Mike Lee - Coaching CrossFit Games Athletes

What's up, Fitness fans? Welcome back. This is Eric with the Future of Fitness Podcast, and this is episode number 16. And I get to talk to Mike Lee. Mike's the head coach at OPEX and the Phoenix Rise. And this is a really awesome insight into coaching high-level CrossFit athletes. So if you think you know what it's like to coach at that level or those levels of athletes, listen to this because you may have a little bit of it wrong. And it's really interesting to see the science behind it because Mike has an background in engineering. So he brings the he has a firm understanding of the numbers and the science that goes behind training people, but so much more uh goes into life coaching. And Mike has taken a uh very purposeful route in educating himself with some of the best mentors out there: Charles Paulquin, Paul Check, James Fitzgerald, and he's constantly on a quest for knowledge and improvement, and it really shows uh he really knows his stuff. So I hope you enjoy it. Um he's a good friend, he was a coach of mine for a while, and he's he's excellent at what he does, and I think there's a lot to learn here. So let's talk about our quickly about our sponsor. So this episode is brought to you by the machine, Fit Pro Edition. So finally, full stack digital marketing agency service is now available to the everyday fitness professional. So you may ask, what is the machine? I'll tell you. Machine is a periodized marketing system. It's based on decades of fitness industry experience and predictive analytics through Google. So it delivers ROI, that's for sure, but that's not the point. The point is, after a 13-month program, every client that goes to the machine will now have an automated and evergreen marketing system that choreographs all of the aspects of digital and traditional marketing. So email funnels, pay-per-click advertising, so that's Facebook and Google AdWords, search engine optimization, content marketing, social media, co-branding, so much more. All these things fit in after the 12 to 13 month campaign, and you see how it all works, and it's a beautiful system. So get off the cycles of crash diet marketing that is way too prevalent in the industry, and learn how to automate your marketing and lead generation the right way. End goal is what you really want entrepreneurial freedom. If you have questions or you want to find out more, you can just email me, Eric, at fitnessmarketingalliance.com, and I'll fill you in on the details and we can have a nice conversation about your business and what you're up to now. So without further ado, on to the show. Mike Lee of OPEX. Hey everybody, this is Eric with the Fitness Marketing Alliance, and uh really cool guest today. I got Mike Lee from OPEX, who was actually my coach for a good part of uh better part of two, maybe three years. So we know each other pretty intimately. Um he knows uh all of my struggles as both a co as an athlete and a person and a coach, and as he's helped me through a lot of things. So I'm super excited. Mike, uh, thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate your time.

Yeah, always Eric. I'm excited to uh be able to share whatever I can and uh provide some insight.

Yeah. Well, you know, Mike, Mike, you have a ton of experience. Um I know that, but let's go and maybe tell people um, you know, what's your fitness story, what's your journey that you've taken to be a coach, to be an athlete or athlete to coach to where you are now.

Yeah, cool. Um I'll make it uh a long story short. Um initially, actually, funny enough, and I think a lot of people can relate to this, I wasn't uh in fitness initially. Um I was an engineer, oddly enough, and um you know, which translated ultimately really well into what I do now, um, which is uh another story for another time. But so an engineer by trade, I always had the brain to kind of understand numbers and look at things a little bit differently. Um and it always was sports was always ingrained in my my passions, uh, played water pole in high school and the collegiate level. So that was always something um I I knew that I wanted to continue, but didn't know how. Um so after that, uh started getting into uh CrossFit and understanding um just uh what it was all about, like what what what truly drove me to uh be more involved in the sport. And as I found out more and more about myself, I recognized being six foot three, I wasn't necessarily gonna be uh the most talented athlete. Um so I started to just uh dig into all the intricacies of of how I could improve myself, first off and foremost, um, because I was fascinated by it. Um and then next was just looking at other people and just having some really good insight in terms of like, okay, like watching them move. Like I didn't necessarily have this big uh physiology anatomy-based background. So I had to watch a lot of training take place to be able to comprehend and understand some biomechanics and say, okay, these things all make sense. Um so from that, I kind of just got uh more and more involved with James through a couple different uh individuals in the Southern California area. They essentially led me uh to being underneath James and uh just being one of his clients. So I didn't necessarily get programming from James, but uh as a mentor and and uh an ongoing um we'll call it a consult consultant, really, that just challenged me with a lot to understand why I'm doing what I'm doing, what I'm passionate about, and ultimately what I wanted my legacy to be, you know, on this earth. Uh and then, you know, lastly, just to stop wasting time. So that led me to uh take CCP and uh just get more involved with OPT at the time and now OPEX. Um and then through our consultation practice, uh James and Leanne needed someone to kind of uh support their bigger vision with the on-site program as well as this remote business. Um, and it became at a really good time. I was ready to make the transition and pretty much uh dropped everything, uh moved from Southern California out to Arizona, and I've been here for about five years.

