Where Is The Fitness Industry Headed?

Hey, Athletes! Injuries! Where Is The Fitness Industry Headed? - Episode of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up! 

• Where Is The Fitness Industry Headed?

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IN THIS 40-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• Jerred and Joe are discussing the fitness industry
• They give some changes of the industry over the last 10 years
• They then dive into where the industry is going 
• To round out this conversation they discuss the industry with respect to garage gyms
• And A LOT MORE!!

Diving Deeper…

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Where Is The Fitness Industry Headed?

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To becoming better!

- Jerred

Podcast Transcript

Jerred: [00:00:00] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast. Jerred Moon here with Joe Courtney. What's up, Joe? Hey, what's up, man? Not much. We're gonna skip over the personal updates because we have a lot to cover and we're not gonna, we're not gonna get through all of it. I told Joe, I was like, hey man, I want to do something.

I don't want to cover a study. But here are like some thoughts of things I want to cover. Let's prep for, so I'm going to give you like this broad base of what we want to cover, and these could end up being individual podcast episodes by themselves, but here are all the ideas. I'm going to say them all without the expectation of having to get through all of them in one podcast episode, but we do want to hit on where the fitness industry is headed compared to 2011, 2012 timeframe, which is when like end of three fitness garage from athlete was getting started. And Joe has an article from the ACSM that talked about fitness trends back then to now. And we'll [00:01:00] also contrast that with like just our own personal experiences and views from what's happened over a decade plus in fitness. We also want to talk about garage gyms, what the evolution has been.

We'd love to talk more about kids, fitness, garage, gyms, those kind of things, how they all play together. And then lastly, our thoughts with fitness and AI, especially tech wearables and all of those kinds of things. So those are all the topics we're going to start from where I began that. Those, that topic tree, and then we'll get as far as we can here in a shorter version of the podcast.

And then maybe carry some of these onto other episodes. We'd love your feedback, any garage gym athletes out there listening. If you like these type of episodes good or bad, whether you like it or don't like it, would love to hear back from you inside the community. Just let us know and give us that feedback.

So let's start with where the fitness industry has been and where it's headed. So I'll throw it over to you, Joe to read off some of these trends that aren't just. What we think the trends are like more legitimate limited, legitimate trends from the ACS in. [00:02:00]

Joe: Yeah. So they have a journal, I guess they post it every year and they take a whole bunch of, they take a survey for much people in I think the fitness community different ages, different.

Certifications. They even have a chart on here that says what, like what level certifications people have. So people in the fitness kind of world, I think some people outside of the world. And so looking at the 20, I'll just go to the top 12. They post a 20 top 20 each year. So the top five for 2020 12, the number one is educated, certified and experienced fitness professionals.

So I'm guessing like coaches people were wanting those a lot in 2012 to a strength training. Yeah. Three is fitness programs for older adults, four is exercise and weight loss, five is children and obesity. So broad, I think with those and exercise and weight

Jerred: loss

Joe: yeah, that's

Jerred: that's I don't know.

That's always going to be a trend. It's probably not number one every year, but, okay. And I think in 2023 it's some of them seem to get a little bit more specific, but the top five in 2023, now this is only, 10, 11 years difference. Number one [00:03:00] is wearable technology. And in 20, see, I even wanted to talk

about it.

Joe: Yeah, in 2012, it wasn't even on the top 20. So in, I don't even know when they, when it would have, so within the last 10 years, it went from zero, not even listed to number one two is strength training with free weight. So strength training moves is stated. Number two, pretty consistent. That's cool.

Number three is body weight training for fitness programs for older adults. So again, older adults being up there and then five is functional fitness training. A little bit more specific and a little bit more honestly geared toward, what I got, like this five is basically all a lot of things that we cover and even do the exercise for weight loss abroad, what fell down to number eight.

Let's see, I thought I saw no So the top five is a decent amount of trend difference, especially with, specificity, but also the wearables that get in there just outside. So number six I'm going to note this one is outdoor [00:04:00] activities. And I note that because in 2012, it was number 14 and it was the first time it made an appearance.

