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Being STRONG is more than just how much weight you can lift.
The Strong New York Podcast is dedicated to inspiring you to become your strongest self- in the gym, in business, in relationships and in life.
Join Kenny as he sits down with his strong as fuck buddies and shoots the shit on what it takes to be strong willed, strong minded and physically strong. Season one features everyone from entrepreneurs and local business owners to doctors and industry leaders in the fitness and wellness space.
With over a decade of experience, Kenny Santucci has made himself known as one of New York City’s top trainers and a thought leader in the health and wellness industry. After transforming his life at 15 years old through fitness, Kenny made it his mission to transform the lives of those around him.
Kenny has trained some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Jon Bon Jovi, Liev Schreiber, and Frank Ocean, and has been tapped as a fitness expert sharing his training approach with Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Runner's World, SHAPE, Well+Good, among other publications.
Kenny is the creator of STRONG New York, NYC's only Health and Fitness Expo. Strong New York is an immersive day of workouts, wellness experiences, panel discussions, and inspiring conversations with the best in-class wellness professionals, industry leaders, and change makers who are sharing their expertise on today's hottest wellness trends and first-hand experiences on how to optimize your overall health and life.
You can find Kenny at The Strength Club, his private training and group strength training facility in the heart of Manhattan located on 28th and 5th Ave in New York City.
This episode is powered by Celsius. Now, whether you're in the gym or you're on the run, or hey, you're just doing a podcast, grab yourself a can of Celsius and live fit Kenny Santucci with another episode of the Strong New York podcast. And I'm very excited today because an old friend has come to town and about, uh, six years ago, I get a call and somebody says to me, Hey.
The owner of High Rocks wants to come meet with you. And I'm like, what is this? What's it all about? And here we are six years later with almost a million people who have been participants in High Rocks, and it's so exciting to have him here. Uh, my good buddy, we've had many nights out together. Christian Tuka.
Did you ever think Right? I remember the first meeting we had, we were sitting there. And you were telling me about it and you were so passionate about it. And I had tried it that summer when you guys did the little popup downtown at your buddy's, right, right, right at your buddy's place. Yeah. And I really didn't know much about it, but I go, this is something that works because as a gym owner and somebody who's trying to get people, what I did differently at my gym was I took a lot of the high risk CrossFit stuff out and we started to get this influx of people because there's a demand for people who wanna work out.
Yeah. But would you say that you are responsible for the birth of the, the hybrid athlete? Right. These people who want to work out? Yeah. Yeah, of course. But they don't want the high risk CrossFit itself. Yeah. Yeah. You, first of all, thank you, Kenny, to have me on on your podcast. Of course. Thank you for being here.
And what a, what a journey in six years, right? Yeah. Well, you can say, so I'm, I, I'm not claiming it. Uh, yeah, I think we created the category. Uh, well, let's say we gave this, this category a name. Yes. And the competition. Of course. Well, you've, you've given this, this, uh. Uh, this avatar, uh, a place to train and something to look forward to.
I think in life a lot of people are looking for purpose, and especially in the gym, they're like, well, what am I going for? Because if you're only going for the aesthetics, eventually you get to this point where you're like, what am I doing? And people fall off. But now you've given people a purpose to train for something that they could actually train for.
Exactly. Yeah. Look, that was the whole basic idea to start that because. Fitness was a phenomenon. It's, it's so successful, but it's indeed 99% of the people did it because of aesthetics, maybe health reasons, earning calories. Yeah. No one plays tennis. That's not the primary motivation to play tennis. I assume you play tennis because you want to win the point.
Yeah. It's a gamification that keeps you in the game. So I think that's why the, the turn rate. The churn rate in, in, in, in German membership is, was very low, or is still relatively low. Uh, because you sign up in January after, you know, after Christmas and everyone is gaining pounds, and then that falls off after and then they fall off.
They say, oh, I receive my goal. I, no, I, they leave the membership and then they come back in January. Mm-hmm. Uh, because this piece was missing, which is driving any other sport in the world. Uh, that you have this other purpose to train for and it doesn't matter how good you are. That's very important to understand like goal for tennis.