Awesome. Great. And for those who are listening, when he uh he's talking about James Fitzgerald um from OPEX, and then the CCP is the coaching education program that they have, which um I took and it's excellent, um outstanding actually. Uh Mike, when you're when you've been going through your your coaching, obviously James Fitzgerald's been a mentor of yours, but when you're first started, um, who are some of your mentors um in the coaching world and then has that changed over time? Do you have new ones now?

Yeah, for sure. Great question. Um uh Charles Polliquin has always been a big mentor of mine. Um I've interned with him a few different times as well as just taken a lot of his courses, and he always he has a different perspective on things than through his uh vast amount of knowledge. He has he has some great uh understandings of how things need to be put together for certain individuals. Um he's worked with I don't know how many gold medalists um and medalists overall around the world. Uh so someone like that you have to respect and just listen to what he has to share, um, and really, really got some uh some challenges from him because if you know anything about Charles, he's uh very blunt. He'll tell you uh like it is, um, and he has no uh remorse to be able to say that you're wrong. So that was good. I learned that at a very young age to say, oh, that wasn't right, or I really need to dig into this further before I open my mouth and say, Oh, well, what about this? So it gave me this understanding to dig a little bit deeper. Um, the uh other two major guys are mentors, I would say Greg Everett and Sean Waxman, um, from my weightlifting history and backward. I train at Sean's gyms for multiple years. He's also a good friend and a mentor and a coach. Um, and then Greg Everett with Catalyst Athletics. Um, him uh as well as Amy has just been uh on the forefront of what I call uh just well uh put out information about the sport of weightlifting as well as just uh through the performance menu and lots of evolutions with him and Rob uh Wolf and their journey through uh that that type of information. So I always followed them. And so um I felt like that provided me this well-rounded basic support because I got my fix of you know, understanding fitness and CrossFit through James, uh understanding strength and conditioning and in uh reality through Charles, and then understanding uh weightlifting through Bob and or excuse me, through Greg and Sean. So I guess uh if those were the major people that I've I've kind of shaped and formed, um those would be them. And then just through my own research, you gotta think about you know the old school guys, Revitau, all those types of individuals that just had great information. Uh Dan Path, you know, there's so many good people out there to follow. I wouldn't necessarily call them mentors, but but people that I still research and read into and then go back and revisit. So I think that's not something that we do well as coaches, is go back to the stuff that has worked forever and take that and then use it effectively moving forward. Um, because uh you have to look at patterns, not trends. Um you look at like consistency pieces that have worked for a really long time, not what's fancy out in the industry, um, because it'll always work for you as a coach.

I love that patterns, not trends, because that's that's it's so easy, right? To get caught up in trends. There's always something new coming on. Your clients are always coming to you saying, Hey, I saw this online, right? Or I'm following this new blog and they're doing that. Like, what about battle ropes, right?

Yeah, yeah, oh well, yeah, you've got this new hydraulic, you know, up and down machine, or it's supposed to do this and just no grab a barbell and shut up.

How do you uh, Mike, how do you feel that you have whether intentionally or unintentionally differentiated yourself from other coaches?

