"The Grid" - The Ultimate Coaching Platform - Joel Jamieson

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, where we talk with entrepreneurs, researchers, and practitioners in fitness, wellness, and the health sciences. I'd like to give a big thanks to our sponsors, Level Five Mentors, helping entrepreneurs achieve the highest levels of freedom in time, money, relationships, health, and purpose. Also, Certified Course Creation, helping entrepreneurs create accredited online certifications that are not only lucrative but highly scalable. Go to level5mentors.com or certifiedcoursecreation.com and learn more. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and once again, welcome to the future of fitness. Oh, we're live. Joel, welcome back. Thanks for having me back on. Yeah, man. So here we are, October 15, 2020. I think it's been a good maybe two years since I've had you on one of my podcasts. And uh it's great to have you back. There's some things have changed in the fitness industry, would you say?

I would think have changed everywhere, but particularly certainly the industry that is fitness has been impacted as much as any industry out there, you know, maybe the travel industry more. But uh yeah, it's it's been a crazy ride in 2020, that's for sure.

Yeah, man. How about you? So you're uh you're in the Seattle area. How about you personally? How has your life changed? Are you in a lockdown? Are you pretty free to roam about? Obviously, you know, yeah.

I mean, so the the funny thing is when this whole thing hit, I was on the North Shore of Hawaii and that was somewhat intentional, but once everything started closing down around Seattle, I was like, well, I might as well stay on the beach for a couple more weeks. So I spent the first part of this whole thing and wrote it out on the beach and actually built some products while I was out there for people that were looking for programs for a home. But uh Seattle was really the first area to get hit. Uh so I lived in Kirkland for a number of years, and the Kirkland retirement community was kind of this first big wave of of deaths. There was like 16 or 17 deaths in the retirement community, and that was really what triggered the entire thing. So I was, I mean, about as ground zero as you could get in the U.S. I was just a few miles away from that retirement community. So they've since traced this and realized it was just in the US well before that, but the that retirement community was really the main thing that kicked off the whole thing. So Seattle was fairly I mean, Washington State as a whole was was pretty quick to react and start shutting things down, and and gyms were locked down pretty quickly, and you know, it was definitely in the the earliest wave of shutdowns. Um I'd say right now where most stuff is open, but it's you know it's mostly half open. You know, gyms can now train uh six people at a time, movie theaters are gonna start opening for the first time here in a couple of weeks. Oh nice so you know, I would say life is is definitely not normal, but the things that you can do are are definitely less restricted now than they were, you know, four or five months ago. You know, personally I I used to do play a ton of racquetball. I can't play anymore right now. It's probably my my personal pet peeve. That's my biggest uh difference when I used to be able to do that I can't do now. But uh, you know, as a whole, I would say life is sort of back to normal, but not uh definitely not you know the way it uh was for so long. It's definitely impacted things a bit still since then.

Yeah, racquetball. It feels like uh I played a little bit when I was young. I feel like it's a really good way to get out uh aggression and stress.

Yeah, I mean I just I I like it for the conditioning element. I I for high high intensity stuff, I don't like doing whole other stuff, and racquetball is a competitive thing that'll keep me entertained and it's always different. You can play new people, and it's it's a hell of a workout. So it's I've charted hundreds of workouts on the heart rate side of things, and it's it's a great high-intensity uh workout, and it's just more fun. But uh yeah, I'm gonna play that for you know since March or whatever it's been. So that's my my main frustration, as petty as it may be. I miss it.

Yeah, it's all right, man. I was a big crybaby when they shut down the ski resort in early March. I uh yeah, there you go. My wife was like, Really? Like, grow up. I'm like, this is a big deal.

Yeah, I mean, I honestly I miss movie theaters. I'm I'm happy the movies are starting to come back online. We used to go to movie theaters, you know, once or twice, uh, you know, but once twice a month, and they've been shut down here for forever. So now they're finally starting to open theaters up in I think a week or two. I'm sure it'll be not quite the same experience, but it'll still be fun to go back and see the movies, although there's nothing to watch.

Well, I hope Dune is the movie that I'm looking forward to.

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, that that looks awesome. Dune and Top Gun 2. I want to see both of those.

Yeah. Saw there's uh there's a uh another Matrix coming out too, Matrix 4. So mostly original crew.

If they got the most original crew, then then I'm excited about if they I think they kind of jumped the shark a little bit in the last ones.

Yeah, yeah, anyway. So let's talk about you, man. So what's what's different with with your business over the last two years with eight weeks out and your certification program, Morpheus technology is is moving, ironically, Morpheus is moving forward quite a bit. I know you've made some huge strides. So yeah, man, let's start with uh with the coaching and the certification. How's that how's that grown?

Yeah, it's grown really well. I mean, our our goal's always been, you know, my my personal goal has always been to help as many people as possible get into the conditioning side of the game from the coach's perspective, and that's growing a lot over the last two years. And the the ironic thing is, you know, when when COVID first started hitting and gyms were shutting down, you know, my first thought was, well, you know, this thing is is we're not gonna do very well a bunch of coaches, you know, they're out of work, they're not gonna have money, they're not gonna want to be investing in educational courses and all those sort of things when they're and their jobs are on the line, they're not working. But the the funny thing is, I actually saw a tremendously big increase in people signing up for certification. We had a huge amount of coaches sign up while the gyms were shut down, and then basically I realized one, coaches weren't in the gym, so they had a lot more free time to learn and to invest themselves. And two, you know, sadly enough, a lot of them were making more money in unemployment than they were actually in the gym, all things considered, which is you know, good for them they were to pay their bills, but bad from the standpoint of, you know, if you're making more unemployment than you were actually doing a job, it doesn't say a whole lot about the the pay of the industry as a whole. But anyway, you know, we had a ton of coaches sign up for that over the last you know five, six months just because I think they've they've realized the industry is changing. They're they're they are gonna have to develop new skills and build their knowledge base and be able to train coaches or train people that you know maybe it's virtually and they have to be able to write conditioning programs, not just strength programs, because people haven't access to much strength equipment if they're they're virtual and they've they've realize they're starting to compete with all these other free programs and products online. So uh it's been it's been you know doing doing really well. And it was like I said, uh it was about the opposite of what I expected when this whole thing started, but when you start thinking about it, it actually does make sense that this is you know actually a pretty good time to invest in yourself and education if you're a coach, because if you want to keep your job in the long run, you're gonna have to be able to compete in this new world.

