NASM - Leading Fitness Education in 2021 - Mike Fantigrassi

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, where we talk with entrepreneurs, researchers, and practitioners in fitness, wellness, and health sciences. I'd like to give a big thanks to our sponsors, Level Five Mentors, helping entrepreneurs achieve the highest levels of freedom in time, money, relationships, health, and purpose. Also, certified course creation, helping entrepreneurs create accredited online certifications that are not only lucrative but highly scalable. Go to levelfindors.com or certifiedcoursecreation.com and learn more. I am your host, Eric Malzone. And once again, welcome to the future of fitness. How are you doing?

I'm doing very well. Thanks for having me, Eric.

Yeah, well, I appreciate it. I know today is uh December 18th. You are wrapping it up, getting ready to go on vacation for the holidays as I as an am I. So um I appreciate making the you know fitness in before the new year, man. It's uh it's it's great to have you on the show. So God, you know, general introductions. I think people know uh who NASM is. And if they don't in the fitness industry, then they're about to find a whole lot about it. But tell us, man, what is your give us your background? How did you get to be where you are? What is your role now? Yeah, give us some some background.

Sure. Yeah, so as far as my background, went to college at Florida State University. I think as a lot of people early on, not really sure what you want to do, but I was very drawn to fitness, in particular nutrition. And I, you know, kicked around like I want to go to medical school, uh, maybe go to physical therapy school. I kind of settled on chiropractic, but to fulfill the prerequisites, I ended up getting my undergraduate degree in food and nutrition. And it was really uh really an early-on kind of version of a personal training, undergraduate degree, or something that would prepare someone to do personal training with a strong emphasis in nutrition. I didn't want to go the route of dietetics and clinical nutrition. But one of the things I did get to do for about a year and a half was work as a fitness trainer on the campus of Florida State University. And at the time they had just opened up a really large uh recreation, you know, weight training facility that was state of the art. So that was a great experience. One of the cool things was I went through about two weeks of training with the uh manager of the gym and the GAs and everyone else that was involved in it. And that was my first exposure to really learning about like to be a good trainer. You know, you read about stuff in textbooks and stuff like that, but having that experience where you're getting mentored and you know, you think you know a lot, and then you get in there and they they show you the right way to do things. Once I graduated, uh, I had a little bit of coursework I still needed to complete. So I think it was like two chemistry classes to finish my application for chiropractic school. So I moved back down to South Florida where I grew up and started working as a personal trainer. So I worked for Gold's Gym. I did that for a little bit and then transitioned to doing sales for a gym that uh basically I wanted to be a trainer, but they weren't open. So I was doing pre-sales, which if anybody's done that, it's brutal, trying to sell a gym that's not open, and they ended up not opening.

Yeah.

So then done that, yeah. Yeah. Then I worked for GNC for a little bit, um, got accepted to chiropractic college, and had a little bit of time between when I was accepted and when I need to go to school, so like three or four months. And so I had a girlfriend who moved out to Arizona and she asked if I wanted to come out there, and that's what brought me out to Arizona. And then I worked um outside of fitness, I did some part-time training, but basically worked doing database work and um marketing stuff, like focus groups and things, which was a great experience. But around um 2000 or so, the dot-com kind of bubble burst. And then um around, you know, I think it was a year, I did some contract work, but then I was really looking to get back into fitness, and that's really what kind of got me on the pathway back into doing what I really enjoyed. So I worked for 24-hour fitness for four or five years, trained a lot of sessions there. I think I got an award for 10,000 sessions trained that they attract. Um I trained as many as 190 sessions in one month. Worked as a fitness manager and did a lot of different things there. And then I had an opportunity to go to uh Scottsdale, which, if anyone's familiar with Arizona, Scottsdale is one of the uh nicest locations in Arizona, and they opened up a brand new lifetime fitness. And um, that was uh around 2006 that I went over there and then I moved into doing nutrition coaching, I'm at a bog testing and training, and uh enjoyed it, made a lot of good friends. Um, that's actually how I ended up working for NESM. One of the guys there, whose name is Tony Andler Wright, was a master instructor for NESM, and I started doing a little bit of contract work for the company around 2010, and then um was nominated to become a master instructor. So I was hired on first in that part-time role, and then shortly after that, I was offered a full-time position within ESM, and uh was looking to kind of make a change. I you know, I enjoyed training, but I've been doing it for a while and uh wanted to stay in fitness, so uh really great decision. Um, and then within ESM, I've had various roles, uh, working in student success, so helping out students with the content, and then becoming the director of professional services and really helping build out uh the team that supports students when they go through content and getting to build some courses. And then uh about a year or two later, took over uh overseeing our instructor team, so our live events that we did. And then about three years ago, I came into the role that I am now, which is overseeing the products that we developed, the content products. Um, so it's been a great journey. NESM is by far the best company that I've we've brought in a lot of people from the instructor team to work within the walls of NESM, which has been great. And uh when we talk about NESM too, it's really multiple companies. We we say that, but we have the AFA brand, which is aimed at group fitness. Uh, we also have um two companies in the UK, one's called AIQ, which um develops content for fitness, but also even things like lifeguards and stuff like that. And then there's also Premier, which is a training provider or certification provider over there in the UK. And then we have the Club Connect platform that was an acquisition. So it's a training development platform for health clubs, and then we also spun off a version of that direct to consumer called NESM Connected, and then we have an app called NESM Edge. So a lot of different offerings and products. Um, and you know, some of those fall into a different team uh with the the digital procs and stuff, but you know, my team and our focus is on education and the events, whether they're live or virtual.

