Dr. Jason Wersland - Therabody & Mobilizing The Masses

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Yeah, it's happy to be here.

Yeah, it's it's a pleasure to have you. I mean, already within 10 minutes of conversation, I covered that uh we both love skiing. Uh we both love fitness industry. Um I mean, what else is there? I think it's uh just having seen from an outsider's perspective the massive growth of Theragun to Therabody, um, the whole you know recovery science market, uh, which you know I work with Morpheus as well, so it's a very exciting place to be. And uh so it's great to have you on. I mean, you know, tell the story, please, about how did you get to be the founder of uh Theragun and Therabotic?

Well, 13 years ago I was in a motorcycle accident, uh 14 almost, 2007. I was a chiropractor in Los Angeles. I was heading to my school because I still had some clinic stuff to do there. So I was kind of bouncing between an office that I was building, or uh a pay a practice that I was building at my school in my apartment, and I had this accident. A car cut me off. I was splitting traffic, and I hit the side of this car going about 55 miles an hour, and I ended up sort of losing that head-on head, head-on collision. Um, I ended up having soft tissue damage in my right side of my neck and down my arm, um, which eventually caused my three fingers in my hand to go completely numb. And as a chiropractor, there, those are my tools. And so, with my injury, suddenly I'd never really been injured in my life, and I was suddenly a patient. So now I was thinking like a patient, and I went to my practice and I saw what was in the practice, and I was like, this isn't um, this isn't none of this stuff is made for what I have. Like this was so acute that anything I had in the clinic just didn't make sense for this, except for a vibrating table. So I sat on that vibrating table and would take the pain away momentarily. Well, long story short, my brother's a chiropractor, he introduced me to something that vibrated called the vibrcusor. And I would take that thing, it was about the size of a Coke can, and it had an adjustable dial on the bottom that adjusted the speed, not the amplitude, just the speed. And that had a sort of a silicone handlebar around it, and I'd just put that thing underneath my armpit and turn it on, and the vibration would rub against my rib cage and my body, and it would just shake my body, and the pain would go away. So I was fascinated by that. But then the pain would come back after like 30 seconds. So I was thinking, like, okay, I have to deal with this, that's what happens. My nervous system was so acutely injured that it didn't take much to bring it back. The accommodation wasn't working. So accommodation is typically you have a watch or you have you have headphones on, or you don't think about those things until I say them because the brain takes it and puts it in the subconscious. Well, this thing wasn't working, meaning it didn't last. It was driving me crazy. So I this is now my accident was October 7th, 2007, 17th, 2007. By December of that year, I couldn't move. Now it's just January, I'm trying to treat myself, and I realized this thing's not working that I'm using, and I wonder if I had to could make something that punched my skin, it punched my muscles. So I was like, I can make that. I grew up with a far on a farm in our family. We I worked in Power Tools. I did, I had a I was familiar with that, and I think just putting that together and using it on myself. I used deal, I built the first one, I used it for the first six months of 2008, got myself better, went back to practice. A patient comes into my clinic, he'd been in a similar injury, and he was in a similar situation financially and with his insurance and everything. And so I said, Hey, you know what? I just went through something. I'm gonna share this with you. Let's see if we can get you better with this. And it did, it worked, it was amazing. Watching that happen through a patient's eyes and then my own, I was like, what the heck? Because I never thought about selling it or using it. So then now suddenly it's like, what the heck? This is like there's something to this, I have to figure this out. So from 2008 to 2015, that's what I did. I figured it out, and it was a lot of failure, a lot of money. I mean, I went through three business partners, spent almost $200,000 of my own money that I didn't have. And I I but there was something that just kept pushing me to do this. So in 2015, I met Ben, my current business partner. We launched our G1, the Theragun G1, in June of 2016. Um I'm only sharing this because I think your audience would like this. Ben and I did a handshake deal in December of 2015. By March of 2016, we finally created the company. So there were three months there where we were just working on adrenaline because we were so excited getting things set up. In that three months, Ben said, before we go into this, we gotta figure