Fitness Fiasco
Fitness Fiasco
016 How to Build Connections Across Demographics in Fitness... and AI is coming for Erik!
Step into the world of fitness coaching with our latest episode, where we tackle the essential topic of trust and rapport in training. In this engaging conversation, we celebrate the unique experiences that trainers bring to the table, particularly when it comes to connecting with diverse clients in an ever-changing environment. Mike shares valuable insights on establishing trust with female clients and breaking down gender stereotypes in the fitness industry. He describes his transformation from specializing solely in male clients to embracing a more inclusive approach that allows access to great resources for everyone.
The episode also highlights how technology, including AI, is revolutionizing the coaching landscape. While discussing the balance between tech and the human touch, our hosts convey how trainers can utilize AI as a supportive tool while never losing sight of personal connections. This nuanced understanding helps shape training regimens that are both effective and empathetic, addressing the unique needs of each client. With heartfelt anecdotes sprinkled throughout, you'll gain insight into building rapport and increasing client loyalty.
Join us as we explore how these themes resonate with experiences from the podcast and the broader fitness community. With practical advice and inspiring stories, this episode encourages trainers and fitness enthusiasts alike to foster meaningful connections while adapting to the needs of a diverse clientele. Be sure to subscribe, share your thoughts in the comments, and leave a review to help us reach more fitness lovers!
Send us a voice note, check out show notes and more at our site: https://www.fitnessfiasco.com/
Host Mike - https://www.instagram.com/mikeosunafitness/
Host Erik - https://www.instagram.com/erikbustillo/
Host Rob - https://twitter.com/RobStrength
The Fitness Fiasco Podcast provides general information on health, wellness, and fitness and should not be regarded as professional medical advice, treatment, or diagnosis. No doctor/patient relationship is established through this podcast. Listeners are responsible for their use of any information or resources shared in this podcast or associated materials. This podcast's content should not supplant consultations with qualified health care professionals concerning any existing medical conditions. It is crucial for listeners to avoid disregarding or delaying professional medical advice based on the information provided in the podcast. Remember to consult your health care provider for personalized guidance on your health and wellness journey.
So we are here with another episode of Fitness Fiasco. We're going to change the name a little bit. We're going with Fitness Fiasco still for the time being.
Speaker 2:We keep talking about Rebrandy, but we stick to Fitness Fiasco.
Speaker 1:We're going to try to make this a quick hitter five minutes each for each one of us to answer one question. So I'm going to start with you, mike. Mike, you've built a strong following among female clients in an industry where many women prefer working with trainers that can relate to their experiences a little bit more. You are not a woman, um, so therefore cannot satisfy that assumption, so what strategies have you employed to overcome potential gender barriers and create a sense of trust and understanding with your female clientele? Um, especially considering that that you know female clients are often going to seek people that that look like them or have shared their experiences to help them with with their own experiences, cause they're incredibly unique, incredibly personalized experiences that everyone and everyone has.
Speaker 2:Right, you know, it's interesting because when you listen to the business gurus and marketing gurus of the world, they tell you, find a niche and then find a sub niche and then stick to that demographic for years and years and years. Right, and it typically should be like somebody that you look like. So for me it would be 50-year-old-ish men that are business professionals and have a family and are trying to stay as young as possible. Right, like that would work and that has worked for me in the past when I launched Alpha again, which was a program and then turned into a brand and that was a demographic. However, what I was also doing, I was shunning the female demographic that wanted my help. So it was after repeated DMs from the female demographic and I'll talk specifically on who those are that would say okay, mike, I see that you're coaching men, but can you coach me? And I want to help people, and why would I turn away money when somebody is willing to pay that and somebody is very coachable, so then I would bring them on board. So that whole niche thing went out the window for me and my female demographic primarily comes from when I own the six CrossFit gyms. They're mostly old ex-members of mine I shouldn't say old, not old in age, but ex-members of mine that have found credibility in my coaching and my teaching and the discipline that I have when it comes to research and not falling into the BS nonsense that they trust me. And because they trust me, they come on board and they say hey, listen, I know that you're coaching, you know my cousin is trying to be a firefighter and he's six foot two, 250 pounds, but can you coach me to lose, you know, 15 pounds and grow my booty Because I know that you know about that subject as well. Then, bringing them on board, now what do they do? They refer a friend and, hey, girl, I got this guy, whatever, and he's great online and you know you could do it from anywhere, in your house or in the gym. So that has. I would not turn my back on that demographic, which has led to where I'm at, which is about 50 you just asked me earlier off camera is I'm about 50 men, 50 women when it comes to my online coaching and that has worked out well and I enjoy both. I enjoy training the firefighter that wants to be a smoke diver and then I enjoy training the girl that wants to lose 15 pounds and probably run a 5K her first 5K ever.
