"Every journey begins with a single step."
Fitness for men who want to live healthier and age with distinction.
BODIKAERU
Fitness for men over 50 who want to live healthier and age with distinction.
Pronounced [“Body • Ky • Rew”] and translates from Japanese to English as, "Frog Body".
The Frog (Kaeru) symbolizes “The Return”, the journey of return of good things in life. Health (mind, body and spirit), wealth, and good fortune. Frogs embody the spirit of the samurai, representing tenacity in the face of all challenges.
Deliver high-quality fitness and health solutions blending science, innovation, and integrity.
Smart and professional insights from Thomas Yannitte & Bodi+Kaeru. With over 40 + years of fitness, nutrition, biomechanics, engineering, product design & fitness industry experience, Thomas hacks everything from exercise to nutrition, work to leisure, home life to travel, psychology to kinesiology, gyms to personal training, everyday living to sport specific enhancement coaching and post rehab fitness training.
Real world, quality, health and fitness advice that works at your unique stage of life and with your demanding lifestyle.
Get healthy, build personal confidence, become stronger, feel better, live longer, become more efficient, minimize and manage pain, and learn how to be more proficient in your daily life.
Are you looking for real world, quality, health and fitness advice that works at your unique stage of life and with your demanding lifestyle?
Are trainers and other health professionals half your age, or more than half your age, just NOT “getting it”, just NOT “getting you”?
Stop comparing yourself to others and start becoming the best you that YOU can be right NOW!
Welcome to BODIKAERU. Get ready to feel great and look great. Say goodbye to that “Dad Bod” (or Grandpa Bod). Get healthy, build personal confidence, become stronger, feel better, live longer, become more efficient, minimize, and manage pain, and learn how to be more proficient in your daily life.
For many of you, your future is already here. If so, then wait no longer.
Let me equip you with the tools for life-long health and fitness success. Make every-day count.
Bio
So, who is Thomas Yannitte and Bodikaeru?
Thomas Yannitte is a master fitness trainer, biomechanics specialist, engineer, fitness product designer, and I has coached, taught, trained, inspired, and helped thousands of people just like you for over 40 years. But that’s not even the beginning. His roots in fitness began in grammar school, way back in 1976 as a X-Country runner and then as an 11-year-old wrestler in 1977. By education and trade, he's an engineer and product designer specializing in, among other fields, fitness, ergonomics, and biomechanics. He graduated from Syracuse University in 1990, where I engineered and designed an exercise machine, for his 5th year thesis project. He's had many fitness patents, as well as many fitness patents pending.
1984/85
At the age of 16, he became a personal trainer, and placed 1st and 2nd place in two weight categories in the first ever National Nautilus Championships.
Bit of trivia: Nautilus machines were invented by a genius named Arthur Jones in the 1960’s and 1970’s. He created perhaps the greatest paradigm shift in fitness to date. Thomas was taught to be a personal trainer by his first instructor/teacher, who was taught by Arthur Jones and his protégé.
1985
1986
1989
Yannitte was both a college wrestler 1984-1986, (also junior national team) and a college Gymnast 1986-1988 (Ring specialist at Syracuse University), and has studied and practiced combat and mixed martial arts since 1991. He is currently an MMA Combat Black Belt who has had the privilege to have trained with and been taught by some of the worlds’ best. His friend and teacher (Sensei), for over 33 years, Black Belt Hall of Famer Alex Wilkie. MMA Clinics with Chuck Liddell, UFC Light Heavy Weight Champion. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, UFC Light Heavy Weight Champion, and Vladimir Vasiliev, Former Russian Special Forces (Spetsnaz) Member & Instructor to name a few.
- Check out some of these great pics. The pics of Thomas and his life long friend and Sensei Alex Wilkie (Alex Wilkies MMA), are of course his favorites. :)
1991-2025
But wait. There’s more… You’ll also get a set of Ginsu Knives! (If you are over 50 you get this joke). Keep reading.
United States Marine Corps Aviation Officers Candidate, (perfect 300 fitness score). Took both 1st and 2nd place in the 2013 Navy SEAL Challenge at age 47 (Not bad right?!) and participated in the 2013 Iditarod Race in Alaska as part of Iditarod Productions film crew (action editor/shooter). very cool, but very, very cold!
1992
2013
2013
A bit more...
