The State of Nerd Fitness – 2/18/10

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We’re approximately an 1/8th of the way through 2010, so I thought today would be a good time to update you all on the state of Nerd Fitness.  Next week is both busy and awesome, so I wanted to fill you in before things get crazy.

Good times!

Big Week Next Week

What’s the big news, you ask? For starters, I’m headed back out to sea with my company Sixthman for Cayamo, a 5-day singer/songwriter cruise with some incredibly talented musicians.  Fortunately, I’ve already written my two articles for next week and I have them queued up to post on Monday and Thursday (a Steve Kamb first).

And that’s not even the biggest news of the week!  While I’m out at sea, I have a guest post going up on one of my favorite sites in the world, a site through which many of you have discovered Nerd Fitness.  Hopefully this guest post will lead to some newly enlightened individuals making their way over to my little site here.

Now, because I’ll be out floating on a boat I won’t be here to greet any of these new people. That means I need your help!  Beginning on Tuesday, if you start to see some new faces in the comments, please be extra nice and make sure they stick around.  If you’re extra nice, I’ll even bake cookies and send them to you (NF note: Steve refuses to do any sort of baking ever, so don’t expect cookies).

Oh, and I apologize in advance for being two weeks behind on my email responses coming up…these cruises really back everything up.  Poor me.

Nerd Fitness Update

Thirteen months ago, I created NerdFitness.com without really knowing what I was doing.  I feel like over the past few months I’ve really hit my stride, writing articles that are resonating with NF readers and making an impact.  I’ve had conversations with people in Spain, New Zealand, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, and China…and that’s just in the past two weeks.  Seriously, how cool is that?

This site is building some awesome momentum – watch out world, because the Nerd Fitness brigade (fellowship? tribe? still haven’t figured out what to call us yet) is coming in hot.

Honesty and Integrity

I’ll be the first to tell you I am not an expert personal trainer. I’m only 25 years old, and really didn’t find my passion for fitness until a few years ago.  I do have a personal trainer certification, but I haven’t spent nearly enough time in a gym training people on specific exercises and helping people with 100% perfect form for exercises to consider myself an expert.

Why am I telling you all of this?  Because I want to be honest with you.

There are way too many people out there pretending to be the world’s greatest trainer, and there are way too many sites selling “the best fitness routine ever!”  These people and their websites are a slap in the face to guys like Alwyn Cosgrove, Craig Ballantyne, Jason Ferruggia, Mike Rickett, and Jason Varley – guys that I respect who have been in the personal training business for over a dozen years each getting actual results with hundreds of clients.

For this reason, I don’t want to be pretend to be something I’m not..I just want to be me: a normal guy with a day job and a life who just happens love fitness and wants to make a difference by motivating and helping others.  Hopefully you read my post last week: I miss workouts, I skip meals or overeat on occasion, and I definitely don’t get enough sleep.  Just like you, I’m down in the trenches every day just trying to be a better person.

That being said, I want you to know that I will continue to go out of my way to research all of my articles to the best of my ability.  If I’m discussing a topic that I don’t feel completely confident in, I’ll open the floor for discussion or defer to the opinions of my educated mentors.  I may not be an expert, but I guarantee I care more than anybody else (other than yourself) about helping you get what you want out of life, which means I’m going to bust my ass to make sure you’re inspired, motivated, and informed.

Remember, everybody loves a good underdog story.

NF Message Board

As many of you know, I’ve been working on building a Nerd Fitness message board for the past month or so: nothing super fancy, but a place for NF readers to connect, ask questions, and motivate each other.  I’ve met so many cool people through this site and it’s pretty awesome to see them starting to connect with each other.

I still have some kinks to work out, but I’d like to get as many people posting in there as possible who are interested before opening it to the general public.  Let me know if you’re interested (email me at steve@nerdfitness.com) so I can add you to the community.  We’re up to about 30 “beta-testers” at the moment, but the more the merrier!

Nerd Fitness as a Business

Before I get into this, I want to make one thing clear: no matter what happens, you can expect to read new, well-researched, entertaining, and informative articles completely free of charge on this site for years to come.  That will not change.

I’ve decided after thirteen months of daily writing, I’m at the point where I feel confident in my skills and direction to start taking steps towards turning this site into a business.  I now have my own LLC (Level Up Enterprises,), a business bank account, and even business debit card with my name and company on it.  Steve’s all grown up!

For starters, I’d like to create an E-book for readers who really want day-by-day workout plans and diets. Now, because I don’t consider myself an expert on program development, I’m planning on partnering with trainers who ARE experts at program development.  Now, before you start thinking of those lame “lose 40 pounds in 4 weeks” crappy online fitness programs, remember that this is Nerd Fitness, and you’re dealing with Steve Kamb.  This book will be bad-ass, incredibly unique, and well worth it.

I took down the download for my free E-book, because it’s time for a re-write…I’m now six months wiser!  I’d like to update a few sections, add in fresh content, and make some adjustments to a few things here and there.  Hopefully I can get this back up soon – yes it will still be free!

I’m also tossing around the idea of getting sponsors for the site, but I haven’t convinced myself completely that this is the path I want to take. I do know that I only want to work with sponsors who line up with my values as a person, which means I’ll be turning down 90% of the companies that come to me looking to promote their products through the site.  Oh well.

I’ve selected what charity Nerd Fitness will be partnering with for the Warrior Dash Costume Dignity-Massacre! There are quite a few things that need to happen before I launch the fund-raiser, but the first big hurdle is out of the way.  Expect an official announcement around early April.

Lastly, I signed up for a online small-business class with Chris Guillebeau over at the Art of Nonconformity. If I had to model my website and eventual online business after somebody’s it would be his, so this is a really cool opportunity for me.

Big Things

I can’t wait to see what the future brings.

Every new email I get from a reader who has lost weight inspires me.  Every new comment from a complete stranger means there’s one more person ready to change his/her life.  I feel really fortunate to help bring together a community of good people who want to help each other.

I’ll be checking in occasionally next week from the Caribbean (yeah, poor me…I know).  I just want to say thanks for reading, thanks for sharing this site with your friends and co-workers, and thanks for inspiring me to be a better person every day.

So…that’s my life. What’s up with you?

-Steve

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Photo: Sam LLIC Photography

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