out how to we're gonna launch another product. We need to figure this out. And I said, Yeah, we do. Like, and I've got drawings, I've been doing this for almost nine years now. I like I have some experience I think we can like lean on. So we start creating the G2 Pro before we even launched the G1, knowing that we had to create and figure this out. And Eric, all along the way, I would tell have people tell me, because I found it was frequency, amplitude, and torque and specific numbers in each one of those that makes it work like it does. And it had to be that, but it also had to be quiet. And every engineer I talked to would tell me, you can't do that. Literally, the first words out of his mouth. He just looked at it, no, you can't do that. That's impossible. And I just kept thinking, okay, then I'm gonna do this. If if they keep telling me no, someone told us we couldn't go to the moon, and we're in the we're on the moon. So whether it's in my lifetime or someone else's lifetime, I'm gonna figure this out. So we basically launched G2 Pro in 2017, July of 17, so one year later. Then we launch our G3 series about 18 months later. We did a Theragun house in New York, it was really cool. And then in our transition from G3 to G4, my business partner and I were having a lot of conversations, and just Theragun didn't feel right, but it was right. And we kept thinking, and I was so we had this conversation, and I was sharing with him, like, I I don't this is for everybody. I just went around the world and and it didn't care what language they spoke, what country I was in, this science worked, and there's something to this. So it's the fact that it works on everybody. So he was like, Yeah, we got to think of a different name because it can't be Theragun. Theragun's not, it just doesn't make sense. And it to me it didn't either. I always felt like Theragun was like this sort of breadcrumb that led me somewhere, and it was really cool this pathway that I went on. So, anyway, I don't I don't mean to keep rambling, Eric. I just I think it's that with your audience, it's important that I kind of share some of those things. We've we transitioned from Theragun to Therabody, recognizing that that allows us now to grow and provide all these other things that we were working on. So we evolution happens, and it was, you know, we people don't know that, but we were working on that for several months before it happened, and it just finally seemed to be the right timing. Ben and I are, you'll the audience will love this. This is this is uncanny. We're sitting in a room, we have a it's full of like, you know, our our C-suite, basically, people at the time. We had marketing in there, we had design, content, and we were not leaving the room until we came up with a name. And so it's like 10:30 at night, we'd all ordered pizza or some crap, and we're sitting around eating, trying to figure this out. And Ben and I are sitting next to each other, kind of out by the exit, and he's and we started kind of bouncing back and forth with each other, like what a because we landed on Therra One and Therabody. That's kind of what it happened. We were like, oh, wait, and then it was like, wait a second, Ben Googled Therabody. There was not a URL. He immediately calls our attorney and goes and asks him, Hey, can you do me a favor, search the state, see if there's anything like so? It was like, he did that, we found the URL, we jumped on Instagram, there wasn't an Instagram. Actually, I think there was, but the guy had like 300 followers or something. So it just was like boom, boom, boom, and then it just happened. And then it at first it sort of seemed strange because of the reason we were thinking about it, that it was for everybody, and were we trying to include that? But as it's evolved, it's just become something much bigger than that. And then changing our logo to the one I have on now with that sort of health peace sign kind of looking thing, it's it really has grown, yeah, it really has grown on me and the company. And I think it we we want it to really become sort of a logo for health and wellness, but in but but self-care as well. Like looking at that should empower someone like I can take care of myself. So, to answer your question, how did I become the founder? That's the how I became the founder and how it sort of launched and has grown to your point. It's been like a hockey stick for the last three years. And I really feel like that's with the our our ingenuity and continually trying to innovate and find new ways to provide this to people in mass masses. Um and continually, like I think health and wellness in 2019 or 20 2018, that was like a I I don't even know what the numbers were, but it was a massive industry. And I think it only no one thought it would grow like it did or the way that it did during COVID, but it did, and we did as well. I was telling someone the other day that our message never changed, it's just people started to see our beacon.

