We Aren’t Doing Enough To Help People Move Better
Michael Hughes
Welcome back to the Gymnazo podcast. I’m your host this morning here in San Luis Obispo, Michael Hughes. And I got something that just on my mind that I had to sit down and record a podcast on it. And it really has to do with the responsibility that US trainers, US movement practitioners in the current industry, as I’m recording this in mid 2020, to have towards the future of the healthcare system, boom. It’s making me stay up at night to be honest with you. So I’m going to dive into that what my thoughts are on it. And what I hope this podcast is, is a bit of a bit of a rally cry. Bit of a let’s step up to the plate opportunity here because opportunity is rich in the current market of
Michael Hughes
movement training, personal training, strength and conditioning, etc, etc. So let’s dive into it.
Michael Hughes
Welcome to the Gymnazo podcast where you get to peek behind the curtains of what it takes to create and run a seven figure fitness facility that ranks in the top 5% of boutique fitness studios for revenue. But to be honest, that’s the least important thing about us. Founded by me, Michael Hughes Gymnazo has created an ecosystem of services that blend performance with restoration techniques, and attracts top coaches to its facility hosted by its owners, Paden, and myself and our top coaches, this podcast shares our best practices on everything, from how to build a sustainable fitness business, to how to program for maximum results, to how to build a hybrid training module that’s online. And in person. We have marketing secrets, movement, innovation, and breaking down trends in the industry. If you’re a fitness professional, or fitness business owner, this is where you learn how to sharpen your skills and to see maximum results. So I have to start by saying that I never wanted to be a personal trainer. Technically, that’s my job title. Right? I don’t like to say like that, because there’s, the industry has so many meanings of what that is, but I never really wanted to be one. In fact, I still don’t even consider myself one. That’s not what I would call myself or even would like to even to be quite frank with you, I’m sorry to say personal trainers out there, I don’t even want to relate to being one because of the
Michael Hughes
there’s just a there’s a feeling about it, and that the general consumer has, that I don’t think is relatively positive. It’s not negative, but it’s not like it’s kind of like, Alright, cool.
Michael Hughes
My whole goal was to be a physical therapist from eighth grade, no joke, I knew what I wanted to be since eighth grade. But the more I dive into physical therapy, I’m glad I didn’t become a physical therapist in the sense of a licensed physical therapist practicing in the in the traditional educational model. Because, wow, I would have been quite upset. And the hard part about as I had amazing physical therapists, mentors growing up my uncle, being one of them who actually just retired after, like, 40 years in industry, I’m not even 40 years old. Like to know someone that has been practicing a skill set for longer than I’ve been alive.
Michael Hughes
is pretty cool. So hats off to you, uncle.
Michael Hughes
This is what it comes down to why am I not excited that or why am I excited that I’m not a physical therapist, because what I would have learned would have would have put me into the protocol based
Michael Hughes
thing, think less, do more, one D, let’s just put a bandaid on it type of approach that I’m realizing is where the industry is. Now, this is not for all physical therapists. This is not for all personal trainers I’m talking about right. I’m talking about the broader understanding of where the market is. So I do not mean to get personal towards anybody. I’m just trying to make an overall point is that we’re not doing enough. Personal Trainers aren’t doing enough and physical therapists aren’t doing enough. I’m not just catching physical therapists, I’m talking about even even surgeons and in that sense, even chiropractors even you know, we’re just there’s a huge opportunity in front of us to serve the the healthcare industry, meaning anybody who basically has a muscular skeletal disorder often referred to as an MSD. Right? That’s an ache, a pain, a sprain, a tear, anything that has to do with movement, and the end the biological, physical, physiological system, and it moves in the in the world of physics, basically, right? I’m just trying to put a blanket statement there. We’re talking about fitness. We’re talking about movement, we’re talking about physicality, of the human body, and its opportunity stems around that there’s
Michael Hughes
There’s technology available. This is how I actually think, right? We tend to, I think most people tend to think about technologies like computer technology. But technology is simply information. In, in my view, there’s technology available in this industry that is just being grasped, it’s just being capitalized, I like to say putting into the market and actually making making a revenue from right.
Michael Hughes
For the sake of servicing our population for the better. That’s what I love about capitalism. And I’m relatively a capitalistic in essence, I know there’s huge spectrums on that. But to me, the best technology should also be the most profitable technology should be the also the most valuable technology for those who are consuming it. To me, that’s what it’s all about. And in this field, of biotech, of genomics, like all these things, there’s so many amazing revolutions happening with the physical body.
