Transcript:
As far as like introduction goes, I was saying like, okay, if there’s really three purposes that we’ve talked about with this, like, why are we even doing this? One would be giving like deeper context into like who we are and how we do things. Two would be giving people insight into the stories that are here, right. Like some of that includes like the coaches, but also like the clients that we see and all the crazy things.
That is honestly, most of it’s just outside the norm of, you know, your classic gym and then three, just giving valuable information, right, like deeper conversations that sometimes we don’t actually get into in the moment of training. But oftentimes we have in the back, you know, in the behind the scenes piece of working with people and they’re asking for it.
You just have to find a way to deliver it. And this could be one of those avenues so. Well, and that’s a cool thing too, is like sometimes we do have those conversations one on one with a client because it comes up and they’re like, dang, we really should share this with this client and this client and this guy and this client.
Like, I had conversations this morning with Tomlinson on peptides, cortisol, you know, all kinds of stuff. It’s like I’m like, that’s like five different podcasts right there like that. Repeat that conversation with also other people that we can go back and forth on the information. I’ve always thought we should be miking up our coaches. And that could get us for content just from.
Passive conversations. Not even like purposeful dialog of like okay, let’s sit down and talk about peptides. Yeah. Let’s sit down and talk about that. Yeah. Like it’s just organic conversations on the floor. And they’re just saying, hey, like I saw this on Instagram. What are your thoughts on that? And then bam, yeah, all of that material right there.
Yeah. Yeah. So I want to know from my side of things,
Going from coach coach, trainer, nutritionist. What made you make the jump? That’s funny because actually a lot of people, even a lot of our coaches, don’t even know my nutrition background. Right. Okay. So the question again, so like how or why why did you make. Yeah. Okay. So if we go back far enough. Right. I got my undergrad and Kenny’s in kinesiology and I knew pretty quickly I’m like, I need to have the nutrition side.
Right. So when I was applying for grad school out here in California, I was looking for specifically, I need a school that has nutrition and kinesiology together. There were two of them, Long Beach and San Diego State. San Diego State was impacted. So I went with Long Beach, and I was already working with people at that time.
And I knew that, like, there’s so much more that has to be involved on the nutrition side. Of course, most people know that too, right? They know, like if you’re just working out and you have like serious goals, there has to be some involvement in the nutrition side. And, you know, my experience in the early days of working with people is you’re general information out there is.
So at the very least it’s confusing, right? There’s a completely opposing thoughts on what’s right and what’s not. And you can put them into practice and you’re not getting where you want. So obviously there’s something missing. So that was my like first I was like, okay, I know I want the nutrition side and we can have a whole conversation about the direction of nutrition.
I went, that transition from training people to say, running a business. Honestly, it was just necessity, right? Like, which actually we weren’t we weren’t even really talking that much at that time when I started going to people’s houses right now, I was out of state. Yeah. Fully involved in the military at that point. Yeah. So I had I had gone on my own and I was just going to people’s houses.
And if you’re including travel and working with people, I could literally only work with like nine people at a time. And it became one of those where I had gotten pretty good at building, a following and a demand. It’s like, okay, I only have nine spots here. Like there’s a lot more people. So now what? And it was finding someone else that I could trust with the type of people that I was working with, like when I was going to people’s homes, it was mostly special populations.
It wasn’t mostly like the weight loss thing. And then I had learned along the way, actually, even working in other places in the past, most of us get in this to work with people, right? We get into this because we like fitness, we like health, we like working out, but we don’t get taught any of the business stuff.
Yeah, and there’s a lot of great trainers out there that don’t have clients because they don’t know how to communicate and acquire people and show them that they can help them. That part I was good at. So I was like, okay, I know you can do this, I can do that. Let’s keep repeating that cycle.
So you went from working for someone jump to, okay, I can do this on my own. What? What did that from that point of making that decision, how did Progressive Health Pro at the time become Progressive Health Pro? That’s another one. Actually. I remember we did this a couple of years back where we did like, hey what’s up history know like who actually knew?
So yeah, originally I had incorporated the company as Progressive Health Pro because it was just single operator. Right. And I knew I wanted it to be not Eric Cruz fitness. So it wasn’t dependent on me. And I had that angle because it I was doing a lot more nutrition coaching at that time. I rarely did just the fitness side with people.
So it was inverted. Yeah, it was nutrition plus fitness. Oh yeah. And I was doing all kinds of like testing and stuff like that with people. And that was really where, like the unique side, the unique selling proposition was like, well, why me? Because we’re going to look deep into what’s going on with your metabolism through and your gut health with all kinds of testing and that kind of stuff, you know?
And and when you jumped on, I think we were still progressive health pro, right. Yeah. Do you want to incorporate it. Yeah, I don’t want yeah. There was like I would say a good six months to a year where we were like, this brand just doesn’t really fit who we are now. Right. And that was when we made that jump to progressive health and performance, which is heavier, of course, on the fitness side, but still involves some of it.
And honestly, some of that was just, I had to make the decision that it’s not in the business best interests for me to continue coaching people in nutrition because of how time intensive it is. And at some point there’s a cap and we can’t duplicate it unless we find someone else that has that same background. So that took you from concept to operational online.
No, not even online. You were just not really. There was a hot minute where I was doing like online stuff, but only because people would randomly find me. Okay, so then how did brick and mortar start? Do you actually know the story? I don’t think so. Okay, so Doctor Chris, Doctor Bowman at trailhead, we had Matt. I want to say like 2014.
At that time, we were both working for someone else and just kind of kept in touch. We were more or less trading services. I was training him and getting and he was adjusting me, and I was going to people’s houses already. And then he had gotten to the point where he’s like, hey, I’m, you know, starting my own practice.
I was like, cool, sounds good. Good job man. And he found this spot and came to me. He said, hey, I got like a 500 square foot room in the back. There’s nothing I can do with it. Like it doesn’t. It doesn’t make sense now. Like, you know what? Yeah, that will work. I make it not the ideal scenario to open up a gym that’s essentially a speakeasy in the back of a chiropractic office.
