Competitive sports have produced some of the greatest athletes of all time — Mia Hamm, Muhammed Ali, Ronda Rousey, Michael Jordan, Billie Jean King, Tim Duncan, Shaun White, just to name a few — that anyone and everyone, no matter what age, inspires to be. With the Olympics coming up this year, I thought I would introduce you to a new kind of athlete: an American Ninja Warrior. I’ll be introducing you to many ninjas actually, but let’s talk about what American Ninja Warrior is.

For the past eight years, American Ninja Warrior has existed on numerous cable channels with well over 1,000 applicants each year. What is American Ninja Warrior you may ask? Well, it’s a form of obstacle course racing, also known as OCR for short, that challenges each athlete to overcome each obstacle using their physical strength — grip, upper body, core, etc. — and their mental strength in order to advance to the next round. You have a city qualifying round, a city finals round and then the national finals of the competition. Each city qualifying round advances the Top 30 competitors that have completed the course or have reached the farthest the fastest to the city finals. In the city finals, only the Top 15 competitors advance to the national finals, which is also known as Mt. Midoriyama.

You may be asking yourself right now: What’s the point?

Inspired by the Japanese competition Sasuke, American Ninja Warrior strives every athlete to achieve “Total Victory.” This can be done by completing every city round and all four stages of Mt. Midoriyama. So far, two American Ninja Warriors have been able to achieve “Total Victory.”

American Ninja Warrior is part of the numerous sporting events that are televised, however American Ninja Warrior is more of a “you have to see it to believe it” kind of sport because it continuously evolves with new obstacles, new challenges, amazing competitors, history-in-the-making moments and one of the greatest, most supportive communities they call a family.

What you don’t see on the show, you will get to read it here as I interview numerous ninjas on their process through auditioning for American Ninja Warrior, their training regimen, their daily schedule, tips on how to achieve “Total Victory” off the course, and allow you to be in their shoes to see what NBC doesn’t show.

Throughout the series, we will be putting ourselves into the shoes of a ninja warrior. From some of the greatest ninjas of all time to inspired hopefuls, I will be giving you the chance to know what ninjas do when they aren’t being televised by NBC and how you can follow into their footsteps and becoming an American Ninja Warrior.

Make sure to watch "American Ninja Warrior" on Monday, July 25 on NBC at 8/7c. This week, you will not want to miss as the ninjas take on the latest addition of the obstacle course: Circuit Board.