Juliet Starrett & Alex Alimanestianu - Quarterly Reports: Peloton, Life Time, Planet Fitness, Garmin & The MAHA Effect

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[00:02:37] Learn more at Matabolic.com. That's M-A-D-A-B-O-L-I-C.com. Yes, we are live. We are back with the quoted report. Juliette, Alex, great to see you too. What's going on? So great to see you, Eric. And I'm right now coveting Alex's hat. That's where I am in my mind. I'm wondering what it is, and I would like one. Yeah, so Alex, what's your hat?

[00:03:06] So this is a local artist, and she does these hats, in a lot of cases, with wildlife on them. So this is a bighorn sheep. Okay. Or the skull of a bighorn sheep, a former bighorn sheep. And yeah, there's a lot of bighorn sheep around in the elk refuge here in Jackson. And they're kind of, say, one of our neighbors. And there's about 50 of them out there in the winter. Then they go up into the mountains. But anyway, yeah.

[00:03:34] So bighorn sheep and a local artist. Very cool. Very cool. Really cool. Well, let's hear what's new with you guys. It's been three months to be recorded. Last. Juliette, what's going on in the Starrett world? What's new with you? Oh, man. I mean, we launched our kind of durability longevity program called the Starrett system in January. And that's been going really well. And learning a ton about where people are and where they need support.

[00:04:02] And really sort of appreciating that, you know, our hypothesis was that there was a gap between information and implementation. And I think that that is turning out to be true. We've really seen a lot of people very excited about having a holistic plan to adopt, you know, the biggest levers of health and do that in a supportive community. So it's been really fun to coach people.

[00:04:30] You know, we haven't since we closed our gym in 2020, we've done a lot of coaching, but we haven't done a strength and conditioning coaching program. So it's been really fun for us to kind of get back to our roots as strength and conditioning coaches and meet people on that front. So that's been kind of the focus of our attention and trying to get into some skiing. But as we talked about, it hasn't been as epic as we could have hoped. So and then the only other thing is I'm still deep in college water polar recruiting with my daughter.

[00:04:59] And that's a weird process. But I was lucky enough to be able to go to Harvard with her. And that was I kind of doubt she's going to go and play water polo at Harvard. But that was really a special experience. Yeah, Harvard. Harvard. It's it's really, really cool. We got to play against them in college and swim against them. And we had to get to the Harvard campus. It was very cool. It was cool. We were actually toured around one last story. We were toured around by a kid who was a dual enrolled Berklee School of Music Harvard

[00:05:28] student also on the men's water polo team. And this like phenom cellist. And I was like, well, you know, it's quite like any other school we've toured this kid. It was definitely a phenom, to say the least. It was really fun. Awesome. Awesome. Alex, how about you, man? What's been going on? Well, it was fun to see you in L.A. in February. And at the Connected Health and Fitness Summit, which was I always enjoy it.

[00:05:56] I reconnect with with old, you know, friends and colleagues and then meet new people. And L.A. is always. It's always got interesting things happening. It was a little futuristic this time. I went to pause and got a robotic massage. I escaped. I've heard about those. How was it? So, it is really good. It's really good.

[00:06:25] It doesn't, you know, as with many of these experiences, it doesn't replace a human. You know, it can't do what a human massage therapist can do in terms of, you know, just accessing certain parts of the body. I'm not going to make any, you know, off-color jokes here. So, don't, don't, don't expect. Leave those to me, Alex. It's going to be disappointing.

[00:06:54] But the, the overall experience is excellent. And it is a great option, I would say, to get massage on a more regular basis, more cost affordably. But, you know, you can't replace a human massage therapist with a robot yet. And the other, the other couple of things, I went to the e-gym facility.

[00:07:18] It's not e-gym technically, but it's basically a, you know, 100% e-gym facility in terms of the equipment. And that's quite futuristic. And, and really, I was, I was impressed. It really works in terms of the assessment and then the measurement and the programming. And obviously that, you know, so one, one, one time assessment that I did and I didn't, I don't, I didn't do the, the personal workouts. But it was great.

[00:07:48] Philip was there. It was great to see him and meet him in person. And then the other thing I did was I had never been in a Waymo and I was pretty damn good too. So, so three robotic experiences. Yeah, I've been in one Waymo in San Francisco and it is, it's a wild and cool experience. What, what is it? I don't, I'm naive. It's a self-driving car that you can pick.

[00:08:16] You're, you think you're like, nope, not for me. Yeah, you can basically call one the same way you can call an Uber. I felt, I will say, I don't know about you, Alex, you know, I don't know if you got on like the 405 in LA or something. I felt fine doing it like in the city, but I don't know. I, I feel like if I'd gotten on the Freelan Con at any speed, somehow that might've made me uncomfortable. But I know people who take it to the airport and. Well, it's to work. In LA, they don't go on the highways.

[00:08:46] So they only go on the local. City streets. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't, I didn't have to deal with that, but it's a, it's a driverless Uber basically, Eric. And it's, it's the Jetsons, but it's, it's here. That's wow. I've heard about it. Yeah. Obviously, you know, it's not something that I'm, I'm looking forward to. I think it's, it's nice having, I like the conversations I have with my Uber drivers. And yeah, so, well, it was, it was great seeing you Alex as always.

[00:09:13] And, you know, I missed your panel unfortunately, but I'm sure it was outstanding and for the connected health and fitness. And, you know, for me, it's just been all about getting as much skiing as I can in between podcasting stuff and, you know, supporting my local appare scene. So that's all I can really put out there, but it's been great ski season so far. And it's awesome to see you. I'm, I've been researching this for this episode for a little while and real quick too, I will be releasing shortly an interview with Eric Lippman. They escaped the robot massage founder and CEO. So people can listen in on what that's all about.

[00:09:43] It was really interesting. So we have some stuff to talk about today. We're going to go over quarterly reports, right? We have lifetime, we have planet fitness, we have Peloton. We don't have exponential fitness yet. So in lieu of, uh, or in addition to, we're going to add Garmin, which I think is really interesting because they're one of my favorite brands actually. Me too. Completely like across the board, just one of my favorite brands. So that's really exciting. Then we're going to talk about maybe some updates on things that are at the top of our

[00:10:09] mind as far as like some GLP one updates as research continues to flow out and anecdotal and real research and all those things. There's a lot of updates seem to flying out there every week. Uh, and then we're going to talk about the new secretary of health and what that may mean for the industry. Uh, I think a lot of people are really keen on what may happen, especially in our industry is, you know, do we have the political will to, to do some of these things that we really been talking about for decades? Or is it a bunch of smoke?