His experience also includes fitness instruction and nutritional coaching at many, many, many leading fitness centers, and training studios including the State University of New York Medical School, and the New York State University Hospital in Syracuse, New York. And of course, he's had many Personal Training Certifications over his 40 years of experience as a personal trainer/fitness expert. Fed up with the low bar set by nationally accredited personal training certifications, he created his own professional master trainer certification in 2008, where he taught and certified his own master trainers at his state of the art fitness facility in Princeton, New Jersey.
Thomas has owned 3 gyms, which he designed, built, and managed.
“Phrog Personal Training & Fitness Studio™”, in Princeton, New Jersey, a nearly 10,000 square foot state of the art and incredibly aesthetic training studio.
“The Trainers Annex Trainers Studio”, in Princeton New Jersey, a gym for trainers and their clients.
“Princeton Post Rehabilitation Fitness Training”, also in Princeton, New Jersey, in conjunction with Princeton Orthopedic Surgical Associates.
2007
But he wanted to do more. He started consulting to existing gyms, and designs and develops both commercial and residential gyms.
Some clients include Gold’s Gym, Retro Fitness, Powerhouse Gym, Orange Theory, Crunch Fitness, New York PT, UDR Properties NYC, many privately owned commercial gyms, and residential home gyms as well.
Wow! Hang in there. Still more. Very exciting!
Beyond the gym, he was the Director of Operations & Marketing for Ripzone™ U.S.A. Sports, and the Interim Director of Marketing for Etonic™ Athletic Footwear. He was also a footwear designer for many leading athletic footwear brands like Etonic, Brooks, K-Swiss, Avia, Pony, US Athletics, Wolverine and others.
He was a featured columnist in “Exercise for Men Only” and “Stay Fit” magazines (AKA Professor T. Pump).
In addition, Yannitte is a fitness/business consultant and was a senior associate and analyst at CoreFit Consulting (Gym brokers and fitness industry consultants). He is a master trainer, personal fitness coach, nutrition coach, creator & author of the fitness and nutrition book, "Innermatrix, Owner’s Manual" 1997-2003, and creator/writer/director/editor, and producer of the Innermatrix™ fitness videos, (1997-2003).
Thomas was a member of The American Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (A.A.H.P.E.R.D.), The American Association of Health Education (A.A.H.E) and the American Association for Active Lifestyles and Fitness (A.A.A.L.F.).
He also worked with Ben Shear, (Ben Shear Golf) in 2022 and 2023, where he specialized in both Golf & Tennis performance training coaching.
Since 1984, Professional Fitness Sponsors have included many great companies:
Etonic™ Athletic, Brooks™ Footwear, Nautilus™, Bolle™, Ripzone™ Sports USA, Kinetic Sports™, Orion™ Sports, CoreFit to name a few.
1997-2001
1997-2003
AND… AND… In the words of one of his best friends and action martial arts hall of famer, “Fitness/martial arts has destroyed my body. It’s kept me young, but it’s destroyed my body”.
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"At 58, I can relate to that. Can you?
I’ve had some horrific injuries over the years, not to mention all of the many typical ailments that come with natural aging.
Have you seen that comedian who talks about getting injured just by sleeping?
“I just turned 45. Just had my birthday. (Audience claps). Yeah. I’ve reached the age where you go to bed perfectly healthy and wake up needing knee surgery. (Audience laughs).” Haha. So true!
Can you relate to that?
So, here’s the deal, and this is what I’ve told thousands of clients over the age of 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and older. This is what I taught the trainers who worked for me over the years.
Don’t do what I did. Eat and train smarter than I did, so you can have a healthy, happy, productive, and active life well into your future.
OK. So, you might be saying to yourself, “This guy really knows fitness, and has been in the field a long time, but he can’t relate to me. He doesn’t know about the 9-5 grind. He doesn’t know about the pressures of work deadlines, and over time, and working weekends, and commuting, and raising kids, and trying to eat healthy on the road or at the office. It must come easy for him. He lives in that world. He's probably naturally thin and loves to exercise.
Well, here’s the thing. I DO get you, and I CAN relate to YOU! I’ve lived that life as well for many years. Up at 4:30am to catch a train into the city every morning for years. Home at 9pm or 10pm. Deadlines. Working weekends. Working holidays. Business trips. Raising my daughter. Trying to eat right and get a workout in however I could. I know it. I lived it. I get you! And no! I don't always like or want to exercise, and I stay thin through purposeful, thoughtful effort and planning.
For many of you, your future is already here. If so, then wait no longer.
BODI-KAERU has been developed over a lifetime. My lifetime. If you are a man over 40-ish and up, let me give you the tools you need for life-long health and fitness. Make every-day count.
Start today!
Thank you,
Thomas