LIFTS Episode 108 - Moving from Analysis to Intervention with Debra Strougo

0:00Something else which I got to try out is what Meta Labs is working on with their next generation of glasses and that's going to come out at next year's CES. I had a little bit of a preview to it. I truly believe that what I saw and what I got a chance to experience makes the phone obsolete as a communication medium or even as a productivity medium. because you're able to do everything so seamlessly through glasses. I felt like I did not need to carry a phone anymore.

0:36Matthew Januszek:We're live. Welcome to this week's episode of Lyfts. I'm Matthew Januzek. I'm feeling energized after a very busy weekend of events. I had my NAD shot and I'm heading strong into the week. And I'm here with my co-host, Mo Iqbal. Mo, how are you doing today? well i'm still on the road and we'll get into that here in a minute i feel like now that you just said that i need to i need to schedule or reserve my nid therapy so tell me what did you do what what type of energy did you do i did the um uh not the not the intravenous drip i did the the one is it called intramuscular or it goes into your went into my tricep yes um however and we'll have to talk about this another time without going too off track but i'm i'm i'm going to do a little bit more research on nad before i encourage anyone to try it because we did have dinner last night dev and i with with a uh a doctor i guess he was and and he said that you know you need to get a screening before you take it because apparently if you've got any signs of cancer or anything it it just sort of stimulates it so i'm i'm uh after that i'm going to be cautious about diving into it although i feel fantastic after a shot uh i want to probably check it out a little bit more, which is probably a podcast in itself.

1:51Well, we're talking about, and I think we will bring an NAD expert on over the next couple of weeks, because that's one that I've been looking to explore as well. But I definitely need something when I get back. So I've been on the road for seven days now, starting, which we'll talk about at CES. Then we'll be also moving into the Pilates Journal Conference, where we actually met live and had a really good podcast. I think a school of good podcast interviews. And then I came to the ABC Go to Market Summit here in Dallas. And I just got off the stage where I had a chance to do a fireside chat with Alex Hermosi.

2:33So that was interesting. And yeah, that was a lot of fun. And he was just great to chat with and much easier than I thought. I was a little bit nervous before that, but it was very, very good.

2:49Matthew Januszek:He's been a guest on the Escape Your Limits podcast several years ago as well. I think we got him before he kind of blew up on social media. He's a great guy. Well, we'll have to get him back on. And he's re-entering the gym business via ABC Fitness through a partnership. And I'm definitely excited about it. And look, today's conversation, really, I'm excited about because we're going to be covering what we saw at CES, at Pilates Journal, but also some other new breaking news which came out. And I think technology is having a moment, the industry is having a moment. And we've had some really good conversations around AI, wearables.

3:32we're going to talk about health club strategy and bring up what mastrov just kind of pulled off in a very gangster move and bring back 24 hour fitness um and you know at the same time a lot of people are trying to figure out what is 2026 about and that's kind of the theme that i've heard you know and a lot of the conversation has been around focusing on the fundamentals whether it is focusing modality focus on business fundamentals good training delivering a good product so we're coming from ces which is all about technology then we went to the other conference which in a lot of our meetings was just about delivering a really good experience and matt we talked about things like safety and and instructor training um and a lot of themes that kind of take us back to doing the good things right to help us with all of that help us unpack we've got a multi-time that the right thing a multi-time lifts guest and and a big friend of the podcast uh deborah strugo for those of you that don't know deborah she spent her entire career um at the intersection of movement and education doing everything from being an instructor to a trainer to launching one of the best known boutique brands in the industry.

4:53And what she's done now is really be a founder's co-pilot. And I've had a chance to see her in action. And she's just been a great partner for many entrepreneurs and many brands and just brings a wealth of knowledge to this conversation. Debra, I'm really excited to have you back on. Thank you both. It's always a pleasure to be here with you on the podcast.

5:15Matthew Januszek:Well, should we kick off with CES? Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it this year, but I know you guys did. And from what I've heard, it was a very important consumer electronics show this year. My guess is some of the developments that have happened over the last 12 months with AI have sound as though they've had some significant impact in what people are able, the capabilities of some of these organizations. And I also heard when we were chatting about it at the weekend that a lot of these ideas that were more conceptual seem to actually be brought to life now. And you can actually buy and use some of these products that were just probably prototypes in previous years.