Outdoor activities has really ramped up as well. People getting outside and doing more. There

Jerred: that's interesting. Yeah, it seems like the top five in 2023 have moved more to like specific modalities and not these broader topics. It's like functional fitness, strength training, and strength training was in the earlier example too.

And I feel like what's happened, and have the more Objective view of what fitness professionals feel like the trends are. But, just my view of what I've seen over the last decade is what's happened is information accessibility has just exploded back in that timeframe, that's when Instagram first started and people were only using it to take pictures of like.

That had these really aggressive filters on it and it was a food typically Like that was all instagram's purpose was there was no video. There was no live. There was no anything else And instagram is not the only thing that has you know blown up. There's [00:05:00] tiktok. There's youtube and then there's even podcasting you know, i've been pretty much podcasting since around that time frame or a little bit later than that, but all of these things have exploded.

So I think our ability to access information has drastically changed You And we've talked about this on the podcast before, but that's a good thing and a bad thing, right? It's it's a great thing because if you want to learn something from some expert now, and that's one thing I've, I don't want to go off on like a podcast tangent, but what was crazy is when I first started podcasting, it was let's just say it was like regular dudes.

It was like guys like me and guys I knew, and we were getting a lot of traction, like in all these different industries. But now it's like a famous actor will have a podcast or a billionaire will have a podcast, it's like people who didn't even want to touch podcasting back in the day. And that's the same with these really high end, like our super, um, intelligent professors, like all these people, they weren't [00:06:00] doing it. It was so fringe, the health and fitness. It was everything was so fringe. It was like to give an example, like the Dave Aspreys of the world were like the most popular guys back then. And he was just like, psychotic in a way, he's just like talking about all this, all these crazy things, like how he's taking a thousand different supplements a day to try and live longer and all this stuff.

But. And he was finding obscure science to back it up. But there was no one to against that grain. And now it's definitely aggressively shift, but with that comes a lot of negativity of information overwhelm. You don't know what to do. I don't know if a plant's killing me.

I don't know if meat's killing me. I don't know if water's killing me or if I'm doing the wrong type of fitness and that's killing me. So there's a lot of, uh, there's a lot of Bad information out there that now people have to weed out through that. We didn't have to before like we honestly could have a really Good conversation on a podcast and just try and get to some sort of truthful Answer and now it's it's got to be as controversial as possible and I think that's led people in a you know Going back to the positive side of it that seeing that fitness trend where it's only [00:07:00] oh I only do fitness if i'm trying to lose weight What those trends show me is that people now have access to the realization that strength training is Important functional fitness is important getting outside is important and they're able to go down any path They want and get the information they need to be really good at these things And so that's another that's the good of all this like growth not, stepping away from that negativity is like There's so much good that's come from the information that's published, produced, the quality a checks and balances on creator versus creator so a lot of good has come from it, and I think it's gotten a lot of people into fitness who probably wouldn't otherwise be into it.

If you even go back 2010, maybe pre 2010, If you were really into training, like even that was French. Like it was kind of like, you didn't know very many people. If you just think about like growing up did you have a lot of friends, dads who were like, I'm not aggressively training for [00:08:00] anything, like that wasn't a common thing.

And, for us, that was like the nineties basically. And fitness wasn't even much of a thing going back to like seventies and eighties. So it just wasn't that thing. I remember I had a friend whose dad was an Ironman triathlete when I was in the fifth grade. And I just thought that was insanity.

I was like, I'd never heard of anyone doing anything like that. I get granted. I'm only in the fifth grade. I'm like, whatever, 12 years old. I don't know how old you are in the fifth grade, but I had never heard of that. No one, none of my friends, nobody knew anybody who trained for something like that, and now it's yeah, it, there's every other household.

Now there's someone who's like. At least running like an ultra marathon or something like that. It's a lot more common. And I don't just mean from a social media standpoint, I just run into people randomly who are doing some pretty awesome things. So I've seen a lot of good come from this spread of of knowledge.

