Greetings my dear Rebel friend!
8 years ago, when I bought the domain NerdFitness.com, I had a big dream of helping a few dozen nerds get started with health and fitness. Too scared to actually do anything for a year, I finally got the courage to launch the site in January 2009.
I still remember the napkin I drew the first Nerd Fitness logo on, getting the idea for the “level up your life” tagline, and begging a friend to set up the initial site for me.
Six years later, hundreds of thousands of men and women from dozens of countries consider themselves part of the Rebellion. We have a powerful Academy community, a sold out yearly Camp event, and a growing team of Nerds dedicating themselves full-time to Nerd Fitness!
Whether you are brand new to Rebellion (welcome!), or you’ve been with us since day one (hey mom!), I think it’s important to fill you in about the current state of NF, what we’ve achieved to date, and most importantly, the direction we’re all going together.
What is the Rebellion philosophy?
Now, if you’re brand new to NF, you might not know what we, members of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion, stand for. Or, maybe you’ve been reading for a few years and you need a way to explain to your friends what the hell Nerd Fitness is. It’s more than just push ups, protein, and pride.
We members of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion believe in a few key ideas (11 rules specifically!). These are the three most crucial:
RULE #1: We know diet is 80-90% of the battle, so we do our best to eat as well as we can as often as possible, and occasionally choose to eat what we want.
RULE #2: We know that we need to have fun with our fitness, so we pick activities that make us happy and get our heart racing.
RULE #3: We also know that a strong and mobile nerd is a healthy nerd, so we make an effort to get stronger through bodyweight exercises or training. Strength makes every other activity in life easier!
We know all of the above is easier said than done, so we make sure we set ourselves up to win:
We are products of our environment, so we build ourselves epic batcaves that minimize the amount of willpower we need to make better decisions
We believe life is a giant game, and we get to be the heroes of that game! I actually turned my life into a game, giving myself experience points for going on adventures and completing quests and missions.
We only compare ourselves to who we were yesterday. Comparing ourselves to others is a recipe for disaster, as they have different genetics, lives, and so on.
That’s the Nerd Fitness Rebellion in 20 seconds. So, how the hell did we get there?
Where we are now…
This community is something pretty damn special. I want to share with you how the community has grown up over the past few years, and specifically how our team has grown up too!
About 18 months ago, we made the decision to take down our fitness training ebooks and instead dump all of our effort into The Nerd Fitness Academy – our flagship course for helping people get started with health and fitness. Last summer, we did a major overhaul, completely redesigning the Academy, adding a class system (Warrior? Ranger? Monk? Druid?), and even adding quests to complete to gain experience points and level up!
Last fall we had our first ever in-person major meetup: Camp Nerd Fitness! We brought 150 brave nerds to the mountains of Georgia for a long weekend of adventure and fun, and it changed my life. We had so much fun we decided to do it again this fall, and we’ve already sold all 300 spots for the event this September!
It has me thinking we need to do more of these things in 2016! 🙂
Now, none of this stuff would be possible without our incredible team, which has exploded in size in the past year. Many people still think that NF is just a one-man operation, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Believe it or not, there are dozens of things that happen behind the scenes every day to make this site and community run properly.
We have Staci (Rebel Ops), Taylor (Managing Editor), Baker (Product Development), Darryl (Rebel Design), and Lauren (Rebel Support and Events), in addition to a dozen other folks who help with all sorts of other tasks in the background. We’ve come a long way from just me and a blog 🙂
In addition to all of the fun information above, here are some fun stats about the community:
- 699 articles published
- 268,000 email subscribers
- 36,000 message board members (with 40 volunteer moderators!)
- 13,000+ Academy members
- Millions of monthly visitors
Honestly, those are some cool numbers, but they all pale in comparison to what’s really important: emails and messages and success stories from community members:
I love hearing from you guys (yes, we read every email that hits in the NF inbox!), and nothing makes me happier than hearing about how NF helped you help yourself level up your life.
So, that’s where we’ve been… where are we going?
Nerd FItness Yoga is Coming!
For the first time in nearly two years, we are putting out a new product! I’m excited to officially announce Nerd Fitness Yoga, coming out later this month.
You see, strength is nothing without mobility. If you can’t get your body to sit down and stand up, it doesn’t matter how strong those muscles are!
Mobility and flexibility help you stay injury-free and feel younger, which makes every other part of your life easier.
But how does one get started with boosting their mobility and flexibility? Most of us have heard about Yoga classes. We know it can come with fantastic benefits, but what if you’ve never been to one?
Getting started can be freaking intimidating:
What if I don’t know how to find a yoga studio? Do I need one?
What if I’m too intimidated too start? I don’t want to look like a idiot!
I don’t have time to drive to a studio, can I try at home?
Those are just a few of the issues and concerns we set out to solve with the creation of Nerd Fitness Yoga.
We partnered with certified yoga instructor and (NF Rebel!) Kate Marolt to put together a course that includes everything you need to start improving your flexibility and mobility immediately: 6 full-length yoga routines, a deep stretching routine, and a handful of extra, shorter mobility videos you can view daily.
We want to eliminate any hurdles you have had with trying Yoga in the past. You can do these workouts anywhere, with anyone, at anytime. Daily routines as short as 5 minutes, with the advanced yoga routines taking up to 45 minutes. No matter how much time you have, we will help you jump in and get started.
It’s done with the same fun, inviting style you’ve come to know and love from Nerd Fitness (yes, including a few corny jokes from yours truly). We even designed the yoga studio to pay homage to Super Mario!
We’ve done our best to create a product that will work for any member of our community, whether you’re 500 pounds or 100 years old – every video features instruction for any level and any body type.
If you’re somebody that wants to try yoga but is afraid to go to a studio, or just can’t find one in your town, NF Yoga will be a great fit for ya!
I’m not gonna lie: I’m really freaking proud of NF Yoga. We don’t have many things for sale at Nerd Fitness, so when we put something new, we make sure it’s something worth checking out!
For the rebellion… next!
While there is a lot of excitement around sharing NF Yoga next month with you, that’s not the only thing coming in the near future.
I hate making promises when I don’t have specifics or a deadline, but I can fill you in on a few more things you can expect over the next 12 months!
- Our sold out Camp NF 2015 goes down in September
- A super secret project launches in January 2016 (to be revealed soon! I can’t share it yet, but it’s a big one…)
- A character creation and leveling system for ALL members of Nerd Fitness
- An improved Nerd Fitness Academy experience: more quests, new recipes, and improved workouts
- Our next premium product (We’ll be asking directly what you’d like to see us build next, so keep an eye out for a survey soon! )
- More in-person events to meet members of Team NF and other passionate Rebels near you
I’ve had this grand vision of looking at life as a game for as long as I can remember, and only now are we at a place where we have the tools, the talent, and the time to pull it off.
Things have certainly taken longer than I would have liked them to, but I’m fired up for what’s to come. I truly expect Nerd Fitness to become a worldwide juggernaut that puts a dent in the universe.
Thanks for being here, and thanks for putting the words of the Rebellion into action. I can’t wait to bring all of the above to life and show you what the team and I have been working on behind the scenes for a long time.
-Steve
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