5:58Matthew Januszek:So maybe as a start, probably go to you, Mo, but what were some of the more impactful findings that you took from this year's show and in relation to the fitness industry? And how do you think they're going to shape the next 12 months as opposed to sort of like more of the long term view of where many of these products tend to come to life? Well, I think I would first start by saying that the industry is showing up more at CES. I think, Debra, you noticed that too. It's just, one, we have representation from the Health and Fitness Association who's there. We've had brands like Egym and Planet Fitness and many other brands from our industry now showing up increasingly more at CES every year.

6:51And I think that that's a really good thing. And here's why. The one thing that stood out at me at CES this year was how AI had moved from analysis to intervention. Think about not even last year when we were at CES, we saw a lot of good tools identifying new markers. We're seeing AI doing data analysis, but the intervention was always the missing component. And I think that's exactly why our industry is showing up. And just to ground this all in data as it relates to healthcare as well, the global AI in healthcare market is growing at roughly 35 % every year and is projected to exceed 180 billion in a couple of years.

7:37So that's really important. And the other big change that we've seen is that wearables, and I think everyone on this podcast today has some sort of wearable on. an interesting learning out of CES is that over 70 % of wearable users today say that behavior change is their primary goal. So if you go back a couple of years and you look at users of Garmin or Roof or Apple Watch, a lot of the reason for why they wore it was to drive performance. I'm training for a race. I want to track my run, whatever that might be. Today, it's really driving behavioral change that's focused on wellness. And that's a massive shift from just a few years ago.

8:18Matthew Januszek:One of the things I was reading up on, there's a product that I saw from a company called Mobvio. It was called TickNote, I think, TickNote Watch. I was looking at some of the products that have been released at CES. And what they seem to allude to is that the smartwatches now or the wearables are moving beyond just tracking steps and vitals and they're actually starting to get involved in interpreting conversations being able to do things like translation so although a lot of these wearable products have been very health focused according to this article anyway it's sort of shifting from tracking to more contextual understanding what what are your what are your comments on that and is that something that you would also relate to or associate with?

9:10Yeah, so some of you listening might remember a smartwatch called Pebble. So Pebble was one of the first smartwatches that ever came out. And they actually are back. The founders bought Pebble's assets back from bankruptcy. They're releasing one of the OG smartwatches. but he's also releasing an AI-based note taker that essentially fits on a ring. You push a button and it takes notes. We've seen a lot around that as released to wearables. I do think that there'll be other applications. For instance, doing payments through a ring, opening up your car with a ring, access control, thinking about entering your gym with a wearable instead of having a barcode or a card.

9:59Something else which I got to try out is what Meta Labs is working on with their next generation of glasses. And that's going to come out at next year's CES. I had a little bit of a preview to it. And Matthew, and I think we talked about this over the weekend, I truly believe that what I saw and what I got a chance to experience makes the phone obsolete as a communication medium or even as a productivity medium. because you're able to do everything so seamlessly through glasses. I felt like I did not need to carry a phone anymore. And I would think that within 10 years, we're going to have contact lenses.

10:38This is a little bit like sci-fi happening, but the technology is here.

10:44Matthew Januszek:Today's episode of the Lyfts podcast is sponsored by eGym. eGym delivers smart strength solutions that help gyms and health clubs attract, engage, and retain members while improving health outcomes at scale. From intelligent equipment to AI-powered training programming and corporate wellness via WellPass, eGym is leading the way in smart fitness. Visit eGym.com to learn more. Deborah, I know you didn't get a chance to walk the trade show floor, but you managed to spend 24 or 48 hours at the show. What were some of the takeaways that you got from the event? Yeah, I thought it was wonderful. Brian O 'Rourke had made a comment, and I completely see where Brian was coming from.

11:31He said, CES is a royal waste of time. And I could understand how somebody in the fitness space could look at it as a waste of time. It's not what HFA is or CHNF is or Beyond Active is for the fitness industry. But for me, it was a Disneyland. It was just absolutely wonderful. And I think there is two reasons for that. Number one, you see a ton of emerging startup founders that have found really, really strong pain points that they want to solve for people. I think even in some of the AI and the tech and the wearables, you see that you see these founders that are coming with real solutions, some of them on hormone panels, diagnostics, you know, the urine tests, they're all there with these niche type of offerings.