I mean, you can play it on every level. Most of the people are not really good in it and still play it. Um, and I think that was missing for fitness, uh, to give also this whole industry, another engine, another driver. Mm-hmm. To even become more popular as it already is. Well, take us back 2017, right? Yeah.
CrossFits around. You got a lot of this adventure racing. What, what spawned this idea? What were you like? Because it's a huge venture. Like when you first explained it to me and we were sitting there looking at the logistics of how you have to plan out a race. Yeah. I was like, holy shit, this is a logistical nightmare.
This is hard. What gave you the idea where the, why these certain workouts, um, you know, kind of walk us through that whole Yeah. So, you know, I have this background in endurance, classical endurance, yeah. Mass participation events like Ironman, marathon cycling events. So I, there are not many people in the world that have done that much on a global scale in, in that area.
Mm-hmm. So I it's a lot of the same users. Yeah. Well, you know, the logistics are similar. Mm-hmm. Uh, and how to organize this, that amount of people mm-hmm. In the race. But, okay. Now. And the idea was I was always a gym person, and I said, okay, why is there no event existing for these people, which is based around what most of these people do in the gym.
Mm-hmm. Uh, and of course you have to understand that marathon running in, in the, when you break it down, it's a very simple movement apparently. Right? Mm-hmm. You just run, everyone can run. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it just, it's just brutally long, but everyone can run. Anybody could finish it if they wanted. And, and now the people learned, I, if I put some work in, I can finish it.
Mm-hmm. Uh, and that's why it's so popular because it's, there's no barrier from the technical aspect or from, you know, because you, everyone can run. So that's very easy. So I said, okay. We have to find a formula to create a competition, which is really based around what most of the people do in, in, in every gym.
Uh, which is, by the way, a lot of cardio and not strength training. Mm-hmm. If you go to every Equinox or crunch or whatever, usually what you see is this large room of car machines. S Yeah. Yeah. So they're on the treadmills or they're on these steppers, et cetera, and then they do some functional fitness work out after.
Mm-hmm. You barely in the, in normal gym. See people lifting barbers. Yeah, it's true. I mean it, it's only on the cross. That doesn't mean it's wrong or something. It's just this is just the reality. Well, the barrier of entry is lower, so people, you do it. Exactly. So I said, okay, we have to approach a fitness race from the cardio angle.
Of the running angle, because that's what most people do. Mm-hmm. And then you mix the, the, the strength workouts in et cetera. And then of course, it's a very, it was a complex process to find a formula. How do you do that? And, and like 5, 6, 7, 8,000, eight, 8,000 people can do it on the same day. That's logistically very complex because OX is by far the most complex.
Mass participation event. If you start compare it with a marathon race that it's the easiest thing to do. Everyone runs from A to B one movement. Yeah. And we have all these different runs and we have eight different workouts. It's, it's very complex. Uh, it took me a while to figure the. Out the logistics, how this can work, uh, now, but apparently it seems, uh, it works pretty well actually.
Like a, like a, like a machine. Like an oiled, yeah. Swiss clockwork or something like, which is quite amazing. It's, it's so impressive because I re and take me through the pitch, right? Like, 'cause you had to get some guys backing you up, some investors and stuff, some people who believed in what you were doing, but.
You know, I saw it when we, when we first chatted, I was like, this could be really big if this hits the right way. It could be really big. But there had to be some points where like, you're fundraising for this and people are like, this is a crazy idea. You know, going through COVID, I remember that like, 'cause I was working with you guys in 2020 and there were some dark moments.
How many times were you like, all right, I'm gonna throw the towel in. Or did you always know that it was gonna be this? Yeah, I was always very, uh, convinced that this will work, uh, because there's another aspect which I like to explain all the time. It's not just I, what I try to achieve is not just a raise for the gym, fitness community.