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of things that have been surprising. I mean, the real estate market has been shocking to me, you know, in so many different areas. Uh so how does with your coaching certification, people find out eightweeksout.com, right? Where where do they go for that?

Yeah, they go to eightweeksout.com. We've got uh basically an insider's list similar to the way some of the other courses run. Um, and then it opens to the public twice a year. But if they get on the insider's list, they get a chance to register for that early. So and then when when COVID hit, we started offering more openings and some zero payments, three days type stuff just to help people uh get going with that hard to put money down to start with. But uh yeah, everything's at eight weeks out, it's just a tab for certification. They can get on the insider's list, and then like so there'll be a chance to join before the the next public launch. And yeah, which it's been eye-opening just to see, you know, how many coaches, when they have more time and they have more money, they they invest in education, they invest themselves, which is certainly a good thing. Um so it's been great to see that.

Yeah, I mean I I from my experience in in the fitness industry over the last longer than I like to admit, period. I think uh one thing that that fitness professionals do is they do they do educate themselves.

They do, really.

And the one thing that generally they don't get educated on is running a business. That's a whole other conversation. How does your certification equip coaches to kind of deal with the new the new world with remote coaching and things like that?

Yeah, I mean, so look, the biggest thing I, the biggest example I can give you is is when this hit, as I said, I was on the beach and I started getting emails from people saying, like, hey, I I don't have access to my gym. Like, how can I stay in shape? How can I keep my conditioning going? You know, I've been following your work and your program and I feel like great shape, but I don't want to lose it now that I can't go to the gym. So I basically said, okay, let me see how many people are interested in this. And I put together an email blast and said, Hey, would you be interested in a 30-day you know gym free conditioning program? And my list exploded, and you know, I had flooded with emails of people who wanted it. So literally within two weeks, I put together this 30-day gym free program. I capped the number of people at 300 because I wanted to be able to deliver support and make sure they have their questions answered and you know that kind of thing. But we sold out 300 spots in like two days, and I had a huge wait list after that. So just you have to understand that whether you're in person or you're virtual, conditioning is such an important piece of the puzzle. And conditioning is easier than strength, you know, to coach virtually because you don't need a ton of strength training equipment. And there's obviously bodyweight exercises you can do on the strength side, but conditioning, you've got two legs, you can draw, you can run, you do sprints, you can do uh a million different types of conditioning drills and exercises and methods without having equipment. So if you're running programs virtually, or even if you're running programs on the gym with a limited amount of equipment or a limited number of people, uh, you know, conditioning is such an easy and important part to be able to incorporate in and make you know more effective if you understand how to actually write conditioning programs in the first place. So that's the biggest thing I'd say is it's it, you know, I was able to quickly generate quite a bit of revenue, but more importantly, help a lot of people that didn't have access to the gym, improve their fitness. And a lot of them wrote back and said they improved their conditioning even though they'd already had a high level of conditioning to start with, because they spent 30 days focusing on conditioning and and lifting a bit less and had more uh time actually putting the conditioning side. So, you know, again, I don't care if you're training somebody virtually or not, conditioning is it's such a big piece of the puzzle. If you know how to write programs, then you can deliver. Uh you can live there virtually or can deliver them in person and make a huge difference.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, a couple things. I think uh some of a few of my clients are listening to this. That's why you build an email list, number one. Uh over time and nurture it.

I am 100% on I've been saying that down the time. I mean, I I love the social media aspect and it's great if you've got a million followers and all that sort of stuff. But at the end of the day, if you don't have any email lists, you're missing down on a huge part of building a successful business. I don't care if your business is online or brick and mortar or whatever, email lists is where all your long-term revenue generation, it's where you threw your pot of gold that you can dip into to you know create income when you need it and to have these sorts of products available to people. The the social media is kind of taking over what people are uh focused on time building. But you know, to me, the only reason to build social media is to generate to make your email list bigger.

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And you know, the thing about social media is it can be taken away from you in any second.

Yeah, and uh your email list is yours, you know. Yep, 100%. I mean, Facebook is going through all kinds of changes, and there's there's gonna be even more, I'm sure, on the way, but uh yeah, that they can charge you how much money in front of people, they can decrease the number of people you see organically, they can shut your account down, they can control what you post. I mean, there's so much more uh in terms of just you know what's out of your control when your entire market is outsourced to your social media and you have nothing in between. You need the email list as you know, the the security blank and the foundation, as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah. And now uh in this strange culture, we're in now that you know you can have like your spouse can say something on Twitter that's inflammatory and they can shut down your account.

So it's it's crazy and it's only gotten crazier. So and I you know, I think it's you know, it just goes back to good fundamental marketing principles. You know, you you need to have control over your own prospects, your leads, your your your customers, your own people need to be in your system, which is you know email.

Yep, yeah, speaking my language, man. So your certification primarily focuses on metabolic conditioning, the different pathways, how to hit them, how to assess. Is that correct? Roughly.

