Scott Herman

Hunky Scott Herman worked it out on the 21st season of MTV's Real World. Living with eight strangers (one of them gay and one transgender) taught him some life lessons. Here's what he had to teach us…

WCT: (Windy City Times) Hi, Scott. How did you become a part of the Real World?

SH: (Scott Herman) The Real World was actually a fluke. I worked at a gym for a very long time and became a trainer when I was 18. I was training someone who told me for six months that I needed to make a Real World audition video. I hate that show. I thought those kids are just drunks and I don't drink. They are very disrespectful, they have no morals, they have no values and I don't want to be associated with all that trash, so I don't want to do it.

WCT: So why didn't you give up?

SH: My client kept badgering me so finally I made a tape and I mailed it in. I kind of forgot that I did it because I got an e-mail four months later stating that I made it to round two. I decided to keep going as a way to promote my fitness business. This was my chance to get out of my shell and the small community I lived in.

I then had to fill out a questionnaire package which took about 10 hours to it; I filled it in with great detail, everything about me was in there, and they ask you questions about everything. My favorite question asked what were my three wishes. My first wish was to have superpowers, the second wish was to be rich and the third wish was to set the genie free from Aladdin.

WCT: Are you big into comic books?

SH: Yes I am; I still have them all. I still have every single superhero action figure like all my Ninja Turtles, my X-Men, and I have a lot of them still in boxes.

WCT: What is your favorite?

SH: When I was a kid my favorite was Wolverine, because as a kid I was more aggressive. Now that I'm older it's more diplomatic so I kind of relate to Captain America or Superman, who was also a favorite when I was a kid. A lot of people didn't really think I was kind of into stuff like that.

WCT: I don't think you talked about it on the show.

SH: They didn't show a lot of things I did on the show because I wasn't transgender nor was I going into the army, which is fine because the show covers those topics. I feel like the world is getting to know me more now after because I'm doing my own thing. I was at Captain America Comic-Con and I used my own costume in New York. Stan Lee actually signed my shield, and I must have taken 5,000 photos at the end of those three days. Every one was coming up to me and saying I looked awesome.

WCT: What are you currently promoting?

SH: We are promoting a thing with Andrea Metcalf, she has a lot to do with Oprah's blog, and she does a lot of fitness stuff. We are doing a thing called Naked Fitness. I have a whole routine that you can just use your pillow. I have two ab pillow workouts online each has 60,000 hits.

WCT: Where can people go to that?

SH: They go to YouTube.com forward-slash Scott Hermann Fitness. I have a lot of good YouTube stuff, and I'm global with my YouTube. I sold T-shirts at 20 different countries. I ship them myself, every T-shirt comes with an autograph photo, it has my signature, I put their name and write a thank you on a nice letter. The letter basically says thank you and I would appreciate it if you take a photo of yourself with the shirt on and sent the photo to my personal email. I have sold over 400 T-shirts within these past four to five months, which is a lot since I'm not much of a T-shirt guy. On my Facebook page, I just hit 35,000 people on my community and I have over 110 photos of different people wearing their shirts. I put their first name, with the state and city they live on as well as their country.

WCT: You have a website?

SH: It's scotthermanfitness.com and the new face will be re-launching. The new face will be more interactive. This site right now already has it but the way the site is set up you might not exactly know what it is unless you join the site and check it. I have a body diagram and what I've been doing is synching my site with YouTube.

WCT: Well, that's handy.

SH: Let's say you don't know anything about working out and you want to work out this muscle but you don't know what it is called. You might say it's a bicep, some people don't know where a bicep is; on my site there's a body diagram, an anatomy guy who is split in half.

Half is the front and the other half is the back, so you roll your mouse over the major muscle group, and if you click on the bicep, all my bicep workout videos pop out. Even if you don't know what that muscle is, you can click on it and all the exercises pop up and even if you don't know what the exercises are it doesn't matter. Once you click on it there's video that link to my videos and with it there [are] write ups on what it does. The way the new site is being designed, when you click on it there's a beginner, intermediate and advance so you can figure out what level you are. There's also a meal plan system on there that shows you exactly how to eat to reach your goal for your body.

WCT: Do you want to have a DVD?

SH: The reason why I am doing what I am doing is because a lot of people can't afford a trainer, they can't afford fitness. I probably will have a DVD eventually, since a lot of people have been asking for me to do something like that, or even combine a bunch of videos and putting together. That's why I have my iPhone app. There are a lot of people who won't even start fitness because if they join the gym they won't be able to utilize the machines. That's why I filmed in my gym after hours when it's close so I can demonstrate how to use every single machine. So you can go online if you have your iphone or if you want to look at it on your computer before you head to the gym. You don't need a trainer if you can't afford one.

WCT: Do you still talk to anybody from your cast?

SH: I talk to Katelynn probably once a month, just because she's doing her thing and I'm doing my thing. I talk to Chet at least five to six times a week. Sarah and Ryan are both doing well. JD is living in LA. I talk to Baya and Katelynn like maybe once every couple of months just to catch up on some stuff.

WCT: Well, thanks for the work out tips!

Interview written by Jerry Nunn for Windy City Times

For more on Scott Herman visit scotthermanfitness.com or read his fitness blog on ChicagoPride.com and the GoPride.com Network.