New fitness facility will help athletes reach peak potential

THE WOODLANDS, Texas — Frog Fitness, a new training facility in town, recently opened its doors, but to call the new facility a gym would be an understatement.

The center is structured around a piece of fitness equipment that exercises every major muscle in the body in just 60 seconds and is designed to help athletes reach their peak performance potential. Richard Pearce, the founder of Frog Fitness, named his new piece of equipment when he was working out with Phil Heath, the former Mr. Olympia. Winning this title meant a tighter schedule for Heath, and he needed a quick way to exercise each major muscle. He sat down and did a leg press and lifted 180-pound dumbbells simultaneously. Pearce decided to try this for himself, and Heath laughed and told him he looked like a frog. The name stuck.

“I grabbed two pencils and two rubber bands and went into the office and put them together, and I went over and grabbed two Olympic bars with two 45-pound plates and I put them on the ground, and I put regular resistance bands on them,” Pearce said. “I knew instantly what we had here.”

As a businessman who has had several successful entrepreneurial endeavors, Pearce knew the exact steps he needed to take for his new vision come into fruition. Scientific evidence of the product’s performance was crucial. Pearce had the product tested in a blind study with Dr. Jacob Wilson, a thrice-voted number-one Ph.D. in the field of sports and human performance.

“I would never insult a highly trained athlete and say that this replaces an entire gym,” Pearce said. “What I will say is that no gym in the world can do to your body in 60 seconds what the Frog can. It’s not my opinion. It’s a scientific fact…We did an awful lot of testing, and the biggest reason why it’s taken off like it did is because it works.”

Perfecting the Frog didn’t stop at scientific proof. To ensure that product would continue to sell, there were several standards that needed to be solidified. Safety, user-friendliness and transportability were top priority in the engineering of the equipment. Pearce wanted customers to be able to put together a light-weight product without using any tools. Assembly also needed to be so simple that it would transcend any language barriers. This is why the Chinese Institute of Health agreed to build the Frog, but creating an easy-to-use product meant implementing the tiniest of details.

“It looks incredibly simplistic, but so much engineering went into building it. Not only does it need to be able to move forward or stay still, but it has to do so silently,” Pearce said. “We had three different engineering firms that came to us. They said we would need a ratchet, but ratchets make a lot of noise. We had to invent the world’s first, totally silent mechanism.”

Since debuting the Frog, the product’s popularity has sky-rocketed among professionals, including athletes and coaches in the NFL. The head strengths coach for the Pittsburg Steelers wanted 12. With the ability to move forward in its horizontal position, exercise becomes competition.

“You’re teaching your body to work in different positions than what you’re used to. There’s a lot of mind-muscle memory stuff,” Pearce said. “When you race it, you forget about what you’re doing to your body. You don’t think about how tired you are until you’re done. Because you’re on a horizontal plane, your coring is working whether you’re doing your legs or your upper-body. Your core is working, and that’s the number-one reason people join fitness.”

Looking to deliver more than one product, Pearce decided to build a fitness facility to be utilized as a learning and training center for athletes. Frog Fitness will include traditional fitness equipment with astroturf and bleachers that will hold 150 people. They plan on hosting seminars for high school students and coaches and will have a section for martial arts. For more information about Frog Fitness, visit their website at thenextbigthinginfitness.com.