Barbell Shrugged - Adventure Races, Business, and How AI Will Change the Fitness Landscape w/ Ryan Fischer, Anders Varner, and Doug Larson #688

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

Ryan Fischer is a highly accomplished athlete and fitness professional, known for his dedication to helping people achieve their health and fitness goals. He is the founder of Chalk Performance Training, a popular fitness studio located in Newport Beach, CA, where he trains and coaches a wide range of clients, from beginners to elite athletes. Ryan began competing in CrossFit competitions, quickly rising through the ranks to become one of the top athletes in the sport. He has competed in CrossFit, finishing in the top 10 and earning a reputation as one of the most skilled and versatile athletes in the field.   In addition to his competitive success, Ryan is also a highly sought-after coach and trainer. He has worked with athletes at all levels, from beginners to Olympians, helping them to improve their strength, endurance, and overall fitness. He is known for his innovative and effective training methods, which focus on functional movements and high-intensity workouts that are designed to improve performance in all areas of life. Through his work at Chalk Performance Training, Ryan has helped countless people to achieve their fitness goals and live healthier, more fulfilling lives. He continues to push the boundaries of what is possible in the world of fitness, inspiring others to do the same through his dedication, passion, and unwavering commitment to excellence.   To learn more, please go to https://rapidhealthreport.com Connect with our guests: Ryan Fischer on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, Ryan Fisher, my dear friend. Many of you guys have probably seen, heard, or been tracked by him through social media. Fisher and I go back well over a decade at this point in time. He's been on the show a ton, but most importantly, back when we were like basically homeless fitness people trying to kill ourselves in the CrossFit space to build a name for ourselves. Ryan actually was kind of homeless for a little while while he was training with us. And it's been a very cool 12 years of us being in each other's lives, being great friends. And every time we get to have him on the show, it's always a pleasure because just all the love

comes through. And some of those people that are super important to you that Have just been in your life through there's some really really hard times As you're just trying to trying to make it in this business world in the fitness world And we've been through many many stages of this thing together So truly one of one of my one of my best friends throughout my entire life so every time we get to pop on here, it's going to actually act like we're working while we're doing some podcasting and catching up and seeing kind of where each other are at in the space. It's fantastic.

In today's episode, we're going to be talking a little bit about kind of like fitness adventures, using fitness to go on these like bigger adventures in life, which I've been setting my sights on a lot, as well as just kind of like building a little bit of behind the scenes and what it takes to build a fitness business app, brand and what goes into that on his side of things.

And then we get into a little bit of where AI is going to be taking this, which is always a fun thing. So hope you guys enjoy it. And as always, get over to rapidhealthreport.com where you can see Dan Garner, Dr. Andy Galping doing a lab analysis, lifestyle and performance analysis, and exactly what you will be receiving once you are a part of rapid health optimization. It's over at rapidhealthreport.com friends let's get into the show welcome to barbell shrug i'm andrews varner doug larson ryan fisher back on barbell shrug buddy um yo do you know i was actually you started chopping up a bunch of clips um of the very first time you were on shrug i

can't believe that was like five years ago now maybe more it's crazy yeah that was back backyard and uh in carlsbad at that awesome gym that unfortunately like all of them do went out of business did it go out of business interesting yeah physical culture was the best they weren't allowed to use that whole outdoor space that we were recording at they weren't allowed to use it so like the the best feature of their gym was unusable it was basically our recording studio because they weren't allowed to actually have people train back there and then eventually they just had to shut down dude i remember that episode was such a big deal like i remember that was probably like one of the first like really big podcasts i was ever on and i think at the time i was making like twenty thousand dollars a month on my online

uh chalk app and after that show, I started immediately making $40,000 a month. It was like, I remember just being like, Oh, my God. And the whole podcast was just like, so like, ridiculous to the because it was just you guys talking about like my life and how insane it was. And I realized the power of storytelling, like in that moment. And I was like, I'm going to tell my story all the time, not even for the money.

It's just, it's obviously what people like to hear. Yeah. And then now when I see other people's stories on social media, that's what I get excited about is like just the story. Cause you get older and you're like, I don't give a fuck how much money you have. I don't give a fuck about anything except for like how you got the money or like you know or what do you do with the money now you know like as you guys know

like i'm friends with alex ramosi and he's got a lot of money but i don't envy his lifestyle i'm like your lifestyle is not as exciting to me you know what i mean so like i want his story is really fucking good though he has a good story. His story part's great. I just think the execution on life needs to be a little bit different for me to like it more. He just works all the time, you mean? There's no time for anything else? Yeah. He locks himself in the closet.

He doesn't like anything else, though. So for him, I respect that. It's just for me, on the storytelling side that I'm looking for and I want to resonate with, it's a little bit different. Yeah. Hold on a second. I actually want to get into this because Doug and I have been talking about a lot on the lines of like, yeah, we all kind of came from like the, call it like the CrossFit side of things where the goal was always lift weights, lift as much weight as you possibly can, and then lift those weights as fast as you possibly can. And if you don't do it faster than the other person,

you suck. So you just worked your ass off to do it just a little bit faster than everyone around you. But now I've like really turned this corner. It's been like a four or five year long kind of gap mainly just because I have children at home and like just getting into the gym for 30 minutes is like a borderline miracle. Um, but shifting all of the, the attention and focus, uh, in, in the future, really to like, how do you use fitness to go on badass adventures? You've done a bunch of those things like from climbing mountains. I'd love to just kind of get your opinion on, on like the mindset around that, because I'm about like Doug and I were talking about going and doing like rim to rim in the grand Canyon. Oh, I did that one. Yeah. I'd love to just kind of understand just your opinion on when you start to dig into these adventure pieces, like where, how do you feel like your standard training just to be able to giddy up and go do cool shit like that actually holds up as like a training methodology for going and hiking big mountains. I love this conversation.

