Saginaw resident Kenyatta Beamon spent his childhood looking up to the superheroes on screen. As an adult, he’s committed to being one. With a bus stop right by his house and a gym along the route, he’s closer than ever to making that dream come true.

“I want to help change the world,” he said. “That’s what I want to do.”

Before he realized that his gym journey could be bigger than himself, he knew that he loved to exercise. He loved it so much that on days his brother couldn’t drive with him, he would walk an hour and a half to make it to the gym. He said he’ll never forget the moment his friend told him about STARS.

“He was like, ‘Why you just don’t take the bus?’ I grew up homeschooled, so I never needed to take the bus. My mom and dad had a car, and we were always going places.”

He discovered there was a stop right on his street that could take him to the gym, giving him the option to get there without devoting half a day to making it happen.

“[The bus] is on a schedule, so it kind of makes me more ‘locked in’ in a way. You may be like, ‘How?’ Well, with my brother, we’re going to be there for however long. But with the bus, I have to time it for the routes.”

As transportation made reaching the gym easier, Beamon began to realize his workouts could become something bigger than personal fitness. They could become an opportunity to encourage others.

“I want to defeat this whole ‘oh, I’m better than you because I can lift more.’ We equal, man. We’re here to work out. So, we’re all winning.”

In March, Beamon launched his personal fitness brand Maxxuline to make a difference in his community.

“[Maxxuline] represents brotherhood in the gym. Especially here in Saginaw, it’s lacking brotherhood. It’s every man for himself. … [Maxxuline represents] a brotherhood of positivity and your max potential.”

Aside from typical fitness content, Beamon is leaning in on fitness challenges to reach his end goal. In a recent video, he challenged another gym-goer to see who could bench more. Beamon went first and lifted the weight 39 times. His competitor did 50.

“As soon as he went past 39 and did 40, I was still counting. I said ‘keep going, man. Come on, come on, you can do more than that. You can do more than that.”

Instead of standing by to watch, Beamon encouraged his opponent to not only beat him, but to keep going to benefit from the exercise.

“It’s like we became best friends after the challenges.”

In the future, he plans to complete fitness challenges at different gyms around the state. For now, they’re focused in Saginaw, and he’s adding it to his fitness regimen that he’s been building since he was eight years old, working out in his garage with his siblings.

“[As a kid] I would go above and beyond. I had a passion for it. [My siblings] did it because dad told us to. I’m doing it because I love it. So even now it comes like it’s first nature to me.”

Beamon once dreamed of being the superheroes he watched as a kid. Today, every ride to the gym brings him one step closer not because of the weights he can lift, but the community he’s working to build.

“My sisters, I protect them and everything, but they tell me about their experiences in the world, and I can never fully understand it because I’m a man, but I can say that I can do my part, and that’s in making men better,” Beamon said. “So, if I can help make a couple men a little better, less angry, less impulsive, less negative, I’ll do it.”

To follow his journey, find Beamon on TikTok under the name @Kenyatta_Da_Goat.