I also wanted to create what I believe is the healthiest way of training when you prepare for an event. Mm-hmm. Um, which is a very important aspect, uh, because, uh, if people understand that. It'll probably pull even more people in. And then I want to combine that with hopefully the, one of the most exciting mass ation events you can do.
Um, but the training is very important 'cause you spend much more time training for something than or for, for the event. And the event itself. Yeah. Same with marathon, right? You have to run hours and hours and hours for these two hours, maybe three or four hours on, on event day. So I wanted to find the perfect balance here.
Um, with a very healthy way of training, which keeps you all well-rounded fit. Um, and I thought we have found the formula and then for me it was only obviously a matter of time that the people understand that. Mm-hmm. Uh, so I was very confident all, all the way. Okay. If COVID was the worst case scenario, which you can make up an indoor mass visitation.
A sport event. Yeah. I mean, come on. That was, nothing was more wor horrible, but I was, we found other ways, uh, during COVID to use the company and the people, uh, which was a magical story, uh, which really a crazy story, which also helped us very much to survive and come even stronger out of COVID than before.
It's impressive. So like what, what, what was that strategy? Because I remember, I think we had talked once or twice during COVID and I was like, what's the plan? What are you guys gonna do? You know? And you. Yeah, you basically didn't have anything for what, about a year? No more? One and and a half, two years?
Yeah, no. So here's the story. It's complex. I would try to explain it very quickly. For me, it was very quickly clear. We will not, they will not allow us to come back with events very soon. So how can we find a way to make this safe? So I started to look into pretesting like COVID. Fast tests. Mm-hmm. Uh, I figured out at the time, and which was crazy, no one of the government was looking into that option.
So I did research and we found some providers in Korea that had these fast tests. Mm-hmm. Uh, I worked out the concept and I, we had a solution that we were sure we can test everyone very quickly before they go into the hall. And then you create basically the most safe environment mm-hmm. During COVID.
Yeah. In the world. I pitched this to the governments and they said, oh, it's an amazing idea, but we can't approve it because it will deliver the wrong pictures. So we'd say, everyone don't meet anyone, not more than three people. And then there are pictures of 3000 people doing a fitness event in the hall.
But they said, but it's interesting, can you go to, to industries that are essential, that have to continue to to produce stuff? And back in the day, uh, the problem was if one person was, uh, was affected by COVID, they had to shut down the whole factory for like a week or that, or longer. Yeah. It was a pain in the ass.
So I started to make deals with companies where we tested all the employees before they came to business, came to the factory. Okay. So it's essential businesses, right? They've had to continue. Mm-hmm. Uh. And that then, and then the government switched their strategies to these free testing and we became one of the biggest operators of testing centers in, in Germany.
Wow. Because we had the people and we are a logistics company somehow. And we did that I think. So that's kind of took you guys straight through. We were running, I think 120, 150 test sites. We were, we had to hire. That's incredible. 1500 people in a very short time. Uh, and so you employed more people during that time?
No, it was, we were exploding. Yeah. Uh, and, but suddenly we, we made money and it, it helped us to survive that. And then we could at the, that also, suddenly we had the budgets to continue to keep the brand alive. Yeah. With virtual competitions. You know, we did the virtual, uh, world World Championships. Yeah.
Yeah. Where we had six athletes. Competing in like a sealed room, but you got so creative with it whi, which was so impressive. And then you, you were constantly, I remember during that time you guys were pumping out workouts. You were like, Hey, here's iroc workout of the week, or the, you know, the month and coming out of COVID.
You know, I think there was still kind of this like, all right, what is this? There wasn't a lot of buy-in, of course. And then last year, I'd say last April May, boom, it explodes. Yeah. Well, here's the story. We came out of COVID and we did the first event in the uk. Mm-hmm. Because UK had this, they had this policy, there was a long, long shutdown.
And then they said, okay, now it's over. We have to reopen. We will not do another lockdown after. Um, so we could do the event, but it was like September in 21. Okay. September, October. And the announcement came very. Shortly. So all the traditional me patient events, they need much, much more lead time to organize it like a marathon race.
