The Sevan Podcast - #30 - Andre Kzirian

Episode Date: May 4, 2021

The Sevan Podcast Episode 30 - ANDRE KZIRIAN The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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What's with all the police trucks outside? You know, the butcher goes around just chopping people up. Comes a new M. Night Shyamalan experience. The feds are hurt. He's going to be here today. Josh Hartnett. I'm in control. And Salika as Lady Raven.

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Brian, do I look like we're from the same gene pool? I can see it. Is it Andre Kazirian? That's right. Or else as they say on the streets, Andre Kazirian. Kazirian. I want to hear Brian try to say it the right way. Andre Kazirian.

That wasn't bad. He even pronounced the first name Armenian accent. Well, right before we came on he's like hey you gotta ask him his name you gotta ask him his name how do you say his last name he goes either that k or that z is silent i'm like nah nah buddy you gotta pronounce all the letters don't leave nothing out we break all the rules i when i went to your instagram there's a video there's some videos of your dad on there and when your dad talks talks, if I close my eyes, I swear to God, it's my dad. I just recognize that Armenian accent using the English language.

It's awesome. Bringing back flashbacks, right? Yeah. That disciplinary Armenian dad voice. How old are you, Andre? I'm 28. Oh my goodness, you're young. And you went to school for, was it, did you go to school for finance?

That's right. And then you chased your passion, which is, what is your passion? Fitness. I mean, it definitely changed my life at an early age. I just kind of slowly, people kept asking me for advice, training advice, because they saw the transformation I was making for myself. And then throughout college, I kind of just started dabbling in training. And before you knew it, it started turning into a career path for me. By the way, that's Brian and I'm Sevan. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you guys. Nice to meet you guys.

When you were a child, were you into – and it's funny that you say fitness because I'm attracted to your Instagram because of movement. Right. I really enjoy watching people move, and you post a lot of videos with some really, really cool movements. I mean, you could even, say, blur the line of – I mean, maybe other people wouldn't see this, but it's almost like dance. I mean, your fitness is pretty incredible with the jumping and the lateral movements and the going over objects and the changing of directions. So it's kind of fun. It's really enjoyable for me to watch. When you were young, were you a active child? Not too much. I definitely liked to like play outside. I definitely liked anything adventurous like climbing trees stuff like that but i wasn't i wasn't really that good at sports growing up

you know like growing up in armenian household sports wasn't like the number one thing their parents really want you to chase after so i got put into like the most basic of basic ymca leagues stuff like that um just areas where there areas where it wasn't really taken that serious. And then over time, I just took it upon myself to become a better athlete, make fitness a priority, and here we are today. What inspired that? Was it just you wanted to look good So you presented well to the opposite sex or like, what, what was the, in the earliest, in your earliest, um, pursuing of, of fitness? What was the reason? I'm kind of embarrassed to say this because obviously, you know, you want people

working out for the right reasons, but the very earliest I really got into fitness, I remember it was high school spring break, you know, and everybody was everyone in my senior class. All the guys were like hitting the gym every single day going hard. And I just took it to another level. And I was like, wow, I'm actually seeing really good results doing this consistently. And I remember just being so proud of myself. I had an awesome before and after. And then I remember after that spring break, I was like, I'm going to take a week off. You know, I worked really hard. I'm just going to take this week off when I get back. And I literally just watched all my gains disappear in a week. So ever since that day, I was like, I'm not ever taking this much time off again because I worked too hard to just, you know, get lazy and let it all slip away. And I just became hard to just, you know, get lazy and let it all slip away. And I just became hooked to the results. If you are a, for all the stuff I preach about health on my Instagram,

if you're a young man and you don't want a good body to court women or to court men, whatever your flavor is, you have something wrong with you. You should absolutely want to have a beautiful body so that you can go out and play the mating game. There's nothing to be, that's what being young is about and it's fun and it's your body and sort of, you know, whatever it takes. I didn't change my, you know, even though everyone around me told me that diet is 99% of everything, I didn't change my diet until I was, you know, eight years into my fitness journey because I just I didn't want to believe that. I want to believe you could work off a bad diet.