So essentially when you look at fitness as a whole, you have to look at it as a, not just a whole of what it is, but as a cultural whole of what it is, in my opinion. So you see where everything goes. Like there was genuinely a point where Zumba was like mass, like people really,

really, really liked it. Right. And I don't mean that in like a funny way or like a weird way or anything like that. It's just that like, that's what like a lot of people believe in was like hip hop dances and this and that. And you're like, yeah, it was more for the fat loss crowd, but that same energy and that same kind of like outlook on fitness and getting fitter kind of creeped into the bodybuilding world. And then he turned it into this like functional fitness thing. So then you have the CrossFit methodology and that just starts to explode because people start to believe that they can

get more results in less time. So just like anything else in the world, people get carried away with it. They think that more is better. So what happens is you get this really cool methodology that just gets completely destroyed by people overdoing it and then they get hurt. So now you start seeing people start drifting back into the bodybuilding regimens, but they're not forgetting some of the things that theyings of the world kind of like starting to shine a little bit i think we're actually seeing like traditional bodybuilding in general start to go back into like the classic form again um and i can definitely attest to this by being in california and seeing crossfit gyms go down boutique crossfit gyms going down and then now boutique bodybuilding gyms on the rise and not just like on the rise but like fucking really on the rise like really cool aesthetics this is where all the

uh fitness people like influencers and shit want to be because it's really cool like photos and videos and all that everybody wants to work online so you start seeing these boutique bodybuilding gyms on the rise um so with that being said you you know, fitness is changing all the time. And I think every like, you know, eight to 10 years, there's going to be a new emphasis on something. I believe the new emphasis that we're going to start seeing is a smarter approach to that kind of training, but also like more of a power building kind of emphasis because nobody really wants to do the Olympic lifting as much anymore because of the beating on the body but everyone's in these boutique bodybuilding gyms and every yeah like now people are going to want to start to compete in some shape or form so you're going to see like

deadlifts presses squats start to get bigger and bigger and you're going to see people not want to get rid of the bodybuilding element just like they didn't want to get rid of the crossfit element yeah so with with all of that preset um the smartest way to start training for any of these adventure things which is like whenever i get into like a big hiking kind of kick or something right now i just actually got off the phone with hunter mcintyre like just before you guys yeah and we're thinking about signing up for the leadville 100 it's a hundred mile mountain bike race yeah um he's doing great by the way i'm good for him but um love that guy he actually hit me not too long ago go ahead sorry we can talk about hunter and another forever forever long

conversation he's great um anyway so whenever like i get excited about something like this i go into the most classic form of training which is the iwt which is interval weight training for those of you listening if you've never looked up pat o'Shea like from the 1970s he kind of the most classic form of training, which is the IWT, which is interval weight training. For those of you listening, if you've never looked up Pat O'Shea, like from the 1970s, he kind of created like mixing together the weightlifting and the cardio piece, which is what Greg Glassman originally picked up and then just put it on steroids and made it shorter and faster and then implemented more movements with less technique and all of that stuff. So original IWT, yeah. So original IWT, for those of you who don't know, it would be like implemented more movements with less technique and all of that stuff so original iw yeah so original iwt for those of you who don't know it would be like three to five power cleans good form

do a rep drop it do a do a rep drop it and then like hop on the rower and hit like two minutes of max meters and then you would rest like two minutes and do three rounds and then you'd go from your power set to your strength set so now you would do like three to three to five back squats, not a powerful movement, more of a strength movement, and then hop on the assault bike for like two minutes for max calories, and then two minute rest. And then it would end with some sort of body weight kind of conditioning piece, something like that. So whenever I want to do these things, I mix the bodybuilding stuff in and then I just throw in a cardio piece for like some sort of an interval. That way I'm not like beating the hell out of my body. I'm maintaining my physique while like still getting some endurance in. Yeah. And it works really, really, really well.

Yeah. I was going to say, I actually, I want to start bringing that back into fitness right now. It's like the IWT. I feel like it's, it's such, it's like, I can't believe that people don't talk about it more. It's crazy to me. Yeah. All of the, I think one of the things that always held me back, um, from even thinking about this was like, um, do you feel like the, your body is resilient enough for these long endurance type things? Um, which has always, it's really been like, when you're, when you're like a strength power CrossFit athlete, or, or you're even playing sports, like very few sports until you get into like triathlons or Ironman. I've never,

I've just never been like attracted to that community. Um, but now that I'm like shifting the perspective of it, I no longer look at it as like, trust me, I'm not going to be doing triathlons. That's not like not my world, but I still do want to be able to like, we have a client that's getting ready to do like race across America. How rad would that be? I would love to do that, but I don't know. I'm not in the triathlon world or I'm not in the long distance biking world. And I feel like, I don't know if my body would be able to hold up over that length of time to be able to go do that stuff. Like, do you feel like in doing that training, you actually build a resilient enough body to be able to go out and put the reps in to do something that long? I mean, even if it's just like rim to rim, like nothing overly crazy, but just a big adventure. Shrug family, I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapidhealthreport.com. When you get to rapidhealthreport.com, you will see an area for you to opt in,

in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work. Now, you know that we've been working at Rapid Health Optimization on programs for optimizing health. Now, what does that actually mean? It means in three parts, we're going to be doing a ton of deep dive into your labs. That means the inside out approach. So we're not going to be guessing your macros. We're not going to be guessing the total calories that you need. We're actually going to be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you.

