Scott Britton - Battle Cancer: Building a Common Language Between Fitness & Medicine

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over three years and running. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Please stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and learn more. When you do what you love, running, racing, or simply enjoying the great outdoors, you want to do it for life. Insight Tracker can help. Insight Tracker was founded in 2009 by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics. Using their patented algorithm, Insight Tracker analyzes your body's data to provide you with a clear picture of what's going on inside you while offering highly personalized, science-backed recommendations for positive diet and lifestyle changes. Okay, time for straight talk. It's time that each single one of us takes responsibility for our own health. Personally, given the results of my Insight Tracker DNA and blood tests, I now have a clear and simple game plan to lower my cholesterol and stave off my family's genetic history of heart disease. The best part is that the plan doesn't include any kind of pharmaceuticals, just personalized nutrition and natural supplementation. Honestly, my favorite feature of Insight Tracker is the inner age score, a singular metric that shows me how my biological age compares to my chronological age. They just gamify longevity. It's crazy cool. For a limited time, you can get 25% off the entire Insight Tracker store. Just go to insight tracker.com forward slash future. The wait, there is more. If you're a coach, trainer, registered dietitian, or any other health and wellness practitioner, you can now leverage Insight Tracker services to help your clients perform better than they ever have. And you can offer them discounts while you earn revenue. InsightTracker Pro is your gateway to offering your clients Insight Tracker, a science-backed, ultra-personalized performance platform trusted by elite athletes and top coaches. Just go to insight tracker.com forward slash future to get more information and enjoy deep, deep discounts. That is insight tracker.com forward slash future. All right, we are live. Scott Britton, welcome to the future of fitness, man.

Hi, Eric. Thank you so much for having me here. Maybe a slightly different accent than than usual.

Well, you know, we get some we get some pretty cool accents on this show, I have to say. Uh I I always feel uh smarter when I talk to people with uh with a UK accent. I think it's it's a really yeah it's a nice thing to have. It's very charming. But man, I'm I'm honored to have you on this show today. I'm so glad we got connected through um, you know, maybe I can't remember who exactly, but I'll give them credit later when I think of it. Um but it's really exciting, and and I'm honored, like I said, to have you because you're you're doing really important work. And I think uh a lot of people within the fitness industry in particular, and you know, we kind of clumped fitness, health, and wellness into one category here on this show, but the fitness industry in particular will really appreciate what you're doing because so many people in the fitness industry do um nonprofit work and try to get back to communities and um they're just trying to figure out a better way to do it, right? How can they make the most uh impact, even for you know, just giving some of their time or some or a little bit of profit off the top or whatever it may be. But man, you seem to find a way to scale that help. So anyway, I'm gonna stop talking. I want to hear your story because I know it's a great one. Um let's get into it, Scott. Give us a little bit of backstory. How did you get to be the uh you know the head of uh Battle Cancer?

