Sam Hollenbach & Steven Webster - AMP Health, ASENSEI, & Serving The Industrial Athlete

[00:00:00] If you have a body, you're an athlete. That was the inspirational observation of Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman. In this three-part series, join me, Eric Malzone and Asensei CEO Steven Webster as we lead conversations with three visionary CEOs, each of whom is using Asensei AI to better serve different types of athletes. From the tactical athlete trained to become a Navy SEAL to the industrial athlete performing in physically demanding jobs, we discover who each athlete truly is, what the athlete truly is, and what the athlete truly is.

[00:00:30] What they strive for, and how movement recognition from Asensei is key to unlocking their athletic potential. Let's get to it. Sam, Steven, it's a pleasure to see you guys. How are we doing? I'm doing great. Wonderful. Pleasure to see you.

[00:00:49] Yeah, this is, uh, you know, I'm going to say it's like slightly off topic from our unusual stuff. It's really not because what we're talking about is wellness to kind of a new marketplace, which I know a lot of people in this industry are super interested in.

[00:01:04] I've been talking about, right? Uh, it's huge market like in our industry and Steven could attest to this in the fitness industry. We talk about the same, like 18%. We've been talking about that percentage of the population for the last 30, 40 years. Uh, but we're like, well, how do we get to the other 80? And it's like, people have all these ideas that never happens, but you Sam are really kind of forging into that, that space quite confidently and quite well. So they're going to learn a lot here. And I think the best place to start. And Steven, um, we'll allow you to give a short intro as well after this.

[00:01:33] But I think Sam's new to the podcast and, uh, Sam, if you can just a little bit of your background, how you got to be CEO of, of Amp Health and then we'll, we'll take it from there. Yeah, absolutely. Um, thank you for having me, Eric. Um, my, my background, uh, let me, let me sort of start by saying I, um, developed a passion for sport in, in my sort of childhood.

[00:02:00] And was able to play sports. I was fortunate enough to be able to play at a high level. And, um, and that sport sort of interest in, in passion shaped a lot about where I took my career after I was done playing. Um, my professional career, uh, started at Under Armour. I, I joined the Under Armour innovation team.

[00:02:24] And, um, this was really at the ground floor level of Under Armour's innovation team. Like they sort of had their, their shirts. They didn't have shoes at the time. They had their core product lines out there. Um, and just wanted to look at, you know, how to expand and where to expand. I joined the company with, um, with an engineering degree and the, you know, the co-founder of the company was my manager.

[00:02:52] And he said, why don't you go explore what we can do in wearable tech? And this is when Fitbit was kind of just starting to emerge. Um, and consumer wearable tech was starting to be a thing.

[00:03:05] And so I, um, just developed this, you know, this really sort of deep level of kind of knowledge about what was happening in wearable tech and was able to build a few, uh, wearable tech products for Under Armour over the course of my, my career there. Um, so I functioned effectively as a, as a product manager at Under Armour.

[00:03:30] It was not a big tech team. So I did everything, got to learn everything about end-to-end product commercialization across both hardware and software and translated that into a, um, a role at Amazon. I mentioned my, my interest in sport. That was sort of, that became, that became a passion that sort of, it really, um, it really sparked my passion for health tech.

[00:03:58] So as I was building some of this stuff for Under Armour, I realized actually, this is something really interesting to, to spend my time on and my life on. You know, I can actually help people, uh, feel better. I can help people get in better shape. Um, this is a good thing to do. And so I, I sort of built that passion as I was able to, to get some products out the door at Under Armour.

[00:04:23] Um, and, and then, you know, use that to, to, to join Amazon. I went to the Amazon Halo team. Halo was Amazon's health tech business, consumer health tech business, competed with Fitbit, competed a bit with some of the, I'd say a bit with Apple Watch. We, we did not build smartwatches, but some of the feature set was the same. And, and enjoyed that up until the point where Amazon decided to kill it.

[00:04:51] Like they, like they do, they will come in and they will just chop the head off of a business. Uh, and, and I moved over into the Alexa business for a couple of years after that and got bored. It was just not the right set of problems to solve. Uh, you know, how do I help someone turn on their lights easier?

[00:05:12] That was kind of, I was in the smart home space and it just, uh, I wanted to get back into health tech and just through a, through a mutual connection with, uh, the board at AMP. I, I got into a conversation with AMP and spent several months, uh, getting to know the business, getting to know the board, getting some exposure to their direction, uh, sort of going from where they were at the time and where we are right now.

[00:05:38] Uh, the ortho space, uh, pivoting into the industrial space. I really liked that opportunity and so was thrilled to have the chance to join the team at AMP, uh, about six months ago now. Awesome, man. Great story. And, uh, you know, I want to frame this a little bit. I know Steven, you have some kind of position for the conversation as well, but the industrial athlete, right.

