The Future of Youth Fitness - James FitzGerald & Jeff Martin

I think it's very easy to use tech and social media to go after kids are overfat, they're obese, no one's moving, they're on a screen. And that's they're just everyone's just talking past one another. Yeah. No one's like, well, why do they exercise anyways? Like, why don't you go after that?

Hey fitness friends, welcome back to the Future of Fitness Podcast and Interview Series. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and this is episode number 118. I get to talk to James Fitzgerald and Jeff Martin. Again, this time together. So this is my first uh interview with more than one guest on the show. And as James described it, it is a polyamorous uh podcast interview. Uh that's hysterical. So, why these guys? Well, I've known them both for a while. Um, I've known of them for even longer. Uh, James is the founder of OPEX, uh, formerly known as APT OPT, and Jeff Martin is the co-founder of Brand X. And together they have joined forces uh to really create change in the world of youth fitness. And more than just that, but just the overall state of our youth, right? Building resiliency through physical activity. And I'm gonna let them describe what they're doing and what their vision is. But, you know, both these guys have no problem calling people out. And, you know, James is my coach for uh more than a few years, I believe. Um both, you know, fitness and kind of life coach for lack of a better term. But he calls it how he sees it, and he's not afraid to ruffle some feathers, and that's why I like having him on the show. It's great. And uh you get a lot of authentic authenticity, you got a lot of honesty, and and uh they're not afraid to uh, like I said, call people out. So yeah, enjoy the show. It's it's really great, and I'm really excited for what they're doing, and I'm happy to be able to support it just by even having him on the show. Uh, but you should look him up and see what they're doing if you want to get involved in this type of movement. So um before we get on to the interview, a couple things. Uh you know, if you haven't yet, please go over to iTunes, uh leave us a nice review and subscribe to this show, The Future of Fitness. I really appreciate it. And if I see your interview, your review come through, I will read it like the one I'm about to read from Anthony Blades. So, man, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. Uh the review is titled Eric's a Normal Guy with a lot of info. And uh let's read it. So, the Future of Fitness Podcast, says Anthony, is one of the best out there. Eric Malzone presents himself as just a normal guy, but he has a wealth of knowledge in the areas of fitness and life itself. He chooses guests from a variety of backgrounds to provide a well-rounded teaching. Even if you are not a fitness buff, you will benefit from this podcast. They provide encouragement for building a business, sustaining that business, self-discipline, following your dreams. Eric and his wife are nomads. Exclamation point, look up nomadic living. These are topics that affect all of people. Of course, being a fitness enthusiast myself, I do hope you include exercise and diet in your application of these concepts. Thanks, Eric, for being real. Dude, Anthony, thank you, man. That was great. I really appreciate it. And it means a lot to me. And if uh, you know, it helps out the show and it keeps us going, and it's great to hear from you. So uh I'm really happy that we're offering the value to you. And uh yeah, you know, I do try to keep it authentic. Um, I am very humbled by every guest that I have on here because uh, you know, some of these people are just wealths of information, wisdom, and knowledge, and it it's incredible that I get to sit and interview and learn um at time, you know, at the same time provide value to an audience. So I feel very blessed in that, and I really appreciate it, Anthony. And before we get on to the uh interview here with James and Jeff, uh I want to mention our sponsor for this show. So this is brought to you by certifiedcoursecreation.com. So here's the deal you know, you look at people like James and Jeff, they have their own online certifications. I'm not sure if they're accredited or not, but they do, and I guarantee you they're highly lucrative and they make a difference. So, you know, if you're a fitness, health, and wellness professional, you're out there and you're ready to stop trading your time for money, perhaps you have a deep understanding of a specific topic that you want to share and get out there and essentially build a legacy, then go to certifiedcoursecreation.com and uh book a discovery call with the team. And they would be happy to start to pull this out and help you create a vision for it and show you how the whole process works from you know building out the curriculum, uh, the content, uh, annotations with a full team of scientific writers, uh building out an exam, uh, what else? Uh sales page, email series, uh you name it, soup to nuts, the whole solution uh to get your online accredited certification out there to the world and start producing that revenue stream for you. So yeah, go to certifiedcoursecreation.com, check it out. Now, without further ado, let's go on to episode number 118 with James Fitzgerald and Jeff Martin of OPEX and Brand X, respectively. Enjoy. All right, and we're live. James Fitzgerald, Jeff Martin. Welcome back. Nice to see you, Eric. Yeah, it's great to see you guys. This is uh this is gonna sound weird, but this is my first podcast threesome.

So I uh we'll just let that sit for 10 seconds of silence.

Yeah, we'll lose 50% of the audience. That's good. That's okay. Perfect. Perfect. So uh once again, like all great podcasts, uh, we had an excellent conversation right before that was not recorded. Um, so no one will ever hear it. And uh if you guys can, I mean, so people listening, you know, I've had both James and Jeff on previous podcasts, and there's a reason specifically why we're all three of us are on this uh this recording today, and it's to talk about you know youth fitness. And you can learn a lot more about James and Jeff uh individually in those podcasts, um somewhere around the 40-50 mark uh of this show. But maybe if you can, gentlemen, just give us a quick synopsis of of what you do and and uh you know currently as of today is uh February 1st, 2019. James, let's have you go first.