Oh, yeah. We all know that's bullshit. Yeah. I think anybody that that says they don't care if they look good or not, they're just doing it for the fitness side of things is probably a liar to some extent. Or they're or they're 49 or they're 49. Could be. or they're or they're 49 or they're 49 could be maybe you know when you're first starting out and you're in your late teens or early 20s you know even if you're working out as an athlete you're trying to go for speed somebody is going to work in a set of curls just get the arms big there's

no denying that when um uh my my my my first journey into into was just, you know, like you were saying, just I went to the YMCA. I did bench press, back, back, just all the Arnold Schwarzenegger stuff. Did it with my friends, all that cool stuff. And then my second life, I was working over at CrossFit Inc. And I can remember from the earliest times from going to film with Rich Froning, who is the fittest man in the world, four times, I would see them do that. Even though it was like something that was frowned upon in the CrossFit community, I would see them do curls. I would see them do crazy weighted sit-ups with a hundred pound dumbbells in their hands and doing sit-ups.

I'm like, okay. And then ironically enough, the five-time fittest man in the world, Matt Fraser, is now just openly saying, hey, I'm done training for fitness. I want to have a nice beach body. And I'm like, yeah, I feel you. You know, like he's on the broccoli and chicken diet and trying to lean out and he wants to see some muscles. He wants to see all that hard work pop out a little bit. Yeah. I mean, there's a fine line. I definitely like wouldn't consider myself a bodybuilder where that's all I, or, I mean, you see my style of training, but, you know, just work it in, do, do what makes you happy. If it makes you happy to work in some cable flies and even out your chest and work it in, that doesn't mean you have to stop doing all the other

stuff, but I'm a strong believer and you can achieve the body you want with any type of fitness. You know, you just have to do it the right way. Absolutely. It's, um, do you, I don't know if you remember this, but do you remember the football player, Herschel Walker? Yeah. And he had something where like, he never touched a weight. He just did a thousand sit-ups, thousand pushups and a thousand pull-ups every day. some crazy shit that you can't even get your head wrapped around and uh i never believed that until i got into the crossover world and met yeah you add some intensity and some basic body movements and your shit get all blown up yeah no one no one believes that stuff until they actually try doing a thousand sit-ups and a thousand push-ups and they're like okay you know this is as hard as the five sets of bench I did the other day.

How, um, you own a gym called Troy Fitness and Troy, Michigan. Yep. Troy City Fitness. Troy City Fitness. Tell me about opening that business. What gave you the confidence to open it? What was the catalyst to opening it? And how long has it been open? open it? What was the catalyst to opening it? And how long has it been open? So I had this dream ever since probably like mid-college when I was getting my finance degree. At first, I was following some guys I really looked up to at the time, more bodybuilding style, like Mike Rashid, CT Fletcher. These were like the classic YouTube videos I would watch that would just pump me up. I even visited Metro Flex and long beach. And I fell in love with it.

I was like, this is the vibe I want. This is the type of gym that I want to open in Michigan. And, um, you know, just going through more research. I went to a couple of perform better seminars, which is awesome for anybody that wants to be in this industry, go to a perform better seminar and learn from some of the best minds in the industry. And they have a ton of business seminars, which I attended. I actually reached out to Alan and Rachel Cosgrove of Results Fitness. They offer counseling for gym owners like myself and pretty much told me that my entire business plan was flawed.

And I'm so happy they did because the type of demographic that we attract now with the product that I put out compared to what I originally planned on putting out is night and day. You know, we kind of have like a gym that's for anybody right now. You could be a bodybuilder. You could be an athlete. You could be a soccer mom, you could be that middle-aged guy who's just trying to stay young.

And it's something for everybody versus the original type of gym I was trying to open was really going to be geared towards like heavy weightlifters, bodybuilders, people that are seasoned, that are looking for that specific niche type of environment. that are looking for that specific niche type of environment. And did you feel like you had to compromise what you wanted by doing that? And were you nervous? Were you like, shit, what do I know about that? I'm really focused on this.