[00:06:04] Is a really powerful term. Like when I hear it, I kind of, I kind of know what it means right away. Right. And I think a lot of people do too. And, uh, so maybe we just start with that. Like, I know that's, you know, a huge part of the community that you serve, uh, the population that you serve. So how do you guys define that? Like what, okay. What is an industrial athlete and what is the problem that you're looking to solve?

[00:06:27] The industrial athlete, I think it calls attention. That name just calls attention to the inherent need for, for fitness and for physical conditioning. And the fact that there is some physical demand associated with, uh, these industrial jobs.

[00:06:46] It is not something that we constrain by industry, um, or, or domain really any undesked employee that is doing some physical work. Uh, and, and that is part of the job description. These are industrial athletes. These are industrial athletes. And we really like that definition.

[00:07:07] Um, it's very well aligned to our product and our sort of our mission and, and our values at Amp Health in, um, in extending technology that maybe previously was only available for pro athletes or Olympic athletes. And extending this to, uh, you know, industrial, uh, you know, industrial, to industrial workforces in ways that can help them stay, stay on the production floor.

[00:07:36] And, and fitness, you know, fitness is not a, uh, a matter of preference for, for these employees, uh, for these industrial athletes. It's a, it's a matter of requirement and, and necessity. So this is almost more, you know, than, than team sport athletes would be. These folks need to be in shape. Their, their job depends on it. Their livelihood depends on it.

[00:08:02] And so there's a, you know, very much of a tie between the customer that we serve in the industrial workforce and, and athletes and team sport athletes, or doesn't have to be team sport. That's my, that's my background. But, um, you know, athletes and the industrial worker, there's just a lot of overlap there.

[00:08:20] So when you think of a typical, like if someone's thinking right now, industrial athlete, I know what pops in my mind, but what specific, like what's an example of an industrial athlete that it seems to be like the most, uh, you know, fitting the definition. Well, I just visited one of our customers who works, who they, they own a distribution centers. Okay.

[00:08:40] And seeing, uh, you know, an inbound warehouse worker go and sort of move product from pallets to the shelves and just kind of do that throughout the day. And not only that, there's a freezer section in this particular distribution center. Cause it's for, you know, food, it's a lot of food distribution and you're going into this freezer section and it is minus 15 degrees in this freezer section.

[00:09:09] And they might be in there for way longer than you would want to be in that kind of temperature. Right. And so there is a, um, that, that is the vision that comes to my mind when you ask that question, it's this person carrying around physically carrying around, uh, some, you know, some, some boxes, some goods in environments that might be challenging. And there is a quota, right?

[00:09:36] Just like in sport, there's an objective. It's to win the game or to win the match. And for this warehouse worker, there's an objective to hit a certain quota for that day. And if they don't, they probably are staying longer. The team is going to, you know, be exposed in a negative light if that person's not pulling their weight. And so there's that element of part of a team. If you're kind of moving slowly, cause you just not feeling it that day, it's going to impact the rest of the team and the business.

[00:10:05] So, uh, that there's an anecdote or maybe an archetype for the industrial athlete right there. I love it. Yeah. So when you look at this, uh, you know, the motivations are probably different for an industrial athlete than maybe a sports athlete. Right. Um, but they're probably going to fall face some of the same problems. And, you know, when you look at the major problems that industrial athletes face, like at a high level, what are they?

[00:10:31] And then we can start working in the solution that you guys have at AM health for that. The problems that the industrial athlete face are similar to what a team sport athlete faces. And let's just, yeah, I was a football player. I'll, I'll use the football analogy here. You know, in football, you've got a season. Your objective really is to stay healthy through, through the season. Of course, there is a performance element.

[00:11:02] You want to win games, but there is a foundational layer of being healthy, being there, being on the field. And you're not going to win games if you're, if you're not on the field. So the industrial athlete faces that problem to a much greater scale. It is not just a three month season. It is, you know, a year, two years, three years, 10 years, 20 years where you need to stay, you know, on the production floor.

[00:11:30] And, and so the, the problem that they face is you're dealing with a level of physical demand that might be lower than what a football athlete is facing in a practice or a game, but for much, much longer. And so you're just exposed to this level of demand that stresses your body.

[00:11:56] You know, we can get into kind of the, the nature of the injury that Amp Health is really designed to help prevent, which is musculoskeletal injuries. It's, it's sprains and strains. It's the type of injury you get from constant repetition. Not just day over day, but week over week, month over month, year over year.