Yeah, I mean yeah, 90% of it, sure. It's energy systems, um, it's movement development. So, you know, at the end of the day, you can have the best energy system development in the world, but if your movement sucks, you're gonna be inefficient and it's gonna cause conditioning problems. And at the same time, if your mental side and your ability to control your energy and control your stress levels isn't there, you know, that's gonna affect your energy conditioning and also nutrition. So it started out really just you know focus most energy systems, but we've added huge sections on movement, nutrition, mental performance, the whole whole nine yards and then you know, recovery. I brought in Buki Strength guys, Chris Duffin, I brought in Bill Hartman and Rank Robertson, um, Dr. Mike Rousseau, nutrition side, Brian Kane from Lange Performance. So I've added a ton of additional instructors and coaches in there aside for me uh to just build a more complete picture because again, conditioning is it's really about more than just, oh, I developed this energy system or I did a bunch of these intervals. I mean, that's fine, those are important parts of it, but conditioning is the big picture of all your training put together and your lifestyle factors and your mental components and all these things are so important. So it's it's more than just uh the metabolic side of it, it's it's the whole picture.

Which segues nicely into Morpheus. So with all these different factors that you mentioned, how do you track all that, man? How do you how do you collect that data?

Yeah, I mean, so that's that's what I built Morpheus for, and it was an extension of my first technology platform called Bioforce HRV, which really just measured HRV, which five years ago, ten years ago, if I said HRV, no one would have known what I was talking about, except maybe you thought I just announced STD, but it's heart rate variability. And nowadays it's an Apple Watch, it's everywhere else, people are familiar with it. But I started using that way back in 2000, right around 2000, actually. It created BioForce around 2009, and so I was collecting all this data and looking at HRV and all those sort of things. I realized we had all this way to measure the end result of people's lifestyle and training, which is what HRV basically reflects, but we weren't seeing all the things that were happening to actually cause those changes. So the idea of Himorphus was to take heart rate variability, take sleep data, activity data, workout data, and subjective, how you feel, and combine all that into all a recovery score that reflects the summation of all that, and some personalized heart rate zones every day to give you a gauge of you know what's high intensity if you do, what's moderate intensity of recovery, like how do these things uh play out, what heart rates should you train at? So it's a way to take all your data and then deliver recovery score to make better decisions about training, heart rate zones to make sure that you're training the right intensity and you get each day. So that's really the whole idea behind more of that. That's what we we use, of course. And um, it's been awesome because I said you you can see the big picture of why people don't make progress. You know, if someone's not getting enough sleep, if someone's activity is way off, if they're doing way too much intensity or they're not doing enough intensity, you know, for the first time you can actually see that as a coach or trainer and you can make adjustments and coach people a whole lot more effectively because especially now, at the end of the day, you know, the the hour in the gym makes a huge difference, but the 23 hours a day outside the gym are really what drive long-term changes and and health and wellness and fitness, performance conditioning. You know, you name it, the gym is a catalyst, but everything else is what determines whether or not those those training gains actually happen or not.

Uh you know, I'm curious as the things developed, and I I used uh Bioforce, I think, back in 2013, maybe, when I hired Janus Fitzgerald to coach me for a while. Uh and it was it was eye-opening. I was like, wow, this is really cool. Uh I didn't really know what to do with it yet, but now you know we're starting to figure it out as a fitness community. When you when you started it, I presume you had like a specific market in mind, like you know, the competitive athlete, the UFC fighter, or you know, combat athletes, things like that. Is that where you started or how did how did you branch out? Where did you start?

Yeah, I mean, since I I my initial um you know focus was on combat athletes, that was certainly a lot of the early adopters and my email list and bought my book Old Make Nation and then and then Bioforce, and then you know, say expanded, you know, from from just one sport to really, you know, any athlete that was training for a particular goal was certainly kind of our our focus and you know didn't have to be professional or the highest level. You know, any amateur or anybody who just trains recreational for sport was was a big user of of Bioforce. And then really the idea of Morpheus was to to expand that a bit to you know, really anybody that's doing a boutique class every other day or anyone who's uh you know trained to run a 5K or just you know, it it's hard to target or target that's appeal to everybody and you don't really want to because you appeal to nobody. Um but the goal has always been to to find people that are consistently in the gym, you know, they're pushing themselves on a daily basis. Because if you're if you're not in the gym, you're not pushing yourself, your recovery is probably at least the the last thing you're trying to track and look at heart rate. So if you're not trained heart rate, it doesn't matter. Um but really you know we're looking we're we're really targeting anybody that's you know, like I said, they they join a boutique gym and they're going in there two or three, four days a week doing high-intensity classes, or uh they're they're they want to go out and do a 5K or they want to get ready for a marathon they've never done before. Or, you know, of course they are high-level athletes who are in that bucket. So it's it's someone who's trained with a a purpose, I would say, and someone who's consistent at training is really the ideal Morpheus uh customer that we're we're targeting that we see the best results from.

Yeah, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. The the committed people who are really into it, right?

Uh yeah, I mean if you're not like I said, it's somebody who goes to the gym on a regular basis. You know, that's I think you can take somebody who never goes to the gym and they can still use Fitbit and they're their Fitbit's targeting it to a giant audience and you know, it's anyone who takes steps every day, which is the whole world, but you know, that's that's not who we're we're gonna go after when you go after people that are in the gym, that are trained consistently, that are training with some sort of intent, and and those are really people that are like I said, they're gonna get the most out of it, so that's what we want our customers to be.

Yeah. Is there out out of curiosity, Joel, when you, as Morpheus has developed and and gained market share, has anything surprised you if you picked up any particular niche that you're like, well, I never would have thought they would jump on this?