Yeah, you know, it's um I'll I'll do it as quick as possible, but with hopefully as much information, you know, it's um it's something that was never planned. You know, you you speak to people and you you hear from people who are founders of a movement or founders of a brand or or an idea, um, you know, and I and I wish that I could be uh I could tell a lie and say that it was all planned. And it wasn't, it was something that um, you know, one of I think Britain's favorite word was serendipitous, which is that you know, you kind of fall into something that happens to be the thing that you wanted to do, you didn't know it. Um, and that's very much been the case with battle cancer. Um growing up, I always associated death with cancer. Everybody that I knew from extended family, close family, uh, etc., was always, if somebody was passed away, it was due to cancer, you know, and there's a this common misconception that cancer kills you, and it's not cancer that kills you, it's the you know what cancer does to your body and leaves you into that position. Um, and it became something that as I was sort of in my early 20s, mid-20s, that I wanted to reconnect and try and do challenges to give back to mostly support-related charities. So cancer research charities do a phenomenal job, and you know, they're the world lead and they need to be done. But because I'd seen the physical impact on people, uh, it was more support and financial assistance for those that are affected by cancer and end-of-life care. That was something I wanted to do. And hands up, I was incredibly bad at doing things individually. So um, you know, you see these phenomenal stories of people who raise hundreds of thousands, and I could just never do that. I could never kind of capture enough hearts and minds individually. So, my sort of brain in the way that I work was that there's an alternative solution to this, and there'll be other people who are in a very similar position that that, like you said, you know, they they are in the fitness space and they want to do something and they want to give back and they've been affected, but they're not too sure how and there's not a direction. Um, so for me, the the original concept was let's bring as many people together as possible and let's create an event where it's completely accessible, there's nobody separated by category, you know, even the biggest mass participation events like marathons, you know, Boston, New York, London, uh, there's still a separation due to your physical ability. And I didn't want to do that, I wanted to get everybody together and make the focus not only about your physical effort, but your effort to fundraise or be involved in a charity that meant something to you. So, as far as I know, we're one of the only sort of fitness challenges that um reward you with points and affects your kind of achievement with how much fundraising you do. So, for example, you know, we've had uh groups of people who are in their early 60s that have fundraised $15,000 for on the day of their event, and they're at the top of that leaderboard. You know, they're not technically the fittest, fastest people, but they've because of their effort, it's been phenomenal. And and we expanded very quickly. The events took off really well. Each event started to do 50,000, 60, 70,000 pounds for charities, and we moved across the UK, we moved into Europe, um, and then we me and my wife decided to leave our jobs. So my my background was in the police. I was a detective sergeant, I know it doesn't look like it, um, but I um worked in very serious crime, so I worked in in areas that you didn't want to look like a police officer. Um, and then that was November of 2019. Um, and so we had a full 2020 plan, we'd got some partners on board, the events were going to expand into the US, um, and then something called uh COVID happened. Um, and like everybody else around the world, everybody's plans kind of completely uh changed. But it was in the midst of that that we said, okay, well, we've kind of been forced to stop doing what we were doing. Uh, and instead of being sad about it, uh, instead of kind of you know throwing in the towel and giving up, we said, what else can we do during this period of time to still make an effect and still support people? And over the past two or three years of those events pre-COVID, what we'd seen was this huge gap develop that charities don't have the resources, the know-how, or to be honest, the mission to support people after they finish their treatment or just towards the end of their treatment. And also the current protocols that were existing for people were very basic. So if you were finishing your cancer treatment, your physical and mental recovery was defined as simply standing and sitting from a chair, walking around a room a couple of times. Now, more and more people are being diagnosed with cancer, and we saw this over those years. But more and more people are uh surviving the initial cancer diagnosis and then learning to live with cancer. But those people are rejected by gyms, traditional coaches, fitness institutions because they're scared of working with them because they've had cancer. And then the health industry is massively under-treating them because they're scared that the fitness is going to make them worse and not actually make them better. So during COVID, we got together with our lead doctor, Dr. Colin Robertson, he's a phenomenal person, he's helped over 8,000 people through their cancer treatment physically, mentally, and charted that. And we we pulled together a 12-week program and we said, look, if we prescribe these movements, if we give the power to a coach, a CrossFit coach, a fitness coach, somebody else, if we give them that power and then we pay them to deliver these sessions, and people come and attend these sessions for free once they finish their cancer treatment, maybe we can start to chip away at that problem and prove to the fitness community that you can work with people post-cancer and prove to the medical community that by introducing fitness will definitely assist the recovery of that person, you know. And and we've so far about 200 people that have come through that program, and we're now in a position which is amazing that we we've got 40 different locations this year, um, completely self-funded as you know, from the back end of what we do here at the Battle Cancer and the Battle Cancer Program. Um, and you know, hopefully we'll talk a little bit more about some of our testing protocols. But we for the first time charted not only physical increases, but we looked at what you call a quality of life questionnaire. So we we asked people to reflect on themselves during that 12-week period, and that's been phenomenal. So now sort of post coming out of, I hate to use post-COVID because I'm scared of saying that because I've said that before, and then it came back, it came back in a point. Um, but now we're in this position that we're bringing our events back, 13 events across the world, and we're now in this really great position to hopefully inspire more and more people to either take on running one of our programs or to enter one of our programs. So, what started off as just, I know, I'm really bad at fundraising has now come to a life passion for us, and we've got a team of 11 full-time people and a wider reach of about 20 different battle cancer coaches.

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Yeah, so predominantly this this was the beauty of what we tried to do is that those locations are all pre-existing gyms. You know, I I knew uh I own a gym. I know that for me to open 40 gyms, um, never gonna happen. You know, it'd be wonderful if I could create a physical location in all these different places. So instead, you know, this incredible vast network of gyms and boutique gyms, studio gyms, we actually have one commercial gym chain here in the UK that's running the program. So they're all pre-existing gyms and coaches at work within those. So what we do is we fund the coach, so we pay them their normal class hourly rate, um, and we work with the gym to host the sessions, which is twice a week. So yeah, we um because that was always the dream, you know, let's create a battle cancer gym in every city around the world. But you know, uh, as as hopefully many of your listeners will know, the financial ability to do something like that is uh, you know, I'm not gold's gym, you know, and even even gold's couldn't do it.

Yeah. So uh when you when you're talking about these processes where you kind of figure out a I guess loophole is a wrong word, but you found a way to kind of navigate like how coaches uh can work with cancer patients, right? Uh and so you so if I okay, and you walk me through this. Like I'm a coach, right? What what happens? Like, do uh are you guys sending clientele or you know trainees to them and then they get workouts, and then is there a kind of scope of practice that you have to navigate? Like what are the details within that?