[00:12:18] And, uh, you know, it's just a matter of keeping the body in shape and fit and sort of, you know, targeting that sort of long duration, lower, maybe lower demand, but longer duration. Uh, and, and trying to make sure that these athletes are, uh, prepared for that and able to go in day over day and do their jobs. Yeah. Awesome. I think like, when I think about it, I have a good friend I've known since I was seventh or eighth grade.

[00:12:47] He was actually six, five. I know how tall you are. So he was fixed six, five in eighth grade. If you can imagine that, um, grew to six, nine, played, uh, at Gonzaga basketball and then went to work, um, at Trader Joe's and, you know, a man that size, uh, you can't be on your feet all the time. And he was for like eight, nine years. And eventually he had to leave the job, right? Just couldn't do it. Like, but there was nothing there. There was no support. They're like, they wouldn't even give him a desk. Right.

[00:13:14] I don't know if I'm probably saying too much about TJ's, but, um, you know, there's, there's a lot of problems where I'm like, okay, this is very like that. He's a close friend of mine. So I felt his pain every day. Like the guy could barely walk me and he'd go in every day and walk for eight to 10 hours. Right. So there's, that's a very palpable to me of like, that's the type of problem that you guys are probably seeing quite often. So tell me the solution. Like how has Amp Health recognized the issue and the problem that's vast, I would imagine, uh, across multiple industries. So how are you guys coming in and working together to solve?

[00:13:43] Your, your, your anecdote is very common and, and very representative of the sort of the problem that we, that we see people getting hurt. They're out of the job. Um, yeah. And it's, it's just, it's an astounding number. Really? The, the number of undesk jobs out there is, is huge. 70%. There's different figures on it, but 70% is, is one, you know, figure out there.

[00:14:08] So 70% of people are working in an undesk job. They have these physical demands. Amp, Amp Health, our, our focus is on reducing musculoskeletal injuries, uh, you know, in these industrial workforces. We do it through the Amp approach, the AMP approach, assess, manage, and prevent.

[00:14:30] Uh, we, uh, we, we assess employees through our computer vision app, uh, where we work, we work with Asensi and, um, you know, have a computer vision app that, that, that has a functional movement assessment. There are 25 discrete outputs that come out of this assessment that really help us understand a baseline.

[00:14:54] Let's, let's, uh, I won't miss, I won't go into a whole story of kind of a use case here, but we really like to do this at the beginning. We want to get a baseline. So we, we can understand from a mobility perspective, how someone's moving in a way that is repeatable in a way that there is a sort of a high standard of accuracy and precision person over person. Assessments aren't, you know, assessments aren't, aren't new, right?

[00:15:20] But a lot of, you know, in the past, in the past, this was something people would do with a naked eye. Now you can do it with the phone, get a much higher level of data fidelity. So we assess through the app. We manage through engagement with the workforce. We, uh, you know, we document incidents. We have a whole documentation engine. So the user of our product is someone who cares about the workforce.

[00:15:45] The user is someone who is, you know, who's out there, who's walking the floor, who's observing things about the way people are moving. The user is someone who, if an employee starts to feel a little pain or discomfort, they're coming to our user and they're saying my knee hurts. So we, we have a sort of a huge documentation part of our product that fits under that manage tier.

[00:16:11] And then prevent, prevent is where, uh, things get really exciting. And this is where the rubber meets the road. I mean, we want to actually reduce injuries. And, and so we, we were really all about the prevention side.

[00:16:24] What we do with prevent is we, let me first start by saying there are, there's a lot of research out there that shows how a strength and conditioning approach, a fitness approach can, can really help reduce or maybe entirely avoid a lot of musculoskeletal injuries. With prevention, we are, um, we are, we are programming.

[00:16:53] This is where we're actually building out some exercise programs and we're doing so in an automatic way where we're taking in all of these inputs that we see in assess all the, you know, all those 25 discrete outputs from the functional movement assessment are flowing into this.

[00:17:12] So that's a lot of logic that allows us to say, all right, this employee, not this group of employees, but this specific person is showing some, you know, significant asymmetry in their hips, let's say. And here are the different movements and stretches that are going to really help this person show up the next day and be ready for the demand that their job entails.

[00:17:39] So that program can be, can be listed out. There's a lot of configurability here. And as you might imagine, uh, there's so many ways that different companies work. So the operational model in one business is different than the next. And, and so, you know, we, we kind of have an ability to package that programming in a way that best fits a company's op model could be five minutes.

[00:18:09] Like I'm going to give my employees five minutes before they start a shift. I want them to optimize, like, I want them to do some stretching in those five minutes and it needs to be sort of optimized. Get the most out of that five minutes. And so we can have a sort of a five minute. This is the thing, the one thing that you should do before your shift. That's going to help you, um, be resilient.