[00:10:38] Um, we don't know yet, but we'll talk about it. So let's kick it off with our good old friend at lifetime. Yeah. Let's, uh, Alex, you want to start us off? What do you think about lifetime? Yeah. So lifetime is firing on, on all cylinders, I'd say. And their, their stock is, uh, let's see, it's up 40% year to date. So they're, they're trading around $31.

[00:11:04] They went public at 23 in 21. And then they dip down into the, into the teens. And, and now they're, they're at an all time high. The reason is that, uh, you know, they're, they're growing well. And last quarter, about 19% growth, same club growth.

[00:11:29] So the clubs that are over a year grew at 14%, which is really phenomenal. Their EBITDA cashflow grew at 29%. They had, uh, you know, they didn't open that many clubs last year and they'll open more this year. But I think they, they decided last year that they were going to be a little bit more conservative on capital expenditure and show that they could generate free cashflow, which the market

[00:11:59] and wall street, I think wanted to see and like to see. And a couple of things that are really impressive that the, the, the dropout rate. So the, the churn is the lowest in last calendar year was the lowest it's ever been for them. So in, in 30 some years of operation, their members are sticking with them longer than ever.

[00:12:22] And, uh, you know, that's, I think that's a testament to just how well they're running their clubs and how well they're taking care of their members and how, you know, they're investing in, in pickleball and longevity services and, you know, just trying to serve their members in new and interesting and effective ways. So great. Yeah. Great results. Yeah. It looks great across the board for them. What do you, what do you think J-Star?

[00:12:51] Yeah. I mean, two things I noticed, one of them, uh, that I learned from you, Alex, in doing these podcasts is that cash is king. So, uh, when I saw that they had a positive free cashflow this year, I thought that was good because we've been talking about how they spent maybe too much money in 2023 on, you know, capital expenditure. So I was like, yes, lifetime, you know, I think they only opened eight clubs last year. And then I noticed the same thing about

[00:13:15] churn and wanted to get your respective thoughts. I think you, uh, I had many of the same thoughts you did. And then I also wondered if part of their really wonderful or lower churn rates they're seeing now can at least be attributed to all of this information that we are now been privy to over the last two or three years about what really matters in terms of health and longevity and this

[00:13:43] huge emphasis on strength and conditioning being kind of the thing. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I can't open my Instagram without seeing a clip of Atiyah, not even on his own podcast, you know, just clips being shared far and wide saying, you know, exercise, strength and conditioning is the thing. It is the thing. And, you know, again, obviously that's my own algorithm, but I really wondered if maybe part of, if they weren't the beneficiaries of this massive amount of information

[00:14:11] showing how, I mean, I think we sort of knew this, but somehow there, it seems to be more part of our public conversation over the last three or four years. So I wondered if that was positively impacting their business. It's got to have, it's got to play a part, right? Without a doubt. You know, just this, this pursuit of lifelong fitness and strength and all that. I think it's very different than conversation we would have 10 years ago, which was fat loss. Right. And that's, that seems to be

[00:14:38] to me the critical. I think it stood up on this one to me is the revenue per membership hit record levels. So they're really looking at, you know, revenue per member lifetime value of no pun intended, but like that, that's something where in as a gym owner in a very, very speck of sand compared to what lifetime was. But as soon as I started focusing on those numbers, I saw a lot more success in my business was how much is each client worth? How much are they spending with me? And what's the

[00:15:05] lifetime value, the retention, all those things kind of go into running a very excellent business versus focusing on lead generation and acquisition, which are all important. I mean, you know this Alex, just as good as anybody, but I think it's really cool. And I like how they maintain this high price point, high value, which, you know, I think there's a time and play we'll get to plan it, you know, as far as the opposite of that kind of the low cost, high volume model. But I've always

[00:15:30] feel like in our industry, we've been, we undervalue ourselves to the nth degree, right? All the time. And seeing, you know, someone like lifetime continue to raise the rates, continue to raise, you know, the average member value. That's, that's really cool to me. I think it bodes well for where we're trying to go, which is at the forefront of health. So I liked it. Any other comments? Their, um, their average member is spending around $3,200 a year. That's awesome.

[00:15:59] So, you know, it was 200 of, of, uh, of dues per month. And then some ancillary spend on top of that for personal training or supplements or other things. And they are, uh, they're going about 12 times a month on average. It's great. Yeah. Three days a week. It's great.

[00:16:23] That's amazing. Yeah. When we talk about planet, it's about half that, but, you know, it used to be that clubs didn't really want their members to show up. Yeah. It was like the 24 hour fitness model. It's just like with as many members who don't come as possible. Yeah. Long-term contracts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think life, you know, lifetime started out in that fairly low price position. They were about 50, $60 a month and

[00:16:51] they were building big, really big clubs even back then, but they were doing high volume. And now they've sort of pushed into the, into the, you know, the four seasons category where the, you know, the Ritz Carlton, that's, that's kind of what they're doing. You know, that's the, that's the only challenge with the growth there. You know, how many, how many units can the four seasons have, you know, how many afford,

[00:17:19] you know, neighborhoods can afford that. But, you know, he, he says his pipeline's as robust as ever. And I have no reason, you know, not to believe him. And if he's only doing 10 units a year, he should be able to, they should be able to keep growing for, you know, a long time. Awesome. I love it. Big fan of lifetime. Yeah. Let's, uh, let's talk about planet, you know, major trends, I think for them, uh, you know,

[00:17:44] massive membership growth, club expansion, revenue and EBITDA growth. Yeah. A lot, a lot going on, a lot of, uh, a lot of positive things. So yeah, we're lead us off with that one, Alex. What do you see for plant? So planet, you know, their, their stock's been lackluster. It's down about 5% a year to date and over the last three months, but for the year, over the course of a year, it's up 52%. So I think that, you know, last year was tricky with,

[00:18:14] uh, with, uh, in the year before with management changes and, and an interim CEO. And now their new CEOs in, in, uh, the driver's seat as of June. And she's hired, they've, they've, they've beefed up their C-suite. They hired a chief marketing officer and the chief development officer, and she's starting to execute on her strategy. She comes from hospitality. And so she, I think, you know, the, the,

[00:18:42] the challenge with planet versus a lifetime lifetime's founder is still running the business. And, you know, he knows, he knows his customer, he knows his markets, he knows the history of the industry. New CEO coming from outside has, you know, there's a learning curve and, you know, we'll have to, we'll have to see it still early. They did grow last year, not as much as they had in the past. So that they're not back at pre COVID growth rates. Um, they were adding 200 clubs, 200 plus a year

