Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1237: Why Most Group Exercise Classes Suck

Episode Date: February 27, 2020

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin discuss the pros and cons of group classes. Group Exercise Classes: The good, the bad and the ugly. (3:38) The origins of group exercise classes. (8:25) Why is there such a pull to take these classes? (10:34) The Pros of Group Exercise Classes. (14:45) Cardio with weights. (17:18) The risk vs reward of yoga classes. (18:28) The detrimental effects of being a cortisol junkie. (20:00) The biggest mistake people make. (23:58) Regression vs Progression. (25:52) The difficulty to individualize. (27:40) Do NOT ignore your body’s signals. (31:15) The popularity of Orangetheory and F45, the difficulty to teach it & MORE. (33:15) The importance of educating yourself before you invest in group exercise classes. (45:32) Related Links/Products Mentioned February Promotion: MAPS Split ½ off! **Code “SPLIT50” at checkout** Visit Kion for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Are Group Fitness Classes Just A Trend? - Mind Pump Media Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned  Brendon Ayanbadejo (@brendon310)  Instagram

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why we've seen high rates of injury, why they're typically inappropriate classes for most people, why they attract the wrong type of person, and why, and why we think they need to change their approach. And we give you some advice. If you're somebody that wants to take group exercise classes, we kind of help you out on picking the right one. And if you're a group exercise instructor,

we also give you some advice on how to make your group class a better one for most people. Now this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Keon. Now Keon is the company owned by Ben Greenfield, our good friend. He's like the biohacker extraordinaire. In fact, he's the only best one that exists, the rest of them are all fake.

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You get everything you need. Workout blueprints. We have exercise demos. The before and after pictures, people are sending us from this program or exceptional. People are getting great results. Again, here's how you get that discount, that 50% off, and make sure you take advantage of it in the next 72 hours. Go to mapsplit.com that's MAPS SPL IT.com and use the code split 50 that's SPL IT 50 no space for the discount. I was thinking the other day Adam about some of the more controversial statements that we've made on the podcast. We or me? Well, you came up. I'm going to have a few.

A couple of times you've talked about how group exercise, I think the term you said, should die back in the day. Why backed you up on that? But you got a lot of heat for it. I did. And so I thought we should do an episode explaining kind of what we mean by that, because that's kind of a strong statement.

I don't think we're gonna defend myself a little bit. I don't think you mean it should all die, right? But I think we should talk a little bit about. No, there's value in some group classes for sure. And I think the argument that I think is pretty valid that people make is that it gets, it got me off the couch or it got me motivated or it helped me feel better about coming in

and exercising because I could bring a friend or I went with a friend. And so I get all the reasons why it could help somebody ease their way into fitness. And I can't argue that. I can't say that if you would have never got involved in it because you were too scared to do something all by yourself. And so therefore going to a group class where you felt it was a little more comfortable for you to go in. Because I know that can be very intimidating, right?

We know that with clients that. That's one of the top reasons why people don't start. Right. Is the intimidation factor or the lack of knowledge? I don't know what to do. Well, that's what we always highlight it to, like the group X class when you go into the gym and we kind of try and pitch that initially

to new members because it's like, okay, well, you know, maybe you don't really know specifically what to do in the gym and we kind of try and pitch that initially to new members because it's like, okay, well, maybe you don't really know specifically what to do in the gym, but go ahead and we have these classes for you. It's like sort of an introduction, into fitness, so that's really all I see. Yeah, I mean, okay, so the little back story, obviously the three of us have run gyms and worked in gyms with group classes. Because that's always a big part of the big box gym is that you'll be running five or six classes every single day. Some of them is full of people, 30, 40 people at a time.

In our experience, and I can speak for all of us, I know we've talked about the software, I've seen good come from it, but I've seen as much bad come from it. It's almost like a one-to-one ratio. Oh, I don't think it's one-to-one. I think the reason why I made statements, like I wish it would die, is because I think a majority of it is primarily been bad.

And when I want to clarify, when I say things like that or when I say bad, just because you're going to the gym and you're exercising, you're moving, it you're just because you're going to the gym and you're exercising you're moving, it doesn't mean that you're probably doing what's most ideal for you. And I think a lot of people get stuck. You know, I don't know if you guys did, but for a much of my career, I trained a lot of group X instructors. Oh, it's clients.

It's clients. Yeah, I had a lot of group X instructors. Oh, it's clients? It's clients. I had a lot of them. Many of them came to me to help them because they couldn't lose body fat or they couldn't get their bodies to change, yet they were teaching two to four classes of group X every single day or every. Doing all the movements with them and sweating and everything.

And that's why they were frustrated. They'd come to me and say, Adam, I eat relatively good. I'm doing all these classes and I can't seem to shred this extra 10 pounds or 15 pounds or change my physique or build muscle. And so I helped a lot of them out. And it was really, really challenging

to help a group of ex-instructor that's teaching multiple classes per day. Yeah, for me it was injury. There were a lot of instructors that would come into me because they hurt, because they're hip or they're knee or they're shoulder hurt from doing certain repetitive movements. Well, this is what I saw when I worked with Orange Theory was, you know, people come in, they love the workout, and you know, six months, nine months a year later, you don't see a lot of those people they start to fall off.