Mm-hmm. With road closures and everything, we are an indoor event, so we could react quite quickly. So we, I think we were one of the first events after lockdown where people go and meet other people and do a larger event. However, I, I just read an article today that that event had 631 finishes. Wow. But it was funny because then we were the only product around, so we, we started then to do another event in Manchester in December.
Mm-hmm. Winter time when no other traditional endurance product can put on any events because it's too cold. Right. It's, it's snowing outside. That event suddenly ramped up to 3000 people. Wow. And then we had another London event in April, and that was the first sold out event with 5,000 people. So you were just doubling down on London.
I dunno why UK picked it up in a, in a way. Uh, so, so suddenly UK was a driver and suddenly of course I had also the proof of concept that it works people, it attracts people in a larger size. And then Indeed us was, took us a bit longer. It was a bit more complicated with all the noise around fitness in America.
And the tipping point was last year's New York City event and Summer, which was the first sold out event, five and a half thousand people an amazing day. I think the best weather event weather ever in history of events. It was such a good vibe that day. Yeah, it was incredible. And since then it was a tipping point in the us.
Since then, we are selling out every event in the us. Yeah. So now. Yeah. Two weeks ago you had three days, every day was sold out. Yeah. You got 5,000 people. 15, 15,000. Yeah. Five per day. Yeah. 5,005 per day. So you were standing there. Right. We, that Sunday night was, when was the moment where you were like, holy shit, this is it?
Like this is what I wanted. Yeah. I, I had moments before that. In other parts of the world. Yeah. Where we. Already had events with 15,000 people. So I had several of these moments. Uh, yeah, I know. It's amazing. I mean, but what can I say? I'm standing there and it's, I mean, the crowd was, um, it's not only the athletes, but there was another, now you have spectators spec, 15,000 spectators.
Yeah. So I think 30,000, 35,000 people came out. Uh, yeah. Every day. I, I'm just, but you know. It's crazy what we do right now. We had, at that weekend, we had three other events in the world, right? Cardiff, uh, Italy, Rimini and Rigas. We had 50,000 people competing. That's incredible. I I just, sometimes I don't have the time to really think about it because I'm just, you know, I, I we are always going on and the next event around the corner.
Well, to that point, right, it's growing so fast, right? Yeah. You guys have amazing partnerships. You got guys doing this in 52, 53 minutes. Yeah. You have all this demand for it. What, what's next and how do you keep up with it? Yeah. I think we, we have to stay very humbled. We, we know it's a blessing that the people now picking it up into the way they do.
We are. And we have a very clear strategy. So number one is always to, we have to try everything we can to provide the best product we can provide to our community, to the athletes. So one is, part is are the events, right? So we will continue to make the events every year. People can expect that the events will be better than the year before.
Mm-hmm. And we will continue to invest in, in like just the logistics. The way it's out, everything look and feel. Yeah. I want it, I want it to look at. As premium as possible. I want the people have the feeling they're going to Olympic games. Yeah. Well what I love about it is the entrance. Like I think the first time you guys did that, I was, it was last year I was in Florida.
I did the Florida race. Yeah. And you had the Red Bull tunnel. Yeah. And the music and stuff. I'm like, this is, this is fucking cool. That was, that was a great addition to like, 'cause I was there in Florida. In 2019, and it's just like, all right, go ahead, go. No, no, no. We next season we will ramp this up another time with our partner Red Bull.
Yeah. So we have cool ideas for the tunnel, uh, to make it, let's say more special. Yeah. Look, these are the two focus points right now. Three at the events, the starting moment, because that's what sticks. Yeah. And then the final moment, we have this privilege to have probably the. The coolest, the opportunity because everyone spends five to 10 minutes at the war boards, which is basically your finish.
Mm-hmm. So we are, if we couldn't do it here in New York this year because of the, of the space. Mm-hmm. Requirements, you know, in other events we are creating now this stadium kind of gladiator at feeling. I saw that. Yeah. When you come to the war boards, uh, and we will invest more money into that moment.
