Tag: behind the scenes

  • The History of HUMANFITPROJECT

    The History of HUMANFITPROJECT

    If you asked me what I wanted to do for a living while in college, I would have never been able to answer. And I certainly would have never thought I’d be in the position I am today—a director of a brand’s website and the social media channels that I’ve loved since I was a teenager. #HumbleBrag… although I must say, I am very, very grateful.

    SUCCESS IN JOURNALISM WAS A PIPE DREAM…

    I’d always been a hard worker, could be focused when I wanted to be—but never really had a clearly defined path to follow.

    But, what I did know was that I loved my sports, traveling, bodyboarding—and of course—hitting the gym. Plus, I wanted to do something big.

    I was a Communication Major in college and took loads of classes about media literacy, debate, persuasion, and production. One class in particular—TV/radio production—actually irritated me. I constantly thought to myself, “OK, we’re talking about… things. Trending topics, celebrities, sports, Facebook… but how the hell does this all make money?! How do you actually make a living like this?!” It was something that drove me nuts. I’d always come to the conclusion that there’s no way all of this “creative stuff” can have you living happy and comfortable. I didn’t get it.

    CLARITY? THINK AGAIN.

    After shifting a bit more towards “business side” courses like marketing, advertising, and management, the whole “career thing” and making money actually started to make sense. Well, I thought. Long story short—I started seeing newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, and the internet strictly as a business. Solely an opportunity to sell a product to an audience. (Yeah, yeah. I know all that hard editorial work is what builds those audiences, but let me finish the story).

    At the end of college I decided I want to be an advertising executive. Easy. All I need to do is sell the brand, its reach, and all the great things about it. (Yeah, yeah, I know… again that comes back to how good of an editorial product it is.)

    In 2007, I went out there and helped a friend with ad selling for a start up website. And in 2008, I graduated and landed myself a great entry level sales job for an incredible brand. Everything was amazing, until I realized that banging out phone calls all day, getting hung up on, and dealing with the ups and downs of a sales roller coaster wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. All of that complaining about “creative stuff” was driving me to be more… well… creative.

    SMALL SPARKS OF CREATIVITY EMERGE. 

    In 2009 or so, I was one year into doing the sales thing, feeling beat up and that everything was just about making money… and less about helping people. I wasn’t feeling so great about how I was living my life.

    Even though I worked in a cubicle, I had always been so into working out, I decided to casually start blogging on Facebook using the “Notes” function about the things I learned over the years training, my own fitness goals and aspirations, and BOOM! After seeing some of the diverse responses, commentary, and generally positive feedback to what I was doing, my true calling and vision became much clearer. I was going to be some type of media influencer in the fitness and active-lifestyle space.

    THE BABY WAS BORN.

    Things were all starting to make sense. Fitness as a category was becoming more of a trending topic, social media—more specifically—Facebook was really starting to take off,  and everyone was creating websites about fitness. There were tons of individuals pushing their own brands, their own programs and philosophies, but I wanted to do something larger than a workout program or diet. Something far bigger than me.

    I decided I wanted to compete with the big boys (and big girls) and create an overarching brand—an authority that housed and curated everything health, fitness, and well-being. The concept of HUMANFITPROJECT was born in a small cubicle at 500 7th ave on the 9th floor (I think) in New York City.

    THE FIRST STEPS.

    In the very beginning a couple friends from high school and college liked the idea and wanted to contribute. It began as some small meetings, a photo shoot or two, and the creation of the first logo, along with a very simplistic blog.

    COMING SOON: The growing pains of building a business

    THE FIRST REDESIGN, EXPANSION, AND MOBILIZATION.

    Being a blog with a large overarching concept, you need more space, and you need more contributors. In 2010 my current business partner, Ron Parham officially came onboard. Ron and I worked diligently to create roles, responsibilities, and work flows for production. We also reworked the logo, completely built out a site inclusive of a home page, about us page, section fronts, article pages, all of this while trying to maintain my own writing, and keeping up with our social media presence as best as possible. HUMANFITPROJECT version 2.0 published four complete months of content with between 20-30 pieces of content across four main sections each roll out.

    COMING SOON: The sacrifices entrepreneurs need to accept

    A STUNT IN GROWTH.

    In late 2011, I had been pushing along as much as possible and was fortunate enough to laid a position working for American Media, Inc. to help build out mensfitness.com. Considering I was in a tough position—being unemployed for 6 months after leaving my ad sales job and transitioning over to another failed startup in the beverage industry—I needed a job that actually paid the bills, allowed me to be creative, and was right in my interest area. I opted to take the position with AMI. However,  HUMANFITPROJECT would temporarily cease production due to the magnitude of the project at mensfitness.com. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, I had no other choice but to halt editorial operations.

    COMING SOON: Untold stories of fear, struggle, depression, and learning from failure

    HFP BECOMES A MARKETING/PRODUCTION AND MEDIA PARTNER.

    Lucky for me, I’ve been well-positioned and able to work with new comers and contributors to HUMANFITPROJECT for many of the stories and productions that mensfitness.com needed to maintain our incredible growth trajectory. (I came into Men’s in 2011 with 300k unique visitors, finished just under 10 million in August 2014, and hit an all-time high of 14.7 million in January 2016.)