Joe: Yeah. The dad's on our block growing up. They either played some sort of pickup game, rec league, like pickup basketball on the weekends. Or a my dad played softball a little bit here and there for a [00:09:00] league. It was like that and yard work. And that was like the dad's MO. That was my dad like

Jerred: hardcore.

It was yard work. I hated it because that was like just our weekend was like we were going to do yard work. And but yeah, man it's been a, it's been quite a transition. Like I said, from being this fringe, more of like people not being able to associate themselves with fitness, but I think it's made it a very approachable for most people, which I think is the best part of it. Yeah, I think more people are into it than ever.

Joe: Yeah. And just another thing for these trends is, and it's funny how toward the end it shows a mindset shift and that is so in the end of 2012 or the bottom toward the list of 2012, there were things on the list like worker incentive programs, physician and physician referrals.

So that's like. To me, that's not like a healthy mindset. It's Hey, what can I get as an incentive? And then just referrals for for doctors and stuff. But in [00:10:00] 2023 at toward the end of the list, 15 is exercise is medicine. 16 is lifestyle medicine and 19 is health and wellbeing coaching.

Jerred: That was all 2023, right?

Joe: Yeah, the last three were all 2023.

Jerred: Yeah. Yeah, I feel like we, we're moving in a positive direction, but part of it is why. Is it the fact that we are fatter and sicker than we've ever been as a society? So it's become a necessity.

Joe: Need to take health into their own hands and not worry about, the, whatever healthcare system they're subject to.

Jerred: Yeah. I talked about this idea on the better human business podcast which if you didn't know, I had another podcast. I do short 10 minute episodes just about business and really self development stuff, you can go check it out. But I talked about this idea of. How I really think that it's time like we have to protect our brains, and I'm talking specifically [00:11:00] about artificial intelligence, chat, tbt, all these kind of things.

They can do so much work for us that it can remove our ability to have to think critically. And what I'm not saying with something like that is I'm not saying, hey, Don't use AI. Don't use Jack TPT. I think that's the wrong answer. I think it's only become more and more integrated into our lives, maybe even to our actual bodies and minds.

And so it's, you have to embrace it, but I think you have to create, you have to set out ways to keep your mind sharp. Like you're going to have to decide you know what? And it could be anything, but you're gonna have to start exercising your brain. You're going to have to like, uh, open up a math workbook.

And go through it, just to get your brain moving, get it exercising. There are lots of apps that do these things, but I feel like that's going to become a necessity as brains start to somewhat atrophy and people get dumber because they don't have to go through any problem solving. And we're right at the beginning of this.

And I honestly believe that's where [00:12:00] we're headed. I think it'll take a while for it to all play out, but I. I'm fairly confident that's what's going to happen. Like the average person is going to be so much less smart than people are right now in 10, 15 years because of what AI is going to take away from us.

Having said that you can be the person now with AI who starts exercising their brain and you can bypass. All the problems, but that's essentially what happened with fitness. Is there were some people who could see, Oh, wow. Like fast foods, getting out of control, the processed foods, getting out of control, we're sitting down a lot more and some people saw through all that crap.

And they were like, I'm going to choose to do made up work. I'm going to choose to do fitness. I'm going to, I'm going to run, I'm going to lift a heavy load. I'm going to do all these things. And they bypassed being overweight. They bypassed being sedentary. They bypassed all these things because they decided now or back then that they were going to do fitness.

And so I think that [00:13:00] decision is now greatly realized by people like you. It's just a matter, like you have to do it. It's a, whether you want to lose weight, be healthy, you want your brain to look better. You are not look, you want your brain to work better or you want to look better. You have to do fitness, you have to do those things.

And I think it's becoming more of a, not this fringe thing Oh, you're into that. That's cool. I bake you work out. It's more like everyone has to work out. And I think that's becoming realized. And that's, I don't want to hit on that anymore, but I just feel like that's the biggest trend I've seen is like, it used to be almost this hobbyist odd thing, not odd, but like not a lot of people were into fitness to now everybody knows that they should have some sort of fitness routine and it's whether like shame that they're, they don't do it or they're trying to fit something in.

