As a kid, Max Feinberg was—by his own admission—terrible at every sport he tried his hand at, and more importantly, he didn’t enjoy any of them.
But when he was 10, he saw his first episode of American Ninja Warrior, the sports competition show that debuted in 2009. It changed everything about how he saw sports. There were the insane obstacles—from the rope swing and the trampoline jump to the warped wall. There was the way the contestants ran and seemingly flew through the air. There was the excitement, the motivation, the confidence, the fun.
“Watching the show, it was an instant connection,” Feinberg said. “The next day, some buddies and I went to the playground to try to replicate the obstacles in our own little ways.”
After that, his parents found a parkour gym for Feinberg to try out, before finding a ninja gym. There, Feinberg could tackle obstacles and meet a new community that changed his life.
For the next several years, Feinberg practiced and honed his skills and eventually became part of a group that caught the attention of American Ninja Warrior producers. And in what he says was the most surreal—and maybe the greatest—moment of his life, he got a call from American Ninja Warrior host Matt Iseman, inviting him to be on the show.
Fast forward to 2024, and the Daniels College of Business student has not only achieved his biggest goal, having competed on American Ninja Warrior—but he has appeared on the show five times since 2020 and is a three-time national finalist. His latest and fifth appearance will air next spring or summer.
Competing on the show is a feeling that’s unmatched, he said.
“The feeling of the buzzer is incredible, because you spend an entire year just getting ready for this competition,” he said. “There are so many doubts that creep in when you start to think about it. It’s the world’s biggest stage, with the world’s biggest obstacles and you think about everything that can go wrong. You don’t tend to think too much about the positives. But as you’re moving through the course, the doubts, the nerves, fade away and you feel more comfortable. Reaching the buzzer is just an incredible feeling, knowing you’re moving on, and that your training and hard work has paid off.”
Feinberg has been navigating his success on the show while also studying marketing at the Daniels. He credits his professors for their support and flexibility while he films on the Universal Studios lot in Los Angeles as well as in Las Vegas (where the finals are filmed). And he credits his experience on the show for helping him with his studies and school tasks.
“It’s an amazing background to have, because you’re the only one on stage and you have to be comfortable doing these extreme obstacles. Getting up and presenting in front of my classes or brainstorming ideas doesn’t seem as scary anymore.”
He said the show also is helping to prepare him for a career in business.
“Ninja Warrior is something I’m so passionate about, and I find that I’ll just talk about it for hours, even days,” Feinberg said. “And that really translates well into business, because if I can find a product or a company that I’m this passionate about, I’ll have no problem pitching this product repeatedly and talking about it to anybody interested.”
Feinberg already has found a company he’s passionate about—his own, a startup called Bucket of Chalk that he started in 2018 with a friend and fellow Ninja Warrior contestant, Kaden Lebsack. The chalk company—which makes, sells and promotes gym chalk—currently serves the Ninja community but plans to branch out to other sporting communities, including gymnastics and rock climbing.
“Ninja is technically an individual sport, but we always loved the idea of wanting to be a team and travel together as a team and compete together as a team. So that existed for a couple years, but then we realized that we weren’t doing much good for ninja,” Feinberg said of the inception of the company. “Since ninja was such a big part of our lives, we wanted to do something good and something to push the sport further. So, we created this brand of chalk that was by ninjas, for ninjas. Other brands of chalk existed, but rock climbing is a different sport, and gymnastics is a different sport. Chalk is huge in training, it’s huge in competitions, and having chalk designed by ninjas was definitely something that was needed for ninja.”
Besides rallying around the sport, Bucket of Chalk has been meaningful to Feinberg because it raises money for breast cancer awareness and breast cancer research—a cause close to Feinberg’s heart.
“My mom and my co-owner’s mom were both diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of years ago, so we make sure to use that platform for good,” said Feinberg, who has also worn shirts adorned with pink breast cancer ribbons while competing on the show. His mom is now cancer-free.
What’s next for Feinberg—aside from dominating the ninja field?
“I’d love to use my degree for a job in advertising or product management. It’s what my dad does, and his work seems really cool, and he gets to use his creativity full time,” he said. “I feel like creativity is my superpower. I get to use it in Ninja, I get to use it in marketing and I’d love to use it professionally.”