It's um it's such a great story. I'm I'm very much a student of business and entrepreneurship. One of the things I why I like interviewing people like you on the show is I I learned so much, but there always seems to be some consistencies. And you know, this is I mean, cliches are oftentimes cliches because they're true that you guys were almost to the year, you know, when people see you're an overnight success that took 10 years, right? So there was just this long period of like 08 to 2015. And the other thing I've always noticed, and I'm I fall in this camp because I I do have you know done it many times over my career, is it's really you mentioned that adrenaline of just getting a business started, right? The excitement and adrenaline. How easy it is to write off that to get something launched. But then you get into the phase of the next 10 to 20 years, which is the grind, right? And that's where the success is made is like you know, anybody I like the steps you said, yes, it's very uncritical to get the right name, get the website, get the social, you know, um handles and all those things, that's really important. Um but people often think that's business, like, well, once I get this launch, then I, you know, then business just kind of starts coming to me. Like, no, no, you're gonna pivot a million times, right? Yeah, and you're gonna you're gonna always there's gonna be another million times in the back of your head, be like, I should just get a salaried job. So I'm wondering as you kind of grew through this process, did you have those moments? Did you have those ways? Absolutely. Yeah, you know, a job at Coca-Cola sounds pretty good right now.

Yeah, so many times. Like there was one time I was coming back, I was working in uh what year was this? Probably 2014 or 13, before the Summer Olympics in Brazil. I was working with the U.S. track and field team, the players, the the athletes, I mean, at the UCLA track. I'd get up five o'clock in the morning and I'd go there and I'd work on them, and I'd get done at one or two o'clock in the afternoon, and I'd maybe make twenty dollars. And I'd come back and I have to work. And I'd work throughout the day, and then I'd work on my patients that I was making real money with at night. It was a grind. And there were times where I would just swear at this thing, like, what are you in my life for? You're not helping me. And and I but every day I'd wake up and someone would demand it. Hey, can you come? Hey, can you bring that? Hey, can you? And I'd just think, I can't get away from it. But as I started to understand its power, and you know, you go through those times. It's was almost 10 years of that, like to your point. Um, but I I feel like the the um the grind and the adrenaline is still there.

That's great. That's great. I mean, and that's I mean I think that also comes with um having the drive to continue to reiterate and grow, right? Like if you're if you have that drive, right, and you're like, okay, well, how can I make this one person better? How can we reach a new audience? How can we continue with our mission? And I presume your mission involves something of helping a lot of people be pain-free and move better. I mean, I don't know the words, but I can just tell by talking to you. It's probably something like that, right? Yeah, I love it. You know, if you have those clear guiding lights, then it it tends to you you can re-energize yourself many times over.

I was just talking to uh a friend and an ambassador for us, his name's Felipe Gustavo. He owns a Basa Ebowl place just down the street, and I was just down there, and he was telling me that the he's never had more fun than when he got to gift some of his fellow athletes one of the minis, and and just the joy on that he had on his face. He's like, dude, it was amazing. You should have seen them. I'm like, I know, I'm so glad someone else gets to experience that. And that's really what started to drive me early on. Those long hours and looking and thinking about like why am I doing this? I should be, my brother's a chiropractor in an office. Why can't I be doing what why should I I thought I was supposed to be doing that? But I just it never really got off the ground, and this thing just kept pulling me in it in a direction like a magnet. Um, and once I started realizing that, I you know, I I mean, even up until we created G2 Pro to answer your question, Eric, like I really was thinking, this is unbelievable. Like I this, I can't, I can't believe this is happening. And there was an experience with G2 Pro where Ben and I flew to China and we were QAQCing the product. We had the tooling all done, we had manufacturing all set up, we were ready to go, pull the trigger. Ben and I show up and we're QAQCing the G2 Pro. And it it the torque, they got the three things except the last one, the torque wasn't strong enough, it couldn't withstand any sort of pressure, more than like 20 pounds. And so I broke like four or five of them. And when that was happening, I was the highest I'd ever been. I had held something in my hand that came from my brain. We created this thing, but then it just tumma, clump plummeted because they were breaking. And so we realized they were missing the torque. When that happened, I still had that little thing inside of me saying, Ah, that's it. You came this far, and this is what this is what's Going to end this journey. And then it was like, no, it's not. Like, this is way bigger than me. This isn't about me failing. Like, this is really about getting this out into the world. And once I started sort of taking on that and understanding that I'm just a conduit right now, I'm just the mouthpiece. And the more people that hear about this, the more people that feel it, like they're going to understand what it does for them. It won't need me.

I love it. So let's um, Dr. Jacobson, let's talk about Therabody and its current iteration. So today is October 26th, 2021. Um, I don't know how it got to be 2021, but that's where we are. Where where is the company overall? Like, you know, um, please feel free to share whatever numbers you feel comfortable with. Product lines, um, you know, ambassadors. I mean, just seeing, you know, over social media on your website, you guys have some incredible Christiana Ronaldo. Like, that's crazy, right? It's like one of the biggest names in the world. Um, so yeah, please share us. Where's the company at now?