Um, yeah, I don't know that's been one niche per se. I mean, it's it's just been a pretty big variety, I guess. Really, I would say probably more anything else that's kind of surprised me as people use it for goals that I'm like, really? I mean, I had some some uh people in like the in in the circus, basically. And I've had I've had people in white have a good friend who's in white wire rafting that's used it for white wire rafting and just lots of various sports I've never heard of in Europe and places like that. I had to look up sports that people thought they told me they were they were using it for that you know, I just didn't even know some existed. So I just think the more people you're exposed to, the more you realize there's these these little fringe-knit sports that people take obviously very seriously. I mean, a lot of them it's their entire life that I didn't even know existed, but it's it's really cool to see you know the application technology to some of these things and to see the difference they can make. You know, it's it's not just the the big top dollar sports or the big things that we all hear about. It's these these people dedicated their their whole lives to these little teenies, you know, ultimate frisbee was another good one. I had an ultimate frisbee team. We look at all their data for entire season. They were the best teams in the world, and we looked at you know how much was involved in the training for that sport. So it's just just lots of little sports out there that uh you know that you just never really hear about and you're not familiar with, but they're you know, there's there's thousands of people or more working their asses off every single day to be good at these sports, and you know, data and technology can play a role in that. It's not just for you know the big the big US sports, it's for anybody.

Yeah, isn't that a beautiful thing? There is a series on Netflix uh called Home Game, I think. Yeah, I saw that. Do you see it? Like these little super, super fringe sports that people are incredibly passionate about.

There is the one in Italy where they essentially just brutalize each other for like some weird combination of rugby and fighting for like an hour straight on the field.

That was mesmerizing. And it was interesting you brought up circus performers too, because I think those are circus performers are some of the most incredible athletes, but they're not even really, you know, termed as athletes, I guess, because they are performers. But that's that training, I mean, wow, like they do incredible things.

It's a training, it's a lifestyle. You gotta realize too, when they go on the road and they're performing the circus, you know, you should do two or three shows a day, and they're you know, it's it's every day. So they have to have this crazy schedule of performing, but also being able to recover, but also being able to practice their moves and continue to train. Like there's there's a lot that goes into it until I dug into helping this uh couple that was in the circus. I just, you know, you don't you don't see the back end of of what happens on the the athletic side. You always kind of see the glory and you see the person out in the field, but you don't realize how much work and how much detail and how much organization and how much goes into those hours behind the scenes that you know allow for that one short brief time in front of the crowd or the audience or performance. I mean, it's it's just uh it was cool to see the the circus side of the because you just you know I had no idea how the circus worked or what wouldn't do it or what their practices looked like and their schedule. And you know, I just had no clue until I dug into it.

Yeah, it's so cool that you get exposed to these kind of things. You know, I look at circus performers too, and most of the time they're covered in makeup, so no one knows who they are. So they you know they're doing it purely for you know the passion that I guess they have for, as much as I am adverse to that word passion. But yeah, that's it's that's fascinating, man. That's really interesting. You know, I I I'm excited to talk about the platform because I think as a former coach, I don't coach people anymore in the world of of fitness and performance, but I did for a very long time. And now seeing that you're developing a platform where a coach can actually take this information and utilize it, that's exciting. So tell tell us about that, man. How is how is this whole thing evolving now?

Yeah, so it's called the grid, and you know, really it's just a natural extension of the way I've been able to coach for so many years, you know, having having used technology as a really early adopter and being able to make real-time decisions for the combat athletes or anyone I was training, really, based on their sleep, based on their activity, based on their recovery and their HRB. I've been I've been coaching this way for a number of years, it's given me huge advantage. But the reality is the average coach or trainer or fitness professional, they have no way of really knowing what's happening behind the scenes of these people's lives. Again, they don't really know how well they slept, they don't really know maybe what they did outside the gym and they weren't working with them, they don't really know what their recovery is rather than just kind of asking or, you know, especially these days we've we've evolved in these pretty large group boutique classes with 30, 40, 50, you know, or more people. You have you have no clue what someone's recovery level is or if that's the right class for them or what their you know intensity or heart rate zones should be at. So that was really the whole idea is hey, we have all these people out there, millions and millions of people collecting data with wearables, you know, from again activity to sleep and sleep quality and uh heart rates from workouts and and HRV, and there's there's all this data just floating around out there that's just not being used. You know, the average person doesn't know how to use it. That's you know, they don't have any education in the science and the fitness and training, they just kind of go to class and do what they're told. And the coaches who do have the education, you know, for the most part, or some of them at least, they don't have access to the data. There's no good way, you know, at least right now, until the grid is done to see all this data from all your clients. And even more importantly, if you if you could see it all, it'd be a lot of information, it'd be overload. So the grid basically solves all those problems. So the way it works is we take data from most of the common wearables, you know, again, from Fitbits to Apple Watches to just your phone activity to Uhr rings and all these things in between. Between, which most Garmin Garmin is another huge one we get. So we take activity and sleep and training and those sorts of things from those devices, and then we take heart rate variability from our own Morpheus device, we take all that data, we turn into recovery score, and we share all that data in a dashboard with a coach. So anyone that I'm working with, I can just add to my team, I add my grid, and I have access to all this data on a daily basis. And of course, we show you trends and forecasts and all that sort of stuff. But the cool thing about it is we do more than that. We take and highlight and filter the most important stuff. Because again, if I'm training 50 or 100 people in a week in a group class, like I don't have time to sort through each and every person and find out what's you know important and what's not. So we create an alert system that filters out the most important things and says, hey, this person you know didn't sleep for three nights in a row, or this person's uh you know hasn't trained in two weeks and this is their first class back, or uh, you know, this person's HRV is tanked the last five days, or whatever the case may be. We pick out all the most important things and we just give you like a little alerts dashboard. So I'm a coach, I log in, I see all the people, and I can group that by you know, people I have scheduled for a session today, or people in any group I want to put, you can see these alerts, these notifications. And then we build we're building a chat kind of notification system in there so we can reach out to these people and say, hey, why aren't you sleeping? What's going on? So this is obviously really powerful for in the gym, but it's also just as powerful uh you know for virtual coaching, or maybe more powerful because you can't see people in person at all in the virtual world. So we're taking all this data, making it really simple and easy to understand, doing the hard work of filtering it for you, and then building a communication platform. So again, you can communicate back and forth with the people that you're training, either in person or virtually. And then even more, we translate that into heart rate zones each and every day based on recovery. So the intensity you should train at if you did three days in a row of high intensity and didn't sleep is totally different than if you're well recovered and you're ready to go 100%. So we basically scale your intensity zones every day based on your recovery. So again, the coach and trainer doesn't have to figure that out. They don't sit there and think, okay, well, this person's 86% recovered. Well, what should I do today? Well, we give you specific heart rate zones every day that'll help you make those decisions. And particularly if you're in a big group class, you want to be able to put everybody in the right intensity. Well, now we have everyone's in heart rate zones up on the screen, you know, the same as a polar or my zone, but those zones are personalized to each and every person. And we have a blue zone for recovery, a green zone for conditioning, and a red zone for overload or max intensity. So we're able to run these small, medium, and large group classes, but still give people a very personalized experience that's built around their lifestyle, their recovery, their fitness, and their data, versus just throwing everybody in the same class and doing the same thing and hoping it all kind of sorts itself out, which to be honest, it never really does. So I'm hugely excited about it. I think it's gonna give coaches an entirely new dimension to coach. I think it's gonna make coaches and trainers just better at being able to make decisions and give people the right training for their own bodies and their own abilities. And I think it's gonna add a layer of accountability. If you know, if your average person going to see a coach knows that this data is being reviewed, then they're gonna likely make changes in terms of you know what they're doing. I think just having people see that that you're paying to coach you makes you a bit more accountable, and that's a good thing for everybody. So, you know, I'm like I said, I'm really excited to get this thing out there. We've been working on it for you know a year and a half now, I would say, and we're we're gonna have the thing ready to rock and roll by the end of uh by the basically by quarter one of next year. So we're getting really close.

