Ramstad: Not just for birthdays, ninja gyms growing in popularity to provide challenging fitness options

Scott Bishop of White Bear Lake overcame a 2016 motorcycle accident to become a contestant on NBC-TV's "American Ninja Warrior." In a local competition Sunday at the Ninjas United gym in Maple Grove, he was the first to succeed at the hardest obstacle on the pro-level course.

About eight other athletes before him, all considerably younger than the 39-year-old Bishop, failed or decided not to attempt it. He did it in a blink. Cooling down afterward, Bishop said, "I got to watch a couple people ahead of me. You can see what doesn't work."

Most weekends, Ninjas United hosts 15 to 20 birthday parties, though owners Jen and Chris Voigt told me people visiting for a party don't get the whole picture. The real magic happens during its daily classes and open gyms, when Ninjas United is a regular destination both for obstacle-racing athletes like Bishop and families with children as young as 3 who scramble, climb, swing and dash around 10,000 square feet of obstacles.

"There's a lot of kids who don't fit the sit-down-and-listen, team sport aesthetic," Chris Voigt said. "This environment is highly stimulating. It's dynamic and it's constantly changing. We change the gym every week."

Ninjas United is one of a half-dozen or so ninja gyms in the Twin Cities metro area (and a few hundred nationwide) that have turned playground fun into a life-long fitness activity — and a fast-growing business. Most of the others in the metro are franchisees of the Conquer Ninja firm that has operations in four states. Obstacles Academy in Eden Prairie, like Ninjas United, is locally owned.

A few times a year, the gym hosts a competition as part of a circuit with ninja gyms in Iowa, South Dakota and North Dakota. Bishop and 31 other athletes, ages 15 to 43, took part in the "professional" division. The other five divisions for younger kids drew even more competitors, with 230 participating over the entire weekend.

The biggest thing they learn is perseverance. "You have a crowd of people and you fall in front of them and you have to pick yourself back up, move on to the next obstacle and stay focused on the course," Jen Voigt said.

"Amongst the kids out there, I have in three years never seen anyone be picked on or made fun of," said Rachael Gallagher of Becker, who brings her sons Abraham and Saul to Ninjas United weekly. "The positivity here is so refreshing because you don't always find that in other peer activities."

Kids have been making obstacle courses in their backyards for generations. The NBC show, adapted from one in Japan, added some glitz to a sport now known as obstacle racing. It will become part of the pentathlon in the 2028 Olympics.

The Voigts joined Ninjas United in 2019 not long after it opened because they thought it would entertain their then 8-year-old son, who loved the NBC show. Jen, who was a substitute school teacher in Osseo, soon began helping out at the gym with her third son, then an infant, in tow.

Eventually, she agreed to manage it and, in 2021, the gym's owner asked if the couple would like to buy it. They quickly came to a deal after Jen told Chris she was "100% committed" to building the business. Chris kept his IT consulting job but spends many hours a week at Ninjas United helping keep the books and build the staff, now at 24 people.

Under their leadership, Ninjas United has quadrupled its membership roster to 500 and has a wait list of more than 100. The success has led the couple to think about expansion.

"We have some parents that call so frustrated because they've been on the wait list for nine months," Jen Voigt said. "And I always try to tell them that's actually a positive thing because it shows we're running a strong program."

On one visit, I watched a few dozen children from area home schools take a class together. Some of their parents joined in. One of them, Vic Thiedek, a trim 55-year-old tech consultant, said he's had to learn to build his confidence just as he's seen his young boys do.

"For some of the things, you just get over your fears," Thiedek said. "I mean, you're high, you're swinging and you've got to let go and grab something that's 7 feet away. Once you're strong enough, it's just overcoming that."

The NBC show features glitzy obstacles at much higher heights with pools of water that contestants drop into when they fail. At ninja gyms, the obstacles are more technical, which show veteran Bishop said often makes them more difficult.

"They're just small movements, things that don't translate well to the TV screen, but that are really, really hard," he said.

Like the one he did in the difficult moment near the end of the course at Ninjas United Sunday. Hanging on to a metal bar in mid-air, athletes had to swing to another bar while taking a wooden ring from the first bar along. They had to hook the ring onto the next metal bar and regain control as momentum and gravity worked against them. Bishop did it by holding the wooden ring differently than other competitors.

"What I call a switch grip," he said. "That's where you have one hand facing each way on it. So then you don't peel off as easily."