Train With Nexus - Chris Chapman

The ultimate vision is the more time we can give to coaches to coach and athletes to train, and the less time staring at a screen, that's return on investment for the coach and the athlete. Like we have 18 million repetitions collected in the last five years. So every level of athlete from kids to pros, even the questions we can answer from that using big data. I think we're just barely scratching the surface there.

Hey fitness fans, welcome back to the Future of Fitness podcast and interview series. This is your host, Eric Melzone, and we are on episode number 89. And I have the pleasure of talking to Chris Chapman. So he is with TrainWithNexus.com out of Toronto, Canada. And this is really, really interesting technology. I mean, we can all agree, right? Especially if you listen to the show, that technology is changing the industry extremely fast. And the solutions that are coming out are really streamlining the work that we do as professionals with training people and athletes and uh even you know just general population as well. So what is this? What is really talking about? Well, if uh if you know what velocity training is, right, which you can go look up. And a lot of people have been telling me that I need to interview um people within this particular segment of tech, and that's how I got hooked up with Chris. So, you know, looking at CrossFit, because that's what this is really relevant to, um, but it has applications across many, many things with this particular product, uh, you know, how what kind of metrics do you track within a sport like that or within a, you know, um that type of functional fitness, you know, heart rate won't really do it, right? Because, you know, think about it. If you're doing a workout and you got some Olympic lifting, you have some pull-ups, you have some box jumps, you know, look at the heart rate varies throughout that depending on where you are within the workout. So it's not steady state. Um, HRV is very valuable, um, but it tells you, you know, about just overall training load and and how your system's recovering and stress adaptations. So this is interesting because they actually take metrics from the workout themselves. Um, it's a wearable tech uh that will give you insights into efficiencies, inefficiencies, and and all that. And I'm gonna let him explain it because he'll do it far better than I will. But it's fascinating. And I think it's a it's a solution to a problem that a lot of people know we've had uh if you've ever coached the sport or anything like it. And uh it's really interesting stuff. So anyway, let's get into it. And uh yeah, before we do that, I want to talk to you about the fitness accelerator. So, what is this? Well, you can check out more at fitnessprofessional online.com forward slash fit accelerator, but it's the fastest growing network of fitness professionals and entrepreneurs that you've never heard of, you know, and we're not advertising it. We don't need to um because it is purely word of mouth. The only place you'll hear about it is here on the show. And it's equal parts incubator, mastermind group, and networking group, uh mostly networking group. If you understand the value of being networked with people all over the globe who um you know can benefit you and each other, then this is the type of place you want to be. This is all about business 24-7, 365. It's all about development of the industry, uh, it's all about young talent coming up and rising. And uh it's just a really cool community of people that that you want to be a part of. So if you think this is something you want to be part of, if you want to be a part of a group like that, then go to the site fitnessprofessional online.com forward slash fit accelerator and fill out the application. Uh, if we accept your application, and we are quite picky, um, we are quite protective of this group, uh, you will give you qualify for a two-week free trial in the group to get connected and see how it works out for both ends. So um, yeah, go check it out. It's fitnessprofessional online.com forward slash fit accelerator. Uh, you will meet people like Chris Chapman in this episode. So without further ado, let's move on to episode number 89, Chris Chapman with TrainwithNexus.com. Enjoy the show. All right, Chris Chapman, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. I'm excited. We're gonna we're gonna geek out on some some cool stuff today. Um, you know, we're gonna talk about push, obviously, and and what you're doing, but I think you have uh you just have a really interesting background and story, you know, especially for for people who are listening to this podcast, you know, the fitness geeks. Um let's start with that, man. Give give us an idea of who you are and kind of how you got to where you you are now within the organization.