Start somewhere. But, dude, like, I, I couldn’t even get a loan at that time, at least with the resources that I knew. Chris, actually, they funded the construction that we did in there, and I paid him back like we didn’t have anything. So that was February of 2018 when we opened over there with a I think it’s technically like 380ft² of gym space.
And then we rented out one of his offices for consultations. Yeah, I still remember client show up 6 a.m. where they’re at 530. We put half the equipment outside mats, so half the clients are outside, half the clients are inside. Not saying it’s 20 clients in that space, but let’s say three and three. Yeah. Felt like 20.
We got we were training 50 people a week, right. We had 50, like recurring members, people that were coming in 2 to 3 times a week on average in a in less than 400ft² of space. Not bad. And we like Emerson. I used to joke about this a lot. Like, dude, we can make this work. Anything. If you add any bells and whistles like, okay, we must be doing something right.
Like if people are coming in referring people. Yeah, basically, because that was most of that was word of mouth at that time too. So small space mobile to somewhat of a brick and mortar running from Doctor Chris. The clients that you were getting. Hey, you’re training me. Can you train my son or. Hey, can you’re training me? Can my husband come?
That’s how it started. Fill in that room. Yeah. And then what was the trigger from that point to do? Expansion one into this suite over here. I mean, honestly, most of us just space, right? Like, we knew it was uncomfortable training three people at a time in there. Or getting a bar out and taking half the room.
Yeah. Well that’s right, because even the squat rack folded in and out of the wall at that time, and we didn’t even know who we were. It was just like, oh yeah, we we have a lot of skills, we have a lot of knowledge. And we can help you with this and this and this. But we actually at that time didn’t even know, like, who we were built for, you know, so like from a business plan standpoint, it didn’t exist.
And I’ve actually told quite a few people, like, if we hadn’t actually known what we were getting ourselves into, we probably wouldn’t have done any of this like it would. It would have looked like too big of an obstacle. Well, because fitness isn’t it’s not the easiest industry. Yeah, it’s very saturated around here. Gyms popping up, especially certain places around here that you can just pay rent and train anyone and not have any of the other constraints that you have as renting space.
Having employees. Yeah. And doing it the right way. Not necessarily just 1099 everyone. So and that’s like a another whole conversation that I had learned after, you know, working at a couple other places like learning like, oh man, there’s actually a lot of like legal stuff that we should probably do this, let’s do this the right way and make sure that we’re not, you know, playing in the gray.
And yeah, that makes it harder from like a business and operational standpoint. But to do it the right way, that also serves the careers of coaches. Right, that are here like it was the only way to do it was us to be truly a team. So first room for myself, you two other coaches, one admin. Pretty simple operation, right?
Yeah. We didn’t have anything digital. We had paper formats. We all knew how to program. We all degreed. No CRM, right? Yeah, nothing like that. So it’s just like text your own calendar, figure it out. Yeah. And then first expansion, we jumped from that footprint. Yeah. How much space did was that. So we had it on like 1600 square feet, which technically 500 of that was like a like lobby or walking in area and then three offices.
So we really actually in the added like about 1000ft, just that back. Yeah. And then a walking workout. Yeah. In our own door. Yeah. Like that’s a front door. Yeah. And technically we had a spot that you could put a sign but it’s and it was under the eave. Yeah. Like okay. And then at that point we were having clients quickly being word of mouth and still weren’t nowhere in the systems that we are today.
Yeah. So we still have word of mouth clients or leads coming in. We didn’t have enough coaches. That’s when we started getting into the intern game. Plus, not necessarily our name being out there, but we were getting some inquiries about trainers and coaches looking for a place that’s not a big box gym. That’s not CrossFit. Yeah, that’s not boot camp or class style.
I know on my end kind of filtering through those, it was interesting seeing that everyone had a degree. Yeah. But then zero experience. Yeah. And that’s kind of where we lived or like okay, let’s take a blank slate and let’s try and build that up. And I feel like that worked pretty well at the beginning because we were a blank slate essentially.
Yeah. We’re like, well, they don’t know that. We don’t know what we’re doing. So we’re all just figuring it out. So they know that we know exercise science, but they they couldn’t tell anything on the background. So I’m like, oh, that’s probably the best bet they were. They needed something to learn from. Anyway. We had a lot to offer from that standpoint.
We could all just kind of elevate in some capacity that way, which, if you think about it too, if we had had a bunch of people that had worked at a lot of other places that ideally, you know, if they had a good experience and they had systems in that kind of stuff, they wouldn’t have, like that culture that we had, like it was through startup.
Everybody’s doing everything. Yeah. And and doing it together. No front desk at that point. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that would have which I mean, the few people that we did have come in that were something of that, like they lasted like a month now, like, nope, not for me. This is, you know, we’re running and gunning. I mean, the pace was fast too.
Yeah. Think I think today is the the pace is pretty fast, but there’s a lot of structure built within the pace that can kind of condense it out and layer it. So it’s not so heavy back then. It’s like, okay, I have let’s say 15 clients, I’m calling my clients, I’m text my clients, I’m making sure they’re showing up because if they don’t show up, there’s no back end to filter any of that.
Yeah. There’s no Lacy. Yeah. We didn’t have any of that. So it had to truly be. I don’t even think we had our own phone number. I think the business phone number was essentially my cell phone. Yeah. You had your camera a.
Crazy. Okay. So what was that like for you? Because you had obviously military background, but also like you worked for big organizations, right? When you were out in the Midwest.
The are you excited for that? Yeah, I like that. I knew.
I was going to be able to train not just clients because we’ve done that forever. I was able to train new grads into this industry the right way, because we’ve seen so many people that are five, ten years in and then they interview or we just talked to them at a conference and they’re like, oh, I don’t have enough.
I don’t have an assessment system, I don’t have a screening system I don’t have on like, man, I we could catch them ten years earlier. So that was my I’m like, cool. If we we can start building a team and training them the right way, getting them to the point where they’re two years looks like everyone else’s ten years.
That’s worth it to me. Yeah, and that’s what we’ve talked about a lot. It’s like, look, our goal is we’ve been doing this ten, 15 years. How can we condense all that information for you and all that experience into a 2 to 3 year period, so that you don’t have to take that that long march right, of a career path.
