Excerpts from the DailyHerald.com:

Fellow firefighters like to razz Brandon Mears and Dan Polizzi about being contestants on “American Ninja Warrior.”

“Only every single day, seven days a week,” said Mears, a Streamwood firefighter and finalist on the obstacle course challenge show. They’ll always say “Hey, ninja!” rather than call them by name.

But no one can joke about what fierce physical shape these two men are in. They’re nicknamed “Towers of Power” for good reason: at 6’6″ and 180 pounds, Mears is a cobra-shaped man with a 32-inch waist and lean muscle. Polizzi, an Aurora firefighter, is 6’2″ of solid muscle.

Mears went on to the next level, but Polizzi suffered a finger slip on the rings that knocked him out of the competition — a moment that both tortures and motivates him.

They train together practicing the obstacles that look easy on TV but are extremely difficult. They can jump onto beams with their fingertips, run up and climb over a curved wall, and smoothly swing their bodies around on rings, bars and ropes.

Mears and Polizzi are among five men from the gym to qualify for the show’s regional competition this year — an impressive feat, given that only 600 people are chosen from the original 50,000 who submit videos. The others who made it were Mike “The Stallion” Silenzi of Antioch, Tavares “The Neon Ninja” Chambliss of Wheeling and Ethan Swanson of Chicago.

Of that group, only Mears remains in the running.

The Towers of Power work out six days a week, two to four hours a day, and stick to a disciplined diet.  The hardest part of training, they say, is avoiding injuries. While working out last week, Mears was struggling with elbow pain and Polizzi had a jammed finger, making training even harder.

Both became fans of the show as teens, watching the early Japanese version on the now-defunct G4 network. Mears remembers being 18 years old, sitting on the couch with no job and no direction. His sister asked him what he was going to do with his life, and he said, “I’ll be a ninja warrior.” He bought a pullup bar, and an obsession began. It transformed the shy, unathletic, uninvolved kid — who weighed 130 pounds when he graduated from Willowbrook High School — into a confident, strong, goal-oriented man.

Polizzi, on the other hand, was a multisport athlete and had a knack for climbing and adventure. They both became firefighters, inspired, in part, by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. However, their paths didn’t cross until they met at an ANW competition in Baltimore. They’ve been friends and training partners ever since.

“We both love adrenaline. You have to, to be a firefighter,” Polizzi said. “But we’re just normal guys.”

thanks Dan

Tags: American Ninja Warrior, Brandon Mears, Dan Polizzi