Brent – the fitness dad

From being an accountant to starting up a innovative fitness brand, and gathering one of the most watched viral dad videos of all time, Brent is a dad on an awesome mission.

You’ve probably already seen the video of the dad working out with his children in his living room, and when you look at Brent Kruithof I’d say one of the last things you’d think of is ‘accountant,’ but for 6 years he had that life – working upto 80 hours a week and travelling a lot for year end audits.

‘During that time it was hard staying fit and active’ Brent told us. Shortly after his first son was born getting fit and healthy only became harder, and Brent started to re-evaluate his priorities. ‘I wanted to be so much more present with my son, more hands-on, and I knew something had to change.’

Flyup – the new chapter 

Together with his wife Katie, Brent conceived an idea for a new portable and lightweight fitness product called Flyup. The Flyup uses body weight resistance to do a variety of exercises to work the entire body by sliding on the ground. Sounds easy? Nope – it’ll work you in areas you’ve never been worked in before.

The first year of fitness

‘The first year was all about inventory and budgeting’ says Brent. Though Flyup was focussed on the in-home adult fitness market, Brent noticed that his son was taking more of an interest; ‘one day my son saw the Flyup, and just started playing with it and getting really involved.’

Intrigued by his son’s actions, not long after Brent started to create little family work-outs, more out of fun and trying to be more involved as a dad.  ‘It was something we started doing 10-15 minutes before bedtime as that last bit of fun before sleep,’ he told us.

A second child, regular workouts and viral success!

Over the last 2 years the family workout has evolved and with Brent and Katie having been blessed with a second son since, he started filming those special family workout moments to keep as memories.

Then in March this year, things went crazy. ‘I just wanted to stitch a few of those previous memories together and share’ says Brent, as he created a movie showing his special work-outs with the kids. That movie has now been shared over 300,000 times and had over 23 million views, making it one of the most watched videos of 2016 so far!

It has garnered Flyup worldwide coverage and also made Brent think about how the brand can be even more family focussed in the future.

‘At the moment we’re just trying to get through the huge amount of orders (20x in the last 2 months!) that have come in, but we definitely want to focus more on family work-outs in the future.’

An inspiring call to action

One thing we were truly inspired by in talking to Brent was how much he actively wants to be involved as a father for his kids. He now wants Flyup to empower others to do so too.

‘Our faith is important to us as a family, and as part of that we want to inspire other dads to involve their kids in their hobbies and activities,’ says Brent. ‘For us it was fitness, but for others it could be bike riding, design or something else entirely.’

Brent and Flyup is about so much more than just the work out video, and we’re excited to see what he has in-stall for dads worldwide for the next phase of Flyup!

Follow Flyup:

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/FlyUpFitness/

Instagram – @flyupfitness

Website – flyupfitness.com