[00:18:33] Or it could be a, it could be a two month long program, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you know, five different movements. Uh, and we'll have, you know, we have an exercise library that allows someone to, you know, see how to do certain movements. And so we kind of have, there's a web application here. There's a mobile application. I'm now implying with, you know, the end employees able to kind of log into the mobile app, see the program that they, you know, that, that they need.

[00:19:02] That's custom to them and then follow it. And so by doing that, we're, we're really extending, you know, again, to go back to sort of that athlete analogy, we were extending the sort of the, maybe the one-to-one care that you might get as a pro athlete. Where a coach is saying, this is your program. Here's how to do it. I'm going to make sure you're doing it right. And this is specific for you to help you stay healthy.

[00:19:25] We're extending that to the workforce where really it was not viable to, you know, to scale any sort of one-to-one attention like that previously. And we're able to do it through, you know, through, through, through our technology in a way that's viable for businesses. So, and that was the, sorry, go on. No, no, I was just going to say, that's the assess, manage, prevent approach that we are so excited about.

[00:19:54] And we think we'll really make an impact in the number of injuries that are out there. Yeah. And Eric, you and I have spoken in other contexts with other customers about, you know, not replacing coaches or replacing specialists, but scaling their ability. And that was one of the things that was astounding to me when we started working with Amp Health is, you know, you might have thousands of workers on an industrial floor and one trainer, that user that Sam spoke about.

[00:20:24] It's like one or two of them, right, Sam? And so just even being able to speed up the assessment time or help somebody move through an assessment more quickly and more efficiently and more consistently helps more of that workforce be seen on a more regular basis. It's not like, you know, you get your movement screen and then your next one's in 12 months. So there's just a lot of operational efficiencies, different use case, different target athlete, the industrial athlete.

[00:20:52] The solution's the same, but the ROI is very different, right? Compared to like we've spoken to military customers. We've spoken to connected fitness customers and the industrial athlete. The ROI is very different. So Chris Frankel, who, you know, you probably know Chris was at TRX, chief performance officer at TRX, now at BeaverFit. He has a great phrase that I steal all the time, that the best ability is availability.

[00:21:17] That resonates so well with what we have heard. You know, we did a lot of research prior to making some of these technical investments in the product.

[00:21:29] And we've heard really the number one complaint coming from the sort of in-house trainers that we interviewed was just around prioritization, around not having enough time, around not being able to feel like they're making an impact because they're getting caught up in too much noise and not a great sense for where to really, you know, to spend their time.

[00:21:58] So we definitely see that as an authentic pain point that we want to solve. And so I didn't mention this in that sort of AMP approach, but part of the management, we have sort of this suite of features around the management side of our application. And it's really designed around helping that in-house trainer prioritize their time. You may now know, you may be responsible for 500 people and you're one person.

[00:22:27] You know, what you might know after using our product is which 20 people out of the 500 to really spend your time with and to really leverage your expertise as, you know, as an athletic trainer and help those 20 people avoid, you know, a catastrophic MSK injury.

[00:22:45] So, yeah, that's really a big part of the value prop that we bring is just helping experts in movement scale, scale, you know, their ability and their time correctly. The, I would imagine, I can only imagine like the costs that companies endure due to MSIs, right? Muscular cell injuries and people being off must be vast.

[00:23:14] It must be, I mean, I'm sure you guys have some numbers on that. I see the motivation from the employer standpoint, right? What I'm wondering about, like when I think about the motivation or incentive for the employee, right? And I'm curious what you guys are seeing with the data you have so far, I'm sure that'll come in. But, you know, and I hate this term in the fitness industry where you use it, compliance, right? I hate it. But it's just the best term that we have really for people going into the programs that we deliver.

[00:23:39] But have you noticed, like compared to your background, because if someone's in sports and athletics, very motivated, right? Like get me on the field, get me out there, right? Now, when you look at like the industrial athlete, how are the motivations? And I'm just thinking out loud here and guessing what people are probably asking right now in their heads. Like is the motivation the same to do all this type of work, especially if they don't have like an athletic background to do this type of training? Is the motivation and desire there? And it's such a good, it's a good topic.

[00:24:08] I would say the way that I think about it is maybe sort of a conservative approach, which is no, there's not going to be interest. There's not going to be compliance. We can't expect an employee to want to use this product. And I say that just from a conservative product management perspective.

[00:24:33] We want to build our product in a way where we're not taking on a compliance dependency. Having said that, what you just defined is in our space, it's the threshold between a wellness product and part of the operational model. Nice. A wellness product might be selling into an HR team. It's a benefit. It is optional. It is, they are going to try to push it, right?