So it's not really like this, Oh, you're one of those people. It's ah, yeah, I should be one of those people too.

Joe: Yeah. And information can be a double edged sword. There's a ton of bad information out there and bad influencers that go to demonize things or you just don't know what to believe.

But then at the same time, there's also way more [00:14:00] good information out there and way more efficient ways to learn, to do things of Hey, you don't need to go and beat yourself up in the gym for 30, 60, 90 minutes in the day. You can just do something for. You can do something moderate for 30 minutes and it'd be fine.

You just lift one, one or two, a couple of things heavy once or twice a week and then go out for a walk, get your heart rate up for, 20, 30 minutes and you'll be a lot better than you were before. You don't have to do all these crazy things. And even if it's spaced out throughout the day.

Jerred: Yeah, and I'd say all the negative content that I see on social media or let's just say bad I don't say it's negative. They're not like trying to be negative, but like people coming out with you know More scary based fitness and health stuff like things that are bad for you Is like it's all these like half truths and I used to get really excited about this stuff early on in my fitness journey When I'd research things like I'd find something like beetroot juice, right?

Found that like back in the day and I get super excited about it and I'd want people to know about it. So I'd write a blog post about it and people, it'd be discovered and people would be [00:15:00] excited too. And like that kind of perpetuated for a while, even with me where I'm like, I'd find one singular thing, one singular modality.

And I'd want to share it with people. But the problem comes when people are thinking that one thing is some sort of solution. And I think that's what's happening more now, because anytime I found a singular thing, I was never, I never really thought Oh, this is it. I've got beetroot juice now, like that is all I need.

Like I'm good to go. Or the same thing happens with like single ingredients. This happens with supplement companies. It happens with people creating content online is they'll be like, This has this ingredient, it's going to kill you. And it's maybe not, or it might be like, this has this one singular ingredient in a supplement.

And so it's going to help you so much. It's you're probably not getting enough for that to be true. And so like this whole point of singularity, it's this one thing's going to help this one supplement, this one ingredient's going to kill you. None of that's really true. And I think if you [00:16:00] can realize that everything's big picture, like everything has to be taken, um, with a grain of salt to some degree, like there, there are no quick fixes.

There are no quick deaths, there's no like from food or like some chemical unless you're in just, getting injected with a poison uh, eating McDonald's today, if I go do that for lunch, it's not going to kill me. I'll actually probably be just fine. I don't want to do that, but I'm just saying like, it's not like I'm truly eating poison and I'm not saying

Joe: McDonald's.

Jerred: Yeah. I'm not saying go eat McDonald's either. Like I, there, there is a lot of bad there, but I'm saying like the singular decisions or singular ingredients or singular things that are going to save you or kill you, there's just no, there's not a lot of truth to any of that. You just have to look at the big picture for all these things.

Joe: Yeah. I, it's hard to say if things, yeah, I probably it's hard to like really know if people have gotten more dogmatic and more like pigeonholed into certain certain, whatever they believe there's just [00:17:00] more of it out there. It's all balances out for either.

The hyper focused people and then the more general type people.

Jerred: I've always told, like I've always said on the podcast we've got the most boring message out there. It's the least sexy. It's hey, we're going to need you to exercise do some strength training. Yeah, do, we need you to do some low intensity, some high intensity, some moderate intensity, strength training, aerobic training.

We need you to eat right, and we need you to do that for the next 10 to 15 years. And it's what are you talking about? Like, why that's so boring? It's yeah, but that's what it actually takes. You can go anywhere else you want and pretend like it's going to be faster or easier. Go for it.

And then come back to me in a decade when you found out I was right. Like I just, it's just a, cause you don't have to do it with us, but you'll just realize that this is just has to be become a part of who you are and it's frustrating and annoying, but it's not a 12 week program.