Yeah, yeah, that's a really good question. Um, I think uh as you evolve, you have to you have to take stuff from coaches, but then the application and the intricacy within the design is what makes a coach unique. So the more a coach can take what they've learned and all this fast knowledge and be able to pair things effectively, be able to understand the dose response and the stimulus, all those things that that creates like the autonomy of the coach and the coach like shining bright if uh if they had success. Um I think the more and more you can look at the simplicity of a design and make it mastery, um, that is what I would say is the most effective form of coaching because you're really understanding how a complex system, especially with mixed modal fitness or something like CrossFit, where there's so many things involved, and you pair up, you know, a week-long bit of training, it's perfectly laid out because of the way you intricately did that from understanding what one day is going to be to the next, etc., along with pairing that up with lifestyle. So I'm a big proponent, I think I do this pretty well, is understanding and taking the lifestyle components and then connecting it to the athlete's highest values. So they understand that you know, eating protein, chewing your food, drinking water throughout the entire day leads to them having more success as an athlete, which helps them set up for the long-term goal, which you know is to make the CrossFit games or whatever that may be. Because a lot of times, Eric, I'll just be brutally honest, even the most advanced athletes, we think everything's, you know, butterflies and rainbows, and it's shit. So you should see the amount of retraining of behavior it takes for even high-level athletes to be able to come to a point where they're like consistent with the smallest things that help them overall long term. Um, but what do they get, or what do we see? It's like the next supplement or the next you know, weight loss trend or the next diet trend, or it's it fits my macros, like all these things are out there. But if they can't do the basic things, which still a lot of them struggle with, um, the ability to utilize everything that they're taking in or getting from all over the place is less effective, which means that it's less aligned with our long-term goal. So, myself, I think that the maximizing their potential and understanding how intricately all those things have to play a part in the bigger picture, not just throwing together a great program design is what uh would uh separate me as a coach.

Yeah, you know, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear you talk to is so I I've been to a number of certifications, weekend seminars, things like that. One of them that they're always when I go to one that's outside of the world of functional fitness and CrossFit, right? There's always like it's guaranteed that somebody's gonna just gonna rip on CrossFit, right? It's just right, it's always me. So the one that was the best, I think I was sitting through it, and the guy was doing a presentation and he showed um you know a flash up on the screen a CrossFitter and they was doing a handstand underneath a barbell racked. So his feet were on the barbell and like mess it up with his feet. Yeah, I've seen that one. Like, and then there's our the CrossFit people, and I was like, yeah, you know, I I just don't see that. I don't see that happen. And what I would like to see is more people see that the science behind it, that it's it's extremely intricate, right? The complexity of coaching is think about all the demands when it comes to energy systems, Olympic lifting, gymnastics, and all these skills after work. And then you have to deal with the mental part of the athlete and the emotional part of the athlete. Um, you know, I think it's probably one of the most challenging sports because you know, you and I come from a water polo background, very difficult sport, right? Training is very hard. And uh, but when I got I was got into CrossFit, I was like, wow, there's a lot to this. And there's that Dunning Kruger effect of like when you're just getting in, you think you know everything. And then when you get deeper in, you're like, I don't know shit. Yeah, I got a lot to learn, right?

That's why I love it so much. And I for that fact is as you dig deeper, you you now feel like you know nothing and have to retrain your brain all over again. But that allows uh for me fulfillment because I'm on this journey of long-term growth and and consistent uh learning from my own coaching. And and you know, 100% almost every time, you know, what I have recognized is a lot of the people that just knock, knock, knock it and don't, don't understand it is exactly that. They have no idea of what actually takes place. So their decision is just to knock it because they actually can't put it together. Um, it's like, well, energy systems plus weightlifting plus gymnastics, all these things compounded, like you want to try to put that together and tell me it's it's simple? Well, it's not. Um, so I think the evolution of the coach within the sport um is uh is a very valid one and something that uh will be more and more respected over time. It's just new, and of course, you know, from the the side of the business that gets knocked in media that you know people are doing dumb shit all the time, really. Um, well, there's a lot of other individuals um like our crew at OPEX that are doing really smart training and trying to uh show that this evolution and improvements for uh for functional fitness and for CrossFit can can happen and it can happen well with a good design plan. Um, because there's a lot of like randomness, oh, we just do anything type of uh understanding and conversation out there about the sport, and that's actually what gets kind of uh knocked. It's like, oh yeah, well, you guys are just throwing shit on the board and it should work. Well, uh it's not how we all do it. Um so I think more and more people have to understand what is in the sport prior to putting up something like that on the board and just saying, oh, CrossFitters do this. Um, because I'll challenge them to put together a program and uh let me see it, and then we'll have a good conversation about how they intricately blended all those things to maximize the potential in the sport.

