Everyone’s an athlete: Interview with Kader1

After our eye-wateringly exhausting functional workout with Kader1, we caught up with co-founder Daniel and our trainer Robinson to find out more about their awesome concept…  

USC: What is Kader1?

Robinson: It’s obviously the best gym in Cologne [laughs]. Our philosophy is that we offer the purest form of sport. We maximise your performance, reduce your risk of injury and encourage team work.

The gym is open every day from 6:30am to 10pm during weekdays and 9:30am to 8 pm on weekends so members can train by themselves and we have lots of classes for members of all levels. For example we have a foundation course for basic movements like deadlifts, squat or overhead press.

The focus of this course is to learn the movements, so that you are confident to incorporate them into your training sessions.  

USC: What is ESD1 and what other classes do you offer?

Robinson: The ESD1 class you just attended is for beginners. The technical difficulty of the movements isn’t as high as our ESD2 class, where we also do Olympic lifting and lots of other barbell work. We also have a performance class for advanced athletes and a functional bodybuilding classes.

We host the Kader1 Gainz Challenge which runs for 8 weeks. Here we train groups of 10 people twice a week on muscle building. Every person has a trainer who’ll teach them everything from fitness to nutrition advice so after the challenge is over they have the knowledge to continue their programme. To us everyone’s an athlete.  

USC: What is The Hyrox Challenge and how are you linked to it?

Robinson: The Hyrox Challenge is a premium fitness competition for everybody – not just elite athletes. We’ve partnered with Hyrox to help prepare our members for their competitions so they get the best results. Our classes include the exercises that will be demanded from them – so we’ll get you as fit as possible for the challenge.  

USC: What are the benefits of this kind of training?

Danijel: It all depends on what your goal is. Our classes focus on strength and endurance training. A lot of these exercises will strengthen your core and make you resilient to injury. We aim to teach our athletes the foundations of the movements so they’re confident to workout by themselves.  

USC: Who started Kader1?

Danijel: Lucas and I used to work together at Neptunbad and opened Kader1 in May this year. We wanted to do what we love and build a business around functional fitness. So we had a vision for this place and we found a strong investor. It took 2.5 years to find this venue but eventually it all came together!  

USC: Have you had any moments since you’ve opened the gym that have made you really proud?

Robinson: The success we’ve had with The Gainz Challenge has made us really proud. We finished our first one recently and had really positive feedback from our members. A lot of people came here for the first time to train and found a strong community and had a lot of fun while training.

We even had a party after the competition finished which was awesome. It’s great to see our members make progress and enjoy themselves. We’re already beginning plans for the second one.  

USC: What’s your key health and fitness advice?

Robinson: Do what you love, keep moving. And make sure you learn the correct technique so you can feel confident when you train.

Daniel: Find what you like and go for it. And show up every day and give it your best.  

For all their latest news and events, follow Kader1 on Facebook.

USC has plenty of functional fitness partners across Germany, Italy and France. Take a look at our site to see what’s on in your area.  

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