It's not a six month cycle. It's You just got to do it. You just got to do it forever. And nobody really wants to hear that. The people who love fitness are fine with it, but the people who are on the fence don't want to hear that they're not

Joe: speaking of us, just the [00:18:00] last things from the 2023 top 10 is home exercise gyms, ranked 13th and mobile exercise apps was dead, it was net last at number 20, but that, that broke in their home exercise gyms was not on the

Jerred: Garage gyms in general, and this is a good segue into like evolutions of garage gyms. I was so early on that, like so early on garage gyms, like garage gym content. Cause I was creating that DIY stuff back in 2011, 12. Like it was before. A garage gym was like, like it was barely a thing. Like again, it was like the fringe weirdos had one.

I remember I even had an uncle super into fitness, he still is lifting weights at least and stuff, and I remember when I was telling him we were, like, visiting, I was like, yeah, I'm gonna make a garage gym back in 2011. He was like, dude, don't do it, and he's I was like, why not?

He's I [00:19:00] don't, I had a bench press in my garage once, and he's it's the worst thing ever. He's you'll sit down to do a set, and then it's your wife will be like, hey, you gotta take out the trash, or, kids doing something because he, he's my uncle, he's older than me, just further along in life, and I was like, I don't know if that's right, dude, but I'll never forget that conversation.

And that's just like, it was a very odd thing. Like people, people didn't see the value in it. And now, I mean, where garage gyms were like, we could talk, we could go so many different directions with this from like content creators to how many people have a garage gym to The equipment, how I used to build equipment out of wood.

And now that's one of the dumbest things you could possibly do. Not because building out of wood is dangerous. It's because it's like economies of scale, like China basically has a dominated this market and you can buy squat, squat stands on Amazon, probably for 35 bucks that can be delivered to your home by the end of the day, versus, spending [00:20:00] that a hundred, 200 bucks for the DIY project to build them on your own.

So anyway, What have you seen? Just what's your take on the evolution of garage gyms? You've been in this world with me for long enough. What have you seen change?

Joe: Thinking of like way in the past, I think there's definitely a priority and mindset shift to it because thinking of the kids houses that we would go in or you even own, it's Hey, you're down to the basement.

It's there's the TV. There's the pool table and oh, yeah, there's the peck deck like, yeah, we have a little bit of a home gym and it's just just thrown in there as an afterthought. Now it's hey, I'm going to set up a home gym. This is going to be the gym space.

This is where I work out. Now I'm going to, I'm going to make it to the gym space and even like garages like you court on, you get your area walled off, I know garage tend to accumulate a ton of stuff, but if there's as long as there's that, like that area set up, then I think it definitely changes in that regard.

And, with the trend of more people are thinking about, yeah, we need to work out. We need to do more active [00:21:00] stuff. I think it's much more acceptable to like spouses. They got a lot of times. That's a hard time with a lot of people. They, if they don't have, if one, one person wants to start working out and training more.

The other person is eh, how much is that going to cost? How much time is that going to take? Where is it going to go? There's just some sort of, not that they're downing it. It just feels like a little bit of a negative. Feedback. But nowadays I think it's much more acceptable and like encouraging and just like more things to do.

And especially if there's like friend groups or you start doing something with other people or even like there's just so many options now that then, couples will join a lot of those things together.

Jerred: Yeah. And that is true. Like if both, if the husband and wife or whatever, aren't in agreement on setting one up I think that could be a huge problem.

But I do think that there's been a shift in more people having them.

Joe: So much easier to get equipment.

Jerred: Yeah. It's, but here's just what I've noticed. Emily and I've been into real estate for a while, like really just moving a bunch on our own is one, which [00:22:00] was, so that means we've been in the market for purchasing a home a lot more than average people, just because of how much we've moved.

So that, that means like on, in any given year, if I'm looking for a new house to buy We could look at 30, 40 homes before we decide to buy one, or it could be 10 or like whatever. But if you count internet searches it's like probably a hundred different things that we look at before we buy one.