12:27and there's credibility and efficacy in what they're building. They're not showing up at CES if they don't have, you know, a real kind of wave behind them on that. So from that standpoint, from the founder standpoint, from understanding your niche market, I think that CES is just a heyday. There's a plethora of amazing founders building wonderful solutions for people. And you guys know that personally, I love that. I get very excited over that type of growth. And then on the brand side, which is another place that I've spent a lot of time, I think, in my career and really spend time at CES also refreshing, is these big brands that are figuring out how to use all of the technology that is emerging in the industry.

13:19So, of course, we saw industry friends like Garmin, and you mentioned eGym, Beachbody Bodhi, those types of players, UltraHuman, we spent some time with. Very interesting what they're doing. But then you look at other brands outside of our industry and how they're moving and growing and thinking. and I got to spend some time with Microsoft, hearing some panels from just Microsoft growth leadership, how do you architecture growth in this changing landscape of AI, same thing from a brand like Ulta, Nissan, you know, looking at those brands to say, how do we adapt all of this technology and what is true to the essence of our brand and community and what should we take on and what should we not take on as we continue to grow.

14:10So for both of those reasons, the startup reason and kind of the brand growth dialogue reason, I think CES is a must hit. There is just so much energy there. And the fitness industry does need to constantly learn it. Mo, I think it was wonderful that you hosted a dinner and it's great to see HFA there and Liz and Mike being there to continue to push our industry along as an industry. We have a lot to learn from the CES growth or the CES direction. Yeah. And that was a lot of fun hosting that dinner. And I've done one every year at CES. It's interesting just to see the growth. We had about, I think there were 30 people or so that were there.

14:56And just three years ago, the same, I did a cocktail hour, it was like maybe 10 people. Last year was maybe like 15, 20 people. And now it's growing even more. So I just love seeing that. The other thing about CES, Debra, that you had me think about is it's also a place where a lot of companies do launches and they make big announcements. And the good thing about being on the ground when these announcements happen is that you're with people from the industry and you get a real-time feedback or sense on what that is one of those launches was chat gpt health and chat gpt health dropped their announcement at ces and we got to chat with industry folks in real time to see how how are you going to manage it what are you going to do about it and i think chat gpt health is truly a game changer um but but things like that those are conversations when you're with the community you're looking at product launches you're reacting in real time you get to distill that and go back with some strategic insights that i think if you're not there you just don't get i've been there quite a few years and this was the first year i decided

16:09Matthew Januszek:to take a year off which sounded as though it's probably the one of the best one of the years i should have attended going there for so long i do feel that for what i do it's great to see the future. And I love doing that because it's a personal passion. But in terms of how to apply some of these ideas to my business today, it always seems as though things are not quite ready. And it always seems quite a way off before there's anything tangible that I could take and integrate into my business. Hence my sort of question to you at the beginning. So what would you say this year is different and in particular for for people in i guess the the bricks and mortar space or the maybe even the um the people on the product side that are supplying some of these gyms like what what would you say uh one or two things that we really need to go away and consider for 2026 as opposed to things that may be relevant in 2027 and 2028 and beyond I'll probably say two things there.

17:12The first one is longevity and the wellness focus at home is absolutely having a moment and a massive shift. There's a lot of launches that we saw that were focused on making your home environment a healthier place to be, giving you tools to analyze and track your own health and well-being, and then giving you kind of instructive advice on how to improve that. The second thing, if you run a business, is again, this is the first time I saw a dramatic shift in this, is a lot of our listeners are in B2B businesses or they're vendors that are selling to operators or they might be operators who are servicing members.

17:57So they're kind of only servicing one, they're built to service one channel. But I think we've got to think about things a little bit differently. So even when I came back and the advice that I gave to my team at Sweatworks and ABC, is we've got to think about ourselves as B2B2C. In other words, we're serving a business who then serves members. And it's our job to go all the way down to the member or the consumer, depending on what term you use. And the reason for that is because of tools like ChatGPT Health, where now, instead of us building an app that will independently integrate with your Peloton or your Wearable or your Apple Health or whatever else, ChatGPT Health, in this case, is going to be an infrastructure layer.