Yeah, so again, you know, we looked at the base, and you know, just to give you an example here in the UK, there's very limited people who are post-cancer specialists in terms of uh physical recovery, and and their people who deemed to be able to prescribe movement for someone dependent on their impact of cancer, and usually it's the impact of the cancer treatment, not the actual cancer itself. Um, so what we did was okay, we said, well, if we have a continual review process of our program, so we created a 12-week program which is mostly based on time domains because you and I could work solidly for a minute or two minutes. However, our age, impact factors, comorbidities, and they will all affect how much we can do in that time zone, but we're all in the same time zone. So we actually have the ability to have a class that has, and this has happened, 20-year-olds with 70-year-olds of different cancer types and different cancer treatments, but the coach can lead that session. So they get a full 12-week to understand what those sessions are. We also have this wonderful um, we call it if not this, then that, which is our effectively matrix of if somebody cannot do a particular movement, we have almost eight different options for them to do, and that's a really cool like uh scale as well. So for the person, okay, maybe they can't do the full movement, but maybe there are about four down that scale and they've got something in front of them to work on and pitch towards instead of being told, oh, you can't do this movement. Okay, no, you can do this movement, but it might take some time, it might take some work to get to there. But it also empowers the coach because coaches will often second guess themselves when it comes to working with someone who's had a serious illness. They have a fear that they're going to make them worse. So, you know, we have a very contentious issue in our program about overhead mobility for people who've had single or double massectomies. Um, the current guidance from certain NHS here in the UK is to not encourage stimulation and movement in that pattern, which is an overhead pattern. Our argument is that to live a life, you should be able to raise your hand above your head. And that's something that we encourage to push press, various stretching and immobility increases. Um, and actually, one of the juxtapositions of this is when you go to have a further scan, uh, which you will have to do quite often for the rest of your life, you have to raise your hand above your head when you go into a scan machine. So we've built that in, and we understand that nearly every person who enters the program cannot do a push press from day one. So we have to scale them up. So for us, it's about giving you something that you can refer back to mid-class, mid-session. It's also giving you a weekly check-in, also giving you the program well in advance and talking through that, but also you as a coach knowing that we review every time we finish a cycle of the program, and that we are working with Liverpool John Moore's University here in the UK to interpret the data and to interpret the feedback from coaches and participants to constantly evolve the program. You know, there's there's not one thing written once that's going to be perfect forever. So we need to continually change that. Um, so almost the only thing we rely on you as the coach is to bring the energy, the motivation, and the emotional intelligence of working with clients, which coaches have in an abundance, but we give you the scientific element to empower you to be able to deliver that.

Yeah, that's fascinating. So I know one of the things that you we brought up when we were talking before we started recording is and it's been a very um it's been a very common topic on the show. Uh, but it's something that I believe most people in the fitness industry want is we want that gap between fitness and healthcare to close somehow because we we see that and I I think I can't speak for medical professionals or the healthcare industry and saying, but I will say that the common maybe belief on the fitness side is that we're just not trusted, right? Um, with you know, people who have medical issues, where we're just, you know, uh that will hurt somebody really. I think we'll make it worse, or we'll be irresponsible. And you know, I I look at both sides of it and I try to put myself um on the other side too, on the medical side of things, and I say, well, yeah, you know, maybe maybe because our education isn't standardized, maybe because um, you know, there's no real certifying one certifying body rule them all. I mean, you look at like what does it take to be a a fitness trainer here in the United States a weekend certification? Okay, and that's it. So I I get it. So I guess my question for you is if if we want to bridge that gap between those two things, get communication opening and start, you know, maybe even getting like uh you know insurance to pay for specific things um within the fitness area of of work, what needs to change?

And I think this is a great question. And it and it's something that you know we can very quickly uh you know almost badmouth either industry very quickly and and not realize that the only way to create this to happen is is to bring those two together. You know, I I often try and explain to people that the fitness industry and the medical industry, and I log the private sort of healthcare industry and insurers into alongside the the medical industry as well. Um, they're like two opposite sides of a magnet that they're just kind of constantly pushing away from each other. Um and if you just turn them around and connect them, um, it'll almost be impossible to separate. Um, and what we want to do is try and turn that around. And the only way that we'll turn those magnets around is by speaking in a common language. And for me, that common language will be the data. And so I hate to use the word experiment, but every single one of our programs is in effect an experiment. You know, we've just had and launched this amazing partnership with Whoop, and Whoop allows us to do that turning round even stronger than we've ever done before. We've used very standardized testing um for the past year, it's things like peak flow, things like where we use um uh a control mechanism to understand how we increase mobility and a lot of feedback from Harvard Step Test, all things that are very basic. However, Whoop is going to give us a full six to 12 month per person breakdown of so many different factors. Now, what that allows me to do is, you know, even if somebody was to say, okay, I don't believe in the accuracy of Whoop, you know, I'm a medical doctor, I don't believe in the accuracy, but I think it's not good enough. Fine, it's still, however, a standardized test across everyone that we deal with. So it's given me the ability to create this common universal language. We also don't hold the IP back, we don't hold on to this data and hide it away. We share it, it's open, it's open public. People can use it, interpret it, take it. We've already given it to multiple PhD students to help their thesis because when they get a published report, it's peer-reviewed, we can take that, and again, it's it's open to the world. So showing the impact of what a structured, sensible, reviewed fitness program can do for somebody who's had a serious illness, and showing the hard data that we increase amazing elements like their lung capacity, VO2, we reduce their rest and heart rate, we stop their chronic fatigue, we've increased their mobility so they can live a normal life. And on top of that, they journal, they let us know every day how they feel, how their reliance on medication to live, all that data, flip it to the medical side. They can look at that and say, okay, actually, you know, some of this stuff might work, and let's compare it to somebody who's This line to chemotherapy, and I can see that there's a direct positive impact. Flip it to the fitness world, the fitness world can then again also see well, by introducing some air squats and birdpees and mobility exercises, we've made this person better. So it gives us the common language that I feel we can prove to both at the same time that this is something that's worth doing. And I think if we take too much of the fence of the fitness world, we'll alienate the medical side, and the medical side again can alienate the fitness side. The other thing is introducing MDs into what we do. I've been very, very lucky to meet people who really believe in the power of community and community-based fitness for people who've had a serious illness. And there's some phenomenal people out there doing work from Ireland, Spain, US, Canada. And there's people that have, you know, I am not an inventor of this. This has been going on for many years. Um, and those people again help bridge that gap, but they've they've always lacked a wider subset of data. So we want to provide them that. You know, one of my favorite things I've ever heard Elon Musk say was he was asked about why there was no intellectual property on his electric cars. And he said, well, for me to change the way that the world views transportation, I need to make this information available to as many people as possible. And I and that's our method, and I think that's how we can start to bridge that gap.