And early on when we were doing that, like the chances of there being a home gym anywhere. Zero, like it just never happened, but then. I've noticed in kind of these suburban neighborhoods in my, in our area where some of my kids friends live, like I'll see garages open and I'll see rubber mats on the floor and a rack or when we would look for houses to buy more recently, I would see Oh, this one this house has a garage gym.

And Emily and I even own some rental properties and this is the first time it's ever happened. They just moved in two months ago. This guy's a [00:23:00] pilot. And he messaged us and he's Hey, I want to install some gym equipment. in, in the house. Is this cool? And it was literal, like he sent me a picture of my rogue rack, the one that attaches to the wall or whatever.

And I was like, I don't think I'm allowed to say no to this. . Yeah. Like I know I'm your landlord, but if I told someone they basically can't have a garage gym 'cause I didn't want some holes in the wall, I think that'd go against everything. Every part of who I am. So I approved it or whatever, but I had never been asked that before.

We've had rental properties for a long time, several rental properties, several tenants, a lot of turnover, no one's ever had a garage gym. And now this like guy, he's not even like a, like some fitness influencer, he's just, he's a pilot, like who wants to stay fit when he's home or whatever, it's just, it's been quite a change, quite an evolution in garage gyms. And then I think. Uh, the only thing I haven't enjoyed about the garage gym evolution is like all these, like random [00:24:00] fitness suppliers popping up. And I think, people like garage gym reviews, coop They do a decent job with these kinds of things.

I think that whole website's getting a little bit commercialized, but I think that's what happens when you sell your company. And that's what coop ended up doing. But anyway, they've done good job over the years of reviewing this equipment and doing solid reviews of these things.

But now there's so many like equipment suppliers popping up. People are really like gunning mainly on price these days. They're like. I don't really care. And I just, I'm not, I don't have my pulse on these things enough to know if anyone's getting hurt. You know what I mean? Like chances are, you're fine.

If you're not putting most of these equipment in a commercial gym, where it's going to get used and beat up and you're taking care of yourself, it's probably fine, but it scares me a little bit with having heard horror stories of pull up bars, breaking benches. Benches breaking adjustable benches breaking like while people are lifting it these kind of things i've seen i've heard of [00:25:00] like direct first hand stories Not like some instagram post or something where I saw this video.

It's like I know these things happening to garage team athlete members and it's oh, did you get that from rogue? It's no, I got it from Bebops, it's a new supplier out of China, whatever like things that you have to be careful with the evolution of garage gym equipment. I'm not saying you have to buy everything from rogue or what would be another high end So we're next is probably in that category.

Trying to step down. I think it's a big one, but it's definitely a step down there. Bigger name, but they're definitely like they're getting everything from China. You know what I mean? Like they're just like, they're trying to mimic rogues equipment, but they're getting from China and that's how it's cheaper.

And rogue is sourcing their steel from America or Canada and building it in house. That's the difference. And so anyway, and that's fringe support. I put in that same category, love fringe, love the CEO there, Peter. They have great stuff, amazing customer service, but the same story.

They're not trying to copy rogue, but like most of that is sourced from China as [00:26:00] well. And there's not necessarily anything wrong with that. Those are the levels you get. And then once you step away from those guys, rogue sworn X, and then it's like Titan, and then you got like a fringe sport, these kinds of ones, then.

Then you're getting into this weird category of like buyer beware. I hope you're, I hope everything's okay. And that's the only thing I haven't liked about the the garage gym equipment evolution, but the evolution of everyone basically having a garage gym. I've absolutely loved that.

Like it really aligns with our mission of what we're hoping for people.

Joe: So this kind of ties into a few things that you've mentioned with celebrities. Into these spaces and equipment and like some, like a sort of this is, this can be a good thing, but it's also what's the point?

So Gronk the former Patriots tight end has Gronk fitness and they sell and make, Fitness equipment and just today, it just happened to pop up. I saw a coupe reviewing their they have a leg extension and leg curl machine. And they're making these they're good prices for people to have at home.