Yeah, I'm the founder of OPEX Fitness. Uh we're a uh global education company uh where our mission is to really make an impact on fitness. We do that through educating coaches as to what fitness is and uh helping them bring that to the market. Um we have an education program that helps those coaches um get those principles, basically. Um directly, I'm also involved in uh sport governance for um uh fitness as a sport. And uh now more directly involved with uh making an impact on fitness at a younger age through helping those coaches help younger kids navigate in fitness.

What's uh what's the name of the organization, James, that uh for fitness as a sport? IF3. IF3 and what does that stand for? Uh International Functional Fitness Federation. Awesome. Awesome. Jeff, how about you, man? What are you up to nowadays?

Well, my wife and I co-founded the Brandus Method, been involved with uh kids in fitness for 15, 20 years, and over the past four or five years really began to uh become involved with uh teaching coaches how to do what we were doing. And uh building on a that coming out pretty pretty soon with our professional youth coaching research. James is helping us with that. And um our our goal really right now is teaching kids and teaching coaches how to work with kids.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, yeah, you guys uh you know I've known a I've I think I started in uh the world of you know, we'll just say CrossFit back in 08. And uh I've I've known about both of you guys for a very long time. So it's really cool for me to see you guys working together and uh working on something that can really, you know, make an impact on one of the probably um one of the issues with our modern society that's just not talked about enough, right? Which is youth fitness, and uh it's just not addressed. You know, it's it's there's a million problems that people look at. Um obviously the media takes full control of that, but really this is something that um you know the deterioration of of youth fitness is is a big deal. And uh I'd be curious, I know you guys kind of gave me some insights before recording, but tell us a little bit how did you guys how did you guys find each other? What was what's the vision of what you're working on now? Um, yeah, who want to go first on that?

I can go ahead. Um yeah, with the with the idea of well, have two young girls now and seeing them grow up. Um, and I have a background in physical education and a little bit more steeped in uh motor learning and growth and development, connected to biology and and uh physiology, um, and didn't really practice that with anyone but adults for a large part of my career. And as time has gone on and we tried to create this governance around sport, we we looked out there and tried to look for systems that are currently in place that would allow coaches to kind of help navigate those kids from three years of age all the way up for the entire continuum. Um, and that's how we came to a connection was from IF3 towards Brand X to talk to them about what is that education that's in place to help coach this. Um, and then I got more involved in seeing them what they're about, what they wanted to do. And I think that separate previous connection I talked about from my background and my kids and trying to make an impact on fitness. Um, and you know, when you when you say you want to make an impact, like that has to be measurable, and you also have to have hold some standards to what you're actually doing when you say that. Um, and so I see it as you know, with my age and where I sit in business, it's it just feels good to wake up and and try to organize that, hence the involvement with uh with the brand next.

Yeah, James, you talked about measurable impact for for this particular you know project that you guys are working on, if project for lack of a better term, um partnership, I guess. But how do you measure that impact? How are you guys doing that?

Yeah, well, the real simple way is to try to get as many coaches through the program as possible. Hopefully they're gonna be conscious enough in fitness education to pass on that information to change a generation, right? Um and so we measure that actually through the people that do the certification and then helping them not only navigate principles, but how to put this into practice for society and all the shit crap that they have to navigate around, which we talked about in your point there. Um and you know, separate to that point, but um the reason why I also say measurable impact because I think it's admirable that people would talk about you know trying to do something, you know, you see it on the media every day, right? Kids reading technology, not enough activity that and it's just everyone's talking past one another, but no one wants to like lay an uncomfortable fist down and do anything about it. Yeah, you know, no one wants to do that. So we're be we've become so lacking in resilience physically, but also emotionally, that we can't even have a tough conversation on, you know, at seven years of age, your boy and girl should be able to do a pull-up. That's a that's an uncomfortable conversation to have now in terms of like free speech and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It uh so that's what I mean is like what are you what are you doing about it? Are you just talking? Are you just complaining? Are you just posting shit on Twitter? We are making an impact by actually educating coaches, putting systems in place that they're gonna go out and actually measure what that impact is. And so when I say that, there's some backing to it so that we can actually make an impact as opposed to just conversation and and uh watching this whole generation just you know fucking fall fall over one another to try to get on stage to get their STEM award, but they they gotta breathe so hard just to grab it, you know?

Yeah, it's um and I'd be curious to hear your insights on this too, Jeff. But you know, I feel like you know, when you talk about let's talk about that pull-up example, right? Like someone should be able to do a pull-up at age seven. If if the parents or the generation above doesn't have that standard for themselves, they're never gonna have it for their kids. Yeah, right?

Um so many emulating, so many things that are connected to that six-year-old having that problem, right? Um remember, I just used the pull-up as like the the the proxy of measurement of physical physicality, right? Um, so it's not a pull-up, I don't know, run around the block and not you know, not fall apart, you know. Um anyways, it's a deep one. And I know Jeff, you got some thoughts on that.