Um, well, we're in 60 plus countries. Uh, we have either a warehouse or three PLs in several other countries, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, London. Um, we've got, you know, we're growing. Um we have divisions and that you know that we've never had before, but we're growing and hiring at a really high scale right now because of the need. It's it's not because of something necessarily that we're not or we're doing, but it's just the need. You put it out there and present it the way it's we're presenting it. People are buying it and they're getting it. Um, we have we've got some really cool, exciting verticals we're just getting into. I mean, you saw what we've done in golf. Um, we worked with Colin Morikawa as an ambassador there and several others. I know I'm gonna miss some names. That's honestly how it is. I mean, Paul George in basketball, um James Harden. Uh, I mean, what? I can't believe that, but it speaks more to the product and what it does for them, and what we provide as support with Therabody University. And and so, from a business perspective, I I realized early on that we needed science, otherwise, people were gonna just be able to brush this off as a fad. And we needed education because with science, you have to understand the and with the education. So, science and education came be what sort of a sales tool, but it wasn't selling, it was just educating. And I'd like to joke sometimes and tell you once you feel this and you understand what this is, you can't unknow it. You like it suddenly now becomes part of what you're doing. Um, we have um one reset center, which is sort of our um we're democratizing some of these modalities that usually are behind a physician or a chiropractor or the physical therapist's doors, their gate. Um, and with things, we're bringing them out to the public that don't we don't need a license to run them. So we create curated a place called Reset. There's one in Philly, we're putting one in New York and one in Manhattan Beach, um, where we've curated the best modalities from red light therapy to pemp tables, sound sauna, therragun, cryo chambers, but the way we offer it is completely different. We have, it's sort of like Starbucks. When you walk in, you look at the menu, and you're not ordering one of the modalities, you're ordering a state of mind. So when you go in, you want peace. There's this, or calm, I mean, you have there's a there's a we'll we bundle things together to put your nervous system in that state. So if you want to pick me up, a revive, then we bundle two or three things together. And when you leave the door, you just feels like you had a shot of coffee. We want to be able to have people have those in their neighborhoods. So we'll have our goal is to have several more of those by the end of 2022. We're building out concept right now and it's working really well. So that's our reset sort of as a as a treatment facility or like a care facility. And I mean, I like to change the word what people think of care. And then um, we have retail locations. One of the things we learned early on is that people need to feel it. We need to get them under the guns. If they don't feel it, then it's just sales pitchy infomercial talk. So if they can feel it, then there's we're we're we're cutting right to the chase. How can we do that? Well, let's build some places where they can come and experience that. So we started one in Century City, and now I think we have 13 of them in different parts of the country. We're looking to do this internationally as well. But it's just like a it's like an Apple store. Like you go in, you get to experience the stuff. You got talk to an expert. We've trained everyone in there to know how to talk about every one of our modalities. Um, we've acquired this is probably important to share too. We we acquired a company called Recovery Pump, which was pneumatic compression. Um and they actually came from uh a their parent company was a uh medical um company in out of Israel where they were predate creating medical devices and medical um modalities. And Brian, who was the president of Recovery Pump, and I were really good friends, and Brian had talked this guy into letting him try and do it in retail, like direct consumer and stuff, using the same technology. Well, that was in 2004 or 2005. Normatech saw that, someone from Normatech, and then bam, they took it, took it to Iron Man, and then Normatech flew off. But they're they didn't they missed the science that they're the reason why and how it does it and what parts of the body it works on. And this, these guys have had it for a long time. So um this is I think this is a cool story to tell this audience, especially Brian, myself, and Brandon Marshall, who's an NFL player, we were working together to create these sort of recovery centers for or recovery rooms for hospital workers. And this is before COVID was hit. So we were working with Cleveland Clinic to do this. We did one in Miami and it was amazing. It was this open house, outdoor food. Like Brandon was there, signing autographs, saying hi to people was really cool. And we were gonna bust this out to all of the Cleveland clinics. Well, COVID hits, bam, that puts on a halt, obviously. We pull back. Brandon and I got together and we ended up donating to over a hundred hospitals, Theraguns for the hospital workers between their shifts. I mean, they're working 24, 36 hours. So we started working in that way with him. And then I lost contact with Brian, found out there was someone that made an offer on his company. I thought they were going under because of COVID. He calls me back, hey man, I don't like what's going on with this company. I think you and I should work together. I was like, bingo. So we ended up acquiring those guys. It took about 45 days, all in all, because of who they were, obviously where they were and what they were doing. But but more importantly, their ethos, the way their company thought and the way they talked amongst each other was the same way we did. And when Brian and I would go to a locker room, a trade show or something, we'd end up being with each other. We're we're talking to the same customer, but we're we're sharing different products and different modalities. So it just made so much sense because it wasn't a me too thing. We're just like, hey, we're just two times two is 16. So it's that kind of thing that happened. And then right after that, uh Eric Gladder, who's the president of Power Doc, and I were having a conversation. We've been talking with friends for a long time. He actually started right next to me at CrossFit booth. That was our first booth together at CrossFit in 2015. Anyway, we're talking, and he's like, hey, um, I saw you guys acquired Recovery Pump. Would you be interested in talking about an acquisition? I was like, oh my gosh, yes, we would. So we ended up acquiring PowerDot shortly after that, which goes back to what I was saying earlier, Eric, about how Therabody just grew. That we didn't know that's what was going to happen. We didn't understand that was what's sort of held history held for us, but it did and it worked out and it makes so much sense now. Um, where else are we as a company? We're, you know, I'm I'm excited about um getting over to Europe now. Finally, they're kind of opening things up. And after being vaccinated, I feel like we can really make some really make some big impact on some people over there. And I'm excited to get over there. That's that's what's for that's what's right on my windshield. Um we're coming into Q4, which is our Super Bowl, basically. We we're building just like a lot of other retailers and direct consumer products, we this Black Friday, Cyber Monday is our big days. So we've been acquiring you know, accumulating teams and acquiring these companies to be able to build our story. And this sort of this is this is gonna be a fun year. I I say that every year, but this this is definitely beyond what I would have imagined. So I don't know what else to give you. It's sort of a state of affairs. We're we're still trying to get into South America. Um, we just opened up in Japan uh probably three months ago, maybe more, but we've been working on that for a year. The certifications and and the setup of a company, as you probably any of these guys, people that are listening, know it's not easy. Um so we we set an entity up in Dublin um I think in 2019 with the idea that that would be sort of our European how we would establish ourselves over there. Um and there's been, you know, we did the same thing in Hong Kong um and then in Shanghai and then Shenzhen. We have a couple offices there. Um, yeah, anything else I I I think is probably boring to share.

