Rapper, Gunna is one of the artists covering this month’s ‘Music & Muscles’ edition of Men’s Health!
THE FIRST THING Gunna wanted wasn’t muscle or endurance. It was discipline. The 33-year-old rapper, born Sergio Kitchens, started working out for the same reason millions of people do: Life was loud, and his mind needed a safe and quiet place to settle.
Four years ago, his world was in chaos due to legal issues related to a racketeering conspiracy charge that ended in an Alford plea (in which you plead guilty but maintain your innocence). He began running, which he found allowed him to build focus. The more regularly he ran, the more he realized he was also building discipline in other areas of his life. He used to always arrive late to meetings; now he was getting to them early.
The rapper hosted his inaugural Wunna Run 5K club in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in September 2025. Since then, he has led runs on the streets of Toronto, Washington, D.C., Miami, Atlanta, London, Johannesburg, Houston, and Los Angeles, with thousands of fans lacing up and joining in. (Under Armour took note and is now an official sponsor.)
The overwhelming majority of runners at Gunna’s 5Ks are Black folks, who, as a community in America, have faced structural and cultural barriers when it comes to adopting fitness as a form of health care. “We were not taught fitness like that,” Gunna says, explaining that fitness in the Black community has been gatekept by athletics. “You got to be, like, that one who really didn’t go and hang out with the other friends. You stayed in the backyard and played basketball. You kept going to practice, to the football field. It wasn’t for everybody.”
The Gamutt Blog 