I think, Eric, you were talking about, and we talked about all the problems that we hear about on the on the news. And all of you know, kids are overweight, kids on screen time. Um and I think one of the things that brought James and I and Mickey together was this idea that everything that we looked at was trying to address that problem. Like that problem, like, look, let's let's we need to develop um deal with the fact that kids are obese. We need to deal with the fact that kids are on a screen too much, we need to deal with the fact that and every program's dealt with that, and not with the idea that kids should play, kids should learn how to move, kids should be that that that is the the goal of physical education and physical activity to expand their ability to um to engage in the world. The the kids' fitness shouldn't be measured by work capacity, it isn't measured by how fast they can do something or how much they can do, but or uh or um in an adult in an adult fashion. It should be in how it can engage with the world. Can they do the pull-up? Can they run around the block? Can they play soccer? Can they play baseball? Can they do all of these things? And I I kind of like go back to when I was in school, um, way back in the 1960s, 1960s, and I was in elementary school, and we had a PE teacher come in. And our PE teacher taught us track, taught us gymnastics, taught us uh, you know, dancing, you know, square dancing, ballroom dancing, taught us to, you know, we we played games, but the idea wasn't to get the class fit. The idea was get you know, expose the class to to um different things, let them uh find solutions for different movement problems, and and teach them how to teach them how to jump over over a um you know do a high jump. And then let them find the best way to do that. And and really that is kind of the genesis of coming back to what we were trying to do at Brand X and what we were trying to spread out. We weren't trying to make kids who could lift a lot of weight. They they eventually lifted a lot of weight because of what we were doing. But what we were trying to do was um give kids uh this base of physical literacy, which we felt was a more important um measure of physical fitness for kids. And that equated in their teen years to athleticism, and then uh it equated to kids who you know would walk on to a to a college team and and make it, you know, on a college team, would walk on, you know, to do uh to just decide that one day, hey, I want to take up rock climbing, hey, I want to take up rowing, I want to take up this. This is a kid who's full, or these are kids who are fully engaged and capable of doing whatever they want throughout life. And that was kind of the the idea that that's what's failing. And the the outcome of that is kids are overweight, kids are spending up too much time on their screens, kids are doing that. When and kind of our talk here when I moved to this location and I've seen kids outside playing. The other day I was out there, I was looking, um, a group of uh about 15 kids playing on one of the fields, they play a pickup game of football, kids just coming up playing football. You rarely see rarely see that anymore. I was sitting there playing with my granddaughter for about half an hour on the playground. Not one time did I see a kid pull out a pull out a um a screen. They didn't, no phones. That's highly unusual today. But what were these kids doing? Well, they're engaged in in physical activity, they're engaged and and um and compelled by what they're doing. And so we're walking down the street, the elementary school over here, and on the side of the building is here's the elementary school, and it says gymnasium. So the community we're in prize or um or prizes physical activity enough to to build a gymnasium in their elementary school. Don't see that much anymore. There's a there's an auditorium. Yeah, so I know that's kind of my soapbox, but the the point is is what we do um is an umbrella. It covers all of those things. You know, if if kids become engaged, they stop playing with their phones as much. If they become engaged, they become, you know, we can address obesity. If they become engaged, uh they're safer, you know, if they become engaged and and and are um active, they become uh more physically literate, they're safer on the foot on the on the field of sport. So we're the umbrella over which all of those things um covers, but it's more important it is for us uh the basis of these kids being engaged and active throughout the rest of their life. Yeah.