18:40So consumers are going to integrate into that, and then we can integrate into ChatGPT Health and then serve our customers from there. Because a lot of what we build in our industry is intervention layer. We're providing the content. We're providing the equipment. We're providing the facilities. For all of those reasons, and we're also providing the human services, the coaches, the therapists, and so on. how do we get closer to our member and that was the big unlock for me at ces this year is you know again where we traditionally we traditionally think about ourselves as b2b or b2c i think now it's really the entire value chain which is b2b to c

19:22Matthew Januszek:um before we move on to the next subject just interested in your view your views on that point as well deborah i definitely agree with everything mo is saying and also just it goes back to that wearable. We are getting so much knowledge on our consumers or consumers are getting so much more knowledge on themselves. So for me, it feels even more so than ever that the wellness consumer is everywhere. And meaning that consumer is walking through different places, different real estate beyond the gym or the studio. They're walking through the airport. They need knowledge. They need action-oriented things that keep them on their wellness journey.

20:06So I think that now more than ever, especially because of all this wellness-related data that you're getting from your wearables, we're just in an age where we have to really, really, to Mo's point, understand the consumer, understand their needs, understand how to stay with them beyond the hours that they're in the gym. It's always been like that in this industry, but more so than ever now, because if you don't play in that game, then and if you can't understand that that's what's going on. I mean, most people are figuring out at this point something about their wellness, whether it's they're matching off of their HRV now or they're matching off of their sleep score or they're matching off of their cycle.

20:52So I think more than ever, we really need to acknowledge that that user is tracking and that'll help the brand as we go forward. And then right after CES, we headed right to at least Debra, you and I. You went back home to Orange County. And I followed you there because we had the Pilates Journal conference coming up, which is the first time that they ever held the event, which is an Australian event here in the US. And it was fantastic. We're going to be releasing episodes on that conference. I think it might be even a two-part episode. So be on the lookout for that. But there was a lot that we learned from that.

21:35And one of the things that, one of the key takeaways is that we get a lot of questions on, is Pilates getting too saturated? I think there's still room for growth, at least from all things that I learned. First is Pilates participation has been growing double digits year over year for several years now. And what's particularly interesting is the demographic expansion. Male participation is roughly up by 30 % over the last five years, largely driven by rehab performance and longevity. Pilates Studios also remains one of the highest retention boutique categories. Our performing traditional boutique fitness by 10 to 20 percentage points.

22:19And equipment-based Pilates also continues to outpace map-based Pilates in revenue per member. but it also kind of creates an instructional supply challenge, which we heard a lot about. The final takeaway that I took from that is Matthew is going to now do a Pilates class. I think we got him over. I think he now is a believer in the modality. So Matthew, I just want to ask you a question. One, have you taken a Pilates class yet? And second, what did you learn about Pilates that got you excited about trying it out?

22:51Matthew Januszek:well as you know we did a predictions episode a few weeks ago which if you haven't checked it out i'd recommend uh you have a listen but um one of the one of my predictions is that pilates will top out uh particularly in many of the main main cities across the globe um because it it you know from my perspective it's like well how much can this category continue to grow beyond what it's done at the moment. But I'm certainly considering that statement after going to the Pilates event. And the reason why is twofold. The first thing is it seems from speaking to some very influential people from the sector that we managed to interview, it seems as though the Pilates category is almost going through a bit of a revolution where you've got the traditional teachers and philosophies that are still continuing to push on and I guess focus on a particular demographic.

23:51Matthew Januszek:And then there seems to be this new, I guess the word is contemporary, is that what they're calling it? Contemporary Pilates, where you have new instructors with new ideas. And And whilst they seem to be very conscious about protecting the original philosophy of Pilates, they're now integrating it and evolving it and creating these hybrid workouts, which are really taking them out to a very, very different demographic than probably what most of us would have thought of people that would go to Pilates, including myself. and then beyond that we had a great chat with a gentleman called Sean who's got a Pilates studio and he really sold me on why men should do Pilates he talked about as you get older the the issues that men have with a lot of overhead weight bearing exercises and how it can compress the spine how it can make you shorter and and how the benefits of doing some more horizontal style strength training is actually just better for your body as you get older.