Nutrition, supplementation, sleep. Then we're going to go through and analyze your lifestyle. Dr. Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns, and then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the most severe things first. This truly is a world-class program, and we invite you to see step one of this process by going over to rapidhealthreport.com. You can see Dan reading my labs, the nutrition and supplementation that he has recommended that has radically shifted the way that I sleep, the energy that I have during the day, my total testosterone level, and my ability to trust and have confidence in my health going forward. I really, really hope that you're able to go over to rapidhealthreport.com, watch the video of my labs, and see what is possible. And if it is something that you are interested in,

please schedule a call with me on that page. Once again, it's rapidhealthreport.com, and let's get back to the show. Dude, first off, that's a hard hike because you usually go in the summer and it's hot as fuck. And there's no shade anywhere. So it's like more mental than it is physical. But in terms of like super long endurance stuff, I feel like as we get older, we start to lose the intensity factor. But we don't give up on the mental factor. So you start to think of things that are really hard and like more grindy than

like, you know, super, super intense. And I think it's a natural progression for people who go from strength and power sports to eventually go into these endurance sports. Uh, if you actually look at like all the people who are in endurance sports later on in life, they always started as like something that was a lot more intense. And I think it's just something that like, it just resonates more with your body. You're like, dude, I can do hard shit. I just something that like it just resonates more with your body you're like dude i can do hard shit i just can't do it super intense anymore so you start to just gravitate towards these things um and i feel like it's just like it's just like you got to check these things off the list you're like i already did i already did all these like really impressive squats and

this and that so even if i was to get back to that, I don't really care. Yeah. But if I do an Ironman now, now it's like fucking, you know, I just went from fucking a bunch of fives and sixes to like a 10. So it's like, you just get like, it's just like this, this is like a whole new level of excitement for you. And I do think you build some resilience. I think it transfers into your life.

A lot of these, like the most savage CEOs and stuff are usually, I shouldn't say the most savage one. Cause the most savage ones aren't doing shit like Elon Musk and Bill Gates and stuff. But like most people who are in business, who have a cool lifestyle that are making a lot of money, they're obsessed with something. Yeah.

That's actually why my whole mindset on the shift thing has shifted because the people we're coaching are such savages. And then they start to lay out like what their actual goals are. And like, um, we work with some really cool people. It's like, yeah, last year I climbed El Cap and you're like, what? Like you're a lawyer. You're not supposed to have bad-ass adventure goals like that. Um, and then all of a sudden they're out there, um, climbing El Cap and it's sleeping on the side of a cliff. It's really cool. That's impressive. El Cap is intense. Yeah. It's just like what you would consider to be normal people, but, uh, having that like long endurance thing seems to be kind of at the, at the heart of a lot of these big adventures that people go on.

And that's just never been my world, like work out for like 20 minutes. And then I'm like, you know, this is done. Yo, what, what adventure racing type stuff have you done?

I know, I know you've summited Mount hood in, in Oregon. You say you did, you did rim to rim or rim to rim to rim. I did. Grand Canyon. I did rim to Rim to Rim.

I did Mount Whitney like three or four times now. I've done – there's a couple of hikes in Norway. One of them is called Trolltunga. Preka Stolen is the other one, which if you look it up, it's like called Pulpit Rock. It has a few different names, but it's probably the most picturesque, most famous hike in the world probably um a really good hike is cinque terre in italy so cinqua is stands for five and you're basically going like there's five little fisherman towns and you hit each one every like probably two or three miles worth that's probably the most fun it wasn't like a super

difficult hike it was just longer just one of the most rewarding hikes though because like every two miles you like see this insane fisherman town from above and you walk down to it go swimming and get like food for like nothing um i've done a couple hundred mile road bike races i've done a couple marathons i've done i mean i've done a bunch of stuff i feel like people that don't know you right now are picturing like a like a lanky endurance athlete not like a fucking jacked crossfit bodybuilder looking dude like like you're a fairly muscular thick person you're not like a rail thin triathlete after after saying you know you've been on these big hikes and 100 mile you know bike races and whatever else um so you you can kind of run that

whole spectrum you know you're a guy that did fucking lunges with 190 kilos if i remember correctly when we were in in sweden together so yeah i forgot about that i forgot about that i don't know anybody else that could luned anybody else done a 420 pound uh back lunge reverse lunge there you go in sneakers no belt no knee sleeves yeah just good vibe that's all you need and so so far i might not be able to say this forever but so far at 36 i am natural uh so far um well actually actually on that note you were doing those lunges because we were doing the one-ton challenge, and you were not back squatting because you have various knee issues. Is that correct?

So you're able to do all this adventure stuff on knees that are not 100%? That is probably something I should talk about more. It's like my left knee has been bone on bone for a really, really long time. I actually just had another x-ray on it because my girlfriend that I have currently her dad's an orthopedic surgeon. And just like a few months ago, we had an x-ray on and he's just like, dude, this is one of the worst knees I've ever seen in my life. And I was like, well, that really explains the pain. But you know, I'm never just I'm just never going to get it fixed unless like I'm like completely just limping around and like life is super limited just because i am gonna wear through the next one that

i get probably fairly fast i just don't see the point um but yeah my left knee is bone on bone it doesn't really have a lot of range of motion so i can't really go past 90 degrees on it uh so i can lunge just fine because that's that that is 90 degrees, but I can't back squat anymore. I could probably back squat to like a box or something like that, but I just feel like I get more out of the, out of the lunges. So I just do that. I do single leg back squats a lot. Yeah. Going up mountains and stuff now is not that hard for me, but coming down is tough. Right. Yeah. Every time I come down, I'm'm like this is my last hike like

i'm never doing this again and then i'll get you know tossed into something else you guys brought up race across america i was supposed to do that the year of covid hit yeah i was i was signed up to do it with um it was me hunter nick bear yeah my friend matt and then uh you know that came and then the next year came and they weren't sure if they were gonna have it and they did wind up having it and i didn't do it and now i'm just like not in shape i don't think for that i think i could do it but it would be i would yeah how long do you feel like you need to train for stuff like that because um again this is like um totally out of my wheelhouse this like the new, the new framework for seeing it all. Um, like what is your, what's your like 12 week, 16 week?

When do you start training or race across America? Something like that. Honestly, it's just about finishing. And then it's also about your strat, your strategy. Like some people switch every 30 minutes and people switch like every hour. Uh, depends how, you know, what you're, what you want, you want your sleep schedule to look like inside the van that's traveling next to you. For those of you who don't know, it's nonstop. You're pretty much racing for, I think it's like seven days.