Yeah, that's fantastic, man. I'm I'm curious how with so far, with the you know, given the world's population, a relatively small subset that you're working with right now, how is the medical profession um receiving the you know the standardized communication of data in the community? How are they receiving it so far?

So Barry, it it's it's actually surprised me how positive that's been. There's almost two different reactions. So one reaction from the medical side is pre-the program. So what we find is a lot of people enter the program, we speak to them, because there's a huge onboarding process where we really help that person feel comfortable before they walk into the gym. Um and quite often we say, okay, we would love your primary care physician to give us the okay, you know, so that you feel that they're supporting you and we know that that they're okay for you to enter into this. I'd say about 50% will refuse to do so. Now I understand why, because they're not prescribing the program. So they're concerned that their reputation, their name, you know, the best care of that patient, that they're worried if they say yes, go do this program and it didn't work for them, that they would be liabless in some way. There's that side. However, I've been very lucky to speak now at two international cancer research conferences where I was the only non-medical professional to speak at those conferences. They were peer-reviewed. I had one of them was a week-long chance for people to ask me questions in different subpanels. Every single person was incredibly positive after seeing the results that we showcased. Um, I think it's breaking down. They, you know, they'll type in the word CrossFit and see a picture of uh a Matt Fraser or a Sarah Sigman's daughter, or they'll type in the gym and they'll see a you know a Phil Heath or a Ronnie Coleman, um, and they presume that we're going to be pushing people in these methods. What they don't see is the 99% of people that use fitness to help them physically and mentally. Um, and I think that's breaking down that barrier. So once we've done it, people then feel comfortable and they see the program and they understand, okay, this is actually just good movements for life. Um, so yeah, it's been very mixed, very negative for those pre-the program, and very positive upon a peer review uh once seeing the data.

Yeah, well said, man. I so here in the states, insurance companies have a lot of leverage and power, really. I mean, I I'll just go ahead and say it. Our healthcare system is really run by insurance companies in so many ways. Like the medical profession is now kind of boxed in due to you know how the insurance and healthcare systems um both, both the medical professional and the patient, right? We're we're all boxed in. I can give you numerous, you know, anecdotal um situations where that happens, but uh how how do you see the insurance companies getting involved or how they have to at some point, right? How does how is it working so far? How do you see a path forward in that area?

