When you first meet Sarah Schoback, a mom who recently competed on the hit NBC TV show, American Ninja Warrior (ANW), and who owns Edina gym, Obstacle Academy (OA), you instantly notice her bright smile. She’s sweet, bubbly and displays a zest for life.
But it wasn’t always this way.
Schoback—a.k.a “Ninja of the North” because she “defends the North,” just like her beloved Vikings—has had her share of challenges. After Schoback’s daughters were born (Adeline, now 3 and Briella, 5), she suffered from postpartum depression (PPD).
When she talks about this part of her life, she gets emotional. Her eyes well with tears as she says, “The PPD hit hard. I lost myself and felt really lonely.”
It took time, but Schoback would realize she needed something she could do—something to help her reclaim her identity—that was just hers.
Schoback had seen ANW on television and decided she wanted to train—not necessarily to compete on the show, but because it looked like a fun way to work out and get that lost part of herself back.
“I was inspired by all the athletes doing something that was challenging and out of the norm,” Schoback says. She mentioned this to her husband, and he found her an obstacle course gym outside the metro and signed her up for a class. She enjoyed it so much he built her obstacles at home: hanging rings, a broken bridge and a peg board. Schoback knew immediately this would be “her thing.”
“Having children changes your life and body,” she says. “You see this person you don’t recognize. You don’t see your strength or beauty. You just see your scars.”
Training helped Schoback appreciate herself again. “I started to realize that my stretch marks and C-section scars are beautiful because they represent me bringing two amazing lives into this world.”
You may think Schoback, who made it to the final round of ANW in Kansas City, has always been a fierce athlete. Not so. “My level of fitness was average; I biked and ran. When I first started training, I could maybe do one pull-up.”
This is something Schoback really wants people to understand: If you work hard and push yourself past what you think your limits are, you will succeed.
When she can’tget to the gym, Schoback does what she calls “full-day workouts” and encourages other busy moms with young kids at home to do the same. “You don’t have to find just one large chunk of time to get a workout in,” she says. “Instead, do little circuits throughout the day.”
For instance, Schoback installed a pull-up bar in her hallway. Whenever she passes it, she does a pull-up and then marks a tally on a board. Her goal is to complete 50 pull-ups in a day. If she doesn’t get to 50, Schoback doesn’t get down on herself; she just tries again the next day.
Though she may seem superhuman, Schoback admits to having trouble multitasking her life just like the rest of us. “I take it one day a time,” she says. “But my general rule of thumb is that my family always comes first.”
Schoback, the first mom and second female to own her own ninja gym, opened OA in June 2016. Located in Edina, OA is the largest ninja warrior and Obstacle Course Race (OCR) gym in Minnesota.
“There wasn’t anything like it close to the Twin Cities,” Schoback says. “I love the community that’s built around being a ninja warrior, and wanted to create that here and offer people a unique way to work out.”
She says she has “stories for days” about people who have come to OA and grown so much physically and emotionally. One such story that touched her deeply involves her best friend.
“She’d been coming to classes and doing great,” says Schoback. “Then she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. We have a 15-foot warp wall at the gym, and she just couldn’t get it. I knew how badly she wanted to master it, so the day before her surgery I brought her in to work on it. She finally got it! We both started crying, as she said, ‘I don’t want to let go!’ When she came down she was on cloud nine.”
This is why Schoback is so passionate about OA. It’s more than fitness. It’s about community, and a group of people supporting, inspiring and gaining strength from each other.
That’s what people love about the TV show too.
It’s metaphorical. You’re getting over obstacles in a physical sense, but it’s preparing you for other types of obstacles you need to get over in your life.
According to Schoback, anyone can work out at OA. No matter your fitness level, the trainers will help you set and achieve your goals. Bonus: There’s a whole community of other “ninja warriors” there to encourage you. There are several class offerings, such as family classes challenging kids and parents; competitive youth programs in which teens try out for teams; WARCOUR Fitness classes (obstacle-based high intensity circuits); and obstacle course race training. In addition, OA offers open gym times for adults and youth (ages 5+), as well as birthday parties for kids.
When it came to the TV show, Schoback wasn’t interested initially in trying out for ANW, but friends kept encouraging her. So she decided to go for it. She submitted her application … and didn’t make it. That was two seasons ago in 2015. True to her nature, Schoback refused to let failure knock her down. She tried again and succeeded.
“The producers usually call a friend or family member first because they want that person to record your reaction when they call you. I knew this and was in a meeting with my husband. His phone rang, and I saw the 818-area code and knew right away it was about the show.”
What she didn’t know at the time is that 70,000 people apply for the show and only about 800 make it. Of those 800 people, only 40–50 get any television airtime per episode.
According to Schoback, contestants learn what the obstacles will be only a few days before filming. Everyone always wants to know what the balance obstacle will be because it’s unpredictable and takes out the most athletes. “Ours was called Broken Pipes,” Schoback says. “They tested it for two days because people kept falling, and none of the women testers could get across it. But they couldn’t make it much easier.”
Contestants arrive around 6 p.m., and filming takes place from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. They aren’t told in advance what time their turn will be, and athletes are literally running the course all through the night and into the morning.
“When they called me up, my heart was racing,” she says. “But then I got up there, and everything shut off. I just looked at the course and all I thought about was what was ahead of me. You blank on what you did on the previous obstacle, because you are so focused on getting to the next one.” If you don’t know, Schoback performed incredibly on ANW. In her qualifying round, she was the top female finisher. Her performance earned her a spot in the Kansas City finals, where she fell on the Crank It Up obstacle and lost by three-tenths of a second to close friend, Sarah Heesen (also from Minnesota).
What many viewers may not have realized is that, for the finals, the weather turned terrible. “The first 15 competitors were able to film … and then it rained,” Schoback says. “The rest of us had to wait another day, but during that time the temperature dropped about 25 degrees and the course was cold and wet.”
Schoback had to wear tons of layers to stay warm and says though the crew did their best to dry the course, many of the obstacles were still wet. She’s not sure if this played a role in her performance, but it certainly didn’t help. “You can see me breathing warm air into my hands,” she says. “It was hard to keep my grip.”
Despite everything, Schoback’s still pleased with how she performed. “I missed going to the national finals in Las Vegas by three-tenths of a second. It’s one of the hardest ways to go, but it was a lose-lose situation because Sarah [Heesen] is a friend.”
Though on the show it was portrayed as though Schoback knew she was competing directly against Heesen for that spot to Las Vegas, she didn’t. When they finally did tell her after her performance it had come down to her and Heesen, she was in shock.
“Either you win and knock your friend out, or vice versa. Either way, you don’t really win,” says Schoback. “When I found out she was going, I was sincerely excited for her; she worked hard and deserved to go.”
Schoback says her biggest takeaway from being on ANW is the importance of recognizing the crew’s hard work. “I spent a lot of time getting to know the crew, and something that the athletes can forget is that this process would not happen without them. We get wrapped up in ourselves and being on the show, and forget that it’s only possible because of the crew doing things that are unrecognized. But we all need each other. We’re a community.”
Very fitting, as at OA too, the goal is creating a community that respects and encourages each other, builds physical and emotional strength and resilience, and creates a sense of warmth and belonging.
Schoback is truly inspiring. In overcoming her own challenging obstacle, she was able to reconstruct her sense of strength, courage and identity. And now this Edina ninja warrior is passionate about helping others do the same.