Seven or eight days. You're going to go throughout the whole night and everything. The winners usually are on 20 and 30 minute kind of roundabouts with each other somebody press every time um i would probably do the hour a piece route if i wasn't super super fit at the time just because you'd ride for an hour you're gonna wind up riding about 100 to 120 miles a day i think i worked it out to be um so yeah you're gonna be fucking sore your testosterone is gonna be like the same as a field mouse your recovery is gonna be pretty shitty i mean it's just gonna be tough it's gonna it's gonna be tough but i if it was me i would

probably just like start just kind of like the david goggins way he got into running just like start riding and start riding a little bit more and start riding a little bit more and get to the get to the point where you could easily go out and ride like a 50 60 mile day and then i think if you can get out and do a hundred mile ride like once a week even you just go out and just get that done but that's i mean 100 mile ride is six to seven hours of riding so it's a long time it's just your ass it's not even your legs your ass is supposed to hurt sitting that long yeah it's tough and you have a lot of climbing to do i mean just there's a lot going on yeah i would take the nebraska leg flat let someone else deal with the rocky mountains yeah so i would say as long as you can get 100 miles in once a week

i would say you're ready to go yeah um dude Um, dude, tell me about what's going on with the chalk app. You just said 20,000 human beings are training on your app now. That's monstrous. I remember when there was zero, I remember it didn't even exist. That's wild. Um, what's, uh, what's going on in the world of, uh, chalk performance Chalk Performance as like the entire, the full brand and then all the little pieces that it breaks into now? I mean, so basically my goal is just to be, you know, your beacon for training programs. And, you know, I think about big supplement companies like First Form and Bear Performance Nutrition and Optimum Nutrition and all these things. And I think that like people trust supplement companies.

They're like, oh, like I want to get supplements. I'm going to go here. But like when it comes to training, I just feel like people trust people. They're like, oh, I want to go follow Ryan Fisher's program or I want to go follow so-and-so's program. Like, I don't want that to be a thing. I want you to be like, yeah, I'm going to go follow Chuck Foreman's training because I know I'm going to get fucking jacked or I know i'm gonna get strong or i know i'm gonna get

fit yeah and i think that the world really needs something like that so i try to pride myself in making training programs that are unique that are you know innovative not just like your everyday programs that's like always been my go-to so i think people have been liking it um obviously if anyone's watching this right now and you just heard the word Ryan Fisher, you're probably going to get ads for the rest of your life now. So I do spend a lot of money on advertising to help grow the brand. It's been something I've been doing now for... I've had the gym for nine years.

I think I've had the app for maybe five or six of those. And it's been a slow, gradual process of just keep chipping away and chipping away and chipping away. People always ask me all the time, how the fuck do you get that many people? I'm like, well, I just didn't ever stop doing it. It's easier if you don't stop. But yeah, just like any good story, I have lots of hiccups in the road. Totally. I'm actually super interested in this because we've gone the exact opposite route of having 20,000 people and trying to really have 100 people. And I feel like a lot of times,

people through their Instagram accounts or whatever it is, like they kind of hit this plateau. We'll just call it a plateau of like, I have a hundred thousand people that follow me, X percent of those people join this app. And then it's a plateau across the board for a very long time. It's just really hard to continue to grow those things organically through, through whatever reach those people have. What do you think has really, is it just running ads?

But what do you think has really kept you in a place where the product continues to grow? I think for me, it's been one, having unique, innovative programs. So this will actually be fun for me right now because I'm going to talk about business right now. It was just going to excite people, I think a little bit. So whenever I launch a program,

it's not just because I believe it is going to be the best program. I look at a lot of different things. So I download, there's a couple of different website resources you could use. One of them is called SEM Rush. So what you could do with SEM Rush is you can go on different people's websites and you can find out where they're getting their traffic from. But you can not only find out where they're getting the traffic from, you can find out if it's organic or you can find out if it's paid. You can also find out where all of their traffic is going on their website in general. So you can

look up famous YouTube people who are in the training space like John Meadows, Jeff Knipper, like so on and so forth, right? All these people who sell programs and you can go to their website and then you can find the pages that people are landing on the most or when, or where they're taking all of their paid traffic and sending it to. So you can see these pages and then you can also look up on Google analytics and looking up on YouTube analytics and all sorts of things and just find the key terms that people are looking for in general. That was one of the reasons why I decided to launch a power building program this last year. Yeah. So not only did I know that, you know, the boutique bodybuilding gyms are growing, but also like, you know,

what are people looking for now in terms of their training, power building was something that came up a lot. So I started to kind of market to that crowd. Also the full body kind of training was something that literally i invented the actual i didn't invent full body training but i invented the style that i have which is called full body aesthetics and it was something that i created through a recovery from an injury which i just happened to stumble upon um but i nerded out on a lot of like you know how many sets and how many reps do you need to do per body part per week, blah, blah, blah, stuff that a lot of you guys listening are probably

just like, I just take your word for it. Cool. But, um, throughout that process, I was like, oh, this is really cool. Cause I'm getting to do a lot of different movements each and every day. And I'm working my entire body, but I'm not destroying my entire body. So this is probably where a lot of the CrossFitters are going to want to go because they're all getting older now. And then their bodies are all beat up. So I started to see a transition. So this is probably where a lot of the CrossFitters are going to want to go because they're all getting older now and then their bodies are all beat up. So I started to see a transition. So I started looking at the analytics inside of my app and I go from a hundred percent CrossFit athletes to now at this point in time, as we speak, I'm 60% full body aesthetics people, 60, which is wild. I have, I have another another 15 is power building and that power building's

only been around for a few months for me and then the other like 10 is like big booty blueprint which is a glute program that i that i made and then like the rest of it's like prospect and all that stuff so now it's like prospect process my smallest piece of the pie that i have yeah i keep it going because people do like it. But I think when you start looking at analytics like that, you can actually see where everything is going. You kind of have to, I mean, fuck it, man. You can't fail when you're giving people what they need and what they want.