25:01Matthew Januszek:And he certainly convinced me to get involved in taking a class and to learn a lot more about it. So to answer your question, I haven't yet done a Pilates class, but it's definitely on my list for early in the new year. Deborah, you went along there and spent some time at the event. What would you say are a couple of the takeaways you had from the event itself or from some of the people in the sessions that you're involved with? Like you, Matthew, I was kind of looking at this market saying, wow, there has been so much growth, so many players. Is it going to consolidate? And I think that the message that was put out at this expo was brilliant.

25:45And it was that the police market is abundant. And I think, Mo, you even made some of these wonderful points on your panel, just that you know, Joseph Pilates created Pilates 100 years ago. There has been a lot of volume in the Pilates market over time. A lot of it has been based off of the authenticity of the method. And then now it's kind of like, okay, this is an abundant market. CJ put together a brilliant expo with a lot of competitors sitting side by side in that space. And that message was, you know, know your customer, build your differentiation, come up with your defensibility, and there's plenty of room in this market, should we not mess it up?

26:33I think, Mo, you actually said those words, like, as long as we don't mess it up, we have another 100 years in this market. And so I do like that notion. I am somewhat conflicted, as you are, Matt, in that I travel through the streets and see a Pilates location here and a Pilates location there and a Pilates location there. And, you know, unless you do have a really strong training program for your instructors, unless your instructors are really kind of committed to your studio and your community and you're building a strong community base off of that, you're not going to have sustainable long-term unit economics for these Pilates studios or multi-studio brands or even scaling brands.

27:23So that's really an important thing. I thought that this particular expo was done very well with a mix of, you know, teacher education, bringing and lifting that passion. It was wonderful to see and meet some of those instructors. I taught many modalities. I really never taught Pilates, but it was wonderful to get reconnected to that passion and those teachers understands what their education is. And then, you know, the expo also really touched unit economics and how to use tech in those unit economics to make sure we're being very responsive in the sales process as people are coming through our, you know, marketing funnel, or sales pipeline.

28:08And it, you know, connected on multi-location scalability as well. So I think, and then you had your vendors. So you had your booking platforms there. You had your equipment vendors there. We have multiple amazing equipment vendors that are coming up with defensibility and unique product offerings. It was wonderful to see Kristen McGee, who's kind of an old friend from the Equinox days and to catch up with her and chart her through her Peloton. So there was a lot of energy, a lot of wonderful connections. Matt and Mo, I know you saw a lot of people through the years and really good to see this market booming, but to recognize what they have to work through, i.e.

28:51unit economics and competition and everything to continue to have strong, I think, like ownership, economics, as it continues to boom around them through the years in the future. I was going to say that the elitism or exclusivity of Pilates, we heard a lot about how at least the people who were in attendance had a big focus on inclusivity and not to be judgmental about, well, you're not a classical instructor or I'm a contemporary instructor, or I'm just doing Pilates on the mat or with the ball. And I think that because of that, there's an opportunity to really broaden the scope. And I really look at maybe parallel modalities like yoga and saying, is Pilates, at least what I found for me, maybe, does it hit the pillars of longevity?

29:45Where are the consumers going? Whereas if the consumer is getting more aware on things like strength, VO2 max, mobility, it's hard to kind of check off. There's not many things that checks off a lot of those boxes like Pilates does. So I think as consumers get more aware and it becomes more mainstream and becomes more affordable and they're better instructors or there's the availability of on-demand technologies, I still think this is going to grow. But Matthew, I don't think you can go back and now re-correct your answer. That episode is published, it is out, and we will have to see where the dust I was just going to ask if I could add one thing.

30:24So I think another really, really key thing here is the modality works. There's no question there, right? The modality, whether you're following the original Joseph Pilates type method or what have you, like the modality works. where people will win, where brands will win, is then you put that emotional psychographic layer, which is the brand on top of it. And so obviously you guys know this is something I have helped a lot of brands do. This is something that we did in Row House because the modality works. You just need that brand that's going to sit on top of it that's going to attract the right user.