Brian Mazza is a fitness expert, entrepreneur, influencer, former Division I soccer player, and founder of High Performance Lifestyle training.
In 2017 and 2019, he landed the cover of Men’s Health and has also been featured in Men’s Fitness, GQ, Esquire, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fox 5, Cheddar, Channel 11, HLN, The Steve Harvey Show, and more. He has over 300,000 followers on Instagram and routinely shares fitness tips and inspires people to get active.
Mazza is also an avid fan of MAD TASTY Wellness Boosts, a product founded by OneRepublic’s lead singer Ryan Tedder. The product contains no artificial sweeteners, is under 15 calories, is vegan, gluten-free, and has 50 MG of broad-spectrum hemp extract, one of the highest dosages on the market. Available in two flavors, the boosts improve mood, ward off sickness, and combat immune system stressors in the body.
The Knockturnal recently had the pleasure of speaking with Mazza about all things fitness, exercise, and MAD TASTY.
The Knockturnal: You are an avid fan of MAD TASTY, the brand behind the restorative, all-natural, hemp-infused sparkling water founded by OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder that just launched Wellness Boosts. On average, you consume two boosts a day, especially after long runs or workouts to help you recover and relax, can you tell us about teaming up with MAD TASTY? Why do you like the product?
Brian Mazza: I was really drawn to Mad Tasty first and foremost by the name, I thought it was really cool. And then the packaging, I’m really in love with the packaging. I think the design is really awesome and eye-catching. And then doing more research into the company and seeing someone like Ryan creating and being behind it was another awesome thing for me to get more intrigued by it. And then the wellness feature that just came out was something that really blew my mind because for someone like myself who’s constantly basically breaking down my body everyday through training and being a dad and running multiple businesses and just being active, I needed something that was going to be able to bring me back to baseline and also give me a nice edge on recovery. I have just been super stoked by the product and team and everything that they’re doing has been really exceptional.
The Knockturnal: How do you think that your experiences with Division I athletics have influenced who you are as an athlete today? What was it like to play soccer at URI?
Brian Mazza: It was a really truly special experience, we played overseas one summer and I still have made some of my best friends in my whole life from soccer at The University of Rhode Island. My best friend to this day was on my team, he was my captain, he’s the godfather of my child. So I think in terms of just relationship building and experiencing so many different places across the world and playing at such a top level it was a really truly unforgettable experience. I played a long time ago, not to date myself. I feel like collegiate athletes these days have so much more opportunity in terms of recovery, in terms of performance and resources to be the best athlete they can possibly be. I mean we were eating McDonalds before games and after games. We weren’t really getting the best care pre and post but I feel like college athletes now are treated more like professional athletes, which I’m so happy about.
The Knockturnal: What is your go-to fitness routine for the summer?
Brian Mazza: Right now I am training for the New York City Marathon, so I’m logging anywhere between 150-200 miles per month on the roads. So I’m running everyday and I’m lifting four days a week with my trainer Jacob Zemer, one of the best trainers in the US. I was very fortunate to link up with him so my mileage is different every single day, different heart rate training every single day, but we’re still continuing to put on major strength and size. We just did a 500 pound deadlift and know we’re going for 315 bench for three reps, so we are really figuring out the healthy balance between strength, size, and endurance. So that’s been a really fun challenge for me this summer. And just being a dad feels like fitness in itself, running around with my two little boys. It’s just really getting up and getting after it every single day, but really taking recovery very, very seriously.
The Knockturnal: With the world re-opening and things returning to normal, do you have any health and wellness tips for how to prioritize heath and exercise in a world where there are so many distractions?
Brian Mazza: I think the pandemic was a big eye-opener for a lot of people to look within and see what they’re not happy with and see what they were happy with. At one point throughout this whole pandemic a lot of people had nothing to do, we were just home waiting and that was a big time for self reflection. So the main thing that I tell people right now as the world is opening up and people are having the ability now to get more active and do certain things is take it slow, this is not a sprint, it is a marathon. So just get active, that is the main thing, start moving, start putting yourself first. I always say it’s not selfish to do health and wellness, it’s actually selfless because everything that you do inside the gym, everything you do running-wise makes everything outside in those parameters that much easier and better. So look within, prioritize everything you want to do in your life, and understand that health and wellness is the new wealth of the world. This is a good way for us to wave our healthy flag and put a stake in the ground and say ‘I’m going to take myself a lot more seriously.’
The Knockturnal: Can you share what you use as recovery aids post-workout?
Brian Mazza: So the MAD TASTY drink is something that is stocked in my fridge, and I should really grab one right now. I consume about two to three of those per day and I take actually more than two of the Wellness Boosts per day. I take one in the morning, one midday with my lunch, and one before I go to bed. I feel that the CBD product that we have with MAD TASTY — the hemp extract, 20 milligrams per drink — I feel a difference in my recovery. It allows me to relax, it allows me to reduce inflammation. Just having the ability to have these products now to aid me in my recovery and reduce my inflammation allows me each and everyday to become better and be able to push it.
The Knockturnal: What is it like to be a health and wellness role model for many people on social media?
Brian Mazza: It’s a dream come true that people look up to me and ask me many questions and use my profile and my message for their own motivation and inspiration to continue to move and get out there and become better in anything that they want to do. I want people to see through my life that everything might look like it’s really easy on my Instagram, but it is a grind, it is a lot of hard work. There’s so much adversity that I’ve gone through as a person and in the family that no matter what happens you still have to continue to fight every single day. I want people to understand that message and use that message and live their life the way they want to live it just with a little more motivation and grit.
The Knockturnal: Can you talk about High Performance Lifestyle Training and some of your workout programs?
Brian Mazza: High Performance Lifestyle Training is a health and wellness company and brand incubator where we put on summits throughout the country and the world. What we do is get likeminded people who want to sharpen their tools and take their lives to the next level. It really has nothing to do with being an elite athlete or being an elite fitness fanatic. We really want to show people that through hard work and dedication, this is the time where you need to triple down on everything you want to do. We surround them with people who have mastered that and we surround them with brands that offer assistance in achieving their goals and it’s been such a wonderful company. It doesn’t feel like a job to me, even though I do own it, it’s just something that I truly love waking up to work on every single day because it is a part of my lifestyle and how I live and how I operate and how I am as a person. Being able to spread that knowledge and that passion on to people through fitness and through seminars and branding is something that is a dream come true.
The Knockturnal: What is your favorite part of being a fitness expert and entrepreneur?
Brian Mazza: I think my favorite part is doing everything on my own terms and working and making a schedule around what I want to do, how I want to do it. Having the flexibility to be more of a hands-on father and be a more present husband I think is probably the most important aspect of doing all that. I love that my kids get to see me be happy. I think that’s really important too, that they see that daddy loves his job and daddy loves his life and his lifestyle. So hopefully that is contagious for them to go out and chase their dreams.