And at the same time, there's a really strong, like this really strong force that you have as a, as a business owner where you're like, it's like, it's like the person who opened, who opens a CrossFit gym and they're a competitor and they just can't stop like wanting to program competitive workouts. Yeah. But your, your membership doesn't care about membership workouts. So your gym does horrible,

even though you're excited every day for the workout. Like, dude, from four years ago to now, we went from like 40 or 50% obesity to like 70% obesity. Like people need fucking weight loss. People need fucking like, you know, accountability and something that is fun in their training. And they need something that is fun in their training and they need something that is sustainable for them like there's people need fun training people need you know more education around nutrition people need like certain things and it's like are you going with the wave or are you just like not giving up on this one piece yeah so there's there's that there's um i think i think my like going back to storytelling i think people like seeing me go from broke as fuck in the ceiling and all of that to like you know i live in a multi-million dollar pad and put a fucking twenty thousand dollar trampoline in my house and like doing doing stupid shit that people are like oh that's a cool that's cool you know stuff like that

how many how many people are following the sweat? Do you even offer that anymore? I feel like that nailed the demographic in like eight years ago, where it was like all this high intensity, how hard can we smash ourselves? And then is that still around? Do you still send that out? I do still have it. So like what happened was I, now I have nine programs every day on the app, which is kind of something I've been thinking about chopping down to like two or three.

Yeah. But every time, so I took Olympic lifting out for a little bit and people just started freaking out. They're like, dude, like, you know, what happened to it? And like, I look at the amount of people logging their scores and it's like,

a number that I just don't care about. It's like less than a hundred people. So I'm like, this is annoying to even make it and put it in here. But there's a part of me that says, I'm not sure if people are signing up for my app because they're like, dude, I get all this value where I get all nine programs, even if they don't use them. Like I signed up for a lifetime gym membership recently. It's like 300 bucks a month. And honestly, I'll spend $300 a month just to work out in a gym that's not mine any day of the week so there's there for me i'm sold but then there's there's there's somebody else who's like dude i get classes i get i get i get like crossfit style classes i get spin i get daycare i get all these things and there's a lot of people who never use any of those things

yeah and they just go and work out but that's what sold them to begin with so i'm like should i just leave it in there because people get excited about it and it is what it is or should i take it out um i was trying to tell you guys a little bit before the show that like i'm um like signing a contract recently to start my own app which I've dove into multiple times. I've lost like 50, 60 grand with other developers and different things, the joys of business. And I think I have, so like everybody I know in the space who has their own app and they're doing very well with their own app, it's very common

that they're spending millions of dollars on their app. It's not like everyone thinks like a hundred grand gets you an app. No, a hundred grand gets you like pictures of your app. That is like basically a fucking NFT. And then from there you can actually build it and turn it into something, which costs another couple hundred grand. And then you have to maintain it. And then like this happens and that happens.

You want to change one screen and it's tens of thousands of dollars more. So every time the idea of an app comes up i'm reminded of what you just said and the first person that told us about this was kalipa where he's got all these people doing nc fit around the world and then he cut like over a cup of coffee he was like you know how much it costs every time i iOS updates and every time every phone system updates. And it was like, Ooh, we should stay away from apps. We don't need that right now. How much was it by the way? A lot.

Six figures, five figures. I wish I could remember. It was enough that I was like, yeah, we're going to not do apps for a little while. You don't control it. You don't control when the update comes. And then as soon as it comes, if you don't fix your app overnight to meet it, then you're out of business for until it gets fixed. Yeah. It's a, it's a tough road. So, I mean, I found this one particular company where I pay a lump sum, and then like a management fee every month. And then we do like a small rev share. And the rev share, they tried to negotiate something big. And I just kept chopping them down and chopping them down. So like now I have a much smaller rev share that's more digestible

for me. And I think it's gonna be cool. I'm really, really excited about it. Like you'll be able to go in the App Store and just double click on the side of your phone and download it. I'll also be able to send traffic to my website. I'll be able to run all sorts of different analytics through it, different things that are really important to me that I don't have right now with my current app. Yeah. I, uh, dude, I want to dig in. There's two things. So, uh, talking about kind of like the, the chalk brand, we like very briefly touched on, um, building out a big HQ, um, where, why do you think having like a big headquarters for chalk performance? Cause you already have a gym in orange County. Um, what, what is it about that, that is kind of driving that, that conversation

and, and really thinking about digging into that. I miss people, right. Um, I mean, dude, just this podcast right now this is like this is this is gonna make my whole week like honestly i'm i get so pumped to like see like my friends and like see people and i think everyone's right now dude this is like the fucking era of side hustles like everybody is just like because you go on instant i don't know if it's the algorithm just for me personally um which actually i'm not even their target market because i don't ever want a side hustle but i go on tiktok or instagram and it's like ten thousand dollar a month side hustle you never thought of or this or that or blah blah blah like everybody i talk to like even people who work in my gym like i have people who are employees of my gym who are like trying to start their own little like side supplement company or sorry, like nutrition coaching or this or that.

And it's like, dude, like one, like what are you doing? Like, yeah, you work. You work for me. You can't start your own thing. And like Margaret, that's ridiculous. But to like these things are not as easy to pull off as you think. So I think a lot of people are just like, they're very caught up in the internet world.

Like the average screen time right now on people's iPhones, like six to eight hours a day, it's unreal. Even if they're at work, they're still backing up that screen time. Yeah. And I feel like everyone's doing stuff online now. That's like the norm. And I feel like eventually you're just going to get to the point where like no one fucking sees anyone anymore.

And I think watching people in the space, it's been really cool to see like the Christian Guzman guy who owns Alphalete, like seeing the success of him opening like a big location. Like it's in Houston, Texas in the middle of nowhere. Like I've never in my life wanted to go to Houston, Texas ever. Like there's just no reason to go there. But now there's a bunch of people that are there because the gym is there and they're building their own little culture. And I saw the same thing with like zoo culture.

Like they opened a bigger location in LA. A lot of people are going there. And I just see, it's just like, it's just like me spotting the trends of like the boutique bodybuilding gyms and this happening, that happening. I think, I think having something like that will be beneficial to a brand. People will be able to go and like tangibly feel it. Yeah.

