(32) Jeff Martin of The BrandX Method - The World Leader in Youth Fitness

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Future of Fitness Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Malzone, and this is episode number 32. And I have the pleasure of talking to Jeff Martin. He is the co-founder, along with his wife, of the Brand X method. So, formerly known as CrossFitKids, they are the world leader in youth fitness. And we have a big problem nowadays between sedentary lifestyles, childhood obesity, single sports specialization at a young age. Kids are having less fun, they're moving less, and their health is being affected in a big, big way. And these people have taken that challenge. Uh, they've made it their own, they've made it their own responsibility, and they're making a dent in things. And it's really cool. Uh, I was very inspired, uh, especially with what they're doing with teaching kids resiliency, not just in the gym or in sport, but in life, which is a really necessary function nowadays. Uh they talked about how if you want to get into the the area or the specialty of coaching kids, how to do it. And his big advice, which uh really resonated with me, was don't treat it like a market, treat it like the desire to help kids because it's completely different. You can't treat kids or coach kids the same way you would coach adults, and it takes time to learn the differences. So you just got to get in and start doing it and do it for the love and don't worry about the money, that'll come secondary. This is this is a much more important thing. So, like I said, I was personally very inspired by Jeff. Uh, they do amazing work, and you could tell uh just from hearing him talk that they do it for the love and they do it because it's absolutely necessary. And uh I have a ton of respect. So without further ado, this is episode number 32. This is Jeff Martin of Brand X Method. Enjoy everybody, welcome back. It is Eric with the Future of Fitness Podcast, and today I have the absolute pleasure of talking to Jeff Martin from Brand X. Jeff, welcome to the show. Hi, Eric, how are you doing? I'm doing great, man. I'm uh I'm excited. I think you uh you're a pretty funny guy, dude. I'm I'm really uh I'm I'm fired up for this interview. But I'm really excited to talk about Brand X because uh I think you guys are doing something very worthwhile. And uh I know you're passionate about what it is. So maybe if you could just give us you know a couple minutes of introduction um into what brand X is and and um I know your story is is is the long ones. Maybe kind of condense it into how you got into where you're at.

Okay, I'll condense it down to what we do. Um my wife and I have been working in uh functional fitness for kids for about 15 years and developed a couple different programs. Um this latest iteration, the brand X method, is um really taking all of the experience that we've gotten over the over the over a decade of working with kids and um taking what we thought was good out of that and adding things in that uh that are um that we thought were important. Um we're we think that uh it's very important or our ideas that we want to always have the idea the uh the concept or the the the thought in here in our heads what is best for kids. So our methodology is based on our experience as well as um the things we've uh the science and um uh it's informed by those things, but but it also um changes. I mean you know we're we're starting to see things that uh that um we're adding in that are important, uh things like um the concept of physical literacy, like teaching kids how to be good at um at uh movement and and um this idea that they're uh confident, competent, and able to uh apply what they their their their physicality to whatever they want to do in life, not just be stuck in a single sport. Um the idea that uh um play is important, just the idea that free play is is important. Um we're starting uh modules on the psychology of training kit. So we have our first module that's coming out, we think, um, probably next month, is on resiliency. How do you train children to be resilient? So we're seeing a lot of things in the society that we see, we see seeing a lot of things, and we're trying to be um more more um to have the ability to address those things that are coming up in society that are that are uh affecting our kids. So we want to don't want to just be wedded to um uh a single uh methodology or a single idea of what fitness is and try to reach out and incorporate the new new sciences coming out and and also with that new science address the things that um that are coming up that uh maybe people who don't work with kids aren't yet seeing. Um the uh Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett started a uh organization called Stand Up Kids, and we're on the um advisory board with them. And their idea is to get kids, you know, kids sit all day long at school and then get them standing, standing desk, get kids standing. But as a person who sees kids um come into the gym and uh has watched a really rapid decline in physical um abilities of kids coming into the gym, you know, that this is uh the sitting all day long being being stuck to uh computers and and and tablets and phones and screen time is really causing a problem that that that probably parents don't see yet. And it's going to be, I think, as as devastating a problem as obesity and type 2 diabetes that people are aware of. Um we're seeing kids come into the gym now that can't do things like you know, a 10-year-old kid who's played sports who can't skip, who can't bear crawl, can't hold himself on a pull bar, simply just can't, and I'm not saying do a pull-up, but cannot hold his body weight on a pull-up bar. Um, you know, kids who have spent so much time with their screen that they're that they cannot take their thoracic region and straighten it up, simply unable to do it. And those things need to be addressed, and you know, they certainly need to be addressed before you tell some kid, here, lift this weight and go really fast. We have to be um agile in our programming and being able to uh in our and what we're teaching to to trainers to address these things. We're already starting to see this rise in in in um in uh injuries with with within um sport. We're gonna start to see that um I think even even become even more and um and kids just being unable to to play sport safely.

