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Her boyfriend placed second in the regular season. Together, the local couple leads the way in a fledging sport.

She’s one of the best female ninjas in the world. 

He’s one of the best men.

When their powers combine, they set world records. 

As an “American Ninja Warrior” super-fan, I wrote at the start of season 17 that I expected big things from Pembroke’s Addy Herman and Fairhaven’s Noah Meunier. 

The couple exceeded my expectations. 

Herman, 20, placed 2nd on NBC’s 2025 “American Ninja Warrior: Women’s Championship,” which aired as a stand-alone special last week. (This despite just recovering from an ankle injury at the time of filming. )

Meanwhile, her boyfriend, Fairhaven electrician Noah Meunier, placed 2nd overall on this season of the NBC reality-competition show. (Despite fighting illness.)

Herman and Meunier lead a tribe of elite New England ninjas who train together at Fall River’s Vitality Obstacle Fitness. 

And they had one helluva year. 

It started some 12 months ago, when Herman won the season 16 “American Ninja Warrior: Women’s Championship” on NBC. Meunier placed third overall that season. 

Then in January, the couple set a Guinness World Record for, Herman says, “The fastest time to complete a ‘mammoth’ obstacle course by a mixed pair.” 

In June, Meunier won the 2025 World Ninja League Championship for elite men; Herman became the elite women’s champ.

“It’s been super cool competing alongside Noah, and it shows how well we train together, too. We’re always pushing each other at the gym. We prioritize each other,” Herman told me in a phone interview from her home this week. I’m catching her before she leaves the house to train in Fall River.

“I want Noah to be the best athlete he can be, and he wants the same thing for me. So it’s cool that we get to train and compete alongside each other in that.”

For the uninitiated, the NBC reality-competition series — co-hosted by Matt Iseman, Akbar Gbaja-Biamila and Zuri Hall —  started in 2009, based on the Japanese show “Sasuke.” Obstacles change with the seasons. (Example here.) While the show has a fun, loose vibe, it’s no “Double Dare.” 

The sport of ninja is a signature house-blend of rock climbing, parkour, gymnastics, a dash of track with an X-Games vibe — and no other sport translates. In past seasons, we’ve seen former pro athletes — including former NFL players, track stars, Olympic gymnasts — fail miserably.  

New Englanders, however, dominate the sport. 

Herman’s race

Ninja is one of the few (only?) sports where men and women compete against each other. 

It’s historically men, and a few women, who advance to the finals. It’s historically men who win the regular season. This past season, Kai Beckstrand, 19 — an EMT from Utah and one of the best to ever ninja— edged out Meunier to win $250K and the trophy. 

For the last five years, the show has held a standalone Women’s Championship special. Last year, Herman won the $50K and the trophy after a nail-biting head-to-head climbing race against teen phenom Taylor Greene. 

This year, it was a rematch.

“Taylor is an incredible athlete. That rematch was crazy, but it must have been a ton of pressure for her, too, because we were in the same position the year before,” Herman says.

This year, roles revered: Greene overtook Herman, after Herman fell during the final race.

“There’s always that pressure when you’re defending the title,” Herman tells me now. “But I’m going to be honest, this season, I really was just grateful to compete.” After suffering an ankle injury last year “I was cleared to compete two days before I flew out to Vegas to film season 17. I didn’t think I’d be cleared. So I was super grateful to be there,” she says.

The Women’s Championship and the regular season film at the same time, Herman says, it was an even stranger coincidence that both she and Meunier placed 2nd on the same day. 

“That was insane,” Herman says with a laugh. 

Ninja enters its athlete era.

Ninja is a relatively new sport, one that may have felt gimmicky at its start. Some competitors wore costumes. Some did tricks before their race. Viewers who didn’t watch the show faithfully may have gleaned a “Wipe Out”-meets-variety show vibe, especially in those early seasons.

In recent years, however, it’s gotten more serious, a growth in the vein of rock climbing or skateboarding evolving from niche hobby-sport into full-on Olympic competition.

Ninja gyms have popped up like mushrooms after a rainstorm all over New England. Sneaker companies are starting to make ninja shoes. Kids today may get into the sport before Kindergarten. Many of today’s top athletes, like Meunier and Herman, grew up watching the NBC show.

It’s been like watching basketball evolve from guys in Chuck Taylors underhand-tossing a leather ball, to the NBA today.

I asked Herman if she feels the same.

“100 percent. It’s cool to see the show combine with ninja leagues for the goal of making ninja a professional sport. We want people to recognize ninja as an actual sport– that’s what all of us are working towards. And it’s looking like we’re getting there.”

The women’s field has strengthened by leaps and bounds. There were days when it was a big deal to see a woman hit a buzzer at the end of a course. Now, they blaze through. 

“The women’s field has gotten so competitive over the last few years, which is amazing to see that growth there,” Herman said.

In this last year, for example, Herman — who coaches at her home-gym in Pembroke — has been invited to coach and speak at ninja clinics around the nation, and was invited to international competitions in Barbados, Germany, Croatia and Italy, she says.

“That’s something I never thought I’d be doing. Also, I’ve recently been getting more sponsorships, so I’m finally getting paid as a professional athlete,” she tells me. 

