Riki Bryan, owner of NYC’s private physical culture club Hard Boiled Holistic, is a fitness lover who hates the gym, a trainer who won’t tell you what to do, and a city dweller most at home in the great outdoors. Growing up a sporty kid in Texas, Riki was occupied with football, soccer, supercross, breakdancing and boxing until his sophomore year of high school when a growing passion for music and dwindling interest in any form of authority, least of all small-town Texas football coaches, led him away from the field and organized fitness. It was only after gaining 70 pounds in his early-20s that Riki reassessed everything from diet and sleep to mental health and fitness. The weight came off, but the life-changing emotional benefits of regular exercise took root. “I knew being active made me a happier person, but I realized the purity of exercise as a form of medicine,” he says. “So many problems can be solved with a focus on sleep, diet and exercise—it really is that fucking simple.”

With a broad fitness goal to be youthful and spry into old age, Riki started an apprenticeship with Greg Rameriz of Gun Club fame (the cult Brooklyn fitness club Rameriz started in his living room in 2013) and worked with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world champion Steve Maxwell before eventually taking over Gun Club and launching Hard Boiled in 2015. “Bodies crave a physical response to life stress and that’s what Hard Boiled is all about,” he says. Located in a small studio in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard area, the 55-minute classes focus on mobility (Riki’s 40 “morning moves” taught at intro classes each Saturday), corrective work, and an intense circuit that changes daily. Work is based on time not reps, so class members control how hard they train and choose to push themselves. But Riki’s thoughts on self-discipline are clear: “Bust your ass in the morning and everything that day will be better.” And while exercise is often used as a release, Riki highlights its ability to bring laser focus—especially for creatives. “Discipline breeds creativity. Sometimes you just have to show up and work your craft, so when you do have the good idea, your skills are sharp to execute it,” he explains.

What’s next? As well as work as a musician and creative director for Fellow Barber, Riki’s long-term vision for Hard Boiled is as a lifestyle rehab. It’s never exercise for exercise’s sake. He explains: “If you have a consistent training practice, you are fit. If you can achieve sustained output or work at 80% of your full potential for 15 minutes, you are fit. You don’t need to attach metrics—I prefer the goal of being able to outrun your kids until they reach high school.”