I want this to be just a house for just meatheads. When you say that, I just picture a bunch of old iron rusty plates and just like 20 dudes juiced out of their mind, working out what you were going for and that is not what your instagram shows your instagram shows some of the most beautiful bodies on a full ranges of ages uh that i've ever seen that was the plan originally and obviously um you know being stationed in michigan it's a different type of demographic here than you know the west the West coast, the West coast, you got been obsessed with fitness at a young age. You know, there's bodybuilders just walking down the sidewalk everywhere you go. So, um, with that being said, this is not the place for that type of gym. And, um, you know, once I went, once I went to their actual gym results fitness, where we had our original seminar, I kind of saw the environment.

I saw how supportive everybody was. And it's so awesome to see, you know, a 50 year old woman doing kettlebell swings next to like that. They had a professional boxer there and they're just working out next to each other. And I was like, you know, this might not be what I had envisioned, but I can still put a product out there where everybody feels comfortable and kind of supporting each other and you know our gym is definitely not soft you know we got chains we got uh banded squats we have graffiti on our walls still all the stuff that I always imagine it's just anybody feels comfortable coming into our facility and I'm happy that that's the type feels comfortable coming into our facility. And I'm

happy that that's the type of environment that we created. Yeah. It really does look like you are making athletes too, with the kinds of movements that the people are doing. They require a level of intelligence and coordination. Some, you know, I've watched you do a bunch of stuff and then I go in the garage and I try to do it or I try to have my kids do it. And I'm like, holy shit, this is fucking hard. And you make it look so easy. It's just like, Oh, step over here, jump up here. And I'm like, why does he look like he's on ice? And I'm, and I'm, and I'm going through peanut butter while someone's punching me. I mean, it's, um, you have, you have all the pieces there. Yep. I mean, it's, it's a lot of muscle memory, right? Once you have that coordination, once,

once you do the basic crossover drill, you just start adding to it, you know, then you can add the ladder to it. Then you can add more hurdles to it. You can add a box jump to it. So you're just kind of combining everything. So that's how we kind of start everybody off at the basic level and their phase one programs. And then as they move to phase three, phase five, they're looking at the videos that I take of them while they work out. And they're like, I can't believe that I'm actually doing this stuff. I could never do this five months ago. So, so it is kind of like dance. It is. I mean, the coordination aspect of it. And it's funny you say that because I have had professional dancers come in just, you know, to keep their fitness. And it's amazing

how quickly they pick up some of the movements that I teach them. Yeah. I mean, it definitely, if maybe people wouldn't spot it unless you told them, but definitely for me, as I see it, I'm like, holy shit, this is a fucking dance. This is like a really intense dance that requires a lot of explosive movements. It's all coordinated movement. If you went to school for finance, how did your parents feel about you going this path? They definitely had a little bit of concern in the beginning. I actually moved to LA for about a year and I was chasing my dream to open a gym over there,

but I saw how fierce the competition was in LA. There's so many good trainers, so many good coaches, so many good gyms in LA. Obviously the price to do something like that is a lot more expensive in a market like Los Angeles. So I kind of took what I learned there and devised a really detailed business plan, showed it to my parents, showed it to a lot of my friends here just to bounce around ideas, get opinions. And I remember specifically there was like this one day where we were all sitting down and I could just like see the stress on my dad's face because he saw me ready to put my life savings into it, take out this big loan and open this gym. And I told him, I was like, look, you know, at the end of the day, my my number one goal my whole life was to make my parents proud.

And if they if they truly felt in their hearts that I should go another route, I was willing to do that. But my parents, I love them to death. They just looked at me in my eyes and they said, if this is what you want to do and you're passionate about it, then we don't want you looking back 20 years from now like, you know, I wish I just took that chance. So with their support, I've always said, that's all that I need in my heart to really chase a dream. And that's all I had in the beginning and it worked out. So I'm blessed with that. I did a podcast this morning where I was being interviewed. I wish I could remember the guy's name. Paul. He's out of Qatar. Anyway, he asked me, are you raising your kids the same way that your parents raised you?