And a lot of the reasons why most of them were falling off is because of chronic pain. From the repetitive movements, the same movements over and over, and not addressing what those people need. And what people don't realize is when you do these, especially like an example, like on stereo, where you're running on a treadmill all out, right?

They have you sprint on a treadmill. When you do that and you've got really poor mechanics and you do that on a two to three times a week basis, you're gonna exaggerate the problem. 100%. Yeah, you guys know that the the origins of fitness, I mean, I mean, you go way back Group exercise was how people worked out way way back in the day if you look at pictures of Like some of the first gymnasiums. That's where the word gym comes from is from gymnasium

And you can actually find these pictures online whether these old black and white Photos and you would see like rings hanging in a couple kettlebells in the barbells. You would see it like step ladders and everything. Exactly. But they would have these huge open floors, and the way that people would work out in there is they'd all go in there, and they would do

calisthenics. Calisthenics or group exercise classes. So they actually, the origin of gyms is a group exercise. Then the group exercises, we know it, that started kicking off in the late 60s and 70s and really started taking off in the 80s when they had step aerobics and they started putting music to the classes. Some of the first classes that I remember seeing back when I started working out in gyms and I probably started working out in big gyms at maybe 1994, 95, and I started working

in them at 97 or so. They were mainly these kind of dance aerobic type classes. Then they started integrating steps into them. I don't know if you guys remember step aerobics. Those still get done, I think, around the country. So those types of classes. Body you guys remember step aerobics. Yeah, those still get done, I think, around the country. So I have those steps for a lot of stuff. Body, pump, step aerobics. Jazz exercises was like the first version

of all this kind of aerobic to music and, you know, doing all these like, type of dance moves with, you know, exercise. So that was like one of the first, you know, and then you had like your Richard Simmons that came out and like used that same kind of aerobic type of movement in a class, but made it fun and all this to kind of shed weight and sweat to the old ease,

all that stuff. It's group, it's basically just group movement. It's group movement, it's, line dancing would be similar, right? Even though you don't consider line dancing to be a group exercise class, it's very similar in the sense that you're all following the same prescribed movements,

you're following an instructor, you're kind of doing what they're telling you to do. And I can see the pull, I can see a lot of pull, why they're so popular, because some of the most popular things, I'll give you guys an example of how much pull group classes have. When I had a gym,

when I was part owner of a gym down in Palm, in the Palm Springs area, I had a competitor. There was this gym that was not too far from ours. And, you know, I came from the aggressive marketing of early days of 24-of-fitness. So I left 24-hour, I go have this gym with my partner, and I still have that aggressive mentality. And you guys know what we used to do

At 24 with competitor gyms We would send our salespeople to go and we'd sit put flyers in the parking lot or we'd offer some kind of a special discount To their members well this pissed off the owner because he wasn't used to this kind of aggressive marketing and He came and threatened us and did the whole thing which obviously I took it to the next level because that's the worst possible thing you could do. And so what I did was, I knew that the way to kill a gem, and this is, you know, this is really, again, it's aggressive, but if you wanna kill a gem, you take their top group X instructors,

one of the easiest things you could do. You go over there and you pay them more, and this is what I did. I took three of their top instructors, paid them more, and inevitably, you know, followed with 60 members and then people talking about where they went and then we started taking a lot of members. There's a lot of popularity and pull.

Part of it is the fun component. There's no doubt that working out in community. There's synergy in a group setting, like it does provide more energy to sort of feed off of other people and there's momentum behind it. And so people are really attracted to that because it's an experience,

it's something that they look forward to, but that's really the value of it is on the entertainment side of that. Right, and it is a shared experience. It's community. Yeah, that's part of the, I mean, and we the entertainment side of that. Right, and it is a shared experience. It's community. That's part of the, I mean, and we see the examples of that in all these other modalities.

Crossfit's another example. Crossfit took the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the took the strengths of group exercise, applied it to resistance training and became very popular. And when you have a shared, here's a thing, exercise is hard. It's painful, it's difficult, it's challenging, especially. If you're new to it, if you're new to it,

because one of the things that happens when you work out on a consistent basis is you don't just build your strength, your physical strength, and your physical endurance. You also build your mental capacity to tolerate and handle challenge and pain. This is one of the things that you learn when you work on. In fact, when I would get a new client who'd never worked out, we would do an exercise.

And I know as a trainer, who haven't trained many, many people, I know how many more reps this person would have. And you could see on the faith, they couldn't tolerate the feeling of doing an exercise because they just, they weren't used to it. So it's a very difficult process. What makes that process easier is when you share the pain with other people.

So it's like, we're doing this hard thing, but we're doing it together. So, you're measuring it. Exactly. So I'm looking at to my left and, oh, she's sweating over here and that guy looks like he's going to throw up and, all right, we're going to keep going and pushing. Then when you leave, you have a, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Like I was able to get through that struggle and we were able to do it together.