Wow. So you've yeah, you know the fitness industry, man. You've you've kind of done it at all levels. That's uh that's important, you know, especially for understanding what education people are coming down. I you know, here's the the question I'm actually burning to ask you is given this year, right? In COVID pandemic, everything that's happened, have fitness professionals been taking this time to educate themselves, or what what have you seen? What's the trend there?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The beginning of COVID, and I think anybody in the fitness industry that was selling education content saw a bump in their sales because um this is a third recession, you know, time of uncertainty that I've been through, you know, at least in my working career. Uh, when I came into NESM in 2010, that was on the heels of 2008, you know, through 2010 recession that we had. And NESM did well through that. And you kind of see people jump with careers, like a lot of times people go from like personal training to real estate, you know, and back and forth and those type of things. Uh, but when there's times of uncertainty, a lot of times people invest in themselves. I just read an article too, like MBA programs now are filling up, so it's very difficult uh to get into different uh types of education. And that's one thing I actually did. So in March, I started an MBA program um to go go through as well to kind of help me with more of the business side of things that we do at NESM. So we we've had a record year. This is our best year we've ever had. Um, but I think a lot of that was because when COVID happened, we started to execute a lot of things that we had wanted to do for a long time. In particular, utilize that instructor team that we've built up and maintained for so long and do a lot of content for our audience. And so this year alone, we've done 125 different types of webinars and broadcasts. We have multiple things that we do on our Facebook channel that gets great engagement. I think that's something our audience was hungry for. And because of that, then I think it's led to sustaining that. So you have the bump, but then because we put in better, um, you know, connected better with the audience, then we'd be able to sustain that momentum that we had.

Yeah, it's you know, I think about you've got your finger on the pulse of the industry um in such a big way. You know, now that you guys are planning for education next year. I mean, obviously we talked about pre-recording, you know, a lot of people getting into the virtual coaching space, right? I guess let's start with a question on that is what are the biggest differences that you think fitness professionals have to understand when they're doing virtual versus in-person?

Yeah, great question. Um, that's something that we're really trying to address in our product. Um, one of the things that we were going to do prior to COVID, we would typically get our instructor team together once a year. And this year, in April, we were going to do media training with them. And so, you know, everything from audio to on camera, and then being able to read off a teleprompter, unscripted stuff as well, because we realized that that's a trend that was coming, and then that obviously accelerated things. But there is a big difference, and you know, one of the things we did look at too was a lot of different platforms where you could do virtual training. And so I went through a lot of it, you know, where someone else was on the other end coaching me. And when it's done well, it's surprisingly effective. I was actually very surprised at how much I enjoyed getting coached remotely. Um, but I've also seen people struggle with it. So if you treat it like a uh a regular session, um, it can be difficult, it can feel disjointed. Some people just get nervous on camera, you know, they don't know uh how to position their bodies or talk and stuff like that. So it is a skill set that you need to develop. Uh you can't do the same things you can do in person, and you have to understand that. And instead, you have to be able to uh make it an enjoyable experience for that person. Some of it's the exercise selection, too, right? So if you're picking these things where if you don't know the client very well and you know the exercise wrong choice, it's either you let them do something pretty terribly or you gotta try to correct remotely, which is also very difficult. So I think sometimes you have to learn how to really simplify your programming when you're doing it remotely.

