, asking me how many years we've been putting it on. So that got me thinking about it a little bit. It's been off and on. There might have been a couple years missed, but around 16, maybe something like that. I don't know for sure. I sort of gauge it on the age of my daughter, who is now 23. And I can remember back when she was just a little, little one that she was uh taking part in the games. As a matter of fact, I think she might have won the very first games we put on because it was sort of more of a uh, oh, how would you call it? Like obstacle course type of thing. We even had a wall climb at the end. Maybe it was more like 13 or 14 years ago, but there's a wall climb at the end that was way taller than her, and uh, I think she won that one for the girls, and uh so it goes way back every year. We do something a little bit different. This year's was similar to last year's, and uh just staying on the theme of this backstory really quick. So I did the games because I'm a big believer in all-around fitness. I mean, we preach it and talk about it all the time, ADLs, activities of daily living, and the worlds don't meet a lot between endurance and strength very much, you know, kind of like only in CrossFit to an extent. They they sort of have similar style events, but not really. Although, if I'm going to look for a comparison, I would say that uh, you know, their games are similar where you can't just be all strong with no endurance and do very well, and you definitely can't just have a lot of endurance and do well. So, you know, I believe in cross-training, I just believe in the importance of strength conditioning. I mean, as we get older, we want to keep our strength up, you know, and there is almost a 5K every weekend somewhere where I live here in Volusia County. In the summer, there's a few less, but like almost every weekend you can go test your endurance. And look, that's great, but it really is only one-fifth of the pie. And there are other components to physical fitness, and unfortunately, I see people like doing one thing all the time, like they're either all strength or all endurance, not you know, uh, for lack of a better word, people that are conscious of being overall fit, like they don't do it, but you tend to see that sometimes in different styles of competition. So every year we try to tweak it to make it a little bit better, a little more fair, balanced all the way around. And quite frankly, like I use a lot of the military style events because you know, that's where you kind of have to be the most fit. I mean, the military probably does the best job of measuring everybody's fitness because there are runs you have to do, whether they be one mile or 1.5 miles, sometimes longer. There are marches you have to do. They definitely um monitor you for pull-ups, for push-ups, um, which were a big part of this today, for squats. Um, you know, they do different kinds of like ruck rucking, and you have to carry things. So we kind of simulate that with farmer carry. So, like if there's a comparison I can come up with as far as like what I believe to most to be the most overall fit, it's it's going to be military, especially those that have gone to the academies like West Point or Annapolis or something like that, because the the stringents are so tough, they're so hard to make. And you know, that's what I preach and teach is overall fitness. So that's why we try to have the gains. That's one big reason as far as that goes, coming up with a competition that measures everything. Another big reason is the fact we love to support the community. Um, you know, I'm gonna give you three big reasons. That's number two. We love to support the community. And, you know, there was some really great things said today regarding that about how long we've been doing it. Um, Kelly brought up how like it's so cool to be like around so many different people, men and women, that can do pull-ups and hangs, and how that is such a rare part of general population, which is really, really true. Like, if you can do a pull-up, you're kind of in the 95th percentile, you know, depending on which one you look at. In the whole world, like pull-ups are a rarity for adults, and you know, they're they're can be even tougher for kids, but at least like they practice them sometimes. But she made a point like how refreshing it is to just be standing around encouraging each other to do pull-ups, because at the end we did the pull-up competition, and that was sort of part of the games, meaning that you could use it as a bonus. And then uh we decided to also do a who can do the most type of thing, and everybody was like encouraging each other to do more and more, and you know, everybody was able to do some or do a hang. So that's another reason why we do it. We want to encourage fitness and encourage it in community, and then the other reason is we like to give back, and each year we try to, we don't try to, we absolutely give some of the proceeds to a charity or an organization that needs it. You know, last year we gave it to a dog rescue group that we're extremely grateful. A couple years ago, it went to some cancer research to help with Ellen's daughter Leah, who, you know, thank God is in remission and she's doing really, really well. So every year we do something. This year we are going back to substance abuse because we did that a few years ago. And this year we are going to donate part of the proceeds to a 12-step community. So to help them out, we think that's really important. Um, we had such great volunteers, you know. We had a couple people who had signed up, but they kind of tweaked themselves