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Efficiency Is the Strong Angle. Isokinetics & Neurological Strength for BJJ Over 40 — Dr. Lyneil Mitchell Part 2 | EP98
Dr. Lyneil Mitchell returns for part two — on isokinetics as the highest return-on-investment strength tool for midlife athletes, why most training creates maladaptation rather than improvement, the Hebbian principle and how your nervous system is quietly patterning the wrong thing, and what integrity under demand actually means as a new definition of fitness.
Am I in the Strong Angle or the Weak Angle? BJJ Injury Prevention & Biomechanics — Dr. Lyneil Mitchell on the Strong Angle | EP97
Dr. Lyneil Mitchell — two-time Division II All-American wrestler, Doctor of Physical Therapy, Marinovich Systems practitioner, and author of The Strong Angle Way — on the single question that fixes your movement, why your dominant side is costing you power, and the biomechanical blind spots that are quietly ending midlife athletic careers.
Navy Diver & BJJ Black Belt William Dorman on Staying on the Mats Past 40 | EP96
Navy diver, BJJ black belt under Gustavo Machado, BJJ Globetrotters coach, and founder of Blue Ring Solutions — William Dorman on suffering as growth, top pressure that nobody escapes, why jiu-jitsu is the best thing for humanity, and staying dangerous long after the body starts objecting.
Functional Medicine for Midlife Men — Kristin Oja DNP on Muscle, Hormones & Longevity | EP95
Kristin Oja DNP — founder of STAT Wellness and the first practice in the nation to put barbells inside a functional medicine model — on the three pillars of longevity, why muscle mass is the most important biomarker you're not tracking, and the root causes most doctors never look for.
Consistency Beats Everything — Chris Ryan on Midlife Training & Longevity | EP94
Chris Ryan on training smarter past 40, what your liquid diet is silently doing to you, why less is more for midlife athletes, and the one investment that pays compound interest for the rest of your life.
BJJ Black Belt at 50: Matt McPeake on Concepts, Recovery & Staying on the Mats | Josh Button Podcast EP 93
Professor Matt McPeake on earning it the right way, why concepts beat techniques every time, how to stay on the mats past 50, and the one word that explains why jiu-jitsu is the most human thing you can do.
PTSD to Spiritual Bodybuilder — Nahum Vizakis on Healing Men | Josh Button Podcast EP92
Nahum Vizakis on surviving PTSD, escaping the pharmaceutical fog, plant medicine, the testosterone epidemic, and why resilience is the only word men need right now.
Submissions Are a Hostage Negotiation — Charles Harriott on the 80% Rule, BJJ Longevity & Training in 50 Countries | EP91
Charles Harriott left corporate America, trained in 50 countries, built a reputation without a world title, and developed some of the most original frameworks in modern jiujitsu. This conversation goes deep on longevity, ego, training culture, and the only metric that actually matters for midlife grapplers.
The X Axis Nobody Builds — Dr. Evan Kappler on Staying on the Mats for Life | EP90
Dr. Evan Kappler herniated two discs, declined surgery, and spent eight months rebuilding — then built a remote physical therapy practice around helping grapplers do the same. His diagnosis of why midlife practitioners keep breaking down is not what most people expect to hear.
Why Grapplers Age Out of BJJ — Longevity, Movement & the Budokon Method. Ep. 89
Black belt Steve Hordinski has been on the mats for nearly 30 years and is training better now than ever. His answer to longevity isn't what most people expect — it starts with how you move, not how hard you train.
Your Gas Tank Is Holding You Back — Strength & Conditioning for Midlife Grapplers | Dustin Lebel | EP87
The Josh Button Podcast is back for 2026, and the first guest of the year is Dustin Lebel — a strength and conditioning coach out of Connecticut who has been on the mats for over two decades, came back to training at 36 after years off due to injury, and now coaches midlife combat athletes online full-time. He is, in his own words, that person. He gets it because he's living it.