I'm all for it. And I think you know, if anybody's listening to this show and they're not for that, then email me. I want to know why. Right. Um, but you know, we alluded to the complexity of the issue. And I, you know, having talked to a lot of people within the fitness industry, you know, over the last year, especially over the last decade, I think it all starts with education, right? Which you guys are doing very well. It's a cultural thing, right? It's like the like you were talking about, you know, in Phoenix now where you are, Jeff, you know, it's culturally different. You know, so I see a couple things, you know, culturally, how do we start to make that shift, right? And the other thing I've seen too, and and feel free to disagree with me on this as well, is that I feel like a lot of the people who, you know, coaches who take on kids' programs or um youth, you know, youth fitness at the grade school, high school level, even, uh, they're considered to be almost like they're expected to be martyrs, right? Like, hey, you know, this is a glorious thing. You no, we're not gonna pay you for this. This is something you should be doing, right? So it's become very difficult at that level for people to, I don't know, maybe it's the the mind shift of of the fitness profession. But do you guys, do you know what I'm talking about? Is that recognizable for you? That that problem? Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. The uh man, we're you know how we got here, it uh you know, I I think it's admirable, Eric, that you're trying to say it starts with education or it's a cultural thing. I think that it's such a it's such a complex thing that it needs like a thousand conversations to resolve itself. It's not, it's you know, to be fair, it's not a one thing. You know, I I'll just add a couple of things, you know, that makes people think about it is is why are we exercising? You know, we you you gotta really think about that. Um, and that that opens the gateway to like, yeah, what's the intention behind the exercise, right? And with great intent of these martyrs or people for the last 50 years, they had great intent, you know, in helping people through fitness, but they were told you do this through sport participation, yeah? Because sport was this opportunity to to overcome movement solutions or whatever. But now we see they're that's gone from the sweet spot. Of course, we kill everything, right? It's like if we if we're gonna play it, we bet we better play it to be elite, and then we better surround an entire culture around teaching them at age four how to be elite at football. You know what I'm saying? Um I say that due to what's coming up this weekend, and and you know, I don't know how many billion people are gonna watch it, right? Yeah, um, so I think it really it's it's from the enlightenment area era, where whether you believe it happened or not. Um, and we did not necessarily one day have fitness coaches. There was no such thing as education on fitness. You had to move during the day in order to survive and reproduce, right? And now we have to structure, we have to structure with intelligent design how to live so that the body is honored just as much as the mind is honored, i.e., the enlightenment area, up to today. Today it's so cognitive driven, right, based upon information sharing technology, et cetera, right? Who are the who are the most admired people in the world today? It's not Arnold Schwarzenegger anymore, right? It's the intellectual dark web or politicians, right? Thinkers who sit in a chair, right? So you're not, you know, when when is it going to be that the you know the the phys ed coach gets honor honorable mention, right? For what? I don't know, for changing an entire fucking generation of of people to appreciate movement. Right. Like how do you how do you value that? So it's a very complex thing as to and all the people involved, I mean, I it just I I I can't even talk. Like it blows my mind as to the the shit that you gotta deal with and putting out fires, but I think there has to be one like question of like why why do we do exercise in general? And I think that brings up all the all the shit to make you recognize uh the the the the the issues. Well why why do we do exercise in general? Most times it's to uh decrease pain, um to lose fat, or to add energy. That that's that's and then if you ask a six year old why they do exercise, it's because mom does it, it's because it's usually As punishment, or it's because it's going to make them better at a sport that they don't want to get better at.

Yeah.

Right? So there's a few percentages, right? Maybe there's someone out there that's like, no, I don't do that. I tell them about the positive of movements, solutions, etc. Then, you know, we love you for that. But the 99.7% of the rest of everyone else, when they look at exercise, it's it's generally that. Right? And just think about my my point on it is like, you know, and if there, if the intention is off, Eric, like you know, you've worked with clients before who had improper intention, right? There's no utility in that. None. And it'll come back to haunt you, maybe in four years, maybe in ten, but it'll eventually burn you out. And so if a kid at age six is doing movement for the wrong reasons, even though they don't have a rational thought as to why, it will end up in problems. And they certainly don't have fucking role models around them who are like, why should we, why should we, like my girls last night were out back, like, you know, you keep asking the question, why should we move around out back? Why should we do this stuff? I was like, just because we can. Because we're capable of doing it. You know, it's like, but but what's their question? That's based upon their their mind, their thought process, right?

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's it's amazing to me, and I I want to hear your thoughts on this too, Jeff. But the how many people are prisons within their own body? Right? That's that's the thing, is like you see people who have chronic disease, you know, way over overweight, over fat, as you would say, James, right? You know, just people who are actually, and we Max Shank was on the show not too long ago too, and we talked about this. Like people who are just prisoners in their own body due to mobility, inactivity, all of that, right? And you're seeing that eke you know, younger and younger into societies. It's um that that thought of like, because I've never been trapped inside my own body, you know, I I live a very active lifestyle, but that is so foreign to me, right? But a lot of people are.

And what you perceive you can do and can't do. And the truth of the matter is is when you get we're doing a uh have a project where we're working with uh some doctors with some kids who are not morbidly obese, but super morbidly obese. So you're talking about you know a 15-year-old kid who weighs 600 pounds, and well, you know, in their head they can't change. When somebody is 50 pounds overweight, 100 pounds overweight, they go on a diet because they want to lose the weight, and that you know, they they don't lose it in the time frame that they think they should. And they they feel trapped. I can't affect my life, I can't affect it this way. Flipping that on his head, you know, like the project we're dealing with with these overweight kids. We have to change the way they think, but we have to find for us, the idea was let's have them find success in movement, let's have them want to come to the gym and move. That is that is the success. So um that is I I I don't I don't work with adults, I work with kids. James says, you know, kids are asking why I do want to move around. Well, we won't be because it's fun, it's a way to engage in the world, it's because it brings us um it brings us joy to do that, and and that's a hard concept to bring to an eight-year-old or a 10-year-old who has joy in their in their you know in their screen. That's I'm sitting someplace finding that. So our gyms have to be playgrounds, our gyms have to be engaging, we have to teach kids and not taking them there to work out, but taking them there to move and and to and to find joy in movement.

Yeah. Yeah.

Trap yourself, your body in your mind or your body. You see yourself as somebody who can engage with the world.