I think this this is something that I'm incredibly passionate about. You know, I um we work very closely with uh another CrossFit-related nonprofit called the Phoenix. If you look at um how people recover after substance addiction and years of substance abuse, um and the vast majority of those come from prescribed painkillers, you know, due potentially to being prescribed with good intention at the beginning. However, the result of that was was let go. And this is very similar in terms of the cancer community as well and people post serious illness. You know, I'm I'm very aware that they need to make profits. They are for profit businesses, they are not uh charities. However, you know, again, with our data, one program that can have 12 people for up to 12 weeks costs around about $900. So that's 12 people for three whole months, twice a week, being supported. And we have shown we've reduced their chronic fatigue by up to 70%. We've reduced their likelihood and need to stay on long-term medication by up to 80%. They report being happier in their lives, their relationships. Everything we've proven doesn't completely cure people. That's a fallacy, it's never gonna happen. But this is cheaper. This is cheaper, it's safer, it's long term. That person is going to stop coming back to them to make claims for years to come by an initial investment, by using the medical community to prescribe correctly and safely what they need to from a chemical basis, but also giving them the ability to have fitness classes, community, people around them, and a structure to that. Because most people don't know how to structure their own fitness journey, and certainly when they've had an impact related to their body that they don't understand. So it's actually a great business case for the insurance companies. It will hugely reduce how much money that they have to spend out in the in the short term, not even just in the long term. You know, we uh you know, we spoke very quickly about this offline, but you know, I've we've got a phenomenal family that that have you know reached out to us and done stuff with us in the US. You know, they they lost their very young son last year due to cancer, and and they had to make a decision about the estimated cost of his treatment. You know, it was over $400,000, and they're farmers, they don't have a spare $400,000. Their insurance didn't cover the treatment that he needed to have because it was quite a rare treatment. That's a decision that that person shouldn't have to make, you know, let alone the emotional uh impact of that. Now, times that by how many people uh have to go through chemotherapy, scans, radiotherapy, continuum prescriptions per cost of somebody going through cancer treatment is going to cost that insurance company, you know, 400, 500,000, 600,000 pounds in the short term, let alone for the rest of their life. Fitness classes cost $200 a month, you know, less than that for most places. It's incredibly cheap. It's it's almost terrifyingly cheap for the impact that it can have. It's it's phenomenal. So I think again, I I want to share this with you know the insurance companies. One of the amazing things, again, similar to me about Whoop is that you sit, you're starting to see a lot of healthcare companies say, okay, well, we'll reduce your policy cost if you live an active lifestyle. So if you wear a Whoop or you have an Apple Watch or you have something else and you log your activity on there, you prove to us that you're healthy, we will start to reduce your overhead because we know that you being healthy means that we're gonna pay out less over the long term. Let's do that with people who've had illness. Once you've had a serious illness, you're almost having a blacklist on you for the rest of your life. You know, the immediate time you ask for a healthcare quote, they're gonna say, look, you're way too expensive, so you're gonna have to pay an incredibly high premium. Well, no. Let's prove to you that this person is recovering, that they're actually probably much fitter, healthier, resilient than somebody who's not entered into this and not had cancer. And that with the data is gonna help me because we can prove that across age, race, religion, sex, uh, demographic background, be it you know, your financial status, your education status, we can prove that by expanding the program and having this data to share with them. Um, again, you know, it's something that uh we can really knock on the door of. And, you know, I don't just want to kind of um wax lyrical about CrossFit, but one of the best things about some of our conversations as battle cancer with CrossFit LLC is that they are not scared to try and lobby. You know, they they're happy to try and bring that to the forefront. So I I want to throw everything that we get towards it towards that to try and get big, you know, bigger, much, much bigger people than us to listen.

Yeah. Yeah, you know, I I do want to give it a shout out to the CrossFit community as well, because uh, you know, I think people in the fitness industry overall, like at the CrossFit community, is you know, crazy. I mean, I've sat in uh where was I? I was at some sort of conference and I was watching someone present, and uh, you know, they're having slides go, and all of a sudden, like CrossFit came up in the conversation. So they had some guy like doing a handstand underneath a racked barbell, like he was gonna press it up with his feet. And they're like, and then there's our CrossFit friends. And I was like, I was like, I do I've never seen that in my gym once, guys. You know, it's like we've always kind of carried this uh reputation of being a little uh off-center, I guess. But I will say this is that you know, almost every there's so many different charity foundations and community-driven movements that have started from CrossFit. Yeah. I mean, we had our own. We had our we had one that we started our, you know, we had been part of some bigger ones, but you know, uh, we just decided to keep it local with ours at the strength to give. And I think it's still, you know, Jim on its third owner now. I think it's still going every year. It's an annual event. Um, and then there's you know, barbells for boobs, and there's you know, all these different things that have taken place out of the CrossFit community, and I think it's it's a natural place to start. And um you have to give it up. You know, I don't care what you think about CrossFit as a methodology or um who writes the programs, or you know, can you get injured? Can is it safe? Whatever. It doesn't matter, but that aspect of CrossFit is undeniable. It's it's a community-driven fitness program that really, really gives a shit about their members and and the places that they live.

