At 8 a.m. on a recent Saturday, nearly two dozen men, their faces set in expressions of nervous determination, strode onto the floor of the Star arena in Frisco, Texas. The group included software engineers, salesmen, retired police officers and dads in their 40s. As they took their places under the blazing floodlights, the crowd went wild.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich of these gladiators will emerge victorious?\u201d roared Noah Dean, an upbeat M.C. in a cowboy hat.<\/p>\n
The men gripped barbells. At the blast of an air horn, they heaved hundreds of pounds above their heads.<\/p>\n
Welcome to Xenom. Part exercise class, part competition, it is a fitness company that gives its customers a chance to pit themselves against one another in weight lifting, running, gymnastics and other high-intensity workouts. Many of the workouts are drawn from CrossFit, the fitness company founded in California in 2000 that is an official partner of Xenom.<\/p>\n
A Xenom weekend includes 10 events devised to test the participants\u2019 strength (barbell lifts), speed (a three-kilometer run) and agility (handstand push-ups and pull-ups), not to mention the endurance needed to make it through the long days in one piece. The non-committed need not apply.<\/p>\n
But the real purpose of Xenom is to make ordinary workout fiends feel like pros. It\u2019s a kind of fantasy camp that the company founder, Keith Barlow, likened to Disney World. Just as Disney theme parks transport visitors to an ideal of childhood, Xenom offers its customers a chance to imagine themselves as Olympians or gladiators, if only for a couple of days.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about making you feel like a superstar, like the athlete you know you are inside,\u201d Barlow said. \u201cThe only thing that matters here is whether I send these 500 people away from the event feeling like the hero of their own story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barlow said that Xenom had spent more than $1 million to mount the weekend event, its first, at the Star arena. He added that the scale would only expand as Xenom moved on to the other cities, starting with London and Miami later this year.<\/p>\n
On the competition floor, the money was visible in production values that suggested a televised sporting event. Hundreds of staff members, judges and volunteers in matching uniforms marshaled the competitors in and out of position. Large digital displays showed countdowns and running split times.<\/p>\n
The participants could avail themselves of sports massages in a booth opposite the warm-up area. Every piece of equipment, from the gymnastics rig to the plates, bars and dumbbells around the arena, looked new. Nearly every surface had Xenom branding.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor an inaugural event, it was all run very smoothly,\u201d Theo DeHoyos, a member of the armed forces in his 50s who competed this weekend, said on Sunday night. \u201cNot a lot of hiccups or problems. It seemed thought-out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company can afford to go big \u2014 for the time being \u2014 because of the $15 million in capital that Barlow has raised, most of it from WndrCo, the technology investment firm operated by the former Disney chair Jeffrey Katzenberg.<\/p>\n
Barlow\u2019s pitch to Katzenberg was based on a study he had commissioned. It found that an estimated two million people work out in CrossFit\u2019s worldwide network of almost 10,000 gyms, and another two million regularly put themselves through CrossFit-inspired workouts.<\/p>\n
This combined group of four million men and women \u201care desperate for a competition\u201d where they can put their training to the test, Barlow told Katzenberg.<\/p>\n
CrossFit has its own competition \u2014 the CrossFit Games, which first took place nearly 20 years ago. But those are for the top 150 or so athletes from around the world, and the winners take home hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money. Even smaller-scale CrossFit events attract professional-level participants.<\/p>\n
It was Barlow\u2019s contention that everyday workout enthusiasts would welcome the chance to feel like the best of the best. At the first Xenom weekend, an Elite division included Emily Rolfe and Colten Mertens, two CrossFit stars who competed alongside the amateurs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty incredible to be at an event where you\u2019re next to competitive athletes,\u201d Nate Denn, a senior master sergeant in the Air Force in his 40s, said.<\/p>\n