Michael Hughes
And it’s incredible, if you want to read a book called, it’s called the future is faster than you think. And I read that recently. And I’m like, wow, I am so excited for what this this healthcare research system has from the biotech. It’s incredible. But what about from the movement tech? And the book said nothing? I mean, robots, but that’s not human, right? Like, what are we doing to to help the human being move better for the future, because all I see coming down the pipeline is more automation.
Michael Hughes
More human beings do less, which is not a bad thing, by any means, quite frankly, you know, for us not to have to run into a burning building. To save somebody would be kind of cool. If one day of a robot can can actually do that. I’m talking about like a, like a human looking, not looking but kind of acting by pedaling.
Michael Hughes
robot can do that, like, that’d be awesome. Johnson Luiza a potential life to save a life like awesome. But
Michael Hughes
what about for like, we’re going to be sitting more like I’m sitting down at a podcast table, right now.
Michael Hughes
Today, my job is going to be business. And I’m going to be sitting down for for quite a bit. And all of my co workers who are, who, right now are training, they’re all standing up. And like, I’m kind of jealous. Because I know that the that the act of sitting or any actual repetitive position,
Michael Hughes
movement, non movement, right, I’m sitting, you’re still moving, but it’s your, you’re gonna degrade the body faster, the body hates two things. And it’s a spectrum. They hate absolute repetition on any movement. And it hates absolute stillness or stagnation in any position.
Michael Hughes
So that so that’s the spectrum that we’re working on. So the more that we’re going down that line, as computer technology in life technology increases, therefore, we have to intentionally move more,
Michael Hughes
or our population will continue to go down in from the physical side of things. So here’s our opportunity.
Michael Hughes
More and more fitness facilities, more and more moving facility, more and more practitioners should be flooding onto the market as our technology of everything else continues to come up, because physical labor, or the labeling of the body is now not a big deal. And our joints and our body requires movement. I would say three dimensional movement, not 1d. And so again, so here’s the kind of the cry when I look at where the industry is going from a broad market. We’re getting a lot more, you know, franchises coming up, which is great. I’m glad that we’re getting more people within the market, people thinking thinking that they can influence people’s health and vitality via movement. But the product that they’re selling, doesn’t it? It’s like, it’s like we’re just staying stagnant. It’s like when would you it means we’re going backwards. And, and I have to be I have to be bold enough. And I really don’t like to do this. But I have to be truthful
Michael Hughes
is the f 40 fives the orange series the cross fits like they’re good attempts at pushing
Michael Hughes
an overall ability for people to come into the market for health and fitness and making it attractive and fun and they’re making it bold. But the product they’re providing is the second iPhone three. And we’re iPhone 13. It’s using old technology, movement, technology programming technology. And it’s though it’s exciting for the mind.
Michael Hughes
Though it’s enticing for the soul, it’s still not good enough, we need much more well rounded, three dimensional holistic restoration involved training and conditioning for our population, because people don’t know what they don’t know, the general consumer doesn’t know that they’re they have a walking movement dysfunction, that the more repetitions the more miles they put on their body in rowing, and treadmill or Olympic lifting is only going to magnify that more.
Michael Hughes
And the the population that are that, you know, the business population that we’re we’re trying to put out there, these these standardized stamped programs are just not addressing they, I don’t even think that they know. And that’s, that’s the opportunity. So I’m trying to say like, so what what do we do, for those listening, who are enough interested in this concept that we need to be much more intelligent about how we do stuff, but again, most trainers don’t know what they don’t know.
Michael Hughes
So we got to do podcasts about it, we got to make YouTube videos about we got to do Instagram post about it, we got to invite people to civil conversations, and focus on what is ultimately providing a great result through the science that is in front of us. And even the science that we are creating in our own observation with our own with our own clients. So here’s, here’s the call.
