Stumbling upon Legendary Fitness just outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin on a weekend visit with old college friends was quite the happy accident. This facility and staff set the bar exceedingly high for the next time gym I visit closer to my home in the South. Allow me to rewind and review my 90-minute play session at Legendary Fitness.
The look and feel of the place took me back many years to when I started OCR at ABF Mud Run. The gym is tucked into an industrial park. It also reminded me of iMETTLE. They are OCR training heavens. All the basic stuff is there. But the Endurance Factory has more.
Obstacle course racing and American Ninja Warrior, well, the fitness lifestyle in general, continues to explode throughout the world. Your typical athlete role model isn’t just the 300 professional football player or seven-foot basketballer. Your neighborhood gym no longer exclusively offers grimy treadmills and bulky weights. We are at the cutting edge of a complete fitness shake-up, and to be completely honest, I love it!
Last weekend, I spent about six hours over two days interviewing, photographing, and attending the grand opening of the Warrior Gym in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. It took that long because this place is huge. As co-owners Brian Kane and Vito Lasprugato emphasized, Warrior Gym is a great big playground.
Obstacle Athletics is Long Island’s only Obstacle Fitness and Ninja Warrior training facility. The "playground" opened up its doors earlier this year and has already welcomed several OCR and Americas Ninja Warrior pros. This facility also offers Private Classes, Open Gym, and Groups/Parties.
Shale Hill has so many unique obstacles people started changing the name of them to “Robstacles” after owner and creator Rob Butler. Literally, don’t even know where to start describing signature obstacles, so I’ll just show you pictures of some of them.
There are a ton of great OCR venues across the country that are in locations that never move. These permanent facilities allow for larger obstacles, year-round racing, and training. Each location has its own feel and uniqueness.
Driving down the 22A in Vermont, cell phone service goes in and out cows and farms are more plentiful than people. It's not uncommon to get stuck behind a tractor or two driving down the road. Benson, Vermont barely a blip on a map just north of Fair Haven, Vermont is probably best known for maple syrup, and dairy farming. Just past the sign for the town of Benson a large obstacle towers over the corner of a hay field with a small sign on it reading Shale Hill.
Last month I recapped the Memorial Beach Challenge race from Ocean City, NJ. One of the obstacle stations was built and manned by the team from Local Gym and Fitness. It was a triple threat obstacle with tires laid out on the sand for high knees followed by pull up bars capped off with a super low barbed wire crawl through the soft sand.
Velocity Air Sports opened in Charleston in July 2015. Velocity is primarily a kid paradise with over 60 trampoline areas with dodgeball, basketball, foam pits and fun galore. But… tucked into the back of the 40,000 square foot facility is an American Ninja Warrior (ANW) style gym that is a training grounds to Charleston, SC American Ninja Warriors such as Kyle Johnson.