More LED boards. I wanted like. Flashing that so we can, we work on soon that your name pops up when you come to the war worlds. That's cool. Uh, and the finished moment with the stage, and now you see that music becomes a bigger, bigger play. Mm-hmm. Uh, so next year in New York, one of the ideas is, and we also going more into the nighttime, which creates amazing, oh, the backdrop set, backdrop side.
And now I wanna bring in be like maybe some popular DJs. So we really have like a headliner. Yeah. Dj. And you have like even the schedule of which DJs are playing on what day and what time. Yeah. Uh, and people come, oh, whatever Diplo is playing Saturday night and they come to see the race and their friends, but also to listen to the music.
Yeah. I think that's gonna add a whole other like level of attraction. I think the entertainment value is you're, you're building it in. It's there. I think it's a better sport to watch, like millions of people come out to watch a New York City marathon. Yeah. But after somebody passes you by, that's it.
Whereas like there's this entertainment value where you can sit and spectate on, you could watch somebody do the, the skier or the rower, whatever may be going on. It's actually really fun to watch you nail down the entertainment. As far as the race goes. Is there an obstacle that you would pull out, you'd wanna put in, you know, because these guys are finishing it so fast.
Right. I mean, it's only a matter of time before somebody gets under 50. Yeah. Which is great. Which is incredible. So like, do you adjust, do you make the weights heavier? What's your thoughts on that? Yeah, no, I think the, another part of success is that it has this consistency. Of course. Uh, we're not changing anything.
When you told me that years ago and I was like, no, you should make it there. And you were like, no, we're gonna stick to the planet. I go that now look, it's every other sport in the world, more or less every other sport. Every Olympic sport has not changed anything in thousands of years, in hundreds of years, and that's the beauty of it.
Yeah. No one is running now 120 meters because they think, oh, it's cooler if we have two more sec, two seconds more or something. Mm-hmm. The beauty is that, you know, 9.58 seconds was, it's the fastest time human being has ever done and they end up changing the distance of math I'm running, even though mainly from the.
Yeah, you can say from the health aspect or whatever for the masses would be better if it would be a bit shorter. But it, the beauty is lying in the consistency and people can compare their times over decades. Uh, and they can do the same thing with high rocks. It, and it doesn't matter that they, the, the fast guys get fast.
Look, that's still the longest strengths endurance event on highest levels that is existing. Uh. At the Olympic and outside of the marathon run. Mm-hmm. If you take, if you look at the Olympic games, there's, I don't think any other competition outside of cycling or marathon running that is longer.
Everything elses is 10,000. Bigger run is the longest run in track in field, and that's 28, 25 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. So it's already a, a tough challenge to stay. And you know what these guys are doing, right? They're running with a hundred percent heart rate. Oh yeah, for 53 minutes. I mean, there's not a single moment where you can rest or you should No.
Like if you're gonna hit that time, you have to have your foot on the throttle the whole time. Yeah. It's so impressive. So this, I also try to explain, I know everyone, especially in Mark, I was asking me, oh, you have to change the workouts all the time. Is that okay? I know it's coming from the CrossFit history and DNA, because Crawford is based around that, which is all fine.
I said no, once you do something for time mm-hmm. Uh, it, it doesn't matter what it is. If you wanna do it as fast as possible or faster than any other human being has ever done it, it becomes a very, very complex thing. So shame, and you did years in years of training, so I always come back to the most simple example, which is a hundred meter running.
I think everyone can run a hundred meters like everyone in the world, but to run it in 9.58 seconds is impossible for, so you, and you need to train decades to, to be that fast for this sub 10 seconds. So for me, that's what I mean. This, the length of something over there that's not. The, the play here to keep, it's exciting to now see that that is the next step is can someone go sub 53 minutes and mm-hmm.