[00:19:11] there. They were at 150 last year. And I know it's all, it sounds like a lot, but wall street is not, you know, they're, they're not impressed with, with that number because it's less than it used to be. You always have to show bigger numbers. That's the challenge. I, you know, overall it's a really healthy, successful business. And, and the fact that the stock that, you know, is not the growth isn't impressing wall street doesn't mean that it's not a great company. Yeah. I mean, the only thing

[00:19:38] I would add is it's hard for me as a former gym owner myself, not to see 1 million new members and have a little twinkle in my eye. I was really impressed with that. Uh, and, and also when I, you know, I, I appreciate wall street doesn't like it, but I mean, I've seen some planet fitness and they're, you know, they're not as big and fancy as lifetimes, but they tend to be really big facilities

[00:20:03] still. So I also thought, man, when I saw 160 or 70 new club openings, I thought that was also impressive. I mean, these are huge facilities, you know, these aren't little boutique, you know, 3000, 4,000 square foot facilities. These are huge facilities with a massive amount of equipment in them. And so, uh, yeah, I got, I got a twinkle in my eye about the 1 million new members. I was impressed by that. Alex, if you, you know, they, they opened a few clubs in Spain that they said

[00:20:33] which is interesting. And, uh, they said that engagement like usage was going up a bit. It had gone, I think 23, it was six times a month and went up to about six and a half times a month in 24. They're adding, they're adding some strength equipment. And, uh, so, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a big ship. I mean, it's a big ship. If you want to, if you want to turn it in

[00:21:00] different directions, it's going to take, it's going to take a while, but I think, you know, we talked last time about the brand positioning where she wanted to make it more inclusive of, of, you know, folks who were, who were maybe more expert or advanced, you know, fitness folks and athletes. And that remains to be seen whether that positioning is going to pay off or not. Yeah. She must've been listening to this podcast, right? Can we talk about that?

[00:21:26] Yeah. We did. Yeah. Uh, I mean, 19.7 million members. That's, that's just a staggering amount of influence and, uh, an opportunity. And I want to question for you, Alex, cause you were in the health club world. If you're going to start a model right, right now today in 2025, would you go lean towards more of the lifetime model or lean more towards the planet? Low cost, high volume. What

[00:21:49] would you do? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I, I like, I like a business that really, uh, you know, focuses on outcomes, I think. And, and I think a business like planet can get people started, which is critical too. I mean, I'm not, it's, it's critical, super critical to get more people off the couch, but, but then how do you, uh, how do you progress people? How do you advance

[00:22:19] people? How do you, and I, you know, I think a business, a high touch business like lifetime with a lot of touch points, a lot of great trainers, a lot of, uh, you know, registered dietitians, they, they can, they can produce overall more impact. I think in terms of outcomes, but that's just, you know, my bias. I mean, I think they're both good. They're, they're both doing great work. Yeah. They both serve the right, you know, different populations at the right time. And,

[00:22:49] you know, it seems like almost like a plant fitness is like the entryway to, to health and fitness, right. For a lot of people. So interesting. Yeah. I mean, I'd love to see planet have, you know, a, a really accessible price point and, you know, structure and programs and that, that really, you know, help their members, members stick with it, stay engaged, you know, and, and progress. But that's a tough, those are tough to combine.

[00:23:19] Yeah. I mean, it would be really, of course, they don't have any data on this, but of course, it would be really interesting to see what outcomes there actually are at a planet, right? Are people getting more fit? Are they getting stronger? Are they losing weight? You know, are they, are any of the metrics that people are looking for when they join a gym improving? Are they going often enough to see those changes? Yeah. It'd be interesting if E-gym ever broke into planet

[00:23:45] fitness. Yeah. Yeah. They have so much data. I love that. Yeah. I would love to see that. Go E-gym. How about, uh, how about Peloton? What are some things I saw like, uh, strength workouts are becoming a focus for Peloton. Uh, I think that all makes us smile, right? A little bit more focused on men's membership was, was an interesting note. But yeah, there's, there's a lot of good stuff I think going on in Peloton. I think they're, you know, they, they seem to be showing the right signs, but

[00:24:14] Julia, what do you think? What was your initial thoughts on, on Peloton's? Yeah. I mean, I felt like this was the first time I read the report where I was like, okay, things are seem to be trending in the right direction. You know, I was like, there's hope here. And they have, they, they've, they've actually tried out some things, this rental model, I think it was in the UK actually seemed to be working well or starting to work well. Um, you know, they're not spending as much money building equipment there. They do seem to be

[00:24:43] focusing on their app, which I think is great. And so, yeah, I've, I felt actually sort of optimistic about Peloton. I think for the first time since we've began, we began these calls, I thought, okay, there's something here. Like they might actually be able to dig out of this hole they've been in for three or four years. Yeah. What do you think Alex? So new CEO, it was his first, uh, he just started

[00:25:07] January 1st. It was his first, uh, earnings call. And he, you know, he talked about member happiness and customer happiness, which, you know, is not really what the analysts respond to, but I think it's the right thing to talk about because, you know, if you can keep, hold on to

[00:25:33] the members you have and you have 2.9 million of them, you can keep your churn super low. They keep paying 44 bucks a month or more. If, if he decides to raise the price, they're engaged. The software keeps getting better. The content keeps getting better. It costs money, but it's not,

[00:25:55] you know, huge investments versus lifetime building 120,000 square feet of, of, uh, athletic facilities. So the stock has not been performing that well as of late. It's a, let's say year to day down about 15%, but it is up 60% in the last 12 months. So, you know, so that's good. Their churn is really,

[00:26:19] is staying really low. So members continue to be, you know, to be engaged and sticky. You know, he did say that, and the numbers, you know, don't lie. The, the number of members is declining a little bit, a little bit, not, not much. I'd say it's, it's, it's flat ish, but down a little bit. And he, he wasn't bullish on top line growth until next year. So, so that, you know, that's the analysts

[00:26:49] that run wall street. I'm not going to be super happy about that. And then how do you grow the business? Right. If, if you, if you, if you, if you think about, you know, selling more bikes, selling more treadmills, selling more, you know, is there demand for that or, or have they pretty much tapped out? You know, they found their 3 million members and you know, they're kind of the done. There are businesses like that, right. Where it's just the demand is, is sort of tapped

[00:27:19] out. So I don't, I don't believe it is. And if you go back and listen to John Foley, the founder, you know, not that, not that he has a lot of credibility anymore, but you know, his, his goal was a hundred million was a hundred million members. And he thought he was going to take most of the gym members basically. And they were, they were going to all be buying