So what what do you attribute to um I mean, is is it all those things you you mentioned? I I completely see. You're really taking a deep dive into this. I let's take it back because I want to explain to people who um the fitness professionals who are listening to this, you know, what is it that brand X offers um to the fitness community? Like, are you guys trained people? Do you offer um affiliation? Like, what is it that you guys offer?

So let's kind of take a step back, if you don't mind. Um we have a gym, and we've been training kids with fitness for about 15 years, 14, 15 years. Um, and we've certainly learned a great deal along along the way. Um we we call our gym the lab. This is where we we try think new things, we do we we um and test out new things, and then we move that into what what you're asking for, um what you're asking about. We we have uh courses, you know, online right now. We have two courses, a basic course and an advanced course. We do a a live course where we have um an advanced course, we teach the advanced course material, we teach a youth bargo course where we focus on the squat and and the deadlift, the two primary lifts we should be teaching kids, you know, how to how to lift something up safely off the ground. Um and and then um we're we're uh we're expanding on in our offerings. So we're having uh modules come out. We have a show module by the end of this month on how to teach the clean to kids from age age uh you know from the young from the young ones age five and six to to the teenagers. Um and then we have I said, like I said, the the resiliency model on module was coming out and kind of under a psychology, like how do we teach kids to be how do we as coaches be better coaches and help kids become better people versus just better at squatting? Um and then we have a we have something that we're moving toward in the in this coming year where we have an idea of a um expanding our offering to a three-month, six-month, and twelve-month like internship type thing where you can become really uh go in depth in how to train kids. So we start at the beginning with these online courses where we feel that if somebody wants to train kids, whether they're whether they're you know six years old or 15 years old, there's there's unique things you need to know to uh safely train children. You can't just scale down an adult program and and have it be uh optimal for the child. So really basic online courses that people could take and give themselves some understanding, and then we're trying to expand that into people who really want to be dedicated to training kids or training the next generation of athletes, and that's really kind of where we're we're we're continuing to expand for that.

Awesome. Yeah, I keep hearing more and more about your index.

Um I'm curious about that we also do have uh a training center program, which we're being pretty selective about, but people apply to be a training center and then they can use our name to uh to to advertise. But the with the training center, we have um some pretty strict uh quality control things that we're doing. We're uh once a month mentoring calls, Skype calls like this, where we where we sit down and talk, they send uh a lot often they send video of the classes, we we discuss how they can, you know, what they're doing really well, what they can what they can do better, and things like that. And really the idea is to, if you're using our name, to standardize the the the the outcomes of what comes comes out. A lot of gyms, a lot, a lot of brands or some brands have a lot of gyms, and you walk into one gym and it's just a fantastic gym, and you walk in the next gym using the same same name, and it's terrible. What we want is to is to uh standardize the the outcomes, standardize the training, standardize the really the methodology in which you teach the kids the Brandic's method. How do we teach kids to do things? So that really is a lot of info right there.

It's uh it's awesome. I I I love what you guys are doing. You know, I have um I I feel very fortunate and very grateful the fact that I got into sports at such an early age. And it's not because I had extremely athletic appearance, it's actually because I had asthma. So I had to get into swimming as part of it. And then that's that springboarded me into a bunch of different swimmer with asthma. Okay. Oh, nice. Yeah, so you know how it goes. Uh it it really changed the trajectory of my life, and it's been such an integral part of my life. Athletics have been for such a very long time, you know, all the way through through CrossFit into my 30s. But I think um, you know, I'm I'm the thing that's really made, I'm really curious about is how is the psychology of it and teaching kids resiliency because I I don't have kids, but I know I'm I'm you know six nieces and nephews, I've I've coached a lot of kids. Um how do you see resiliency being an issue right now with with younger generations and and how are you approaching that?

