Archive for fitness

From Locker Rooms to Runways: The Under Armour Brand Journey

Under Armour was founded by Kevin Plank in 1996. He was 24 years old and started out his company where most young entrepreneurs do, his grandmother’s basement in Washington, D.C. While in college Plank was the special team’s captain of the University of Maryland football team. So naturally he was into sports and saw an opportunity for a clothing brand. He expressed how he hated having to change out of sweaty t-shirts worn under his jerseys. He found that his compression gear stayed dry, and he realized he needed to create his clothing out of that material. His early sales were out of the trunk of his car on the East Coast.

His first big sale was $17,000 worth of gear. He sent his first prototypes to his teammates and friends to see what they thought of it. With this exercise he was then able to tweak his design and fabric choice with their feedback. Kevin decided to use the British spelling for “armour” since it was still available to be taken for his clothing line. Under Armour got a huge deal when Warner Brothers used the brand in two films, Any Given Sunday and The Replacements. When it was all said and done Plank was able to purchase an ad in ESPN The Magazine which earned him and his brand $750,00 in sales. In 2000, Under Armour became the main outfitter of the ne XFL football league. From there they earned many investments in the millions of dollars range. From there they were able to put funds to better branding, commercials, and store fronts. One main thing that has stuck is their motto “Protect this house”. This motto has been around for a very long time and is an example of keeping and sticking to something that they believe in. As many of us know, Under Armour is a very successful brand that was formed from a need for better athletic gear and look where they are today!

 

Christian Guzman

At 19, Christian Guzman started his YouTube channel to share his passion for fitness with the world. About three years later, Guzman launched his gym wear brand Alphalete and documented the company’s progress through his vlogs. Now, at age 30, Guzman has incurred over 100 million dollars in revenue through his athletic apparel brand.

Most people would settle for such profit, but he chose to continue working on his craft. Guzman went on to launch Up Energy Drinks. Despite some initial struggles with copyright infringement, his product proved successful after making some adjustments to his brand.

Guzman has consistently refined his products to improve their quality. Alphalete’s designers spend months perfecting their tailor-made products for every launch, and Guzman has been there to contribute to each one. His need to refine his products originated from his mentality in fitness. At the gym, he looked for as many ways as possible to improve himself. His natural desire for advancement has led him to pursue his passion. And, his self-motivated behavior pushed his brands and YouTube channel to success.

This Christian Guzman Workout Is Great For That Shredded Physique

Fit to Fame to More Fame

Bradley Martyn, a social media influencer, a bodybuilder and the founder of Zoo Culture Gym along with BMFit. Over the years of being a Youtuber, he has amounted over 2.5 million followers for his feats of strength, bodybuilding physique, and his vlogs. By establishing this large amount of followers, he established his own fitness program BMFit. He didn’t stop there though, he went on to start his own gym. Starting your own gym is certainly not an easy task. It requires a large sum of money. But because of Martyn’s already established following, he had the money to do so.Petition · petition for bradley martyn to get arrested for drug dealing to  kids · Change.org

Taking it back a few steps, Martyn didn’t have the best life growing up. At a young age, his father took his life leaving Bradley devastated. Pushing forward, he got into fitness at the age of 14 and it has stuck with him since then. He established BMFit in 2006 which is a training program for people to use. Not long after that, he dropped put of college with only one semester left. He went on to begin uploading his training videos to YouTube where he would begin establishing his following. Then in 2017, he was able to open Zoo Culture Gym. Bradley has always had an entrepreneurial mind when it comes to fitness. Once he got into fitness at a young age, he was able to see how much it helped him and ultimately wanted to spread that to many others.

 

CEO, Grace Beverley — Where Fitness Meets Sustainability

Grace Beverley is a 23-year-old Oxford University graduate, as well as the founder and CEO of three fitness brands that emphasize sustainability and eco-friendliness: TALA, an athletic wear company, Shreddy, a fitness and workout planning app, and B_ND, a gym equipment shop.