Yeah. Yeah, the kid thing, yeah, I'd agree too, Eric. The kid thing is uh, or the children, you know, let's say three to to 25. I still think you're on a 25, you don't have maximal brain development. So I'm not an adult until you're 25, let's say. And we currently know that from how we see 20 to 25 year olds behaving, which I was too, is like, how can you put anyways? How can you put a 22 year old in any form of leadership, you know? Like, because you got a good idea online, oh well, that's good. You're not a leader. Um, so let's say for the adult group, I would say that self-responsibility and individualism comes into that, about about being trapped in your body, right? Because 25 years of age up, I would disagree with that fact, meaning that someone has to take some form of self-responsibility for what they're dealt with, right? And we don't need to get into the you know free will, you know, conversation based upon that. But that's a when you're down below that, you know, I I I say again, that's why it's a cultural chaos, you know, to try to uh crack that nut because um, you know, just there needs to be just good fucking adults who who understand you honestly, like no, you're right. I mean, it's a simple statement, right? Be a fucking adult, right? Like um, and I don't need to go into the the list of things how to be a fucking good adult, but because there's lots out there that you can look at, but um you know, common sense is lost and people just don't recognize how you can influence because that 13-year-old he was talking about, they they can't make you know big critical decisions or observations on like what does this all mean, right? To them, it's like how am I gonna fucking survive this pure nightmare? Right? How am I gonna survive in a school? Right? How am I perceived when I'm trying to become a human? When I'm trying to pull away from the immediate family. Like, we can't even possibly understand the psychological turmoil that goes on inside that kid's head. So to propose an idea that you're gonna move to like navigate better in society is like that's like seven layers too deep for him, you know? Um so you need fucking smart adults. You need adults around who are just gonna like partner up and help them with movement and give them that little nudge so they start getting this these aha moments, right? Like self-confidence built out of those things, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it's not just for the super morbidly obese, it's for it's for any kid who's just learning how to navigate, you know? Um and then they start seeing things, as we all know, that extend beyond the physicality into into life. And that's when it that's when it gets powerful. Yeah.

Yeah. So give me the nuts and bolts. Like, how how are you guys, you know, from the education point through, you know, if if people want to get engaged with with what you guys are doing, what is that what does that look like? What does the whole thing look like? What's that experience?

Can I jump in with uh what um what James did with us? James came out and we interviewed and decided to partner on this, and and you know, our goal was to be able to teach people about what we had done and make that spread. Um and James spent just a ton of time. I mean, I think it was one or two one and a half, two hours a week for the entire summer interviewing us, just like, what do you what do you do about this? What do you think about that? And just developing taking our method, what we did, and boiling it down to principles, which is really what uh is being presented at the PYCC. What's what's what we what we did. And I think the idea was for us was uh you know to be able to standardize outcomes, to be able to see people accomplish taking kids and providing them with this experience for this, expanding their physical literacy and expanding their ability to problem solve to provide their own solution to this is a very unique, it's a very unique training. But we're dealing now with unique problems in our society. And what we what we saw 10 or 15 years ago with kids coming into the gym is quite a bit different than what you see now. You see kids now coming in who have lost what I say is just like standard human movement. You have a 12-year-old coming in who can't skip, who can't do a pull. Not only can't they do a pull, but they can't hang on the bar, they can't bear crawl, they can't, they can't uh sideshow. These are things that you have to be able to do to be safe and sport. That's what your goal is. And these these kids have spent so much time not moving that it's like they've lost their library card to the library came in movement. And our goal, you know, so we've had to our program over the course of the 15 to 20 years that we've been doing has had to change to adapt to what's so um, so I guess the point back to the back to the training was that this program or our program constantly changes, constantly evolves, but there's principles behind it that James really spent, I I admire the amount of time he spent really interviewing us, really trying to figure out what we were doing, why we did it. And you know, there were hard questions, just like, tell me why, tell me why, and coming down to some really uh concrete principles about how how and what we were doing.

Yeah, and so the the end you know piece to make it right in the middle as to what we're going after that avatar of a coach, right? That's that's that's our that's our let's think of it in a business sense, right? We have one one market that we're going after. That's the the adult uh fitness coach who really wants to have the principles to use and go and educate and teach fitness effectively for those out of diapers up to 18 years of age and beyond if they wish to do so, with uh things inside that course that will give them ideas on business assessment, program design, uh culture, safety, the whole package, right? So if they go through that one product on the other end, they should have enough where they're like, I can I can fucking do this, right? I can do this. Yeah, and uh that's what we're going, we're going down sinking with that one. We're putting all the effort into going after and finding those people. We're gonna scour the earth to like find the folks that can go through that and really make an impact. Um, and that's where we're putting all of our energy. And then outside of that, we got a lot of great ideas of like how to spread not only to that one coach, but to speak to the market as a whole, you know, as to what that message is, to create some real critical thinking on what it should look like. And some of those things are the aforementioned programs Jeff was a part of. Um, I think you know, uh long-term connecting tech and public institutions around fitness and fitness measurement and where this is and what is a system that's helpful for that. Um, I could see us long term being like a an unbelievable API right inside of a school system because they don't want to handle the physical problem anymore. So they're gonna need expertise in that area, and that expertise is not coming out of academia. They're not sending out all these phys ed coaches who are like ready to rock and roll and deal with the current issues inside the physic the physical sense out there. So um, you know, I can see us uh you know moving towards that over time. Yeah. What does PYCC stand for? Professional youth coaching certification.