Stop Waiting to Feel Ready — Inner Dialogue, Self-Talk & the Psychology of Mindset | Faust Ruggiero | EP84 The Josh Button Podcast
We think in language. Every decision, every reaction, every emotional state begins with a conversation that happens entirely inside your own head — one that most people never consciously examine. Faust Ruggiero has spent 40 years as a psychologist watching what happens when people don't.
Your Nervous System Is Why You Can't Recover — Nervous System Training for BJJ | Quintin Torres | EP79 The Josh Button Podcast
There is a layer of athletic performance that most coaches don't train — not because it doesn't matter, but because they can't measure it. Reaction time. Coordination. Accuracy. Spatial awareness. Tissue elasticity. These are the qualities that separate a fighter who looks technically capable from one who actually performs under pressure. And according to Quintin Torres, these are exactly the qualities you can develop — fast — through nervous system training.
The TRT Lie, Hunger Means Hunter & Drug-Free Hormone Optimization | Chris Krüger | EP78 The Josh Button Podcast
Chris Krüger came to hormone optimization the same way I came to this podcast — through watching his father navigate the medical system, get the wrong answers, and pay for it with his health. Chris's father battled prostate cancer for six years after a life of insulin resistance and low testosterone — a cascade that the conventional medical system addressed with food pyramids, Glucerna shakes, chemo, and radiation. What it never addressed was the hormonal environment that allowed the disease to take hold in the first place.
Food Lies, Nutrient Density & You Can't Cheat Nature | Brian Sanders | EP77 The Josh Button Podcast
Brian Sanders has spent eight years building what he intends to be the definitive documentary series on nutrition — Food Lies. Not a carnivore documentary. Not a keto documentary. Something undebunkable. He started a nose-to-tail regenerative meat business, ran it for four years, and lost money — because there is no profit margin on real food. That experience gave him a clarity about the food industry that no amount of academic research could provide.
Shilajit, Liquid Minerals & The Staph Problem Nobody's Solving | Brad McDonnell | The Josh Button Podcast Ep 74
Brad McDonnell a jiu-jitsu practitioner who has been on the mats for eight years, has had staph himself, has watched the antibiotic cycle destroy fighters' cardiovascular systems and gut flora, and has spent eight months down the rabbit hole of gut-skin axis research to build a solution.
Built to Last: The Neuroscience of Lifelong Fitness | David Amerland | EP54 The Josh Button Podcast
David Amerland started doing karate at 13 years old, a new kid in a new school in Australia with nowhere to put his anger. He never stopped. Forty-seven years later he is a certified Taekwondo instructor who competed at black belt national level in Britain through the 1990s, a researcher who spent 10,000 hours studying neuroscience and interviewed 100 snipers to write The Sniper Mind, and co-founder of DareBee — a crowd-funded, entirely free fitness resource that serves around a million visitors a month globally and was used by Green Berets in Afghanistan.
Identity, Fear & The Fight You Have With Yourself | Mike Gonzalez | EP53 The Josh Button Podcast
Mike Gonzalez was a professional MMA fighter — amateur champion, second-degree BJJ black belt, fight name Limitless — who spent years training seven days a week, attending no birthdays, no weddings, turning off his emotions two weeks before every fight so he could go for the finish without hesitation. He was the best version of himself physically. He was winning. And he was completely hollow inside.
Stoicism, Self-Examination & Living a Philosophy | Benny Voncken | EP76 The Josh Button Podcast
Benny Voncken is a Stoicism coach from the Netherlands, currently based in Athens — the city where the philosophy was born 2,300 years ago. He came to Stoicism through a combination of divorce, alcoholism, and an existential crisis that forced him to stop running from the questions he'd been avoiding. He found the Stoics at the right moment, immediately recognized himself in them, and spent the next several years building a coaching practice around helping others find the same clarity.
Functional Medicine, Hormones & Root Cause Health | Dr. Justin Marchegiani | EP66 The Josh Button Podcast
Dr. Justin Marchegiani started as a personal trainer watching the conventional nutrition recommendations fail everyone he worked with. He moved into functional and chiropractic medicine — got called a quack for it — and spent the next 15 years building a practice that asks the question conventional medicine is structurally incapable of asking: why do you have this problem?
