black fitness - Taji Mag

Screenshots of the GrpFit app

If you are looking to achieve your fitness goals for the new year, then the GrpFit app will help! This fitness social platform will help educate you on workouts and health info to keep you on track with your aspirations. Not only does the app provide education, but it’s also a place where people can interact with others who are actively reaching or looking to reach their health goals. I had time to talk with the CEO and co-founder of GrpFit, Richard Bailey, to discuss the benefits and what to expect from the fitness platform.

Dapper Dr. Feel: What made you come up with this platform? At what point did you think Black people need this?

Richard Bailey: The idea came from a previous project that my partner and I came up with called Crowdfit. The idea for that finds an exercise partner in your area based on your fitness goals. For example, if you were preparing for a marathon, you could find someone in your area that was training as well.

It was met with moderate success back in 2016 (its first year) but then we hit a huge wall in engagement and growth. What we discovered was that people were more interested in the social aspect, (i.e. profile display, what people ate, how they worked out, etc.) At the time, social fitness wasn’t a popular item, even today fitness apps don’t really cover the social or community side of fitness.

Fast Fact: Richard Bailey (GrpFit co-creator and CEO) inspiration for health/ fitness came from being active in youth sports and competing professionally in dance from ages 8-23.

DDF: What was your next move after your research?

RB: With this information we went back to the drawing board, keeping the same motive but approached it in a different way. While researching we ran into some eye-opening stats in relation to black health. These stats included, 76% of the Black community is obese, 43% suffer from hypertension, death by stroke, heart disease, diabetes, and the list goes on.

We started doing our diligence to find out more solutions for the Black community in health and fitness. To our surprise, there weren’t a lot of solutions from a consumer tech perspective. There were a lot of Black publications, non-profit and public organizations that tackle health/fitness as a separate vertical. The only issue is that they were regional and local in nature, not globally. It was at that point we had an epiphany and decided that we needed to be the first consumer tech product that specifically dedicated Black health and fitness. That’s when we launched GrpFit, which was late 2017.

FYI: GrpFit has workouts varying by length, time, and difficulty and provides workouts that can be performed anywhere.

DDF: Basically, your product is a one of a kind social fitness platform for Black people?

RB: Yes, our goal is to be a one-stop shop. Providing information, inspiration and being the catalyst for change in health and fitness in the black community.

RB: Our goal is to partner with different certified trainers and fitness influencers. We partnered with a few in the past, this time last year we worked with Gym Hooky for a new years resolution fitness campaign. We also worked with 21 Ninety, a Black millennial woman lifestyle brand under Blavity. Travel safe fitness. Periodically we reach out to influencers and certified trainers to partner with content for campaigns or just being a guest blogger. Although we don’t have much content on nutrition, we look to add more content in that area in the future.

DDF: What should first time users expect from the GrpFit app?

RB: We expect first-time users to embrace the community behind health and fitness. Seeing somebody like you, living a similar health and fitness journey is huge. For example, if you are a mother with a huge family that doesn’t have time to work out, you can come to the [GrpFit] app and see other women that fit those criteria. You can see what things they are doing to stay in shape and hopefully get some inspiration. GrpFit is serving as a tool for motivation, information, and inspiration is huge, it’s our biggest goal!

Motivational quotes from the GrpFit Instagram account.

DDF: What advice would you like to give people who want to improve their health and physical activity?

RB: Although its the end of the year, it’s okay to start on your fitness and health goals now before the new year. So sign up and log onto GrpFit to get your journey towards health started.

Fast facts: According to the CDC, The leading causes of death in the African American community are: 43% heart disease related, 41% stroke-related, and 29% cancer-related. Although the numbers are still slightly high they are steadily on the decline. With educational, social and interactive tools like GrpFit, the numbers will decline even more.

Check out the GrpFit app which can be purchased at the Apple store. For the Android users, there are still plans to release the app later but for now, you can check out the GrpFit Instagram and Facebook page for content.