I think that is why, you know, at least in the past two years, was some more of a ten year for some of our coaches are like, dang, I’ve learned so much here. I got the itch. Now I want to go try and start something because they learn so much in that two years, they’re like, dang it, I already know how to program.
Now I know how to talk to clients. Now I somewhat know how to get leads. Now I really want to try this on my own. So we saw that back in the whenever we were probably like mid PHP. Which I thought was kind of cool. But then it’s like, all right, here we go. Next, next boot, next rotation.
Let’s train. Let’s train the next group up. Which isn’t a bad model because it shows that we got them to a point where they’re confident enough to start something and get to that point. I’m like, all right, I’m either going to rent something or I’m going to start my own. And and we’ve talked to gym owners in particular.
They’ve been doing this for 15, 20, 30 years. And like that, that’s how it goes, right? I mean, any business to not just gyms like, yeah, you’re going to have people that, you know, age out of the system or whatever. And I remember in the early days that was one of the mistakes that I made was like thinking that and setting, I guess, the expectation that, like, okay, once we get this figured out and it’s these people, we’re all just gonna ride or die in this forever, right?
And it’s like, no, it’s not going to work that way. And the moment that that finally shifted, right. And my mindset shifted on that, it’s like, okay, now I’m ready to like, okay, new people, let’s and let’s get them faster and further than we did the last group. And, you know, I’ve talked about with with a lot of them, even some clients like the goal is that we can keep the business growth pace up with their ideal career growth pace at the same time.
Right. And ideally, if we can continue to create opportunities for them to grow, which means professionally, financially, personally, like ideally it’s just continue to make this this the best opportunity for them. And if if they outgrow that and that that is what it is. That also means we did a good job just like clients, right? It’s like you train them to get to a goal and ideally, of course, like you’re equipping them at the same time.
And ideally, I actually tell a lot of people this in our discovery sessions, ideally, every single client gets to the point that they don’t need us anymore, but they love it here so much that they stay anyway. They just want to be here. Yeah, it’s like whether it’s the culture, the routine, you know, the constant. Like having a coach in some area of your life is always important, right now.
So we made it to first expansion.
Somewhat made systems got I think at that point we had some client management software. Definitely not digital yet. Right. So still paper programs, Google Sheets, all of that, probably ten total employees at that time. Interns always running in and out. Clients. What do you think? Our client number jumped to? About 50 to 100 ish. Yeah, yeah, when Covid hit, because we were right in the middle of expanding when Covid hit, we were right around 100 between 100, 150 because we that time we had about 50 plus.
It was yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Covid cut us in half. Yeah. Like that. And that was tail tail end of expansion. Yeah. Towards once this was officially able to roll. Yeah. What you see now and then what did that add to the business expansion space. Well you know it’s crazy if the way that our expansion went when if that hadn’t already been in motion like I remember when Covid, I was like, this is the worst time to be expanding.
Like we just took on all these extra expenses, like we took in this huge loan. No, that and I think I’m like, this is the worst time to expand. And then when we finally did reopen, it was people were still like, yeah, yeah, okay, I’m good being in person, but I still want my space. If we hadn’t been ready and hadn’t had more space, there’s no way we would have been able to continue to grow the way that we did once we opened, like actually end up being like a huge blessing in that aspect.
Not to mention like people that had been with us and then stopped and came back. When we reopened, they got to walk in and it felt like a completely brand new place, you know? So like it ended up being a catalyst more than anything, you know, and of course doubled our ability. Our ability to serve people. But we talked about this a lot, too.
We could have looked for another location, but we knew at that time, like our systems, we there’s no way we can spread out our team right now. Like we need to be together. Still. Yeah. I mean, that just shows at least the maturity side of not letting our ego go in front of our ability to run a proper business.
Like, yeah, we could do it and then we pop up, we could figure it out, but I don’t think we would have the same team that we have today if that happened. Yeah, because they’d be like, well, I didn’t don’t get to see anyone. I don’t think they even know what’s going on in them. But we were able to see everything here because everyone’s in one spot and we’re like this isn’t working.
That is working, this isn’t working, that is working. And we were able to constantly adjust. Yeah. And some people kind of like the adjustments. Some people kind of didn’t. But it had to be done because that’s when we went digital on programing. That’s when Mind Body was at least effective for us. We figured out how to use it a little bit and schedule at least.
Yeah. Rather than just, hey, like, I don’t think you paid last month. Yeah. You can actually have reports built for us so you can see that, what else? We had digital. We had that we added our onboarding. At least we had better onboarding for all of our new coaches. At that point, imagine if we still did that.
Like, if it wouldn’t, because your first everybody’s first appointment, was it folding right into group group training. Can you imagine that trying to run assessments and that kind of thing, I think especially how our clientele pivoted a little bit to more of like the health timid client. Other things haven’t worked. Yeah. If there isn’t the nurture of our discovery session, our one on one assessment, then they slow roll into learning what they’re going to do at home.
Yeah. Then on their fourth visit they were like okay I’ve been here three times. I’ve seen smiling faces. I’ve seen people that are comfortable in here. I’m good. Now with my barrier being lower to actually learn something, to get to where I want to go. And I’m not just going to stop like I’ve done all the other times.
Yeah. And that was a very key kind of point that we’ve made to our systems. Well, in so we’re talking say 2021 ish, 2122 maybe like at this point, that’s when we finally figured out, like, oh, here’s who we are and here’s who we serve. And that’s when those systems can complain, okay, the the way that the normal gyms do it does not fit.
And I think the other side of that too is like I’d probably done 500 discovery sessions at that point. So I literally sat down for an hour with 500 people and understanding like, okay, what are the problems that we keep hearing over and over and over again, even if they’ve tried other gyms and other trainers and stuff like that, like, okay, we just let the people tell us, like, what does this need to look like for them to be successful?
You said 2021, 2022. Yeah, I think that’s when we started. Bridge was 22. Okay. So we got bridge going, which is our client software that we use for all of our programing. The home programing definitely help from a I say this, this exercise calls this. You say it’s called that. But the coaches training the third version of that exercise.