Awesome. Yeah, it's it's such a a great time to talk about the evolution in the industry. I mean, it's it's more evident now. Things like this are people are so open to ideas like this, right? And you know, I've talked about this concept, and I can't remember, I wish I would cred I would credit them, but you calling it the decentralization of fitness, where it's like the gym isn't necessarily the hub anymore, right? It's gonna be something more like this. Like the the hub is actually a piece of technology, and that enables the coach to work with people. And then, I mean, we're seeing now people who are thriving or people who have figured out how to work with people without the traditional tools of you know, working with them face to face. And something like this is the next evolution of it. I uh John Goodman was recently on the show, and we talked about, you know, he's got a vision about a five-year plan for what the future of the industry is gonna look like. And then well, the Jim will be part of it, but you know, we're gonna take people and put them into their best role, right? If you're a really good program designer, you should do just that. And you know, if there's other things that AI can come in along with data, like what you're talking about, platforms like this that should do all the other stuff, right? And then optimize, you know, for for just a better experience for everybody, for the coach and the client. And I think it's it's really exciting. It sounds like to me, go ahead.

Oh, so I think the biggest thing we're we're seeing and we're we need to see is this integration of lifestyle and gym and fitness training. Like those things have to be thought of as one big picture. And we kind of do to some extents, but we don't do a great job in general putting them together. So there's very few coaches and trainers and programs out there that are looking at something as simple as sleep and making changes in your workouts as your sleep's you know, changing, and being able to take those outside external factors, your lifestyle, translate them into the gym, and also just being able to recognize, hey, we really need to fix your sleep. Sucks. And the fitness isn't your bad until we fix it. So there's there's got to be this bigger picture of fitness and health and wellness than just the gym. And precision nutrition's done part of the job of opening coaches' eyes to importance of nutrition, which is a massive factor, but there's always other factors too. There's mental stress and there's thickness, there's activity, and there's just all these things that are a part of someone's lifestyle that drive the results to such a large extent that again aren't really being measured, aren't really being tracked, and aren't being uh utilized to make someone's straight and health what it needs to be.

Yeah. Well, that's that's the fundamental problem with what I'm just gonna go ahead and call the old model of fitness because now we're into something new. You know, as a coach, you only had someone for what, two, maybe six hours a week that you had in front of you, and then everything else is guesswork, right? And then you lose contact with those people, you're not part of their lives, and really you have to be, you kind of have to be constantly running, you know, being part of their background noise in order to help people really achieve, and this keeps everything in the forefront. One of the questions I want to ask you about the actual hardware, Joel, is so I like I have a Phoenix 5, right? Garmin Great Watch, by the way. I don't get paid for that. So, how does the Morpheus hardware complement that? Like what how do those two work together?