Michael Hughes
Yes, we want to increase the body’s
Michael Hughes
health, blood pressure, go down etcetera, etc, by just moving and expending unwanted calories, I get it, that’s that’s good. But that’s like we shouldn’t be, we shouldn’t be putting a premium dollar amount on that, if you’re paying for a trainer or a fitness six experience that should be that should be like a given, like you buy a car, it has a gas tank, that shouldn’t be like a premium option. You know, just like it should do that. But it shouldn’t do it too much. Right? In a sense on the gas tank analogy doesn’t fit anymore. But like, it’s like we shouldn’t just focus on, the more calories you burn, the better the experience is. And then on the other side of it is to
Michael Hughes
we shouldn’t put a premium on oh, here’s a great stretch. And all you did is just stretch. But the intentionality of the stretch was no different than the same than everyone else that went through the door. I’m talking about the basic, you know, kind of cry for that this, this young girl that just stretching alone is going to take care of you. It’s not enough, right? So we got to start kind of implementing and educating a little bit more saying like, there’s, there’s individual uniqueness among every single consumer in this industry. And we have to have, the ability to service that. And when I’m talking about is, is really much more of a blending of the industry, like we have a lot of intelligent people. But I think we get so siloed even dogmatic in a methodology and approach, we forget that that’s like, that’s just like eating meat. Like we should probably have vegetables too. Or I’m just eating vegetables. Again, just trying to make a framework to think think about Cigna, we should probably throw in some fruit to say, Oh, I only drink, I only drink soda, it’s like, well, maybe we should throw some water in that she was like we need a balance of this, if we’re really going to solve the major problem. There was a lot of players in this industry that are making big, big, big waves that just focus on biomechanical correction of the body. Good. But that’s still not even good enough, if you’re a trainer wanting to make a business out of this, because that’s essentially saying, you have to serve one person at a time. And if you’ve listened to podcasts, you know that I’m not a fan of that. Not if you want to make a career out of this and actually have a life that you feel proud about and that other other people see as like, oh, I want that too. Not just a results but a life like not just like a customer or a client result, fixing people’s pains but you actually have a life that you want to live. You go on vacations, you have a family, you get paid even when you don’t work. You know, we’re talking about you know, fully investing in this opportunity to create an ecosystem for your operations as a trainer meaning that yeah, you have to have some one on one but you also need to leverage your time and have some relatively semi private and end you’ve lived your time even more and have some group and you leverage your time even more insists sell your your your knowledge for your even for your own clients when they’re not around you.
Michael Hughes
To me, that’s the ecosystem that we need to adapt as an industry, if we’re ever going to actually put a dent into what we’re competing against, which is just show up to, you know, 3025 20 person workout and just go, just run, just lift, just stretch, like that’s not going to cut it.
Michael Hughes
So the technology that’s out there is this piece of a biomechanical training, right? Call it what you want called the alternative biomechanical model.
Michael Hughes
There’s a lot of good good brands out there that are really pushing it and promoting it, we’re definitely one of them. But we’re not pushing it as a, this is the method we’re looking at all methods, and how they can come into it. So we’d like to bring in just as an example, is the functional patterns as the wax is the Go does, there’s the green Institute, those are kind of these the big players in my mind, not many people know about the green suit, actually, I’m actually finding out that actually proving that now, I knew that but it’s become more and more proven that just people just don’t know about this kind of, well, another model. So our what we want to do is look at all the money because there’s truth in all of it. And the more that we the more that we see we silo, the more we missed the opportunity. But that’s just from the from the biomechanical model, then you also have the business model, right? Personal trainers, we all have this sense that we are all relatively own our own business. Even if you’re working for a big box gym, you still, relatively speaking can kind of manage how you want to flow it.
Michael Hughes
So if we don’t figure that out, too, then we’re stuck in this hobby, hobby job, we’re stuck in this, like I tried, I worked my tail off, I got great results make good money, but I burnout.
Michael Hughes
So we got to bring that into it. But then we got to bring him the kind of the psychosocial piece to it too. Because it isn’t just about biomechanics, it’s about the art or being a great coach.
Michael Hughes
We have to be able to communicate well, we have to be able to inspire people to change their lives, instead of just people waiting for for people to come in, because they’re in massive amounts of pain. Like I think we can be more proactive. So those kinds of the three buckets are I really see as a as a huge technological fusion
Michael Hughes
of this industry. Understand biomechanics. A massively, well as much as we know, to, to this day, but it’s it’s not mathematical biomechanics. It’s not what I learned as my exercise science degree. Unfortunately, what I learned in university is not what I’m using today.
Michael Hughes
So it’s like we have this technology that needs that isn’t even infused into our educational system yet. It’s still, it’s still too privatized, it’s still too
Michael Hughes
bleeding edge, that it’s that it’s still relatively rejected from our traditional educators, and scientists, movement scientists are PhDs. It’s not fully grasp yet. And again, it’s, it’s challenging to grasp, because there’s so many variables, and you look at traditional Studies in Education, you have to remove variables to isolate variables to test it. And that’s just not how the system works. The body, the body doesn’t work on isolating variables in terms of movement, physics, physical training, very hard to be able to isolate something out and then see how that plays into the broader spectrum of movement. Again, my opinion on that, but we’ll see what actually happens.