As an 18-year-old heading to university, she was a fitness and lifestyle-type YouTube and Instagram personality, where she has since amassed 500k subscribers and 1 million followers (as of September 2020). During her second year of pursuing a degree in music at Oxford, she launched B_ND, and in the spring of 2019, TALA, with Shreddy to follow soon after. Now, her legitimacy as a young CEO is rising quickly beyond owning three brands that have received zero funding from external investors; she was named #1 in Forbes 30 Under 30: Europe 2020, with TALA earning £6M, or roughly $7.6M, in the first year of business. Despite her successes thus far, however, she has expressed struggles with her self-perception and validation due to her beginnings being while she was in school, her background in the “influencer, YouTuber area,” where it is difficult to be taken seriously, and also being a young, woman CEO in a competitive, crowded, and challenging industry. While some of her success can be attributed to her internet presence, she does not consider herself an influencer — a title she is trying to get away from — but a fitness entrepreneur who uses social media.

Beverley is passionate about and driven by her belief in a competitive business model that incorporates sustainability, and in her case, fitness inclusivity as well. She believes that in order to truly move towards a more sustainable world, venture capitalists, investors, and private equity firms must be encouraged to make money in the world of sustainability so that the future of the industry is able to “survive alongside traditional business.” With these innovative concepts in mind and her interest in fitness, she developed her brands.

B_ND sells vegan-friendly workout equipment and TALA boasts that 92% of products are made from recycled materials such as plastic bottles. TALA is unique in this aspect, as they are one of few brands to make eco-friendly and ethical athletic clothing that can be purchased for a similar, if not better price as other “fast-fashion activewear [pieces]” that are not eco-friendly. In terms of “fitness inclusivity,” TALA and Shreddy are very intentional about relaying to consumers their understanding of the various different body types and people they are selling to, and that they are not trying to overly promote transformations or weight loss. At the same time, Beverley does not like the idea of advertising and marketing with “body positivity” on the forefront; as she believes the fitness world wrongly invaded the movement and is in actuality “one of the most fatphobic and non-inclusive industries there is.”

Beverley’s successes in this new niche have been inspirational to many, as she often posts productivity advice and tips on her social media stories, and is set to release a book in April 2021 titled Working Hard, Hardly Working: Redefining Productivity in the Modern World. Overall, Beverley is making a meaningful impact in the fitness world by being able to create and sell ethical athletic wear and equipment for affordable prices — a demand and industry that had not yet been discovered as profitable or possible.

 

 

Snap Clips, Founded by a 17 Year Old

If you want to be inspired then look no further. This is somebody much like us who took entrepreneur classes and entered competitions. Martin Dimitrov was a junior in high school at the time and graduated a year later in 2015. The idea started as a class project, much like the one we had a week ago, and he ended up taking it to District 214 Startup Showcase. The product is an easier, more versatile clip for barbells. Much like the hot trend of slap bands at the time, this product simply slaps on to the bar. He won $400 and was given another $2,500 to further advance the product. He then crowd-sourced with a goal of $8,000 but ended up exceeding that by about 3 times as much.

Martin took it to Shark Tank and won $150,000 for 30% stake in the company. Mark Cuban, Lori Greiner, and Alex Rodriguez all joined and noted that the product could be used for holding together cables or wires as well.

“It’s kind of funny. Entrepreneurship isn’t about whether you’re 16 or 50, it’s more about having the spirit of an entrepreneur,” Martin said. He has inspired many as well as myself because of his willingness and action to get it out in the market while in school. I now know it is possible to do both simultaneously with a lot of hard work.

Slap Clips are still in business and seem to be doing well. They haven’t marketed it as a wire/cable holder yet after airing in 2018. Dimitrov was encouraged to stay in school by the sharks. I must admit, I saw a very similar product my first time in the Grove City weight room. Instead of a spring loaded clip, it acts like a metal watch wristband that folds over itself. I thought it was ingenious and I’d imagine that Snap Bands has a bit of competition.

https://snapclips.com/pages/about-us

https://allsharktankproducts.com/shark-tank-products-sports/snapclips-barbell-collar-weights/

https://gazettereview.com/2018/08/snapclips-after-shark-tank-update/

Bikini Body Guide: How Kayla Itsines is Changing the Personal Training Field

Everyone warns about the infamous “freshman fifteen” weight gain that is common among first year college students. It can be hard to maintain the ideal body physique when you’re already so busy and so broke that you can’t afford a personal trainer or strict workout schedule. Kayla Itsines, an Australian personal trainer and now co-founder of the BBG workout program and Sweat app, saw that there were girls all over the world that didn’t have a way to use a beneficial workout program on their own schedule. Frustrated by this realization, she and her now fiance, Tobi Pearce, decided to release a 12-week workout program, in 2014, that can be downloaded in PDF form from anywhere in the world.