And I said, only 50%. The other 50% I'm doing totally different. They go, what is that 50%? I said, my parents believed in me, and they gave me fucking crazy love. The whole entire family, my aunts and uncles, someone was always pulling my hair, yanking on my ear, squeezing my belly, kissing me on the neck, tickling me. It was nonstop. And everyone believed in me. And it's funny because when I went to your Instagram, although it's mostly fitness, there are some glimpses at your family. And I'm like, holy shit, this guy, although my parents didn't stay together, they still are friends.

And I'm like, wow, this is a cultural thing. He was raised probably very similar to me like you're always sitting on an uncle's lap you're always like you know your dad's always messing with you you and someone's always tucking you in and kissing you too many times Um, that's definitely, that's definitely, um, doesn't have that. Um, when, when you went to LA, what did you see? Did you, do you hang out in the Armenian community in Michigan? Yeah, I definitely do. Uh, I did more when I was younger, we had a lot, a little bit stronger community in my early years. We had basketball leagues, things like that. It's kind of falling apart a little bit. But, you know, I still try to go to church as much as I can just to keep that culture within me. it's huge out there. I mean, Armenian is like one of the dominant nationalities in LA. So I actually have a ton of family on that side as well, which just like you said, welcomed me with open arms and it kind of just made the transition a lot easier. Did you notice a difference? I'm in

Northern California. I'm about five hours North of Los Angeles. Did you notice a difference in the Armenians in LA versus the Armenians in Michigan? Oh, for sure. I mean, it's night and day because, you know, in LA it's mostly Hayastansis versus here we have a ton of Beirutsis, Hedepsis. So for Brian and whoever else doesn't know, it's just Armenians that basically came from a different country. So during the genocide, we were kind of all split up to different regions. And even the dialect, the way you speak is different. Yeah. So where were your mom and dad born? My mom was born in Yerevan and my dad was from Halab.

Oh, OK. So did you say your mom was born in Hayastan? Yeah. Or Yerevan? Wow. That's the capital of Armenia. Wow. That's interesting. So my grandmother on my mom's side was from Turkey, and they came through Ellis Island, and my dad's family was taken to Beirut during the genocide.

They escaped on French ships or English ships. And I noted, when I go to LA, the first time I went to LA and I started hanging out with some Armenians down there, it was a bit of a culture shock. It was wild. I had no idea. But my family, my mom and dad met in Chicago and I had family and I still have some family all over Detroit and Cleveland. So kind of. And you're about 40 miles south of Detroit or no north of Detroit, right? Probably like 15 miles. 15 miles. OK. How how are how are things?

You know, we always hear all this crazy shit about Detroit, about how it fell apart and then it's rebuilding. What are the suburbs like? What's it like where you're at? The suburbs are so different than the actual city of Detroit. My first two years of college was at Oakland University in Rochester suburbs. But I have always been a huge advocate of the city. And I wanted to experience that during college. So I transferred to Wayne State, which is right in the heart of it. And I really got like that downtown

Detroit experience. And that was probably during the time when Detroit just started coming up. We had big investors like Dan Gilbert come in. They built like a couple of high risers, just started renovating a lot of the abandoned buildings down there. And ever since then, it's just been like you could see the transformation. If you go downtown Detroit and you haven't been there in a few months, you're just going to see new construction, new renovation. So it's really great to see like how the city has transformed over the past 10 years. It kind of reminds me of like the stories you would hear about like portland or austin where sorry for that can you repeat that i

just had had a phone call ahead it it reminds me of um uh-oh buh-bye well that was good it was nice talking to you andre andre vanished off the screen for a minute. He had a phone call come in. He must have accidentally tapped something. Sorry. Sorry about that, guys. When I was, it reminds me sort of of Portland or Austin. And I assume like cities like Cincinnati and Detroit are going to go through that same thing where just everything becomes so affordable that people are like okay i have a

dream to open a coffee shop and this rent is affordable and i can you know i can do my shit here or a gym or you know what a comic book shop or whatever these kind of these cool boutique places that get priced out of you know other areas you don't you don't see a comic book shop in downtown beverly hills because can't afford it yeah right and you probably don't see a super cool gym like yours so you open the gym and is it um is it what what year was that 2016 and is it so you've been open for five years yep coming up on five. And is it terrifying? Is it exciting? The actual process of opening the gym? Yeah.