Yeah, that's a really good point. And it's it's those little things. You know, I know when people started switching to the virtual world and start, you know, back in March, everyone started doing Facebook Lives and just kind of the knee-jerk necessary reactions to kind of stay, I guess, basically stay connected with your clients and keep your income coming in. A lot of you know, little things was like, well, where do you put your feet? Where does the client put the camera? Like where, you know, like a lot of little things that take while for, you know, take a while to learn and adjust to. Uh, it's so much nuance that people just don't think about. And, you know, how much volume do you have? When are you looking at the screen and when are you looking? I I don't know. It's it's just a lot to think about, I guess. And maybe I'm overcomplicating it because I've never done it, but it just seems to me like it would be a whole new bag of challenges.

Yeah. Well, one thing, like I said, I talked to I have a lot of friends who I worked with out here that opened their own studios and then, you know, wanted to see how they were adapting. And one of the things they said was they learned really quickly, you know, when you're doing the virtual workouts, if you're trying to lead the workouts to where you're like, okay, let's do 10 jumping jacks right down the floor, 10 push-ups, you quickly get exhausted trying to run it like a DX class where you're doing all the stuff, and then you gotta do that multiple times per day. So what they figured out is like you need, and you can't coach people if you're doing that. So you need someone, um, and this is more, I guess, for boutiques and stuff running it versus uh individual trainer doing it, you know, you're still gonna have those constraints, but um that that is a challenge because if you're going through the motions and try to demo stuff, you really can't watch that person and correct their form. And so sometimes you need a second person to help you with with that. So that was the adaptations that a lot of those um small boutiques did and stuff. So that way they could provide the right experience for their people.

Awesome. So you know, looking into next year, 2021, what do you think are the big educational pieces that both fitness professionals will need and um you maybe want, right? So I guess two things is ones that fitness professionals are gonna want, and then there's also things that they're gonna need that maybe they don't see coming yet or trends that you're starting to see emerge. What do you think next year is gonna look like?

Yeah, I I think it's the same stuff trainers have always needed, but I think with what's happened this year, so with clubs being impacted, trainers having to figure out different ways, connect with their people, they need to be better business people. And that's you know, I'm sure you've heard that and we've always kind of talked about it, but really understanding the business side of things to time management. Um, the thing I've I've heard a lot from all different levels, whether you're talking about uh pro sports through just you know, regular trainers at a gym or in a boutique is the soft skills, you know, being able to connect with someone. There's an abundance of information. I think at the core, most people know if they're eating something that's not ideal, right, versus ideal, if they're eating too many calories, that type of stuff, but they're still doing it right. And so that's where the coaching skills are become really important. And and that's a big focus that that we've put on the CPT7 product, uh, which I we mentioned the the pre-show, that domain was expanded for this year. So every five years, when you you do the certification process, you have a job task analysis and they weight the domains, and you have things like exercise programming, exercise technique, and uh nutrition stuff like that. But the coaching communication section grew to be as large as the other ones, or you know, it's now one of the biggest ones that are in it. And um, so one of the things that we did was we have a sister company uh called Cognito that does simulations and they use a video game engine called Unity, and they do very they've done this for medical professionals, um, but this is the first time working with them on a product to where um someone can go through and there's a little bit of educational component that reinforces what you're learning in the uh the course content, but then you actually get to practice soft skills working with an avatar. Um, so you talk to them and then has branching ways a conversation can go, and you actually kind of see the mind of that person when a conversation is going sideways. So it's a safe way to practice and develop those soft skills. Um, so we feel that that's gonna be something that's really important, something we hear you know over and over again. And I do think that's really what one of the main things that separates someone from being successful or not is just how well they can connect with and build rapport with people. And then also if you're getting them to their goals, obviously I think that's gonna help tremendously with retention of clients.