Yeah, for sure. Um I'd say, like a lot of kids, I started out wanting to be a professional athlete. Um and my parents didn't really force me, unlike a lot of others. So I was kind of a LTAD poster child. I did all the sports, but I was kind of just mediocre at all of them. And I wasn't really pushed in any direction. And so when it came time to go to the next level, like say collegiate type sport, I wasn't really good enough at anything. Um, but I just loved it so much, and I was a bit of a science geek, so that kind of drove me into kinesiology uh as a degree, and knowing that I wasn't gonna strive for that, but I wanted a career around sports, um I kind of knew that I just wanted to be around it for the rest of my life. So I kind of geared my education towards helping athletes be better athletes. Now that started around more in the therapy, sports medicine side, but I also wasn't gifted genetically with uh athleticism, so I had to work my ass off in the gym. And so I just always gravitated towards the gym, and it's where I found I was spending most of my time, and I was always just nerding out on looking up the science of stuff. And so throughout my kin, I kind of just gravitated towards that, became a personal trainer at the university, worked my way up to an assistant strength coach, uh, found myself a mentor. And um, even though I had this athletic therapy side, and my school was pretty renowned for physiology, um, and that was a direction I was heading. I kind of just, you know what, I want to live in the gym and help people be better athletes and help people get stronger, more fit. Um so yeah, and then from that point on, uh it was just about getting as much diverse experience. So I think every uh person in the industry should cut their teeth personal training because you learn a lot about who you are, who the person aside from you is, how to coach, how to interact one-on-one. Um, you know, they don't really care what you know until they know that you care, and you have to build that relationship and trust first. So I think that's an amazing environment to really develop that skill. Um, but I personal training, you end up dealing with all kinds of populations and stuff, and it made me realize athletics is where I wanted to be. Um, so I got in with uh being an assistant strength coach in my university and started working with teams and building that, and that just kind of naturally grew. Um, my mentor at the time, Steve Lidstone, was working with a lot of national teams, and he uh started passing them on to me as he couldn't do them anymore because he was too focused on the university, and that kind of got me in with the Olympic world and the Canadian Sport Institute, and that's like a similar version of the USOC or the English Institute of Sport. Uh, it's our version here where it's uh government supporting our Olympic national and provincial athletes. And for me, that was kind of the the goal and the dream because um you know we we support our Olympians a lot here, and I did a lot of Olympic sports um growing up, and um you get to really work one-on-one and you really get to dive in. And I found we had the most access to knowledge. You're surrounded by like PhD physiologists, biomechanists, sport med. Um, so for me, I'm I'm a bit of a knowledge whore for lack of a better term, and I just got to suck up knowledge from every direction. Um, and I spent uh nearly a decade in that environment just owning my craft, working with different sports, learning how to take someone's task, break it down, and try to make them better at that task. It's almost like an ergonomic approach to uh strength conditioning. Um, and that's what kind of led me up to push is uh working in the Olympic world for a decade and then moving on to my current role with uh sport technology company.

Awesome, man. Yeah, it's a that's a great background. So who were you mentioned you had one mentor? Did you have any other mentors along the way? Yeah, I don't know where I got.

Um I think it was from my first mentor. When he I was still a student when he got the job um at McMaster University, and one of his first things, he talked to how he got to where he was, and he stuck to his mentor like glue, and I basically said, I'm gonna do the exact same thing to you. Um and so I learned from him early on the power of mentorship. And when I uh I was one of his first uh we called him Steve Links. His name was Steve, and we were the the little the little uh sidekicks. So when I flew, when I flew the coop, was the first Stevling to fly the coop, um, I knew I had to find another mentor. And this uh this gentleman was named Chris Dawson, and he was the head of the lab at the Sport Institute. Uh so he had been testing and training Olympians for 30 years. Um no one's ever heard of him because he's the most humble guy on earth, um, but he had the knowledge and the position that I wanted. So I always tried to find the person I wanted to be, and then just stuck to them like glue. And then after that, um kind of along my journey, I was trained as an athletic therapist. I went to a physiology-based school, I went down strength conditioning, but I wasn't finding the answers that I was looking for to the questions I was asking. And I started finding them. I took a course called Resistance Training Specialist. Um it was developed by a guy, Tom Purvis, it's based in the US, and it's almost an engineer's approach, a statics approach to strength conditioning. And it was kind of my mind explosion moment where all the answers I were looking for were in kind of biomechanics, physics, engineering. So that made me go back to school and do a master's in biomechanics. And then my next mentor was uh a biomechanist with a strength coach background. His name was Tyson Beach. So I've had numerous mentors along the way. Um, and it's always the person who had the knowledge or position that I wanted to be in, and I just found someone local that I could just be around all the time. Yeah, awesome. And you mentor people now, right? So you're kind of turning around, turning the favor. Yeah, I mean, again, Steve instilled that in me. He was an open book from day one. He gave me a USB key with everything he had ever done. Um, you know, sometimes there's a people hold their things close like it's secret. You know, I don't think anything's a secret. I think there's more knowledge than we could ever digest. Um, so I learned that from him is give to everyone right away everything you've done, and you'll get it back time and time again. And then those people, they're the ones that are gonna push the industry. Um, you know, they're learning the cutting edge. They take your knowledge and synthesize it and formulate ideas and move from there. So, you know, even this week alone, I'm meeting with two of my former interns. Every time they're in town, they come back, we meet up and uh grab a coffee or beer and and I learn and we share, and it's how we both get better.