And that's one of the big pulls. It's also one of the big weaknesses though, of group class because when you learn to rely on that feeling of motivation, you are actually sitting yourself up for failure because it can't last on that feeling of motivation, you are actually sitting yourself up for failure because it can't last, that feeling of motivation, that feeling of fun, never last, which is, here's one of the trademarks

of somebody who does group exercise classes all the time. They have to change constantly to new and different classes and modalities. And every time they get bored, they stop. They'll stop for X amount of months. Then the next group class will come out and like, oh, this is a aerial yoga one. Oh, this is a new kickboxing one,

or I'm gonna try this boxing one, and you get this stop start thing, which is, in my opinion, one of the worst things that I see with the group exercise, dependence or whatever. Yeah. It does, another value of it, it's less expensive. So if you're trying to get into working out

and you want some instruction, group exercise is way less than having a one-on-one answer. Well, that's again, I think that's one of the main reasons why I will never die. I mean, this is like one of the things that even as a trainer is promoted a lot because it's a way for you to be able to monetize your time a lot more effectively. It's like I have, you know, all these people,

I can have them doing a similar workout, you know, at this time and I'm going to maximize, you know, getting, they don't have to pay quite, you know, near as much money and I'm getting more money at the same time. So it's beneficial for them, it's beneficial for the members coming in, but at the same time, is that the most effective strategy?

You know, I would contest that. Right, right. And then the accountability factor, when you're going with friends or other people, I think people feel like, okay, this is gonna make me more consistent because I know if I don't show up that, you know, Susie or John will ask me what I've been, why I didn't come to the class. I have a scheduled time that I have to be there, which kind of puts me on a schedule.

It's a big sense of community. It does. Now, here's the thing with accountability, the whole like, it's a bit of a myth. Actually, if you look at the statistics on group exercise classes, it's basically the same as if you were going on your own in terms of consistency. It really doesn't. Now, there is that the error of it's going to increase my accountability. But statistically speaking, when gyms add group exercise classes, it's not to increase member retention. Gyms add group exercise classes to gain new members.

This is a common knowledge among gyms. The thing that keeps members is actually personal training. Personal training does a phenomenal. Because it actually provides results. But it will. That's a big one. Yeah, absolutely. I also think it matters what modality

that we're talking about too in regards to group training. For example, I think yoga is phenomenal. And that's a group class. I think stretching as a group, although I would still make the case that, you know, targeted, targeted, corrective stretching is far more beneficial than a generic yoga class. Of course. But yoga in general, I think has got incredible benefits and taking a class that is in a group for something like that

is less detrimental than taking a strength building class. Oh, those are the worst. The strength building group classes are the worst because they're doing cardio with weights. Exactly. They're taking the strength element out and replacing it with cardiovascular. Yeah, I remember when the body pump classes first came out, here's my those, when those became popular.

And they're like, oh, I lift weights, I do body pump. And I'd watch the class and like, well, no, you're not. You're doing aerobics with weights. There are no rest periods to eliminate rest periods because that's, I mean, dead air in those situations is like nails on a chalkboard to the group. The group wants to keep going. Everybody wants to keep this thing going. And it's inevitable that there's not gonna be any rest.

Well, it's the entertainment factor that you get from the class. And rest periods are not entertaining. Yeah. And as a trainer, when you're training someone a 101, the rest periods, like good trainers someone a 101, the rest periods, like good trainers know how to deal with rest periods, just like they know how to deal with the workout itself. They're both very, very important. Oftentimes when someone's resting, they're going

to ask you lots of, well, why don't I just keep going? I'm not doing anything right now. I have to explain the benefit of it, why we have the rest, and how we're building strength, and why that's an important part of the workout and the programming. Try doing that in a group class, it's very difficult, but you mentioned yoga, Adam. The reason why yoga tends to be a better group class is because the traditional goal of yoga is not, because if you ever take a really good yoga class, you'll hear the instructor say this often, they'll say,

this is your own practice, listen to your body. If the pose feels, if you feel like you can't do the pose, get in child's pose or take a break, and then they come over and they adjust you. It's a slower pace, they can come and watch and see what you're doing. However, I've been to yoga classes that start to develop that competitive feel that you get from a lot of group classes.

Those yoga classes aren't good. Where you see everybody competing to see how much harder and how long they can hold these poses. You know, like putting like heat as another added element to make you like suffer. I also think it's the risk versus reward thing that makes it different, right? Like, you know, competitive yoga or doing yoga poses that are less beneficial to you than other poses is less detrimental than training in a circuit where you've got poor mechanics, your metabolism is already really slowed. The, the, the detriment that come from that are far greater than, you know, doing a, you know, some sort of a stretch or pose that maybe you don't need

very much or you're not doing very well. So that is also why I say things like, well, yoga to me is not a bad group class. It's because even fucking it up, you're not doing as much damage. Where if you're somebody who, which is very common, is a quarter-sall junkie, you're taking four or five energy drinks or coffee every single day, you got a high-stress job, you don't sleep very much, you got shit going on at your home, and your release is for you to come to this circuit training-based weight training class. Meanwhile, you've kick-started your new way of life