But it’s not the way I intended as a programmer. That was a big whirlwind the whole time we were going through that. Yep. Did it really matter in the grand scheme of things? No. But is it does it cause some friction along the way? Yes. Yeah. So I think bridge definitely was a necessity. Doesn’t necessarily have to be bridge, but some software that provided continuity across the board between all coaches.
Because we do run a semi-private model. We haven’t really kind of talked about that. But our clients already now. Yeah. But for anyone that doesn’t know what separates us from all the big box gyms, the class base, now that we’re kind of in our model, what what piece of that is like? Oh, that’s why I want to go to PHP because this isn’t something I found anywhere else.
Yeah. So. Right. I explain this when people do a discovery search with an and explain like what goes on here. Right. So of course we do like your traditional personal training for most people. And they think of personal training. They think of what we call private training which is one on one been done forever. Right. And it’s great.
High, high touch points, high level of detail. Besides that, if you think about the span of fitness, besides that, if you’re getting a coached fitness experience is generally group classes where it’s 15, 20, 30 people workout of the day. Everybody’s doing the same thing, right? Semi-private training. We take the private training experience and you’re sharing the time of a coach.
So we still get the attention to detail. And as far as like a program design and a coach showing you how to do something and making sure it’s done correctly, but cutting out the fluff the first time in some cases, right? Depending on the person, the fluff part of like we can’t count for you, right? Or for most people, but that’s is the least valuable part of personal training.
Is someone standing there and just saying like six, seven a sometimes just to fill time because it’s awkward if you’re staring at someone while working out. So in that model, right, we get all those attention to detail and then you’re sharing them with the coach. Which one? It makes it significantly less expensive, right. Because other people are sharing the cost of the trainer.
But in the way that we’re running it that is oftentimes overlooked is we can run it as a team. So if you’re doing one on one training with someone, you’re attached to their schedule. So and we ran this for a long time. It’s like if I go on vacation or I get sick, sorry. Like you’re going to miss your sessions.
And consistency of course, is huge. Even more so. Like I remember having situations where I was on vacation, they come back and then they’re on vacation, and now we’ve gone three weeks and they haven’t worked out like you just lost. Yeah, you know, a month, maybe even two months worth of progress. Because of course, if they’re on vacation, they’re not just stopping.
They’re probably going backwards. Yeah. First the skip payment. Right. Yeah. Two. So even from the business side and then but like that piece of okay now if it’s a group situation like that a small group. Right. Like it’s okay if it’s if it’s me or if you or it’s Maria or whoever it is. We’re all communicating well and we speak the same language and like, someone can call out on us ten minutes before and I can step on the floor and take care of every single person, just like I would if I were doing individual personal training, which most, most places or people or groups of people don’t have that capability.
And it is very hard to do. But that’s that’s the advantage, right? Like how many busy adults do we have, which is our main clientele that say, I cannot do Monday, Wednesday, Friday 530, but I can do. Yeah, Monday at 230. Yep. Wednesday at 6 a.m., Friday at two, 230 again. And we’re like, oh yeah, that’s our semi-private model.
And that’s perfect. Here’s you’re out. And they’re like, oh, I’ve never been able to. Yeah. Every time I tell a one on one trainer and I’m like, no, I have my name. Wednesday Friday 230 available. Yeah I do not have 6 a.m. because it’s already booked. Yeah, I have this and they’re like, whoa. And then they’re missing out on an opportunity.
Did they need one on one. Probably not. But with this model they get the opportunity to work on their schedule. Yep. They get an opportunity to work with multiple coaches who have different abilities to look at a situation for that client and have a different conversation and probably give them a little bit of insight that they wouldn’t have got if they only worked with one coach.
Yep. We hear that all the time is like, oh, like I talked to this coach and you know, like, oh, you should talk to this coach next time you’re in. Because they’re really good at this. They’re really good at talking nutrition. Or this coach is really good at this exercise. When you’re in on Friday and you’re working with this coach, go over this one again.
Yeah. And then they’re like, oh yeah. Like that’s the benefit right there. Sometimes it’s too scary. At first I was like, oh I had to work with three different coaches until they see our coaches and they work with coach like, oh, this is fun. Yeah, this is engaging now because I’m not working with the same personality. I get to work with multiple personalities and sometimes with the groups.
We have clients that now even I’m going to stay Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 715 because the other people that are on semi-private, they’re now my friends. Yeah. So we’re all going to work together. And I thought that was really cool that I didn’t see coming from that perspective. I knew we were going to introduce clients. I never knew they were going to be like, hey, when is this person coming in?
Because I want to make sure we’re together. Like, I was like, that’s cool. There’s so many things that.
Are benefits of the way we do things that people love, that we had. Yeah, we did not do that intentionally. It just happened to be like, you remember Leonard Fowler? Yeah. So he was the first person that really put it, like, super clear for me. If I was like, what what we were doing and why, it was great.
So he came up to me and he’d been with us like 2 or 3 years at this point and comes up to me and he goes, he goes, you know, I love this place. And like, okay, this could go a lot of different direction. He’s been here a long time. And he goes, I look around and I see like and his name and all these different like demographics, like ages and goals.
And this is like, I see all these different types of people and you know, because I see that now I fit in and like I pause for saying I’m like, wait, say that again. Because that’s generally the opposite, right? Generally people say, oh, I see people. Other people that look like me and talk like me and act like me and dress like me, and that’s what makes us fit in.
But in that conversation, I realize, like, because there’s not just one, because there’s so many different types, like just that natural diversity of a person and goal and all that stuff. Everybody fits in. I was like, oh, okay, that’s that’s who we are.
We’re the place that you didn’t know you need it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s cool. Yeah. Or they haven’t been able to find it. And then when they get here they didn’t know they needed X, Y and Z. With like oh I want to lose 30 pounds. Yeah. That’s a great goal. Why do you want to lose 30 pounds.
I want to look better. That’s a great goal. Why do you want to look better. Yeah. And you keep diving in and they’re like, dang it, you got me where? Like, where do I. When do I start? Yeah, because that’s the layers too. We have our coach that we talked about. We talk about okay, you want to lose 30 pounds.
