The owner of the Nerdstrong Gym in Los Angeles is a straight up genius for rolling out a Lord of the Rings fitness class. It’s a class that has helped Mel Caylo, a self-proclaimed nerd, lose 47 pounds over the past 9 months by combining his passion for fantasy games and literature with exercise. By giving Mel and others the chance to role play in the ‘Eye of Sauron’ class as Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee, two of the main characters from Lord of the Rings, the Nerdstrong Gym instructors have transformed the gym from a place of strictly exercise to something much more approachable for someone who might typically be wary of the gym.
Mel is a 45-year-old marketing manager for a comic book company in Los Angeles, and a self-proclaimed “nerd.” Until recently, he’d never been able to stay on a workout regimen for very long. Nine months ago, he weighed 320 pounds, and by his own admission, was “lethargic and slow. I would lose my breath just by walking up a flight of stairs on the subway.”
But all of that changed this year. Today, he says he’s 273 pounds, and losing more weight every week.
How did he do it? He started doing workouts inspired by one of his passions, The Lord of the Rings.
The workout is called “Eye of Sauron,” and it was created by Andrew Deutsch, the head coach and owner of Nerdstrong Gym in North Hollywood, California.
Deutsch started Nerdstrong in his garage in 2013, when he became the personal fitness trainer for the dungeon master at his Dungeons & Dragons group. Since then, he’s created workouts designed to appeal to people more interested in Dr. Who and Star Wars than kettlebells.
What’s involved in the Eye of Sauron workout? It goes like this: “In The Lord of the Rings, the bad guy is represented by a giant eye—The Eye of Sauron—and the eye has a beam that sweeps across the land and the characters have to get down to avoid being seen by it,” Deutsch said.
Deutsch continues: “So in the workout, every three minutes the Eye of Sauron sweeps across the gym and everyone has to hold a plank position for a minute until it passes.”
“Also, Frodo and Sam had to climb a lot of stairs, so our members do stepups with a weight on them. The ring has a heavy burden to it, so we have them have to carry a weight the entire workout to represent that.”
It’s not really the workout that’s exceptional. What’s exceptional is how it has enticed fitness-averse guys like Mel to return to the gym, week after week, and as a result, they’re getting serious results.
Taking a look at the Nerdstrong Gym schedule it’s actually not that far off from CrossFit, and a few of the gym’s instructors are even certified CrossFit instructors. Over time the gym has transformed from a hobby in some guy’s gym to something that nerds all across California flock to for exercise, and that’s f*cking awesome, because anything that can get people excited about getting healthier is good in my book.
Scrolling through the Nerdstrong Gym’s Facebook page I came across this pic, which purports to be the very first ‘Dungeon Workout’, presumably a nod to Dungeons & Dragons:
I think I found the very first dungeon workouts I designed for Nerdstrong when it was still at my garage. It was simple,…
Posted by Nerdstrong Gym on Saturday, August 22, 2015
Unlike other gyms, or at least any gyms I’ve ever been to, the Nerdstrong Gym has ‘movie night‘ showing films like Serenity and game nights where people can learn to play Magic: The Gathering. So if you’re in California and looking to make a change in your life for the better AND this gym sounds like a good fit for you, then I suggest following those links above to the Nerdstrong Gym’s website and/or Facebook page.
[FoxNews]