That's such an important mindset, too. I mean, it's it's the way I see it. You know, anything I've done, anything I've created, if I pass it on to other people, there's the opportunity for them to make it even better, right? And uh, you know, I think people miss that factor, and especially in an industry like ours where a scarcity mindset is so you know, it's more the norm than anything. And uh, you know, it's good to hear people like you say that. Um, because I think if it keeps getting said enough, people will start to actually believe it and follow up on it. Um so Chris, let's talk about your technology, man. How did it get started? What does it do? Like describe it to you know the the average fitness professional as what you guys do.

Yeah, so I work for a company called Push, and we are a Toronto-based sport technology company. Um, the first product is a wearable device that you wear on your forearm. You could think of it as a Fitbit on steroids. Um, it is made specifically for gym-based movement. Uh it is an accelerometer and a gyroscope. So it measures um acceleration in three axes and it measures rotations in three axes, and it combines that information to give you your velocity and your power in the weight room. Um, you know, historically, we our industry has prescribed off uh percent one RM or time or load, you know, these things that we can easily measure. Speed and power were things that only super fancy, expensive biomechanics labs could measure. Um then technology came out that was uh like a string you attach to a barbell, it's called linear position transducers, um, which brought it down to a couple thousand dollar price range. And then now using this accelerometer technology, it's now down to a couple hundred dollar price range. So now the barrier to access is removed where people can measure speed and power in the weight room. Um, you know, before we just say move as fast as you can, and we try to use these sensors. Um, we've done some work in the biomechanics lab at University of Toronto, the lab that I'm a part of, to know that these sensors are actually not as good as most people and coaches believe. Um to give you an example, there's uh a study where people are lifting and we quantified spine motion using motion capture. Now the um we tried to get both students and skilled professionals to try and guess when that spine flexes. Um and we got to a point where the it took 40 degrees of spinal flexion before everyone agreed, both the trained and untrained observers, that spinal flexion occurred. Now, 40 degrees is a lot. Um, that's way beyond the limit of what you would probably want to load in a squat or a deadlift. Um, we don't need to get into that side right now. But basically, these sensors aren't good. Another study showed that um even if you train people to try and observe knee angles better, they actually don't get any better at observing knee angles, and there's a plus or minus 15 degree error. So, like these sensors aren't good. So the more we can bring simple, usable tech in the gym to assist the coach or at least validate the coach's eye, um, the better that is. So, you know, the push accelerometer is a couple hundred dollar piece of tech that can give you all of these gym metrics. Uh I kind of see it as a pocket lab in the weight room. You know, you have a personal trainer, you can measure, you can put it on a waistbelt and measure your jumps. Um, you can put it on the barbell and measure barbell work, you can put it on your body and measure kettlebell work. You know, we've recently partnered with Strong First to develop that out and start to quantify all their exercises and stuff like that. So it's a pretty powerful tool that um I think is is gonna take training to the next level. It makes it accessible for the majority of the industry.

Yeah. So who have the uh who have the early adopters been so far? Has it been like kettlebell people, strength coaches? Like who's who's currently who currently has it in their hands?

Yeah, so the company's been around for about five years and it started in the elite pro space. Um VBT a decade ago, so velocity-based training, power-based training, um, started to get popular in that high athlete level. Um, so like there's proteins in every major league across the world: NFL, NBA, NHL, uh, if you go across the pond, you know, Aussie rules football, um, EPL soccer, rugby. So it's being used at the top echelon because they realize if we want stronger, more powerful athletes, we need to train using strength and power. And if we can actually quantify that in the gym, um, it's easier to change something when you can measure it. And then you know if your program is actually getting better at the things you want. And then I joined the company about two years ago. I left the institute after the Rio Olympics, and I'd say since I've joined, what I've seen is it's the uptake in NCAA, collegiate, has gone up a lot, and it's even now at the level where uh private facilities and personal trainers, so we're seeing it a lot more at that consumer-based level because it is so accessible and because it does a lot, um, you're seeing it more and more in the private facility world because they, you know, they live and die by their profits, and every hour they spend with clients is is super valuable, meaningful time. So they can't go spend a bunch of money on technology like NCAA or Pro World would. So something that's accessible, that does a lot is really key for them. Um, and then that kind of brings us to our next foray is we've leveraged this tech um now to be able to solve a lot of problems in CrossFit. So that's where we're going next is uh we're trying to solve problems in the CrossFit gym because it's a world where um there is not much tech right now, it's very rudimentary because it's not an easy problem to solve, and we think we've solved it. So you know we've leveraged that now. So we're hoping the next gen is that we're gonna see a lot more of it in the CrossFit space.