[00:27:42] teletone equipment, but anyway, that that's a, so I, I think he's, you know, he seems like he's a really strategic person and, uh, and for super serving existing members makes a lot of sense to me. Awesome. Yeah. It's, it's really interesting. One thing I didn't understand from a product standpoint, when they talk about strength, so is that like strength is within the app? So they do their Peloton, but maybe they go to a GM and they follow a strength program through the Peloton app,

[00:28:09] whereas they're actually strength based content that they're doing. That was unclear to me. Anybody catch that exactly? Like how, how they are involved, how they were adding strength into the programming? They have strength workouts on the climb tank. Okay. Most, they can be done at home or they can be done at the gym. Okay. They do have programs, you know, strength programs that you can

[00:28:32] do at the gym. Uh, I think they said about, uh, 75, 75% as many strength workouts as cycling workouts. So that's, that's a lot, a lot. Yeah. That's a lot of strength workouts. Yeah. Really interesting. It could be five minutes or 10 minutes or 15, whatever, but you know, it's probably not.

[00:28:58] And let's, let's just say that this is what they have. They have 3 million members, right? This is it. They're going to serve them well. They'll probably be around for a while. How does historically, how does wall street react to a company like that? That's no longer showing exponential growth. Like does it just fade into the, into the dark? Like what, what happens? I mean, there aren't that many businesses wouldn't say that are public that don't have a growth profile.

[00:29:27] That's that. I mean, there are quote unquote value type businesses that, that grow a bit like McDonald's or something, you know, it's not a high growth business, very profitable. They pay dividends. Um, you know, the, the, they grow consistently single digit and, uh, it's for more conservative type investors. So it, it, it could be that it could be that I, I wouldn't be surprised though.

[00:29:56] I mean, they, they do throw off a lot of cash. They could, they could buy other things. They could buy tonal. They could, you know, they can definitely add, they could combine, you know, if they want to become more of a social sort of network, they could buy Strava or combined with Strava, you know, that would kind of be interesting. So I, I'm, I'm sure they'll come up with, with some, some ideas and maybe MNA is part of it. And they haven't really succeeded with other

[00:30:25] equipment yet. I think the tread is progressing, but it's nowhere near the bike in terms of numbers. I think the rower was kind of a flop and, uh, you know, they, uh, so it, it's, it'll be, I think a few, you know, 12 months or so before we find out what the, what the growth strategy is. I think right now it's just, you know, maximizing the, you know, value of the existing members.

[00:30:52] Awesome. Garmin. I'm excited for this one. I've been a Garmin user forever. I have, I'm a stockholder. Uh, I, I just love everything about it. I love their whole ecosystem. Really. It's so seamless in so many different ways. The only thing I would say is like they're from what I have their, their, uh, watches don't have the best heart rate monitors, but I know they're working on that. So anyway, I love Garmin. So this was really fun and I'm

[00:31:16] excited. I mean, they crushed it. They crushed it. Yeah. And I just have to interject, Eric. I'm the same way. I don't feel like I'm a huge fan of that many brands. Same. But Garmin is definitely at the top of my list. And I've been wearing a Garmin for as long as I can remember. And you know, I have this one that I bought before the pandemic and it still works perfectly and does everything I need, which I realized may not be great for their business model.

[00:31:45] You know, making these products that are so good that they last so long, but man, I mean, they make really high quality, awesome stuff and it just keeps getting better. And I just being able to read their reports and see how much they slayed was really cool. Yeah. I have a Phoenix five watch we've had for about four or five years now, and I think I could use it as a hammer and then it would still work. Like that's how durable this thing is. So kudos to them for, for job well done. But yeah,

[00:32:12] I mean, I knew everything about it. We'll forget about it. And they had a record year, right, Alex? I mean, it was, it was a banner year. Yeah. I mean, they, their market capitalization is in the 40 billion range, you know, so they're, they're on a different, in a different universe from, from the companies that we, we normally talk about, you know, just, it's a, it's at a different level. It's impressive how, how much their fitness category has grown.

[00:32:41] Yeah. And, and that is different from their outdoor category. Right. Yeah. Which has also grown a ton. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I just, it's, it's not a company I follow that closely, but the impact they're having in fitness is, is impressive. Right. I mean, it's, uh, I think they're behind

[00:33:05] Apple and, and Google, uh, in terms of market share, but terms of profitability from those, you know, from that, those categories, I bet, I bet they're, they're ahead. Yeah. So, uh, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy how many SKUs they have, how many different options. Yeah. I mean, they have fitness, outdoor, aviation, Marine, auto, OEM, like it, these,

[00:33:32] I don't think people realize when they hear about Garmin, number one, how long it's been around. I interviewed one of their executives a couple of years ago, and even as a fan, lifelong fan of their products that was blown away. I'm like, wow. Yeah. I forget. Like they really started in like Marine. And then they have all these deep specialties, like their diving watches and things like that. Like it's, it's deep, deep specialties. And one of the things I gather from the interview and then meeting a lot of people from the Garmin teams, as I journey around, talk to

[00:33:59] people was like, they love it. Like if they're, if there's someone's in like the, let's say the, the diving component, like they're divers, like they're building stuff for themselves and continue to optimize it, which I think is a really cool quality of a company, especially one that size, like they they're, they're huge. And yeah, I mean, I, I look at some of these numbers and a percent dividend increase backed by cash balance of 3.7 billion. That's pretty good, right? I don't know. I mean, we come from the fitness industry. We're like shocked with these

[00:34:29] numbers, right? Yeah. I was shocked because, you know, I'm used to reading Planet Fitness and a lot of Peloton. Yeah. I mean, you know, one of the things this is has nothing to do with their earnings or how much they're crushing as a company. But for me as a consumer, I tried to switch over to Apple because I liked the mold screen and I was like, you know, it's compatible with all my devices. But in the end, I feel like I get this, like the beauty of having what feels like an analog device.

[00:34:56] It actually, like I can go on a backpacking trip and it stays charged. And at the same time, I can still get all that other stuff, track my workouts, track my mountain bike rides, syncs to straw. So I get all the techie cool stuff that I like and all the data I want. But at the same time, it like on a day-to-day basis, just feels like I'm wearing an analog actual watch and I don't have to charge it every single day or even every few days. That to me is like why it, one of the reasons why it just crushes the Apple watch for me anyway, and my uses. I love it.