Michael Hughes
So the opportunity space is to go after people from offer a product that has good human interaction, great coaching, great biomechanics, but also a great business system around it, that you can grow and share it.
Michael Hughes
And that’s kind of what I just wanted to kind of spread out there is that like, what are we doing? What is our education level at from the broad sense, and I kind of want us to intro I want us to like, infiltrate, I want us to get in and I know it’s going to be a fight. It doesn’t have to be shouldn’t be a fight for crying out loud. So I have a technology I have a product that much they me but you know us who are kind of pushing the issue, we have a product that is providing a results that is not being provided by the traditional healthcare system. Traditional physical therapy, traditional massage, traditional yoga, traditional stretching is meant to traditional chiropractor, okay? It’s not being solved, they’re coming. They’re finding their way to us.
Michael Hughes
So and we’re and we’re providing them solutions that they’re seeing no one else is doing okay, so cool. So we have that we have a proof of concept. So how
Michael Hughes
So how do we put ego down and say, Hey, there’s, we’re all here to do one thing, right? All movement practitioners, everyone in the fitness movement industry is here to do one thing. And that’s to help people.
Michael Hughes
That’s to understand the body the best of our ability to help people. So if we find a way that helps people better, shouldn’t that just spread like wildfire? In the industry,
Michael Hughes
because it’s not, it’s being resisted.
Michael Hughes
Because egos and this is my way, and this is my camp, and I got to impress this particular doctor, because this particular PhD is think this way, and I got to be in the same line as them, because I’m going to lose my status, shouldn’t service be over status.
Michael Hughes
You know, shouldn’t shouldn’t purpose
Michael Hughes
be over a product?
Michael Hughes
Right, this is kind of what I’m looking at, right? Like,
Michael Hughes
really important, like service over status, is what I kind of want to coin as is really pushing for and being
Michael Hughes
so focused, right being so focused on, on providing that selflessness to our industry,
Michael Hughes
versus being so selfish, that we don’t want to change.
Michael Hughes
Because I really believe that all trainers are the most selfish people in the world.
Michael Hughes
And what I mean by that, and the context around that, is that because we get so much enjoyment, so much fulfillment, so much purpose out of helping somebody.
Michael Hughes
So it’s really quite selfless.
Michael Hughes
That honestly, when I help someone remove a movement dysfunction, and they say, they get up from the table, they get out of that stretch, they get out of that drill. And they went into that drill with a joint pain, and now they come out of that drill without it, like, you know how happy they are, what, how much happier just how much energy does that spit back towards me, it actually drives my entire career. And I’m not the only one, I’m not the I’m not even close to the only one most of you listening, that is the same thing for you, too.
Michael Hughes
So here comes our responsibility. Again, we have to find a way to break down barriers within our own industry. Because we all want the same thing.
Michael Hughes
And again, I’ll say it again, the technology is out there. I’ve been doing it for the past
Michael Hughes
1012 years, and I’m not the only one.
Michael Hughes
But we need to kind of put the full package together. If we want this to be a sustainable career, we want actual kinesiologists to rule the roost. Now, when it was the actual right, we have to define that one. But, you know, like, I want people to come out of the undergraduate, right, of, of education from a university saying I’m prepared. And I’m ready to actually be a human engineer.
Michael Hughes
I’m ready to break down the human in terms of movement engineer, right. That’s what I that’s what I would love to happen. And that’s not what’s happening now.
Michael Hughes
So we have to go, we have to go grassroots, we got to go off the beaten, beaten path, we have to let capitalism speak for us.
Michael Hughes
And I see that in and speak with soften. Yes, I see that in the electrification of transportation.
Michael Hughes
Right, capitalism has to prove that it’s, it’s better in all capacities, and always
Michael Hughes
in the vehicle concept. Like we’re still I mean, we’re super so so close to the range, right? But that’s going to be solved in next three to five years without a question.
Michael Hughes
So how does how do we provide this training model that it’s better in every, every way, and it’s going to spread like it always spreads word of mouth.
Michael Hughes
You know, it’s not going to spread within the traditional confines of of marketing because traditional content marketing is just get someone to come in your door any possible way. And don’t even focus on how you keep them there.
Michael Hughes
That’s that’s marketing in the fitness industry. That’s it, trick them into it, provide weight loss schemes and strategies and
Michael Hughes
put cool paint on a wall and you get so that’s important one have a visual, exciting spot, but it’s like, do one study that says if you work out hard and your heart is gonna stay elevated, like that’s not everyone does that. But that’s what you want to get. It’s crazy workout in 45 minutes, don’t do a warm up don’t to a cold down and just hope your body doesn’t break down within time.