Um, I know there's something about, there's something about why we all started gyms first to begin with. And then the internet happened, uh, where we could all grow and scale our business and meet people from around the world to go do this thing that we love as well. But when I drive through town, every single empty building I look at and I'm like, I bet I could build a gym there. And I bet it would be rad. There isn't a single empty building. It could be like 300 square foot, like totally run down.

I'd be like, I bet I could like pressure wash it, lay some mats down and put like 10 people in there. I think we could figure it out. Loud music, one big speaker. We can make that work. Like, yeah, I just, there's something about like, and I've started going back to lifetime to train just because I like, I just got to be around the people. Like having your garage is phenomenal. Like it's super convenient. There's something that's just so rad to just have a good spot that is yours.

But you miss the people. Like if you don't have the people around you, it's so easy to put in a 7 out of a 10 workout. It's so easy to sort of move heavy weight or sort of try hard. But even just being in a lifetime where not everybody is there to train hard and do all that, but you're just there. Yep. It adds to the vibe so much to be able to just be around people and and work and and everybody there's lifting instead of just like

you in your garage well dude i went to the first form headquarters and i was like fuck dude this is so fucking sick have you been there yeah uh no but i watched all the videos and stuff that you did there it was baller. It's so fucking massive. And like everybody there is like, it's like, they're at like church. Like they like, like that is it for them.

Like they would never think about going to another gym or marketing another brand or like, this is our community. And like, that's it. And I'm like, fuck, that is so dope.

Yeah. they're like this is our community and like that's it and i'm like fuck that is so dope yeah um but do you not feel like you have community at your gym these days is it just kind of a business now you don't really go there very often you were saying that you don't get to see your friends very often like when you do go to your gym is it just like this is not the same as it used to be what's the what's the story for me for me with like all the business stuff that i'm trying to accomplish now it's like when i go to the gym i really just like want to work out and get out of there but when i go in like i want to clean stuff up i'm like mad at somebody because like shit is dirty or like people ask me a bunch of questions like sometimes it takes two hours before i even get to start working out so like i'm almost like scared to go to my gym just because I don't want to be there for full... I think right now

my average is going to the gym to hopefully work out for an hour winds up being three to four. It's totally standard. There's that part of it which really sucks. I don't really work out there that much anymore. Plus, with the way that my body's been kind

of going in trajectory wise of more and more broken i really miss having like some machines and stuff so i think if i was to make a new gym it would definitely have a few different things yeah quite a few different things that i don't have now they would have all the toys yeah dude cable machines are totally necessary at this point dude i honestly like i just fucking wish crossfit would start over like their whole business plan is so bad like you're taking average person and you're bringing them into the gym and giving them snatches and cleans and handstand push-ups and you're like no no no no you need to work on your weaknesses this is gonna make you better and everything else. No, no, no, motherfucker. This person wants

to get in shape. And like, they don't care about doing a handstand pushup or any of these things. Like it is scientifically proven that if we just do squats, deadlifts and presses, and we breathe, we're going to be able to get the same results, if not better, because no one has to learn anything. Like there should be no learning. You should come in, do a squat, deadlift, and a press, and row, and bike, and do double-unders, and shit like that. And, like, if you can't do fucking pull-ups, you just do the band. And, like, we could have made this thing so much better.

We could have made it so much better. It got into, like, a got into like a uh like a like a trick like party tricks like in the open this year i saw that they were doing like crossover jump ropes i'm like stupid why that's not that's not what are we doing i take it back actually i take it back it's not dumb that's good for the sport it's like but gyms should not be like that like i'm trying to think of like a good reference here it's like but people like i i if you were to like play into all of what that crossfit model stands for all that stuff should be in there it's just none of us would have been able to open gyms for 50 grand, uh,

in 2010 and sleep in it for a little while, just to get back to being able to have enough money to go to Chipotle at night. Um, like that was, that was like the biggest goal possible. Can I, can I actually do this? Um, yo, I'm going to, I want to, I want to shift this though. Cause you run an app with eight, nine different programs on it. I want to talk about AI because I know you're deep into this and like wondering where the hell the fitness industry is going. And I want to hear your thoughts on it. And one of the, one of the cool parts of my, my father-in-law's in town right now, and he's like 70 something years old he doesn't know what chat GPT is so I sat him down last night and I was like look I'm gonna write a training program for

you in about nine seconds and I just type in there uh at home training program three days a week under 45 minutes for somebody that has had a knee replacement and it's like it's got warm-ups it's got training programs it's got program considerations it's got how do you scale this or not how do you scale, but how do you build on like AI coming into our space and, and what's going to happen? Uh, knowing kind of just like the ease of information and, and how easy it's going to be to get very good information. So I don't think anyone should be scared by AI just because like, we could all get all the information we want right now for free on Google.

Like that's, that's a fact. Even Elon Musk was like, you don't need to go to school. You can get all the information you need for free online. Said by Elon Musk himself. So you have the ability to get free information all the time. The reason people buy from you as a trainer or as a gym owner or whoever you are, if you monetize fitness, people are buying from you because they trust you and they trust everything that you're about. So now you, as the business owner, should just be supercharged by this. You should be able to write more emails, more valuable emails, and give them to your customers. You should be able to write more programs now because,

and, and be able to, uh, service more people with better quality. Like you should be able to do a lot of these things because people are going to, yeah, they're going to go on chat GPT and say, can I have a six week loop program? But like, it's, that's not, that's not the same program that you and I are going to get, because I'm going to say, I'm going to say, they're going to say, I want a six week glute program. I'm going to say, I want a six week glute program for a 28 year old person who's 180 pounds, who has been training very, very hard for three years. They're going to work out four days per week. I want to use a double progression method against it. I want to do a deload week every four weeks and i want to use this equipment and i want to be done this amount of time and like i'm gonna

give it the most ridiculous prompt because i already know the fucking answer yeah you don't know the answer so you're gonna get a dumb answer you know what i'm saying like it's not really it dude chat gpt is for smart people it's not for dumb people yeah at the end of the day yeah um in in my opinion i just feel like it's just making smart people it's it's making the rich even richer yeah and it's making the it's making the dumb people even dumber yeah the first time i i popped in in and asked it to write workout programs, it's hard for me to say that I understand or saw the future, but I saw that the answer, as it always has been and always will be, is that you have to be very good at what you do. Yeah.