because it's a new year, you're in a calorie-restricted diet, and you're doing that. The detriment of that are incredible. I mean, this is what, for most of my career, I was stuck helping people that had already gone down this path. Very rarely did I get somebody that was a blank slate that came to me and said, Adam, I'm smart enough to know I need professional help. And here's, you know, here's an X amount of dollars. Help me, you know, start off in the right check. I always got people that are most of the time, I should say, the people that I got had tried all these things first. And one of the hardest clients to help are the, are the are the chronic yo-yo dieters who have lost and gained, lost and gained, and they've done it through these high intensity type of classes

and extreme diets to get there, and they've just not had any success for years, and now they've finally broke down and are willing to pay me money to help them. Those, and I think that's where a lot of the passion of why I say things like, I wish group training would die is because it's raw. Those are the hardest people to help. Super hard. And you mentioned cortisol junkies. So now I'm going to use insulin as an example of what we're talking about here. So we've heard of insulin resistance, right? Where you're insulin because of your diet or lifestyle starts to become less and less effective, so your body literally starts to become resistant to insulin,

so your body has to produce more insulin to give you the same effect, and we know what that looks like downstream that turns into big problems. Now, it's a little bit more complex with cortisol, but to kind of understand what's happening here, if you're a cortisol junkie, if you have a high stress life, you're not getting good sleep,

you're taking lots and lots of stimulants. You find yourself naturally being late to lots of appointments without realizing you're trying to give yourself a cortisol boost. Cortisol is a hormone that we need. It gives us energy. It's naturally spikes in the morning, but once your body starts to, for lack of a better term, become resistant to cortisol, your body has to produce more and more of it for you to get the same feeling. So if you're feeling crappy and down, you're drinking all these stimulant drinks, you're not getting good sleep, you got a lot of stress, then you go take this really high intensity,

crazy group exercise class, which is most of them. Many of them, the majority of group exercise classes, by the way, are revolve around intensity, revolve around lots of sweat, lots of action. Then you take this class and you get your body to squeeze out more cortisol, then you finish it, and you're like, I feel good again. And so then when someone like Adam or ourselves come up to you and say, hey, listen,

this is too much intensity for you. You need to do something else. You have a high stress job. You're not getting good sleep, diets poor. You're taking all these stimulants, you're drinking lots of coffee, and then they come back and say, but I feel good. I feel good after I do this really high intensity exercise class. It's like, yeah, temporarily, it's because you're not feeling the cortisol you already have.

You have to squeeze out even more, and the way you do that is by doing these crazy intense classes. Now, what's the result of that? Body fat that won't come off your body. You have trouble building muscle, cold hands, cold feet, temperature intolerances, appetites, fluctuations, I either have cravings, or I'm bingeing, or I have no appetite whatsoever, dark circles under the eyes. And this is quite common, and the problem is group exercise classes attract this person quite a bit. I want to elaborate on you saying poor diet, too, because I think when we say that the

common person that hears that goes, oh, I don't have a poor diet. I don't eat fast food. I don't drink sugary drinks. I eat chicken and salad. That's my... So when we say poor diet in relation to training this way, that could mean eating solo calorie and lean that you are dramatically slowing down your metabolism. It's already not ideal for you to reduce calories that low, right? Say the 900 to 1500 calorie range depending on the size of the person and the individual. There's a huge variance, of course.

But this is what's typical is you, you know, new way of life. You're going to sign up to this new class that you like and you're gonna start your diet. It's one of the biggest mistakes that people make. They go from over-consuming thousands of calories, they go into this calorie restrictive diet and then they go into this high intensity class and that extreme variance is,

may show them great results for the first couple of weeks and this is where it's deceiving. They get great results for the first couple of weeks. And this is where it's deceiving. They get great results for the first couple of weeks. They get that cortisol high like Sal was talking about and they feel good afterwards. The scale is going down. Fuck you, mind pump. You don't know what you're talking about. Problem with that is you body adapts to that and now where do you go?

You're chasing that cortisol like crazy. You're already in some of the lowest calories you're used to consuming and you're pushing like crazy at in your class and you're already probably going three to four to five days a week. And now you're in this place where you're nowhere near your goal still, but now the body has slowed down and not showing results. It's adapting to what you've told it to do. And that's what this is where this, this is what happens to like 90% of the people that choose this, this way of training. Yeah, yeah. I also want to speak to one of my biggest pet peeves with, with group training. And that is, you know, regression and progression. And there, there really is no way to manage that,

you know, in a group setting like that. No matter how much of an awesome coach you think you are, if you're doing this in where we're lifting weights and we're trying to create an environment for strength training specifically. It is such an individualized thing. I think that's why we're trying to stress the fact that trying to pull you outside of, you know, that group mentality where you can get swept into higher intensity, higher doses of intensity that your body like really will benefit from. And so this is where we do see injuries or even if, you know, you don't know that appropriate amount, it kind of takes over all the natural signals of your body trying to tell you what is appropriate and what isn't. It's hard, it kind of takes over all the natural signals of your body trying to tell you what is

appropriate and what isn't. It's hard, it's very, very difficult to individualize in group exercise classes. Now with one-on-one resistance training, you can do that. You can start, now it doesn't always happen. By the way, you can do this with one-on-one, you do this on your own. You can fall into all these traps on your own, but the difference is you're not being encouraged to continue falling this trap. Now you will be when you do a group class. If I show

up to a group class, and I'm tired, and you know, my body's telling me, you need to scale back a little bit. You need to do more correctional exercise, whatever. But then the music starts, everybody's going, go, you got to go push it. Come on, you can do it. Now you're pushing yourself and it just kicks the can down the road. And it's very difficult to individualize. So what you'll see in a lot of group classes is people who's form is off, movement is off, and people who this type of training is inappropriate.