Single a pro man, and suddenly you have a major story because you know it's a world record and, uh, and it may be, I'm sure it, we will see the day. I don't know when this will come, but the. Where someone is breaking the 50 minute mark, but maybe it takes as long as marathon running to break the two hour mark.
Yeah. There seems to be a natural barrier at some point. Well, there was a point where I was just like, oh, it's gonna have to change. But at the, you know, after this conversation, I, I think you've kind of sold me on the idea that it does make more sense to keep it what it is. And even if somebody does it, I mean listen, let's just say the world record in 10 years from now is 43 minutes.
Uh, that's impossible. Which is impossible. I think fif sub 50. We will probably see that. Yeah. But I think 50 minutes is likes a two hour barrier in running, in marathon running. Yeah. I don't think we will see a one hour 50. That's a long time to be aerobic. That's crazy. A long time. No, it it's absolutely crazy to be Yeah, that's a long time to be a Yeah, and I think that's what a lot of people don't understand and, but I think what you've done so well is make the barrier of entry so low that anyone could do it Correct, but also have it at the point.
Where it's hard for somebody who's an elite athlete to be really good at it. Yeah. When it came to picking the exercises, you know where that, like, was that all you or did you have some No, no. We had Min Tilly, who's our, yeah. Yep. Since day one, our global race director. Mm-hmm. She was, I think she was a special forces, uh, instructor, coach, whatever.
And because she was married to a Marine. Mm-hmm. Uh, um. First husband, uh, and she was very much into training everything. And I knew her. And then I said, I need an expert who's coming out of the fitness. She was also involved in CrossFit and Yep. Other stuff. And we, we developed, I had the logistical concept and she came up with all the different workouts we can do.
Uh, and then, so we had a number of principles. One was it, it has to be natural movements to keep it inclusive. Natural movements means. Everyone can do it. Even you have never done it. Mm-hmm. Everyone can push a slab. Yeah. Even you have never pushed a slab, but everyone has to push the car or something.
It's, that's, that's called natural movements. You can't make it wrong, but you will be not fast. Right. Yeah. And, but you also can't get hurt doing it. Exactly. Yeah. And natural movements have a dramatically lower risk of injuries. Injury. Yeah. Uh, so, and then you have, then there are some natural movements, and then we said it has to be.
Gender equals so that men and women have, can do the same even on lower fitness levels. Mm-hmm. So that keeps also out some of the workouts. Um, injury risk, keeps some workouts out. And then you have the, the logistical aspect. How can we do that? That we can handle the judging, which is still in a problem.
We have to do a lot of work to keep the judging. The quality, quality and increases further up, which is now going better and better and better because the judges are coming all out of the community. But if you need, if you, we would've created a concept where you would've needed one judge per athlete for every station.
You end up with it, you need 600 per shift, et cetera. It's impossible to handle that. Mm-hmm. So we needed events or workouts where the judging is easy, like a raw work. 'cause the roll Kilomet is a monitor. Right. Turn it on and soft. So I I don't Yeah, I mean, you, and you can't cheat. You roll and once a kilometer is done, you, you run off.
Mm-hmm. So you select and a good mix of machine based workouts and body weights and, and, and with weights. That's why also sled pushing a sled is a great, well it's a, first of all, an amazing workout, but also it's easy to judge because you, you go four times and we have the timing shift that is controlling.
That you really do four times. Mm-hmm. Which is also like the whole technology aspect of it. Yeah. Has gotta be, you know, on point. But I think you've guys have done such a great job with that. And somebody was telling me there was a counter on the, on the ball. Yeah. On the wall ball. Which is so impressive.
Yeah. That's a new innovation. We put a lot of money into that. Yeah. That you have a sensor target. Mm-hmm. And the counting is automatically, so you have to hit the target. Right. Otherwise it doesn't count. But you can't complain because this is really an accurate Yeah. Machine. So, which takes out the human aspect of judging failure and, and, and you keep it more consistent.