a little bit, so they wanted to come out and support. So they did. They came out and they helped judge and they helped work turnarounds and starting people and guiding people, and that is always really, really cool. And you know, one thing that happened that is like it's so like inspiring is we have a a friend who does a lot of our events, and uh he he is his name is Coy, and he adopted a son um several years back who is uh very autistic and um also very OCD, um non-communicative, and uh he does some of the runs with Coy, and he he, you know, Coy's an older gentleman, and Sean, his son, is is a lot younger, and uh he's in his 30s, and he was so excited to be there, and and he's fit, he can, he can do everything, and he did everything with his dad, like they ran together, and then when they got to the squats, they did the squats together and then the push-ups together and farmer carry together, and then at the end, you know, he he cranked out like 15 push pull-ups, you know, one of the winners of the competition, and he was so proud of himself, you know. Coy told me the whole way home he he kept kind of singing happy, happy, he was happy, you know. I mean, that is is so cool. And uh one of our sponsors, Gary Frick with his psychiatric association here in Daytona, you know, pulled some money out of his hand and handed it to him as a congrats. And he was so tickled pink, you know. And that's really what it's about. It's about like helping people be their best physically, you know, and and helping each other get there. So, you know, to me, that was the highlight. And then I got a message from Coy just a little bit ago thanking me and telling me how happy Sean is and it made his day, you know, and um, it was just really sweet to see, you know, and everybody's supportive of him. And and like I said, he earned it, he did every bit of the competition and did crank out 15 pull-ups. So, you know, that is really, really awesome to see. That was the highlight to me, seeing that, just seeing the smiles on his face and you know, kind of the tears of happiness in his dad's eyes, you know. It it was really cool to see. And, you know, as usual, we had great sponsors, including Jonathan and Lynn Gilden again of the Gildan group. They sponsor this podcast, and they were one of our top sponsors again today. And the whole family came out, you know, and they competed. You know, Lynn volunteered. She's a little banged up, but she helped out. She took phenomenal pictures. Jonathan won his age group, his and as usual, per Jonathan was a beast, you know. I think he also did 15 pull-ups or so, or maybe more. Um, you know, just a king out there. His kids all won their divisions, you know, there are little tough little troopers out there, you know. Uh the poor little one, you know, he's carrying these huge buckets that weigh almost as much as he does, you know. So, you know, we helped him out a little bit with that. But seeing them earn their way, I mean, I couldn't even imagine at their age doing that kind of a competition. So those are the highlights, seeing all the happy people and seeing people work on their fitness and come back year in and year out and be fit. So I'll break down the competition a little bit. So the men started at seven. This was something we did differently this year because uh, you know, number one, we had to have enough buckets for the farmer carry. And uh, we thought if we had like a little play playoff at the very end, which both of them actually ended up being the winners, which was pretty neat. But um, the men went at seven, and it was uh the men and the boys, so the kids, but males went at seven, and it was a mile run, it was a down and back, and uh they come back, they had a complete 100 squats in good form. And let me tell you that it was good form. Like everybody this year had great form. We had great judges, nobody was cheating. And by the way, when people cheat sometimes in the squats in the past, it's not like they do it on purpose, they're just getting competitive, maybe focusing a little bit on what other people are doing or just getting a little bit like mindless or whatever. So it's not like they cheat on purpose, but you know, sometimes they need some reminders. Today we hardly needed any, like people were just doing their job, they're just doing their squats, they're doing their squats. Um, and and that's hard, by the way. Like, you know, I warned everybody. We sent out little tutorials and text messages, and I posted videos on Facebook, like, because I know how hard these things are. So I warned everybody like, don't empty your tank on the run. You know, it is a mile run. I mean, that sounds significant, but you know, ultimately in the grand scheme of things, it's not like in the females race, it turned out like it really didn't matter at all. Um, so you know, it it's just part of it. So, you know, most people I would say listened so they didn't empty the tank on the run, but it's still hard. Like even if you're running 90% or 80% or 70% or whatever it might be, it's still hard to go right from a run into your squats, but that's what we do. And they have to crank out a hundred good squats. It's a timed event, so they're allowed to take breaks if they need to, whatever. It's it's you know, up to them. Some people had strategies going in, some people fell back into a strategy. Uh, one of our um great participants and one of my clients, uh Joanne Magley, was second overall female. She didn't take a break, like she just uh she got into this rhythm of 100 and uh you know, just paced herself, which is really the smartest thing to do. And I believe she was maybe