The Business of Health and Fitness
“The spirit comes alive when the body feels alive and strong”
Being in the business of improved quality of life, Outfit Namibia is making its mark on the health, wellness and fitness arena in Namibia for their holistic view on how to live life to the fullest. 99FM’s MYD Smart sat down with entrepreneur and business owner of Outfit Namibia, Rowan Carstens, to find out how their approach to functional training makes business sense.
99FM’s MYD Smart asked :
You are leaders in outdoor fitness in Namibia, why did you choose outdoor fitness?
“Many people are tired of conventional gyms and considering that we in Namibia have 300 days of sunshine a year, we have the perfect environment to train outdoors. Plus, there is something powerful about training outdoors, feeling the sun, the wind and the earth. We in fact encourage our members to kick off their shoes when they arrive at our facilities and feel your connection to the earth. Training is actually a very spiritual practise because it is firstly about connecting with yourself and your body, the benefits of exercise seen in the body are a by-product of training.”
What about exercise and training makes a person come alive?
“The spirit comes alive when the body feels alive and strong. That is the most important reason to keep the body strong. At Outfit Namibia we focus our training on body weight training and functional training, and many people love that in time they find that they are able to do simple things like roly-poly’s that they hadn’t been able to do in years. With time, our members find that the way they walk and their posture changes for the better. When you tap into the power of your body running optimally, that is freeing.”
Can you explain how training is about connecting with yourself?
“Training goes so much deeper than physical movement. I’ve also only found the tip of the ice-berg, but there is so much more to health and strength within your body than simply exercising. For example, you can’t exercise and eat right and have a hoarding mentality as you’ll still be unable to lose weight. At Outfit Namibia, we look at all elements of health within physical training. With this approach we’ve seen incredible transformation stories where people are looking at their health and fitness from a point of view of strength, health, flexibility and attitude. This creates a different spark within a person.”
Tell us about the journey of your business?
“I have always been an entrepreneur but my passion to train others started in 2010 when I was preparing for a World Karate Tournament and doing lots of alternative training methods. After being introduced to new ways of training that is not isolated to the conventional way of training and seeing the results of this type of training, I started doing courses on natural movement techniques to prepare me to start training others in this way and then I spread my wings. I now use many techniques that incorporate a persons own body weight as resistance and recycled products as the props for training. In the past three years we have developed our own successful training techniques and we’ve grown. Three years ago I had four kids and 6 adults that I was training on a field at the Windhoek Show Grounds and I now have 80 regular members, our own premises and we’re looking to expand. Ultimately I want to create a community around movement. ”
Do you have any advice for other Namibian business owners?
“It’s not easy to be an entrepreneur, it’s a long road and it’s not easy to start, but persevere. Be flexible to change what needs to be changed but always stick to your morals because there is more to business than just money. What you do has got to make you happy. Lastly, be careful who you surround yourself with. ”
You can get in touch with Outfit Namibia by taking a look at their website here : Outfit Namibia or taking a look at their Facebook Page here : Outfit Namibia on Facebook
