Original subtitles

You know, most people would see strength as something that's a physical or

quantifiable number.

Oh, you could squat 400 pounds or deadlift double body weight or do 10

-ups.

But strength is so much more in -depth than that.

Physical strength is what I used to kind of hang my hat on.

But I've noticed that's only one very small chunk of the puzzle.

I'm looking to develop physical strength, mental strength, emotional

Especially as you get older and you realize that life isn't always what it

cracked up to be.

Social strength.

How can you influence positively those around you?

While not being influenced by the negative stuff and are getting down on

yourself And spiritual strengths as I

get older more and more I realize how much more important that was than

strength ever was

Soarin' X was started in 1980 by my dad, Richard Soarin'. Very humble

beginnings. It was in a carport, and we eventually moved to a garage.

The idea was to build weightlifting equipment that was...

stronger, more versatile, and safer than anything we'd seen in the market.

He was a teacher at the time and a coach and just thought that, hey, I can make

things better for my school that he was working in, and then local schools

started purchasing from him. So he would do that, run a weightlifting club, get

off work in time, drive downtown to Owen Steel, strap pieces of steel on top of

the Land Cruiser, drive back home, lift weights.

That was when he would train, and then he would build equipment all night.

I'm going to eat dinner at some point, wake up, and retrepeat.

I mean, I just remember Pops being tired and dirty and stressed.

It was always that. And it was always a passion project. It was always like an

artist. An artist has to paint, whether he sells them or not. And so Pops had to

design things.

All right, so this is Pops' office.

It's inside the head of a genius.

A lot of his stuff, he was always tinkering, playing around with stuff.

He was an introvert in a lot of ways, but extroverted. Things around him were

just what was in his heart, what was in his mind, and what he pulled inspiration

from.

One of his things that probably explains who he was and how he saw the world

more than just about anything is something I heard him say thousands of

look at something not for what it is but what it can be.

That was the whole ethos of everything.

That was his message the whole time. That was what Sorenex was built on. That

was what the social outreach was. That was what mentorship was.

That was everything. That gives you a whole different view of life because

you see exploration. You see potential. You see possibility.

And nothing is closed off at that point.

He taught me a whole lot of stuff, but that's something I literally use every

single day.

But a lot of times, you know, most of my life here was spent sitting on that

couch, having meetings with him every week or sometimes every other day.

And, yeah, I miss sitting here with him.

We figure out a lot of stuff in here.

One thing he asked, he said he didn't want anyone messing with his office for

least a year after he dies.

So, well, joke's on him. We're never going to mess with it.

It's an ancient text.

The purpose in a young man's heart is like deep water.

But an insightful man will help that young man draw it out.

Like, that's what coaches do.

You dig for deep water with picks and shovels. That's an old Wild West phrase,

man, of when something's really difficult, we're going to build the

across the United States, whatever.

This is a pick and shovel job.

This is going to be really difficult.

And so you dig for deep water with picks and shovels, but you dig on people with

patience and kindness.

Patience is in the form of teaching them how to suffer.

And when you can give someone the gift of a reference point of what you used to

think was hard and now this is hard, and a reference point of I used to think

this was scary and I avoided it, and now I don't, you can do anything you want.

We talk about it all the time. What would you do if you weren't afraid to

struggle?

That was the whole idea behind this concept to struggle well.

So ultimately, that's the good.

Know yourself.

I started July 1, 1999, officially.

But I came on just to help Pops. I wanted to alleviate pressure for him. I

him pouring his heart and soul into the business, and I was committed to helping

him. And then when I got in, and every day that it gets in your blood, then you

realize that there's the science of strength and conditioning, but there's

art of creating.

strength equipment.

And they go hand in hand.

I believe we create strength art.

Sorenex is creating the tools for you to create an experience.

You're at base camp and there's an outpost and you go into the general

you say, I got an idea, but I'm going to need these things. And they say, okay,

let's make it.

That's what Sorenex does.

They're so successful because people feel that when they walk into that

store.

The expectation of how we're going to go about our business, what the gear is

going to be, the quality of the gear, how we're going to service our

how we're going to do that is very well instilled from Richard through Bert to

us.

Who is Bert?

First off, Bert is my friend.

He's a mentor to me. The love and the care that he has for the people around

is wildly deep.

But he's a guy that, like, you meet him today, you meet him tomorrow.

He's the same person every single time.

I mean, I would not be the man I am today without him.

That's facts.

Sometimes you've got to put the mask on yourself first, but then make sure

you're sharing that oxygen, making sure everybody's good.

We do live in a rural area, which was very intentional. I wanted the kids to

able to be outside.

You know, Leslie's a farm girl, so the same thing.

And I want them to learn from the outdoors just about as much as they do

book. So whether that's what a sound a bobwhite quail makes, what deer sign

looks like, and just, again, going back to being attentive to what's out there

and being little explorers in this world.

All of my kids are extremely interested in it, but I'd say Kodiak is probably

the one that would gladly take off his shoes and be outside for the rest of his

life if he was able.

Sometimes I just come out here and listen to all those birds.

What bird do you hear right now?

That is a cuckoo.

Can you make that sound?

No. Ooh, that's pretty good.

Can you make a chicken sound?

You got any new ones?

Bob White.

Okay, let's hear Bob White.

How about an owl?

You go.

Pretty good.

When I was a kid, Pops always saw more, and so he was a good coach and he was a

good teacher, so he was able to mold me in many ways.

and build confidence.

I think he did that exceptionally well.

There's so many people around the community that come to me and tell me

constantly, wow, your dad coached me or taught me that I could be something, and

I had a broken back, and he taught me how to lift weights and do this and

and I was able to walk again.