Michael Hughes
Yeah, come on.
Michael Hughes
Come on guys. Like we’re there’s,
Michael Hughes
there’s more out there. And I’m saying, Come on, because my eyes have been opened and I’m realizing, oh my gosh, this is huge. And I guess people remain to keep their eyes closed or again, they just don’t know what they don’t know. And that’s what who I’m speaking to.
Michael Hughes
So I’m gonna wrap this up, I feel pretty good about this, this bullet his basic rant here. And this, this, this responsibility that what it really comes down to and here’s the point is that it has, it can’t be that smart versus dumb. It can’t be havers half not it must be open sourcing, sharing best practices, and saying, Hey,
Michael Hughes
I’m you, whoever I found a way can we have a means of sharing that. But also, again, the the key piece, I want to emphasize one last time, it has to be economically viable, the trainer has to be able to make significant changes in their career, to make them want to be able to provide them to do this for the rest of their career, and it must be affordable, accessible for the consumer.
Michael Hughes
It has to have both of those things, personal training is not accessible for the average consumer, then paying, because you have to do this for the rest of your life. Right? This is like brushing your teeth, like health and nutrition. It’s not just for short term, it’s for the rest of your life.
Michael Hughes
So it has to be has to be affordable.
Michael Hughes
And I don’t know how many people were actually preaching that, you know,
Michael Hughes
I get that probably training is probably too inexpensive, you know, so it’s too much of a commoditization approach, right, it’s getting too cheap. Because we need people who are intelligent, smart, I get that. But once we get there, once we solve that, it has to go back the opposite direction. Again, I’m gonna reference Tesla, us, they started with a very expensive piece of machinery that most people couldn’t even afford. But that funded their development of a mass market car. We need to do the exact same master plan in our training and conditioning industry, which we’ve, it’s like a decision is way older than then than we think. So it’s like, we need to kind of put a stake in the ground saying, right, we’re pivoting around this stake now. And this is what we need to follow. Alright, hope that was somewhat exciting and followable hope it wasn’t too too random. But it was on my heart. And I had to I had to just kind of put it out there. So thanks for listening, appreciate your guys’s involvement, your support. And just to the community that I know is around us. I just wanted to just say thank you, thank you for pushing, and for doing a good job of, of not letting what you’ve learned in the past dictate what the future brings. Not letting your ego stop you from growth, and not letting kind of the bully type of academia set the stage. When we need. We need much more than like set an open source a kind of like, hey, let’s share best practices. You know, let’s not close our doors to everything. Yes, there’s IP out there that needs to be protected. But
Michael Hughes
when we’re talking about just physics, and biology and Behavioral Sciences, no one owns those things. It just needs to be shared. So that’s it. Appreciate you guys. And we’ll see you on Google. Talk to you on the next podcast.
Michael Hughes
Pay off hope you guys enjoyed today’s episode. And if you did, please share it with your fitness obsessed friends and peers who are also navigating this world of fitness and trying to succeed the trends and misinformation. As you guys can see this podcast is basically a masterclass for trainers wanting to level up in their coaching skills and their fitness business model. We launched this in 2020. Because you and your fitness tribe deserve to see an unfiltered look at all the aspects of what it takes to stand out as a next generation coach and build a successful fitness business. So share it far and wide. And please, when you do do me a favor, take a screenshot of this screen and share it to your social media accounts and use the hashtag Gymnazo podcast that’s hashtag Gymnazo podcast that way we can see you and share your post with our audience. And finally, when you’re ready to go to the next level as a coach or in your business, and to reach more people, please go check out gymnazoedu.com. We have put together the best 90 Day coaching program on the market for trainers wanting to become a masterful practitioner and build a business that gives them the freedom and in fact, so let us help you do just that. We have online training and one on one coaching to guide you through a whole 90 Day certification. We even get you training our clients live because all
Michael Hughes
Always better to work out your kinks on someone else’s clients than yours. But we promise you this, your clients will be blown away by the transformation our program will help you make, you’ll be masterful at a whole new level and part of an incredible community of coaches worldwide, taking their skills to the next level. So if you thought today’s episode had some fire to it, and inspires you to take action, wait until we see what we deliver on this program. So just go to gymnazoedu.com. And we’ll see you on the other side. Remember that turning your passion for fitness into transformation and sustainable business is critical to reaching the people and lives you were put on earth to help it matters and truly can make an impact in other people’s lives. So hope you do that. Keep sharing passion and I will talk to you soon
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