Okay. Yeah. You mentioned tech, and I this is kind of this may be out in left field, right? But I had um a guy named Taylor Johnson who was on the show, and he's uh he's a performance coach for esports. And I know that sounds crazy, but people can go back and listen to the episode. But it's it's true, right? I mean, it's okay, you know, you look at it, any anything that starts to get money or prestige, you start to see people get hyper competitive, right? Looking for any advantage possible, right? Happened in CrossFit in 2007-8, right? Um so he trains these these people, these have these esport athletes, to become you know, the best they can be at their sport. Because you know, you go out to some of these tournaments, I guess. I don't know, I've never been to one, but there's like 15 million in a purse, right? A team can take home, you know, that changes a life, these changes lives at an early age. And his point was look, how do we take the technology, you know, whatever it is that we're talking about, phones, you know, um anything with a screen device, games, how do we maybe meet kids where they are, right? Use that interest into something that we can now make into more physical literacy, right? Yeah. Um, it's just an interesting thought. And I would love to hear if you know if that's something that's crossed your guys' minds. Oh yeah.

I sleep, I sleep on that shit all the time. The conversation of esports, when you put sport to anything, there has to be like a deeper definition of sport, which is outside of that conversation, and to respect that guy as well, like it's not for this time, but um sport for me, without a physical sense of physic physical expression, is not really a sport. Um, and you know, and then it's like, well, my thumbs and my mind, it's like, well, now we're getting a gray area. So I just define it over here to here in relation to that. Um, I think at the end result, though, to answer your question, um gamifying anything, which is what you heard in Jeff's language, allowing kids to overcome solutions to movement, right, can be embedded with technology all so easily, right? That that's just, you know, in long term, although it sounds uncomfortable, but long term we'll get more comfortable with it. Like you know, my feelings on it, right? If you don't mesh with technology soon enough, you know, we're just not going to be ready for its overhaul. So I think some way of gamifying movement that that allows and and inspires movement solutions and to overcome movement solutions and how that's measured, that's what I meant in terms of the tech movement connection. Um, what that looks like, you know, it could just be a ring, it could be a simple little thing. A kid walks into class and puts their arm out at the door and a little clamp goes on their arm, it's like, beep, that's Johnny. Next kid, boop, that's Lucy, you know, and they're just doing shit, and it it develops like ideas on total movement time, power output, kind of things that they accomplish for the day. Like if we don't think that's capable, you know, we're we're missing the boat on it. So um I think that's that's where it'll it'll direct over time. Um and maybe another time too, I'd like to be on a discussion maybe with that guy in terms of uh um the you know uh number one, the the lack of physicality in the definition of a sport, um, and then what's the long-term game plan for that? Um and then an area of interest, super area of interest, is uh um clean sport. So, you know, uh gamifying and technology, um, how do you get better and how do you like beat the system? It's through medications, Adderall, psilocybin, LSD, etc. So are they measuring blood values and like pre-testing uh for all those? And I don't think that's within Wada's guidelines when you're considering the sport, so you know, and how to test them, etc., for metabolates. So I'm of interest in trying to figure that one out.

Yeah.

What do you think about um the current attempts to uh bring technology into fitness? So you have like you know, things like Dance Dance and Nintendo Go or Nintendo We and things like that. And you know, I uh had kids, I watched them do those kind of things, and it and it boils things down right now. What it does is boils things down to really uh uh simple movement, you know, like okay, dance dance is not um you're not really dancing, you're really just feet up and down in a certain pattern. And you know, so to me, I I keep coming back to how do you mesh this technology with actual things that increase physical literacy. So climbing, rolling, you know, grappling, throwing, you know, running. And how do we how do we do that? I don't know yet. I don't I I feel like what they've done so far in selling it has is almost hindered the progress forward.