Yeah, and it's interesting too, because it goes both ways. And you know, my first couple years of coaching um functional fitness and crossfit, I was the worst. I'd be like, bodybuilding. That's stupid. Why would you ever do that? I do functional training, right? Guess what I do now? Bodybuilding. Bodybuilding, right? I do full circle. First circle. And boy do I feel like a jerk. Um, so how you know, compared to you coach a lot of high-level, you have the the vantage point of coaching high-level athletes in the sport of fitness. Does your does your approach change from general population to coaching athletes? And if so, like in what ways? How does that change for you?

Yeah, you know, good question, Eric. And through the evolution for myself as a coach, I've had to learn that I have to get more and more comfortable with really identifying the type of client that I work with. Um, and that's something for all coaches to learn. The more and more you can create the avatar that works really well with you, and you can be honest about it. So everything that you put out is like, this is who I work with, this is why, and this is what I'm good at, the more and more people will be attracted to you. Yes, it closes that gap on casting this wide net. But over time, you'll see that the wide net sometimes brings in fish that, you know, aren't gonna aren't gonna last long, right? So they're they're not necessarily best for the relationship that's established. And all of a sudden both the the client and the coach are unfulfilled because it's just not a great fit. There's a lot of people that want to coach, you know, everyone. And my challenge is to say, okay, like, are you really maximizing your understanding of who you're coaching by having such a big net? So that being said, I think um big picture stuff is I'm I'm really pushing towards coaching fitness athletes and uh the continuum of improvement uh for those individuals. I don't necessarily say, you know, if you didn't make the top 100, I'm not gonna take you on at all, because I think, you know, actually a program to take someone from 700th to 200th to 50th to potentially qualifying for regionals is more intricately designed and shows me that a coach is actually uh better at what they do than you know making someone go from you know third to first, or they've been at the games for four years and I'm just taking them back. Like, you know, to be honest, and I've said this multiple times, they could do lots of anything and still be good. Um and I truly believe that. I still will be very, very uh intricately detailed with that because I think it still involves a lot of uh good communication and setting the athlete up for success. But coaching really, really good athletes is all about what they do background uh within lifestyle practice, et cetera, to set them up for success within you know being able to handle more training. The more they can handle, the better they're going to be prepared for the volume that's necessary at the regionals and the games, and the faster they can recover in between those workouts. So that's the goal with overall training volume and high-level athletes. But on the other end of the continuum, just individuals that you know are making that jump. I love coaching those people because first off, they show great improvements in a lot of different areas. They're super fulfilled because they're constantly showing this increase in growth. And ultimately, for me, I can really look at a program like that and say, wow, I can see a lot of good stuff that I did in here to really maximize this person's potential, and I can learn from that and then use it moving forward. To whereas someone that's really good, you know, you can you can give them lots of everything and they're gonna still continue to be good. Uh so I think it's less intriguing. So I've finally found my niche in the market, and uh that's coaching fitness athletes.

That's that's huge. That's a great lesson, too, because nothing changes. I mean, you can see, I see parallels every day between fitness and business. And you know, same thing goes. We were just calling talking about this before we started recording about how you have to know what whatever it is, whatever service you're providing, you have to know who your ideal client is. Because once that is known, and sometimes it takes forever to figure it out. Yeah, once that's known, everything just falls in line, and now you see success, right? Both for you and the client. Uh, and that's that's a huge piece. When you talk about helping clients on, I guess what you probably refer to, the back end, right? Of understanding, you know, what things need to go into place to recover properly so they can train more. What are some approaches you take for getting? I know it's just it's part of building a relationship too, but yeah, the question I'm looking for is how do you get into someone's values, right? And then how do you get those aligned with their training? And maybe you could give us an example.