second from last on the run, and that's not a knock at all. It's just she followed instructions, she realizes it is a long event. Don't empty the tank in the run. And she proved it because she was able to catch up and pass a lot of people because she followed her own tempo and pace. So after the 100 squats, that's the female race, but everybody did the same thing. After the 100 squats, then the men and the women, but we're talking about the men's race right now, went to the push-ups, and men did standard push-ups. You had to go down 90 degrees with your upper arm and lock out the elbow and just like squats, everybody was doing it right. There was hardly any correction needed. Kelly did a great job of coaching a couple people. Push-ups are hard because once you're done, you're done. They're hard to really come back from. So she was coaching some people on using their breath to do it. Um, and then after the push-ups, they went right into the farmer carry. The buckets were about 20 pounds, they were heavier though, than people first thought when they picked them up because the farmer carry was pretty long. I mean, we figured it to be around a quarter of a mile. They had to go down to the entrance of the park and turn around and come back. The deal was they weren't allowed to spill any of the dirt. So really, that was our way of encouraging people to not like feel like they have to run so fast because then the buckets are going to shake. It's really an ADL, an activity, a daily living event. I mean, we have to learn to carry things, you know. Like, I know for me, I got the big five-gallon water bottles at the gym, and uh, you know, those things are heavy, you know, and you have to carry them from inside Lowe's or wherever I get them out to my truck. So, you know, it's it's a good ADL event, just like squats are. You have to be able to get in and out of chairs, just like push-ups are, you have to be able to push yourself up off the floor. So it's a really good ADL, and that again, that's the big, big part of the idea. They come back, they had to do a squat to set them down. We just didn't want people to dump the buckets, and everybody did that. And then there was a minute sprint to the finish line. So Mr. Seth won that. He did great. It was a really, really close race, though, and it really did come down to the tiebreaker, or it could have come down to the tiebreaker between first and second. And again, just like the uh, you know, the female race I spoke of earlier. I mean, Seth had a pretty good lead with the mile, but the other guy almost caught up. So, you know, that's pretty neat. Again, it's a friendly competition. Nobody is taking it too seriously. Everybody wanted to finish. Anybody that finishes, hey man, you're a champ, right? It's a hard event. And that's another thing that makes me proud. I had a couple clients out there that uh more than that, but a couple men that um started with me years ago for like rehab situations, both of them with uh back issues they had to correct, and both of them competed today. One of them was Gary, who is the psychiatrist who donated the money. He competed and he won his age group. So that makes a trainer proud to see that somebody that came in just talking about not being in pain anymore can now do such a vigorous activity. And then the other one is Felix, who competed for his very first time today, and he was thrilled he did it. Felix did great. Um, just a couple weeks ago, he didn't think he was going to be able to do the squats and repetition, but he knocked him out in great form. Again, that makes a trainer proud. So Seth took home the first prize of $60, and then he had a sit back and wait for the women to race, and then they did. They started at 7 30, excuse me, and uh same event. Um, they come in from the mile again. If you if they pace themselves, at least to some extent, they weren't going to have a hard time. Uh uh the lead runner for some reason ran into some trouble. She had to drop out of the event. Um, some fatigue, I suppose, was setting in, but that's what happened there. Um, and after the run, as I said, they squats. Women do the 100 squats just like the men, 90 degrees. So full range of motion squats. Everybody was banging them out, the competition was on, and then from there they go into the push-ups. Now we really suggested they did modified push-ups. So that is the women's style push-up. We told some of them who are super strong at push-ups, they can do regular if they wanted, because some liked regular push-ups better, but we told them they weren't going to get a greater reward for that because you know we have to keep everything fair and impartial. So everybody ended up, all the women ended up doing the modified push-ups, and just like the men, the form was perfect. We barely had to say anything. Matter of fact, I don't think we had to correct any of the females' push-ups, and we barely did on the men, and again, it wasn't purposeful, but on the women, I don't think we even had to say once you have to go further down. So um, they did great, they did 50. From there, they grabbed the same size bucket, so it was the same size for men and women, roughly 20 pounds in each hand. The women were a little smarter than the men. We had towels left out for them to wrap around the handle so nobody cut their hands or anything like that. Some of the men avoided that or didn't see it or didn't wasn't aware. I don't know, but a couple of them regretted it and cut their fingers. Um, but the women grabbed the the washcloths to hold the handles, which was smart. And uh again, it was like uh steady makes you win. I mean, sometimes a couple