Yeah. So, Chris, what's the problem that you're solving for CrossFit?

Uh so with um in the strength conditioning world, the tech works set by set. So you do a set, you quantify it, and then you look at the results. You do get real time feedback rep to rep. But in in the functional fitness world, the CrossFit world, you know, once you start your workout, for the most part, the you can't interact with anything. You need to get that done as fast as you can if we're looking at a METCO or a competition-based WAD. Um, so that was the big problem. And with the strength conditioning side, you you just select the exercise you're doing. So in in the the functional fitness world, you can't do that once you've started your workout. The goal is to finish as many reps in the shortest time or finish a certain amount of reps as fast as possible. So, what we did is we built our our algorithms team, mainly our our chief algorithms officer, Vahid, is um a wizard in this space. He built a machine learning artificial intelligence engine using all the data we've collected, and now our device can actually determine what exercise you're doing. So you you go into the gym, you build your WAD in two minutes, what's on the whiteboard, and so it knows the constraints of the workout. So all you do is click to start, you do your whole workout, and click to end, and it knows everything you did, and it computes your work to rest, your round splits. Um, it gives you real-time cadence, so your reps per minute, which is like uh a cyclist's revolutions per minute or your car speedometer. Right. Um, so that's kind of your pacing, so it can actually guide your pacing. So that was the biggest constraint which uh we've managed to solve, which now allows us to use it in the functional fitness space.

Wow, how cool. So um let's use that like an example, and everyone knows most people know Fran, right? 2115.9 of pull-ups and thrusters, uh, or thrusters and pull-ups. Um if I'm doing Fran and I have this device on, what's the feedback that I'm gonna get from that? Yeah. So in real time, you get two numbers.

You get your cadence, so that's your reps per minute. Okay. Um, so that's how fast you're going, essentially. That's your speedometer. And then you get power. So power is work over time, which even if you look at uh Greg Glassman's definition of CrossFit, it's essentially power who can complete the a set amount of work in the least time or the most amount of work in a set amount of time. So that's why we want to give that to you in real time. Um then when you're done your workout and you hit end, because you don't have to look at the screen, you can just set and forget, click the go, which is probably how most people would use it. And then it's the post-workout feedback where you digest how did that go? How did I feel? What can I do differently? So you get it counts all your reps, so you can see if you hit the right amount of reps. Because when you're going in a MECCon sometimes, you know, with Fran it's a little easier, but maybe when you're fatigued, you lose count and you do 10 instead of nine. Um, it does it'll show you if you did extra reps or if you missed a rep. You know, if you're working on your own or you're in a gym, you don't have a judge with you every time, right? So it'll give you that feedback. Uh it gives you your round splits. So it'll show you how you how long it took you to complete each round of 21 for each exercise, each round of 15, each round of nine. Um, it'll give you your work to rest ratio. So if you took a break between exercises or between rounds, it'll count that rest. Or if you did something broken up as opposed to unbroken, it'll also count that rest. So it'll show you how much work versus rest you did in a ratio. And if you think about it, like maybe doing it. Broken up allows you to go harder during the work period, and that shortens your overall time, or maybe doing it unbroken but going a little slower, so dropping your reps per minute, your cadence, allows you to finish it quicker. So there's definitely different pacing strategies that work for different individuals based on their strengths and weaknesses. And this allows you to reflect on that workout, try a different strategy next time you do Fran. Maybe you're just gonna go the whole thing unbroken and see maybe that gives you a faster time, but maybe you gas out and it lengthens Fran by two minutes. Who knows? Yeah. Um, so it's more bringing quantitative feedback to the CrossFit world where you know you're not doing chalk on the ground, you don't have to film everything and do it after the fact. As soon as you're done the workout, that feedback is in your hand, ready to go.

