Mission

Welcome to Risk To Succeed Barbell!

From the very beginning our singular mission has been to create a kind, clean, safe place that supports everyones unique reasons for strength and conditioning.

We take that mission so seriously that in 2021 we set out to build a facility from scratch that could serve you all for decades.

Whether you exercise for health and wellness, or enjoy training powerlifting, olympic lifting, strongman, bodybuilding we are here for you 24/7/365!

Below we share a bit of our journey. We want anyone considering RTS Barbell to know that not only are we not new to Cincinnati, but that we have traveled the long, difficult road spanning over eight years to be able to deliver the quality of experience that our community and visitors have grown to expect from the RTS Barbell name and we make it our daily mission to keep standards high and we are always assessing how we can grow and improve.

We hope to get the opportunity to meet and get to know you and it would be our pleasure to serve you at RTS Barbell!

Thank you so much visiting this site, we hope to see you soon!

Much love,

Kevin and Madison Kist

History

THE IRON MECCA (A.K.A KRIS’S GARAGE)
11/27/2015
RTS Barbell got its start in a small garage in Cheviot, OH owned by OG RTS Member Kris K. When we first started training in the garage, we didn’t have a squat rack, standard barbell, or the stones. The only bars we had were an Elite FTS SSB and Rogue Multi Grip Bar that I saved up for in high school. We were broke so we used wood 4x4s in a bucket with concrete as a squat rack. They weren’t sturdy or safe but we got strong!

THE IRON MECCA (A.K.A KRIS’S GARAGE)
11/22/2016
This picture is from right after we got the Rogue SML-1 squat stand and retired the homemade squat stands. We saved for almost two years to buy that squat stand. It is still used daily in the new facility. I spent A LOT of time figuring out how to fit the little we had in there.

THE IRON MECCA (A.K.A KRIS’S GARAGE)
Move-Out Day: 2/2/2017
Funny Story: Not long after we got the Atlas Stones, we realized that the concrete floor was breaking even though there were layers of mats. I had to remove and replace the concrete on the left side because the original concrete was too weak for the Atlas Stones!

PRE-RTS BARBELL 1.0
Lease Signing: 2/1/2017
This is the original Essex Studios basement space the day I signed the lease. At the time, rent was all of my “extra” money out of my paycheck from my day job, which wasn’t much. I made a lot of sacrifices to get that space. At this stage we used this for personal use, half was our weights and half was screen printing equipment. Before I pursued the gym, I was teaching myself how to screen print. At the moment I took this picture, I didn’t know how things would play out, but only how they COULD. That’s all I needed.

PRE-RTS BARBELL 1.0
6/1/2017
By the time this picture was taken, I had already decided to pursue opening RTS Barbell. I know this because the bottom-right corner no longer has my screen printing equipment, which I had sold. This was taken about a month and a half before the “Grand Opening.” I had already ordered some small equipment items to outfit the gym for the opening. These were very modest beginnings.

RTS BARBELL 1.0
7/15/2017 - Essex Studios #B4 - 600 sq. ft.
This was the gym when we first opened! At this point my “members” were myself, my girlfriend Madison, Kris (of Iron Mecca garage fame), and two friends of mine, Brady and Jerel. This is what really kicked things off to make RTS Barbell what it is today. In the 22 months we were in this space, we had countless people from all over the country stop in for a day pass and had Cincy locals signing up for membership. Many of the originals have moved on, but we still have a handful of OGs that bought into the vision from the start and have been with us through every stage of growth. I appreciate every single person that has ever spent a day or more with us. It means the world!

RTS BARBELL 1.0
8/18/2018
At this point the gym had been open for over a year, and we had added some new equipment and the awesome chalk board wall for everyone’s PRs! It wouldn’t be long after this picture that the tenant in the space next to us moved out, and I rented that space and tore the wall down for some extra room to grow!

RTS BARBELL 1.5
11/15/2018 - Essex Studios #B4/#B3 - 1,000 sq. ft.
As you can see, the wall with the mirrors is gone, and we have successfully added a little more space. This took us from just under 700 sq. ft. to just under 1,000 sq. ft!

PRE-RTS BARBELL 2.0
May 2019
This is a glimpse of what the current 3,300 sq. ft. space looked like when we got the keys. It had eight walls cutting it up into different rooms. I personally did all tear out and construction to turn the space into the open layout we enjoy now. It was a lot of work, but every bit was worth it!

PRE-RTS BARBELL 2.0
May 2019
This is what the space looked like two days after the previous picture. I had dreamed of a space this big for so long that to finally get the chance to make it happen for the RTS Barbell family was surreal. We had to vacate our previous space, so we set up temporarily behind that plastic in the background while I worked on the rest. It took about two weeks to get it ready. Through all of this, we were only ever closed for 5 hours the night we physically moved the equipment. No gains were lost!

RTS BARBELL 2.0
6/18/2019 - Essex Studios #B7 - 3,300 sq. ft.
This is an emotional picture for me. This is a culmination of years of work and being fortunate enough to have people that believed in my vision enough to join the gym with their hard-earned money and trust that I would never take that lightly. Every ounce of work put into this space, every late night and second of sleep lost was to honor my promise that I would make RTS Barbell the very BEST for the RTSBB family. I love every one of you: past, present, and future. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for believing in RTS Barbell!

RTS BARBELL 2.5
5/23/2020 - Essex Studios #B7 - 3,300 sq. ft.
This picture is proof that we made it through the challenging 2-month mandatory shutdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the shutdown, I had put into action plans to transform RTS Barbell into an even better version of itself, and we have reopened better than ever. So many amazing people have contributed to making RTS Barbell amazing, and I am just so thankful and excited to keep growing into the future!