When I first opened the gym, I was just so excited that any fear that I had was just blocked by just pure excitement because everything is new. You know, it's your dream come true. is new. You know, it's your, it's your dream come true. And I was blessed with a really good core group of clientele that I had from, I was renting out space at a gym before I had this one. So I had about 20 to 30 clients that were really loyal, pushing my business, advertising for me, trying to get me referrals. So in the beginning, things were, things were moving pretty quickly. You know, it definitely wasn't making money off of the bat. But within like a year, I would say I had like a comfortable base where I could say, this is going to work out. You know, it might take a little while. I was working like close to 80 hours a week, if not more. But the more I would work, the more results I would see just, just like anything else in the gym. So, you know, the same way I got hooked to those results early in my fitness career, I kind of became hooked to seeing the results of my own, my own labor in the gym.

And now you, how many people do you have working for you now on your website? I saw two or three. So we have about four front desk employees. We have two trainers. And then we also have a boxing coach that comes in once a week. And when you started, was it just you? Just me and two front desk employees. And so what, was it hard bringing on these two other coaches? Yeah. I didn't even really bring on another head trainer until about three years into the business. Experimented with a couple other guys. You're going to have some ups and downs trying to sure that they value our clients the same way that I do. So I'm very, very picky about who I bring in to train my clients. And it took a little while to find the right person, but we have a really good fit right now with Brian. He's our other head trainer and things have been going good. He even has been bringing in his own clientele, which is great to see him build his own success.

You train people, people come in there for whatever variety of reasons, but I'm guessing that they all fall under the umbrella that they want to get better, either healthier, faster, fitter, stronger. It looks like you have some professional athletes in there who train in there in the offseason. Do you ever get people, and I'm sure you do, and I guess my question is more, are you guys getting that feedback? Yeah. I'm guessing more um

how do you they come in there they want to get better but then they someone might argue their limitations they might say i can't so they've done the first step by coming in and now you're hearing excuses right yeah how how tell tell me about that. Is that frustrating? Is that just part of the job? What's the deal with that? That's definitely a part of the job. I mean, if you think you're going to be a trainer and every single person that you train is going to come in 100% motivated every single day, you need to look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, are you 100% motivated every single day? You know, everybody has ups and downs. People get discouraged, especially when you're starting something new and you have the option to quit. You know, this isn't, this isn't like me opening my first business where failure is an option. These people might come in,

they might say, I'm going to try it for a month, two months. And if they don't get results, they might get discouraged. So it's up to you as a coach to kind of dig in a little bit, find different unique ways to motivate them. And it's going to be different for every single person. tough coach. Like if somebody gives me excuses, I kind of just give them this look that this is not the place for that. And everyone, I kind of have that reputation here, especially within the culture of the gym, that if you listen to me, if you do it, as I say, within this hour that you're here, you're going to see really good results. In a few months, you're going to be doing a lot of things that you never thought that you could do. But every once in a while, you'll come across some clients that you have to go on a deeper level with. You know, they might be battling anxiety or depression. There's people come to the gym for all sorts of reasons. You know, it could be so much deeper than just trying to be fit or look good.

People might be escaping something. So every once in a while, if you see, you know, someone is just, just not there, you might have to tap in and really get deep with them and figure out, you know, what is it? How can I help you? How can I make your life better? Did you just touch your phone? Are you touching your phone? Let me lift it. Is that better? I can't tell. Yeah. No, maybe. That's yeah. I do you think that you're tough with people because you believe in them?