Yeah. I agree. I mean, there's and there's so much data flying in now. I mean, that's the thing that I think it's gonna be really interesting for 2021 is you know, what does the fitness industry and coaches and fitness professionals make with all the data from wearables that people are collecting to you know, genetic profile testing and uh all kinds of really interesting tech and data that's coming into the market? Are you guys working on educating people on that? Are you kind of looking what are you waiting to see what comes down the pipe as the best tools, or what are you guys thinking there?

Yeah, no, so we we are exploring that heavily. Um, we just had our advisory board meeting yesterday, and one of the members of the board is a chief scientific officer for a company called Biostrat. And they make a map programde wearable, does some really cool stuff, very advanced sensor, especially compared to a lot of the consumer wearables and what it does. And you know, what we've seen is that right now wearables are collecting a lot of data, depending on the wearable, they're not doing a good job of giving you useful information from it. And so that's the the big challenge, you know, as they get a little bit more, and there's some accuracy issues and stuff like that with the wearables too. Um, but we do feel that um, and this is actually something we're we built into our virtual training course and something we're gonna expand upon, which is how can you use the data from wearables as a coach working remotely with someone to help plan with their programming, see how they're recovering, those type of things. And I think that's where they become a really useful tool for that. And as they get more sophisticated, uh, you know, one of the things we'd like to do within our app, even, is be able to pull in the wearable data and then use our interpretations of how um that data, what those metrics mean, right? To be able to kick out recommendations like hey, you should rest today. You know, so like I have two wearables on right now, and they they're telling me different things. Um which ones do you use? Um, I have so many, it's ridiculous. Uh, so I've used Woop, I have the BioStrap, I'm getting the BioStrap second version here in a couple weeks. I've got a Mio band. Um right now I'm wearing the Halo and the Apple Watch.

You have a lot.

Yeah. And like I said, they all give you different uh data and stuff. The one thing I will say, like, like where Woop is doing a good job, is he didn't try to do everything. And you wore it, and it would give you just like, hey, you need to rest, you need to, you know, you work hard today and stuff like that, which I think is good. That's probably my biggest complaint of the Apple Watch, is it collects HRV data and has all this stuff. It's kind of difficult though. Like get your HRV, you got to do the breathing thing, and it just kind of takes it randomly. And then you got to go into your health app and scroll down and find it. So it's they're collecting it and maybe they have a plan for it, but right now it's just it's not, it's not really actionable, you know, the data that I'm I'm getting from my my Apple Watch.

Yeah, well, it's not actionable, especially for the coach, right? Or the fitness professional. I mean, it's gonna be actionable for Apple and Google because they're gonna take all this data and do something to influence the consumer, but it hasn't really been useful for the coach yet. Um Yeah, and the recovery aspect too, that was one of the things I want to ask you about. I mean, imagine 2021 that you know, there's a couple, I think, let me know if you agree or disagree, but the ability to create content, right, is gonna be really important for the success of the fitness professional, I would imagine. And then also the understanding of recovery. Those can be two hot topics. Where are you guys uh what do you think about that? Is that two things that you guys are gonna focus on?

Yeah, absolutely. And we've already uh focused on a lot. So um, as we were talking pre-show, another course that we just did a second update to this year. So it was rebuilt and and early this year, and then the second part was a corrective exercise specialist. And so we have a lot of information about sleep and recovery and regeneration in that course. And um that's something we're gonna continue to add to. Um, other things in particular when we update the PS, the performance enhancement course as well. That's gonna have a lot, but geared more towards athletes for that. And we worked with some great subject matter experts. Um, we have another person, uh, Dr. Allison Brager, who's part of our advisory board, that wrote a lot of that content. And so she works for the US Army and is really an expert in sleep and a lot of those things that are centered around recovery and regeneration, along with other uh experts we worked with. And then another area of focus on which is really emerging right now and where we're putting a lot of effort into our products is mental wellness or what we would call cognitive wellness. And so getting the mind in the right place and realizing that you know all these things you do affects your brain, and your brain affects you know the way your body responds to stuff. And so they're not separate things. And when we have a good holistic program that we're doing and we have the right nutrition, we don't have nutritional gaps, and we're managing our stress and we're getting sleep and we're doing exercise, that synergistically makes everything work better. And you know, when we're we're disjointed and we're not doing those things, it's gonna affect all these different systems and the body as well. So that's a really big focus, you know, of it. And really getting the mind right first is so important because if you are setting the right goals, you have the right mindset, you know, you're you're not going to um stop doing the program or get discouraged and stuff because you know, as you know, for example, like with weight loss, it's not a linear process. You know, you you lose weight and then you stop losing weight, and then all of a sudden you lose a bunch of weight, and then you don't lose anything. And it's really difficult mentally when that's happening. Happening. And so if you're if your mind's not in the right place, and also if you don't have the systems and routines in place, then it's very difficult to maintain that course. And that's why so many people are jumping from fad diet to fad diet. They're trying all these things instead of putting all the pieces in place. So that way not only do they get to their goal, but then they're able to maintain that. And that's really what we're trying to focus on is how do we get people to sustain these changes that they're making.