Yeah, for sure. Well, you got to listen. I think that's uh one thing that as coaches, it's a masculine type of uh environment. So we like to give direction. We're like, okay, this is what you need to do, change this, this will work well. Okay, great, check the box, see you later. That's it. Um, but lots of times it's the listening aspect that really gets you to comprehend or understand what they're prioritizing. So if certain things, you know, for an example, Eric, I'll have my athletes write out an entire day. Like, what do you do throughout your day? Or give me minute by minute. You wake up, what do you do? You have breakfast, what do you do after that? Like, and then all of a sudden we look at it, and then I ask a question that's like, okay, well, what do you say? Well, what would you say you're prioritizing throughout your day? And then, you know, if there's malalignment, they're saying, okay, well, my family and my friends and my dog are most important, but I look at their day and it's nothing like that. Um, there's no uh family, friends, or dog within what they're showing is what they're doing and executing on it every every day. I'm gonna say, okay, well, just just uh as a noticing on my part, and I'm not gonna say, oh, well, that's you know not the case because you know you're not showing it, so it's over with. I'm saying, well, why do you think that you necessarily are not doing those things within your entire day? And it just creates a thought process of like, oh, that's really interesting. Maybe some of these things aren't as important. And that way you start to chip away at a really deeper conversation, and then where all of a sudden they're like, okay, these are the things that are important to me. My own uh success within fitness relies around like me being um accepted in the gym and looking people looking up to me. That's a great learning for me as a coach to understand that's something that they really highly value, like for people looking up to them and them being a role model to all these different people. And all of a sudden it becomes less connected, like them, you know, getting first in the open. And it's just that that piece of them feeling confident and them sustaining this level of uh role model in the gym setting. So you can see there's multiple renditions of that throughout understanding what is in someone's day and then what they're saying is important. So as soon as we can align those things and you know, they can say these things are important, it's really, really identified during their day. You know, if they say training is important, they're training for four hours a day, they say their family is important, they're having dinner with their family every single evening because it's a block of time in their schedule. Like those specific things, if they're in there, then I can say, okay, great. You now we're we're fully aligned, and you can see lots of stuff gets better when there's full alignment.

Awesome. Yeah, I remember um when I first started working, I think it was with James, and had it, I did the D Martini value assessment. Yep. That blew my mind. I mean, I I took it and it's it's you guys can look it up. It's just D D Martini. Um, what's his first name? Is it John D Martini? John D Martini value assessment. And it's it takes about 20 30 minutes if you do it right. And I remember thinking when it started, like, okay, these are what I think my values are. And then I did the whole test, so I was like, Yeah. And the thing is gonna be shocking for most. People is what society tells you your values should be. And then if you're very honest with yourself, what your values actually are, as long as you're if you if you can become cool with that, then things will be okay, right? But you just have to align it.

Yeah, there's so many biases formed by what we see in media and our parents. All those things now are weighted upon us, and all of a sudden we look at it. And you know, if I was to look at my values, maybe uh my family's not the top one, and people may scorn me for that and be like, I cannot believe you would say that should always be number one. Well, I'm honest, and uh I'll say that in my day, I don't spend uh every waking second making sure that um I call my mom and my dad and I call my sisters for a half an hour per day. Now, I'm not saying that anyone else that shows a value to that family or or to family, that's not okay. That's great, but you shouldn't have biases around the judgment of what I'm saying are my high values and what other people are saying are theirs. So the more and more we can get comfortable of the uncomfort of the judgment and biases that are placed on, you know, by society on us, and the more and more we can get real. And that's what a coach should eloquently do is just get real with the clients, ask some tough questions so that you dig down to the surface. And what does that create? A great relationship that creates ongoing trust and communication. If you have that, it's going to be a good relationship that will last a long time.

That's awesome. So, what I'm picking up too is that really doesn't matter what the client's goals are. You still have to start off with a solid foundation, understanding values, prioritizations, things like that. And that's what builds a strong relationship to have a client for a long, long time.

Yeah, for sure. And the other thing too, Eric, is that as soon as you dial dial in the priorities and values, all of a sudden their goal gets very clear. So up front they say they want to make the CrossFit games, but you dig into priorities and values, and all of a sudden it's it's actually not that. We we finally dig up and screw and scrape down to this part of like, okay, actually, you know, I just want to train, be healthy, and have no connection to the open. But I thought that that the open was going to allow me to be accepted by my peers. Like that is that's like groundbreaking stuff. That's like, wow, that is so fascinating to me to be able to say, great, now we can have a great conversation on how we continue to show improvements in fitness, but keep this long-term continuum going for yourself where you feel accepted, you feel like you're training well, you know, ongoing, and then dig into why you need to do the open to feel accepted. What is that going to give you? Like you've got to ask those questions. And I think the more and more you can do that with clients, the more the goal is aligned long term. And if you have that, then then all the on the conversation, your consults, and as you're talking to individuals on the floor when you're coaching them, you can always revact revert back to that. It's like, okay, remember what the goal is. Here's how we're gonna get there. Are you doing the necessary things that align to set you up for success? Um, and if they're not, that's a good challenge. And that's what we work through as coaches.