I mean, it's it's all really exciting and and you know, it it dovetails nicely into, you know, I want to get your thought overall on the field of recovery science. And you know, a little backstory too, is and I think people listen to this. I apologize if you heard this story before, but when I I was a CrossFit affiliate owner for a while, and um I had uh had the pleasure of having Coach Bob Tacano, who is a very legendary uh Olympic weightlifting coach, he came by and he taught seminars. I got to know him a little bit, and I asked him one time, like, hey, where where is you know, compared to all the international, he always talked very um respectfully and almost in awe of like other countries and how they do performance and sport compared to like US systems. And I asked him, Well, where are we lagging? And he's like, Recovery. You know, these other countries have put a huge amount of time, energy, and resources into getting better recovery out of their athletes. And this was back in 2012. I almost switched the name of my gym to you know CrossFit strength conditioning and recovery, right? Um, based on those comments. So I mean, now that I feel like recovery science and the subject and conversation around recovery is much more frontline. Um how are you feeling about recovery science? Do you think we're just getting started like as far as the focus on recovery and and where do you see that that direction going?

This is how I look at it. If and I was just at the Formula One race this weekend. So if our bodies are our race cars, how much information are we getting back right now? So this is a rhetorical question. I'm thinking like, just think for a second, what are we getting back from our bodies right now? Well, we get hunger, we get sleepy, there's certain things that sort of our our barometers or whatever our our speedometers are telling us. But I feel like imagine one day if you knew exactly what your body needed, you recovery would only be a part of it because you would need it and you know you would need it. So for me, I feel like this wellness tech um world that we're coming into does a lot of things. It helps um with compliance, with patience. Um, but more importantly, it's teaching our bodies what's happening. So I wear the aura ring and I wear bio strap and I'm constantly checking out what's going on with my body. And what's happening is I'm waking up in the morning and I'm realizing what my body is saying from this tech, but I'm also comparing it to how I'm feeling. So I feel like recovery is a part of a big pie. And the more we understand about our bodies, the more we'll understand how to use these different things in that pie in our life so that we're not on empty all the time. Because hunger and tired, all those things come when you don't have enough of it. So that's usually what happens in our life. So I feel like the ability we have to be able to combine these things together and educate people on heart rate variability. That's one of the biggest things. I've heard people explain that so many different ways. But but how can you affect it? I think we're working on things that I think will directly affect your heart rate variability. And that directly affects your lifestyle and your sleeping and all those things. But how do we monitor that? How do you know? Like, hey, this is gonna help your heart rate variability. Well, you've got to have something that tells you that it's doing that. So I'm so excited about our growth. I'll I'll give you this comparison to kind of answer that question. People ask how I feel like our growth has been. And I tell them, do you think I ask, and this I can ask you the same thing, do you think that less that more than 1% of the world has a theragon? I don't think so. So I want at least 50% of the people in the world to have a theragon. So that means we have like 50 times to grow. That's the same thing with recovery. There's so much information out there right now that's coming out, quantifying coming out, 16, 32. It's like it's so much information. When we finally figure out how to direct that information and provide a connection between our mind and our body so that we know what's going on, where that's that's when recovery is going to become where I feel like it fits in, which is just a piece of the pie. Right now, it's freaking huge because we haven't been doing it.

