March 27, 2017

Meet Daniel Huck of American Row House in Marietta

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Huck.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I moved from Detroit, MI, to Marietta to attend Life University and pursue my undergraduate degree in Biology and my master’s degree in Sport Health Science.

Throughout my time in school I developed a passion for health, fitness, and for helping people transform their lives when given the right tools and a little guidance.

I first became interested in indoor rowing in 2014. After training at a few different fitness centers, I began to notice how under-utilized the indoor rower was. Because it is low impact and targets over 84% of the muscles in the body, it truly is the safest and efficient piece of workout equipment that exists. But most people don’t know that. And that’s when it hit me that what was missing in Atlanta was a boutique indoor rowing fitness studio that offered small group fitness classes in a fun, yet intense and effective, format.

After I graduated from my master’s program in June, 2015, my wife and I ventured out to find the perfect space for our studio. After months of searching, we found our space in the Marietta Square and opened American Row House on December 1st, 2015. Starting and running our own business has definitely been a journey with its own set of challenges, but it has been an amazing one and we are so thankful to be where we are today.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I don’t think opening your own business is ever a “smooth road”… But that’s part of what makes it such a cool process – the journey and what it takes to get there.

With myself just graduating with my master’s degree and my wife just graduating with her Doctorate of Chiropractic, we were coming out of school with a lot of debt and not financially ready on our own to open a business. It took a LOT of hard work, a lot of connections being made, and about 9 months of proving our concept to get the funding we needed to open our studio.

After we received the funding we needed, new challenges presented themselves… Finding the right space, convincing the owner of that space that we were the right business for the area, negotiating our lease terms, and then setting up our dream studio on a tight budget.

Once our doors were open, our biggest challenge was dealing with the little things that went wrong in those first few months – Because we do heart rate monitoring during our classes, any faulty internet connection or poorly working monitor directly affects our members and their class experience. Figuring out how to deal with those small things smoothly was a challenge in the beginning. However, after the first month, everything began to flow so smoothly and has become a well-oiled machine at this point. It just takes time to get those kinks out when you’re brand new!

I think the best thing we did throughout all of our challenges is stay excited about what we were doing, stay focused, and remember that it will never be perfect. But it can be GREAT.

American Row House – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
American Row House is truly a unique fitness studio. We are best known around Marietta as being the studio that uses indoor water rowers. A lot of our members had never used or even seen a water rower before coming to our studio. While not all of our classes use the rowers the whole time, every one of our classes uses the rower for at least a significant portion of the class.

We specialize in total body fitness. Our signature class is “Total Body Row” and is a class I developed and formatted on my own. It is a 45-minute class that is a total body workout every single time. About 50% of the class is rowing and the other 50% consists of either body weight or dumbbell weighted exercises off the rower. It’s always fast-faced, there’s always music playing, it’s always tough but always fun and most importantly, always effective.

I would say what sets us apart from a lot of other fitness studios is the relationships we have with our members. Because we have a maximum of 12-16 people in our classes, we are able to truly get to know each person that walks through our doors. I think that allows me and our other trainers to really help all of our members push their limits because we actually know them and where they’re each at in their fitness journey.

I am most proud of ARH for not being “just” a fitness studio, but being a place where people can come for true health. We don’t just do fitness – we educate all of our members on the importance of nutrition, supplementation, and emotional and mental strength. We don’t want to just help people get big muscles… We want to help all of our members be better, health, happier people.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I think when most people hear “success” they automatically think of financial success. Which is true, to a point… But I definitely think there’s more to it than that. There are a lot of people who have made a lot of money that I wouldn’t necessarily describe as successful.

Success to me means being great at something. Not just getting lucky and making money, but truly mastering something and being the best at it. I also see success as having an impact on people. When you do those things, the financial part will most likely come along with it as a bonus, but not as your main focus.

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