Yeah. This year has brought in a huge focus on, well, health in general, right? Uh, I think that's obvious, you know, people are now paying more attention to their health, just their immune systems and overall, but also mental health. I mean, it's it's been a hard year, right, for people, um, especially those who are already suffered from, you know, um, mental health challenges. But then a lot of people kind of found their first experience with depression this year and, you know, um kind of throwing up their hands and be like, well, I'm just gonna get my COVID 20 pounds, right? Uh, and just, you know, not having that mental health and stability and strength to kind of make sure that their health is is staying legitimately strong. It's it's just been a really, yeah, it's been a really challenging year in ways that, you know, people don't expect. I mean, it's it's so up in the forefront of everything that, like, of course, you know, COVID, the disease uh and the virus is bad for your health. But this the secondary repercussions of everything that maybe we didn't see coming is is we won't know for years really how how big of an impact that is. But it's it's been um, yeah, I'm glad you guys are doing it. I think it's it's really important. And that's something that I think anybody who's been in the trenches coaching people for a while realizes that many times you're an unlicensed therapist.

Yeah, you have to wear a lot of hats. And you typically have more contact with that person than the healthcare professionals, right? They see their doctor very infrequently, usually just if you're sick. Um, you're not really building a relationship, you know, and and the the goal is not to develop personal trainers to replace those things, but they can be someone that, as you mentioned, kind of just helps them, right? Keep the right mindset, help set the right goals, someone they can talk to. Um, you know, those things are all really powerful when we're kind of in forced isolation. Um, and you feel really bad for people, even on our team. You know, I'm more fortunate because as much as I complain about it, you know, I have twins that are seven, and um, you know, they tear up the house and they go crazy, but it's nice having you know other people interact with, you know, versus um we have people in the team that are single, right? And they're they're by themselves and they're working from home. Um and that's the case for a lot of people. And so that's pretty lonely if you're um if you have any mental health you know challenges, that can obviously make it worse. And then also if you if you stop exercising and uh eating right too, then that I think just compounds that as well. So that's where it is so important now to move and exercise and eat right because that does have a very positive effect on the brain and neurotransmitters and everything else that makes us feel good.

Yeah, yeah, great point. And I think one of the things that fitness professionals can use, and a lot of them are, you know, in our industry area picking up on it, is that's something you market. Like you help people realize like this is a missing piece. If you're not moving, if you're not exercising, if you're not taking care of yourself, you're just gonna feel worse overall. And, you know, uh fitness and exercise is a really easy solution. I mean, it's I I I don't know about you. I notice if I go two days without exercising, even one day, I'm not that fun to be around. I don't even like myself sometimes. And uh, you know, it's it's the really easy way. And I think that's something we can really leverage, which actually brings me into a really big point that I would love to just chat with you about. Um, you know, looking back on this year, it's been a very challenging time for the fitness industry, especially gym owners, in-person trainers, but there's a lot of been a lot of really interesting progress as well. What are you most excited about for next year for the fitness industry? What what changes do you think? Like, you know, presuming that the vaccine takes hold and gyms start to reopen fully and people start to at some point start to come back, how do you think it's gonna be different? Question number one. And how do you think it's gonna be better?