Let’s go. Yeah. Awesome. Anyone can get anyone to lose 30 pounds. Yeah. Perfect. If that’s your goal, is just to lose 30 pounds and not get any deeper than that point of direction, you’ll find a trainer. You’ll be able to get that done. Yep. If you want to lose 30 pounds in, maybe there’s something else going on. Or maybe you want to dive a little bit deeper into your health.
Not a lot of places can go to that level. Yeah, but I think from our team perspective, we’ve purposely designed that. So we have degreed coaches. They all have some sort of subset of okay women’s health athletes, older populations, special needs neurological conditions that it’s like, okay, I’ve already studied this. I can help you. I’ve already I know you keep deflecting the nutrition, but we’ve tried dietitians and it’s so deep.
We’ve missed the middle part. Yeah. Same thing with like, testing, like. Yeah. That’s all great. Yeah, very time consuming. But there’s the piece of. You have all this information as a client. Yeah. This client’s not doing anything with this information. Yeah. We just spent X amount of money. Thousands of dollars usually. Yeah. Okay. Thank you for having me.
This piece of paper with all these numbers on it and all these words and abbreviations. I don’t know what I’m going to do with this. Yeah, but then that’s when we started with like, okay, we have our programing on bridge. Our clients are getting a little better. We added that layer of health coaching to that. So what do you think that’s done from taking our semi-private clients.
And then now kind of tucking in health coaching. Yeah. On the side with that. Yeah. One that’s really when we started saying like that. That’s really the difference between health coaching and nutrition right. Yeah. What we found in going to that we we’d get all that deep level of information and then we’d find out like really the first maybe 3 to 5 steps of the same.
Anyway, we didn’t need a test to tell us that we needed to drink more water and stop eating sugar or whatever it is, right? Regardless of you know what, you know what gut microbiome stuff we see, like the answer is still like we got to we got to stop eating too much sugar, right? Or whatever it is. Right.
Like, and that’s where we’re like, okay, this is a cool thing and it’s a great tool. But if you’re talking about like practically what matters, right. And that’s the job of a coach. Like there are a ton of coaches that can put together a great plan on paper, a great strategy and schematic. But if you can’t actually help the person implement that thing and take it to the next step, it doesn’t matter.
That’s not a good coach. A good coach doesn’t can’t just do that right. That’s the difference, right? The best coaches also get you to take action and get you over the obstacles. I would even argue that that’s, most people and this happens in all areas of life. They know what they need to do. Are they know enough.
The coach coming in sometimes just either confirms what they know and now they’re willing to do the thing. Like, okay, now I have clarity and confidence that this is going to get me there. You know, that’s why I’m not worried about I. Yeah. Because you can prompt a anything designed me this program with this diet. My goal is this in this timeline and they print it out.
They’re in the same spot they were before. Just now. They have a piece of paper that they’re going to stare at without any actionable pieces to it, until they find the right combination for that person. Am I working with the right person? Am I ready to take these steps? You know, am I going to have a support system built within the this to enable my ultimate goal, which isn’t just 30 pounds?
We’ve seen that over and over. Yes. You say 30 pounds. It’s not 30 pounds, right? There’s so many different things. What is that 30 pounds going to do for you? Yeah. And that’s actually the scary part of AI, right. Is that it can help take you somewhere that you might not actually want to go. Right. If you tell it like, oh yeah, I want to lose 30 pounds, right?
You have to be really good with prompting and and self-awareness and all this stuff because the number of times. Right, someone comes in, we sit down for the discovery session. I ask what your goals are. It’s I want to lose weight. I want to lose whatever right. And it’s easy. Right. And a lot of coaches do this. They take that at surface level.
It’s great. I can help you lose weight. Right. And some of it you can say it’s like, okay, do you why do you want to lose weight? But the other side is so many people come in thinking, I want to lose 20 pounds. And I ask why? Like, why that number? Right. And in most cases it’s like, oh, this is what I weighed when right name, name, whatever point in time they felt good about their body in the way it looked and it felt.
And then I say, okay, so is it actually does a number actually matter or is this an association that you have to that time. Right. Because we also know and I asked them this like you at whatever weight 150 pounds, 180 pounds can look ten, 20, 30 different ways, right. And that’s actually one part that actually kind of like breaks my heart with people sometimes is they, they’re chasing a goal that is actually what they want, right.
And that’s the thing like if someone asks, oh, can I do this? It might help them get there and they might get there. Me like, oh no, right. And that’s usually right. We have that conversation about body composition and, and and when you can have those conversations with people and they understand at a deeper level and they get like clear understanding of what’s gotten in their way in the past and why they haven’t been able to get where they want all of a sudden, even if we were to do the same thing, their adherence goes up, their consistency goes up, their buying goes up, and now they actually get where they want to go.
All right. That’s the difference between coaching and like build me a, you know, build me a, you know, a workout plan that can help me do this. Right. Like that, those things. And that’s why people stay forever too, right? If you talk about one of the biggest problems in fitness or right, we’re coming up to, you know, new Year, new me and all that stuff is like, people get to this first month or whatever it is and hard and heavy.
And okay. What what changes. You know, so many people don’t have the systems set up to actually get them over those tough moments. Right. And that’s, that’s the job of a coach. It’s like hey it’s hard right now. I know you don’t want to get up. You know just show up, follow the plan. We work. So we’ve gotten to the point where we have clients here.
They’re saying we haven’t really touched on the system piece of after they have the discovery session. One thing that we saw that was important is we dive into all the history, we break down those layers, we bridge a little bit of the awareness side of things. But a lot of times that light bulb moment after, they’re like, dang, I didn’t know I really wanted that is their second time with this is not just the mind body, which I think is a very important conversation as far as like starting, because it’s objective discussion.
It’s not subjective anymore, right. But then once we have that discussion of okay, here’s what not what I say, not what you say, here’s actually what you’re but your body saying, yep. Is this is your lean mass. This is your fat mass. I know everyone gleams right at that percent body fat, but that’s not necessarily what we’re looking at.
Yeah. And then we’re looking at all those ratios. We actually get to see that intracellular water piece of it, which is very important for us. Because of all those underlying things that we’re talking about. And most of the time it is, are you drinking enough water? Yes, I am awesome. Let’s see when we get that in body out.