Yeah. Wow, man, what a game changer, you know, because I've uh I'm curious to hear who you're working with too in the CrossFit space. I know we had talked about it a while ago, but you know, I've I participate in a lot of um OPEX stuff. You know, they're they're they love to geek out on on this type of thing. I'm sure so does Ben Bergeron and a lot of these top coaches in in the CrossFit space. And uh, you know, I participated in in OPEX athlete camps. Um, and there's like certain things that you learn, right? Especially, you know, most people when they get into CrossFit or sport like that, they're like, oh, I just got to go harder, right? I'm just not going hard enough. And then you start to realize, oh, you know, my biomechanics means maybe I should take the thrusters a little slower, right? Pace those out and then just nail the the, you know, go on. And there's so many different variations. But one of the things that was really curious too is we did this workout where it was five rounds of something, you know, wall balls, kettlebell swings, box jumps. I can't really remember, it doesn't really matter. But we we our target was to go hit the same pace for every set, right? And uh, and then we did a comparable where we're like, okay, now just do it like you would normally do it. And you everyone went faster if they paced it per set, right? And I think that's um something where you know, this type of work and this type of technology, I wish I had five years ago when I was quote unquote competitive. Um, because I would just yeah, I would have used it every day, man. Uh it's so cool. It's so cool that you guys are doing that.

Yeah, it's uh that's the goal is you know, we did consult with um a lot of different gyms, you know. Being Canadian, we looked uh to our country first. So um Fitzgerald and OPEX, they were some of the first people we called up and asked, you know, is this something you guys would be interested in? Yeah. Um, you know, uh our our lead on this project, uh Mike Dawson, he is a uh avid CrossFitter and athlete. You know, I'm pretty new to this space. Um we train out of a CrossFit gym where we do some of our testing and stuff. So it's been really cool for me to come from the Olympic world over into CrossFit. You know, I've learned a lot and there's some definitely some takeaways I've had over the past year, year and a half. But um we've we've talked to a lot of the top gyms and top coaches because we want to make sure whatever we build is what the user wants. Um you know it's kind of my role with the company, is having been a strength coach uh for over a decade, I'm kind of the resident end user. Um I've lived in that world, so I know what I'm basically building the tech I want in the SC space, and then we're building the tech that the CrossFitters hopefully want in that space. Um a lot of time with a lot of tech, and I'm I'm sure you've had experience, engineers have a good idea and software developers, and they build something, but they build it in a silo because they're not an actual user-end user, and there's so many hiccups and headaches, and um you kind of just put it on the shelf and it collects dust for the next three years. It's a good idea and concept, but the execution wasn't there. So we talked to a lot of gyms just to make sure that it we aren't ever gonna be in that space, that a lot of feedback from different coaches, different users, all of our local CrossFit gyms, um just to make sure we hit the nail on the head with this one.

Yeah, yeah, that's such that's such a key point for anything in business, too. I mean, um, you know, we always say in in our ranks in our company that we always love our own cooking, um, but you got to run it by other people because uh so many times I've launched what I thought was a good idea without actually bringing it by uh the people who would actually use it. And uh you find out maybe it's not so great. Um it sounds like you guys are very much onto something. So what you know, what does the competition look like in this space? Is there a lot of people rushing into this space to get to where you guys are, or how's that how's that evolving?

So with push originally, you know, there was uh legacy tech before the those string pods that you attach to the barbell, the LPTs, there's a few companies in that space, and they've been around for 10, 15 years. Um, you know, like I said, it's a couple thousand dollars. So when the accelerometers came in, um, it at least cut the price point down. Now, with accelerometer technology, you can't quite get as accurate. Like let's say the string pods are 99%. The accelerometers right now are around 95 to 98, is where we have it. So it's it's come a long way. I'd say when they started, they were maybe 70, 80 percent accurate. Right. So it's it's evolving quickly. Now in the accelerometer space, there's about three or five different players. Um, you know, I I I try to be non-biased, you know, being my science brain as much as possible, but I think we're by far the dominant accelerometer in the space. Now, I attribute a lot of that to um uh our engineers being from the University of Waterloo. It's by far the best engineering school in Canada, and we're just lucky that it's local. And and our CEO is a uh mechanical electronics engineer from there, and he kind of built the accelerometer in his basement and created the company from scratch. Now that that Waterloo connection is kind of what's allowed us to move over to the CrossFit space. I personally don't see any of our competition yet being able to solve this problem, mostly because of the machine learning artificial intelligence. That's what it's allowed us to be able to solve this problem of you can't touch the device during a whole uh Wad or MetCon. Um and I just I haven't seen any signs that anyone's even remotely close. So, you know, we don't think anyone will be there, but you always have to assume there's someone in the shadows chasing at your heels. It's kind of how we operate. Um so in the Nexus space, um, our our CrossFit product, uh I don't think anyone's gonna be remotely close. In the push space, there's about five or six players that we're um you know constantly looking at, battling. Uh, you know, it's a a war of the tech companies.