    TAKING FLIGHT: THE NEXT STAGES

    The HUMANFITPROJECT brand, network, and family of contributors will be expanded through 2014, 2015, and now into 2016. Our editorial channels populated to provide the most important material for living a fit and healthy active lifestyle.

    Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube

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  • The 8-Hour Workout

    The 8-Hour Workout

    I’ve been doing full blown fitness shoots for a good four years now. Hard to believe, but we never really had them on the site before… MENSFITNESS.com that is. Everything was shot in stills for the magazine, then carried over to the website and social media. But no one wants to see still images really. They want to see how to do the exercises. But on top of that, they want to be inspired by the videos to get out there and do it themselves. 

    My thought process has to been to shoot workouts in as real-life style as possible. While watching someone demonstrate a single exercise I’ve never seen before in front of a white screen is helpful, that’s just one piece. There’s no inspiration factor. The inspiration factor comes in with the real-life, fly-on-the-wall style of shooting and editing. That’s why we see certain accounts with tons of followers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Vine, YouTube, etc. People that post real video clips. Real life stuff. Real life workouts.

    But what I thought would be a cool little insider snippet was the the idea of a director’s workout. What the viewers see on our site or social media feeds are new programs such as The Specifics, The Dude Workouts, Strong and Lean, Trim in Six, The 21-Day Shred, etc. These programs typically consist of multiple videos because they are multiple workouts and loads of exercises. What viewers don’t see, is the fact that they also are more than likely shot in one to two days. Now, the first, and most important thing I need to relay is that just because we shoot them all in 1-2 days, does not mean we don’t actually do or use these programs. We all use them, and test them. If we produce and share an 8-week program. We’ve done it.

    But something I think that is personally kind of cool, and an interesting part of the job is that shooting the programs themselves in their “condensed versions” are an actual workout themselves. I remember I shot 7 days of the 21-Day Shred in 1 day. I was sore for 4 days. I guess it’s The Director’s Workout, but it’s also The 8-Hour Workout.

    This is a compilation of one day of shooting. Pieces of this went into The Muscle Shocker Workouts and The Elimination Workouts.

  • Riding Shotgun With Two IndyCar Champs

    Riding Shotgun With Two IndyCar Champs

    Target and the Chip Genassi Racing Team invited me out to Long Beach, California to experience my first ever IndyCar race, workout with two of the best, Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan, and hang around behind the scenes.

    After spending three days with two IndyCar drivers Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan, their pit crew, and trainers, it’s official, these guys are athletic, and as well-oiled and fine-tuned as their cars beneath them.

    Ryan Harber of St. Vincent Sports Performance, and trainer to Tony Kanaan says that a driver’s heart rate is typically “sustained through a 2-plus hour race between 160-180bpm”, which is, if you think about it, fairly equivalent to a high-intensity workout. In fact, he says the most important element to a driver’s training is their muscular and cardiovascular endurance.

    “Imagine doing a 150-pound single-leg press, hold for 1.5 seconds, down and up for 2-plus hours.” And that’s just the lower body, the upper body also experiences high-levels of fatigue. “If you’ve ever driven a car without power steering, or have lost power while driving, that’s what these guys are dealing with throughout the race,” he tells us.

    Another factor or condition working against a driver is their breathing. “A driver’s harness limits their intake because it’s so tight.” So what do these guys to combat limited oxygen? Well, they become more efficient and adapt. “To tackle this we use circuit training and throw different stresses at them,” Harber says.

    Finally, drivers have extreme speeds to contend with. “There’s nothing we can do to mimic the G-forces in the car, but we can prepare the body as best we can.” Harber says a lot of drivers train like triathletes, or are triathletes when not in the car. “He (Kanaan) swims, he bikes, he runs. And did a full Ironman in 2010.”

    DIXON and KANAAN on FITNESS

    Dixon told us back in October during his championship tour in NYC back in October, “I probably work out 5-6 days of the week. Two hours in the morning, and then 2-3 days a week I’ll also do another two hours in the afternoon. In the winter, I do more with weights and building strength, but in the summer when it’s racing season, it’s all cardiovascular. I’ve also picked up training for triathlons.” And after seeing the man workout with us in-person, he’s certainly got the conditioning.

    “The biggest things are cardio, stamina, and strength. And I know mentally, if we’ve got a hot day, a difficult day, I know I’m one of the best guys out there – that makes me more confident.” Kanaan explains, “If you’re not fit, your leg starts hurting, or you can’t hold the steering wheel, you’re going to make a mistake, or you’re not going to be consistent in the race.” And Kanaan’s training is also relatively similar to Dixon’s. He does CrossFit three times per week with 40-minutes of cardio (swimming or running), then two times per week are what he calls, “Tony Kanaan” days which consists of traditional weight lifting. As far as race weeks, he only trains three times per week and only will go hard on Monday then taper to ensure proper recovery.

    Contrary to anyone who would think otherwise, these drivers have not only mastered their art of racing but have build their bodies for the track with endurance, efficiency, and longevity in mind.

    This content was originally published on MENSFITNESS.com