Yeah, you know, as far as different, at least next year, I think the gym's really gonna have to have to figure out how to be profitable while implementing all these extra cleaning protocols and things like that. You know, um, one thing be interesting to see just how quickly manufacturers modify their equipment to make them easier to clean and keep clean, and even things like robotics and stuff like that, you know, to help versus having uh people do that, right? One of the things I don't like to see, just a pet peeve of mine, is having trainers clean stuff. I know it's important, but I think that there's better ways of doing that than having your training staff, you know, cleaning equipment and and sanitizing things all the time. You know, some some gyms are gonna not make it, but I think some others might bring in some interesting, you know, new concepts and ways of delivering fitness. One of the things I'm curious about is like how this affects the HLVP clubs, you know, with the $10 price points, because you have, you know, those whole models are built around people that don't really come to the gyms. And so are those people now never gonna come back and like all right, I'm finally gonna cancel that membership because I'm not gonna go back. And does that then cause clubs to charge a little bit more because you need the distancing and the cleaning protocols and all that stuff? So that's something I'm more just curious and seeing how that that happens in the space. For the fitness professional, I'm actually excited for for the opportunities with that because I think with COVID and people having to get on Zoom and get more comfortable doing this stuff, it forced the hybrid at least to come a lot faster than you know. There's a lot of people that just dismissed it. They made a lot of assumptions like just because someone's like six years old, they're not gonna want to do remote training and stuff like that, which um is not the case. I think it's really just depends on the person and what they like versus their their age. The technology is pretty easy to adapt to really quickly uh with it. So it gives uh trainers more opportunities to be entrepreneurs, and and that's what I think is really exciting. So if someone can build up a business to where maybe they train some people in their homes, maybe they train part-time in a gym, and then they do some remote sessions. That's a great way because now you have less gaps in your schedule. Um, you know, one of the things I always struggled with, and I I primarily always worked as a club trainer. I did a little bit of in-home stuff, but you you'd work split schedules, which are just brutal, you know. So you get up super early, you know, you work to like 10, 11, 12, and then you might work out in that time frame, and then you start training clients again at four, and you might not finish till 8 p.m. And that makes it really difficult uh to have a life versus if you can coach people all over the United States, then you might be able to work more normal schedule and still have that work-life balance, which is important so you don't get burned out.

Yeah, that is a really hard schedule. I mean, as a just as a boutique gym owner, I was doing that all the time or up early and then closing late, mopping the floor at night, especially the first couple of years. It was uh it was brutal. And I think, you know, one of the things you mentioned about the fitness industry being more entrepreneurial, I think that is probably for me one of the most exciting things. I mean, it's uh this year you've just seen, you know, um, like as Jim Kroll, who was on the you know, a couple episodes ago on the show, he talked about, well, now you're starting to see like Ivy League people coming into the fitness industry because they're seeing it as like, well, how many billions of dollars have dumped in investment dollars, you know, uh into the industry this year. And I think it's almost like a, I look at it as almost like a decentralization of fitness, right? Like the gym used to be everything. It was the hub for everything. If you want to be a trainer, you had to be at the gym, right? If you were a client, you had to go to the gym. But now you're seeing this disbursement because the gyms are kind of not being leveraged in the same way and they're not going anywhere. Gyms are, you know, definitely going to be around for a very long time. But it's it's enabling people to kind of go out on their own, become, you know, their own fitness brand, right? And have all of these tools that are kind of low cost to get started, you know, from virtual coaching to just in-person in their garage. And now it's become normalized and expected that you can do that stuff. So it's it's it's gonna be an interesting year uh in 2021. I I I agree. What about an ASM? What's the most exciting thing that you guys have coming down the pipe next year?