[00:25:02] The HR team is going to try to push it internally. An operational model, software that fits in the operational model is mandatory. It is like you're doing it. And so we see, when we talk to customers, we see both sides of this. There's, I was just on the phone with a prospect yesterday, you know, who is all about just implementing this in the workflow. Like employees won't, you know, aren't going to have a, you know, a say here.

[00:25:29] And I say that in the sort of most respectful way possible. Employees, you're getting paid to do this job. This is now part of the job. Right. And it's motivated by the economic impact you just mentioned. There are, you know, there are employer, there are companies out there that recognize our product as a painkiller, right? And there's some, there's other companies that are seeing it more as a vitamin.

[00:25:54] And so we're kind of, we're seeing a lot of different kinds of response, but the ones that are millions of dollars over budget on their workers' comp, you know, plan, this is a painkiller. And so they're more interested and motivated to bring this into the way that they do business and sort of make it part of the process.

[00:26:15] So we see, we see a lot of, there's, this all kind of ties back to just the incredibly large addressable market that our product could kind of fall into. So we see everything. If I can jump in there quickly. I think that's like a great example of how, you know, we're very fortunate with Asensi that the same technology allows us to serve different athletes.

[00:26:43] We spoke about this on another interview that I'm very inspired by the Bill Bowerman quote. If you have a body, you're an athlete, but you know, what archetype of athlete are you? But even though a smart warmup for a connected fitness customer is a movement assessment and a risk stratification for an industrial athlete, the things that we learn in one domain apply to the other.

[00:27:06] So when we work in connected health and some of our physical therapy customers, projects we've done with the national health service in the UK, for instance, the problem we're trying to solve is how do we drive digital adherence? How do we make somebody want to do the thing? And, you know, I think in your conversation there, you talked about the intrinsic motivation is like how intrinsically, you know, as, as, you know, we've all been athletes. And as we're intrinsically motivated, it's like, I want to be on the team. I want to like win the championship. I want to win the gold medal.

[00:27:37] So that's our intrinsic motivation. The intrinsic motivation is like, I don't want to be sick at work or I don't want to miss days at work. It's not as powerful, I think. But you can offer extrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivations come from, you know, some of the design patterns that we see in the user experiences we deliver are how can we remove the barriers, the frictions? What's the when I was a coach, I would often speak about the stopping voice.

[00:28:03] What's that voice in my head that's telling me not to go to practice or maybe just skip today or maybe go a little lighter in the warm up or, you know, maybe not go for that point in case I get hurt. The stopping voice of the industrial athlete is I would offer is perhaps more the I'm not sure I remember what I'm supposed to be doing or am I doing this right or am I going to injure myself because I'm not doing it right. Maybe I'll wait until I see the trainer the next time.

[00:28:29] And so it's more about education and Eric and connected gyms, you know, Planet Fitness called this gym intimidation, right? It's that intimidation of the gym. So, you know, Sam and I will talk about, you know, what's the guided learning experiences that a sense he can deliver beyond the movement assessment where if somebody gestures because we recognize gestures as well as exercises. If somebody kind of puts their hand up in front of the camera, it's would you like us to show you that exercise again?

[00:28:58] You know, with guided learning a sense he can walk, whole part, whole coach somebody through a movement. It's like, okay, quadruped, you've forgotten. Down on your knees, hands in front of you, shift forward till your shoulders are above your wrists, straighten your arms. Good, right there. That's the position I want you to be in. Now hold that for 30 seconds. So now we've removed that gym intimidation.

[00:29:18] And I think that the other thing we learned in fitness that starts to apply to, you know, for instance, the healthcare customer doing physical therapy or the industrial athlete is progression as a retention. Progression as a form of engagement. So when you can show someone that, hey, you were doing this yesterday, but good job. Now you're, you know, you know, from a sense, we identify nuances of movement. We're not just this pass fail, like hot dog, not hot dog. If you've watched Silicon Valley, we're not just this pass fail exercise recognition.

[00:29:48] Sam has seen that episode. We're not just a pass fail recognition. It's like, I can see that you're making an honest attempt to perform that movement, but you're not doing this. You're not tucking your hips or you're not getting your shoulder stacked over your wrists. And so when we start to see that you are doing those things longitudinally over time, we can commend you for it. And it's like, oh, I feel noticed. I feel seen. My practice wasn't for nothing.

[00:30:12] And so I think, you know, as we see platforms like, you know, very much, you know, Sam, the, the essencey and the ingredient of essencey is in the A today. It's in the assessment and the range of motion and balance and stability and risk stratification of the scoring. But now when you start to think about the M and the P, there's other experiences that, you know, now Sam's team have our core technology in place. There's a, there's a roadmap of opportunities we can start to think about.