Because the computer is going to eliminate average information and average coaching and even above average. But if you just have basic information, everyone now has the basic information. So the skill set becomes how do you separate yourself from the thing that the machine can't do. And maybe the machine will be able to like come in and create some like, uh, some fake meme looking person that can talk to you and coach you and understand. I feel like that's gotta be a ways off though, to actually be able to handle like the personal relationship side of coaching, um, and, and understanding how that works. But average information is, you should be trying to distance yourself as far from being average as possible. Like there's just no space for that anymore. I think something that people are going to have to really emphasize going forward on a consumer

basis is anyone nowadays is going to be able to say something smart because I can just chat GPT something about shoulder injuries and like, you know, different ranges of motion you can go through with a dumbbell. And I might not know anything about it at all. And I can just, I can do some B-roll of me working out and then do a teleprompter of me just regurgitating something that chat GPT said, put the captions on top of it. And I sound smart as fuck now on Instagram. You know what I'm saying? You can be like, you can turn into an amazing trainer, but I think what's going to be important to you is to like, watch that person's stories, like watch that person's content, like watch their before and after photos of clients,

like watch different things because just hearing a really good message is not going to be enough anymore. Interestingly enough, I run a lot of money in ads. So I started reading about this person who started making like record-breaking sales on affiliate marketing. And he said that he had broken his previous record by like three or four times by using AI voices versus human voices. So I made a couple ads recently where I start talking and then it cuts me off, goes to a black screen and then says a couple words in AI voice to kind of get the person's attention. Yeah. So there's one ad I have right now. it's like, stop doing cardio to lose fat. And then it goes into a black screen. It's like, here's why, with like an AI voice.

Or it'll say, here's two reasons why. And the whole screen is like black and it's AI voice. Those AI voices compared to my voice did double the sales as my regular voice. Stop it. Double the sales. How? What is it? What's the difference now now i want to see how to see the ad um i don't need to see it right now while we're well nobody's gonna be able to pay it you forgot we were podcast not just hanging out

hold on is that because they're able to is, is it different for every single person on their phone where they're like matching, um, like some, some smoke show sultry voice that's like, here's what it is. That's what it is, dude. I'm telling you, like people are going to start. I mean, dude, they said that one of the biggest moneymakers in all the AI is going to have's gonna be like uh what are those like like call girls who like talk to you but they get to know you so it becomes like hey and there's like how was work like you know blah blah blah blah blah blah and like they they know everything about you they know exactly all the things that you're gonna want to hear and they're gonna like literally be your your person to cry on and and just tell everything yeah um and then there's also going to be the flip side of that where it's like, you know, you're going to be watching AI girls getting naked

and doing whatever floats these people's boats. There's some weirdos out there. Maybe it's like they're fucking showering in Pepto-Bismol and jerking off to it with a toaster or something. You don't know where it's going to go. There's a market for it, I bet. Someone's going to want it. Yeah.

It's possible. possible yeah i think people are just like oh an ai voice like now i'm paying more attention uh or maybe people maybe people um maybe people trust robots more than people maybe that's maybe that's part of it i don't know yeah it's uh i i've gotten on there and and um, we do, we do like a bunch of lab work with people and our programs and all that stuff. And I get in there and I just like put some of that stuff in. Um, and it's very interesting just how fast, like, I would say that it's very easy for me to put information in there and become like, and just believe it. And that's terrifying because I'm not the person that

should be like Googling or whatever that is. Like it's not, you almost take that when, when you're in chat GPT talking about training and talking about labs and biomarkers and all this stuff, whatever it spits back to you, I believe, I don't know if I should, I don't know how great that system is. And like, because I'm just, I'm not smart enough. Like I don't know if I should, I don't know how great that system is. And like, because I'm just, I'm not smart enough. Like I don't have, that's not the way my brain works. So when I go in there and it spits something back at me, I can read the training program to go, Hey, that's pretty cool. But like, it's not for everybody or find that I'm putting it in, like you were talking about a demographic for me and my constraints on life. Um, but it's, uh,

that's what I mean by it's making smart people smarter or rich people more rich and then dumb people even more dumb because now they're believing something that they probably shouldn't believe. The only reason that they got a bad prompt is because it was a bad, I mean, they got a bad answer because they had a bad prompt. Yeah. I've seen like many jobs opening up and i'm waiting for like the first fitness specific one that i see of like the job title is just prompt writer in gpt like that that that is the like who's smart enough to get the best answers out of this thing and know how this machine works um and i would imagine like very large companies are leveraging that in a way that is um really interesting yeah i mean yeah copywriters are gone blog writers probably gone dude you can fill an

entire website up in a day with this thing dude there's actually so if you guys if everyone listening right now wants to get your minds blown go to futurepedia.io leilala Hermosi told me to go there and check that out. Yeah. If you guys know who Layla Hermosi is, it's Alex's wife. You guys probably know who Alex is. But anyway, futurepedia.io, it's basically, it's the hub for every new AI software that's coming out every single day.

So there's one on there. I was looking on the other day. You can make a website in 30 seconds. So you literally just put in the name of your business, you know, throw in your mission statement or throw in whatever you want. And literally you'll have a website in 30 seconds. There's also, I think this is going to wind up

being the future is the ability to incorporate chatbots either into your social media or into your website or whatever. So you can have larger scale conversations with people that are very similar to you. So like you can train the chat bot. You'll be able to be like, you know, I wouldn't respond that way. This is how I would respond. And then, and so on and so forth. Just like you, you respond to chat GPT, it gives you an answer and you're like, Hey,

can you make this a little bit more edgy? Can you make this, uh, can you write this like Snoop Dogg writes it? Yeah. Can you just like, keep doing this, keep doing this. And then it will, it, yeah, it will remember that. And then it'll be able to, from there, be able to give you like all the right responses. So now you've gotten rid of all your BAs. You've gotten rid of, you know, your customer support. I mean, dude, you can literally set this thing up now where it literally is like it reads your email and it just responds to the email. I mean, it's fucking crazy. I haven't gotten to that point of implementing that yet, but that is where everything will go. Yeah. It's going to be wild. Especially like, I feel like all this stuff kind of happens in like the tech space. And then I only care about fitness, health, nutrition,

all those pieces and seeing how like little pieces of it I only care about fitness, health, nutrition, all those pieces and seeing how like little pieces of it gets implemented because it's, it's moving so fast. Like every day there's some thing that I see on Twitter. That's like just this new, this new widget that we can put in here.