And then like the majority of the time this number is reads this high is because you’re not drinking enough water or the right type of water, meaning electrolyte balance. Meaning are you do you have enough nutrients to support the water that you’re drinking? In order for this number to not read this high in your body because something’s missing.
So that gives us that first conversation. Then we walk them out. We get away from that paper. Now we just stand there and now we’re like, I’m not going to coach you whatsoever. I’m going to give you parameters and I want to see exactly how you move. Yep. Let’s say just a swap. They go up, they go down and they’re like, did you know you do that?
No, I did not know I do that okay. So we have that conversation. Did you did you see your foot go out. Yeah. Yeah it always does that. Did you know that’s not normal. Yeah. Well it’s normal to me. Was it always normal? Now and then we’re going back to that piece of okay. You’re trying to get to hear your body physically.
Mechanically is showing us this. There is a path that we found doing this thousands and thousands of time that if we jump right to here without addressing this piece right here. Yep. Or if we both don’t know that that’s happening, we’ve done them a disservice, and we’re going to have to come back around to that piece at some point during this process because of an injury and ailment, because we’re limited on, hey, I know that you really want to grow your legs, but we missed all these steps in order to load your legs.
Now without pain. Yep. Without being able like, okay, I’m stuck in 100 pounds on this trap bar. Well, it’s because we we didn’t we missed all these pieces right here. So with our assessment, we don’t just have okay, this is a three. This is a two. We’re having our first real conversation about their movement and how their psychology and like that whole connection.
And every single time we’re like, we hear, this is the first time someone’s ever done this with me. Yep. No one’s ever told me that. I just go to the doctor. I have back pain. Yeah, they they give me. I have an inside option. I have an orthopedic referral option or have a physical therapy option. I don’t have a problem with any one of those if they’re all needed or if any piece of that’s needed.
But if we haven’t even done that, that’s the problem. Yep. And then we start our assessment, our movement mechanics screen. We figure out, okay, we see let’s for an instance let’s say they’re low back. They go halfway. There’s pain like okay let’s pick two things. We’re going to go let’s let’s take the ankles out of it real quick.
Did that fix it. Most of the time it drops them a little bit deeper. They have depth. The tension is gone. Did we address the back? No, but we figure it out. Some mechanical advantage that we can give them, at least at this point. And that we can start working through this process. Okay. We did that. Okay. Is it a motor control issue.
Then we go into motor function. Can you do this. Let’s say a rotary stability. Can you do that. Yes. There’s no pain but I’m highly fatigued right now. Yeah okay. So now we have a capability function. And then we have an ability function that there’s a gap. Yeah. And there’s like okay which one are we addressing first. And then we have those conversations.
Usually we’re going like mobility first so we can get that function back. And then we’re going to be like okay, let’s get into the extensibility of your tissue from the stability standpoint. And then now we’re going to start tying that all in from a neuromuscular point. You know it’s funny too that like that whole process right I would say of course it’s valuable for these people that like have never worked out before.
Right. But I think the ones that it becomes most beneficial for some of these people that have gone on their own. Right. And we’re talking about New Year, right? They go on their own, they’re winging it, or they’re just doing like what they’ve been taught, what their friends do or whatever. And at some point, whether it’s a full on injury or like aches and pains, those things start catching up with them because they’re doing the wrong things for their body or the wrong thing, the wrong way for their body.
And now they’re finally understanding. And like we’ve already like they’ve gone through that cycle where it’s like, okay, I feel good. I’m seeing progress in progress. Oh, this thing happened. I got to take a week off and again, again, again, again. And I got to going off like, man, this doesn’t work. I’m done. Right? It’s not always the same injury or the same issue.
Right. And now not only can we fix that so that cycle doesn’t happen, but now that person understands like, oh, this is why I’ve this is why fitness has failed me. Yeah, right. Is like, I just had the wrong plan, right? Like I needed that guidance. And so you’re saying bodybuilding does not fix everyone’s issue. Arguably does more damage.
And I love it. But you know that you know, that’s another thing to.
No matter education level. Right. We all tend to go back whether you whether you’re new or whether like you have a degree in this stuff, we all go back to the things that we know and that we’re comfortable with and that we like. Right? So I mean, we’ve talked about this. We do this as a team. Like, I would be way better off if you made my program for me than me making my program for myself, because I will revert back to the same things, which at some point that catches up with you.
Right? You’re, you’re you’re diving into patterns and chronic issues that will pile up. Right. So I think that that alone, like even people that have been working out in entire lives, like know how to work out, like you’re probably going to keep doing the same things, which if we take an objective look through an assessment, we can see, yes, what are we missing?
Which the same thing happens with nutrition. Like no matter what way you eat, you’re missing something. And we probably have to fill that in in some other way or cycle off. So I’ve always.
I mean, I mean thousands of assessments now, especially if you include military and then I’ll magnify that by ten. Yeah. One of my favorite parts is once we get through the mobility function is my question of when’s the last time you were able to comfortably do a pull up? And it doesn’t matter if it’s a kid. Yeah.
Doesn’t matter if it’s we’re talking adult fitness. I’d say nine times out of ten, either they don’t remember or they’ve tried, and there’s no way they’re getting y a pull up, because to me, that gives their ability. I’ve. Because when’s the last time that you just want like an adult. Yeah. Or even an athlete just wanting to get up on a bar and pull themselves up.
Yeah. Right now everyone’s like, oh, I do ten pushups a night. Cool. Yeah. Why do 20 set up something like that? I’m like, okay, when’s the last minute pull it? Yeah. Because everyone will shy away from the thing that’s the hardest. Yeah. But if they’re like, okay. Oh, I’ve worked out the last ten years. If you just sit up on and you just grab the cable machine or you’re doing pull down lap, pull down, or you’re doing rows and you’re like, oh man, I can do the whole stack.
That’s awesome. Does it carry over to life? Yeah. And that’s where to me, that’s where the pull up comes in. I don’t even care if you can do a pull up. Can you even hang on the bar? Yeah. And sustain yourself without tearing something, without just feeling like this is the hardest thing you’ve ever done? Yeah, I like that piece of that because it.