Yeah. You've had so many huge athletes in the CrossFit space. You're, I'm, I've now seen some NFL players and some different athletes from all over the world. Two things that I was wondering about. One, you're gonna have people who are like training for this, who are, you know, gassing themselves up. You're seen in the Olympics now, like they have this advanced games where they're, people are using peds and stuff, but also who's come along, who's done the race, where you're like, oh, that's pretty cool that they've done it.
Like a, a celebrity of some sort. Yeah. Okay. The more and more of these guys are coming, I, uh. We recently had KSI during the race in Berlin. Oh wow. And I had no idea who he is, but, but my son was there with me and he went, oh my God, there's KSI. So I went to him and said, Hey, amazing. Thank you very much. And he did the race with another YouTuber, who's also huge.
I forgot his name. Okay. Uh, um, and I learned later. Yeah. It's huge. Yeah. 25 million followers, et Of course we are lucky that we have Chris Heworth. Uh. Supporting High Rocks. Oh, wow. He's done it too. Yeah, he's, well, he's the center. Center, yeah. Yeah. But he's now coming out to Australian events and, uh, okay.
He's, it can't be bigger than him. Um, we had Patrick Wilson last weekend. I just saw that. Yeah. He did The race and the tight end from the New York Giants. Mm-hmm. Uh, we are very, uh, honored that all these CrossFit. Guys are coming out? No, all, no. Matt Frazier did it in Las Vegas. I saw Matt Frazier. And Tia basically really shifted over to High Oak.
So we, we see her in a week in Chicago. It's in the world championships, in, in doubles. Um, yeah, this is a great thing. We are combining these people and with our partners, Puma, we're working on some cool ideas to bring like some of the biggest Puma stars out to do. To try out a h event. Uh, so, but it's not about celebrities.
I have to say that we are hap For me, the biggest celebrities are these people that go out there and you think when you see them, you think they no way they can finish it. Yeah. And, and they grind through the whole thing. And that's, for me, I have to say, more impressive than if someone has 24 4 million YouTube followers, even though I also appreciate him coming.
Yeah. No, he's a nice guy. Well, I've just seen so many adaptive athletes. Yeah. Now taking on, like, I saw a guy the other day who had like a special Puma shoe. Yeah. And doing the wall balls inside night. Yeah. It's just incredible that like, you're inspiring people and they wanna be judged the same way everyone else is.
Exactly. They're like, no, I wanna sit down. Like, I saw a lady like kind of give him a rep and he is like, no, no, no, no. So it's very cool. It's a it. There must be so many moments where you must like, pinch yourself and just see if it's real. No, it is the pinching move asset is it's sometimes you forget to pinch yourself.
It's, it goes fast. Yeah. Like I said, it's a, it's a crazy journey. We are super humbled that to be in that position and it's also a responsibility, right? Mm-hmm. To, to not fuck it up at some point. Yeah. And people. Of course we get, when you get that big, there's always people complaining about stuff, which I totally appreciate.
Uh, it's impossible to make everyone all the time happy. Of course. So I tell you, there's a big discussion about the ticket distribution and what, what do you do to, so we're increasing the capacity in crazy speed, but the demand is growing faster. Mm-hmm. So in the UK or in Europe, basically. Every event starts out in a minute.
Every minute you send somebody out, they're sending out in a minute. Wow. So we, we, we go live and then we have 60,000 people that want one of the 15,000 tickets. It's super, what can you do? It's super company. It's, and then the demand is so high that these systems break down and we try to fix it and get better.
And now we have two dropping points so that if you miss the first one, you have another s chance at 5:00 PM Um. It's whatever you do, it's difficult. We tried the ballot system in the uk so you apply, yeah, yeah. And then you randomly select people, uh, and they get a notification that had other implications that may, because it works for Marathon because they have only one, one race division.
But we have singles, double-edged relay, so people are signing up for multiple different events and then, so that made the ballot complicated. We. Uh, there's a lot of logistics challenges in a positive way. Yeah. It's a luxury situation, but we try to fix it to make everyone happy. Mm-hmm. Which is sometimes difficult.
