Earn Your Stripes: Where Every Rank Is Earned

At Earn Your Stripes, the name is the method. Rank, recognition and progress do not come with a membership: they have to be earned in the room, session by session.

This is the principle behind the military-inspired boutique fitness brand, which operates studios in Lakeland, Florida; Oceanport, New Jersey; and Baldwin Park, Florida, with more locations already in development.

EYS uses Uptivo to bring together two needs at the center of its model: delivering the same programming at every location, and measuring the progress of very different members fairly. Uptivo Workouts, UPPs, levels, challenges and a branded app all become part of the same journey.

One method, at every location

The EYS experience is built on three formats. FIT is a fast-paced four-station circuit combining power, strength, endurance and functional training. COMBAT alternates explosive boxing combinations, strength and skill-focused floor work. CORE focuses on stability, balance and functional movement, building the foundation that supports the other two programs.

As a brand grows, though, the challenge is not only to create strong programming. It is to make sure the programming stays the same wherever it is delivered.

As Brian Davis, Founder and COO of Earn Your Stripes, explains, a session in Lakeland and the same session in Oceanport have to be the same session. Otherwise the brand risks becoming little more than a logo placed on different gyms.

With Uptivo Workouts, EYS writes its programming centrally and prepares it in advance. Each session is organized into blocks that define movements, work intervals, rest periods and station rotations. The structure of the workout is set before members even walk into the room.

During the class, the command center screens show exercises, demonstration videos, timers and intervals alongside live heart rate and training zones. Members can follow the session clearly, and trainers no longer spend much of their time managing the clock, calling transitions or explaining the next movement over and over.

Instead, they can focus on what really matters: correcting technique, adjusting effort based on heart rate, and noticing who is holding back.

The coach's role shifts from delivering the session to coaching the person in it.

At the same time, Uptivo Workouts removes the drift that can make programming change from one location to another, or from one trainer to the next. As Brian puts it, programming used to make it through different coaches almost on hope; now the session exists as a single file, with the same blocks, the same order and the intended intensities.

The differences between two rooms come down to coaching quality, not to what someone decided to change that morning.

According to Brian, this consistency is what gave EYS the confidence to open more locations.

Measuring what each member actually produced

The second need went to the very heart of Earn Your Stripes: progression.

Effort in a group class is easy to see and much harder to measure. Two people can complete the same workout and appear to have done the same work while producing completely different levels of effort.

With Uptivo, performance is translated into Uptivo Performance Points, or UPPs. This lets people of different ages, fitness levels and athletic backgrounds progress within the same system.

A 52-year-old member returning to training and a 26-year-old former athlete cannot compete fairly on watts alone. Through UPPs they can, because the score weighs effort against each person's own capacity rather than looking at absolute output alone. This is the foundation on which EYS has built one progression system for very different people.

Twenty levels. Almost four years. One rank to earn.

Using UPPs as its foundation, EYS created a twenty-level system whose names reflect the brand's own language rather than generic fitness tiers.

Progression deliberately slows toward the higher ranks. Reaching the top level takes almost four years of consistent training. That is precisely the point: a rank that required no effort would hold no value.

The main competition is not with the person training beside you, but with yourself. What matters is whether today's session has moved the member closer to the next level. Those who want direct competition can still find it within the community; those who would be put off by a traditional leaderboard can focus on their own journey.

Monthly challenges sit alongside the levels and offer a more immediate goal. A challenge can be completed within thirty days, and the badge earned appears straight away on the member's profile. The badge shows that the member turned up and focused on a specific goal that month. The rank, by contrast, stands for consistency built over years.

Two different timeframes, one purpose: giving members a reason to train even on the days they do not feel like it.

The session ends. The progress remains.

In the branded EYS app, what happens during the workout carries on beyond the session itself.

Each member can review the UPPs earned, time spent in each training zone, calories, comparisons with previous sessions and the distance still to go to the next level. The workout stops being just a feeling and becomes personal proof of what was achieved.

For Earn Your Stripes, where this journey is presented matters as well. Results live inside an app that carries the EYS identity, not that of an outside provider. Programming, training, performance and progression stay part of the same experience.

EYS is also developing EYS On-Demand as a separate product for training outside the studio, with the aim of extending the same programming between in-person sessions.

One brand, recognizable as it grows

At Earn Your Stripes, Uptivo connects every part of the experience: the session is created once and delivered with the same structure at every location; the coach can focus on the person; each member sees effort turn into points, levels and progress; and all of it stays accessible through the EYS app.

The method remains EYS. Uptivo lets it stay recognizable as the brand grows, while making each member's journey visible: workout after workout, level after level, rank after rank.

Talk to us about running one method across every studio.