And these kinds [00:27:00] of machines to have that, or like chest, flip presses, or, a calf raises machines. And I'm like, all right, if you have, I'm having a, I'm having a garage gym to make it efficient and to have, the versatility. If I want to have. All of these machines, like just get them, just get a gym membership.

It's going to take up so much room and cost you a ridiculous amount of money for one or two exercises that it can do. So there's almost it's getting way too far to the side to do it. Okay, maybe if somebody has a barn or a warehouse and money to throw around, sure. But like a lot of this is just getting crazy.

Jerred: Dude, even if I had a giant barn on my property, it would be, I'd spend most of my money putting rubber floors on it, because that's not cheap. And then I would still have minimal equipment. It just, that's always been my stance is like, if, yeah, if I wanted a legit belt squat machine and then I wanted a leg press and I wanted a chest press and I wanted hamstring curl machine, leg extension machine, all these things.

Yeah, dude. I'm getting a 50 a month membership or even less. If you [00:28:00] go to what's that one? So when everyone makes fun of, is it plant the lunk alarm?

Joe: Yeah.

Jerred: Get a 9 a month membership and use all those same machines. There's no way I would. And it's not even a cost thing. I just wouldn't, I don't want that in my house.

I think that's a, it's like a monstrosity. I'm more about like the space have being able to have my kids run around, do activities, those kinds of things. And that's just been the garage gym athlete mentality. Has nothing to do with finances. It's just what can I do with minimal equipment?

I don't want this stuff to own me, but like to your point of Gronk slapping his name on something that's good and that's good for him. But that's what's happened in this, the supplement industry is like supplements for the most part are trash. And so all it takes now, we've talked about this.

I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna hammer home, but like, all it takes now is someone gaining a lot of popularity. Let's say I just, I 10 X my Instagram followers or a hundred X my Instagram followers. And then I'm like, you know what? It is time. It's time for a Jared Moon protein powder. [00:29:00] And then I just go get the same protein powder that Gronk has.

And, but I put my it's from the same manufacturer is my point. It's like basically from the same manufacturer, but I put my brand on it. And now I'm getting people to buy it. Cause they're like, Oh Jared stands behind this. It's gotta be good. And what you're telling me now is Oh, this is happening with fitness equipment.

It's this, these Chinese manufacturers who are producing for fringe and Titan and probably these other ones, it's gronk can just slide in there and be like, Hey, make the same thing they're making, but put my name on it. Or if I got really popular, I could just do the same.

Hey, I want a Jared Moon leg extension machine. It's it's the same of all these other companies are doing, but it's got my name on it. I just don't know where that it's just such a money. In my opinion, it's that's why I really respect rogue. I just really respect them. And I hope that they don't ever change and they're not perfect by any means, but it's like they set out to build something quality and that's honestly where, and if we took a step back and we're just talking about like the world of consumer goods right now It's a shit show and it's no [00:30:00] different in the fitness industry is like I don't know if you've noticed this with buying crap on Amazon or whatever but like I'll go to buy something and it's the most I have a great example of this I needed a so we just moved in this new house and They forgot to cover some electrical boxes.

Like they're not actual electrical boxes They're like electrical box junctions that just need like a plate For it to be covered. So like it, nothing goes there. It's it's basically a blank plate, right? They're white. It matches the wall color. And it's only two of them that I need in the whole house.

These things are like 70 cents. Okay. And so instead of having the electrician come back out, I was like, I'll just do this. And I ordered them on Amazon. But it was like, It had 4, 005 star reviews. And I was like, what are you talking about? Like it's a plate. It comes with two screws.

It goes into wall. It can't be good or bad. Like the only way, the only thing that it could only be bad, that's the only thing this thing could do is like it could not screw into the wall or not come with screws. You know what I'm saying? But there's some algorithm, there's some game they're playing to get [00:31:00] 4, 005 star reviews.

That's BS, man. Something's going on there. Some algorithms, some way they're cheating the system. I just don't even believe it anymore when I run into these reviews and then you get it and it's just cheap, flimsy piece of plastic. That's like a little bit warped. I'm like, there's no way this is happening.