We’re talking about life now outside of fitness. This is something that gives me one of the first actual physical screenshots of okay, yeah, I saw them. Can they pick something up off the ground? Yep. Yes or no? Does it cause pain? Yes or no I got that, we can fix that. Now you tell me that you’re strong. Yeah.
I don’t really care about any other metric. Right. And as of right now, can you get on that bar which I mean, you take this all the way through the lifespan, like one of the best fitness assessments, right? Like one of the standard fitness assessments for, for correlation with longevity is grip strength. Right. So like I mean literally like you said, like just hanging there.
That’s a pretty good gauge. Like the longer you can the longer you can, as you get older, the older you can get. And still just hold on to a bar and not fall, which, you know, anyone who’s in, like, say, senior care knows, like how many times someone in their older ages loses their balance and falls and they go to grab something and they actually have it, but don’t have the grip strength or the dexterity to actually prevent the fall.
Yeah, right. Like it, you know, and that’s again like, that’s why that test is like time, you know, timeless and looking at longevity. So we have that assessment. Yeah. We worked through the health coaching a little bit. What’s keeping the clients here exactly. What’s keeping the client here. Well this is kind of more of like in in like why would they talk about up to someone that they know.
Yeah. The simplest answer is like that, that human connection piece. Right. It’s you know, what we would consider, like the community part of our, of our core values, right. Because like, we’ve like we’ve talked and I, I tell people all the time, the first time they meet us, ideally you reach all the goals you ever dreamed and imagined, and you’ve learned how to maintain those goals.
But you stay here anyway because you love it, right? So you know the short answer to why someone stays here past, you know, their three month goal, their six month goal in their 12 month goal is that human connection, which, you know, we could have a whole conversation on, like the value of that. And how many people don’t get like true uninterrupted by electronics.
You know, communication like that’s a huge blessing that we get as coaches. You know, we’ve we talked sometimes in our meetings like sometimes we get, you know, if you’re talking about a week where someone sees us 2 or 3 times a week for an hour, we might get more uninterrupted, like communication time than some people do with their spouse or their kids.
Just in the hustle of life, right? And spending quality time is what draws people in. You know, you take that. Plus, of course, the aspect that we take of once you’re even approaching your goal, we need to start having the conversation about, okay, what’s the next goal? Right? Because nothing stays the same, right? We’re either getting better or are we getting worse, right?
So if we get to that goal right, the job of coach, if we’re really trying to provide value to people is okay, what’s next? What else is important to you? What else can you not do that you used to be able to do or that you wish you could do? And I mean, this is where like a lot of the Spartan stuff comes in for us, right?
Whether it’s, say, ex athletes or even for us, like people that have never been had athletic goals, like get them to do something that they never thought they could do. And I mean, the Spartan races are a great one because there’s some good entry points. I mean, someone that never thought they could complete something like that, and then also doing it with a group of people like the, the neurotransmitters side, like you have such a deep level of attachment now of like achievement and, human connection with people like.
Yeah, like and if, if people don’t have like some sort of like team competition thing, like as adults. Like where else do you get that right? Maybe the workplace, depending on what you do. But like I would say that’s rare. It’s one of those things like if you ask, if you ask everybody that’s ever been here what they love most about being here and what like what they got out of it.
And like any of the testimonials or reviews we get, of course they get the like, they get the results, but that’s not what they remember the most. That’s not the thing that they appreciate the most. Like, oh yeah, they help me lose 20 pounds. But man, I gained all these other things like the number of times someone comes here, for one thing, but they stay here for something different because they realize there’s so much other pieces of value to their life over in that span.
Like, I think a lot of times, like, we don’t we’re not, you know, you don’t even have to be that intentional. It’s just investing in a person right in their growth. And that’s kind of like our first step is caring enough to get in to that barrier of that client. And then at that point we constantly hear how much a client loves her group of coaches or team of coaches and how much they love the coach that they work with the most and how much they want to do more with that coach.
So that in itself, when we’re talking about human connection is a big piece from a separator standpoint, from anything out there, whether it’s competitors, AI, anything like that, it’s they show up, they’re looking and you can always see they’re like where’s my coach. And then they see their coach. You’re like yep, yep. Sounds like it’s going to be a good session today.
And I’m like and that’s just it’s cool to see because they’re not. You didn’t anticipate that whenever they signed up. Yep. They anticipated I’m coming here for this linear thing. Yeah. Which is a number that they didn’t know that wasn’t important to them. Yeah. But then they figure out that number is not important. This is important. Yeah. Then they figure out, oh, this is one of my places that I call what, third place?
Third place or third place theory. Right. Everybody has their home and their workplace in most cases. Or it could be a school. But like everybody, usually has a third place where they gather around people that are used to that know them by name and know something about them. Right. And that’s one things we’ve talked about a lot. It’s like, you know, you’re calling we need to become their third place, right?
Because honestly, if it’s not here and it’s not, say some sort of like sport team or whatever, whether it’s adults even even as adults, like if they don’t have that, unfortunately, it’s usually like a bar. Yeah, right. Like you know, what else is there? Right. From a community standpoint? Church hopefully. Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. So yeah, if we’re talking about something that they’re doing for themselves that has to do with health and things like that.
Yeah. That’s it right there. Yeah. And the it’s so funny to see that progression for people to where it’s like the numbers they, they realize so many other things that they’re getting out of this and so many other things in their life that start lining up. Right. like Steve Box, for example. So I was actually talking to one of his employees and she was saying, like, she can see the difference since he’s been here and his energy and his drive and all these things, and it’s like, oh, man.
Like he’s on one, like, let’s go. And the reality that like, you know, and that’s the other line that we see this a lot like moms in particular. It’s like you become better in all these other areas of your life, right? Whether it’s emotional regulation with with parenting kids or whether it’s like the way that you work with your, your coworkers, like all of these things that there’s there’s study after study after study that talks about, like the benefits of fitness.
And it’s like it’s almost noise because there’s so much. But when you actually experience it, it’s completely different. Yeah. And that’s again, that’s why people stay. And we see that too, even with our own coaches who live in the health industry, we see those ups and downs and we know when they’re off and we’re like, when’s the last time you worked out?