It's man, you're speaking my language. I I'm a huge fan of HR HRV, and full disclosure, people on this podcast know too. I work with Joel Jameson over at Morpheus. And you know, as we're launching and we're trying to really educate about the importance of HRV and knowing your metrics. And it's it's to me, like the challenge still is, right? Um like the the ring doorbell was a great example of how it was frictionless, right? There was no extra energy that a consumer or anything had to do to implement this new technology, right? Still, with like an even aura ring is probably the best like manifestation of something. Well, I just just a ring. I'm just gonna wear a ring. I wear rings all the time, right? Um, but when you start to get a little more in depth, like a Morpheus, you know, uh recovery strap or a bio strap, it's it becomes a little bit more, right? So the the challenge, it seems, in this phase, until maybe the technology keeps up catches up, is like, well, how do we educate the consumer um in that this little bit of extra effort, like Morpheus were asking for two and a half minutes in the morning, just sit still for two and a half minutes in the morning, right? Like, but it's hard to get people to do that because they don't understand the value over time of what this data can be telling them. Um, when you look at like, I mean, to me, that's that is the current roadblock, right? Is how do we get people on board understanding the value of and that's just gonna be education over time, I think. Um, but where do you see that technology going? Like where what what's your vision for that for the tracking and the education piece of of all this data that we're collecting?

Man, you know, without like being too weird about it, yeah, as weird as you want. Yeah, I think we'll probably have things we can put inside our bodies.

For sure.

You know, I think there will be something that you could that they can create that's a chip that's you know, I was reading about this a long time ago, but it makes sense that it would be something like that, that you'd have something in your body that was that could go around and keep. I don't know. I I we've tried all these external things, and there's these margin for errors, and it just doesn't seem super accurate. Um, but I feel like it'll be things that they won't only be wearables, but they'll be like an ingestible that you know, gummy that has some sort of reaction. Like remember Arnica, you you take a pill, you put some on your where the pain was, and it suddenly had this like reaction. Like, I think there will be some of that potentially. Um AI is becoming super crazy. Like, what can happen with that? So um, I also feel like there that some of the companies out there, like Techno Gym and some of the other ones, are they're thinking down the road about some of that stuff. They're really thinking about the products they're gonna put out. So I think the our our movements will change over the next few years as well. We'll be a little more conscious of things. Um, we're just learning about loading and unloading of the spine, like that's still a massive problem for 90% of the people on this earth because we sit too long. Um so anyway, I'm gonna you'll get me you'll get me rambling, but I feel like having um an open mind to the ways we can track these things um is just is gonna help us even more. And I love what's happening with the wearable space. I I love what's going on, the amount of information you can capture and how how accurate some of that stuff is. I feel like we can only get stronger, you know, it's not gonna go backwards.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And and having, you know, we've always had as um, you know, I I guess uh called myself an athlete for a lot of my life. And the we always we always had uh subjective measures, right? It was always, you know, some sort of objective measure of how you feel, how you sleep. Like I always I wish I had this technology back then when I would wake up, you know, get ready for a game, and I would just feel flat. You know, and sometimes you just felt flat. Other days you felt the energy, you felt quick, you felt, you know, all these things. And I just wish I had that data back then. If I was a young athlete nowadays, I'd be all over it, man. I would be loving this stuff because when you combine the subjective and the objective, and then you start to get this, because there is a lot of you know, old school coaches are like, well, no, it's not the data, ah, screw the data, right? They're like, nah, it's how you feel. I'm like, well, yeah, it is, it absolutely is, but isn't it nice to have the objective measures as well? And you can start to see, like, are my feelings actually spot on? And uh, I think it's really you know, it's really exciting. I I talk about this often, like three years ago, I was like, you know, I think my time in the fitness industry is done. And then uh it started to get really exciting, you know, like technology started to come in, the pandemic is you know, awful as it was for so many sectors of the um the industry, of the fitness and health industry, it it it accelerated growth, man. It it changed things. We all saw stuff coming down the pipe that that just made it happen even sooner. Um so yeah, that's a bit of my ramble. Uh unless you got any comments on it, then I can move on to a different question.

Um, I think I love that you said we're all athletes. I because I agree. We all at some point refer to those days in our life. Um but I was thinking when you were talking about that, that soccer players and some of the other athletes, uh, basketball, I know for example, they'll have they wear monitors, and the monitors will tell them, you know, what's their output that day and things like that, and they can actually go out and just pull them off the field and say, okay, you're done, you've hit your limit. Imagine what that looks like now. I saw some tech the other day that I could hold my phone up to my screen or to a billboard, and it would read what's on the billboard and play some sort of video or trailer. Imagine you have someone standing on the sideline now that has these special goggles on that's looking in over the top of every one of the players. Uh, you see their you see their stats. How long they're out there, what's their oxygen oxy oxygenation saturation, like what's their heart doing? Like you can, I really think that it's gonna be something like that. That's why I was gonna say earlier. Call me crazy. But I feel like that's kind of where it's gonna go.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like uh if anyone's ever watched episodes of Black Mirror, um, it's kind of like this, but less scary.