[00:35:25] I love it. There's definitely, I think once you get Garmin, if you're into the, you know, especially the type of lifestyle, if it suits your lifestyle and we talked about all those different kind of microcosms of particular styles of lifestyle. Can I say that? Styles of life. Anyway, if you get it, you stay with it for a very long time. I don't think I'll ever wear a watch other than Garmin. And I don't think whenever I'm using outdoor things or heart rate straps or, you know, whatever it may be, activity or scuba diving, or even my dog's shock collar is a Garmin,

[00:35:56] right? You know, that's how diverse their product line is. Once you get into the Garmin ecosystem, you love it. And once you learn like their operating system and stuff like that, it's a little tricky to maneuver at first, but once you get it, you get it. So yeah, it's, it's a credos. I can, I just really have to see these guys being successful. Yeah. They haven't done a ring yet. I'm, I'm, I'm expecting them to jump into that category. I saw Aura just came out with their fourth generation ring and Samsung's got one now.

[00:36:24] So I wouldn't be surprised if they were looking at that. I, yeah, they, they, they definitely in the fitness world, they have, they have to be just dominating. And I don't know how there's room for whoop and, you know, I guess it's a little different, but, but, uh, but doesn't Garmin do the same readiness scores and, and sleep? They're all similar. I mean, it's similar. You can get a sleep score and, you know,

[00:36:54] I think they do a stress score called body battery. It's all different names, different things, but it tells you, you know, tracks the same data and just delivers in a different way. And, you know, I've gone through my share of wearables. I've, I love testing them. I love seeing them all. And I still think Aura for the casual person who just wants to know more about their health, you know, from form factor to way it delivers the information and the data to you and a very nice, easy way to digest. I still think it's, it's the, I have both, but I think for, you know, people really start to get into it and really want to, you know, go deep into these niches or just have something that'll

[00:37:23] last a long time, especially battery life. That's something that Garmin is doing for my, would charge my watch every one and a half to two weeks. That's incredible. I use it all the time. So I think there's a lot of things that Garmin has figured out number in battery life is number one. So yeah, for a product standpoint, I love it. And yeah. Any final thoughts on Garmin before we get into some of the more controversial topics of the day? No, I think I'm going to invest.

[00:37:47] I still go with the Swiss, the Swiss watch. I have to switch over to the original. Yeah. Maybe someday. Yeah. Well, you know, it's like a 57 Chevy. Kelly loves watches from a fashion perspective. He's not like a fashion guy with the one exception of he loves a nice watch. So, you know, he's the outlier fitness person who will never wear a fitness watch of any kind. If he's wearing a watch,

[00:38:13] it's like a cool Italian watch or something, you know? I love it. I love it. Well, let's do, before we get into Maha, you know, M-A-H-A, is that how I say it? I don't know. I don't think I've ever said it out loud. Yeah. I just read it. Let's talk about, there was a great article that you sent over Alex from the, I think it was the Washington Post, right? Entitled weight loss drugs aren't just slimming waste. They're shifting the economy by Ariana Chaw. So I would urge people

[00:38:38] to go look at it. I was released on February 23rd, 2025. But you and I, I think, sat next to each other at a panel at Connected Health and Fitness, Alex, and it was a longevity panel. And one of the things, or the GLP One, sorry, panel was a lot of conversation around this. Everyone's, the room was packed. Everyone wanted to know what was going on. The question that I had was, okay, well, this is all great, but is it actually sending people to the gym? Are people increasing their fitness? Are they

[00:39:08] changing their lifestyle, right? Or are they just taking the magic pill and they're calling it a day? So from this, we had some really interesting feedback on that. By their answers, and I'm just going to read one quick thing. It said 35% of weight loss drug users surveyed said they are exercising for the first time or more than before. And 16% hired a personal trainer for the first time or having those sessions more often than before. So... It's awesome. Yeah.

[00:39:37] It was the, was the theory in the room, one of the ones that I have heard is that, you know, once you lose a little bit of weight, you actually feel well enough to move and you have a desire to move and that that is huge. And that that, just the loss of 20 or 30 pounds is just enough weight loss to feel good moving and not feel insecure walking through the doors of the gym and that there's

[00:40:03] all these peripheral things that are driving that. But I mean, that's actually great to hear those numbers. Yeah. I'll, I'll publicly eat crow if this is true, because I've been one who's very outspoken about like, I don't think it's going to change human behavior. I just don't see it. I don't think it's going to, people are going to start easily losing weight and then all of a sudden be like, oh, now I want to do the hard stuff. Right. I just didn't see it. And that's very

[00:40:29] skeptical. That just comes from running a gym and coaching people too. It's like human behavior is very difficult to change. It is, you know? So, I mean, if all of this is, is coming true and this research continues to fold out, I will publicly say I was wrong and I am super happy that I'm wrong because, you know, it seems to be going in a direction. So I don't know, Alex, what were your thoughts? You sent the article. What, what was your, your thoughts? You know, I love that. I love that research, that data point. You know, I'm sure there's, you know, you'd have to dig into the

[00:40:58] numbers to see if it's, you know, if it's a big sample or whatever. But the, uh, the other thing that jumped out at me was the Goldman Sachs prediction that potentially 60 million people could be taking the medication by 2028. So in, in three years, um, and then that would boost GDP by 1% or several trillion

[00:41:25] dollars. So I haven't, you know, dug into that report either, but you know, I did, I did also notice that Elon Musk made a statement a few, a few months ago that the, you know, the smartest thing the U S government could do would be to get the price of, of GLP ones down. And he's, he's on it. I mean, he's, he's, you know, acknowledge that, but he thought that that could be the smartest,

[00:41:55] best investment of any that the U S government could do because of all the knock on benefits that you get from, from lower, uh, obesity rates. Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure, I don't know if you guys saw, but I think, uh, last year was the first year in, I mean, I don't know how many years since they've been, you know, late eighties, I think where the actual national obesity rate was trending

[00:42:19] down. Right. Which, you know, if you translate that into dollars and cents, that's a massive amount of that's, that's massive, right. From, from a healthcare standpoint and overall health standpoint and increase in just people moving and joining gyms. I do think it could, I'm real 50, 50, by the way, Eric on this, whether it is going to change behavior. I will say, I heard a story from my dear friend, Jen Wieterstrom, who is a sort of famous LA based

[00:42:48] personal trainer. And she runs a strength and conditioning. She still personal trains people and runs a strength and conditioning center. And LA is a unique place. So I don't know if it's a good data point, but she actually had a client come in. Who's a, who said that her friends were actually making fun of her because she was still trying to go to the gym. And why would she do that when she could just be taking GLP ones and be thin? So I think that story, you know, it's not database,

[00:43:16] but it did feed a little bit of my skepticism as well. And, you know, at the same time, I just heard, speaking of Atiyah, I keep quoting Atiyah today, but I just heard him say on a podcast that it's, pretty clear now that, you know, I think we have enough data to know that the moment people are coming off these, they're gaining weight back. So it is this, you know, if you're getting on it, you're on it for the rest of your life. So is that sustainable? And, and then I do think the early,

[00:43:42] I think we were worried it was sort of an early knock on GLP ones that you were losing lean mass. And I think that there's data coming up to actually support that, that you are losing a ton of lean mass. And so it's going to be really interesting to see. I mean, you know, it's great of 16% are hiring a personal trainer, but, you know, obviously from an outcome standpoint, you know, being thin and then losing a ton of lean mass and becoming frail. And, you know, there's a, is the pendulum going to swing

[00:44:09] in the wrong direction in terms of our health? I don't know, but I thought both those were interesting points. And the panel that you and I saw Alex in LA, and then some of the data that I seen here were were different, right? I remember very clearly some statistics from the panel of one in eight Americans are on some sort of GLP one or a semaglutide. And I mean, that's a lot more than they said here. And I know I can't pull exact number, but it's more substantially more. One of

[00:44:37] the things they also mentioned in the panel that we saw was that. Oh yeah. Six. Okay. So big difference, right? The other thing was that on average, the food, the cost of food or the spending on food goes down 30 to $60 per week per person on, on one of these drugs. I thought fundamentally shifting the economy. Yep. In a major way. So it's going to be really interesting to see the triple down

[00:45:05] economic effects of this long-term and what that means. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, it was all over, like in every conversation I have within our industry, GLP ones is, it's at, comes up on the chairlift, right? When I'm skiing, it comes up, you know, at dinner parties, it comes up at events, it comes up in interviews. It's just ubiquitous across all conversations nowadays, because I think it's one of the most fundamental things, piece of technology that we've seen in our lifetime. So

[00:45:32] it's crazy. It's crazy. I don't know if you know, we're going to keep talking about it for a while. Yeah, we are. We are. Yeah. And I don't know if you know, I mean, I'm starting to know a lot of people personally who are on it. You know, they, they have all, you know, a lot of these are just these side symptoms, but they have, you know, reported actually feeling low energy though, because they have so low desire to eat and they're so under calorie because, you know, they have no desire to eat. So they're only eating a thousand calories a day

[00:46:02] apart from their lean mass, but that they really are struggling from an energy perspective, which makes sense, right? If you're completely under calorie and under fueled, you're going to lack energy. And so it's just interesting to see actually having lots of people I know personally starting to take these things and seeing what the impact is, right? And you could, you could deal with low energy and some of the other symptoms maybe on a short-term basis, but then if you have to be on these things for the rest of your life, what does that mean?

[00:46:28] Yeah. I think that it was interesting in the article, the focus was on this one user who was actually benefiting from, you know, he changed his diet, added much higher quality protein and his energy levels were, were way higher. So I think he got to, you know, and he's working out more. So, so you have to make some lifestyle changes. You got to figure out the diet. You got to figure out the

[00:46:53] exercise and it's not just about taking a pill and being, you know, happy, living happily ever after. Yeah. And I think he's the ideal. The person they outlined in this article is the ideal, right? He's starting to eat venison and buffalo as his main primary protein. You know, he's being shipped from Hawaii because that's the best type. And yeah, Maui Nui. Maui Nui and all that. And you know, we didn't even talk, we don't have time to talk about the hims and hers commercial during the Superbowl, which was at first half inspiring second half,

[00:47:21] just really dumbfounding. And it just made me, it was like my whole rainbow of emotions around Ozempic happened in one commercial and it was, it was really, so people Google that, but let's move on to the next thing. Cause you brought up Elon Musk and government, all these things. So that it's really an interesting time to talk about. So we have a new U S secretary of health and human services. So RFK junior was appointed right. The time being until, you know, Trump changes his mind, but a lot of ramifications for this. And I've interviewed a lot

[00:47:50] of people and this comes up is like, okay. Hey friends, this is Eric Malzone. And this episode of the future of fitness is brought to you by the podcast collective. Since our inception in 2023, we have emerged as the fitness health and wellness industries, premier podcast placement agency. We're honored to work with many of the industry's most prominent technologists, thought leaders, startup founders, and business executives. Why? Because they recognize that being on

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[00:48:48] emerging thought leader, or simply a savvy operator that understands the power of authentic media, learn more at podcastcollective.io and feel free to book a 30 minute strategy session with yours truly. Traditional media is dying on the vine. Podcasts are rising quickly to fill the void. Do not miss the boat. That's podcastcollective.io. We have, we know we have this health program and here, here's my fundamental belief. And then I'll let

[00:49:17] you guys kind of jump in wherever you want. The conversation like this around the health of our country hasn't been this loud in this numerous in decades in my mind. Like the conversation is at least at the forefront. We're talking about, you know, childhood obesity. We're talking about the foods we eat, mainly manufacturer of food, our agricultural system. Like at least these conversations are coming

[00:49:44] up and they weren't to my knowledge two, three, four years ago. So it's going to be, it's going to be interesting, but what do you guys think about the appointment? What do you think about the political will that we have right now? Are you optimistic? Where do you stand? And Juliette, I know you're, you and Kelly are big advocates for overall health of our country and our children especially. So start with you. What are you feeling on this? Yeah. I mean, I feel really mixed about it. I feel

[00:50:09] really mixed about JFK as a person and a leader. And I think Alex said it best in the pre-roll. I think he has some really good ideas and some really bad ideas all at the same time. And so I don't know how to make sense of those things. I am worried about his ability to actually get his good ideas done, you know, just in this climate. And I mentioned, I just happened to see before this call in the news that they announced that they're going to try to limit the ability to purchase, you know,

[00:50:37] full sugar soda on snap as an example. And in 25 seconds, the soda lobby went in hard. And I don't necessarily see Trump as someone who is going to push back back at profitability and push back a big business that much. My prediction is that Trump and JFK are going to have some kind of colossal breakup, maybe sooner rather than later, that they are ultimately not going to see eye to eye and that RFK won't be able to push forward the things he wants to do in this particular administration.

[00:51:06] I have no idea why. The only thing I will say, and this really bothered me and made it difficult for me to read the Athleteq article that we all shared around about the Trump administration improving the fitness business. And this is, you know, I will say it is nice that we are having this national conversation about health, but I can't talk about this without pointing out that one of the most ambitious nutrition and public health programs. Granted, it was focused

[00:51:34] towards kids, but was Michelle Obama's let's move campaign. And she did a lot and worked. She had a lot of big initiatives and worked really hard and got a lot of pushback, mostly from conservatives who sort of called her a nanny state for trying to take away ultra processed foods. So I struggle with that. For me, that's a struggle with this because we have actually had an administration and a leader

[00:52:02] within the last 10 years really trying to do what was a very ambitious nutrition program. I mean, she planted a huge garden at the White House and somehow everyone seems to have forgotten about that. As we're talking about, there seems to be this amnesia that this is the first time there's been this national conversation about nutrition and health. So I actually struggled to read that Athlete Tech article because the guy was like, this is the first time we're having a conversation

[00:52:29] about public health and obesity. And I was like, well, that's actually not correct. So I struggle with that a little bit. And then the only thing I will say that I struggle with a bit about the Maha movement in particular is that what I hear coming from that movement is, you know, a focus on things like removing red dyes from foods, legalizing raw milk. I have no problem with that. Of course, I agree we should be doing those things. But to me, those things are the minors and not the majors.

[00:52:58] You know, if the Maha movement was coming forward saying, let's make school start times 830 a.m. nationwide, no matter what, let's make every high school kid have to take a year long cooking class. Let's make physical education mandatory and paid for by the federal government. You know, I think there are some swings we could take from a public health standpoint that would have a massive positive difference. And I do think the place to start a lot of that is with kids, because I think

[00:53:26] if we can actually develop a population of kids who know how to cook and know how to move and like to move, maybe we aren't having these conversations. So I think that's a struggle I have is that to me, if we really want to make massive change, those would be the swings I would take anyway. And again, of course, I have no problem with remove red dyes from fruity pebbles. I don't eat fruity pebbles. So I think it's a really complicated time. I think there's, you know, I'm open minded. You know,

[00:53:51] I'm like, if anything anybody does in any administration improves public health, like I'm all about it. I don't know what's going to happen. It's a crazy time. It's a crazy time. Alex, what are your takes here? Well, let's see, coming back to the fitness, the impact on the fitness industry, I would say,

[00:54:16] you know, RFK Jr. should be a net positive. I would think he's a big, you know, he works at a gold gym in Venice. He goes to, you know, he's probably an Equinox member. So he's a big believer in exercise. And that's, that helps. I think that that helps. You know, I think traditionally,

[00:54:39] the National Institutes for Health did not invest in aging research. It just, it wasn't a category other than Alzheimer's, which I think attract, according to this article, we looked at 70% of the National Institute on aging's grant dollars went to dementia research, which is,

[00:55:05] no one's going to argue that that's not critical. But, you know, could it be 35% and then, you know, spend, spend money on other, you know, deep research into the biology of aging and, and, and see what we learn. And, and then does that, you know, inform how the fitness industry operates in

[00:55:29] the future a little bit more deeply, you know, around longevity and what really makes a difference to, you know, to healthy aging versus unhealthy aging. So I think that's, that could be the silver lining. So overall, I, I think it's a net positive. You know, the vaccine thing is troubling to say the Middle East, you know, with the measles, measles outbreak in Texas, kids dying, you know, the message

[00:55:59] has, has to be different from the message that he has traditionally delivered. I did think, sorry, one, one thing, and I wondered your thought, well, the one thing I did like from the Athletic piece was, you know, if there is any hope that RFK will push forward the Pitt Act to be able to spend, I mean, I, I think that would be awesome to be able to spend, you know, tax-free

[00:56:23] dollars on fitness. I think that would be a huge deal for people. So I, I, I'm very pro that. I hope that that comes back to life and passes under RFK's leadership. That could be good. The Pitt Act is, I think overall, the industry has been talked about for so long. A lot of people I talk to at the executive level or just like, all right. They don't think it's ever going to happen. Yeah. I never believe it's going to happen. So maybe you will. I mean, it's one of those things where like, if you stop paying attention to it, it happens. But I think there's a lot of people are

[00:56:53] pushing it. And, you know, I look at like, anytime someone comes into office, there's promise, right? And we've all seen, I mean, I was looking at, you know, the executive order 14211, which is the Make America Healthy Again commission. The commission aims to investigate the rise in chronic childhood diseases and assess the impact of various medications, including antidepressants and weight loss drugs. Awesome. Right? Like who doesn't want that? That sounds great. Now what happens in practice and, and, you know, what actually happens? And I was

[00:57:20] telling you guys prior, like I've been doing a lot of over the last week, really kind of diving into the world of RFK Jr. And it's a crazy world. Like there's, you know, and he admits like he was not a saint when he was young. He had struggled with addiction and did a wild, a lot of wild, crazy things. I mean, he was a, he was a candidate, right? And reading the, uh, the real Anthony Fauci and, you know, about a quarter way through that book and some of the stuff he says, I mean, if any of this stuff is true, right. And, and how big pharma has really

[00:57:49] firmly implanted itself into our healthcare system and really kind of dictates a lot of things and big food and big ag and all these things, it's, it's really scary. And it's going to take a lot of work. I mean, if he's going to go out there and do this, it might actually take someone who's a little crazy to go out and crusade this. So I think it's, it's, it's, we look at the trajectory of how much healthcare will cost this country in the next 10 years. Out of control. It's out of control. Yep.

[00:58:16] It's out of control. So whatever, like I agree, Alex, I think net net is, I hope it's got to be positive, right? Like someone's got to take a swing at this. Someone's got to grab the axe and start chopping down the street because it's going to kill us all. And I know that sounds very alarmist, but the amount of costs it's going to get, it's going to overwhelm our country. And so whatever, I don't know. I've never met the guy. Sometimes I like what he says. Sometimes I'm like, this guy is batshit, but we'll find out. I mean, he's there at least for the time being. So I don't know. I

[00:58:44] mean, that's, that's, I mean, I think, you know, oversimplifying, uh, any subject matter usually is not helpful. And yes, they pharmaceutical companies are all evil. I mean, you know, I suffered from migraine headaches for many years and the pharma companies came up with migraine drugs and that was a life changer for me. So, you know, GLP ones are changing a lot of

[00:59:08] people's lives. You know, I, I agree. It's ironic that we're unfortunate that the food companies have created a problem that the pharmaceutical companies are now benefiting from. And that's, that's definitely unfortunate, but you know, the, the, to be for him to be super skeptical of GLP ones and not encourage the, you know, Medicare, for example, to, to pay for those seems like a huge

[00:59:35] loss of an opportunity to help a lot of people. Yeah, it's complicated. It's a con, I mean, we have, we have created a Gordian knot of, you know, complication here. And, you know, I mean, you may be right, Eric, it may just take someone who's batshit crazy to try to figure out how to unravel it. And, and that's fine. I mean, I think, you know, we, we, we really do need to rethink how we're doing things and, you know, I slightly

[01:00:04] skeptical just the way you are about GLP ones that we have the political will and that, you know, capitalism makes it difficult for us to make the right choices from a public health standpoint sometimes. But again, man, I hope I'm wrong because I really do think that we need to change it. Yeah. Well, I truly believe we have as big as this Gordian knot is, and as big as our problems are with health here in this country, I mean, I think, what is it? 70% of all pharmaceuticals in the world are

[01:00:33] consumed by Americans now. As big as this problem is, we have everything we need to solve it by far and away. Like we have everything, we have the knowledge, we have the facilities, we have the pharmaceuticals, we have the right foods, we have the ability to grow them if we want, right? In the right ways. So we have everything we need. It just takes the right leadership and the right administration and people to fight against people who may not want those things. They may not want or care about the health of our communities. So it's all there. It's just,

[01:01:00] it's tough. You know, it's, it's just, it's a bummer that we got here, but hopefully we can take this with some optimism and say, Hey, you know, now's our time, especially as an industry. Like, let's let it empower us to say, Hey, there's actually someone up there, Capitol Hill, who's really pushing for this, saying some of the right things, some of the wrong things, saying some of the right things. And maybe we can get behind this and we can use that movement to push forward and do what we're, we always wanted to do, which is get our communities healthier. Right. So I don't know. It's going to be interesting. That can be boring.

[01:01:28] No, it is not. It's going to be really interesting to see what happens here. Well, I think that's just about a wrap you guys. Any final thoughts as we, as we close it out and look forward to our Q2? Alex, how about you? You know, I, I was, I listened to a podcast that was pretty interesting about, uh, the, the title was provocative that we, you know, human beings

[01:01:54] did not evolve to exercise. And I'm sure you've seen some of that, some of that conversation, but, but it, it, it made me think, you know, that is one, one of the challenges we're up against, right? Just this, this resistance that human beings have to effort when it's not effort that

[01:02:19] is directed at, uh, uh, you know, critical need food, safety reproduction. You know, we've kind of invented this activity, you know, extreme physical activity or structured physical activity, whatever you want to call exercise. Some people seem to have a percentage of the population seems to have a, uh, you know, an affinity for it, but a much larger percentage of the population seems to not. And I guess that's what you mean when you say changing human behavior

[01:02:47] is, is really, really hard. But I think researching, like, what is it about the 20% that seem, you know, people who really liked exercise, what is it? Is it genetics? Is it childhood, you know, things? Is it chemical? Is it bio? What, what, what is it? I mean, let's, let's figure that out. Yeah. We had a Jeremy Kooning on our podcast years ago. He's a geneticist and he did say that there

[01:03:12] is a genetic drive to move and that some people have a higher genetic drive to move, you know, but I, I mean, I sort of appreciate the sentiment of that article. I do think we evolved to move around a lot and often in different ways, but what we do now is kind of fake exercise and some of us like it and a lot of us don't. And I think you're right. It is, you know, how do we figure that out?

[01:03:38] How do we help those 80% of who don't like it the way we all like it? How do we teach them how to enjoy it? Yeah. You know, uh, Don, I had Don, was it Don Moxley? Well, anyway, I'll credit to Don Moxley, who's a repeat person on my podcast, but there's something critical about the age is like seven to 10. So like if you're very active in this age, you're engaged in sports, things like that, your family does a lot of activities and then it tends to stick more often. And I don't know if that's true or not, but it sounds good. You know, it sounds, sounds right to me from everyone I know

[01:04:07] who's, you know, active and into, uh, you know, exercise and sports and recreation. So Julia, any final thoughts for you? As a father, you know, I, and you know, my wife as well, we encouraged our kids to be super active, but just a cautionary comment. I did some things to my kids, asked them to do things like fun runs in, you know, when they were too young and it was too hot. So yeah,

[01:04:36] be more reasonable than me when you're bringing up your kids. Yeah. I did that too, Alex. I signed Caroline up for track and field when she was five and she showed up and the warmup was run a 400. And if you're five and you run a 400, that's like the equivalent of running a marathon. And she switched to water sports. And to this day, uh, I mean, would sooner die than run a hundred

[01:05:00] meters. So, uh, I made a big mistake there as well. I'm with you. Yeah. That's funny. Julian, any final thoughts for you? Man. I mean, I think what I'm excited, I feel like we've reached this point, you know, we've, we've talked over the years, a lot about the increase in interest in strength training, especially in women. And what I'm excited right now by is now that there is that interest, making sure we actually speaking of outcomes, Alex, we actually help women figure

[01:05:28] out how to do the right kind of exercise. That's going to make that make a big difference because what I am seeing now is this confusion between what I would call fitnessing with weights, which is a lot of stuff, uh, that you see on Peloton and force theory. And you know, a lot of the brands that we love is cool. And I am pro that kind of workout, but I think sometimes people think if you pick up a weight, that means you're going to put on mass and get stronger. So I don't know. I'm excited about, okay, we've got people at the table ready to have the conversation. And how do we have the

[01:05:57] conversation about what it actually means to get stronger and put on lean muscle mass? So I don't know. That's what I've been thinking about lately. Yeah. Awesome. Well, uh, I'll be at the health and fitness association, formerly URSA, uh, in a few weeks time. So see some of the same topics turned over again. I feel like it's, uh, you know, it's always interesting to get other people's views. I mean, a lot of stuff I'm able to pull from panels or people I talked to in the hallways and, you know,

[01:06:23] regurgitate or bring my opinions upon this podcast. So it'll be really interesting to see what the industry has to say. And then, uh, I think there's some other really good events this year. I think athletics can be putting something on June and they're talking about having some big names coming through potentially more people we talked about today, but we'll let them uncover that one. So that's it. I'm excited for the year. I think it's a really good time. You know, normally talking about the pandemic days anymore, we're all forward facing all these reports look really good that we're talking about. And, uh, there's a lot of exciting things going on and,

[01:06:51] uh, it could be a great year. So guys, thank you. So it was a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so much, Eric. Thanks, Alex. Thanks, Celia. Great seeing you guys. Likewise. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone. And I hope you enjoyed this episode of future of fitness. If you did, I'm going to ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate

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