Why do you think you're tough with them? Do you believe in people? Is that it? Yeah, I believe in them. I've heard every single excuse you could think of. And I just know what people are capable of. So if someone is giving me an excuse that I can't do this or it's too heavy or, you know, I'm not I'm not going to be able to make it through this workout, then I'm tough on them because I know they can't. If I would never I have an expression for myself. I don't think God will ever present me with a situation that I can't handle. You know, I'm a big believer in that. And I also believe in that as a coach, I'm not going to give my clients any workout that they can't handle. So if I'm prescribing something for them, then that just means that I believe

that they can do it. Is the, obviously anytime you get off the couch, there's a chance for some sort of orthopedic calamity. That's what people have to realize. If you move, there's a chance for injury, whether you're walking down the stairs, whether you're taking a shit, whether you're climbing into your car, every time you move, there's a chance for injury. I don't know if you've ever had it, but you know, I know a ton of people out there have had it where you've never had an injury in your life. And then you're putting the weights away one day and your back goes out. You're like, what the hell? I just did the hardest workout in the world. and my back went out putting away the fractional plates. Like how did that happen? Is, is there anything worse than being a trainer

and seeing one of your clients get injured? Is that like the, or is it not? I mean, you, you definitely feel terrible. It hasn't happened too often in this gym. We've had like a couple bad injuries and anytime it's ever happened, it's because there was like underlying injuries. Someone has, you know, they already tore their meniscus like three times and, you know, they have a brace on or something and they re-aggravate. Usually it's like they re-aggravated something. Besides that, everything we do is pretty safe here.

We don't have too many issues with that. But I would say people are more discouraged by lack of results than they are injury. You know, sometimes when people get injured, like it makes them even more hungry. They're like, I have to come back from this. I worked so hard. And I have a client right now who she's had over the past 15 years she used to be a cheerleader and you know like they take their body through crazy flips and all this stuff so she's had every injury you could think of and she hurt her knee in the gym and she was here like two weeks later with a knee brace on like

doing upper body work because she's like i'm not gonna let this um keep me down right now i gotta keep going it's really it's really fascinating to watch how people cope with injuries you know i and i had a i also could find who she like tripped going down the stairs and kind of tweaked rank a little bit at home and then we didn't see her for a month it's like he's a skateboarder he fractured his like really fractured his wrist and forearm very badly but he would after surgery just doing whatever he could do you know and just a different mentality and approach and it's like it didn't you can get in there and do something like the coaches will work with you and find something new she's like no i'll just wait for it to get better and I'll go back. That's amazing. She came back. That's playing with fire.

Yeah. Everybody has their own mindset. You know, some people are the type that they just want to get back on the horse and then other people, they kind of just want to wait it out and feel 100% kind of wait till that, wait, wait till Monday. And then I'll be in other people are like, no, I'm going right now. Yeah. I'm definitely in the, I'll be in other people are like, no, I'm going right now. Yeah. I'm definitely in the, I'm definitely in the camp of like, if I'm drunk and I haven't worked out, I'm still working out at night. I'm going in the garage. I'll do safer movements, but yeah, you got it. You just got to get shit done. You got to get shit done. And you know, all of my injuries have only gotten worse by sitting still. Now, I know that's not true for every injury, but man, movement is some amazing healing power. Just getting hot and sweating.

Yeah, you'll hurt yourself definitely more from just sitting around all day. Like if you work out consistently, you're never it's impossible to avoid injury, even if it's like acute injuries. It can't it might not be the biggest injury in the world. It's going to happen. But the amount of things that you can avoid heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, high levels of stress, things like that are way longer than the amount of things that could potentially go wrong. I'll tell you this. I, I, uh, I have overdone it a little yesterday, and I'm feeling my back's pretty tight today. But this morning I was coaching.