[00:30:40] So I love that cross pollination from industries. Yeah. Yeah. That's, it's so good, Stephen. And, and you just described. Yeah. Just one of the features we have on our roadmap that we're so excited about, you know, once you actually sort of, you have your program built out and there's a lot of logic that flows into building that program. We're really excited about how custom that is. There's really pumped about getting to the P itself.

[00:31:09] But then how do you optimize that? And, you know, are we, you know, introducing some coaching through some of the movements that are being done? Once you start to, to get, to dissect, you know, the fitness programming itself, there's so much opportunity in, in what computer vision and what, you know, we can do with Ascensi to help optimize the, you know, the actual, you know, exercises themselves.

[00:31:38] We can sort of create some progressions that are based on performance, right? So you have to be doing, you know, it might start with, did you actually do, you know, what we asked you to do, which we can sort of, you know, we can sort of have a, just a check there. But then we could progress into, you have to do it to a certain performance standard to be able to kind of step into the next phase of the program.

[00:32:05] And there's lots of ways you can maybe think through how that would be applicable for the, for the industrial athlete. I mentioned our ortho line too. I won't go too deep into that, but in, you know, customer recovering from a hip surgery and sort of going through physical therapy. Wow. Such a great application of, you know, our functional movement assessment and the ability to kind of use a performance oriented approach to get that patient back to a hundred percent.

[00:32:34] And Sam, you might not know this, but some of the work that we've done in the UK with the National Health Service was for those kinds of surgeries, you know, major, major surgeries, a hip replacement or an organ replacement. And what the NHS trialed was a regimen of prehabilitation before surgery. Would that improve patient outcome?

[00:32:54] And so it was a resounding yes, but it was asking patients, like, if you've got, if you're up for a double hips replacement, you know, getting into the facility to do your physical therapy is an ordeal unto itself, right? Or you're, you're, you're up for a major organ transplant and you're immunosuppressed. You perhaps don't want to be going into a hospital. And so the study with Asensi, and we did it with Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh as well, is could we deliver prehabilitation at digital scale?

[00:33:23] And would we be able to see the same levels of adherence and enjoyment? And coming back to that connected fitness, one of our, you know, connected fitness customers, we did a deep exploration of, it was my intrinsic, extrinsic motivation kind of hypothesis, if you like. And could we use what we call micro motivations, micro challenges? So even just in the moment, Eric, something like, hey, we're going to do this exercise again.

[00:33:51] I want you to do five and see if at least three of them, you can, you know, keep your shoulders above your wrists or you can not roll your back. And so now I'm a big believer that is when you allow somebody to focus inward, I've never been a music while I work out person because I'm, how can I focus on myself if I'm kind of focused on something external? And I think bringing people's attention inward is enjoyable.

[00:34:15] It makes the, as a martial artist, it makes the exercise feel more meditative to me if I'm kind of focused inward and focused on my own body. And so, you know, again, for, you know, for AMP, those are the kinds of experiences that we get excited about is one of the ways you drive adherence isn't if you don't do it, Sensi will have been watching you and will know you didn't do it and will punish you. It's like, no, can we provide these kind of moments of focus and micro motivations through the delivery of the programming?

[00:34:44] So that it's not just not intimidating. It's not boring. It's enjoyable. Yeah, I know you were about to jump in, Eric, but I think that's such a great point, Stephen. And there are ways to make this fun. What you're sort of getting at is a cultural embracement of fitness and, in our case, sort of injury prevention, right?

[00:35:11] And if you can really sort of use some of those ways to motivate within a business, within the walls of a business, you have multiple different departments. It's so easy to just create these kind of friendly competitions from department to department who can kind of, you know, be the most. We use the bad word compliance, but who can do the most, you know, can you, how long can you, what's your streak of sort of you're doing the, you know, the programming.

[00:35:39] And there's lots of ways to slice and dice and set up, you know, a friendly internal competition that could create some extrinsic, you know, competition and, you know, and drive everybody toward a good outcome. Yeah, another design pattern that we encourage in digital fitness is the unlock. It's classic gamification and reward theory, right?

[00:36:02] But it's like, hey, if you can show me for three days in a row or three workouts in a row that you can do this exercise to this standard, we're going to take it to the next level. And again, for me as a martial artist, the blue belt always wants to be the purple belt. The purple belt always wants to be the brown belt and the brown belt wants to be the black belt. And you know what you have to do to get there. You know the gate that you need to pass through in your grading, right? And so that idea that, you know, once you reach accomplishment of this exercise, I'm going to unlock a new exercise for you.