Speaker 2:What is smoke diver? So it is a think of Top Gun, right, the school. Top Gun it's for firefighters, so it's electoral, so it's not mandatory whatsoever, but they're the cream of the crop. Right, it's an academy that you do for a couple of days and they beat the snot out of you, but you get that coin, you get that badge of I'm a smoke diver and you're pretty much known as a badass. If you can make it through smoke driver school, we know that you could pretty much put it through. So it's the badasses of the badasses in the fire service, right? It's not required.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Um, so you've built. So then it's, it's. You know you? You opened your first CrossFit gym I am CrossFit in 2007, 2009. Yeah, was it.
Speaker 2:Officially, officially yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, so, and now it's 2025. Yeah, so, at 16, 17 years of building rapport with these clients is why this is. You did not, you know, start an Instagram profile and just start posting educational stuff. You know, you, you've slowly built a rapport with clients and that's where you're getting this success is you've been honest and trustworthy and transparent for 16 years, correct?
Speaker 2:And we've. We've done the math and it's it's been over 10,000 clients that we've had walk through our doors and at some point they've either had a nutritional lecture, they had a, you know, coaching lecture they were under me or, and just one, one thing on top of another bill, like, okay, mike knows what he's talking about, this is his passion and his livelihood, so I trust him. And then they come back. So some of them are still my members, but a lot of them aren't. They've moved away, or they just aren't with us anymore, or they just don't do CrossFit. So they come back and want never met in my life. But it's built a following.
Speaker 1:Awesome, yeah, and when you had that first client or the second client, you treat them really well. You do the unscalable things at that point where they feel like they're an A-list celebrity in your book and that's why they're referring out to you. You didn't start trying to get 30 clients paying a thousand dollars a month each. You start off with one client and a hundred 200 bucks a month and just did a really good job with them and that's how it grown in the niche and for you yourself you work with mostly the older, healthier population, right yeah, so again similar to you, is like that 50%.
Speaker 1:50% are going to be people similar to me and then 50% of my clientele are are the I call the older fit population, which I think is very underserved and that's part of why I've seen some success. There is isn't one of my class find is older here? Uh, well, it started off with my mom who turns 80 this summer and is incredibly physically active but and has grown to a much larger group of individuals I would. I would say, you know, 60 plus. But our health are, are fit, they're healthy, they like to work out, which is very common, you know. It's much more common now as these bloomers age. You know the baby boomers that they are, that they, you know, spent a lot of their time, a lot of their lives active and working out and are more familiar with the gym or more familiar with physical activity.
Speaker 1:But then we look at the programs that are available for older people, like silver sneakers and it's just baby stuff. Right, it's sitting in a chair doing lateral raises, which isn't going to help my mom, who's 80 years old and is flying to the dolomites this summer to, you know, do significant hiking and then like we're going to fly out and hike in the grand tetons with her for for her birthday. Doing doing silver sneakers in a chair doesn't, doesn't cut it. At the same point, it does take a nuanced approach. You can't just take the same workout that I'm giving 35-year-olds that look like me, or 25-year-olds, or anything that you cut out of Muscle and Fiction magazine to give to an older individual.
Speaker 1:It was that understanding of okay, let me look at your background. You're pretty fit, you move pretty well, you like to work out. Background. So you're, you're pretty fit, you move pretty well, you like to work out. You need a program that is that is addressing your needs. That, um, is a lot tougher than your typical 65 year old, you know person program but at the same point, is specific, is specific to you, um, and and that under everyone. When I say that to individuals that are in that demographic, they're like yeah, exactly, if it's, if I know that, if there's a program or something that is targeting my age group, it is not hard enough. But then I know everything. Younger just isn't. Isn't what I need, it's too aggressive for for what I need.
