This Utah mom is competing in the ‘American Ninja Warrior’ finals — with a toddler in tow

Watching “American Ninja Warrior,” it’s fairly easy to pick up on the intensity of the environment.

Remarkably strong competitors from across the country dart and swing across challenging obstacles that put balance and upper body strength to the test. As the ninjas navigate the courses, friends and family cheer and jump up and down from the sidelines. Many wear T-shirts with their ninja’s name on the front, and hold up handmade posters with words of support.

Bright lights beam down on the competitors. They don’t get a practice run on the obstacle courses ahead of filming, so this is their first time attempting it. Their every move receives animated commentary from announcers Matt Iseman and Akbar Gbaja-Biamila.

Even through the TV, you can feel the chaos of it all. But what isn’t as discernible is the fact that much of this is happening in the middle of the night.

For Utah competitor Mady Howard, who appears in the Season 15 finals Monday night, runs took place around 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. Even for “American Ninja Warrior” veterans like Howard, who is competing on the show for the fourth time, it can be a lot to take in, and nerves and excitement run high.

And she did it all with a toddler in tow.

Mady Howard returns to ‘American Ninja Warrior’

When filming for “American Ninja Warrior” began last season, it had been just six months since Howard gave birth to her son, Beckham. Although she has a competitive background — she started competing in gymnastics when she was 6 — Howard gave herself grace and didn’t put too much pressure on herself. She focused on having fun more than anything else (she still made it to the finals).

It’s pretty much the same approach Howard took to competing this season, and as she’s now in the finals for the third time, it’s an approach that seems to be working.

“It still feels different being a mom and competing just because my first priority in life now is being a mom and not ‘Ninja,’” Howard, a nurse who resides in Washington, Utah, recently told the Deseret News. “I still am putting time towards my training because it’s something that I love to do, but it’s different as in it’s not consuming my life. … I feel like it takes a little bit of the pressure off, but also at the same time I’m a little bit more nervous because I don’t know if I’m as prepared.”

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Ahead of the season, Howard trained three times a week at a local gym called The Grip in the St. George, Utah, area. It’s co-owned by the Beckstrand family, who are frequent “American Ninja Warrior” competitors. Brian Beckstrand and his son, 17-year-old Kai Beckstrand, competed on this current season with Howard (Kai, who was the fastest ninja of the season, made it to Stage 1 of the national finals before his elimination).

Howard, a former gymnast at Southern Utah University, attributes gyms like The Grip as a major reason Utah has become such a hotspot for “American Ninja Warrior” — this season alone saw at least eight competitors from Utah. She cited a number of ninja gyms throughout Utah, including Ninja Playground, Impact and Ninja Warehouse. It’s a specific type of training that prepares you for “American Ninja Warrior.”

“That is the biggest thing that prepares me for the show, is having that amazing community and that amazing gym so close by,” the “Ninja” competitor said. “We have a great community that trains together, and we have coaches that will set routes up for us. … They’ll try and challenge us with new things that we’ve never tried, because that’s the challenging thing about the show — you show up and you have never touched the obstacles.”

Howard said mental preparation is as important as the physical when it comes to “American Ninja Warrior,” so when she navigates a new obstacle at the gym, she treats it like she’s competing on the show.

“That’s the mindset you have to have,” she said.

Howard trained with many of her fellow Utah competitors on the show this season — and even had to compete against one of them in a head-to-head race during the semifinals. When she learned that she would be up against her good friend Ally Tippetts Wootton, who she met roughly three years ago at a ninja gym, Howard said she was “shocked.”

“Out of all of the other females, she was the one that I didn’t want to race because I wanted to make it to the finals with her,” she said with a laugh. “But I love that I was able to have so many teammates out there with me competing this year. It was a lot of fun.”

But in Howard’s eyes, nothing topped competing on the show with her blond-haired toddler, Beckham, cheering her on from the sidelines in a black T-shirt that said “Team Mom.”

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Mady Howard’s biggest cheerleader? Her son

This season of “American Ninja Warrior” marks Beckham’s second appearance on the show as a spectator — although Howard wouldn’t be surprised if her son one day took a stab at competing.

The 27-year-old mom said she was a little nervous about filming overnight, concerned with how her toddler would handle the unusual schedule. She said “ANW” accommodates competitors’ needs when putting together its filming schedule — teenage competitors and mothers typically get earlier slots.

For her run in the qualifiers and the national finals this season, Howard got a 10 p.m. time slot — which she much preferred to the 5 a.m. spot she got when she first appeared in the finals in 2019.

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And to Howard’s pleasant surprise, Beckham took to the lights, camera and action. He especially enjoyed hanging on the bars in the ninja warmup area ahead of his mom’s runs on the show — although Howard said it did take a few days for him to adjust after her 1 a.m. appearance in the semifinals (Beckham was sleeping in a stroller on the sidelines right up until her big moment).

The qualifiers and semifinals were filmed in March, and the finals took place in May in Las Vegas. For Howard, it was fun to watch his awareness grow in that short amount of time.

“It’s crazy how much they can change in just a few months,” she said. “He understood a lot more of what was going on this year, and so he was getting more into it and it was really cute. … By Vegas, he was clapping his hands for me and yelling, ‘Go mama!’ and it was so cute.”

Beckham turned 2 this month. He’s now twice had a front-row seat to his mother competing on a national TV show, but the lesson Howard hopes to get across to her son is more about setting goals and never giving up than it is about winning (in 14 seasons, only two people have actually been declared an “American Ninja Warrior” champion and claimed the $1 million prize).

Overall, Howard is proud of her run this season. She made it far on both the qualifier and semifinal obstacle courses. This time around, her personal goal was to make it past the third obstacle of the national finals, called the Roller Coaster, which — although it plays to her physical strengths — has gotten the best of her a few times.

And although she looks forward to watching her son discover his own passions in the years to come, whether or not that includes “Ninja,” she hopes to at least pass down the lessons she’s learned from competing.

“There’s always something new that I can learn,” she previously said of training for “Ninja.” “There’s always something that I could be better at. And so it’s never like you’ve reached a destination. There’s constantly things that I want to improve on. And so that motivates me to keep going.”

“ANW” filmed Seasons 15 and 16 back-to-back, so viewers can expect to see Howard back in action next year, competing for a fifth time.

And there’s a good chance Beckham will be cheering her along every step of the way.