I you know, I I um I have teachers in my family, okay, and they've talked about how over the last decade the the society's kind of changed, and I'm I'm hoping I'm gonna veer into the the answer that you want. But um this and they say this, and I see it myself, that that um parents are removing kids from um from the lessons of life, from the common lessons of life. So um one of my um teachers in my family saw a young kid get into her purse and steal some money. Hey, he's in he was in uh pre-K. So she called the parents up, wasn't a big deal, come in, and then you know the parents were, why did you leave the purse out? Why did you do these things? And that and that's removing the child from learning the lessons of what life is like. And the the the teaching of resiliency is not to remove the child from those those lessons. So we'll have like in our in our in our gym, we'll have kids now, and this is totally different than it was five years ago, where a parent might take a child out for uh out of the weightlifting class for three to five months. You know, we're gonna do something else, we're gonna play a sport, we're gonna come out. Child comes back in, and now he's not where his friends are, and he's I want to lift what my friends are lifting. And that's a totally understandable thing when you're you know 12 years old, right? Yeah. Well, instead of saying, instead of the parents going to the child, you know what, you took three or five months off to play baseball and or or basketball, or just we're gonna, it was the summer, and we want to do a whole lot of family things, and now you're gonna apply yourself to these things and learn and and and work your way back up, they'll take the kid out. Well, that's the um, you know, that's a lost lesson in life, and and life is gonna hit that child hard when he gets to be in, you know, um uh when he's working. And so, you know, you want to present these opportunities. So, teaching resiliency, you want to present these opportunities where kids um have to struggle and and and move and move forward, and and then give them the tools to face um adversity, give them the tools to face uh failure and and move forward. And that's what we kind of talk about in the resiliency module. What tools do they need? How do you how do you provide these things? What kind of what kind of um positive speak do you use when you're when you're talking to the talking to the child? Um, you know, in our advanced course we talk about positive coaching and the idea that that children have this um emotional tank. When kids come into our gyms, you know what kind of day they've had. You've got to you you can't just you know we we try to spend at least a couple you know 15-20 seconds looking at every kid in the eye, going, how's it today? What's going on? How's school? Cool, I'm on, I'm out. But you've at least given them some idea, and then you and then you start trying to um uh fill that emotion tank. People won't take risks if they don't if they don't feel good about themselves. So if you're all constantly defending yourself against the world, you'll never take a risk. So I want to my kids to feel good when they come to the gym. I want to tell them what they're doing, doing well, and I want to give them that ability to go like I'm doing really well here in the gym, I'm gonna go ahead and take a risk and try something new.

That's that's awesome. I I love that I love the fact that you're you're essentially taking ownership and responsibility of that challenge and and pushing forward. I think um it's it's very it's very much needed. How when you guys are doing if if someone's um doing the brand X way or the Brand X method, right? And they're they're coaching, how um, how do you integrate?

I like the brand X way. That's kind of like the cowboy way.

You know, that's sounds good, right? That's for free, man. It's all you have to do. Um how do you integrate um and how do you mix together like free play and and fitness and training, right? Because you know, training's not always fun, right?