I've I've, you know, it's it's it's very difficult for me to find something that's so similar. Um, and you're right, you know, CrossFit has had a very bad rep. You know, it's very easy to very, very easy to to point out the flaws in something, you know, you know, the internet has the word troll for a reason because it's very easy to do that. It's it's very difficult to pull out and talk about the great things that happen. And this is not just necessarily CrossFit, you know, I'm fully aware CrossFit is a is a brand, it's uh it's a name, hence it's got a little trademark uh next to it, but just functional fitness and uh and just training with people, training in a class setting that is coach-led is something that has been life-changing for many people. I also think that the reason that so many non-profits and movements have come out of that, because once something happens to you individually and you see the impact, you want to just pass that on, you want to share that with someone, you know. There's there's a reason that that so many people across the world are religious because it helps them. So they want to tell people about it, and it's the same in in this way that people have been helped by fitness. Yes, you know, Jillian uh what's the face uh I can't remember her second name, but the lady who did biggest biggest, yeah, biggest lose, you know. She's very simple to come out and say, Oh, the training repetitions and the mixture of this and mixture of that is bad. Fine, you know, whatever, that's your opinion. You cannot deny that if somebody loses weight, feels better, lives longer, is happier in their life, makes friends, that that it almost doesn't matter what how many rep schemes they do or what they mix it with, it's a positive thing that falls out of that. I also think that we're very lucky, and this is the reason that we have such a core demographic in CrossFit, and we're starting to reach out of that now as well. But core demographic is because people just want to do something. I know it harks back to the beginning of this. They see a problem and they don't quite know what to do with it. So when somebody comes with a flag and says, Hey, I think I have a solution, do you want to join me? They're like, Yeah, let's give it a go. Let's go into the unknown and let's try and do something good. Um and and I think that's you know, you know, the picture of somebody, handstand walking under a bar. Like, how many times if you took a picture in a bodybuilding gym, someone's done something silly or you know, in in track and fields, you know, it's it could happen anywhere. We just tend to take a few more pictures and videos, I think, which probably doesn't help of that activity. But you know, again, uh it's it's such a difficult thing until you've you've tried. And you know, this is a big problem we have, and this is why I'm so you know grateful for you giving me the opportunity today. Is we're not even just trying to convince the medical community and the fitness community, we're trying to empower and convince people who've had cancer themselves to step into this. You know, that they're my biggest, most important audience because this is someone who has been through a trauma physically and mentally that you know I would hope that none of your listeners ever have to go through. And and to attract to this person, is you know, I can tell you, and this is a true true point. One person on our program last year increased her back squat by a thousand and eighty percent, her three RM back squat by a thousand and eighty percent. So she basically couldn't back squat, and then all of a sudden she could back squat like over her body weight in 12 weeks. Okay, that sounds fantastic, but is that gonna get me to step into a gym if I'm quite possibly at the mental and physical lowest that I've ever been in my life and somewhere I never thought I would be? And the answer is no. But what will get me in there is understanding that there's a group who will all have been on a similar journey to me, that there's a coach that is going to push me, is going to empower me, but is also going to allow me to do something a little bit different. And the reason that we love working with Whoop is because now everybody on the program is going to be gifted a Whoop. They also can start to take control of their own recovery and making decisions for themselves. Because quite often, when you've been diagnosed with cancer, that decision-making process is taken away from you, and you're often told where you're going to be, what you can do, what you can't do. And that's not a basis for an adult to live the rest of their life. You know, we want to be independent and have that power. So it's not just the wider impact, it's hopefully a way for me to encourage people to take that step to start their own journey back into recovery.

Ah man, it's great. So if you, I mean, let's let's take a step outside of the CrossFit community now, too. When you look at the fitness, the landscape of the fitness industry now, what what other communities or niches or verticals within the industry do you think seem like a really good fit to start to pan to partner with?

Yeah, you know, it's um also in a way that COVID, again, you know, that I kind of hate to keep bringing it up, but it it has done us a favor in how we're going to reach people because it's really digitized the fitness industry. You know, you look at Peloton, look at um so many others, you know, there's there's one here in the UK called Fit, um, which is available on television. And, you know, there's there's constant new innovations in terms of accessing your fitness remotely. Um, and we're incredibly excited that this year we've we've partnered with Nike. Um, and it's not just for apparel, you know, yes, we've we we have an apparel battle cancer t-shirt, but the the awesome part of our deal with Nike is that they have something called the Nike Training Club app, um, which is for everyone, you know, it's not CrossFit, it's for anybody who's interested in in fitness and sport. And we're going to be hosting a version of the Battle Cancer program on the Nike Training Club app. Um, it's the first of its kind, and not only just the first of its kind to be accessed digitally, but quite possibly one of the biggest brands in the world of sport. So you in your own time, you know, maybe you live in central New York, you've got a tiny uh house, you can't go to a gym, or you know, maybe you you're at somewhere in your life, maybe you you live in the wilderness of Montana, and there's not a gym that's super close to you. Um, you can access and be coached by our coaches on a digital version of the of the program and interact and join our community. So that's something I think that um has has really given us a chance to reach more people. There's there's two million active users of the of the Nike Training Club out per week. You know, if I can take one percent of those, and those people are from uh have been affected by cancer, that's more people I could have ever dreamt to be supported and feel that they're being communicated to. So one thing I've got to thank the sort of future you know aspects at the moment of the fitness injury is the digitization of the way that we are delivering those fitness classes.

Yeah, that's great, man. And it is that's congratulations on Nike. Like that's uh that's a big partnership, man. That's a big one. Um so I I've always seen, and maybe uh maybe because I saw someone speak on this and it just stuck with me, but you know, there's um I look at you can look at the one percents on on either end of the population. So on maybe one percent, you have you know, uh you know, professional athletes, special forces, um, things like that. On the other one percent, on the other end of the spectrum, you have people who are dealing with, you know, very difficult sickness, uh, injury, trauma, things like that, right? And you learn a lot from these kind of extreme parts of the population. And then it if it's good, it inevitably kind of works itself into the other 99% or 98%, I guess I should say mathematically. Um how do you see what you're doing if you had a grand vision for the next you know 10 years? How do you see what you guys are doing kind of starting to get into more of the general population and affecting what most people are doing?

Yeah, I mean, that's a phenomenal question. It's something that you know I don't often share too much because I always try and don't get ahead of myself, you know, and get ahead of myself and you can trip up.

But get ahead of yourself right now.

