By Jahla Seppanen
TRX, the suspension training company, gathered around 230 TRX trainers — including club owners, P.E. teachers, neurologists, university lecturers and health & fitness educators — in Baltimore, MD this weekend for its 2016 Trainer Summit…and to unveil its new partnership with sportswear magnate Under Armour.
Following a 7:30 a.m. workout with attendees, TRX Founder Randy Hetrick stood at the stairway inside the Under Armour Performance Center to officially announce his company’s collaboration with Under Armour. The news came soon after TRX made its entry into the consumer-facing business a little over a year ago, landing shelf space in Dick’s Sporting Goods, among other leading sporting goods retailers.
Hetrick told Summit attendees he and Under Armour Founder and CEO Kevin Plank had been in discussions for some eight years on how both brands could develop and innovate for the future. Hetrick called their eventual partnership “an organic alliance between two brands that share a passion for performance, movement and the human athlete.”
Doug Reed, Under Armour’s GM and SVP of Men’s Training — a newly created role for Under Armour’s biggest division — was then ushered onto the stairway by Hetrick. Reed yelled to the crowd, “Welcome to Baltimore and the family.”
Reed’s history as VP, GCAL of Nike global football apparel, and before that Nike golf apparel, footwear and accessories, contributed to 25 years of “hanging around in locker rooms creating innovative product,” Reed told SGB. He continued to explain that at Under Armour, “we just turned 20 and the backbone of the company is in training. Among all the partners we could have had, TRX unlocks quality of movement. They’re 4D instead of 3D.”
The perks of coming together were painted by both parties as highly dynamic, and the depth of the deal appears to go further than a t-shirt and leggings.
The two-year licensed partnership with a possible one-year extension (to begin with) will deliver co-branded training footwear and apparel, along with education by TRX to animate those products with content. In practice, this means the purchase of the Under Armour plus TRX Speedform Amp training shoe comes with a 25-minute workout with a TRX master trainer, which is exclusive to the partnership.
First look at the UA + TRX Speedform Amp Training Shoes
And while TRX gets a jolt of recognition from having Under Armour-stamped apparel sold on Under Armour’s website and in flagship stores, the math quickly adds up in Under Armour’s favor: they will gain exposure to more than 200,000 trainers worldwide who work directly with the end user every day.
“It’s a classic influencer strategy,” Hetrick told us about the rollout of their collaboration. He explained that while the consumer will still see Under Armour on athletes they emulate, like Bryce Harper, Misty Copeland or Michael Phelps, they’ll begin to see it on their TRX trainers, too.
TRX President Paul Zadoff, also a former Nike employee, similarly said, “Kids who emulate Cam Newton want to wear his clothes, but now they’ll want to train like him.”
Zadoff also elaborated on how TRX’s trove of education and programming can animate a simple tool, whether that’s apparel or shoes, to become a fitness solution. “The education platform we’ve developed, along with trainers acting as ambassadors to handfuls or hundreds of people, is powerful and universal,” Zadoff said. “Fitness and training is embedded across everything human, whether putting the groceries in the cabinet or the first hit on the offensive line.”
There’s no doubt the Training Summit was a fitting landscape to break the news of the partnership, while professional TRX trainers received in-depth, hands-on lessons in the latest exercise science and programming from the company. Also within the sessions and workouts was a tidal release of TRX’s new equipment.
The company, which made its name in suspension straps and hasn’t premiered new pieces for some time, will now come to market with roughly eight new functional training equipment pieces including kettle bells, medicine balls, ropes and more. Hetrick told SGB that many of TRX’s vendors have been waiting for this push and will stock the whole line in their facilities without question.
Photos courtesy Jahla Seppanen and provided by TRX and Under Armour.
