Member Highlight: Surya Medepalli

Surya Medepalli, hailing from the wondrous botanical metropolis of Cleveland Ohio has lived in Philly for the past 11 years and has been with Fearless Athletics for 8 of them. THAT’S RIGHT, EIGHT YEARS! He joined back when Wil had hair! (At least on the sides of his head)

Surya came to us via a referral he received from a friend in grad school back in 2012 who wouldn’t stop going on about his workouts, which honestly sounds out of character for our group. He started with our 6 am on-ramp class and was hooked soon after. He recalls that he was just looking for something to do, and didn’t realize a gym could be such a great place for a sense of community, so he stayed and has dabbled in everything we have to offer, from intensity, to functional fitness, to Olympic lifting!

He is currently in our mentor program helping teach our functional fitness classes in the evenings, and takes pride in helping those both new to our programming in need of larger corrections and senior members who need quick reminders on form from time to time. We have greatly enjoyed having Surya as a member and have felt even more elated to see him grow as a mentor since he joined mentorship training back in July.

Outside of the gym, Surya’s career has taken him across the country, from working at a brewery in California, to Vanguard here in Philly, to Blue Cross (also in the city), and now he will be starting his next chapter in New Jersey as a cyber security analyst for FiServ in the coming weeks. Yes, sadly Surya will be leaving us early in this new year, and while he may no longer be in your nightly functional fitness classes here on 11th st, he will be in our hearts as we wish him the best of luck on his new adventure!