But yet, this is what the kind of people that it tends to attract. Now, there are group classes that I have seen that are far better than others. And this is where the instructor slows things down, pays attention to each individual, and gives options. I've seen classes like this where they say, here's the exercise, here's the regression, here's the progression, they explain intensity, they explain, you know, listening to your body, and that makes a big difference. I've also seen correctional exercise based group classes.

Correctional exercise, I think, is, although that is, that's also better on an individual basis. I think with group classes, you can definitely get away with correctional exercise, because it's a slower pace and the focus tends to be a little bit different. Well, because, again, the risk versus reward, there is no real risk. What is harm in you doing a handcuff with rotation when you already have good shoulder mobility?

I mean, obviously, if you have a partner shoulder mobility and you do handcuff with rotation, that's a great exercise for you to practice. The other side of the coin would be somebody who doesn't need it and they're doing it. What is the harm in that? There's no harm in it whatsoever. You're just moving. It's not huge benefit if you're working on something that you don't need to work on, but there's not detriment like there are if somebody is doing a high intensity class and

a calorie restricted diet with poor mechanics. There's huge risk involved in that. That's the reason why that's okay. And there's such a big, I mean, I try doing boot camp classes for a little while. There was a period there where boot camp classes were gonna really popular. And like we said earlier, the cost of training in a group is lower than it is one-on-one.

So I had a gym, personal training studio, and I thought, okay, this is a great way business-wise to gain new potential members because it's a lower barrier to enter. Rather than spending the, you know, I don't know what the range is now in the country, between $50 to $100 per session for personal training, I can charge $100 a month and the people can take a class. And then from there, then maybe we'll get more personal training clients. But I eventually had to stop doing it. And the reason why I had to stop doing it is when I had 10 people in my, I'm not even

a big class, if I had 10 people in there, all interested in fitness, even if all of their goals are the same, everybody could have the same goal. We all want to lose weight. I would, I had to stop and modify so often because I have the mentality as a personal trainer. Very difficult for me to watch people doing shit wrong or inappropriate. So I'd set up their circuits or I'd set up the exercises. I'd watch them doing it.

I'd have to stop. Wait, hold on a second. I need you to do it this way. You need to stop doing that. Dude, I did the same thing. I had the same issues and it just got away from me so quickly. I mean, even having a client, I know you guys have probably had the same experience where they bring in somebody else, one of their friends.

Oh, you know, like Aunt Sue's coming in town, can she just jump in our workout? And I'm always like, oh my God, here we go. You know, because it's a brand new set of variables for me to pay attention to, you know, in conjunction to the other person that's right there that I already know that I've been working with for years. And it's very specific. I still have to look for those little nuance things that's going on with their body. Now I'm over here like totally distracted.

It took away from her workout. Yeah. Well, what do you guys say to then to somebody who tells you that, you know, well, is it not better than nothing and what if I would never get it in an exercise unless I was taking my class, what do you say to somebody that has that mentality? Well, look, as long as the class is appropriate and you move well and you're listening to your body, is it better than nothing?

Yes. Now, the problem is that's not common. What's more common is it's inappropriate. The person doesn't move well and they train themselves with too much intensity. Group environments, okay, here's a deal. Remember when you were a kid and you were in school and the teacher is going through something

and you don't know what he or she is talking about, but in front of the whole class, you're not gonna raise your hand and say, hey, hold on a second, stop right there. You were embarrassed to, so you're like, I'm just gonna keep going. This is what happens in group classes. In group classes, you have 30 people in there,

and the person's not feeling right, or I'm just gonna push through because they don't wanna stop, ask the instructor, hold on a second, this bothers my knee, hold on a second, I don't feel good, should I need, do I need to stop? Now, there are a lot of people who have the confidence to stop or walk out of a class or to just stop exercising altogether, not do that particular exercise, but if you're really honest with yourself, okay, if you're, you got to be real honest, I know some people are like, oh, I would just stop. Really? Most people don't.