Arms race. Yeah, yeah, exactly, man. Yeah, I mean, when any technology like this, it's so cool. And I've heard, you know, I have another podcast, I think I told you it's called the Fitness Blitz. And one of the questions I ask people on that show, as it's preset questions, is you know, what technology do you think um is gonna have a major impact on the industry in the next five to 10 years? And, you know, overwhelmingly number one's HRV or wearables, right? Um, and I've heard probably I would say about five to 10% of the answers comes into velocity training. And those are all people who are in the strength coach realm, um, but starting to see it come more mainstream. So um I guess you know, my my big question, well, what what is the price point for you guys? You know, if I'm a CrossFitter who wants to check out Nexus or or Jim Owner, what price point are you guys coming in at now?

Yeah, it's uh $299 USD. Now we are currently have our pre-order on um if you go to Nexus, and there are packages where I think we just sold out of our super early bird, which is 140 US off. I think we're down to 100 US. So we actually haven't shipped the Nexus side of the product. Um but the the push side is around the same. Now there's different accessories with push where you can get a bar mode strap because a lot of say the NCAA schools, they'll have three or four athletes on a rack. So you can actually just put the device on the barbell and leave it on the bar. So that accessory costs a little extra. You can get a waist belt where you put it on so the band is at the center of mass and you can do jump testing. Cool. So even as a jump testing tool, like the Vertec, that the thing with the slats costs five to six hundred US. A jump mat, which is a contact mat, costs around the same. Um, so aside from chalk on a wall, uh, we're probably the least expensive jump testing tool, but that's just one feature that it does. So like I said, you get a lot of bang for the buck for it. So yeah, the the base package is $299 USD. You get the strap and the hardware device. The iOS app is free, so with the device, you can use both the push and the Nexus app when it comes out. Um, and then there is a back-end software for the push side for you know and athlete SC coaches. And then there's a subscription cost to that, but that's more um, you know, if you're managing teams of athletes, uh, if you want to export your data as a researcher, um, you can get really granular and really advanced into that. You can build your programs ahead of time and send it out. So if you're prescribing off 1RMs, you know, you can build a workout, put in your percentages, and then shoot it off to your whole team, and it'll automatically calculate the percentages based off 1RM. So the vision with that software is basically I want it to be the software that gets me off of Excel as a strength coach. You know, I was a Excel monkey for a decade, just typing in numbers and doing my programming. The ultimate vision is the more time we can give to coaches to coach and athletes to train, uh and the less time staring at a screen, that's return on investment for the coach and the athlete. So I'm trying to get people less screen time and more time doing what actually matters.

Yeah. Awesome, man. Yeah, I mean, I uh I think I told you I own a CrossFit affiliate for almost eight or nine years, and uh this would be a no-brainer. I'd be ordering it right now. Number one, it sounds like so much fun, right? I mean, most uh, especially if you own a gym or you're a coach at a gym, you spend so much time just just messing around and uh you know, playing with things and and you know, working on your lifts, and uh what a great and fun tool this would be. Chris, where do you see this technology going? You know, like how do you see expanding? What's the next the next level of this look like?