Speaker 2:And let me ask you this how are you delivering that program? Only because of I you know you look at the older population. You think technology and they kind of collide. How do you deliver that program to those folks?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So for my mom specifically, she really likes the in trainer. I use trainer eyes. I'm in trainer as they have the, the interval method, where it shows the exercise on the screen and does the counter, you know, the timer, the whole time. That's how she does all of her workouts. So for her it's a little bit different because I can't train her in person. She has a repertoire and a few other individuals are in that same group. They have access to um.
Speaker 1:I have about 20 different workouts that are all are 20 to 40 minutes long, simple equipment that they have in their house, um that they've slowly accumulated steps, kettlebell, um, a couple of dumbbells, like five pound dumbbells, 10 pound dumbbells maybe, um like an exercise step physio ball. One or two of them have have have gathered and then it's just the. The trainer eyes makes it easy as they follow along and and and go through it. Um. That way. Now you know some of the, the individuals I want to work out in a gym. If they're local in Miami, then I'll either the. My preferred method is to train them once a month and then the rest of the month they are doing their own, doing their own thing, like they're not doing their. They're doing my program, but they have that once a month session either with me or with one of the other trainers that I work with, so that they're familiar with the exercises and can do the rest of the month without hesitation. Got it, I love it. That's great. Yeah, the hybrid model is perfect.
Speaker 1:I think it's the best way for this, meet with me once a month. We'll go over everything, and then the rest of the month you're on your own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that conversion from in-person training, which is getting really difficult to follow, to in-person training, which is getting really difficult to follow, to the new hybrid model which I do coach every now and then. So I'll either do like a group session for all my clients because I want to see them do the big ROI movements, or I'll do a personal session with them and then I kind of let it on their own but I look at the more complex movements during that one training session. So that hybrid model has become very popular. No-transcript strength.
Speaker 2:Old rob strength yeah, you just gotta get the great, the gray hairs like me, and you'll be perfect.
Speaker 1:I know it's thinning a little bit.
Speaker 2:I've noticed it, I've done some videos.
Speaker 1:There's a little little thin spot up there not ready for?
Speaker 2:for that Not ready, yeah, good stuff.
Speaker 1:Thank you, eric. Yeah, eric AI is coming for your job For all of our jobs really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, ai is an interesting conversation. I think I'm going to preface this by saying that I think ai is very helpful I'm not one of these like haters on ai, uh or anything along those lines because it has made it so easy to get information. It's like it's easier than google how and better and better than I think.
Speaker 1:That's the. You know it's a lot better than google.
Speaker 3:You get information from everywhere, right, um, but still, like, for those of us that grew up like looking at encyclopedias and opening the dictionary and all those sorts of things, um, and even like in the research world, like learning how to like look up certain things as far as research goes, making making it like it's almost like very, a very tedious, like PubMed search, let's just say even something like that, um, where now you can, even on Google, you can look up whatever topic and then put PubMed after it and it'll find. It'll find it there in some way somehow. It'll find it there in some way somehow. But now ai, you can just put it into the ai platform and it's going to give you what you asked it and even more information.
Speaker 3:It's like it's, it's fascinating really, um, so it's, it's a really cool tool, I think, for a practitioner. So specifically for for me, being just my and putting on my, just my registered dietitian hat, it's kind of like all right, I can get information that is going to help out in whatever which way for whatever my patient or my client needs. I can find a bunch of information here from AI. It can help with putting together things like a grocery list, a meal plan, like it does, all these things that before again. You know like to sound like that guy.
Speaker 3:Hold on, yeah you need the glasses back in my day, yeah, um, like we were sitting down and like you have to, all right, they're gonna eat this much, so we got to put the meal plan together and now this thing, I mean, you still have to look it over. Uh, uh, right, but that's where, like, the experience comes in, right, oh yeah, there's lacking this or it needs that, but the access to the information and to just doing things and streamlining things for us it's just, it's so nice now where I think ai will never. It might maybe either get close or like um, try to do, to do this, but I don't think it it it ever will, um, or maybe not in our lifetime. Is the the caring aspect, right, the humanistic aspect, just being a human and learning to listen to somebody, their needs? Um, that's a huge part of of coaching, of guiding a patient or a client in the right direction so that they know, like, all right, this person cares about me, right? A buddy of mine once told me people, they want to know how much you care before they care how much you know, and that saying stuck with me and I'm sure he got it from who knows. Napoleon Hill or whatever famous person probably said it, and I think that that's an important thing to keep in mind that we don't need to bombard people with information, but we need to show them that we care, and then we use our knowledge, as this is a skill to be able to take what you know and apply it to the person so that they can now move forward with whatever they're trying to get to, because we don't ever want to lose that human touch, right, and people care about that.