Most people just push themselves all the way through and end up doing something that's very inappropriate. And what that'll teach you is one of the worst lessons you could possibly learn with exercise. It's the thing that we have to continuously as personal trainers reverse every single time, which is this, do not ignore your body's signals. And group classes can definitely be a breeding ground of training people to ignore how their body signals. And group classes can definitely be a breeding ground of training people to

ignore how their body feels. Just keep going. Five more. Don't stop now. These are all things you hear in group exercise classes. This was one of the main reasons why I had such a big issue with CrossFit when it first started with resistance training because it was that same thing. We got time. Five more. Who could do the most? Keith Cohen. With riskier exercises. And with even risk, extremely risky exercises, you're not just dealing with your body,

you're now dealing with barbells and dumbbells and very cool. Well, you know that, you know that Orange Theory in F45 is a direct response to that with CrossFit. It's a lesser evil. Right. You know, they tried to address the dangers and risk of Olympic lifts, you know, with people for time and speed and count. And they try to go,

okay, let's do, let's eliminate these Olympic lifts, but still take this community concept and competitiveness and circuit based type training, but let's eliminate the ones that are really, really risky. And it's the reason why F-45 and Orange Theory are blowing up. They really owe a lot of that to CrossFit. CrossFit did it really, really well first, and they took, like you said, south, they took all the elements of group training, like from jazz or size days. They took strength training, which we know

is the best thing for everybody, and they kind of meshed them together to create this community fill of crazy circuit base type of training, and so it exploded. And, of course, the backlash on CrossFit, the injury rate and the dropout rate, and the plateaus that a lot of the average people end up hitting. Now here comes Orange Theory F-45 in direct response to that. Okay, here's, this is a safer option. I mean, shit, I remember when the Orange Theory was first opening up, that was part of the pitch

was, you know, like, it's like, if you liked CrossFit, but you've been hurt from doing it or you have a friend that's been hurt and you're scared, we used to get that all the time. I'd get somebody that would sign up there and they really wanted to do CrossFit with their friend, but she got hurt and so they are scared to do it. So I heard this is like this or this is, and it's safer. Yeah, safer.

And so you're using TRX, a lot of body weight stuff, the dumbbells don't go higher than like 20 pounds. Now you taught Orange Theory classes for a little while, but I know you taught them different because you had, yeah, I broke all the rules. Yeah, so what did you do different? Like how did you, let me, let me do that because I have seen group exercise classes.

I don't wanna say they're all bad, okay? I'm just talking about a lot of them that I've seen, but there is a way you can do it that'll make it better. And I know you taught some of these classes. How did you do it? How did you change it so that it was more appropriate? Well, there was a lot of things that I did.

And a lot of that is I owe that to the respect and flexibility that Brendan gave me. I mean, that was something that I, it's the only thing that kept me there, right? It was the ability for him to let me kind of run the class, how I saw fit, as long as I kind of stayed within the parameters, right? I wasn't completely changing everything, although I did modify and change a lot of things with the programs that they were putting out.

But the main problem that I saw was this. I looked at a treadmill. So the way that those that are unfamiliar with like how that works, there's a set of rowers, there's a set of treadmills, and then there's a station where there's TRX and weights. And the idea is that you have two groups in the class, two groups of about 13 to 15 people. And at all times you have somebody in the weight area, and then you have in the cardio area, the cardio area would be considered the treadmills and the rowers. And then there's just this rotation that they either break up in like five minute blocks

where they're moving around, or half the class you're spent over in the cardio section, half the class you're spent over in weight. So in theory, the programming behind it is kind of smart. It's decent and that's the reason why it's exploded so well. The hard part to teach to it, again, is I've got these 15 people that I'm looking at and I remember I'd be walking down the treadmill and I see them and they have what they, it's called base pace, push and all out, which base is like you're, you know, they're telling

you basically keeping your heart rate kind of low like around the target heart rate and zone like lower, lower level. You're still jogging for most people or power walking up hill, it's kind of base, and then your push, getting after a little bit, and then all out is everything you got, right? What I had a problem with was these push and all outpaces, and when I looked at the mechanics on these people running, and by no means am I a running expert, I probably don't have great mechanics, which is probably why you don't see me run a lot. And I'm looking at the way these people are running. And then I'm talking to them after class and

it's like, yeah, I don't mean my knees bothering me. Oh, my hips bothering me. And what I know is if that was a client, a one-on-one client of mine, I would address it. I would say, well, first of all, let's stop running. Let's figure out what where the breakdown is in your movement and let's start addressing that. So what ended up happening was I started telling a lot of people to walk, you know, ignore the push and all out, whether I say it over the loudspeaker or not, you shouldn't be doing it. And before long, you'd start to look into my classes and everybody's walking, everyone's walking on the treadmill. And then the other thing that I had to do, because the class is geared around, staying in the orange zone is, they get points for how much they're in the orange. And orange is like high level target heart rate

or even above, it's like where they're burning max calories, right? So when you're in the orange, you're getting all these points. So it turns this into a little bit of a competitive thing. Everybody's watching each other because they can see everybody else's and they're trying to, you know, get as many points as you can. And you get the most points, obviously, based off of heart rate when you're doing cardio because you're running, right? Well, that

mentality carries over when they get into the weights because you could, if you push on weights, you can get your heart rate up there and get those extra points. Start turning it into cardio. Yeah. so you start turning it into cardio. And this is something I had to constantly do. Stop my class, turn the music down and go, stop. If you're in the weight room area, rest between your sets. If you can go with no breaks, round and round and round on the weight, you're choosing too light of a weight.