Yep. And they’re like, well, either having a hard time, having made time, something else is going on. I’m like, we can all tell. Yep. I was like, you need to organize yourself, get your head right. You need to move your body. Yep. And then it’s like, okay, they started doing it. Or like you see their mood changed. They’re smiling.
More clients can see it. Yeah, right. I mean, you don’t want to just kind of superficially late layer that was like you need to work out. Yeah. But it’s been shown and shown and shown. Yeah. That there are neural hormonal metabolic regulations that have to improve. Yeah. Because the body’s working on a better rate. Yeah. So I mean I that’s one of my kind of favorite things to see is I’m like all right group it up.
Let’s work out. Yeah. We need to do something as a team. When you do something or you see clients getting a little stale, I’m like, all right, let’s let’s refocus. Repurpose. Yeah. What’s going to get you reengage? How do you get out of that cycle. Right. Whether it’s a thought cycle or an action cycle that they’ve been in.
How do we break that. And yeah, you know, change the path. Yeah.
My favorite thing is when you’re talking about Steve, that’s not the first case. And we wouldn’t even know that. Yeah. If one of his employees didn’t come in and sign up as a client, too. Yeah, but how many times do you think that’s happen? We don’t even know that. We just see them in here. I’m like, oh, dang, they’re happy now.
They’re looking good now. They look a lot healthier. Now we don’t see that second, third, fourth. The fact that their spouse, their children, their employees, their boss, they’re like, dang, you’re more productive. You’re better to be around. Like there’s a lot of opportunities that open up whenever your body’s just starts firing on all cylinders. And we see it all the time with athletes like, damn, like that’s flow state right there.
Yeah. Like they’re just in and like, oh, what are you doing? Like I’m doing what people aren’t doing. Yeah. Like they’re I’m showing up. They’re not showing up. I’m putting I’m putting in this work. They’re not putting in this work. And we’re just kind of backing that up. Like we’re lowering the intensity, we’re lowering the frequency. But if we layer all the things that we’re offering here, it’s the same thing.
Yeah, they’re going to sleep better, which is highly, highly a symptom. Yeah. Nowadays. Yeah. Like a lot of people want to go right to like no sleep is not the root cause of problem. There’s something going on in your body that’s causing you not to be able to sleep, right, fall asleep or stay asleep. There’s something going on right?
Right. And then from there, it’s like we’re able to get them to sleep, which was the third layer that we found of why they were trying to lose weight. But like, oh, we found that they’re okay. How can we help you with sleep? We dry back now. We’re now we’re getting into our nutrition conversations. What are you doing that’s not getting you to sleep or what are you doing that’s not getting you to where you want to go from a nutritional standpoint?
Oh, it’s because I’m doing that. Why? Like how I am emotionally eating. Yeah. Oh. Or I am. This is a coping mechanism for me. Or yes, it is this trauma that started me on this eating path. It’s like, okay, so you don’t necessarily just want to lose 20 pounds. We have to we’re here now and they’re like, damn it.
Like in there. That’s like the whole. And we see that like that whole picture of, of or evolution from a client just coming here wanting to lose weight, getting into.
The family, the social side of things of that improving their productivity, improving. Yep. And then that’s when when we’re talking about that full circle moment is like, I can’t leave this place because this has enabled every facet of my life. And even like, let’s not say this place, let’s say their health, they can’t leave their health. Yeah. Because they either have the tools now and they’re going to go implement on their own, or potentially they’ll talk to their own family and start helping them with something too.
And then now we’re a multiplier. Yep. Which happens over and over again too. Which is why we have husband, wife, we have mom and child. Yep. We have brother and sister. Yep. We have boss and, employee. We have almost every single relationship that we can think of because one person in that circle made a decision to change something about them, and someone else saw it, or they saw it so much in themselves.
They talked about it to everyone. They’re like, fine, where are you going? Yeah, where is that happening? You know, it’s interesting. There have been a couple guys, over the last couple of years that have uncomfortably chosen to, like, document right on social media or whatever, like what they’re doing and put it out there for people, like I said, uncomfortable, like, yeah, that don’t want to.
And I have tried to continue encouraging them. Like, look, I know your concern is you don’t want people to think it’s like, oh, I’m like, look at me. I’m doing this thing. You you don’t realize who you are motivating and influencing by showing that you and everything about you, that they may or may not know.
You can do it and you’re doing it. Not the yeah professional athlete. Right. And like I’m doing this with spouse I’m doing this with kids. I’m doing this with full time job and all these real life things and making mention like, you know, getting the feedback like those the spouses in particular. Right. Like, even if they’re not here, like we have some sort of social event or community event and they come up and they’re like, thank you and this and this and this and this and like, oh, that’s it.
That’s all I needed. That’s it. Like that moment of them in their appreciation and really understanding a deeper level that sometimes especially if it’s like, you know, the the husband is the client and they may not be, as you know, talkative in verbal and feedback wise. But of course the the spouse is more like, oh my gosh, he’s so different and this and this and this.
And I go and they’ll stop. You don’t say that. And they’ll still downplay yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, whatever. I’m just I’m just here to work out. Have you, have I ever shown you. So when I’ve done someone like my presentations at like some of these networking meetings have ever shown you the graphic that I use of like, who people think and what people think I do.
Oh, yeah. Where it’s like, you know, there’s okay, what my mom thinks I do. And it’s like, the the aerobics lady. And then there’s like, what my, my friends think I do, which is just like hanging out in the gym, you know, lifting weights or whatever and just messing around. And then what we think we do, which is like, you know, the Super Bowl coach or whatever, right?
And then it’s what I really do, and it’s like a picture of a, like a therapist. Yeah. And like that reality that like movement is the movement is the entry point. It’s the it’s the tool that we use. But the reality is like there’s so many other things. Right. And again, like it still goes back to some of that piece like in a lot of cases people know enough to make progress.
Right. Maybe not get all the way to their goal, but they know enough to get progress. But there’s still something else getting in the way besides knowledge, which again, it’s the I think it’s like knowledge is rarely the problem, right? It’s behavior. You it’s we are in the behavior change business more than anything else. Well.