PUEBLO, Colo. – Ezekiel Mitchell dropped the kettlebell to the floor and relaxed his hips and right arm.

Sweat had formed on his brow, and Mitchell let out an exasperated sigh.

“I quit,” Mitchell said with a side-glance toward Antwon Burton, the executive director of the PBR Sport Performance Center.

Mitchell had just finished holding a resistance band with his right arm, holding that weight above his head with his free arm and trying to keep his core tight while kneeling on top of a BOSU ball.

Burton then had Mitchell switch his hands and go through the exercise one more time, encouraging Mitchell to fire his hips and work his core.

5….4….3…2…1.

“Relax!” the former Denver Bronco defensive tackle instructed Mitchell.

Mitchell, happy to be done, wiped his head and starts to laugh.

“My left arm is stronger than my right,” he said. “Looks like I can pull a J.B.”

Two-time World Champion J.B. Mauney has famously successfully ridden with his opposite riding hand before.

Like Mauney, Mitchell has historically shied away from the gym when it comes to bull riding.

Yet there was the 2019 PBR Rookie of the Year contender, standing inside the brand new, state-of-the-art performance center on Thursday morning.

Mitchell is the first bull rider to train inside the building in Pueblo, Colorado.

“That was pretty rough, man,” Mitchell said. “The kettlebell and the elastic band. We were working on shoving my hips and being able to lift. That is really key for what bull riding is about, being able to lift your bull rope and set your hips in the right place. So he actually did his research a little bit.

“That was an A+ for Antwon.”

Mitchell is 16^th in the PBR world standings and is on pace to qualify for his first PBR World Finals later this year in Las Vegas.

“The God’s honest truth is ‘Zeke is extremely athletic,” Burton said. “This is part of that ushering in this kind of sport performance for these riders and type of athletes. That is the whole thing. They are already athletes. They are already athletic without really having a performance background.

“I think ‘Zeke has a lot of marketability, to say the least. He is athletic. He is strong. Something like this sport performance center can really heighten the athlete and marketability he has established for himself.”

Mitchell spent about two hours going through various workouts and a recovery session inside the 18,000 square-foot facility.

Throughout the session Mitchell would joke, “Where Keyshawn (Whitehorse) at? This is more his kind of thing than mine.”

Burton, though, kept encouraging Mitchell to power through.

“If you can ride a 2,000-pound animal, you can do this, my friend,” he said.

In between sets, Mitchell would glance around at the new facility that was built in conjunction with the Pueblo Convention Center expansion.

“It’s cool,” Mitchell said. “The setup is pretty freaking cool. It is a beautiful place. I am not much of a gym person in a sense, but this place definitely makes you want to come and work out and get better. It is just cool to be here.”

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It was not only a learning session for Mitchell, but for Burton as well.

Burton is going to be spending the forthcoming weeks and months learning more about professional bull riding and meeting with various riders and the PBR sports medicine staff.

The Pueblo resident is planning on making the five-hour drive in two weeks to attend the Ty Murray Invitational in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Murray, one of the PBR’s 20 cofounders, was in Pueblo this week with fellow co-founder Cody Lambert, two-time World Champion Justin McBride and five-time World Finals qualifier Colby Yates. The competition committee members toured the facility Friday and met Burton.

Burton understands he has much to learn to be successful with the bull riders.

The former six-year National Football League (Denver Broncos, Cincinnati Bengals, Kansas City Chiefs, St. Louis Rams and Carolina Panthers) defensive lineman knows his own athletic experiences and knowledge from FitSpeed in Weston, Florida, and Exos Sports Performance are only a part of the equation.

“The one thing that I have seen is everybody is different, but sometimes when you have experienced so many things, the NFL and these certificates, and you’ve been to these places, you begin to become close-minded and your ego takes over,” he said. “I just can’t see myself being that person.

“I like to be an open-minded person. I like to be inviting. I like to know their involvement. What helps an athlete. What they feel is weird. What they feel is awkward and what they feel is great. Because ultimately the athlete is why we are doing this. A happy athlete is a good athlete. I was once an athlete. My biggest thing is I wanted to be comfortable. I wanted to feel good and I wanted to be happy. That is what I want for all athletes. That is the approach I am going to take.”

There were times throughout the day where Burton would check with Mitchell to make sure an exercise felt right to him and that it was beneficial to him as a bull rider.

Burton knows he cannot train a bull rider the way he would train a football player or soccer star. Every athlete is an individual and needs specialized training.

“That is the cool thing about him,” Mitchell said. “He pulled me to the side away from everybody else and he asked me, ‘What works and what doesn’t work?’ He wants to know what specific things we are going to work on. He wants to get to know all of the bull riders that can come through here and pretty much develop a workout plan around them.”

The PBR Sport Performance Center aims to be an incubator for future bull riders, other Western sports athletes, and amateur and professional athletes across a range of sports who will participate in extensive fitness, nutrition, training and recovery programs utilizing advanced equipment and technology. Camps for athletes in traditional club sports will also be held regularly for athletes ranging from youth to established professionals.

Mitchell is excited for future bull riding camps and clinics in Pueblo.

The Rockdale, Texas, native attended one of the first PBR Academies held at PBR Director of Livestock Cody Lambert’s ranch in 2016.

The possibility of being able to learn more from bull riding legends while training in a top-notch facility in Colorado is enticing to Mitchell.

“That was an amazing start to my career,” Mitchell said of the PBR Academy clinic. “That actually gave me the confidence to come up here. Lambert and them were so helpful. They are good coaches. They are going to take all of that thinking out of bull riding for you and simplify it.

“Ultimately, that should be on the agenda in the next year. Seeing this place. If you look at a lot of other developmental camps, they are bringing guys into the gym. Our gym is specialized for us, bull riding and rodeo. To be able to combine that with (bull riding coaches) would be insane. That would be amazing. I would want to be a part of it.”

Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko