Juliet Starrett & Alex Alimanestianu - Quarterly Reports: The GLP-1 Tipping Point, CrossFit Finds Its CEO, Garmin's Quiet Takeover of Fitness

[00:00:02] Hey friends, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness and wellness industry podcast for over five years and running. I'm your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the honor of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. If you like the show, we'd love it if you took three minutes of your day to leave us a nice, supportive review wherever you consume your podcasts. If you're interested in staying up to date with the Future of Fitness, go to

[00:00:33] futureoffitness.co to subscribe and get weekly summaries dropped into your inbox. Now onto the show. All right, here we go. We are back. Quarterly Report. Juliet, Alex, great to see you guys. How we doing, my friends? Great to see you guys. Well.

[00:00:53] Yeah, yeah. As always, I feel like I stayed up doing an all-nighter getting prepped for this conversation. There's so much information to talk about. We're, of course, going to talk about the big five, the public reports there. There's a lot of interesting things happening across the industry. And then there's also, you know, we're going to talk about the new CEO of CrossFit. We're going to talk about medical weight loss in the new its form with a, somebody help me with this, Retreatreatide? Retatrutide. Retatrutide, but it's Retatrutide, but all the wellness people call it Retta.

[00:01:21] Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And then, you know, some other things happen. You know, Ascape had a rough quarter. We'll say that. And a couple other ones. So there's so much to do. And before, of course, how are you guys doing? Since March, since we recorded the last one. Juliet, what's going on in the world of the Starretts? Man, our daughter just graduated from high school. So we are tipping into almost being empty nesters. And Kelly and I had a discussion about whether we'll ever cook dinner again.

[00:01:49] I guess we've been like dedicated to like cooking actual dinner and like eating dinner with our kids for, you know, 21 years. And I was like, are we just going to like resort to eating cereal for dinner heretofore? So we'll see. She doesn't actually leave for college till August, but we're sort of starting to wonder like what's going to drop off the list. So yeah, we're all well. We've been in graduation mode. Fantastic. Alex, how about you?

[00:02:11] So I have an interesting trip in May where I went to my 50th high school reunion, believe it or not, where I know I'm really dating myself. But we had 140 alumni show up out of a class. Wow. Yeah. The class was originally 290. We had 34, you know, unfortunately passed away. So out of about 260, we had 140 show up. So it was amazing. That's a hell of a turnout. Where did you grow up?

[00:02:41] So this is a prep school in New Hampshire. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah, it was it was really fun. And then the other big family news is that my my daughter is expecting a our first grandchild in November. Yay. Congratulations. She lives half a mile away. So I'm not sure she's going to allow me to babysit. But if she does, I'm I'm available on non powder ski days. Got to have boundaries. Alex, you got to have boundaries, man.

[00:03:11] Good for you. Right on. Well, yeah, I guess for me, what's been going on? Went to Brazil, visited my wife's family. And pretty soon after we recorded the last one, which is always great, you know, great culture, great food, good perspective, too. I think, you know, you got to travel abroad to get an understanding of like, hey, we got it pretty good in the United States. Things can be pretty hard in other countries. And yep, but definitely trying to been trying to lose weight since I got back because that was a lot of those a lot of meat on sticks and cold beer in the evenings. That was kind of my my go to standard.

[00:03:39] Great, great time, though. And of course, we got the World Cup coming up. It's here now as of recording. So I got, you know, a really solid education in Brazilian soccer while I was down there. But does anybody have any predictions for the winners? We can throw it out right now. Anybody? Alex? I'm going to go with France, but I really don't have a dog in the fight. I just I'm hoping it's super competitive and fun to watch, which I'm sure it will be. What about you, Eric?

[00:04:04] Well, I think the smart money is on Spain. But, you know, my heart was with the U.S. and the Brazil. U.S., I just don't have a ton of confidence that they're going to go very far. I would love them to. Brazil, my life is a lot better if Brazilians win, just from a family perspective or they at least show up well. So I'd say I think I think the smart money is on Spain, but we'll see. You never know. It's the beauty of these things. So, well, let's start with the earnings reports. I want to start with a positive note for sure, which is lifetime. Right.

[00:04:32] So here's my headline. They're not growing membership. They're growing membership they want. And the difference is showing up in every line of their P&L. Some quick numbers. Their revenue is up 12 percent to seven hundred and eighty eight point seven million. Adjusted EBITDA up 18 percent to two hundred and twenty six million. Average revenue per member is nine hundred and thirty dollars. So that's up ten point two percent year over year. Memberships are at eight hundred and thirty seven thousand nine hundred. That's up one point four. Comparable center revenue is up eight point six percent. That's an interesting one.

[00:05:01] That leverage one point six that raised full year guidance and 12 to 14 new clubs on pace for 2026. And the interesting thing maybe we'll talk about is one point two million square foot total. So that's roughly double the footprint of either the 2024 or 2025 new club classes. So they're covering a lot of ground, literally. Right. One thing, you know, we'll get into it. I want to get your guys in links. But I noticed like the qualified medical membership was down 14.9 percent year over year.

[00:05:27] So they're kind of seemingly deliberately shedding their lower dues, lower due insurance administered members. So that kind of speaks to some of the directions they're going in. So, yeah, a lot to lots of chat about here. Who'd like to kick us off on this one? I mean, Alex will have the technical view, but I had a very similar perspective as you, Eric. I really noticed the qualified medical memberships down. And that just seems to go right along with their idea that they're trying to become or are a premium brand.

[00:05:55] And that's what they're pushing. And they want to keep their members and keep their members spending more money and, you know, just pricing up their existing membership base. And that seems to be working. So I think the only thing that would give me pause from a business perspective is just like how many new clubs they're building and just how big their real estate footprint is. But, you know, again, they seem to be able to, you know, manage that at least as of now.

[00:06:21] So those were my two big takeaways. But, you know, they're just always continuing to slay. Yeah. And, you know, their CEO said in so many words, right, the quote was, membership engagement continues to rise. Our membership mix is improving and in-center performance remains robust. So in his eyes, whatever that membership mix goal is, is improving. But maybe that's the cost of people who are considered lower tiered, right? Alex, what do you think?

[00:06:49] It's all about the membership quality. And they, you know, they disclosed a lot of information that they didn't need to disclose about the growth in, you know, full price memberships, which is around 4%. And then the decline in the lower price memberships, I assume those people are just falling off and they're not, you know, continuing the programs to sell through those channels.

[00:07:17] I don't know exactly what the channels are, but I guess they've turned that off. And, you know, I think there's a little concern around a slower membership growth generally, even though the 4% is not, you know, that's not bad. But compared to the revenue growth, you know, it just highlights the fact that they're getting growth from price increases, right?

[00:07:40] And there's always the question, okay, how long can you keep increasing prices when you're not increasing total membership at a similar pace? So I think they did a good job communicating on that. And the other thing that's happening is they do have this share buyback going on. So effectively, the company is using its cash to buy shares in the market, in the open market.

[00:08:06] So that increases demand and it helps the share price, or at least it seems to be helping the share price because they're up, since we last talked, about 30%. So I've been complaining that, you know, the stock's been languishing in the 20s and they're not doing enough to, you know, to get returns to the shareholders.

[00:08:30] Now with the share buybacks and the continued performance, those two things hand in hand, they are getting, you know, giving returns to the shareholders. So I think that's a really positive development. Last time we talked, we referred to the K-shaped economy, and it's actually come up a lot in other conversations since then. And I wonder, this is something I talked to J.J. Cregan about this morning on a different episode.

[00:08:56] With, you know, the people at the higher end of the income are spending so much money. The economy seems to be, everyone's kind of questioning where the economy's going, right? But does this put Lifetime on shaky ground? Like if it's this much money, right, to join and they keep increasing the income per member. Like is this a dangerous place to be historically or is this a good place to be? Yeah, I mean, I think that it's exactly what Alex said.

[00:09:22] Like how long can you, can your business strategy be relying on just your existing member spending more money? Right. I mean, what was their membership growth? It was like 1.4% or something. It wasn't that. 1.4. Yeah, it wasn't that significant. So yeah, I mean, I don't know how to play that out in the long term, but to me, there is a ceiling and you can't just continue to expect your existing members to pay more and more and more. What do you think, Alex?

[00:09:49] Yeah, no, that's the big, you know, question mark. But, you know, that being said, the demand, I'd say the quality of the experience that they're delivering and the range of facilities and services and classes and, you know, pickleball and tennis and pools and, you know, and at 200 some dollars a month, it still feels like the members are getting value.

[00:10:16] So I, you know, and they're putting their centers in affluent areas. So, and they seem to have enough affluent areas to grow into. You know, 12 to 14 clubs a year is really not that much. It's, they're big clubs, obviously, and they're huge investments. But in terms of the number of markets that they need to go to, new markets that they need to go into, it's just not that big a number.

[00:11:13] It is, you know, that they're in affluent areas, there is, you know, interest or willingness to pay for higher prices. And I always notice, too, that it seems like even when the economy is bad, in that affluent group, the last thing people are going to get rid of when they're, you know, trying to save money is their gym membership. In that particular group, right, in that group of people, that's going to be, you know, they're going to, like, cancel other stuff before they cancel their gym membership. Yeah.

[00:11:42] So maybe there's quite a bit more room for them. And I think historically, Equinox has done, you know, as another luxury or premium product, they've done pretty well in the downturns. So if that's, you know, that's a comp, I guess, for what might happen to Lifetime. But, you know, there's definitely some concern about, you know, premium product in the gym space where you have so much competition.

[00:12:07] And it's pretty easy to trade, you know, to trade down if you're not using the pickleball and the pool and the tennis. And it's pretty much just a fitness experience. You can, there are lots of other places to go. But the economy is doing fine. Okay. We'll see what they got. I think six to seven of those new club openings are in Q4 alone. So we'll see how that all plays out over the next six months or so. And we'll report back. Next one I got for you guys is Planet Fitness. So here's the headline.

[00:12:35] January is everything for Planet Fitness, but they missed the mark. Now they're telling people to come back in 2027. So quick notes on numbers. Revenue increased 21.9% to $337 million. Adjusted EBITDA, $139 million, $140 million. Same club sales up 3.5%. 21.5 million members over 2,909 clubs. Equipment revenue up 123%. Franchise expansion, not same club.

[00:13:04] Full year guidance cut. So same club sales to 1% from 4.5%. A 425% from 9%. EBITDA to 6% from 10%. So it's something, an interesting story here too, is the black card price increase that they were talking about from $2499 to $2999 got paused. So the quote from CEO Keating was, we are resetting near-term expectations.

[00:13:29] These actions will help set the stage for enhanced top and bottom line results in 2027. So what do we say? Alex, you want to kick us off? Sure. You know, netting 700,000 members in Q1, it sounds like a big number to me, but they netted a million in 2025 Q1. So that's a big decline, obviously. 30 plus percent, fewer net members.

[00:13:58] I think, you know, that's pretty dramatic. So, you know, the stock is down 34% since we last spoke. It's down 50% for the year. That's a huge loss of value to shareholders. And I think, you know, when you get a decline like that in net member sales, the explanations are really, you know, hard for people to believe. And so, or for investors to understand.

[00:14:27] So manager, CEO talks about things like bad weather, right? Which is what you never want to hear a CEO talk about. I know it's the real thing, but it's like, okay, that, you know, just sounds like an excuse. And, you know, you can have bad weather for a week or two and then it could bounce back. You know, they talk about the marketing being off target.

[00:14:50] They miss the mark on the marketing, that they focus too much on existing active gym goers versus the beginners or the crunch potatoes as we used to call them. And the, you know, we talked a few shows ago about the strategy they had of going after more experienced exercisers

[00:15:16] and kind of giving up on the couch potatoes because just too hard to get those people to change their behavior. They've done a U-turn on that. And, you know, they're, they're, they raised their prices, you know, as we know, 50% on the base membership. And now they're talking about affordability. So are they questioning whether they should have done that or not? I don't, you know, they're not going to say they shouldn't have, but, you know, should they have kept their price at $10 for the base membership?

[00:15:45] You know, it's, it's too late. But in hindsight, maybe they should have. They did say that the competition is ramping up and especially in the Southeast, South, South Central. So I assume they're talking about crunch and EOS and, and, and Vasa and others. That's not something that I've ever heard Planet Fitness talk about before. So is the, is the, the supply side getting a little saturated?

[00:16:12] You know, on the HVL, in the HVLP category, it certainly could. And they also said that they expected competition to raise their prices when Planet went to 15. They expected the other guys to go to 15 and they, and they didn't. So I don't know. I mean, it's, it's, there's some management decisions that, you know, and there's also the click to cancel that they, you know, they embraced.

[00:16:37] And I think it's the right thing to do, but as a business decision, I think they might be questioning that a little bit. And I'm not sure the, the rest of the industries followed suit. So yeah, it's a, it was a tough, it was a tough quarter for them. Yeah. I mean, that was pretty thorough. I don't have a ton to add. That was amazing. Alex, actually, I was like, wow, that was awesome. That was incredibly insightful.

[00:16:59] But for my part, I think since we've been doing these calls, this was the first quarter where we've had noticeably bad news for Planet Fitness. I feel like it's always just in the background of these conversations. We have pretty much doing well and they've made good decisions and they're always growing. And I'm always surprised by how well they're doing. And yeah, so I thought there was, I thought this was concerning on a bunch of levels.

[00:17:29] And I also noticed talking about, I've never heard them talk about competitors before. So I thought that was interesting. I even noticed where I live, which is like a high, you know, high income area. A crunch is going in here. Whereas I don't think a Planet Fitness would ever go in here or work in a place like here. So I thought that was kind of an interesting thing to note. But yeah, I mean, I was like 30 down in net members. It's not great.

[00:17:55] I felt that was, well, I felt a little sad because I love this brand and I'm always so impressed by them. I know. Big fan. So yeah, but that was a great roundup on it, Alex. Yeah, that was really good. And the K-shaped economy thing comes back again. Like they absorbed a 50% classic card price hike in 2025. And that was like, they just did it without blinking. And then, you know, now they're pausing on a $5 black card increase.

[00:18:19] And I'm just wondering like, you know, is that consumer really feeling economic pressure right now of inflation and everything, gas prices? It's got to play a huge role in that particular consumer and how susceptible they are to these kind of pressures economically. So I don't know. I mean, it seems pretty obvious, but not an economist. But that seems to be, it's got to be playing that, right?

[00:18:41] Yeah, I also wonder if they assumed that they could bump up prices and increase the average revenue per unit when they redid the model a few years ago to take into account higher construction costs. So if construction costs are, you know, are up significantly and revenue can go up and EBITDA can go up, then returns can be as attractive as they've been historically.

[00:19:11] But if you're in a situation where construction prices are up and your franchisees who were building new clubs had hoped that they could, you know, get higher revenues on the black card and the base, but they can't, then that reduces the returns on the model and makes it harder to sell franchises. So, yeah, this is a, they're in the penalty box. We'll see. We'll see how they order. Well, let's move on to Exponential. Here's the headline.

[00:19:41] Same store sales negative for two consecutive quarters. Burning more cash than they have in the bank and a new legal settlement dropped this week. Pick your headline. It's a tough one for Expo. Let me give you some numbers. Revenue down 21%, 60.7 million. They're expected divestitures and merchandise transitions. System-wide sales up 2%, 436.9 million. Same store sales down 6% versus up 6% of years ago.

[00:20:09] The AUV, 662,000 versus 685,000. Adjusted EBITDA, 20.4 million. Yeah, 20.4 million versus 27.3 million. Full-year guidance reiterated 260 to 270 million revenue and 100 to 110 million EBITDA. The breaking news this week that was referring to the New York AG secured a $3.97 million settlement, the largest franchise sales act settlement in New York history.

[00:20:37] The finding was illegally misled small business franchise owners. Ouch. Who wants to start on that one? Take it away, Alex. No, you take this one away. This is, there's a lot here. Yeah. So, the AG said that the franchising documents claimed that you could open a unit in three to six months. And in fact, it was taking people 12 to 13 months. So, you know, there may have been other things.

[00:21:05] I didn't dig into the complaints and the decision. But that's just, you know, buyer beware when you're reading franchise documents and with, especially around exponential historically. I mean, it's a, it's a kind of a dumpster fire, right? Well said. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We'll stop. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, the, the, the C-suite keeps turning over.

[00:21:34] They had a CEO that they brought in a little over a year ago. He left. They brought in a, a, a pres, a new president. So, it's just a revolving door of, of executives. Club Pilates is down 4%, same store sales. So, that the bloom is kind of off that rose to, to some degree. And, you know, they have a strategic review going on. I'm sure they're, they're trying to sell the, the, what they can, particularly Club Pilates.

[00:22:03] And the, you know, their market cap is down to about 300 million. They have about 500 million in debt. So, the, you know, the market's kind of saying the equity still has value. So, it's not, are they distressed in terms of their ability to pay their debt? They're, they're stressed for sure by investors to say that the equity still has value.

[00:22:27] So, the, that means that investors expect the debt to get, you know, to get paid. And they probably expect somebody to come in and, and buy the, the assets or some of the assets for 800, 900 million. And, and, and the, you know, company will, will go private. It, it's, it's, yeah. I'm not sure we'll be talking about exponential in three months. Okay. Yeah.

[00:22:52] I mean, you know, the thing that I kept, that kept coming out to me, Alex, and you can tell me whether I read this correctly, but I kept reading the phrase strategic alternatives. And to me, I was like, okay, are they trying to just sell one of their properties or are they trying to sell the whole shebang? What's going, you know, like, what, what are we seeing here? But it was vague to me. I was like, I have to ask Alex what strategic alternatives mean because it kept popping up as a phrase. And then I think the other note, I mean, I think they only sold 28 new licenses in Q1.

[00:23:21] So that to me seems to be kind of a leading indicator that it's not going that great. They're not bringing in new franchisees and the whole thing feels like a dumpster fire. So yeah, well, I mean, am I reading that right when I see strategic alternatives? Do you think they're just trying to sell off yet another sub part of the brand or? I think that, I think the, the crown jewel is Club Pilates. I think that's what really matters. And that is the asset that has the most value by far.

[00:23:49] I mean, the yoga, yoga six might have some value. Stretch lab, kind of doubtful. And bar, you know, a little bit, but, but the real action is around Club Pilates and strategic review usually means they're considering alternative. It could be raising capital. It could be selling the business. It could be selling assets. But in this case, I would say it's, the action is around Club Pilates. Yeah. Yeah. The thing that stood out to me too was the, the, the debt to cash ratio.

[00:24:19] The 523 million in long-term debt and cash is 21.5 million. So they're just burning cash. And that's a 24 to one debt to cash ratio, which it's been a long time since I've gone through any kind of business class, but that's not good. Right. That's not. That's real thin. That's very thin. You're running thin. Running thin. Yeah. Kind of, kind of like my bank account in my 20s. Running real thin. We got to do something fast. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, let's, let's move on to something more positive. Garmin.

[00:24:46] Our good old friends at Garmin, once again, you know, I just want to iterate that we are open to sponsorships. And if Garmin would like to call us, my email is eric at futureofitness.co. So I'll be waiting. Can I tell you guys a funny story about Garmin? Of course. I was lucky enough to get a scream and deal thanks to our friends at Garmin on my daughter's Garmin. And I gave it to her for Christmas this year. And somehow it fell out of her car in her parking space at high school.

[00:25:14] And she returned the next day to learn that not only it had fallen out of her car, but then she herself ran over it. So, you know, we're down one Garmin over here at the Starrett household, thanks to our daughter dropping and then running over her own Garmin. Whoops. Well, here's, here's the headline. A GPS company's fitness division just outperformed every gym chain in this group and they're just getting started. So numbers, revenue up 14%, that is to 1.75 billion. I believe that's a record.

[00:25:44] Operating income up 30% to 432 million. That's a record. Fitness segment is at 547 million. That's up 42%. Operating income up 103% to 185 million. Proforma EPS, $2.08. That's up 29%. Full year guidance maintained at 7.9 billion. 4.3 billion in cash and marketable securities. 469 million in free cash flow in Q1. Wow.

[00:26:13] So, you know, there's a lot of stuff here. So the outdoor segment is actually down 5%, I believe. But, you know, fitness keeps climbing. And they had a really interesting integration with natural cycles. So we can talk about that. It's FDA cleared birth control and cycle tracking app. So they're making some moves, but overall they're seemingly just making great products and people are buying them and the timing is right. And everything looks good. So, yeah. Who wants to kick us off on that one? Well, I'll just say a couple things. I mean, I've loved this brand.

[00:26:42] And I thought the natural cycles partnership was very cool to see. I think they also integrated with WhatsApp. I don't totally understand how that integration works. But I'm curious about what that means. I mean, as a Garmin user, I don't think it works for my own. But I'm curious to see what that means and how people can use that. I thought it was cool that the Phoenix 8 Pro was given an award as the best connected device. So, you know, amid a world of a lot of connected devices, that's pretty cool.

[00:27:11] I thought that was amazing. And, yeah, it seems like it's really their fitness is kind of leading the charge right now. So, you know, I have no idea whether there's a downside to that from a business perspective because they have such a diverse portfolio. I don't know whether they're, you know, whether that is a finite audience, right? Are they going to bring in every fitness person and their devices are so well made that I'm still wearing my Garmin that I bought in 2020 and it works like a charm? So, yeah, you are too.

[00:27:38] So, you know, is there a ceiling to this huge fitness audience here? And are they going to be sad that their other, you know, their other segments aren't performing quite as well? But it doesn't really seem to be that big of a problem. They seem to just be generally slaying all day. Yeah. Alex. Yeah. So, Alex, have you got a Garmin yet? Have we talked you into it? Where are you at? No, I don't. And I don't want to be, I don't want another device, I don't think.

[00:28:05] But I do love my 50, 60-year-old, you know, old school watch. I do use the Garmin bike computer. So, you know, I'm the Varia and the InReach. And so I'm giving them plenty of business. But they put out 100 products a year. Like, that is just mind-boggling to me. It is just such a well-run business.

[00:28:31] I'm just astonished at how, you know, this engineering tech business based in, I think, St. Louis or Kansas City. So, not, you know, nowhere near the coast. And it seems to be run by engineers who just have a knack for coming up with great products and understand the market. And it's diversified around marine and aviation.

[00:29:01] And, you know, but yeah, the superstar performer is definitely the fitness sector. I don't really understand how they differentiate between fitness and outdoor. Like, what? Outdoor is down 5% and fitness is up 42%. But aren't a lot of the fitness watches used outdoors? I think there's a Venn diagram there for sure. Yeah, I think so.

[00:29:24] Yeah, I don't know what, if there's a specific product they have that would be, you know, that only you would use outdoors versus also use in the gym. Like, I actually think that's a great question, Alex. I don't know. I think like emergency beacons, right? Stuff like that. Right. Any specific, like, GPS tracking. Right. You know, that stuff would be purely outdoor. It's outdoor. But I just can't imagine that the outdoor demand is going down. Like, that doesn't, that just doesn't seem right to me.

[00:29:53] So, I don't get too hung up on the outdoor decline. But the, yeah, I'm just super impressed. And, you know, the market cap of that business is $46 billion. $46 billion versus, you know, lifetime at around seven. So, you know, do you want to be in the wearable tech business or do you want to do brick and mortar business? Yeah. Yeah. You know Eric and I do, Alex.

[00:30:22] Well, you know, you think about where, you know, we're going, potentially going public with a $11 billion valuation. Rumored, whoop, it has a double digit billion dollar valuation. It just seems like the action is in the wearable world. And I'm not, you know, I'm not saying that, you know, brick and mortar isn't critical. It is. It is. And potentially lucrative.

[00:30:51] But the real value creation is happening around wearables and tech. And then you've got Strava as well, potentially going public. You know what I think is interesting? And, you know, as we also start talking about Aura potentially going public is anytime anyone in the business talks about Aura and Whoop, they always talk about these huge underlying data sets of people's information they have that nobody's really figured out how to leverage, I don't think. Or maybe they are trying to figure it out.

[00:31:20] But Garmin also has a truly insane amount of personal data. They just are so tidy as a business and so professional that I'm like, I'm wondering if they're going to be the ones to figure out how to use and leverage all this data before anyone else does. Well, I don't know. I don't know exactly what Whoop and Aura are doing, but I'm like, we can't discount Garmin. They've got a massive amount of data. Well, Whoop and Aura do a great job at branding.

[00:31:48] They're very, you know, front and center in the consumer mind. But also, like, you know, full disclosure, I start working with a company called Sleep Cycle. They've been around for 15 years and they have the biggest sleep data set in the world. Once again, like, does anyone really know who Sleep Cycle is? Some consumers do, but I find most people in the industry don't. And I think the same thing with Garmin. It's like they've just been around for so long that people assume it. And, you know, one of the questions I want to ask, I guess specifically for you, Julia, is like this natural cycles integration that they have.

[00:32:16] Like, what makes that meaningful to you? Like, how is that valuable to the female consumer? Well, I think it's especially valuable to the female athlete consumer. Because I think it's only been in the last, like, five, maybe ten years. Probably largely in part to Stacey Sims' early work on sort of women are not small men when it comes to training. And that there are so many important training considerations around your cycle.

[00:32:41] So I think for the specific consumer of Garmin, who is an athlete, you know, I'm assuming tends to be an athletic woman. I actually think there can be some, I mean, I don't, again, know what the, know what, I haven't actually seen natural cycles. So I don't know what it offers or how it, what it offers. But I do know for, you know, actual, you know, kind of serious recreational athletes, definitely any kind of more serious athlete, it definitely is helpful.

[00:33:06] So, so I think it's, I think it could potentially be really cool and really enhance the experience for like, I think that subset of women who are actually training for something. Even if it's like a half marathon, it really could make a difference in what they're actually doing training and how they're approaching training and thinking about their training. So I think that that's cool. Yeah, that is really cool. That is really cool. Okay. Well, any last things on Garmin? I feel like, you know, we puff them up again every, every quarter. Yeah, no. The only other thing was they, they are coming out with a band. Yes, that's right.

[00:33:36] And I think that's going to be really interesting. So that, that'll compete with, I guess, Whoop and then, and then Fitbit. I think Fitbit came out with a relatively low price band, no screen, wearable. And it'll be, I think next, you know, next time we, we have a show, we could talk. Hopefully it'll be out. I think it's any day now. And there seems to be, you know, a lot of buzz about it on the, on the web. Yeah, it'll be interesting.

[00:34:05] And I think we'll probably, we'll probably be able to get, I think Andy Beckman will join us. So Andy can give us some insights on how that goes. So he said he would, so now I'm holding him to it publicly. Okay. Moving on to Peloton. I mean, kind of, hell yeah, Peloton. So they're profitable. They're cash generating, shrinking. And just bought a, an $8,000 Pilates reformer company. So Peter Stern is building something. The question is whether subscribers stick around long enough to actually see it. Here are some numbers. Revenue at $631 million.

[00:34:34] So that's up 1% a year over year. So that's the first growth since Q4 of 2024. Adjusted EBITDA, $126 million. That's up 41%. Net income, $26 million. Free cashflow, $151 million. That's up 59%. Net debt down, 70% year over year to $173 million. Paid connected fitness subscribers, $2.66 million. That's down 7.6%. Members, a total of $5.8 million. That's down 5%.

[00:35:03] And full year guidance raised to $2.42 to $2.44 billion. A couple of things that broke in the last few days of this recording. They acquired Scope, connected Pilates reformer. So that's the one I was referring to. So it's pre-selling at $8,000. Yeah. CEO Pete Stern said, Pilates is a category ripe for the same kind of experiential reinvention we brought to cardio. So sign of things to come. Pretty, pretty good outcome, I think, for Peloton, right? Can we say that?

[00:35:32] Anyone want to start with that one? Well, I mean, I'll start by saying they definitely are executing on their financial turnaround plan. But I actually thought their loss in membership was alarming because I've always felt like that's their moneymaker. And I do think, I mean, I actually couldn't believe to, I couldn't believe when I read that they're dubbing the programs in German and Spanish. I actually was shocked that you couldn't already use their program in like 20 languages. Like, I just sort of, I guess I assumed that that would be the case.

[00:36:00] So learning that they were doing that now seems like a gigantic opportunity for them. And especially, but I, yeah, overall, I was impressed. I mean, it's been, you know, they've been at the bottom of our list here for a while. But, and so, so there are some impressive things. But again, to the extent that I think that membership is their moneymaker and if it's declining, I don't know. I thought that was a bit of a red flag. And I just also wonder if, and I realize we're, you know, five years out of the pandemic.

[00:36:28] But if we still aren't just seeing more and more people wanting to ditch their online programs in favor of doing things in person. I have no idea whether there's, I have no basis for that. And it's not a conversation we've had recently because we're like, well, whatever pandemic was 100 years ago. But anyway, I thought that was a red flag. What do you think, Alex? So the churn rate is still very low. It's still very low at, I think, 1.2%. Yeah, that's great. That's great.

[00:36:56] But you're, you know, you put your, I mean, the net number, the net member growth requires two inputs, right? How many new people are joining or subscribing and then how many are you losing? So they're losing more than their, the new subscribers are coming on board. That's, that's a problem.

[00:37:17] What they, what they say is that the net subscriber number is declining at a slower pace than it has been declining over the previous quarters. So it's still going down. Declining less. It's declining less. And yeah, they're, you know, they're, they're trying a lot of things to, to juice up subscription growth. And it's not clear that any of it is really working.

[00:37:46] So they have a, they have a new deal, new partnership with Spotify that, that could be, could be helpful. I don't, I don't, they did, they talked about that a bit. The, the Pilates reformer. I mean, I, I don't, they'll, they'll sell some reformers, I assume, but is that really a game changer? Or, you know, how, how a material, you know, in a sales number, you know, probably not.

[00:38:10] So yeah, so the, the financially they're doing a great job in terms of controlling expenses, increasing cashflow. So, but in terms of driving top line, they are, the jury is definitely out. Yeah. I feel like, you know, they've done a good job at writing the ship, right? Plugging some holes. They've got it, you know, to a position where maybe they can start thinking more aggressively about growth. But they, it looks like they had to get this stuff done. I mean, the, the EBITDA improvement, you know, was, was a lot of it was cost driven.

[00:38:39] I think there was an 11% workforce reduction in February. So, you know, probably not fun work internally to get all this stuff done, but, you know, hopefully they can start to figure some things out for growth. And, you know, I look at, I mean, fundamentally, when I look at a bike versus a Pilates reformer, a bike is about as low skill as it gets, right? Like you get on the bike, maybe you adjust your seat and your handles a little bit to make sure your knee angles or hip angles are okay. Right. But then you just get on and go. So Pilates is kind of different.

[00:39:07] Like, I don't, I've never, okay, I've never done Pilates. I'll just say that right now. But it looks more technical to me. It looks like, you know, maybe it's something that can, I mean, I don't know. I think they're doing some of this commercially, but I'm not sure if they're doing a direct to consumer on it. I know it's still an R&D and it's not really out in the market yet. But, you know, that was my first thought. It seems like a harder sell, right? Because for $8,000, you could go and find a local Pilates place, get some training and, you know, get a qualified, you know, trainer to do it. And you can get a lot of Pilates for $8,000.

[00:39:37] They're also just logistically, reformers are very big. Like, they are bigger than a treadmill. So, you know, that's a huge, I mean, to me, that's a huge, like, I would have nowhere to put, I could fit, I have a lot of bikes and a lot of gym equipment and stuff that I figure out how to fit into my very small house. But, like, there's zero chance I could fit a reformer anywhere in my house. Yeah. Or my garage. So, they're just, it's also just logistically a challenging piece of equipment, I think, as a home piece.

[00:40:06] You know, maybe it folds up or something, I have no idea. But, yeah, it's a big piece of equipment. Yeah. The other vector they're talking about is commercial sales. Yes. That was a question I had for you, Alex. Yeah. So, selling Peloton-branded product into commercial gyms, they're already in hotels and, you know, universities and places like that.

[00:40:29] But, you know, can they break into the gym market with the Peloton-branded equipment and more robust, you know, hardware? TechnoGym is about a billion-dollar revenue business at this point. A pre-core, it's probably 200 and change. You know, they don't disclose it, but that's the rumored number. So, there's a big gap between them and the biggest player in the sector.

[00:40:57] Assuming TechnoGym is the biggest, I'm not 100% sure about that. But, so, there's, maybe there's some space there for them to grow commercially. I don't know if that's, like, a silver bullet for growth. But, that's, they do seem to be, you know, putting capital against that, designing new equipment and, you know, building out their sales force. And so, you know, they believe in that.

[00:41:24] I don't know, I don't know if you guys do, but, you know, that's out there. If they convinced High Rocks to put a spinning component into their events, I think they would do really well. I don't see that happening. So, we'll see. We'll see. I like the direction. I'm starting to feel somewhat confident in Peloton and what they can do. I feel like giving this profitability thing was tremendously important for them. Now they can just, you know, kind of look at ways to actually hit growth. And so, let's get into ministry news, you guys. So, I'm just, Eric, sorry. Yeah, please.

[00:41:54] Let's say one other stock-related comment on Peloton. As they generate, you know, significant free cash flow that does give them the ability to pay dividends, to buy stock back, to do acquisitions.

[00:42:14] So, we can, you know, you can hope as a stockholder that they're going to deploy that capital in a way that is going to be accretive and beneficial to the stockholders. And that may be a reason that, you know, people are bullish on the stock, although it hasn't been moving that much. But it does give them some resources to do some, you know, some things. Interesting. Okay. Cool. That's great. The CrossFit.

[00:42:43] So, two months ago, you know, they were searching for a buyer and a CEO simultaneously. And now both questions have answered. They found a CEO and they're not selling. So, I'm especially keen to get your insights on this, Juliet. So, Bruce Edwards is the new CEO effective May 4th. And the sales off Berkshire Partners is no longer seeking new ownership. Edwards was the CrossFit CEO of 2013 to 2019. He co-founded CrossFit Aptos. So, not too far from you, Juliet, and where I grew up. The president and CEO of Bar 3.

[00:43:12] CEO of the largest planet fitness franchise operator. So, he's been around for a while. And I talked to someone who I know you know really well. She was a former CrossFit staff and big in the nutrition space. I'll leave her nameless. But she was like, you know, she's like raved about Bruce. She's like, I think this guy is amazing. He's a great leader. I would work for him if he was selling fishing tackle, I think was her exact quote. So, Juliet, what's your take? How are you feeling about CrossFit nowadays? Yeah, I mean, I was delighted to hear they weren't trying to sell anymore.

[00:43:42] And I do, I've only heard through the grapevine great things about Bruce. I've never had occasion to actually meet him, which is kind of crazy to me because I know he was a CEO of CrossFit during a period of time. I mean, COO of CrossFit during a period of time when I was like heavily involved. And I think you were too, Eric. But yeah, I mean, I think the sort of key things for me is he understands the business. So he's not, he doesn't need to come in and spend six months flying around and interviewing affiliates and talking to the staff. Like he knows the business.

[00:44:11] I mean, this guy can hit the ground running. He also was part of CrossFit at a time when it was growing and it was hot. So he knows what that means. And then I do think it's really extremely important that he was an affiliate owner. I think understanding what that lived experience is of running a CrossFit affiliate will help him immeasurably in being able to make, you know, decisions for the brand and understand to the extent that their focus is going to be on affiliate and affiliate growth and supporting

[00:44:41] existing affiliates. You know, I can't honestly think of anyone who could do a better job than him. And then I think what's cool is that, you know, he left CrossFit and helped evolve other brands and fitness. Like he has now, he has since his time at CrossFit, he has a continued proven track record that he can evolve and grow and be successful at other businesses. So to me, those are like the big three things. And same thing too. I mean, I've heard from everyone that he's sort of beloved by the people who worked at

[00:45:10] CrossFit during his time. And because CrossFit is such a strange community in some ways and so community focused and so opinionated and really like we've always struggled to the extent I'm still like a we with like, you know, bringing in outsiders. Like we really always like it has this, the whole vibe of the brand is that it is homegrown.

[00:45:34] And so to have a guy like him come back and take over the reins, I think is, I think is really important. So I'm really looking forward to it and I'm super curious to see what he does. And so I'm, this is like, I feel optimistic about the brand in a way that I haven't in a couple years, I think. What about you, Eric? Well. You, Alex? Yeah. Yeah, go ahead, Alex. And I'll wrap it up with Maya. Yeah, I don't have any strong opinions.

[00:45:59] I like the fact that he's, he's a, he's got deep expert, deep experience and knowledge around what CrossFit is. Does that mean that the, the demand for what they're offering is still at a level or is potentially going to grow or come back or I don't know, but I, yeah, I'd love to hear what the strategy is for, you know, for the future. Yeah. Well, you know, I think the first 90 days are absolutely critical for Bruce.

[00:46:28] I think people are going to be watching him. He's got the games coming up. I'm looking to schedule. We have an interview hopefully coming up in September. We'll sit down with Bruce and dig into a lot more. I'm really excited for it. Even just my communications with him so far. And so, you know, it's very, it comes across as very humble. You're very keen. I want to double down on what Juliet said, like the fact that he left CrossFit and went to, you know, planet and works in a lot of different areas. Like CrossFit has a notorious way of just staying in its, in its bubble, right?

[00:46:55] And its echo chamber and just bouncing days around and kind of shunning the rest of the industry and saying like, they don't know what they're doing. We're CrossFit. We're so much smarter and better than everyone. I know because I said all these things, right? In the past. Yeah. So it's good that he can't, he has a bigger sense or a sense of the bigger fitness industry overall and how fit and how CrossFit could come in. Now, I personally think if they start to approach High Rocks as an opportunity and not a competition, then I think there's a really big opportunity because why not have, you know, CrossFit gyms

[00:47:22] and affiliates training High Rocks people and people for the sport of fitness, which they originally coined, right? So I think there's a lot of opportunity, but the first 90 days are going to be critical, especially with the games coming up. And his quote was, you know, his opening statement was CrossFit changed the world and we're not done. So let's go. And I think your point about High Rocks is really important because I think from an outsider's perspective, it could look like High Rocks is eating CrossFit for lunch, but it has been interesting at the affiliate level.

[00:47:49] I mean, I know personally so many affiliates who have incorporated High Rocks into their gyms. So they seem to have a synergistic thing going on. And I don't know what that means. I mean, in some ways I do feel like High Rocks is being run by like real life adults in ways that CrossFit hasn't been run by real life adults and their success is, you know, they're seeing a success. But, you know, CrossFit also had a meteoric rise and High Rocks is in that phase. So does High Rocks have staying power?

[00:48:18] I mean, I think there's a lot of open questions about, you know, High Rocks, but it does do some things really well. You know, it's standardized, it's accessible. You know, they seem to be, you know, the leadership at High Rocks seems to be good. But I agree. I mean, I think that that is a very synergistic relationship. There's already all these brick and mortar CrossFits out there that can seamlessly start training people for High Rocks. And they are doing it already. Like that's proving to be a great model for CrossFit affiliate owners. So I'm super curious to see what happens there.

[00:48:47] The only CrossFit I know, a former CrossFit that's incorporating High Rocks is a former CrossFit. So they do not hold themselves out as CrossFit anymore. They still have some of the DNA, but it's a little confusing to the consumer. The consumer. Yeah. What am I doing? Yeah. Is this CrossFit or is this High Rocks or what? Where am I going? Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. We will see. But I'm overall pretty optimistic about this.

[00:49:16] And I think there's going to be some good moves made. I think there's some big decisions need to be made finally. Like what do they do with the games? What do you do with that? Right. Is it a distraction? Is it an asset? Is it, you know, putting out the wrong meaning? I don't know. I've thought about it a million times. So, okay. So Retra True Tide. Retta. Retatrutide. Retta True Tide. Thank you. Thank you, Julian. So a weight loss drug delivering bariatric surgery outcomes. It's pretty wild. So, I mean, here's some of the stuff.

[00:49:43] So a 12 milligram dose averaged in the trial, 70.3 pounds of weight loss, 28.3 pounds of body weight loss in 80 weeks. I mean, what a world we live in. And, you know, we were talking about this. I don't know if it was pre-recording or during recording, but like I just, so many people I know, I go to a barbecue and people are just talking about what kind of GLP-1 they're on, right? It's just becoming normal. It happens so fast, but of course it did. It's a weight loss miracle drug, right? So why would it not?

[00:50:13] So I don't know. We see this next phase coming out. Give me some insights. What do you guys think? Yeah. I mean, I think there's so much promise with Retra True Tide. I mean, it is like it, I mean, you know, 20 people are losing almost 30% of their body weight. That's insane. Crazy. And I mean, that's like really insane. And, you know, also I think, I can't remember whether it's Eli Lilly or who, but they've, dropped a pill form of, so, you know, and now it seems like nobody really seems to care about injecting themselves.

[00:50:41] That does not seem to be a hurdle for people. You know, I think there was this, there was this thinking early on where you had to have this like special pen because everyone was afraid of injecting themselves. And it's like, everyone seems to be compounding this stuff on their own at their homes and injecting it with like needles they got on Amazon. So that does not seem to be stopping the consumer from using this stuff, I will say. And, you know, I, as I was saying in the pre-roll, you know, I feel like the, in the wellness community, people are wherever they're getting it. I don't know, but people are getting their hands on retitrutide left and right.

[00:51:11] And it's pretty, it seems like it's pretty easily defined on the black market or wherever it is people are buying this stuff. I don't know if they're getting it from compounding pharmacies or what, but it has massive promise. And, you know, it is crazy because we, we started talking about GLP-1s kind of right when they hit the scene in a big way years ago when we, on one of these shows. And I think I was, you know, very skeptical and worried about the side effects. And I think I've made like a complete 180 on them.

[00:51:40] And I just, I think that they're here to stay. And, you know, and I also think we're starting to see some of the terrible side effects of like extreme skinniness and Hollywood coming back as a thing. Yeah. So some really sort of like freakish results we're seeing from this, I think, abuse of these drugs, which I think was inevitable as, as well. So I think we're, it's, I mean, this Red Hat Truce, I think it's crazy. And I think it's on the verge of being approved by the FDA. I think it's close. I mean, it's three.

[00:52:08] So it's, it's still a bit away, but yeah. Are we seeing the impact or the, or the, you know, an influx of, of new members into the clubs and into brick and mortar yet? I don't, I haven't heard that. I haven't heard that much. I'm sure it's happening, but. Well, one concerning thing though, is I do have a friend who is a well-known trainer in Los Angeles and she had a client come to her and granted LA is its own special beast, but one of her clients who comes to her strength training programs came to her and said, oh,

[00:52:38] well, I went to brunch with all my friends and they asked me why I'm still going to the gym when I'm taking, when I could just be taking a GLP one. So, you know, even though out there in the fitness world, we are hammering everybody saying, hey, you know, you can take these, but you also need to strength train and you need to eat enough protein and you need to still focus on these lifestyle factors. I think that there is a whole subset of people who were like, no, no, I'm just taking these GLP ones. I'm going to be thin. And that's, I'm good with that. Yeah.

[00:53:04] Well, you know, I think as an industry to, to your point, Alex, like we don't really know people are coming into the gym because they're, they're getting on GLP ones. I think it's just, it's just two different types of people. There's going to be people like, why would I ever go in the gym when this is giving me exactly what I want to do? Or it's people even like, oh, I finally lost the weight. Now I can go do things that I've always wanted to do. Like the gym or hiking insert activity. Right. I think the biggest thing that the industry needs to catch ahold of if in the smart ones already doing it, like we're, we're no longer in the weight loss business. Like that's, that's someone else. Like we're in health.

[00:53:34] We're supporting people who are on this journey. We're providing the right space for our community. We're longevity. We're all these things. We're not weight losses. That is categorically taken. Like it's, it's, it's just, what do you think about, I meant to ask when this read a True Tide thing came up and, you know, this, but you know, there's all these companies I know exist out there like working against gravity. And, you know, there's so many companies that are specifically designed to help people with weight loss, obviously without GLP ones.

[00:54:03] And I feel like those are maybe not going to last. I mean, is there a market for, is there a market anymore for people who want to just try to like diet and exercise? Well, I think we think that's over. Weight watchers had to, you know, get away from, from the, the system that they had and, and start incorporating GLPs and weight loss, other weight loss drugs. Yeah, you're right. No, we, we talked about the obesity epidemic for years and years and years in, in the gym

[00:54:30] business and that, and, and the gyms as a, as a potential solution to that. I don't think people can talk about that anymore. It's, it's, it's all pharmaceutical, not, I mean, the gyms still have a role to play in, in, in preserving muscle mass and keeping people strong or by, uh, in terms of, of fighting the obesity epidemic, that is a, a pharmaceutical job.

[00:54:55] And, and to me, like when I think about that, it's actually kind of a sigh of relief that that's not really something that the fitness industry feels like it needs to shoulder anymore. Cause it's so difficult. It's so difficult. It's behavior change. It's, you know, you get people in who are hundreds of pounds overweight. Like you have to be very careful, right. With what you do and how you address that training and exercise and conversations you have. I mean, when I dealt with, you know, I'm sure Julia and everybody on this call, like when

[00:55:22] I dealt with people who are severely overweight, I was, I was very, very careful with what I was doing. Cause I, you know, do no harm, right. That's, that's the biggest thing you want to do as a practitioner. So I don't. Yeah. And I, you know, I did lots of nutrition coaching at the gym for years and I don't miss it. And I felt like it was often not that successful. You know, I could get, I could help people get in the habit of coming to the gym and moving more.

[00:55:48] But ultimately it was really like banging my head against the wall to really help people change how they eat. You know, people would do it. You know, you could get people to do like a challenge or a short-term thing that was very effective, but inevitably, you know, everybody would just go back to their ways and gain all the weight back or whatever. So, I mean, I have to say it's a relief, you know, and our, we've been running our, our Starrett system program for a long time. And we have, we recommend certain micronutrients, macronutrients, you know, amounts to eat generally for health.

[00:56:17] But we are so relieved that what we're doing is coaching people in strength and strength training and finding joy and movement and all these other things and not in weight loss. Like I couldn't be happier to just be like, this is what you need. Go over here. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And you know, I meant to say this at the beginning, Juliet. So when I was traveling in, in, in Brazil, I've been a casual, the ready state podcast listener up until that point. But I was, you know, every morning I had my routine and I would walk to the gym and I spent

[00:56:47] a lot of time with you guys on your podcast. I listened to, and now I listen to all of them. And I just want to say is an outstanding podcast. And I think more people should listen to it, whether you're a consumer or a practitioner, the level of guests you guys have and the insights that you guys threw out there are really, really good. So. Thanks, Eric. That's so nice of you to say. Thank you so much. It's like one of our, the things we do professionally that brings us the most joy. So thank you for saying that. It shows. Thank you. And Alex, you're a listener too, right? Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:57:14] And Kelly, you know, Kelly's on, you know, Rhonda Patrick and on Fuperman. And so I was like, yeah, wherever he, he appears and, and Juliet, of course, the, you know, just to, to put a fine point on the, on the weight loss conversation, I'm not suggesting that gyms have no role in that. It's a behavior change. If, if you can get people to, to be active and spend more time, you know, moving and lifting

[00:57:40] and running and jumping that will have a, a positive impact on their, on their body composition. So, and there, and a lot of other things, but, but we, as a society, we have a lot of work to do in the public health arena around just making, and, and in the food and in the food world, obviously. And there's just, you know, there, there are these huge obstacles to, to people being healthy.

[00:58:06] And we've created as a society, whether it's, you know, just two, three hours a day of, of watching Netflix or, or other sports or whatever it is on screens, or just eating food that is clearly not helpful to overall health. So there's a lot of work to do. I'm not suggesting that the pharmaceutical solution is, is gonna, is gonna be an overall solution. And it, it is a little bit of a, of a, of an easy way out.

[00:58:34] So I hope, you know, we, we continue to bang the drum about behavior change and, you know, improving the lifestyle. I think, I think that's a really great point, Alex. And I think you're right. We have, we do have to somehow figure out how to change the food environment in a big picture public health kind of way. And I think we can be, and have shown to be very effective in the gym world and fitness world of helping people move more and figure out how to find joy and love of movement and

[00:59:03] make a habit of it. And we've done a great job of that and can continue to do a great job of that. And I, and I agree. I think it's, it's the full picture. So I appreciate you saying that. Well, speaking of behavior change, let's get into the Peter Atiyah resistance training meta analysis. So basically the findings were, I don't know anyone's gonna be shocked here. Moderate load plus multiple sets two times a week gives you 77% of the maximal strength gains. Core finding was that the barrier to resistance training is behavioral, not programmatic.

[00:59:31] So it doesn't matter exactly the optimal program. You just need one that you'll actually do. And to me, this also brought up something I've been screaming for years now, especially as like the, and CrossFit does such a good job of it. But as I see more in people entering the strength training floor with barbells and dumbbells and free weights, why isn't there an intro to weight training class at most gyms? It's a great question. You know, the, I, I, yeah, it's, yeah.

[00:59:57] I mean, I think that's why, and I think I've mentioned this before, Eric, that whenever I have anyone approach me in my local community that they've realized as a mid midlife person that they want to start strength training, I always direct them to the local CrossFit gyms. Because any good CrossFit gym has a one week, two week onboarding program. We had a, we had like a two week onboarding program at our gym and it was all about learning the moves and learning how to strength train safely and ramp people into that.

[01:00:27] And I'm just not sure that, that most other gyms that are offering strength training program have some version of that. But I agree with you. It should be universal in all these places that are offering strength training programs. Yeah. And, and, and, you know, it doesn't take much, right? Two times a week to get the majority of the results. So, I mean, Alex, you sent this over to us. What was your, what was your initial? I love the focus on ROI in fit.

[01:00:53] You know, what, what's the minimum viable product concept around, around fitness? What do I, I don't, you know, a lot, a lot of people do not have a lot of time to, to dedicate to it. They're not, they're not inclined to, to take it on because they just think it's too big a hilt to climb. If, if, you know, it's two times a week and that sounds manageable to a lot more people

[01:01:19] to get 77% of the gain, that's just a really great, I think that's a great message. You know, for a lot of people, even two times a week is, is it's, it's going to feel like a lot. Yeah. But, but, but I, I do like that focus on time efficiency. I think that if that message could get out more and into the mainstream, I think that's really helpful. I think the other thing that I liked about the point was I see a lot and I think it's

[01:01:49] misguided that, especially with women, that there's all this advice all the time where you need to get like a women's specific strength program. Or, you know, I hear it a lot with parents looking for their kids with youth sports. Like I need a baseball specific strength program. And I'm like, actually you really don't. Like I'm, I don't like, you might need a beginner program. I can tell you when it comes to the youth athlete, they're all weak in all areas and they need to train their whole entire body.

[01:02:16] And I can also tell you when we're talking about a 40 year old midlife woman who's never strength trained, the exact same thing is true. They don't need, and I get it if they, if it makes them feel safe to have a female trainer or a program that's called for women. But sometimes I think we get lost a little bit in that. Like we need some strength training. We get very black and white as an industry. There's, you know, like the new thing is like progressive overload is the only thing that works. And I'm like, okay, but then I watched the CrossFit games and those are the most jacked

[01:02:46] people I see anywhere. And like, they're not necessarily just doing progressive overload. Like CrossFit style training isn't. Anyway, so I just think we get very black and white in the industry. I think we put these barriers in front of people like for women saying, oh, you can only do a women specific strength program. Like, what does that even mean? Like, we all need to lift a weight. And yes, we can, you know, we can, we can modify the load and the speed and the volume depending on where you are in your training journey.

[01:03:11] But I would put a beginner 40 year old male in the same, you know, modified program as I would put a beginner 40 year old female. So I don't, I, I, that's one of the things I liked about the article is like, let's get people lifting a weight a couple of days a week. That would be awesome. It's not complicated. Yeah, I agree. Okay. Well, the last one we have tabled here and I don't know how much of it's a discussion, but it's definitely something to, it's just interesting. So the, the scap, the collapse of a scape. So I got to try this, this robotic massage machine. Yeah, I remember you did it.

[01:03:41] Yeah. I mean, it's cool. It's a robot that gives you a massage. Like, like what's not cool about that? I don't know. You know, I'm a sci-fi nerd like your husband, Juliette. So it's like robot stuff and you know, $157 million raised. It's insolvent, right? As of April, 2026. I mean, cool. I'm sure it's not the first, it's not going to be the last of its kind, right? With robotic wellness, AI driven robotic wellness, whatever you want to call this category. It's cool. But I guess you never want to be first. You never want to be last, right?

[01:04:09] After you did it, Erica, I've been keeping my eye out. Like if I see one of these places, I'm going in, like I'm getting one, but I, it never popped up on my radar. I don't know. I feel like maybe it's just a problem of being first. What do you think, Alex? Yeah, I like the idea. I did. I tried it too in LA. Paws, the Paws studios had a partnership with the scape and, and I have, I, I'd known about it for a while and I, and I tried it and it is not

[01:04:35] a replacement for a human massage, but it is pretty darn good for a, for a robot. And it, and it, it's got four arms and you know, that's, that's pretty, you know, that's, that's better than most massage therapists. Yeah. But I would say, I just thought it was interesting, you know, in the, in the, in the bigger debate around what are, what's the impact of robotics in our, you know, in our, in our, in our future.

[01:05:04] And I think this, my sense just from hearing from some investors in, in escape was that the overall, the, it, it is a situation where the first mover took a lot of arrows, just got hit by a lot of arrows and, and the product itself was, is, is, has been well, you know, has been,

[01:05:29] what is well regarded is appreciated is, you know, the quality of the massages is considered good. It's not very good. It being the first mover was just, was problematic. It just took too long. It cost too much. Hopefully the technology gets transferred to somebody who makes it work. And, but anyway, I, I just, I thought it was interesting when we think about how are robots going to affect our lives. Yeah, no, it is.

[01:05:57] And, you know, I actually caught up with Eric Littman at one of the conferences, Connected Health Fitness. He's the founder. And this was, this was all kind of going on at that time. So I won't say anything we talked about specifically, but he was telling me about his new thing he's doing with the health spanners and he, which is interesting. It's like, from what I understand, from what he told me, it's like longevity, but done in like cohorts, right? So you have this community feel, this accountability to other humans and they're going to try to scale it out. I'm sure it's going to be super expensive. It's probably going to be for like, you know, executives and things like that.

[01:06:26] But, you know, we'll see where that goes. You know, once, once an entrepreneur, once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. So yeah, cool, cool headlines. Okay. Well, as we wrap it up, any, any final thoughts, any things you guys want to share? Any predictions, any insights, anything that you're excited about? I'm just excited to watch Aura and maybe Strava and see, you know, what happens with those, those two companies as we move forward into the rest of 2026. So anytime I see anything about them pop up on my feed or anywhere, I'm, I'm, I'm here for it.

[01:06:55] So I'm excited to watch what happens with those companies. Yeah. Both of which I'm fans of. Yeah. I think, you know, the SpaceX, the Anthropic, the OpenAI IPOs have just pretty much sucked all the capital out of the IPO market for a little while. If you're Aura or, or Strava, nobody's answering the phone right now on your, regarding your IPO. I don't think, but that'll change. And I agree. Yeah.

[01:07:23] That's, that's what I'm most looking forward to. You know, how many, how many subscribers are paying for a Strava? I have no idea. You know, what are the attrition rates? What are the growth rates? It's going to be, yeah, I think it's, it's going to be super. Yeah. Awesome. You know, for me, I'm, I'm just for this, I'm really excited for this continuing evolution of how fitness finds its way into preventative healthcare. Like I'm seeing all these really cool models. A lot of people are taking swings at it, you know, from YMCA to Lifetime to, you know,

[01:07:53] independent gym chains and then people who are partnering with gyms and health clubs. And, you know, to the point that we talked about in the last quarter was, you know, the, the, the distribution channels there, right? 20,000 gyms, right? Like it's there. Like, how do we, how do we get it? Whether you call it longevity or preventative healthcare or health optimization, I don't sure what you call it, but how do we, how do we get everything working in the same way so we can actually be at the front of it? I think it's happening. It's messy right now, but it's, it's a really cool thing to see in real time. So yeah, that's, that's, that's right. Yeah.

[01:08:22] And, and one last thing too, I mean, with the, now the Strava integration with Claude, I haven't played with that as a Strava user and a Claude user. I've been, I'm curious to see what that means, but I do think, you know, speaking of Anthropic and open AI and, you know, I think we're, we're going to just have to continue to see what, how AI impacts our business generally. Yeah. I, I, I do look at the AI on Strava where they, after every, every input, every workout,

[01:08:49] bike ride, run, whatever, they give you a little AI intelligence report on, on the workout. And it really, it, yeah, it is very early days for the, for that. It's going to get a hell of a lot better. Um, yeah. You know, the recommendation engines I think are going to be exciting, you know, personalized workout suggestions and then, and then sort of analytics around your trends. And I, I think that's, it's going to get a lot better.

[01:09:18] It's not right now. It's not that informative really. Um, but it's coming. Cool. Well, you guys just sold me on another subscription. Thank you. It's really fun. It's really fun. I have to say, I, I, I get a lot of weird pleasure out of Strava. It's great. All right. Well, you guys, thank you so much. Your insights are so valuable and these are so much fun. I really appreciate it. And we'll, we'll see you in another three months. I'm sure we'll be talking in between. In the meantime, go team USA. Yeah. Thanks, Eric. Thanks, Alex. Joy to the world cup.

[01:09:48] 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 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.

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