And it's insanity. And you just know it's coming to fitness. We might, we might be a little bit behind, but it's coming. Well, I was be a little bit behind, but it's coming. Well, I was talking to my business partner in the gym. So everything Chalk Online is 100% me, but the gym, I have a 30% business partner. His name is Aaron.

He built the software for MySpace back in the day. And he builds, he has a team of like 50 or 60 developers in Romania and he builds apps for multiple companies and he uh I was asking him I was like dude should I like not sign this contract with this company for this new app that I want to build for shot because like in in six months am I going to be able to just like go to chat gpt and it just writes me a fucking app yeah he goes he goes nah he's like basically you can make apps in like a day he's like but they're just like shitty apps and you have to have a really good developer to be able to like basically you know make all the screens the way you want it to be make it function the way people like want to use

the app and you're always going to need updates and this and that it's like i just don't think it matters like i think you should always like have a better product and and not rely on the ai for that he's like but there is a lot of things you should be relying on ai for yeah i do think i do think that like big wealth like nine figures of millions or potentially getting to a billion will be something that teams of like 10 people or less can do now versus you know a nine a nine figure company used to be probably 50, 60, a hundred employees or something. Now I feel like you're probably going to start hearing about some kid in the next like five, 10 years. He's like, Definitely. It's definitely some 14 year old out there right now.

Yeah. We're talking a lot about the potential of all this right now, but like, what are you actually to date? Have you actually used AI for successfully in business? Do you actually use it for things on a regular basis? I've never written an email ever until this last month. I've been writing one every day now just because it's so easy for me to write. I would say that the email that it writes me is 97% of the way there. It's not even like, it's not 80 or 90. It's like, I'm changing very small things. So the email is great because

again, I already know what I want to write about. I'll literally talk about like, can you write me a value-based email about hydration and exactly how much they need like pre-workout during the workout post-workout if it's hot outside, like i already know the answer you know what i mean so i get such a good email and it really speeds up my productivity for that yeah also i mean dude you'd be so surprised if you write in so like right now if you're someone who uses chat gpt and you ask you ask it to be a position in your company. So something like this, like you are the social media manager for my company in a table format. Could you create a social media calendar for me for the next seven days?

And it will actually give you a Excel spreadsheet in chat GPT, which I don't think most people know that it will actually do that because you asked for it to be in table format and you asked for it as a position of your company. And it'll start writing you like social media content and it'll give you TikTok content, Instagram content, YouTube content, all of that. Um, another thing that I do a lot is sometimes I want to watch a YouTube video, but I don't really feel like sitting there for 20 minutes because YouTube is so aggressive. So I go to YouTube. I don't know if you guys know this or not, but you can go to the bottom right corner, click transcript. You can copy the entire transcript that was said during the YouTube, put it in chat GPT, summarize it into like five to 10 bullet points. And I can literally get everything out of the whole video. That's fucking dope. I'm

going to do that all the time. Yeah. So that was like, dude, that's fucking dope i'm gonna do that all the time yeah so that was like dude that's probably the one i use the most i'll literally just be like fucking 20 minute youtube video on blah blah blah or like i just want to know how to like do something but there's like a 20 minute video take the whole thing put it in chat gpt summarize this into 10 bullet points done with like research studies if you just like upload a i don't know if you could upload pdfs or or if you can somehow copy a whole research study and say to summarize this for me i'll even one-up you on that yeah so usually whenever i get like lawyer papers or some bullshit i don't know about taxes i take the whole fucking thing that i put in chat gpt i say can you

explain this to me in a 12 year old reading level and then it'll literally just be like if you sign this you will lose your company in 12 days i'm like oh that son of a bitch they were coming for me they put it behind a bunch of words i didn't understand you know when you get that stuff and you're like, dude, I got to like, where's my lawyer friend? You know, like whatever. Now it's, I mean, dude, contracts. Like if you want to, you know, have a new chalk performance training as the sponsor of Barbell Strugs,

you can be like, hey, you know, I'm going to bring on this company, chalk performance training for Barbell Strugs. Here's what I'm looking for on the contract. It has to be, can't be breached after 90 days, blah, blah, blah.

Can you guys write this up? Whole contract done. Yeah. Yeah. Stuff like that. Right, right man where can people find you ryan fish r-y-a-n-f-i-s-c-h on the gram um chalk dot performance training on the gram i got the real chalk podcast i got youtube guys everywhere yeah i love it i like the youtube stuff you track me hard on youtube every time i pop on you got a new video up i'm like i'm gonna go hang out with my buddy for a little bit i literally just started doing youtube like two weeks ago i think i've hit the last two did you

see the one with the ads the ads i was making with the green screen suit i didn't know they made green screen suits you got me on that one you got me good i did not know that existed neither did i i found that and i was like, I'm deploying this immediately. I'm going to spend the 20 bucks and buy this green screen suit. Doug Larson. You bet. On Instagram, Doug C. Larson. Fish, good to see you, brother. Good to see you too. Yeah, man. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. You can also make sure you get over to Rapid Health Report on Instagram if you want to go watch Dan Garner,

uh, talk of physiology and of course, get over to rapidhealthreport.com. You can see Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galpin doing a lab lifestyle and performance analysis. What you will be receiving inside rapid health optimization friends. We'll see you guys next week.