But this morning I was coaching all day, and as I was on my feet moving around, demoing movements, helping people, my back was loosening up, loosening up. Now I'm sitting here with you guys for an hour, and it's feeling terrible. Absolutely right. up now i'm sitting here with you guys for an hour and it's feeling terrible absolutely right i i didn't see any masks in any of your photos what what happened at your gym during in the last year well we got shut down um just just like everybody else so we were told that it was going to be a two-week shutdown i was actually part of me was excited because I was like, okay, you know, I've been working for three and a half years straight. Maybe two weeks off,

it won't be the worst thing in the world. We can all reset. You know, I can kind of catch up on some paperwork and different type of things that I had put on the back burner. After those two weeks, it got extended another two weeks. I like all right and um you know i wasn't working out that much but after that first month passed i think everybody in michigan kind of had that moment where we were like all right you know we watched everything on netflix you could possibly watch we've been uh getting takeout every single day and eating junk food and all that stuff and it's like now what you know people were dying to get back into the gym and during that stuff. And it's like, now what, you know, people were dying to get back into the gym. And during that time, it was, uh, it was still cold here. It was like thirties still

snowing and late March, early April. So we couldn't do too many outdoor workouts. But as soon as we saw that there wasn't really a, uh, uh, end near for the whole lockdown thing, I started inviting everybody out to the local parks. We started doing outdoor workouts, like on a regular basis. I was actually really busy training clients outside. And that was probably the highlight of everybody's day. I know it was the highlight of my day, just seeing people again. So that's kind of how we coped with it until we could actually get back in the gym. And it difficult um you're you're in a social set we're in a country right now that's really for lack of a better word polarized and

there's you know vaccine not vaccine wear a mask don't wear a mask trump biden like there's all these you know um blm's racist blm's. I mean, there's all of these, like, there's, there's like no middle, middle ground. Yeah. You're on one side or the other. Yeah. And, and you obviously, I'm, I'm making the assumption that you obviously have clients who are on both spectrums. Right. Is that, and you're in an extremely social environment, you're in an environment where you're nurturing. It looks like you're nurturing people physically. But but as we've already discussed, there's a lot of mental and emotional nurturing you're doing to to get them to go through these trials, physical trials.

Is that what challenges did you personally. Undergo managing all these different ideas and views. I really try my best to stay out of politics, especially nowadays. I mean, it's such a sensitive subject like that. You start talking politics in a setting like the gym where there's like 10 people of all different walks of life and you could start a riot very easily. And I only say that because I've seen it happen in different settings. I've seen it happen in family settings. You know, you could be at the bar and someone says one thing. So I really try not to talk about politics because everybody is entitled to their own opinion.

But as far as like the whole mask and the vaccine stuff goes, I really thought it was going to be a bigger deal, especially in the gym, because our state has been one of the more strict states with regulations as far as masks go. But people have just been excited to have like a safe haven where they can come and feel like life is normal again. You know, because you go to the grocery store, if you're not wearing a mask, like people are going to attack you. go to the grocery store, if you're not wearing a mask, like people are going to attack you. You come here, you're in the middle of the set, you take your mask off and no one's going to bother you because like, we're all going through the same, same pain, working out, working out hard and nobody's really going to bother you here. You know, it's kind of a family environment. So regardless if you're a Trump supporter, a Biden supporter, whatever it is,

like we're all family in this gym. or a Biden supporter, whatever it is, we're all family in this gym. Do you find any frustration knowing that hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars is being spent to make people better? So someone gets type 2 diabetes and we spend $397 billion a year giving them insulin when they could also – and they never get cured. Yeah. Or they could come visit Andre and Andre can tweak with their diet and get them moving and they could be free from type 2 diabetes. And it's especially exacerbated now because we see that, you know, according to the CDC website, 94% of everyone who's died from COVID-19 has comorbidities and the other 6% there's not data on.

Do you ever, is it, I mean, are you ever like, yo, over here, I'll hook you up? Like, what's going on? Not only will I tell you what to eat and how to move, but I surround you with like-minded people who will give you a safe peer pressure yeah i mean i i don't want to say anything like that that's gonna offend anybody who has had a death from covid19 because i know there's people who have healthy people have died too but you're right. I mean, the percentage of truly healthy people compared to people who are just overweight, it's a huge difference. You know, I remember having, when we were doing those outdoor workouts, I had a client who was 500 pounds who was meeting with me three times a week. And I was concerned for him because I'm watching the news and they're like, if you're overweight, this is it's going to be completely detrimental to you. And I had that talk with him and he's like, OK, if I don't work out, I have to battle heart disease. I have to battle diabetes. I have to

battle my cholesterol issues. And it's like if COVID-19 is not going to kill me, there's a huge list of things that will. So health should be the number one priority. And if it is, then something like COVID-19 comes along and you just don't have to worry as much. You know, nobody wants to get it. Nobody wants to get sick. Nobody wants to get other people sick, but at least, you know, it's not life or death because you're overweight by 40 pounds. Right. So you have a client who's 500 pounds. Yeah. And you also have professional athletes.