Speaker 3:With that in mind, another important factor is experience. Yeah, right, like this, the difference between a young dietitian or a young personal trainer or a young doctor versus a more seasoned one is going to be the experiences, right? So the patients that we've worked with, the hard times and the good times that we've seen people kind of like struggle with, they've done well or they've done not so well. They've done well or they've they've done not so so well. Um, I think that we have to keep that in mind that, from experience to maintaining the human touch on things those are. That's why we hire coaches, or why people will hire us to help them right.
Speaker 3:That's why a hospital needs good doctors. That's why a hospital needs good dietitians and good nurses, like the best. Nurses are the ones that care really well for the person, that listen to the family's needs, and so on. It's the same thing for a doctor, a dietitian, a trainer, a strength coach, all of that stuff. How well can we listen, how well can we adapt, relate to the person and help them move forward, help them stay encouraged and all of that? So I don't think AI will. Ai will take our jobs, but I think it'll definitely help our jobs.
Speaker 1:Someone with knowledge of AI will take jobs of individuals who have not been able to utilize it. Ai is very good at the first 80% or the last 5% or uncovering details that you might have missed. For doctors dealing with so much data, ai is really good at figuring out, trying to connect the dots in that case, but when it comes to the final diagnosis or implementation, that's where you see doctors have still been more accurate. Like with writing a program, ai has been very inaccurate at the moment. That's because AI is based on so much bullshit programming on the Internet that it's based off of bad data, and if you base anything off of bad data, then you base anything off of bad data. Then you're gonna have have bad outputs. But you know, with nutrition, like over a long term thing, it could do.
Speaker 2:It does a good job at $20 a month yeah, but the difference between $20 a month and $300 a month is outstanding, right, absolutely, and that's where it's not you know if you spoke of the best when you said the human experience, because, uh, part of the intake when you bring on these clients is trying to figure out their lifestyle, and ai could easily write them out a diet plan. But if they haven't been woken up, you know three times at night because of a crying child, you don't understand. You know what happens to your body, like the empathy that the client is going through, that the trainer has felt themselves, because you're trying to build a career or you're trying to raise a family, or you're trying to do both or whatnot, and you deal with pain and agony that AI doesn't feel. So when you have this discussion with your clients, they're getting that human feel like, oh, this guy gets it because he's been in this or he knows somebody that's been in this. He's trained somebody that's been in this as well.
Speaker 2:Also, I think that the accountability aspect of it, when it comes specifically to your job, is very different from the AI experience, because you know, when you look at stuff, like you know, I tell my clients I'm going to check in with you once a week and I under-promise't input your numbers today.
Speaker 2:Or, hey, I see that you didn't, you know, finish your tricep curls or that type of stuff. So knowing that there's a human on the other side of this coaching me is way different than AI, right, and I'm sure I'll get to that point where you create this, this, uh, ai coach that could do this stuff but you could easily ignore. You know, ai, whatever you name this, it's hard to ignore Eric Bustillo that's calling you, going hey, listen. Or FaceTiming you and going listen, you haven't checked in in three days, what's going on? Type of thing. So I think that it's a great tool and it has helped me out on multiple levels, both on the business side and on the programming side, but I don't think it ever replaces us as coaches, if you will, and, interesting enough, I introduced Jess to AI like a month ago and now she questions everything. Hold on.
Speaker 1:Let me look at the microphone Conversation, real life. So yeah, on that note, yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 3:Exactly Perfect oh thank you guys.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Yeah, on that note. Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, exactly Perfect. Well, thank you guys. Thank you, rob, rock and roll. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fitness Fiasco Podcast. You can find more information about the topics covered today and in any other episode on our website, fitnessfiascocom. If you're looking to connect with our hosts, you can reach Eric on Instagram at Eric Bustillo, that's E-R-I-K-B-U-S-T-I-L-L-O. Mike on Instagram at Mike Osuna Fitness, that's M-I-K-E-O-S-U-N-A-F-I-T-N-E-S-S. And Rob on Twitter at Rob Strength.