You choose a heavier weight and slow down what you're doing too light of a weight, you choose a heavier weight and slow down, slow down what you're doing and rest. I'd like to look over here and see some of you sitting on the bench for 15 to 20 seconds to gather yourself before you do the next set. If you can go from set to set to set to set with no rest, then all you're doing is cardio with weights now. You may as well just stayed over in the treadmill area,

we're not getting the max benefits from the weight training. And this was something I was constantly having to drill down. And no matter how much I drilled it down, still 80% of the class didn't listen. I did have, you know, there was a percentage, a smaller percentage of people that really respected what I had to say and would go like, okay, I get what he's trying to explain to us

and they would take it to heart and they would really listen. Now I saw that you would also, because this one we first started mind-pump, you were doing this and I saw that you would also incorporate a correctional exercise component, which wasn't a part. Not at all, in fact, I take credit for what they do now because it was non-existent before. That was a big problem I had too.

So the last 10 minutes of the class was geared around, you know, kind of giving people highlights of what's going on at Orange Theory, and we've got this, and we've got that going on, and check basically like a news bulletin, right? And then they told you like to do like this cool down thing. And instead, I chose to teach like one correctional exercise per class, and I only did one because I only had about five to ten minutes to do this.

So instead of taking everybody through this generic cross your legs, you know, windmill, doing ten different cool down type of movements that's generic, is I would tell people, listen, if you're somebody who's dealing with knee pain, part of that can be from the running that's going on in the treadmill and your IT is all tight and you're feeling it. So I'd explain what's going on.

And then I'd say, here's a stretch to help alleviate that. And I would make them all do it with me. And then I would say, listen, before you come into class, this is something that you should do before you come in and you train with me. This is what you should do before you come in and you train with me. This is what you should do after. So I try to add as much of my personalized flavor to it as I could. And I believe I can't, I'm not the only coach that teaches that has taught group classes that probably tries to make it more individualized and better. Well, the reason why I wanted you to say that is

because if there's group instructors listening because here's the other part of this. This is the other part that I didn't ask you. How popular were your classes? Yeah, I was booked out for months. Right. And the reason why I wanted to communicate that is because I think sometimes, and I used to feel this as a personal trainer sometimes, it's even more difficult as a group instructor. Sometimes as a personal trainer,

you would feel the client, you'd feel pressure from the client telling you how to train them. They'd try and dictate what was gonna happen. Yeah, no, no, no, this is what I want. No, no, no, no, no, no, I want to feel this. No, I want to be real sore. I want to feel sore. I want to be real sweaty.

And when I became it when I was a trainer early on, I would actually give into that because this person's paying me, I wanna keep this client. As I became more confident, I started to educate them and say, no, actually, this is how we're gonna do it, this is what we wanna do. And initially, the fear is, I'm gonna lose clients. The reality is you gain more clients.

You don't lose clients. So the reality is, by you doing that, but I'm sure you had to fight people. I guarantee you did. Oh yeah, well, and I had, and I- You probably had to argue with people in your class. I was like, I did, but I'm sure you had to fight people. Like, you're into you, dude. Oh, yeah. And I had to argue with people in your class. Of course I did. And I also had to support what I was saying, right?

I couldn't just say, hey, we're gonna do this one stretch and then just make everybody do it, change the rules. I had to sell it. I had to sell the idea of why I was breaking the layout of how they had things and why I think this is better for them. And yeah Initially, it took a little bit of time for me to sell them on that. It definitely helped that at that time too, we were starting mine pumps, so it was great. We were talking about things on the podcast, and I'd reference, hey, if you're not comprehending what I'm talking about right now, we just did this episode where we talk all about this in detail,

because I know I don't have more than a couple minutes. That was the challenge for me was I only had minutes to explain this. Because the class, they get right on the rowers and treadmills, they start warming up, it's go. It's go and it's busing people in and out. So I have this really small window to try and convey all this fucking accumulated knowledge I have for two decades of training. And what I see, and I got 30 people in front of me, and all the different dysfunction I see,

I've got, I can see one person over here is going to fucked up shoulder. I see this person over here limping on one side. I see this person over here with horrible squat mechanics. You know, I see this person over here with terrible rowing mechanics. I see this person going way too fast. I mean, you just, you see all this. It's the fast food of fitness. Yeah. It going way too fast. I mean, you just, you see all this. It's the fast food of fitness.

It's a very similar parallel to that. You know, like it's, there is people and inherently wanna eat, you know, correctly for themselves to get the right kind of nutrition to feel better, to, they want the end result of like going on that path, but they're totally susceptible to just going in the drive-through and getting whatever's quick.

And there's people, and I want to make this clear too, because I don't want to come off, like I'm just bashing like orange theory. It's very similar to how I feel about CrossFit. I mean, I feel like I could take the class, I could take the class and have great results from it. I would know where to push myself. I would know the importance of slowing down my tempo when I'm over in the weight area. I would choose to walk when I know that's what's best for me if I didn't nutritionally support what I need calorie-wise.