Yeah, so basically we pull data, we have a direct integration with Garmin. So we will get your activity, so your daily steps and calories, and then we will get your sleeps for tracking that. Right now we don't pull heart rate indirectly from Garmin. Um, but if you have a Garmin chest strap that broadcasts in Bluetooth and fix your phone or A and T, you would get heart rates from that as well, which would show up in Garmin. And then the only piece you would need to get the full picture is the heart rate variability piece from the Morpheus device. But if you wanted to go out and do a workout with your Garmin, you would wear your Garmin chest strap and Morpheus will pull that in as well independently. So, like the biggest pieces we're getting from any other fitness device out there is the activity and calories, the sleep, and then heart rate data, as long as you have a Bluetooth chest strap. It's it's really anything device out there that takes that, we will pull in. So, like, like I said, we'll pull in that data from your Garmin, and then as long as you're using Morpheus to get the HRV piece, we'll give you a recovery score every day, and we'll give you heart rate zones and give you that information back out, and then share all that data with your coaches. So even if you weren't using Morpheus, to be honest with you, and you were you were a client and you said, okay, I just want to share all this data with my coach, we would still take the activity, we could still take the sleep, and we could still take your heart rates, and we still share all that with your coach. The coach might not get the heart rate variability because Garmin's devices don't measure it the same way we do, but we'd still be able to share all that fundamental activity with your coach, and they'd be able to see all that, even if they weren't using Morpheus, they'd have all access to all that.

So it sounds like in order to get the best data on NHRV, you need a chest strap. Is that right?

Uh no, so we our Morpheus data, actually, our Morpheus device, we call the M5. Um, it's an optical sensor, it goes around the wrist. But the way that you have to get HRV as accurate as possible is to take a very consistent measurement. We recommend two or three minutes uh test in the morning. Each day it's standardized, it renewed it, it eliminates all these different factors that can drive HRV all over the place and make it unusable. And so we basically have a recovery test, two and a half, like I said, three minutes in the morning. You take that, your HRV score is done. The Garmin watches and Apple watches, a lot of them can measure HRV, but they don't standardize it the same way that we need for Morpheus. They use different sensors, which can impact it. It's just if we had uh if we had every device under the sun that measures HRV in a database, it it wouldn't make sense. It's not as comparable as, say, activity. If if one device says you went in 10,000 steps, chances are you probably went up 10,000 steps. But HRV is a quite different measure. So in order for us to control and give the most accurate picture of recovery and HRV, you know, we we have people take the HRV measurement with the Morpheus M5 device. But like I said, it just goes around your wrist, it's two and a half to three minutes. And then for those people that don't have, you know, Phoenix 5s and Garmin's, the Morpheus M5 also is a hard mark we use during a workout. So we have a heart rate uh display that shows your heart rate color and your heart rate uh while you're in those classes or while you're training. So you know if you have a Garmin device, great, use it. We can collect all that data. You only think you do the Morpheus 4 would be the actual recovery test. If you don't have one of those expensive devices, then the Morpheus band will do a lot of that stuff for you.

Do you think it's ever possible for you to take like the technology that's in the M5 to get really high quality HRB readings and license it to someone like Garmin or Apple? Is that ever possible? Like do you see one device that rules them all eventually?

I mean that'd be nice if there was one device to rule them all. It's just there's so many different device competitors out there, and there's it's you know, to make one device that does everything really well, you know, you honestly, yeah, you need the you need someone like an Apple, you need someone like a Garmin who's got millions and millions of dollars of resources and millions and millions of dollars in marketing, you know, to kind of come out there and develop something that does all of it. And it'd be great, obviously, if they licensed the the technology from us on the HRV side, the recovery side, that'd be that'd be awesome. But whether or not that'll ever happen, I'm not sure. I mean, they're they're they're I've talked to people at Garmin, I've talked to people at Polar, I've talked to people at Apple. Their big picture view is so far different from what you or I or the coaching industry looks at. I mean, you know, we look at our segment of the industry that's in the gym and trains and is consistent, you know. But we have to understand that's not the majority of the population, right? Apple and Garmin and Polar and these Fitbits, you know, they're talking about millions and millions. Like their market share is 300 million people they're going after, right? So they're they don't want to focus in on these factors and these metrics like HRV or even recovery to some extent, or even you know, some of these things we're looking at. They don't want to invest massive resources and build this huge you know engine around things that they consider to be a niche. Because you know, to Apple, HRV is a niche. Like they put it in there, but whether or not they're gonna ever want to develop into this huge fitness product, you know, maybe probably not. It's probably not big enough for them.

Yeah. I mean, Apple just announced their their fitness play, right? What do you know about that? I haven't dove into it other than the initial announcement that I read.

Yeah, I don't know too much about it either. Honestly, I've talked to some people um in there and they told me it was coming, but they didn't say a whole lot about it. But again, you've got to understand their their idea of just fitness is getting people off the couch and looking at the most simplistic of uh information, which is good, don't get me wrong. But they they just don't have, they're never gonna have the same emphasis on the people that are in the gym and the industry that we're in is a small piece of their puzzle. So it'll never have you know the same level of resources devoted to it as you know their broad market share products.

Um okay. So now it's time for my favorite question I've been asking over the last few months. Five years from now, Joel, if we ever hit a new normal, how is the fitness industry going to be different? And then A, how's it gonna be different and how's it gonna be better?