And I think it's happening with so many products right now. You go on Amazon, you want a new pair of shorts, right? So you like, Ooh, this has got a lot of reviews, but they just played the game too. However you play that game. I'm not in e commerce at all, so I don't really know. And then you get the shorts.

They last for 45 days. Under normal wear and tear and you're like, oh, those weren't actually that good and it's They don't even that company doesn't even really exist anymore So you have to try something else that actually happened to me, by the way The shorts thing like emily bought me this amazing pair of shorts.

I really liked them they were like the perfect running short, but they weren't whatever 110 dollars like buying from bird dog or whatever You know what? And so I was like these are great I was like i'm just gonna get 10 pair of these and then we went back to amazon the company didn't exist anymore and those shorts didn't end up lasting You Much longer than a few months as far as like quality and washes [00:32:00] and all this other stuff.

But that's the way the world is headed. So I prefer to buy quality when I can, if there's a company that's actually doing things right, trying to build high quality stuff. That's what I'm into. I, that's what I want to own. Not just from a garage and equipment standpoint, but from most of the things I'm trying to buy these days.

Joe: Yeah. I dive into a lot of the Amazon reviews. If it's a brand that I'm not sure of, especially especially could close and like just see how they fit, see how they hold up. And to your point of that product having 5, 000 reviews for something stupid. So I went to buy stuff before. And if you look at the reviews, it will be a completely different product in the reviews.

It's like they change the product. Like it's like they somehow changed the picture, changed the cost of the product. And somehow it doesn't make it a new product. They just edit it so that it beefs up and seems like this. They can just swap out a product and just keep on having that, those reviews.

And it's not even related, which is crazy.

Jerred: Yeah, and I think that's what's happening with garage gym equipment and like now anybody can get started and be a garage gym supplier And I just don't really understand the [00:33:00] motivation behind these things for somebody who's like maybe Somebody like me it doesn't make sense Like it wouldn't make sense for me to pour all my time and energy to like Pass off a pass pass off a crappy product.

You know what I mean? Like just to try and make some money, like it, that doesn't, to me, it doesn't make sense to do business that way. If I honestly wanted to start a in a fitness equipment company, I would probably have, I would probably end up doing something like rogue, like my dad and my brother, just like they, they were welders, like not for a living, but they, my dad, Welded growing up like as a job then he went a completely different direction My brother learned how to weld and did that as a job for a while too before he went entirely different direction So anyway, like that skill sets in my family i'd be like, hey guys, we're gonna weld some shit Like let's build some actual like awesome equipment.

Let's over build it Let's you do some amazing things and I remember when I ordered my first rogue rack My dad being a welder like looked at this and was like Damn, like he was looking at the [00:34:00] actually like where they had welded it together like in some of the spots He's like These are really legit, like legit welds.

He was impressed and like that him being impressed by it is like something that's kept me around and something I pay attention to, even if I buy like a new rogue product and then I can tell when I buy crappier products that it's like just barely tacked together. Like the welds that kind of crappy.

It's you don't know if that'll last forever. And so yeah, anyway, I'm not saying all this stuff to like, just love on rogue and hate on any other companies, but I think quality is one of the biggest shifts I've seen.

Joe: Yeah. I think we've gotten probably at least one average one email per week from some sort of international equipment company that wants us to sell and put their stuff on our side of whether it's wrist straps or medicine balls or plates or something like that.

Jerred: Yeah, I think, we can probably wrap it up here, man. Like I, I do want to save like the kids conversation and the AI and tech wearables, cause those could, that's a huge can of worms, but that's what we've seen in the fitness industry and a garage gyms, like I said, different type of episode [00:35:00] here.

But if you like it, please give us some feedback. We'd love to hear more for all the garage gym athletes out there doing our training. We really appreciate it. And for anyone who wants to get started, go to garagegymathlete. com sign up for a free trial. And we would love to have you. That's it for this one.

Remember if you don't kill comfort will kill you.