No, it's it's a great question. You know, so uh the inevitable thing to this is more and more people are being diagnosed, more and more younger people are being diagnosed with cancer. However, as society, we're smoking less, we are being fitter, more aware of our wellness, uh, you know, chemical reduction in terms of things that historically caused cancer work working in certain industries, being around things like asbestos, all these things that historically, you know, even 10 years ago, if you said someone's got cancer, you'd usually say, Oh, they must have smoked 20 cigarettes a day or whatever. That's all reducing. So, why is cancer diagnosis going up and younger and younger people being diagnosed? So the the nice element to this is that uh detection is happening, people survive longer treatment, etc. But we're being left with a wider, wider impact to the population that are now living with cancer. That's where we're at at the moment, that's the focus at the moment. The secondary focus, and this is over the next five, 10, 15 years, is how do we start to chip away and affect people pre. You know, so prevention is always better than treatment, isn't it? That's something that's across probably every industry and every problem that faces that prevention is better. And I cannot categorically ever say that fitness will prevent you from getting cancer. That is not possible to do. We can start to prove that fitness may reduce your likelihood of a secondary onset of cancer. That is actually very provable. But the first one isn't. But we look at abnormal cell growth, which is what cancer, if to boil it down to its very basic, is you know, there's 2,100 different types of cancer, but abnormal cell growth is is what cancer is and then what it does to your body. So we know that by reducing stress, stress is a huge indicator in terms of the production of abnormal cell growth. Um, we unfortunately live in a society where young people are very stressed, put under a lot of pressure, very difficult outlets to that. Also, you know, to not get too off the side of this, but we ignore the fact that people of a BME background, so black, Asian, minority ethnic people, are diagnosed later because they have a historical fear of medical care and medical assistance, and that's not a US problem, that's a problem all around the world. Um, you know, you just have to look at how many NFL players don't want the COVID jab and actually ask the question why, because they come from a place where where their grandfathers and their fathers were given things that they didn't know they were given and were lied to, and that's happened across many different countries. So we we know that we're not serving people. People who come from a financially impacted background, people who are still manual workers, people who work in industries where they're around chemicals and stressed and have a lack of resource, they financially don't have the time to access beautiful gyms with heating and barbells and great coaching. So, how do we hit those people? Well, free or supported as in funded by state uh insurer, you know, or charity and reducing how hard it is to access those, that's how we can start to chip away the insurmountable amount of people that are now developing cancer. It's a big task, you know, you're talking millions and millions of people, but it's things like sitting on the on the NTCs and sitting on the Nike training for that. That's free. It's a free download, it's a free class, it's something you could do in your work break, it's something that you could do at home. That is the beginnings of that, but also to link back into what we're doing with data by taking this stuff from Whoop, it's how do we convince someone that giving that hour a week or two hours a week or three hours a week is actually worth it. It's very difficult to live in the in the what if. We often live in decisions now. You know, we you know, I often talk a lot about decisions that we make. How do I feel right now? Not how will I feel when I'm 32 and I've just faced a very young cancer diagnosis. So it's convincing people as well to take that time and that effort and that energy to invest it to reduce their likelihood of being affected later. But you know, as as as silly as it almost sounds, and I, you know, some of your listeners might think, you know, that's way too big of a grand ambition. The long term is is to reduce the chances of people developing cancer instead of just helping them after it's already hit.

Yeah. I I don't think it's too grandiose, and I think you always have to have a vision of where where you want to go, right? Like where where is this all going? Because sometimes um, you know, it's really easy to kind of you know use the you know, I get get on the wrong flight, right? Oh, I thought I was going to San Francisco, but I ended up in Argentina. Um, you know, you just kind of have to know where where you where you want this flight to go and you'll get there inevitably. I what I find really interesting, um, and you had touched on earlier and and several times throughout this, which I think is a if you guys can effectively get some solutions to this problem, which is that I agree, the biggest problem between fitness and medical professions is having a standardized language, right? That we can all talk, right? Like medical people don't speak the fitness language, and the fitness people don't speak the medical language. Some very highly educated fitness people do, and some very interested medical professionals speak the other language, right? But having that data as a singular point, like who's it's objective, right? Like it's the data. And if you if we can come to solutions where you can start looking at the data and having that be the focal point, and that's one of the things I love about wearable technologies and like the Morpheus project I've been working on with Joel Jameson for a while, and you know, is having data accessible in an easy way that takes the subjectivity out of conversations. It's like, no, we're not, we're not talking about opinion here. We're just looking at data that we agree is probably right. And um now getting the data probably right is a whole nother conversation in it, but it's getting there, right? It's getting better and better. Like, you know, is Whoop's data 100%? Definitely not. Is any other wearable data 100% accurate? No, none of it is, but it's getting better every day. So I think solving that that particular thing, if you can get that communication point, that common language established, man, the doors open up for so many different things. And it becomes really exciting for I think anybody in the fitness industry, and should be for anyone who's, you know, cares about their health.

