WAUKEE, Iowa  —  This workout looks a lot like a lot of others we’ve tried. Participants rotate through stations made up of various strength and cardio moves, and all of them are hard.

What makes this workout different is the coaches.

Brandyn Ambrosy, Trent Steffes, Jeff Coder and Nick Hargens all have degrees in exercise science or kinesiology. “What we do is all science based,” says Ambrosy, “we use philosophies that are proven to work. That’s the basis of our training.”

The proof is in their clients. Most of these women trained with Brandyn and his partners at another facility and followed them to their new gym, Sisu Strength Academy.

“The sisu,” Brandyn explains, “it’s a Finnish word from the Viking culture. We thought with the beards we all have the Viking was an appropriate logo.”

The word fits their philosophy. Sisu means strength of will, determiniation, perserverance…qualities you need to get through these workouts.

“Tuesday/Thursday are conditioning days,” Brandyn says, “Monday/Wednesday/Friday we do big weights. We bench, deadlift, squat, stuff like that.”

When he says “big” weights, he means *really *big *weights.

“When you elicit big weight on someone you get big results,” Brandyn grins,” it’s making your body adapt to certain stimulus and making sure the stimulus is big enough.”

These guys will make sure it is, and they’ll help you push through the pain.

“Our main tenants are teamwork and camaraderie and every day we work on education as well,” Brandyn explains, “so people come in and do things and know why they’re doing them, so it creates a lifelong habit as opposed to just a couple month change in their life.”

You can learn more about Sisu Strength Academy here:

https://sisustrengthacademy.com/