Well, I definitely see the the accelerometer gyroscope tech. Um we still haven't scratched the surface. There's so much more with the advent of these advanced artificial intelligence, which you know, I I sip aside our our team and it this stuff is is beyond me. I their screen looks like the matrix, but big big data, like we have 18 million repetitions collected in the last five years, so from every level of athlete from kids to pros. Uh so even the questions we can answer from that using big data, I think we're just barely scratching the surface there. Um now we are working on uh some next gen prototype stuff. Um, we're taking the sensor that's in the pushband and we are embedding it into compression gear. So, what I see next is is kind of the smart apparel phase where it's in your clothing and you don't even know it's there. Um, you know, we're finally getting to a point where these IMUs, these accelerometers, because they're not hardware limited, they're software limited, it's the algorithms and the coding, that's where all the development is. All the previous technology, like the string pods and stuff, you're kind of limited by the hardware. Um, so I just see it becoming smaller, more microscopic, and I see it um being embedded in in our clothing and everything. So you don't even know it's there really. Yeah. That's kind of where I see it going.

Wow. I mean, then you gotta I my line my mind leads me to obviously like some integrations with like virtual reality or altered reality too, you know, where people are you know wearing the suits and you can they can you know send God man, that's so cool.

Um so there are people playing in that space. Um in the clothing space, there's definitely more people dabbling with this in the VR and the avatar and AR world. You know, there's very few people kind of looking at it the way we are, and we want super accurate, you know, joint modeling and and you know, modeling the body. When you're in the VR world, you more just need to be somewhat accurate because you need to paint the picture of the person. Yeah. Um, so that there are definitely divergent paths with the smart apparel or the connected clothing. Um, so but there are a lot of people doing exactly what you're thinking there.

Yeah, yeah, so interesting. And plus, I just read the book on my road trip I was telling you about. I read uh Ready Player One, which is an amazing book, and uh now I just constantly think about the Oasis. Um yeah, it's interesting. I think it's such a good idea for you guys. You know, obviously you know it because you're doing it, but getting into the CrossFit space, you know, everyone is hyper competitive in CrossFit, um, you know, generally pretty affluent. Um, and everybody's looking for an edge, man. Yeah, everybody's looking for an edge. And there is no, you're right, there is no metric because we played around with it, you know. I've always I would always take things and play around, you know, you can't do heart rate, right? Um there's just so many things that are in the more traditional um training modalities that you can't use in CrossFit because it's such a unique beast. And I imagine um, you know, similar. I look at like MMA and CrossFit training as MMA is the most complex, right? I talked to Joel Jameson last week and we talked about how complex that can be. CrossFit's pretty close. Um, you know, you're just not getting punched in the face, which is a big thing. So um that's why I chose that sport. Um, not physically, mentally, you get punched in the face. Oh, all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh so that's really interesting. What about you, man? Where do you see you see? Where do you see Chris Chapman in two years?

Uh I honestly I love what I'm doing right now. Um, given my background, this job lets me combine the um the hardcore tech that I learned in my biomechanics. You know, I I went down a rabbit hole of motion capture and force plates, and you know, it was basically engineering, which it it took me a long time to finish a uh master's. Um so this job lets me combine that with the SNC. Now I do still coach on the side. Uh I work with some uh I I guess during my time in the Olympic world, I gained expertise working with action and acrobatic sports. You know, I still work with freestyle skiers, I work with trampoline, kayakers, and that's kind of the world I play in. So I still coach on the side, I still work with that. Um, and then I'm starting to do uh a little bit of teaching at the University of Toronto as well, again, giving back to that next generation. So I, to be honest, I'm pretty content. I I get to hit teaching the next generation, coaching, and developing the dream tech that I want and that hopefully other people want. So I don't see myself uh being in too different, uh too different of a spot in two years.

Awesome, man. Yeah, it sounds like a dream situation for sure. I mean you're you're doing everything you love, man. Congratulations on finding that that niche. That's pretty cool. Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it. Yeah. So where do people go? Um, you want them, you know. I I think a decent amount of CrossFitters listen to this. Where do you send them?

Yeah, um, so there's uh trainwithpush.com and trainwithnexus.com. So Nexus being the CrossFit one, um check out those websites. Uh you can reach me at Chris at trainwithpush.com. Uh I'm on Twitter, Chappy Strength. Um anyone can reach out any of those, and I'd be happy to point them in uh in a direction that they wish to go. Yeah.

Awesome, man. Well, I appreciate it. I like to uh maybe get you on uh another six, twelve months to get an update on what you guys are doing. You're pretty cool. Yeah, for sure. Thank you. And I appreciate you having me. Always happy to talk shop. Yeah, this is really fun for me too. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris. 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 asked 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 or 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 from everybody. Eric, E R I C at Fitness MarketingAliance.com