Yeah, because their intention, yeah, their intention is incorrect. Again, it goes back to them saying, oh, we'll get kids off their ass and they won't be fat. But that doesn't make it an admirable attempt of measurement at a period of time where we're just trying to figure shit out, right? And uh we're in this weird period of it. But I can give you an example of what the future may look like that could, you know, maybe create a solution to that. And that's uh uh a vertical or a virtual reality headset that 15 kids put on in the class as soon as they walk in with that measurable device, and it they each have to go through what what is an obstacle course, an actual physical obstacle course in the gym, right? But they put it on prior, so it creates increased motor learning, intrinsic motivation, and connection to the physical task that's upcoming. So you take that super fat kid that can't shuffle, when they through virtual reality can see it, they can believe it. And then that's the first point on intention of them actually going through those solutions. Then that little thing on their arm, that may measure exactly like what they did, you know, i.e. the steps thing, which some people get uncomfortable with, but it's movement. So I think we'll get there, and I think it'll be better measured. And I think our brains, Jeff, right now, are actually not good enough to actually understand how that's gonna happen, if that makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, if you look at all the major institutions, and I I think about this all the time. I think about it too much. But if you look at one that's ripe for disruption, it's it's the educational system overall, right? I mean, it's let's just put, you know, it's already disrupted, actually. Yeah, well, it's it's gonna be it's it's coming. It's coming in a big way, right? I mean, because you talk about virtual reality, you know, what's stopping someone from just being able to put on a headset, now walk through Egypt, right? Look at the pyramids, feel the pyramids, you know, get a lesson that way. Um, school is is boring for most people, right? It was bored, it bored me out of my mind, right? At times, but you just had to do it. You learned how to sit down and just eat it, right? Um, physical education, like in the way I learned in school, was was boring, right? And I think, I mean, I played a lot of sports, but you know, for me, it was and I think it's you know, there's so I'm just wondering like this is a great conversation, which I hope, you know. My goal with the conversations like this is that people start thinking about this shit, right? Like it's because it's coming no matter what. So how do we embrace it and you know, even talk about it even more? Um yeah, it's it's a fascinating, fascinating idea.

Yeah, I uh I don't know why I just thought about it, but we also don't know in 10 years that we'll be fighting off robots. Like maybe we need to get a tape to to fight off part humans. Like, you know, how do you know? How do you know? Well, it's not 10 years, why not 20 years, right? So if you think you won't need to have like a billion people who are physically able of doing shit, it's until those lines get crossed that we don't think about those things. So that could be another thing to add to like, why are we all getting fit, you know, 20 kids five up six years of age for the eventual oncoming robots? Skynet. It's Skynet. It may inspire some kids through through scare tactics. No, I'm joking, but I'm kind of not. Um no, I think I think there is a mesh. There is a possibility to mesh. Um, Brian Capelin is the, I would say, probably the leading spokesperson on that uncomfortable area of the new wave of education um and what that's gonna look like. And he, like you and I have talked, Eric, before, that it's almost like singularity or tech improvements and the exponential increases, no one's ready for the overhaul that's gonna happen. Um and I don't I don't know why everyone's not seeing that, right? Everyone's not seeing that. Totally unfulfilled people after college going, I don't use any of this shit for my life, and then this big wave of like you will not sit in a chair, you will work from home, you can travel the globe. Like, how's that connected to sitting in a chair for 26 years of your life, right? And obtaining information. It just blows my mind. So the physical aspect of it, again, that's my point on the STEM score, right? If you you can't like walk up on stage to get your STEM award, how useful is that, right? So you're gonna have to be participating in physical movement.

Yeah. Yeah, it's well, it's you know, you look at how, and I, you know, technology is a big focus of this show, you know, within the realm of fitness and health and wellness. And you know, the biggest thing, the biggest advantage I see to technology nowadays is like, you know, let's let's give a gracious estimate that 20% of the population in North America has a gym or has a trainer, right? That's fucking gracious, right? How do we technology is how we get to the other 80%, right? And if you You look at that, so that 20% is physically literate. What percentage of their kids are physically literate? Now we're looking at such a small percentage, right? Of of physically literate children. And uh yeah, I that's I I'm so curious. I mean, there's so many different ways that that tech can come in and solve that problem. We just haven't seen how all the the pieces fit together, right? I mean, AI will rule it all eventually. We just don't know how. But you know, the biometrics that you're talking about, nanotechnology, right? Everything that's gonna be coming into play. How do we get to that other 80%? That's that's what I like.

Yeah, well, I I don't know the answer, but I think it starts with that, you know, social structure of you're not being forced to, but you're forced to be educated on physical movement. If that makes sense. So it has to come in at the young ages, right? Being from responsible adults that are like, hey, uh fitness has to be like breakfast, right? And this becomes a cultural norm, right? Becomes a cultural norm. Why? Because these adults are teaching coaches to be like, hey, this shit's important, you know? Um, and I think secondary to that, the uh connection to measuring that through tech will result hopefully over time with a with a spur of it. But I think, Eric, the nut, the big nut to crack is the intention. Yeah, you know, because I think it's very easy to use tech and social media to go after kids are overfat, they're obese, no one's moving, they're on a screen, and that's they're just everyone's just talking past one another. Yeah. No one's like, well, why do they exercise anyways? Like, why don't you go after that? Right? And and that's where the the the we got to get people critically thinking about that question, I think.