people sprint and then all of a sudden they get passed by the people who just grab the handles and get their chest up and did did the idea, which was just maintain a good posture so you don't hurt your back. Carry the buckets all the way down. Again, it was about a quarter mile total length. Come in, you have to land a soft landing by squatting, and then run to the finish line, which was maybe 40 to 50 yards away. And Miss Cindy, one of the fitness instructors, she actually won for the women. Again, it was a pretty close race, but she won and took home the $60. And Joanne was second overall, gave her a run for her money and really made up the time. Not so much on Cindy, both were extremely competitive, but Joanne, one of the last runners to come in, actually made up her time and everything else. And I kept telling everybody, you know, don't empty the tank on the run. It's a mile. And the event that most people found to be the hardest was the push-ups and the farmer carry. That's what everybody said. They didn't expect the farmer carry to be as long. It's a lot harder to walk carrying things than it is to say sprint. So they found that to be a little challenging. And I liked hearing that. That's that's good because you know, we want a challenge, isn't that the whole idea that we're challenging our fitness levels? I mean, I think the winners came in in like 14 minutes for the men and maybe 17, 18 or so for the women, and they were drenched. I mean, they were soaked, it was a workout. And then we had our little playoff between top male and top female, and uh they were gonna race it off. Now, both of them won the prize. That's the cool thing, you know. They they were out there just to push and have one more little bit of a workout in there, but neither one left there a loser, as I'll get to in a second. And of course, they wouldn't have been anyway, but it was a half mile runoff, and Seth. Wanted to be as fair as possible. So after the run, he kind of waited up for Cindy a little bit because you know Seth ran a college, so he's an elite runner. He didn't want to win that way. Again, neither one was going to lose anyway. They both got the prize. And uh Seth did not know that at the time, though. So that made that pretty cool. And uh Cindy did not know that at the time, but she kept competing anyway because it ain't about the money, right? It's about a workout. Isn't that why we're there? We're there to work out. So they did half of the first run, half mile. Then they do half of the squats from the first time. So they do 50, and then they do 25 push-ups. Cindy did modified, Seth did regular, and then they do the farmer carry, which is about a third of the distance and back, and then it was over. Seth winning that, but again, they both won. They both ended up winning an additional $60. So both of them walked home with $120. And Dr. Gary Frick contributed some of the cash to that final, which is pretty cool. And then we had our pull-up competition, pull-up and hang at the very end. And that was going to work as a bonus, meaning that it's very hard to put the pull-ups into the competition because it's a running clock and there's one pull-up bar. But we want to include it because personally I believe pull-ups are very, very important for activities of deli living. You have to be able to pull yourself. And uh, I wanted it to be part of the game. So what we did was if men could do more than five, they got 45 seconds off. If they could do more than 10, they got a minute off. And for both Seth and second place, they both got the 10. And that's significant because if Seth didn't get the 10, he might have lost the games because it was that close. So that's what made the pull-up really, really interesting. So it's a good thing Seth can do pull-ups because if he could just run and that was it, he would have lost because it came down to that. Now the women could either hang or do pull-ups. They all chose to hang, and the majority of the competitors did get the bonus of 45 seconds. Some went a minute, Kelly went a minute and a half, Dia went a minute and a half, and Sean, our friend who was there with Coy, did so great with this 15 pull-ups. It was so inspiring to see, and everybody cheering him on. It was such a great competition. You know, um, to kind of wrap up the the summary of the games, you know, we had an incident where like somebody who really wasn't competing was like kind of like talking about like how fair it was, whether the woman and the man are gonna do the same thing in the end, and and and you know, it's not really fair to the female to have to run because this person's so much faster. It it's kind of like again, you know, is it a negative? Not really, because you're gonna have some people in every crowd, you know. But the ironic thing was the person wasn't competing anyway. So it's like kind of a case of like people putting their nose in business that's not theirs whatsoever. So that's that's kind of ironic. It is annoying though, because you know, as as I hear people say a lot, you know, about the the deal with power and how power corrupts, and it's it's more like it reveals. Like one of the things I love about competition is it really does reveal character. Like this person's going on and on and not like realizing that both the male and female, number one, don't care. You know, the female finished later than the male. She didn't care, she had already won her race, does not care, wants to get back out there and do a little more workout. And then the other side of it is not realizing that both of them were gonna walk home with the prize anyway. Both of them were gonna