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Steve Colter
Steve Colter trains to compete on American Ninja Warrior at the Homewood Community Center. The episode featuring his competition will air June 15. Photo by Madoline Markham.
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Steve Colter
Steve Colter trains to compete on American Ninja Warrior at the Homewood Community Center. The episode featuring his competition will air June 15. Photo by Madoline Markham.
Update June 14: The American Ninja Warrior episode featuring Colter's competition on Orlando will air June 22 at 7 p.m. on NBC. It was originally scheduled for June 15.
Steve Colter can count on one hand the number of days in the past two years he has skipped workouts. He knew that come May, he would face a bridge collapsing under him, find himself climbing in between two walls to move forward about 7 feet and up another 5, and get a running start to climb a 15-foot warped wall.
Colter put his training to the test as a contestant on American Ninja Warrior in May. The show, which originated in Japan, sends contestants on an extreme obstacle course that requires extreme upper body strength like that used for rock climbing and parkour.
“What’s neat about it is that it’s fun to do,” he said. “Every day you have a challenge. No one has ever beat the course, so there’s always a challenge.”
Compared to CrossFit, Colter said Ninja Warrior obstacles require less endurance, more balance and more grip strength. In fact, this year his primary training focus — besides avoiding injury — was improving his grip, working to develop strength in his fingertips like climbers do.
Colter has always been active and played soccer until he was 42, but when he started training for American Ninja Warrior, he started training differently, working to get his body as slim as possible. At 6-foot-1, he’s taller than the average contestant’s 5-foot-10-inch height, adding an extra element of challenge for him on some obstacles. At 51, he is also older than most contestants. Since he started training, his waist has dropped 3 inches to the size he was his senior year of high school.
Usually Colter does full-body workouts on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday at Homewood Central Park, the Homewood Community Center, his house near the Homewood Public Library or a special training gym in Atlanta owned by a three-year contestant on the show. He mountain bikes at Red Mountain Park or does another form of cardio on the other days.
It all began four years ago when Colter’s wife, Robin, and daughter, Camille, started watching American Ninja Warrior on TV. He eventually started joining them for every episode.
“You can do that,” his family encouraged. And soon he found he could. Last year he traveled to Dallas and walked onto the show.
“It was one of the most grueling things I have ever done,” he said. “I was running at 2 a.m. after I had gotten up at 5 a.m. the previous morning.”
But still, he said he remained calm the whole time. He said he was so focused that he didn’t even hear people cheering in the grandstands nearby.
This year he submitted a three-minute video showing his workouts and made the cut to compete in Orlando. More than 50,000 applicants submitted videos to compete for this season, and 100-130 were selected for each of five regions.
Colter competed on May 10, but he can’t say how he did until the episode airs June 15.
“It’s like Fight Club,” Colter said. “You can’t say what happened until the season airs.”
If he finished in the top 30, he also competed May 11. The top 15 from the area will go to Las Vegas for the next round with a more strenuous course. Colter can’t say whether he will make the TV footage.
“You have to do extremely well or extremely bad to make it on TV,” he said. “If you land on your face, they are going to show that.”
Colter is the only contestant from Alabama this year as far as he knows, but he said the community of contestants is strong, both through a Facebook page and in person.
“If you are involved and are trying, they adopt you with open arms,” he said. “You are not competing against them, you are competing against the clock.”
Colter and the other Orlando area contestants are scheduled to air Monday, June 12. You can watch the show Mondays at 7 p.m. on NBC. This season began May 25.