After such positive feedback, the pair developed their plan into a fitness app called Sweat, that now has over 20 million users. The program, which involves weekly 28 minute HIIT workouts focusing on each muscle group, cool downs, recovery days, meal plans, grocery lists, and stretching routines, requires little equipment and can be used anywhere. Kayla’s workout program doesn’t just connect you with successful training plans, it has also created a hub of support and encouragement for real women trying to improve their health. Her hashtag, #BBGTransformations, has hundreds of thousands transformation photos of real women who have used the app and seen results, which are also filled with positive comments from other women.

BBG is transforming bodies all over the world, and empowering women to feel confident to workout on their own. Itsines and Pearce offer monthly and yearly memberships to weekly workouts via the Sweat app and their online base. The name BBG, Bikini Body Guide, doesn’t come from desiring a supermodel physique, but from having the confidence to feel good in your own skin. “A bikini body isn’t one type of body — everyone has a bikini body! A bikini body is a state of mind. It focuses on feeling positive about yourself and the amazing things your body can do. I believe a healthy lifestyle can contribute to helping you feel strong and confident within yourself. ”

Kayla and Tobi are empowering women one workout at a time, by bridging the gap between personal trainers and real people.

MB Powercenter

Mike Bartos is a gym owner from Youngstown, Ohio. He is a man I know personally from going to his gym for the past 4 years. Over many years he was trying to figure out how to make an atlas stone that can have variable weight settings. An atlas stone is generally a large sphere that is made of concrete and has one weight. It is used in strongman competitions and training. Instead of having a bunch of concrete spheres laying around, he knew something had to be done. This led to many prototypes and testing to find the perfect stone. He created the Stone of Steel: the worlds first plate loaded atlas stone. This black stone is capable of weighing either 130 pounds up to 450+ pounds. This was a major innovation in the strongman community. He has since added many other products that are very useful. He prides all his products on being American made with American steel. He has been entrepreneurial in his field and has made a major innovation in stone training.

 

 

https://www.mbpowercenter.com/

Clean Eating Alice

Often, when people think of personal trainers, they think of big, bulky men who eat enormous amounts of protein and only wear sleeveless shirts. Alice Liveing, however, does not fit that stereotype. Alice Liveing, instead, is a girl who used to describe herself as a “junk food addict.” After years of unhealthy eating habits, acne-prone skin, and low confidence, she decided that it was time to make a change. She started to change her eating habits by only eating healthy or “clean” foods. She would post all of her meals onto her Instagram page in order to keep herself accountable. On top of this, she started to workout regularly and posted her progress to her Instagram account as well.

She was able to quickly shed two dress sizes, going from a 12 to an 8, by simply changing her diet and exercise routine. It was not long before people started to notice and admire her progress. Through her Instagram, they were able to track her journey and use it as encouragement to fuel their own. She quickly gained 636,000 followers on this social media platform, catapulting her entrepreneurial and fitness career.

She capitalized on her newly found fame in order to launch her own personal training and fitness business. She has also written 3 books, one of which is the famous: The Body Bible. By the age of 24, Liveing has been able to build a successful career, not only as a personal trainer, but also as a business woman and entrepreneur. She used the resources at her disposal to grow and market her business as much as she possibly could.

Alice Liveing is a terrific example of a young entrepreneur because she adapted her business model to fit the needs of other young people. She used social media to reach other millennials in order to better advertise to the market she was familiar with. This shows the importance of pivoting your ideas and adapting your businesses to align with your target market. I am inspired by Alice Liveing and would like to take a similar approach to marketing with my future business.