So how is that how's that solution gonna look like? What's that solution gonna look like? You know, right now we have PE being taken out of schools in the young ages, so so you have a teacher who's not necessarily um uh interested in teaching physical literature physical education, and physical education now is mandated you know, two hours a week. Her her physical education is go out and track and run. That's it. Um PE teachers, as James uh said, you know, they're they're um they're not respected or they're not uh given the respect they should be in their in their um environment. We had a young lady or a young teacher contact us recently. She wanted to bring us down to have a little uh conference for for her and her um her peers, and she went to her uh her district and they said, Oh, there's no money for um for uh enrichment for PE teachers. Every other group you know gets enrichment. Um PE teachers, you know, in what other what other um academic or what other uh place in the school do you get a grade for simply showing up? In physical education, if you show up, you get a passing grade. You know, just I just showed up, I got to see. I'm going, I'm coming to math today. I'm coming to coming to advanced calculus. And I showed up and I got a C. That that stuff doesn't happen. And it's what it says is we don't take physical education seriously within the confines of of the school. So that's problematic. We need to be, we need to be there to support teachers that are still trying to do this. On the other hand, I think we need to be training those people who are interested in working kids, interested in making a difference, interested in having a gym that makes a difference, to be there to be the physical education for those kids who don't have it in school. You know, where can they go? Who this gym next door, this gym down the street from the school, can run PE for you for you know two or three days a week. Yeah. And I think that's you know, to kind of get outside of the technology idea, but physically, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna make a difference? How are we gonna affect change? Well, we have to try to uh culturally try to um get people to understand that within the confines of education, physical education is is as important as other types of education. And if that's not honored, we need to be there and make a difference to make a difference outside. So the kids that you know, where do the kids go? They can come to this gym, giant playground. They'll do everything that they used to do on the playground in these in these gyms. And we have to have uh trainers who are understand the principles of how to how to affect the um positive change in kids and are creative enough to provide you know movement solutions or movement problems the kids have to think about and you know, how do I get over this wall? Yeah, how many different ways can you get over this wall?

Yeah, it's it's it's c it's complex, right? I think one person I just listened to most recently talk about the complexity inside of a simple thing like back pain, right? You got to think of it as a process, not like a singular thing that's just like, oh, you know, bop, and it's done. It's a it's a big time process. Yeah. So uh I think that has to be recognized. I think also, so we don't sound like we're just talking in our own bubble either, Eric, if you brought on like a psychologist, they would say it's like, well, this is how humans have evolved, and and uh, you know, the parents are dictating behavioral habits and their genes are telling them this is how they behave, and this is the crack, you know, this is the nut you gotta crack. And then you get the biochemic, you know what I'm saying? And then you get the the uh um the new age you know philosopher on, and they're gonna be like, they just have to be taught at a young age to be an independent soul and figure things out, you know, and and they'll eventually climb trees and figure out that avocados are the only thing that you should be eating. Or you talk to an engineer and they'll be like, oh, it's about structure. You talk to a mathematician, it's like they don't understand numbers, you know what I'm saying? So I'm not dumb to think that you know we're not biased in that thought, but my point is that if you extract all those things without movement, they all fall apart. All of them fall apart. So you can give me the smartest cat who sits in a chair at a 18, he's having disease at 21. To house that brain that's so prolific, right? He's dead at 25. Why? Because he didn't move. Yeah, he didn't move. So it's all that balance of brain and brawn, and it has to come into that conversation. But I just want to make mention of that to think that like it's you know, push-ups are not the answer. But if you're giving an answer, I'll go tooth in tooth with you on how the push-up is the answer. Awesome. Awesome. So you guys or the pull-up.

Sorry, the pull-up. The pull-up, yeah, let's full circles. Perfect. Perfect.

Perfect, yeah.

Uh so where uh where do you guys where do people go? Right? There people are inspired, they want to learn more, they want to put intention behind this, uh, not just words. Where do they go?

P Y C C Yes, absolutely. So go to go to the our webpage, the brandexmethod.com. We have uh button for the PYCC for for sure. Um our Instagram page is really active. So you know at the brand X method, something that people can look at, get a feel for what we're trying to accomplish and what we're trying to try to do. Um that's for the Brand X method.

Cool.

Where can people come to see you?

Copexfit.com. That's right. You guys, thank you. Uh it's it's always a pleasure catching up with both of you and to get you both on the same video. It was great. Uh made my Friday, and uh hopefully everyone else who's listening to.

Awesome. Thanks, Eric.

Hey FitnessFans, don't leave yet. It's your host, Eric Malzone, and I have a quick favor to ask. Actually, three favors. So, number one, if you're a fan of our show, I ask you to do something that takes under three minutes. Go to iTunes, please, and subscribe to our show. Please, please, please. It means so much to us, it's so important. And then give us a favorable review. We would really, really appreciate it. And uh I can't tell you how much it means and helps us out. So I know it takes two minutes of your day, and uh it means a lot to us. So please do that. Number two, go to our YouTube channel, our fitness marketing alliance, and uh please subscribe to our YouTube channel there. Number three, if you like this episode or any of the episodes that we've released, share it on social. That's huge, that's a big deal for us. And when we put a lot of work into these episodes, uh trying to give you great actionable content uh for the fitness industry. So that would mean a lot. And that's it. So we have some big plans coming up for this show. I'll be talking about that in the next couple episodes. But thank you so much for listening. It means so much. And uh if you have any questions, please reach out to me. I'd love to hear it from everybody. Eric, E R I C at fitnessmarketingalliance.com.