Yeah, look, I I think in the end of the day, all of this stuff and all the technology is going to help individual people make better decisions, have better habits, and have a better overall picture and overall idea of how to improve their fitness. So all all the day in the world is not good unless it helps you as an individual make decisions that are for you. And all the coaching in the world is not good unless it helps you as an individual make better decisions and train more effectively. So I just think we're going towards two things better personalization through technology and more of a holistic approach, like I talked about. So I think every program will consider nutrition, every program will consider sleep and lifestyle factors, every program will look at these different data factors to help people make better decisions and you know manage things more effectively. So I just think the look, fitness is a personalized thing. And the biggest reason fitness breaks down for a lot of people is they don't get a personalized approach. The coaches don't write personalized programs. We put 40 or 50 people in a workout class and they all do the same damn thing. And that doesn't work in the long run because everybody is different, their genetics are different, their training history is different, their fitness levels are different, their goals are different. Not everybody should be doing the same thing day in and day out in the gym. So I just think we'll be able to personalize experiences a lot more, both in the gym and outside the gym. And that'll come from a combination of better technology and more access to it, and you know, just a shift in what coaching is really about. It's not just about you know, sets and reps and exercises. It's about helping someone change, you know, all the things outside the gym that have to be in place for someone to get results as well. So I I I'm optimistic that you know, five, ten, fifteen years, you're just gonna see, I'm gonna have my workout, you're gonna have your workout. It's not gonna be we're gonna go do the same workout, and 50 people are gonna do the same workout. I think that idea is gonna be you know antiquated over a period of time, maybe not five years, but you know, I think we will get to the point where everyone's workouts are much more individualized to their needs. Eventually, it'll be based on genetics, right? You'll be able to go do a DNA test and they'll be able to personalize stuff for nutrition a lot more than they can now, and supplementation and uh training and a lot of things we built around you know that level of individualization. But we're just seeing we're seeing that more and more in medicine. My mom got breast cancer, unfortunately, a couple of years ago. And even even then they had all these different genetic tests they could do to pick out which treatment for breast cancer was most appropriate for based on the genetics of the cancer she had. So I think we'll just start to see this more and more evolution of being able to, you know, again, use data, use technology, use genetics to personalize things and give people better results.

Yeah. Does it scare you at all how much data is being collected? I mean, yeah, in the wrong hands, sure.

We just have to realize everything about us is out there and it's not going away. Like I don't care how much you you know uh are worried about it unless you stop interacting with Facebook and Twitter and you stop looking at switches and Google. I mean, your data is out there. There's there's no way around that. So I just think people have to be more cognizant of what they put out there because it is out there and companies are gonna use it. Now I will say, for the most part, you know, these companies are using it for a very particular purpose, right? They're not there to just destroy your life, they're there to sell you stuff, they're there to show you ads that they think are products related to what you want to buy. So I think there's a little bit, you know, there's a bit of a can over, maybe over, I mean exaggerate, but people are a little bit too worried that this is being used in like a super negative way to like destroy them or you know, do things to them that are negative. Like at the end of the day, it's the same thing's been going on for generations. We, you know, when you were on when people are looking at TV ads, you're looking at demographics of people that are watching TV shows, you're trying to sell them products that are related to TV shows they're watching. Well, now instead of looking at what TV shows you're watching, we're looking at what sites you brow on, we're looking at what uh pages you visit, we're looking at what your friends are looking at. It's just it's a more invasive process, obviously. But the idea that you know this is this is new. I mean, we've been people have been spying on people for years trying to sell them stuff more effectively. That's what marketers do. So I don't think that ends going away. I just think we have to be aware of what's out there and you know make decisions for your yourself accordingly.

Yeah, marketers ruin everything, man.

Everything that's good.

Marketers come in and screw it.

I mean, if you think about the alternative, we had no idea about what anyone, if who anyone was or what they were interested in, we would just show everybody most random shit ever that you probably don't even want to see, right? If you're yeah, Facebook had no way of targeting what you liked, you know, they would have to show you anything. It would have to be like randomly generated. Like, I don't have a dog, I don't want to see a bunch of products about dogs, you know, for example, or I don't have kids, so I want to see a bunch of diaper commercials. Like, you know, ideally that there is some good to this in the sense that I have personally bought stuff off of Facebook or Instagram, and it did make my life better. It was stuff that I didn't even know existed, but they figured out that this is something that might interest me, and it did interest me, and I bought it, and it was great. So you know, there is that benefit that it is better to show something to somebody that they are more likely to be interested in that might actually be good for them than to show them random shit that has nothing to do with them. So at the end, you know, at the end of the day, that's that's what it's doing. It's it's you know, Facebook's not just, you know, I think I think all of them, you know, have some agenda, which is to make money, obviously. But uh, you know, they're not they're not using the data they have on you to break into your house and steal your stuff. They're trying to sell you stuff that you want. I mean, at the end of the day, just if you don't want to buy it, go buy it. But I think you just gotta take a step back. Most of these companies, you know, their goal is to make money, it's not to ruin your life.

Yeah, it's it's an interesting point of self-reflection when you see what ads are getting served to you, too. I'm like, yeah. I realized just the other day, I'm like, all right, I need to spend less time on fantasy football because there's serving me way too many ads, man. And uh it's my it's my lockdown, it's my lockdown issue.

Uh I think personally, like this is a whole other topic. It is. But I think the uh it is it is. I think the the idea of privacy and all this sort of stuff, it's it's important when you be aware of it and meaning that safeguards that you know it's not being used nefariously. But I think a bigger problem with social media is just the the way that people are using it and the the the the society as a whole is just being uh you know driven to divisions and driven to vitriol and driven to all these negative things. I mean to me that's the that's a bigger negative of social media than the fact that they want to show me some products like GoPro and then I buy a GoPro. I mean, that's that's fine. I think it's the the bigger problem of social media being used, you know, to create bigger problems in society than it's solving. I think that's the bigger issue to me than privacy.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Anyway, I just had a lengthy conversation with uh a mastermind group that Ken and I run uh yesterday about media in general and how it's causing most of the problems. Most of the people agree. Most people I talk to you, no matter what side of your fence you're on politically or wherever you come from, your ideologies, most people agree on most things, but yeah, we're we've been painting this picture that everybody hates each other, and it's just not really true. It's not.