Cool, awesome. So the the title of our podcast here is The Future of Fitness. And everyone's got a different opinion, right? But where do you see the world of fitness going? And it's young, you know, this this is only a 40 year old, this industry is 40 years old. But where do you see it going in the next five years? And that could be, you know, is that is it technologies that changing it? Is it um you know level of coaching that's changing it? Is it the education of coaches that's changing it? Um, is it recovery? Like, where do you see the biggest uh I guess bright spots for the next five years for the world of fitness?

Yeah, for sure. Well, I like to say we're gonna uh we'll have a big part in that um just because I'm I am biased towards uh our uh CCP program and what can offer coaches. Um but I think the big thing, there is lots of ways of technology. And remember, the technology that we've implemented is not necessarily to make things more sexy, it's to make our system more efficient and for the client to have a better experience. So I think if you always are looking as like, okay, what can improve the overall client experience as a business or within the industry? If if communication or upgrades and technologies where increased communication, increased trust, allow better service, then for sure technology is on the forefront of that. It's because you know we all have to get used to it. And now our system has allowed us to streamline communication with the client. So that's a big upgrade that's happened in the last couple of years that I think will massively grow as kind of the forefronted idea that will allow the best systems possible to be created to deliver a great coaching experience to a lot of people throughout the world. Um, and I think on the education side of things, um I think people will always uh go to the sexy thing. Um, but the more and more they can understand on go revisit principles, and that's what we teach at OPEX is great principles for yourself to deliver, you know, great training and uh great lifestyle principles, and also develop in business uh as a coach. Because I think that's it's kind of been lost, is like we just think coaching is gonna happen. Well, it doesn't. Um, you got to be a professional, and the more and more that I see it is that that's where the industry is headed to make and create professional coaches that have a long-term continuum in this thing we call coaching. Um, and if that happens and I have a big part to play in it, you know, I can check the box and you know move forward onto my next life.

Awesome. Yeah, I think we're all cheering for the fitness industry and would love to see uh you know professional fitness coaches become a bigger part of more conversations, right? Yeah, for sure. You know, the the private trainer who they think of who's a 23-year-old, you know, working at a big box gym and drinking coffee while you know he's got his people on a Smith machine or something like that, right?

Yeah, yeah. And and last point, just uh on technology, because there's a lot of things that are coming out with recovery and readiness. The more and more we can maximize uh, you know, individuals' ability to recover and do more work within this in the context of the cr the sport of fitness or functional fitness, you know, I think it's going to uh it's going to only legitimize the capacity for people to see these monsters, essentially. So, but you gotta also remember if people don't chew their food, drink water, sit down to eat, sleep all night, like though I don't care what you do with technology. Um, you know, if you don't have the basic principles, so we always go back to the basics. And that that sexy shiny object that you're using, loop, you know, um the qualo ring and all these other ideas coming out, you know, fantastic as a as a gauge for readiness. Accuracy, you know, I'm still gonna challenge on the most accurate measurement, um, unless you're hooked up to like a serious HRV machine to understand it. But that being said, it's like, okay, you know, do I have the basics? Because if not, yeah, you're gonna look at all these things like, oh, Whoop doesn't say I'm ready, but you have you have no baseline to understand that you're you're you're at a base. You actually are doing the things that you need to be able to look at Whoop and say, okay, now I'm collectively getting some good data to give me more on what I can do to even further my improvements on those things. But without a base, it's inconsistency. Um, I just see it as that. And uh it's decent. Um, I think there's a lot of technology that are going to continue to come out that'll improve what we do. Um, it's always good to look at. There's no data I won't look at and just evaluate as a coach. Um, but I think long term, as long as you look back to principles and basics, the evolution of fitness will continue to push forward, but don't forget them.