Uh but that's to teach the wrong lesson, right? Right. That's teaching the wrong lesson. But yeah, everything you have to do, everything you have to do to get better is fun. That's that's the wrong lesson. Um, but so I'll tell I'm gonna talk about it from my uh my area of expertise, which is preaching and teams. Okay. Kind of a couple ideas of what we'll do. We'll do um uh um let's say uh you come in, you do your skill work, you do your warmup, you do your skill work, you do prep work. So we have uh kind of our way, our workout is outlined is warm-up is a general outline, skill work, skill is is um whatever skill we're working on, it's gonna be in the in the in the workout, in the condition workout. Kids come in and do prep work, it's it's specifically to activate the movement patterns and muscles that are associated with the uh condition class. They do the condition class. Now we have an option. I can either go to skill, another skill work, or we're working on uh you know handstands or levers or something you know like that, or I can have them play. So one of like one of the things we'll do is say, hey, free teens and teens, um, I want you guys to start over there on that side of the room, and I want you to make it all the way around the gym without without getting on the floor. You know, good. You guys make it up, you know, or hey guys, here's a bunch of uh, you know, hey, uh my more work more advanced kids, here's a bunch of obstacles. You guys make up a handstand obstacle course, and now you're giving them the idea, and then they just play with it and let them and let them let them go, you know, go at it. Um we brought in games, uh different things. So we'll we'll uh bring in like we everybody plays dodgeball. We'll do like crazy line dodgeball, where we put the lines all squiggly and we make them, you know, let's make the rule, let's let's change the rules so um you know, and have them change the rules. So that's more directed play. We have free play, just allowing them, hey, I want you to do this thing, and you make up whatever you can on that. And we have directed play. We have a game we call um uh heelbilly basketball, where we set up uh um three or four different uh heights box boxes, and you turn over one box so you can throw a four-pound medicine ball or six-pound medicine ball in, divide the kids up into teams, and you and you just hey, no no real rules, ball hits the ground, next person grabs it, that's that's what we do, and and and just keep the ball moving. And um, you know, this basket's worth three points, that basket's worth five, this one's worth one, and um a lot of hillbilly stuff going on at Ramona. But um, that's but that's well, you know, it's just an idea, you know, at the end of the at the end, you know, last 15 minutes of class, here's an idea. Um, I'm gonna direct you a little bit, maybe, so we have you know the idea of free play where they where there's no direction, just like here's an idea, go play with it, and then directed play hillbilly basketball will be directed play. Like, okay, here's there's three rules to this, you guys make up the rest of it, go, go. Um, and um that's how you incorporate it in the pre-teen team class. Kids class, I think, is a little bit easier. They they um Mickey will do things like uh um bring out uh um she got like Legos, and she'll go. I want you guys to uh we're gonna go two minutes on, two minutes off. So you go two minutes of burpees and box jumps, and two minutes of playing with the Legos, and two minutes of this, and then two minutes of that, and then maybe maybe some direction. I want you as a team, you know, I want two teams. I want you guys to go two minutes of this, and then you guys are gonna build blank, blank, blank with the with the Legos. And you know, three two one go, and I got two teams and they're building whatever she's directing, but they have to work together to do that. So that's kind of the the the idea behind um play. And Mickey's the expert. I'm barely the expert in anything, but she's the expert on play. She's she's just really delved into this, and she can talk about all of the um uh the benefits and uh of play and all of the negatives that happen if you don't allow kids to play. And we're you know, and and now I'm going off on my jag, but and we don't see kids playing. You don't see you see them playing on their on their on their on their tablets. But you know, 10-15 years ago, if you drove down through a community, you'd see kids outside playing you know, pickup games of basketball or pickup games of football, and you don't see that anymore. There the the you know, whether it's because they're sports specializing and they're just doing you know, they're doing soccer three, three, four times a week, or they're just inside on their on their well on their phone, or they're doing the the three hours of homework that seems to be required by you know seven-year-olds. And kids aren't allowed to play in the way they were in the past. And and that comes out in movement, and it comes out in and that and that problem then that raising problems comes out in safety later on in when you're playing sport.

Yeah, and I'll even add to that. I I totally see that. I I distinctly remember the days when I would just leave a note from my mom saying. I'll be back, you know, at 5 PM, right? And then I would just go ride my bike and go play and do things. You just don't see that anymore. I would also add that adults don't play enough anymore.

I think that is another thing.

Yeah.

That we, you know, it's it it's um it's problematic. Mickey, Mickey's talking about that a little bit too. Although we we don't we don't really jet into the adult side of things with very often.

Yeah, I know uh Dan John was an early um he was an early episode on this podcast, and he's a huge proponent that adults need playtime. And whatever that is, you know, um, you know, even joining a kickball league or whatever it is, you know, just get out and and you know, express yourself physically in a fun environment. Uh, you know, I I'm this is a hot question because just we have a community of gym owners, um, facility owners that we work with and help them with their marketing. One of the big things that always seems to come come up is people want to do, you know, a high school athletics or a preteen athletics program at their gym. They're dying to do it, but they always find difficulty getting traction, getting it started. Do you guys uh assist people with with that or do you have any tips for people who are trying to get that that off the ground?

I'm I think I missed the question. Are you asking how to how to like start a soccer league?

No, no, I would say like if you're a gym, okay, if you're if I'm a gym owner, right, and I and I want to get I want to get this whole program off the ground, I just need to get a start, you know. Um and of course talking to your current clients and asking them, you know, what they think if they have their kids want to get joined. But do you guys when when people join Brand X or when they they get the Brand X way, um is it is that something you assist people with, or do you have any tidbits on how to how to actually just step one of getting this program going?

Step one. Um step one, get the knowledge.

Okay.