walk home with an additional $60. But causing, I wouldn't say a scene, but like just kind of like saying stuff under the breath and to other, you know, some of the competitors who walked away, but it's just like competition can reveal who people are, you know, and and I see that all the time. And when you see people coming out to like help Sean, like no matter what, like that's what it's about. That's what competition does. Like it's supposed to sharpen your character. And and if it doesn't, I think people really, really need to look at that, you know, really need to look at the whole point of competition. Because the the two that won, I would say are pretty darn elite athletes who don't take it serious whatsoever, who want a good workout, sure, win a little bit of cash, you know. Basically, what we did was that it just gives them their entry back, you know, and then win in the overall, which was just a gift from our sponsors to give them both some money for being good sports to race against each other, you know. It's like there's no harm, no foul. And just to watch people do that, it's like, gosh, you you take things so seriously. You're the reason some people don't like to go to 5K's and things. It's like it's just not a good look, you know. You you got sponsors that are there to promote such a good event because that's what it comes down to. It's all supposed to be fun, and some people just don't get that, you know. I did want to throw that in because I just think that's important. I think the whole part about competition, you know, um a famous saying by one of the Kennedys, I believe it was John F. Kennedy talking about like the importance of fitness and how it makes you into the character that you have. Like the two things kind of go hand in handy with each other, you know. Um, any military people out there, like they get that, you know, uh an army of one, so to say. Like it's just really important that anybody who is out there and I would say like at a good level of fitness, whatever that might mean, to me, it might mean one thing to somebody else, something else. But I think we all know, and I would say anybody that embarks on that race today is a good level of fitness. I mean, obviously, you're you're really trying to do things that the general population can't do. So if that's you, I just think we always have to be a good representative because we want to encourage people to get off the couch. We want to encourage people to try things that they're not comfortable doing. You know, Felix, one of my clients who came in for the back, who's an older gentleman, not old by any means, but older, you know, he was like nervous about whether he can do this or not. And he did it. Like that's what we want to do because now he's gonna want to do it again. And and Sean is, you know, maybe had the highlight of his year so far today. Like, we want to be good representatives of the fitness world. Like, we don't want people walking around going, oh, you know, those fit people, uh, they're assholes, or you know, they think they're better than people. Like, we don't want that. Because number one, everybody is different at their level of competition, right? I mean, I know people that have competed in professional sports before, that got paid big bucks for being an athlete. I mean, that's one level. They don't act like that either. It's like we want to encourage people out there. We want to be a fun community. My good friend Willie Williams, who is running for city commissioner in Daytona Beach, is such a great example of that. He helps run a couple of the fitness clubs around, a couple one of the running clubs he's always promoting. We want to get people out there doing it, be friendly with each other, you know, not be bickering behind the scenes, not be complaining about what you think didn't go the way you think it should go. That's just not a good look. All right. So that's a little bit of my lecture today. And you know what? It's my place, I'm allowed to do it. So, overall, I really, really thank all of our sponsors. You know, the majority of people who sponsored the event, they don't really get anything out of it but some advertisement. I mean, they're not there using the entries, they just donate, give us samples, give us money to help run it, and they're not there. And you know, without them, we can't put it on. So I want to thank everybody. You know who you are, and uh thank all the volunteers. And look, get training, people. We make this where everybody can do it. So come out next year and join the Max Fit Fun. Thanks, everybody. Thanks everybody for listening to today's show. I want to ask you to please hit automatic download from wherever you get your podcast from. It really helps me and it really helps the show. Now I'd like to take a second to thank our sponsors. Without them, we would not be able to have the podcast. First overhead door of Daytona Beach. They are the area's premier garage door company. They have the best product and the best service. I personally vouch for Jeff and Zach Hawk. They are great people. If you have any garage door needs, please give them a call. 386-222-3165. Now I'm very, very happy and excited to announce we have a new sponsor, Procharge Liquid Protein Enhancer. Each container has 40 grams of protein. And what's really cool about this is it's very portable. You can throw the tiny little containers into a suitcase, take it wherever you go. Now you don't have to worry about spilling. And you know what? It tastes really, really good. Just open up the cap, suck down the protein. It's that easy. 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