Yeah Yeah, well, you some of the stuff is is just the updates to the products, you know. So all of our core products um by the end of next year will be completely rebuilt, you know, from the ground up. So that means the CPT course, we just finished the corrective exercise specialist, the performance enhancement specialist. Uh we just released a weight loss specialist course, and then we have the certified nutrition coach, um, which is fairly new, like a year and a half old product there. And then uh, you know, from there we'll have a stretching course that'll be coming out probably by summertime, maybe a little earlier from that. And uh basically, though, all of our stuff will be in a brand new delivery system, too, which is very exciting. So, you know, one of my um goals and my passion. I mean, at heart, I'm still a trainer. You know, I would be reading the same sites and doing the same thing I'm doing, even if I wasn't working for an ESM. So I want us to have the best products, and so a big focus has been really on upgrading our content, and that means everything from the quality of the subject matter experts that we work with, um, the amount of peer reviews that we put in, you know, to the products, and then also uh the the level that we put into the video shoots. So we use a professional um company out of California that does commercials and things like that to shoot our video content. Um we do scripting, um, you know, it's a full-on like real production when we we shoot those things, and then we build animations in many cases, case studies. Uh so you know, we've done now podcasts and things that go along with the product, and as I mentioned, simulation. So um when someone looks at our product, and you know, we are, I would say, at the the higher end for our courses, but it's not that much more than our competitors for stuff. But when you look at how much we invest in building the products and doing all those extra steps, uh that's the part I'm really excited about, being able to get more people to go through it, but really understand the content, apply it, be successful, and then also have follow-up resources. Um, so one of the things, you know, which is a challenge and one of the things we're trying to work towards as well, is just like with any occupation, you know, you just because you go through the certification or if you get a degree really in any any field, you go and work for a company, like day one, you don't know how to do that job. And so that's where the real learning happens is now you get out there and you start working with people, and then something happens, you're not exactly sure how to solve that problem. And so we want to have tools in place. And uh, one of our internal people calls it just-in-time learning. So it's basically just I have this specific issue, and it's just like how we use, you know, people use YouTube, right? So if my toilet's broken, I just fast forward to the part of the step where it's okay, here's how I remove that part. And so having that type of information to where someone can learn uh what they want to learn when they need to learn it is going to make them better fitness professionals. And that's one of the challenges we've had too, is that you you can only teach so much stuff up front. Um, so for example, business training, when someone's going through the certification, they're really more focused on passing the certification, learning how to be a good trainer. They have to get out there and almost hit some roadblocks before the business stuff becomes relevant to them and really knowing what questions to ask. And then if you have that resource available to them, then they can apply it and use it and they'll be successful.

Yeah, well said. Yeah, it's it's uh, you know, I think when you're learning any kind of craft or trade, that's you you start off with a base amount of knowledge. And like I it's funny to me because I reflect on my own journey. So I got like my level one CrossFit certification, which I know a lot of people listening would be like, ah, right, have a visceral reaction to it. But I went out and I thought I knew everything. And then I started training people. I realized I knew nothing. And uh it's when you realize you know nothing that everything really starts. And you it just takes a little while to get there. I mean, it's kind of like when people graduate from college and they're like, you know, you can you can tell when you engage with conversation with somebody who just graduated from something because they're pretty confident that they got the answer to just about everything. And uh and then you realize you don't, and it's very humbling. Uh so that's that's a really great take. Mike, it's been a lot of fun, very insightful. It's always great to catch up with what you guys are doing there. I'm a you know a fan of of NASM for sure. And Brian Sutton was on the show uh last year. If people want to go check out that one as well, it was excellent. If people want to get a hold of you or they want to find out more about what you guys are doing, what's what's the best place for them to go?

Yeah, you know, I would say um our website, uh obviously, if they want to know about any of our products and course offerings, um as far as where we put a lot of content, we do, like I said, weekly webinars and and different things that are all free for audience on Facebook and then repost that to the NESM YouTube channel. So those are both you know great places to uh to follow us and stuff. Um you know, if someone wanted to follow me, you just type my name, Fantagrassi, into Instagram. I I don't post very much at all, so it'd be not very exciting to follow me. Um, but uh I do sometimes appear on our webinars and stuff like that on the Facebook channel.

Awesome. Well, Mike, thank you for spending the day before holiday vacation with me or the afternoon. I really appreciate it. And uh it's been all it's been great. I've learned a lot. So, ladies and gentlemen, Mike Fontagraski.

Hey, it's your host, Eric Malzone. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Future of Fitness. If you enjoyed it, please do me a huge favor by going to the website and signing up for our newsletter. The website is futurofitness.do. Again, that's future of fitness.do. We've got some big, big announcements coming down the pipe, and we want you to make sure that you are on top of it. Thank you again to signing off.