Yeah.

Because I think uh I as a 40 mid-40s adult, I stopped watching Black Mirror because it was giving me nightmares. That's uh the truth. Um, it's so good. Um one of the things I want to bring up because we we had chatted before the recording here about it, Dr. Jason was and it it made me really curious what you what you meant by it. When I asked you, you know, kind of like, what are you passionate about right now, man? What what do you want to talk about? What are things that are on your mind? You said uh mobilization, you know, how you get up excited to move. So walk us down that thought, what that means and maybe how that ties into your mission at therabody.

The more I become familiar with myself, I mean I I can kind of keep comparing it to Formula One, but the more the more laps I can take in the morning, just just figuring out my body. And listening to where I'm at for that day. You know, a lot of times my body, a lot of times our body doesn't need to get up and do sprints for five hours or or you know, 20 sprints. Like that's a lot for your body in the morning. So for me, I want to start moving. And as I'm, as I start moving, I start realizing what's going on. I'm a little sore there, a little tight there. I feel like there's things in our bodies that also reveal emotional things. And that for me, I'd really take, honestly, every morning I start with Theragon. I'd take about six to eight minutes. I have a song that I listen to. That's a 14-minute song, and I listen to the first six to eight minutes of treating myself, working my whole body. And I spend the next few minutes just laying on the mat, breathing, and just kind of pay attention to what's going on with my body. But the body, I have to move. And the reason I use Theragon is Theragun takes away the tension, it increases the blood flow. It gets my body just kind of, it gets me going. Like I started the engine and revved it a couple times. So now I'm kind of okay, where am I at now? And then I'll just lay there for a few minutes and sort of register and check in with where I'm at. How this fits in with our brand is that's literally the kind of experience I think everyone needs to have. I think everyone needs to have that two or three times a day. And I think you don't need to use it. It doesn't need to be 20 minutes, it doesn't need to be 10 minutes. It just needs to be a few moments where you can connect with yourself. So I I try to do that in the mornings. Travel a lot. Sometimes it's tough for the time changes and stuff. But when I when I miss those days, when I miss those things, I can tell. My day is just off, like you were saying a minute ago. Just I didn't I didn't feel right. Um so for me, the the movement aspect is if you can't move, you can't live. And we were meant to move. I was working with a lady the other day, she was 70, maybe, give or take, and she she was super athletic, really in great shape. I started talking to her, hey, what are you doing? So I'm a yoga instructor. Of course you are. And and I'm I'm a mindfulness coach, of course you are. And I'm just blown away by this lady. And then I was asking her, she kind of said something, I don't remember what brought it up, but I said, You were injured? She said, Oh yeah, I had a horrible injury. And she kind of went into this story about how bad her injury was. And I'm like, man, you seem like it was a lot. She goes, No, you know what made me so mad is I couldn't move anymore. And suddenly my body started hurting. I've been a dancer and I've done all these things. And now suddenly, because I wasn't moving, my body was hurting like it never had before. And I feel like that's one of the things that our brain has tricked us into thinking that a lot of times movement is what we need, but it feels counterproductive. It feels like, oh my God, if I do this, that's gonna hurt even worse. Man, you start getting oil in those cracks and getting the juices moving around. So that's where I that's my passion. That's what I try to, it's it's changed my life. It changes those around me. I have patients that I work on, that I work with, that I talk about mobility. Move, get up, don't sit at a chair, set your alarm for 30 minutes. Don't sit longer than that. Like you, you this we only get one body. This is, and and I think some of our athletes say you only get one body, make it a therabody. But you only get one body. But Warren Buffett did a commercial, and I wish I could find it. I talk about this all the time. Where he says, Um, you you wake up, let's say you were the day you were born, your dad gave you or your grandpa gave you a classic car. And it was the nicest, whatever car you wanted, that's the car. And that's the only car you had for the rest of your life. Where would you park it? Where would you drive it? How much gas? If you and he went through all of these things, the how would you cover your car? Would you let your friends drive it? Then and he says, We only get one body. How do you treat your body? And it was a life insurance commercial or something. But I feel the same way. You know, we can't trade this in. The dumb things you and I did when we were younger about not even thinking, like I used to ride my BMX bike with my friends and just I'd get raspberries all over my arm. It's just beat my body up. But I I feel like the that's all sort of leads into what I was saying that movement is, I'm not the one that can this either, but movement is medicine. And when you start moving, things really start changing. There's a psychological um sort of cloud that you walk through when you're walking. If you're thinking through your problems and you're walking, there's something psychological about leaving it behind you and walking into the future. And I you can't have that experience if you're not moving. So that in the most basic sense is what we all need to be able to move past things and let things go. And we can't because we're so stuck metaphorically and physically. So I think one, the mind-body connection is what we're really building at Therabody is helping people understand their bodies so that they can continue to move. Um that and that's so, you know, again, you're getting me fired up. That's the stuff that I'm passionate about. Um, and it's easy right now because we're talking about Formula One, we're partnered with Red Bull and really engaged in what they're doing. And to watch that race the other day and to see all of the information that's coming back from every piece on that on that machine. I just thought, God, wouldn't it be great if we had that same thing?