“I’m trying to pave the way in this sport for other kids coming up, because we train like professional athletes. It’s great to start seeing [ninjas] treated as professional athletes.”

Like a real pro athlete, she has a shoe deal.

“I’m working with Ollo, a shoe company that focuses on parkour and now ninja shoes, to create a signature shoe. I’ve been designing a shoe over the last six months.  I’m getting my first test-pair, hopefully, before Season 18 films. Our goal is to have them ready for people to buy in 2026.”

In the early days, some ninjas competed in street clothes. Even just a few seasons back, every ninja wore New Balances— a trend that changed noticeably this year.

“Everyone started with the New Balance Zante, which aren’t made [for the sport], but ended up just working well. Now, a few brands have realized, ‘This is an actual sport. Athletes need proper gear.’”

New Bedford’s Ninja vet James “The Beast” McGrath, 38, a ninja coach in Plymouth has experienced first-hand the evolution of the sport.

Fifteen years ago, ninja wasn’t about speed — it was just about “not falling,” he told me. Today, ninjas not only fly through the show’s course, but literally race head-to-head for the finals — a new addition this year.

Racing has upped the excitement-level for us viewers.  The old version was like holding the 100-meter hurdles by having each runner go one at a time, even if they walked, then checking who had the fastest time. This new version is a full-on sprint, where each athlete now has two obstacles: the hurdles, and their opponent.

For the athletes, it’s a literal game-changer:

“Racing adds a whole other element of pressure,” Herman told me. “It’s not just you against the course anymore. It’s you against another competitor who is pushing to their max. One of the key things I realized is I really have to focus on me against the course.  I can’t be looking at the other competitor, worried about the other competitor when I’m running.”

“This was not the same competition” as last year, Meunier told me previously. “It’s a whole new competition.”

New England pioneers

New England is pioneering ninja as it grows from infancy.

In the years I’ve been covering this sport, I’ve seen our local athletes only grow stronger in skill and number. 

When I covered Season 15, 17 New Englanders started out. Four made the finals: Meunier, Herman, Jonathan Godbout of Sterling, and Mass General’s own 4-foot-11 Taylor “Teej” Johnson — who  just made the Celtics Dunk team this year. Meunier, then a high school student from Lakeville, was the last New Englander standing. 

In Season 16, 18 New Englanders started the season, with Meunier placing third — once again, the top local. 

This past summer, for  Season 17, 18 New Englanders started out. Six New Englanders and two New England natives made it to the finale, including  Boston Celtics Dunk Team member Matt D’Amico of Billerica. 

Side note: Meunier, the top local, also had a perfect record for never falling on an obstacle on the show. Ever. He completed 129 in a row and fell on obstacle 130 — “Falling Shelves” in the finale.

What makes New England— specifically Massachusetts—  so good?

The sheer amount of ninja gyms in the state, ninjas tell me.

If you watch the show, you know many ninjas train on homemade gyms, homemade obstacles, or start a gym of their own. Meanwhile, a quick Google search shows nearly two dozen pro ninja gyms in Massachusetts alone.

Herman and Meunier are among the pack  of New England ninjas who train and/or coach at Vitality Obstacle Fitness in Fall River, which has emerged as an elite ninja hot-spot. Many ninjas I’ve interviewed praise Coach Jordan Thurston. 

“Jordan is the best,” Meunier told me previously. “Ever since COVID hit, we’ve had a flood of elite talent at Vitality. People…ended up sticking with it after they learned how good Jordan’s coaching was. He’s leading us every step of the way.”

While the it’s an individual sport, the New Englanders have become a close-knit crew.

“The New England ninjas, I feel like we’re all one team,” Herman tells me. “We compete together, train together, cheer each other on. So it’s such an amazing and strong community here.”

Massachusetts, specifically, dominates because “we have so many different gyms where you can train, but we’re not rivals,” Herman said. The troop meets up at various gyms throughout the week, from Randlph to Kingston. “Each of us is good at different things, bad at different things. When we come together, it pushes everyone.”

Meunier said that camaraderie helped him in the finale. “I had a big squad supporting me and that meant the world.”

McGrath, 38, a ninja coach in Plymouth, told me at the start of this season that training in Fall River “with a group of young people at the pinnacle of the sport  — seeing what they’re doing — [got me] prepared for this new season.”

As I mentioned, during season 17 filming last fall, neither Meunier and Herman were at full capacity: Herman was recovering from her ankle injury, while Meunier was sick.

I’m excited to see what this duo can do when healthy. 

Season 18 films this fall in Vegas – we’ll watch next year. It will debut a “brand new round featuring a supersized three-lane racecourse,” per NBC. Three Ninjas will face off head-to-head-to-head. 

And after coming so close to tasting victory, both Herman and Meunier are hungry for a big win.

“I feel better than I ever had athletically,” Herman tells me. “Getting second place is the most motivating place — you’re so close. You just have to keep training even harder. Last season, Noah and I each got second. Season 18, we both want first.” 

Lauren Daley can be reached at [email protected]. She tweets @laurendaley1, and Instagram at @laurendaley1. Read more stories on Facebook here.

Lauren Daley

Lauren Daley is a longtime culture journalist. As a regular contributor to Boston.com, she interviews A-list musicians, actors, authors and other major artists.

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