Awesome. Yeah, and you know it's interesting. I have a conversation with uh Coach Bob Tacano coming up next week. Oh, great. And he's been um, you know, I remember sitting through a workshop of his about probably like five, six years ago, and he first he said, you know, there's a huge blind spot that we have in the United States when it comes to training, and it's called recovery. I was like, interesting, recovery. Okay, so what is that like? Yeah, that's what allows you to do all the training. You know, you go to Eastern Bloc or, you know, China, things like that, and they're gonna have like that's a huge part of it. It's like soon to train, you're okay, you're in recovery now. And here in the United States, it just doesn't happen unless you're a high-level pro athlete in a sport that has a ton of revenue. Uh so that's a really interesting point. So uh, well, two two more questions for you, Mike. And this one, and we talked about this a little, if there's a lot of noise in in the fitness market, right? Especially now social media is such a powerful tool. And a lot of people, and this was big when I opened my had my gym even like five, six years ago. And there's always the promise to people of losing 20 pounds in seven days, right? There's always these promises, and and people who, and I feel, and it's it's it's unfortunate times because coaches who take the time to really educate themselves and are great coaches can lose out on promise. And this goes on in an industry, but if you are that coach who's taking your time to educate yourself and you do good work for your clients, but you keep getting combat, you're you're you're losing clients to those false promises. What advice do you have for that coach and trainer on how to deal with that? Um, you know, when the conversation comes up and then over time, yeah, for sure.

Well, a couple things is um when I hear that, I hear that the goal is misaligned or wasn't communicated well between the client and coach up front. Because if there is true alignment for the coach to say, okay, you want to lose 50 pounds, it's gonna take eight years. That is real. Um, and I think coaches don't do that enough, and I completely get it's hard to sell the long-term game. I'm not discounting that at all. I know how hard it is to sell the long-term game because I have to do it day in and day out. Um, but that being said, the more and more you can create the communication up front about the uh capacity to be able to educate the client, I think that's super important because if you educate them on how to lose weight effectively and keep it off and why those systems actually don't work, and here's some data to show that it doesn't work, and here's you know the reasoning behind you know detox and the reason you don't want to take put it off you know that fast. Like if you're providing education context, all of a sudden the client understands more. And when those shiny objects come up, you pull you you remind them, say, remember the long-term goal. And also you have to have stages where you show gradual improvements. We use the M body, you can do calipers. There's lots of things that, okay, we're we're we're making progress. And as soon as they see progress, they can start to get bought or more bought into the long-term plan. But I would say it starts with great communication up front with the client and a clear understanding of what it's going to take with their goal long term. And for clients that want to lose weight, you always have to ask them why do you want to lose weight? Because there's a lot of emotion and understanding, as you know, man, on that entire topic. So if you're not asking those difficult questions over time, maybe they, you know, are depressed and they're poor relationship. Like there's a lot that goes into, you know, that that whole equation. So the more and more you can intricately understand that, you can align why they need why they're going to lose weight or what why they want to lose weight with their long-term goal, which may just be they want to get back into a relationship. And so they can feel accepted, et cetera, by having this gradual improvement in health. Fantastic. Now we've got a really clear understanding of what the goal is over time. We're going to use measurements along the way to ensure that you improve.

Awesome. Yeah, that's huge, huge advice. So, Mike, if people want to get in touch with you, they want to find out more about you, or maybe they want to ask you some questions, where can people find you?

Yeah, yeah, just uh www.opexfit.com. Um, Instagram handle, um, Mikely Opex. Uh oddly enough, all the girls that Lululemon, uh, my fiance works there, and that's what they call me as I walk into this. Hey, Michael Opex. I don't ever get it, um, but I love saying it. So uh that's my Instagram handle. I'm on Facebook as well. I try to interact as much as possible, but uh great resource uh through our website. And if you're interested as a coach or as an athlete, just to check us out and understand what we're doing. Um we uh like to say we're on the forefront of the movement, and um, I love being a part of uh our growth as a business and uh what we're trying to do in changing the uh model for the fitness industry.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Mike. We'll uh I know you and I will be talking soon and uh have a great day, man. Anytime, buddy. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Future of Fitness podcast and webinar series. Uh, we're working really hard here to keep great content coming out, and we'd like to express our gratitude by offering you a free seven-day marketing crash course. So here's how you can claim it. If you go to fitnessmarketingalliance.com forward slash free gift f R E E G I F T, and you enter the promo code FitMARK F I T M A R K, you can claim it that way. The other way is you can text us. So you can text the phone number 805-619-5550, and you text the word FitMark F-I-T-M-A-R-K. So thank you. Keep listening, go claim that offer. It's a ton of value. And if you ever want to get a hold of me, or if you have suggestions for guests, topics, or anything else, or if you just want to ask me questions, uh, I always respond. You can reach me at Eric E R I C at Fitness MarketingAlliance.com and keep listening. We have a lot more coming down the pipe, and uh, we'll make sure that we're keeping the value great for you guys. And farewell till next time.