I think it's not even just you know cancer related, it's it's anything. Because we often struggle to understand the impact, and from both sides. So, you know, you look at someone at high risk of heart disease, you know, how do we really say, well, uh, okay, actually they're sleeping longer and they're in deeper REM sleep. Well, what does that mean? Okay, well, actually, it means that their body is in this process where they've actually reduced their heart rate as they sleep, you know, and and they're they're having a recovery chance. They're they've reduced the stress level, so the the distance in the time beats. So is what I love about WIP and heart rate variability. We can show that we've reduced how much stress you're putting your body under. And stress isn't just the physical exertion, it's the stress of like life and family and relationships and everything else. So a doctor has to agree that while we've reduced your resting heart rate, the heart rate variability is standardized and come down, so you are less stressed. So the impact of hormone production in your body and abnormal cell growth has reduced. Someone in the fitness industry says, well, this person's heart rate has lowered. It means that they're fitter and they can recover faster to do another 1K run, and it means that they're sleeping longer, so their recovery and muscular uh you know, change in impact to how they deal with strength training has increased. So the same things, you can take two different views and take the same language and extrapolate your own things from those, but it's undeniable that those things are there and they're the same and that they've happened. And that's for me what is so exciting. I I cannot tell you my reaction to once we agreed the partnership with Woot, because it wasn't just that these guys are uh you know an excited brand, they're still relatively new in terms of what they're doing. It was because I have just begged to be able to put these commonalities in front of two sets of people. You know, hate to be political, but let's look at Russia and Ukraine and everyone else at the minute. Everybody has their own point of view, you know, and it's it's a scary time when you don't understand the other side, somebody does something and it could be seen as dangerous or whatever else. But if we could just get people together and and we can show that if you calm down and you calm down, this is what can happen. And and this is kind of what we want to do in terms of these industries is say, guys, okay, let's just stop arguing about whether back spots are bad for you or not. Let's just look at this data. We've got a way and put our reputation at risk. You guys don't have to, but just look at the data and and interpret it your own way. But I promise you, with a standardized language, that that'll happen. Um, and and I think it's I've not come across something before where a wearable tech is being used in this way. And obviously, I'm gonna talk about this as you know, I it's it's it's my living and breathing passion, but I I've not seen wearable tech be used to describe this, only before to say, like, you know, be better at your sport, or you know, you know, you can do this or do that. I've I've never seen it be talked about in this way, and I don't think that we'll solve the problem, but if another group, company, people, problem goes, you know what, that's a really good possible solution. We're gonna use it for us. And all of a sudden, if a hundred different movements are doing the same thing, then then wearable tech becomes the the language solution between two people that can't solve argument.

Yeah, well said, man. Well, hey, I uh it's been it's been almost an hour since we've been online here together. Uh and I want I know it's late, I want to respect your time, but you know, one of the questions I always like to make sure I get in there is uh, you know, what what what do you need right now, Scott? Like it's February 2022. What what are some of the biggest you needs you you have right now?

So to two huge things, you know, and my favor list is very long, Eric, over the past five years. So I know I'm always asking many favors of people. Um, but the the two main things are we want people to share the word about our program, either the where it the physical locations, and they're all listed on our website, and we're we're releasing more and more all the time, to either share the word of where they are and to encourage loved ones, colleagues, friends, people who you know have been affected by cancer to just think about coming and taking part in our program. Or if you do work in the fitness industry, if you're a fitness professional, to just stop and think, well, is this something that maybe I would actually be interested in doing? Um, because we're always looking to increase the locations, we're always looking to increase people that we work with. So that's one ask. The second ask is to just spend a moment to go on to battle cancer.com, read some of our stories of people, look at our events, look at our fundraising, look at what we're trying to do, and just look. Because I guarantee that if you spend a little bit of time and you you look at our website, you look at the program, what our events manage to capture, the way that we're trying to approach things, you'll pick something that will work for you. You might come and sign up to an event, you might want to volunteer on the program, you might go and fundraise for your own chosen charity, or you might even just for the day stop and think about someone that you knew that was affected by cancer. And so we win. Any of those is a win. There's a sliding scale, but we we win on any of those. So those are my two things, really. And as um as cheesy as that last one sounds, that has resulted in some of the best conversations and and sort of future partnerships and actions that we've ever had by someone just landing on the website and having a read.

Yeah, right on, man. So we're uh where do you want people to go, Scott? If they want to get a hold of you, obviously there's battlecancer.com, right? Yeah. Um people want to get a hold of you or just have a chat. Where do you want them to go?

Yeah, battlecancer.com. So www battlecancer.com. It's everything is there. Pretty much any social media site. If you type in battle cancer, you you look and see our shield, that's that's us. Um, or people can contact me directly. It's just Scott at battlecancer.com. Um, you know, like I said, some of the most wonderful things that have happened to us have been a result of somebody listening to a podcast, reading something that we we've had out as a publication and contacting us. Um, even if it's just to share a story, it's great. So, you know, biggest number one is battlecancer.com. There's a there's a contact us form there. All people reaching out to me personally is absolutely phenomenal. Um, yeah, just just check them out. Two or three minutes is uh we've got plenty of that in the day where we we're looking at our phones. So let's let's get you to just have a look at our website for two or three minutes.

Awesome, man. Well, thank you, thank you, Scott, for uh, you know, everything you're doing. Thank you for the great conversation. Uh it was really enjoyable, very informative, and uh, you know, I was very, I guess, optimistic for where we could, you know, where this thing could go. So great work. Um, really enjoyed you coming on and uh yeah, appreciate your time. Ladies and gentlemen, Scott Britton. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minute. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it. We want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the futureoffitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the future of fitness. Have a great day.