Yeah, well, look, I look, I think it's okay. If you want to say marketers ruin the world, it's not because marketers sell you stuff that you want, that's fine. It's because marketers will sell you well, basically, particularly the media, you know, their goal is to get you to click on their ad, their goal is to get you to read their edit, you know, their editorial or their news. So media has become click-based more than anything else. Like true. Media has become sensationalized because media is competing for clicks, and media is competing against all these other things. So the media used to be about like, hey, we're gonna we're gonna give the most accurate story possible. Now media is the same thing everyone else is doing. Like, I'm gonna find my audience and I'm gonna sell them shit that they want, but that that shit is information. I'm gonna sell you stories that I think you want to hear because of the ads you visited or the places you've been to. You know, I think you're a Trump supporter, I think you're a Biden supporter, I think you're a liberal, I think you're a Democrat, Republican. So I'm gonna serve you very specific content I think you're gonna click on, right? And that creates all kinds of divisiveness and it allows us to live in these weird little bubbles where we're just seeing this information that's self-reinforcing because that's what a media company's job is, to get us to read and consume their content. So it's just unfortunate. I think that that's what the marketing side of things has done in a negative light to me, is it's just reinforced these sorts of systems that you know reward media companies and reward media in general for serving stuff that's only very one-sided because that's what I'm more likely to click on, not something that's maybe more accurate or more reflective or has greater context. They don't care about that. They care about is their audience going to click on it. And that's you know, again, that is probably the important side of marketing from a social media perspective, I think has bigger negative implications than products. It's this information that's being driven to people that has a bigger potential for for damage than you know, selling you uh, you know, a supplement or whatever because you click on the bodybuilding ad.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I'm I'm actually getting a little bit more optimistic that people are waking up that this is happening. I think there's more conversations like what we're doing right now happening in a lot of, you know, over a beer somewhere or in a coffee shop or in over a dinner table. I think there's more of this conversation. People are waking up being like, well, what what happened over the last 10 years? You know, how do we get here? So I think people are starting to wake up.

Yeah, I mean, I look, I think the the problem is, you know, the the people that make the most noise get the most attention. But I I do think, you know, the majority of people, you know, are are not as divided. They don't hate each other because of each other's views, even though it might be portrayed that way. But it's the 10% of people that again want to make the biggest noise or to get the most attention are both the right and the left. And that's where it looks like what's happening is everyone's divided more than maybe they they really are. Um but either way, I think that you know those elements of social media uh are are again to me, they're more destructive than privacy issues or selling products. It's you know just the potential for those sort of things to get amplified in society to look a lot worse and maybe maybe become a lot worse, but hopefully not.

Yeah. Imagine a world where Trump didn't have Twitter. Yeah, no kidding. Right? Like just like I don't care what side of the fence you're on, just think about that for a second. What if Trump didn't have Twitter?

I I think again, not to go on a social media rant particular ruin, but to me, Twitter is the most destructive of all of it. It has the potential to have the most problematic because it's this whole medium communic built around very short communications, and very short communications can have a whole lot of problems, right? I mean, uh a limitation on how many words you can say to explain yourself and how many words you can have to get attention just is custom made to create things that are super short and dramatic to get people to pay attention to you, and they're they're made for this sort of you know destructive sort of talk back and forth, these choppy little sound bites. I mean, we're trying to talk in 10 sentences, you know, 10 words and 15 words. Like that's not how people have conversations, that's not how dialogue happens, but we're forcing that you know through these sort of platforms, and then we're reinforcing stuff very quickly that gets uh you know gets in a role. If something goes viral, it just explodes overnight. You know, and Twitter, I think it more than any of them is is part of the hashtags of Twitter, the tweeting and retweets and all that sort of stuff. I think Twitter probably does a worse job of of that than anybody because it exacerbates you know bad communication tactics. I mean, imagine if we were in school or we were teaching coaches and every sentence had to have a limited number of words in it. Yeah, I mean, it wouldn't wouldn't be very effective communication, and that's ultimately what Twitter is.

Yeah, or if you couldn't get punched in the face.

Yeah, exactly.

Which is there should be a punch, there should be a punch in the face emoji that actually comes out and hits you. Uh because people wouldn't people wouldn't say those things, you know? No, I wouldn't say them. Anyway, I agree. We digress. Joel, where where do people find information about you, about the upcoming grid, about Morpheus? Give us the goods, man.

Yep, just eightweeksout.com is the simplest way. It's all start there, just eight and then weeksout.com. Uh Morpheus is trained with Morpheus.com, but you can also get to Morpheus from eightweeks out. So that's I created that site all back in 2008 or 2009. It's been around quite a while now, and that's definitely the best place to find me and and uh get into articles, you know, see the certification, what's coming with Morpheus, all that sort of stuff. And then Instagram these days, uh coach Joel Jameson. I promise you you're not gonna find tens of thousands of selfies. That's not my style, but I I do post uh I do post stuff out training and uh tips and tricks and strategies and that kind of stuff on there.

Yeah, maybe some helicopter flights, things like that.

Yeah, well, I did a helicopter trip with uh Berardi last time he was in town. I posted a video of flying around with John Berardi. So instead of uh what's the what's the one where they they were driving on cars, comedians in cars, whatever it's called?

Yeah, yeah.

I was doing coaches in the copter, so I'm gonna back on that.

I have uh I have an idea called uh for a podcast called Getting Lifted, and it's all about interviews on chairlifts. So we'll we'll see. We'll see if that launches this year if there's actually ski season.

Yeah, I like it. That'd that'd be a good one.

Right on. Well, Joel, hey man, thanks again for coming on. It's been a pleasure. It's been uh too many years, and uh as always, I appreciate the work you're doing. I think you're you're advancing the industry in a very optimistic way. So yeah, man, keep it up. Thanks for coming on. It's your host, Eric Malzone. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Future of Fitness. If you enjoyed it, please do me a huge favor by going to the website and signing up for our newsletter. The website is futurofitness.co. Again, that's future of fitness.co. We've got some big, big announcements coming down the pipe, and we want you to make sure that you are on top of it. Thank you again. Signing off.