ROMWOD Embarks Upon New Era With Pliability Rebrand

ROMWOD (Range of Motion Workout of the Day) has been a mainstay in the CrossFit space since 2015. Now the company is about to embark upon a new era as it rebrands to pliability.

The details: Effective September 7, the ROMWOD app will change to the pliability app as the company prepares to provide even more paths to its users. The company will still remain part of the CrossFit community, but there will be new options for athletes from golf, baseball, swimming, and other sports. 

• The rebrand is nothing new. Managing director and founder of pliability Scott Perkins explained that the company has worked on this process for multiple years while examining the user base. 
  
• They noticed that there are people that focus on other sports instead of just CrossFit. Changing to the pliability name and incorporating other paths only helps welcome more potential users that want to focus on mobility and breathwork. 
  
• This customer base actually includes Perkins, who first became a ROMWOD user after helping the company grow. He was not an athletic person, but he took steps after a visit to the doctor revealed he had a resting heart rate of 114. 
  

Users that sign up for the app will have a variety of benefits. This includes a seven-day welcome series, mobility assessment, guided daily videos, paths for targeted maintenance, warm-ups and cool-downs, customizable music selections, breathwork, and upcoming sports-specific sessions.

The cost: The pliability app is available to download now on iOS, Android, and any web browser. The flat rate is $13.95 per month, which includes a seven-day free trial for all users. Subscribers have access to videos that they can watch on-demand or download for offline viewing later. 

The rebranding process involved some heavy market testing and talking to athletes from other backgrounds. Some examples included weightlifters and people involved in a variety of martial arts disciplines. Though pliability also focused on masters athletes and how the training paths have benefited them over the years. 

Perkins: “We’ve been so heavy in the CrossFit market for so many years, we’d effectively like to take this to the world and to take this to other sports. ROMWOD is a very CrossFit-heavy name and while we will always be based in CrossFit, will always be based in training – and pliability will retain that – we had a hard time going outside of the CrossFit market with that name.” 

• “So the name changes strictly to be able to take the product that we built, that we know works within the CrossFit training community, and take it out to the broader market and multiple sports.”
  
• “We really, really want the CrossFit community to understand it’s an evolution. We are still… CrossFit is home, like where we were built. We’ll make sure that comes across.”
  

Adding to the roster: Prior to the rebrand, pliability inked deals with some of the top athletes in CrossFit. This list included Tia-Clair Toomey, Noah Ohlsen, Alec Smith, Patrick Vellner, Laura

Horvath, and Kara Saunders. Now there is another athlete that will join the fold, four-time European Golfer of the Year Lee Westwood. 

Signing Westwood is a step forward for pliability. The company has the goal of educating customers about breathwork and mobility, regardless of their athletic background, and there are significant differences between competitive CrossFit and golf.

Cody Mooney, director of performance: “CrossFit is unique in what we’re doing the gym is the same that you do when you perform out on the field or whatever it is. Well, in most sports, what you do in the gym is completely different than what you do. So it’s been a really cool kind of transition because I think we had a wonderful foundation for the broad spectrum of sports, but we’ve been able to start bringing in a little bit more tailored movements.” 

• “If you’re saying golf, you need a little bit more rotation. But a lot of golfers still squat or still deadlift. They still do a lot of things to get power out of their legs with the swing, but a golfer would need a little bit more rotational movements and rotational mobility than maybe a CrossFitter might or maybe a weightlifter might.”

Branching paths: The focus on education and overall mobility will continue with the rebrand to pliability. However, the app will soon have branching paths for runners, golfers, and many other athletes. They will be able 

• “Going forward, we’re obviously going to keep the things that everyone loves, because we love it as well,” Mooney said. “And we’re going to evolve that product as well. So you’ll still have this daily routine where you can get your foundation for mobility.”
  
• “But going forward for the people that are like, ‘well, maybe I’m a golfer, I’m having a little bit of pain in my swing, or I’m a runner, and I’m experiencing like some calf or Achilles pain,’ we’re really trying to evolve that side of the product where you can kind of tailor yourself down from a sport to a body part.”
  

Another important trend continues: While ROMWOD has changed to pliability as part of some continued changes, there will be one important tradition that continues. The company will continue to contribute to charitable organizations after previously supporting CrossFit Krypton’s Compete for a Cure which benefits St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Keala Foundation. 

• “It’s critical to kind of our business ethos to build a great product and build a great business – and we believe that product affects people’s lives – but giving back to the community that literally built our company,” Perkins added. 
  

Pliability will continue to branch out and support charitable foundations as the company moves into different athletic spaces. There aren’t any specific ones on the list just yet, but Perkins and the company will allow these relationships to develop organically.