[00:36:33] Now, essentially, it can teach you that exercise. So I've got you. I'm going to show you how to do it well. And then your repertoire is increased. And, you know, I strongly believe that even for the person doing physical therapy or for the industrial athlete who's trying to stay at work or return to work, these same reward incentives, at the end of the day, we're all human and we all want validation and we all enjoy learning. And there's intrinsic motivation in learning that can be delivered extrinsically.

[00:37:00] So, you know, I really enjoy, Eric, that I get to sit across these different archetypes of athlete with different customers. But I've always been a huge believer. I'm sure you'll agree, Sam, from your time at Under Armour, that innovation happens through cross-pollination. When you can take something that works really well here, but you can bring it into a new environment and perhaps with a different twist, that's where you really start to unlock and leapfrog.

[00:37:28] So we love, Eric, we just love to help our customers think like that. Yeah. Well, I mean, in the last thing on the motivation is like no one wants to be in pain and discomfort all day. Right. That's pretty damn intrinsic. Right. I think if you can help them show a path out of that, I think that's pretty powerful. And culturally, I think to your point, like if it's a culture that embraces movement and health and happiness of their employees, and they're displaying this in a way of like, hey, this is a gift for you because we want you to be happier and healthier and out of pain

[00:37:57] and have a great career here and enjoy every day that you're here. That's very powerful. Right. So it's how you package everything out and deliver it. And we talked about some, one of the things I want to ask is people listening to this also maybe want to get involved, but you know, you have the employer, you have the employee, you have, I think what you call the user, the kind of the administrator and the coach and the trainer of the technology and the programs. Is there space in here for like brick and mortar, like partnerships across, you know, across the network,

[00:38:25] like people from the industry want to get in help. There's a lot of very smart practitioners and coaches and trainers out there who would love a, you know, a shot at something like this. So how are you interacting with the fitness and wellness community? Yeah, such a good, such a good question, Eric. My, and my background is all, it's all sort of consumer product. I, you know, I know that consumer, that B2C world really well. In this case, maybe B2B2C.

[00:38:54] It's funny you say that though. I was just on a call with a, you know, a doctor who runs a sort of concierge medicine clinic. And it's not just, you know, it's not just sort of reactive. You've got hurt or you have your pain, you're in pain. Let me help you. It's very much, let me help promote a healthy lifestyle for, for my, for my customers. And he was very interested in the application of this, this technology in that space.

[00:39:21] There's no clearer sign of demand than when someone in that space just tells you like, can I have this? This is how I would use it. So I do think, I do think there is a scenario in a world where we would extend into that kind of a market segment. And we're, we're just getting started with, with B1 in sort of the industrial space and trying to really sort of make sure we're nailing this. We're, we're focused there.

[00:39:51] We've got our ortho product too. So there's a few things we're doing. We're really excited though, at the range of different possibilities this could go. I, I don't think we've ruled out a, you know, a consumer app for example. And, and it's also, it's nice to kind of be in the place where we are. I, you know, I came from Amazon. I should, I guess, be careful what I say, but Amazon is, it's a huge ship.

[00:40:17] It's sometimes, you know, a little difficult to kind of, you know, turn it. That's, it's, you know, it's funny in the Alexa world. I don't know if there was like one person who could fully describe the whole Alexa department and who did what and all that. It was just everyone, it was like the blind, you know, the blind people touching the elephant.

[00:40:43] But, but I have so much respect for my colleagues at Amazon and within Alexa. It's just, I think they would all agree with me. But, but yeah, that, that, all that to say it's, it is really exciting to sort of think about how we can be agile. We're, one of the things we talk about every day is like just being, just listening and being ready to be agile and, and move and invest in ways that we see clear demand.

[00:41:12] And so that will continue to be a big part of our culture at AmpHealth is just being responsive and, and reading how the market is, is moving and being ready to play where, where there's going to be demand. Yeah. And to your point, Stephen is like, I think we've talked about this before is like, well, digital meets real world, right? Like I could see a world in which your guys technology and what you guys are working on here opens the door for someone to acknowledge or really see to understand like, okay, this is the pain I have.

[00:41:39] Here's the problems I have physically and in my wellness overall, but now I have a choice. I can see down this digital plan, right? And you guys have assessed. So now I have a plan I can follow, or there's, you know, a community of people I could go to locally that I could also, you know, work within. So it's kind of your, you're starting the conversation with all these industrial athletes and getting them to recognize like, Hey, there's a, there's a way out of pain. There's a way to live healthier and here's some options for you, right. To move forward. So I think that's a pretty powerful opportunity. I know a lot of people who listen to this to me are very interested in hearing about something like that.