So all that stuff would be happening. And I think there's the same amount of people that can do cross-bed and can be totally fine and get great results from it. What I know as being a trainer for as long as I have is that it doesn't attract that person as much. I mean, there may be 5% of the actual people that are busting through this. And I'm not talking to them. So if you're somebody who's listening and you've got great form of mechanics, your dial and diet, your body is where you want to be and you love that community, you love fucking keep doing it, man. It is for you, and I'm glad you found something that you enjoy doing. I'm talking to the other 95% of the population that sit on the, that we're sitting on a couch one day,

and their sister-in-law or a friend was talking to them and said, oh my God, orn's theory or CrossFit or F-45 changed my life. It's amazing. And that is what motivated you to come in. And that was your first decision of, oh, I'm gonna start training. And this is where I go. And you have no clue about anything we're talking about.

But the only thing personally I've seen in terms of a quality group training session was when I was in sports. And when there was dedicated education involved, the entire way through where we all, as as a team had to rest after each station a certain amount of time to get the maximal amount of strength output in this situation. And I think that it's unfortunate,

the general public just doesn't have that kind of access to a quality type of a class where you actually like going through a weight training class. You're learning how to actually go through these mechanics properly, technique, and is very much stressed and highlighted. Everything, it is our own sort of initiative that we're catering towards this. I want what experience is going to make me feel good. I want to be motivated by loud music.

It's like all these external factors that are entertaining that sound great and awesome, but really at the root of it, it needs to be, you know, the actual educational piece. Well, the best group classes that I've ever seen were taught by instructors who also had one-on-one training experience. And the reason why I'm saying that is because when you train had one-on-one training experience. And the reason why I'm saying that is because when you train people one-on-one, you have to really focus on that individual, their movement.

You have to really look at what's working and what's not working. So then they take that to the group setting. Also, I've seen group classes where they're very appropriately labeled beginner or level one, level two, level three, and then the instructor in that class kicks people out when the class is not appropriate. Very few instructors do this. You don't want to do this as an instructor.

You don't want to kick people out of your class. But I've seen really good instructors do this where it's a level three whatever class, they start the cloud, they're doing it, and then they walk over to somebody and say, hey listen, this is not appropriate for you. I want you to do something different. This class is too advanced for you.

That's when I see group classes do well. Unfortunately, you don't see a whole lot of those. And part of it is us as consumers. We don't want to learn anything. We want to go in and just go. I want you to tell me what to do. Yeah, tell me what to do. I just want to sweat.

Let's make this happen and it kind of feeds into that. So oftentimes group classes become a part of the problem rather than the actual solution. But it can be done right. I don't want to say like broadly that they all think it's disappear. It can be done right. And there are a percentage of people

that it makes sense for. I think the problem is that a lot of people think they fall in that percentage and you don't. Say sorry, you're not that person that has the great mechanics that really understands what you should be doing nutritionally. The majority just aren't. Yes, and don't look at instruction like when you buy toilet paper, don't look and say, oh, I can take this many classes for $100 versus two sessions

with a personal trainer. So the value is in this, wouldn't think over here, I got, you know, 30 classes for, it doesn't work that way. You were better off investing more money with less sessions, one on one with somebody whose experience you could focus just on you, then you are on spending less money and having a larger bulk of classes in these group type settings. That's just the truth. It's a it's typically a much better

Investment. But again, there are people who are benefit from the irony of us Even discussing this right now. I was it yesterday in my DM's. I get a message from an old orange theory client that I knew and I also knew that she would sporadically listen to Mind Pump and she reached out to me yesterday and was like, I should have listened to you three years ago when you were telling me I should drop the classes down to just once or twice a week and focus on and correct if she goes,

because now I have brositis in my hips. What's tough is that, you know, you have someone like that listening to the show, I'm constantly telling them and they still did, which is what's gonna happen when we do this episode. There's gonna be people that are gonna deaf ear it because they're in love with it. I know that because I dealt with this my whole career

is it's really tough to get somebody who is enjoying that community feel, they feel good after the class, they get that cortisol, that spike, like we're talking about, it's hard to convince that person that this is not what's ideal for them, because in their head, this is what's ideal. Until some shit like that happens,

until an injury happens, and that's all that we're trying to help prevent is somebody setting themself up for either injury, chronic pain, or slowing their metabolism down dramatically. Or just becoming so disenfranchised they stop. You know, because that's also bad. You know, where somebody goes and oh my god, this is so motivating and exciting, they're

consistent for six months, burn themselves out and they stop for years. And then, you know, maybe they come back, maybe they don't. One of the big problems with the fitness industry, the gym industry, the class and instructor industry, is that they do a phenomenal job, an excellent job of attracting people. Terrible job, setting people up, yeah, long-term success. It's a terrible job.

Most people that you know who don't work out at one point started and stopped. So we don't have a start working out problem. That's not the issue, getting people going. The issue is how do we set people up long term for consistent long term success? And unfortunately, group classes tend to feed the attract and then stop type of mentality and problem that we encounter quite a bit. So, so that's why we think group classes many of them are

not that good. And that's our opinion. And with that go to mindpumpfree.com and download our guides, resources and books. They're all totally free. You can also find the three of us on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin, me at Mind Pump Salon, Adam at Mind Pump Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance,

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