There's so many things that I hear from so many people. I realize that he was

just pouring into people's lives constantly.

And then I tried to model my life after that because I saw the effects that it

had.

I remember one time you said that you knew why you were here.

You said loveness.

What's loveness?

Loveness means loving people.

Yeah.

It's a good reason to be here, huh?

Mm -hmm.

I think you do it very well.

At Sorenx, we generally try to hire champions, and that means people that

and people that want to win.

On each of my jugs, I just write Mr.

USA as a reminder.

It's not only the title, but what you got to do to obtain it. You got to earn

it.

Ain't nobody giving nothing out.

Are you going to win it?

Win it?

Everybody likes to win, but it's a lot better when you go and you dominate.

That's what we're going to do, man. Every single day is lined up to do that.

So the only thing that falls on us is the effort and the execution.

And that's really all you can control anyway is your effort day in and day

Physically cultured is one of our taglines at Soar Next. It's a holistic

approach to being cultured to the strenuous life, as we call it.

It's kind of a myriad approach of not taking the easy road, doing hard enough

things.

where capability grows, then you can make a better life for yourself. But

without that, performance continues to drop if you're not living that strenuous

lifestyle.

It's a choice to choose to struggle because every day you have a choice.

Do I get out of bed on time? Do I hit snooze, right?

If you choose to come into that weight room and you choose to put in that

effort, you're making hard choices that a lot of people don't make.

And over time, if you consistently make those choices and you do the right

thing, your life will improve and you will go on that path.

Still warm up?

I've been training grip for probably over 10 years, and I got into it because

Pops. He introduced me into grip, didn't really realize I had a strong grip. I

mean, coming from a background of powerlifting, played football, strong

And I realized, like, I excel at grip string stuff.

So of this museum we have here, you know, it's kind of remembrance of Pops.

I could remember when he was alive, he was in that office and he'd hear me out

here. He'd always come out, stand at that door.

And he kind of gets me fired up a little bit and just, like, tells me, come on.

And he's just this subtle nudge, just a little bit. And then all of a sudden you

can do some great things.

I mean.

I get filled with a lot of emotions, so you have to forgive me if I tear up.

If I had to define strength, I would say it would be the ability to identify

what it is that you want, and once you have that, being able to then chart

the path it takes to get there and ultimately staying on that path

regardless of what detours.

may present themselves or come up so

this thing here is the rolling thunder two and a half inch handle i know

it's two plus something on here right now not really gauging that ultimately i

want to try to hit the world record but we got some work to do so we're going to

get to laying some bricks

Here lately, strength has been coming in different ways.

Strength of mind, strength of body, faith, and just

mental fortitude.

Pushing through adversities that you don't normally would do.

You may run into adversities and have problems or make mistakes.

But one, having the strength, mental fortitude to try to reel it back in,

the ship if something's incorrect.

We're human enough to correct any mistakes that we've ever made and

strength to keep going and make everything right.

That's how you train for a world record right there.

So the most I've done is 4 ,000, 120, and 12 hours.

So that's the PR right there.

I failed tremendously. I was trying to do 8 ,000 toward my bicep, my left

You can see it, that little hole in there.

So Summer Strong is an event that we've had for 18 years now. Every single year

I've worked here, I've done something crazy on that Summer Strong. So the

year was a pull -up record.

I've worked here three years. Second year was I ran a marathon from my house

work. I lived like 22 miles away, did a few miles around the track, ran to work,

then I worked all day. So this year is going to be 2 ,000 pull -ups and 35

miles.

So every year it's going to get more and more and more and more.

Summer Strong started 18 years ago as my dad's birthday party. I said, what do

you want to do for your birthday? He said, invite a bunch of people over.

have food, drinks, and lift weights and just enjoy each other's company.

And what we learned really quickly was, oh, all these people are different, but

they're all the same and they're the same heart and the same mindset.

Like he stayed up till 11 or 12 one night watching everyone.

just struggle hard and he watched his grandson and granddaughter like trying

hard things and like i remember him so happy and just watching it just being a

part of it and although he wasn't the guy lifting the weights anymore or

struggling he was getting to still feel the energy of everyone trying really

really hard to again put those data points above their expectation level

i

I can't thank you enough, really, from my heart, that you think enough of us to

come and be part of the brotherhood.

I grew up as an only child, and it was a difficult thing. And as part of that, I

became kind of creative mechanically, which led me into the business of

weight equipment.

But always my dream was to have a brother or sister.

And now, look how many I have now.

I thank you for that.

It's been a mighty good ride for 40 years.

You all better get up and do some damn deadlifts in a bit.

You know, he always used to say, he used to say, when you're gone, all you leave

with is respect and memories.

And so he was like, while I'm here, I want to earn my respect. And then when

gone, I want to have memories, people remembering what you did for them or

remembering how you changed their trajectory of life.

And you can lean into people and take their well -being equal

or higher than your own.

And you could realize the value of leaving the world better than you found

And I think that's what Pops did.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Highest expression of pursuit is racing towards people and finding an endeavor

that draws you closer to other human beings in the human experience and makes

them proud of what they found out about themselves along the way.

That's the American dream.

We're building in America because I'm proud of America, and I'm proud of who

America has been and who America can be.

There's a lot of parts of our business that people say you can't do. You can't

have a large -scale custom business. It doesn't make sense.

We've shown you can have a really large custom business built in America with

American workers. You can.

I believe it's best for the country. I believe it's best for my family.

play a part in the revitalization of American manufacturing.

I want it to inspire other brands and other companies to do as much as they

in America, to see the opportunity we have as Americans.

How much can they push the envelope and create something incredible in this

country? And I think if they do that and they go after that their entire life,

then regardless of where they land will be worth it.

And it's a life to be proud of.