Um, too many people, I mean, on honestly, this is we see people do things backwards, in our opinion, backwards. You people go out, they want to get, they want, they see a market, you know, and and I really you know so that's a that's problematic in the first place. You know, you try not to approach children as a market. Try to chill, probably you have to want to help kids and want to that's really the best way to start the process. Then the next thing is they'll want to start the program. Well, they don't really, they really don't have the experience, generally don't have the experience. They generally are adult trainers, so they're trying to scale down their adult program to do this with the kids, and then they come, you know, maybe maybe six months in they've got 10 kids, and they come back and go, Okay, well, now I want the training, and now you've got to readjust everything that you're doing, and your kidney program's not thriving. So, you know, first so that's like just from the business standpoint, like that what from the from the from the standpoint of somebody that works with kids, there's two things that that uh um scientists, researchers who work with with um fitness with kids say um and like the American Academy of Pediatrics uh um endorses, and that is that if you're gonna work with children, you need to be trained to work with kids, and you need to have a program that is specifically designed for kids. So let's just kind of start that's your base. Like we you gotta you've got to have the training to work with kids, understand their developmental uh needs, and then you then you um have to use a program that's not just scale down adult program. Um the and the next thing is where do you get your clients? So you know the first thing, the first easy, you know, the low-hanging fruit is the is the uh members of your gym, which is always awesome if you've got you know 30s to 40s. But if you're in the demographic downtown San Diego where people are 20 to 28, what are you gonna do? You don't have to get a lot of lot of kids. So you can approach schools. You know, that's that's one thing is you know, we you know you approach the school, you approach, especially if you're going preteen team, you can approach middle school and high school, talk to the athletic director to see if you can um put on camps and things like that, that you start to get kids to come in. You know, hey, I'd like to come into a camp for uh for weightlifting. Teach your kids to be safe when they pick stuff up off the ground and help your football team to be safe when they're squatting and power cleaning, showing the points of performance, and then you know, and then try to develop that kind of relationship with that. The other one is is um club sports, go out, go after the traveling clubs and things like that. One of the things we've done for the last uh three years is have um a high fairly high-level soccer team come in. So you got you know, I got 15 young ladies coming in, and um you know they some of them stick. That's but I but throughout the but before the season starts, I'm talking to a coach. They come in you know six weeks before the season and they work out with us throughout the season. Um, we're working on you know, you know, so the programming is a little different. It's working on safety for the kids, I'm working on strengthening for the kids, but um you know you also get the opportunity to hone your skills because I've got 15 new kids when you come in here. I've got to teach them how to squat, I've got to teach them how to pick stuff up off the ground, I've got to teach them you know how to run, things like that. So you get the opportunity then to um kind of address that. So the other the other idea I think is that that people don't seem to go after very often is the club sports. You know, you can go in with a with a handout that talks about how the you know um sports injuries are rising, why those things are happening, why strength and conditioning is important now. Um and certainly some of the some of the stuff we put up on our Instagram page is readily available for people to go in like this is a this is a collapsed ankle, this is why it's not, this is why it causes a problem. Here's one of our ways we address it, and things like that.

Yeah, that's great. That's that's really valuable insight, and I appreciate you sharing that, Jeff. And uh, you know, if um if if for the fitness professionals are listening out there and they really want to start pursuing the knowledge and pursuing um, you know, specializing within working with kids, because we need we need more coaches there, right? How do you how do they get a hold of you? How do they get involved with brand X?

Um what what's what's the first you know we have the our our website, the brand X method.com. Um Instagram, there's a lot of a lot of activity on our Instagram, so we're at the Brand X method. And then they can just always contact me, Jeff at the brand X method. Okay. Um it is the brand X method.

So uh well this is great, yeah. I I really appreciate, man. You are an absolute wealth of knowledge within this this niche, and uh yeah, I just appreciate you sharing. So um thanks for coming on, and I hope uh you know I'll be tracking you and and seeing how things are going. I'm sure we'll hopefully have you back on again.

I'd love to talk to you again. It's been fun.

Great. All right, Jeff. Thanks, man. Have a great day. Okay, bye-bye. Hey fitness fans, don't leave yet. This is Eric Malzone, your host, and I have an extremely special offer just for you. If you go to fitnessmarketingalliance.com forward slash assessment, you can claim your complimentary digital marketing audit. Are you a modern fitness professional? Do you have some sort of online presence? Do you have a sneaking suspicion that your website is not performing optimally and therefore costing you money? Well, this is how you start to find out all the details. Just like fitness, you need to start with an honest and objective assessment. So go to fitnessmarketingalliance.com forward slash assessment, fill out the form, and we will have it to you within 72 hours. It will cover your overall site performance, rank from zero to 100, how you rank for your chosen keywords to that search engine optimization, your website traffic history over the last six months, to the edge and flows of what works within it, your website speed, which is highly relevant for people coming to your website and then bouncing off because it's working too slow, your social media presence, competitive analysis, and much, much more. So this is just a tip of the iceberg, but this is the starting point for building your online business. So please take advantage of it. We're offering it because we feel it's deeply important to you and the industry overall, and you can claim it by going to fitnessmarketingalliance.com forward slash assessment. Do it today, do it right now. Don't hesitate. This offer won't last forever. So thank you for listening. Greatly appreciate it. If you ever need to reach me, hit me up, Eric at fitness and marketingalliance.com, and I'll be talking to you very, very soon.