[00:42:10] Yeah. And Eric, I just wanted to add, I mean, as, as you and I, you know, this interview is part of a series and we've been interviewing with a number of different customers, Sam with, with different archetypes of athlete. And what's been really fulfilling for me, just going through these interviews is realizing everyone's different. Nobody's competitive. We're all, or largely not competitive. We're all driven by the same motivations of our business. You and I story, and we've never really spoken about this before, but Helen, hearing you tell your kind of origin story.

[00:42:39] Um, uh, very similar to mine, that engineer to fitness, to sport, to healthcare. Um, so I think we all have those same motivations, but Eric, I was thinking about, um, one of our previous interviews with, uh, Jamie at ready fit. Um, where, you know, they're using a sensei, um, and Sam it's assessments, but more for at the front end of the tactical athletes journey.

[00:43:03] How can we get more people, um, to be able to meet the standards of a military fitness assessment? So we can get more people into service. And Eric, I remember early working with AMP, uh, where AMP were working with, uh, the U S air force. And I've got some of the numbers up in front of me, but musculoskeletal injury, 800,000 military service members, like 2.2 million visits, uh, medical visits, 25 million lost duty days and $5 billion in healthcare costs.

[00:43:33] So Eric, you know, you and I have had one interview where it's about like the cost to the military of not being able to get people into service, but now we're spending $5 billion on injury while they're in service. And I think it's like, um, one in three discharges from the military is because of musculoskeletal injury. Um, and it's, uh, you know, just one more point on that, Eric, you know, we talked about the military readiness is affected by the lack of people at the top of the funnel, but it's also, um, mission readiness is

[00:44:03] affected by the number of airmen that are able to deploy at any one given moment in time because they're injured. So yeah, I think what's really fulfilling for me here and you hosting these interviews is, you know, Sam, my journey was how can I, um, bring health and fitness. And I like the definition of Olympism, you know, to know the joy from the reward and effort. You know, if you put effort in, there's a reward on the other side.

[00:44:28] And so Eric, when I think about essentially being an ingredient technology, we're powering both amp health and we're powering ready fit. So now we're showing up as a small ingredient, as a small part of a greater product, but at different stages of the lifetime of a tactical athlete, we're there when they're getting recruited and selected and we're there helping prevent them get injured. And we're there helping them return to service.

[00:44:52] And, you know, as we bring more customers on board, um, that was always our goal is how can we be an ingredient technology that shows up, um, every time you're interacting with a sport or a fitness or a health product. And with the interviews you've been, uh, conducting in this series, we're starting to see that, that mission, uh, come to life. So, uh, really rewarding. I've been hearing you speak today, Sam. Awesome. Awesome, you guys. Well, um, Sam, I really appreciate you joining us on this.

[00:45:18] If people, uh, want to reach out to you and have a conversation, um, first of all, like, what would you like to hear from people about? And, uh, number two, uh, how would you like them to get ahold of you or in touch? Where would you want them to go in general? I would love to hear any insights in, into the sort of the industrial world. So anyone who is touching, you know, industrial workforces in any way, shape or form would love to hear problems that you're facing.

[00:45:48] What's, what, what are you inhibited by? You know, what, what keeps maybe keeps you up at night? Where are the problems that, you know, that you see love to hear problems, problems are the lifeblood of our, of our company. Um, you know, in our, in the way that we, we try to solve them. Um, definitely go to AmpHealth.com. You can submit, uh, you know, an inquiry there. Um, I will, I, I will see that. So that would probably be the best way to reach out.

[00:46:16] Also LinkedIn, AmpHealth on LinkedIn. We, uh, we monitor that really close. So easy, easy touch points there. Um, we are, yeah, we're really, we watch both of those channels. So, you know, we'd love to kind of be in touch, uh, if there's a, if there's a good, good conversation to be had. Yeah. Right on. Right on. And Steven, of course, people find you where? LinkedIn. Just as always, um, every time AmpHealth posts, we're like right there behind them with, uh, sharing the good news.

[00:46:46] So yeah, LinkedIn is the best place to find us. Uh, if anyone wants to find out more, our website as well. Um, but similar to Sam, if you reach out on the website, you reach out in LinkedIn, you're going to reach my desk. Right on. Awesome guys. Well, thanks for this. I think it's really, uh, it's a really interesting topic to just open up the conversation and framework around the industrial athlete. Like I think it just enables new conversations and new opportunities in places that have existed for a very long time. So framing is everything really. So really appreciate it.

[00:47:14] And, uh, yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Sam Hullenbach and Steven Webster. Thank you. Thank you.