I can only say to everyone, we try always to find the best solution for the community, which, and sometimes they might not see it in the first, directly in the first place. Mm-hmm. Uh, because we had services like the rebooking, which was a great idea. The amount of rebooking volume because events are getting so big.
We are getting in, coming in like two days before the race. It, it was impossible to handle anymore. And then people are getting upset because they don't get a response because we get 5,000 emails or 10,000 emails. Uh, so we had to change the system. And, uh, the only thing I wanna say is we always try and there can be a a hundred percent assure, we always, and we think a lot about this, and we take every.
Feedback very seriously. We try to always find the best solution for the community and everyone, and yeah, the next thing is to even make the events more exciting. I think it, listen, if anybody out there doesn't understand what a legis, one of the things that I've gotten feedback from, from clients who've done it, friends who've done it, everyone says how well it's run.
Which is very impressive because if you think about the logistics that go involved, the space, all the people, the judging, all that stuff comes into play and you guys are doing a really good job of that since we are in New York. Yeah. And we, we've always talked about this being like the place where things would pop off.
Yeah. Everything would go viral. Yeah. What could people expect next year here in New York? Uh, yeah. We have to talk to Hudson River Park. Yeah, of course. About the duration of it. People can expect that we will have. A lot of more days next year. Okay. More than three for sure. Yeah. Uh, we will continue the night sessions because I, I thought they were magic even though we had this thunderstorm warning, which was difficult to handle, but what can we do?
So that came from, from the fire department police. Yeah. Uh, but um, and then it just missed New York. But however they can expect. I think an amazing festival of fitness, uh, multiple days, maybe a week. Uh, we will invest a lot into that venue because it's a very special venue. Right. New York is special in many ways.
Mm-hmm. It's the only outdoor event we do in the us so far. No, in in the world. In the world. Wow. Okay. So that has challenges, weather challenges, but we will invest next year. Significant money to make it. As safe as possible that whatever the weather is, it's everyone has still is doing the race, it's still a great experience.
Of course, if the sun is shining, it's always nicer. Uh, we will come up with very cool things, I think with regards to music. Mm-hmm. Uh, and yeah, I think it will be, I think it will be the biggest fit festival or fitness the US has seen to that point. Uh, in Europe especially, you can be excited. Yeah. And I want to create a little bit of a battle between New York, London, Amsterdam.
Okay. Berlin, maybe some like team Hong Kong country team conversation. No, but also like, okay, look, New York, we can show them this. This is still New York. I love that. Yeah. We are, you are still this inch cooler than, yeah. Than everybody else. Than everybody else. Uh, which is a challenge because we, we just sold out today, the next London event, the.
So, uh, it was 40,000 tickets, which is insane. Wow. And you now you said there was what? Next? 40,000 people. So, next, so come on, New York, we, we can do 40,000 in New York. Right? Well, you said you had a couple thousand, what? 20,000, 30,000 on the wait list here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so that's pretty impressive.
Yeah. Well, guys, you heard it here first. Christian, thank you so much for coming by. Thanks, buddy. Uh, guys, I would, you know, normally I always tell people, Hey, where can everybody find you? But I think everybody's found you, and I think your, your inbound emails is probably packed with, uh, people. Guys, thank you so much for watching the Strong New York podcast.
Obviously, like, like, subscribe, share with a friend. And there are probably some hybrid athletes out there, uh, you know, watching this and thinking, what's next? Well, you heard it from the man himself. The CEO, the founder, the boy in charge. Christian, thank you so much again. Appreciate it. I too unfit working too much.
Yeah. Well, you, how many races have you done now at this point? Oh, I, I, I, maybe a hundred, but I do. That's incredible. Yeah. Well, I have to say, I. I'm also the world record holder in not finishing a race because started a race to test the course and everything and then finish after four or five workouts.
Yeah. Well, I mean, listen, it's pretty impressive because you, you're the CEO who lives and breathes what he talks about. So that's And who's very old. No. You look great, man. You look like you do. Yeah. Think much. Yeah. Guys, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.