Yeah, it's a cool vision, man. And you know, I to quote Max Shank, who's been on the show a few times, he's a friend of this podcast. You know, he refers to kind of what you're talking about, the concept of people become prisoners in their own body. And that's that's uh, you know, probably a more uh negative way to look at when you're saying, but it's it's true. Um so I know your time's valuable. I want to respect it all. So I have uh kind of two more questions for you. Number one is uh in your morning routine, what song are you listening to? It's 14 minutes long.

Uh it's called uh second, you asked, so I'm gonna show you. And then the second question why you're doing that's called in the spirit by liquid mind.

Okay we can all check it out. I'll try it too much. Um when uh when you look at uh you know because this is called the future of fitness, right? So you look at and we mentioned wearables, we mentioned biometrics, we mentioned um your whole product line of recovery, but is there any other technology that has you really excited uh within the fitness in the fitness space?

Yes. This is sort of out there a little bit, but I think I think you might like this. A really good friend of mine has put together a machine, he's been working with in Mayo Clinic and some researchers from Harvard, and they've he's figured out how to how to increase your stem cells in your body um without injections or without any sort of surgery or anything. And and he's figured out oxygen saturation and being able to put your body in a constant state of challenge because the body's trying to maintain homeostasis. So as he's loading you with oxygen or sort of messing around with that stuff, the end result of that is your body's reaction. And it has a it it has a profound effect on the brain, literally the cellular parts of the brain. It gives it space when your body's having to sort of recalibrate to the pressure you're dealing with. Your brain grows and moves inside of there, and it now it starts to create movement in areas where you can't normally do. And as you as we age, our head moves less and less, and that just gets real solid up there, and it makes it hard for you know all the things that need to happen up there. So it's that neuroplasticity of being able to sort of have the brain move a little bit. That is part of this thing. It's also helped with um performance and recovery because you can load your body with oxygen through these breathing exercises this guy has. So I'm super excited about that. I just I he's been working on it for like five years. Um and he he finally got to the point where he's like, I feel like I have a protocol you can try. So I went to Phoenix on Tuesday, last Tuesday and a week ago today, and I actually was in it and did it, and it was amazing. But it's it's just like everything else in health and wellness, Eric. It's not like you don't brush your teeth on Sundays. So this is something you have to do every day or at least three times a week to be able to maintain enough of that for it to happen. But that's we've just barely getting started. Imagine what that's gonna look like in another five years from now. Do we all have one at our house? Is it like one of those little phone booths you step in your at your house and you get set up and now you're helping your brain, physical part of your brain? Um, that's I'm super excited about that. I think those getting into that kind of thing where there's they're natural, natural solutions that provide maximum effects for our bodies. That's the kind of stuff I love.

Yeah, awesome. Awesome. Well, Dr. Jason, I uh want to thank you for coming on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure. I love the ideas and the visions that you have. Obviously, you think big, um, which is important. Um, I love all the references to F1 too. I started watching that uh docuseries Formula One, and it's just I'm fascinated with it. It's so good. Yeah, um, but where where do you send people online, Dr. Jason? If they want to get a hold of you, if they want to go check out the company, obviously therabody.com, but any anywhere else?

Uh therabody.com, we have some really cool videos in there. Our Instagram handles fun. We have a Therabody Insta hand Instagram and the Therabody Sports, and then I have my own, which is Dr. Jason Worslin. Um, we're constantly trying to look for new ways to provide new information to people about how to use our products. Um, so you'll see YouTube stuff, you'll watch, you'll see some of our commercials you mentioned, Cristiano. There's a couple about a couple of him on TVs, different parts of the world going around right now. So, I mean, it's funny when when you say, Well, how can you find us? Some people say they can't go a day without seeing us somewhere.

Well, great job so far. Um, and I know you have uh you have a long way that you want to go. So keep up the great work and thank you for coming on, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Jason Worslin.

Thank you, Eric. It was a pleasure.

Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minute. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it and want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the futureoffitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the future of fitness. Have a great day.