And they work out at the same time. And that's, that's what I love about our gym. Yeah. That's really, really cool. And you have a ton of really fit women. Every once in a while, there'll be a video on your thing and they're in

their full range of women, you know, for, I don't know, I don't know, 18 to 60, it looks like. Right. They're all just like, just rocking beautiful ladies. It's an impressive, it's an impressive, uh, crowd you got there. How, how, how, how many clients do you have? How many people come in and out? On a daily basis, we have anywhere from probably like 50 to 70 clients coming in and out. And then we have 100 active clients. And then why? Do you do a lot of personal training? Because I was looking at your schedule and maybe it's just your website hasn't been updated.

But it said on, well, first of all, on your Instagram, it looks like you do a lot of personal training with a lot of high-end clients. But on Wednesdays and Fridays, it says you have no classes. Is that when you do all your personal training or does that just need to be updated? So it definitely needs to be updated. Like every gym, like every growing gym. I think the employees on there, some of them aren't even employees anymore. So I'm not too good with the technology. If you guys haven't noticed how long it took me to get on board with you on this app here.

But those are our large group classes. So regardless, if you do one training session a week with me, two training sessions a week, you get unlimited access to all of our cardio and boxing classes. So those are just the actual classes. And then pretty much every single hour outside of that is designated to semi-private personal training. Except in the middle of the day, we take a break because it's just a very down time for us. Most people are at work. Does your family train there?

Yeah, my parents do. They took a little time off since COVID kind of got rampant here, but they're slowly starting to get back in. And you have a wife and a child? No wife, no children. Oh, you don't? No. Oh, maybe that must have been a niece or a nephew then. Yeah, I have two nieces and one nephew. Were you ever married? No. Oh, wow. Let's not spread that rumor. Okay, okay. You got him blushing, Savant.

Well, it's funny because I thought I saw you were married on your Instagram. And what's kind of amazing is because there's a ton of beautiful women in your gym. I mean, like an abnormal amount. beautiful women in your gym. I mean, like, like an abnormal amount. And maybe that maybe they all come in like ugly ducklings and they all leave like, you know, but, uh, yeah, it's not just beautiful women. There's a lot of beautiful men there too, but, but it's, uh, it's, it seems like quite the fit crowd. It also makes me extremely happy to hear that you have a guy who's 500 pounds in there. There's probably nothing more rewarding. Yeah. Our clientele is all over the place. And the thing I love about it too, is like nobody feels self-conscious or insecure

working out here because it's just support from all angles, not just from me, from our staff. And then from all the clients here, they all support each other. Do you have open gym? Yeah. So we also have a type of membership where I'll write the program for you. I'll teach you how to do the program with at least one session. And then once I teach you how to follow that program, you have open access to the gym to come in and bang out the workout. And then every month I'll update their programs. Is there another gym like yours? Yeah, definitely. is there another gym like yours uh yeah definitely i mean there aren't too many especially in michigan that i kind of brought the concept concept from the west coast working with results

fitness so my whole business model is kind of replicated off of theirs and they probably have maybe like 100 to 200 gyms that they're working with that follow the same business model. So ever since I adopted this semi-private training style where I'm training multiple people, but everyone gets their own personalized routine, I haven't looked back. I'm a strong believer in that being the best way to own and operate a gym if you're looking to specialize in training. To use the results fitness method? Is gym if you're looking to specialize in training to use the results fitness method is that what you're saying yep the semi-private training method do you have any familiarity with uh opex uh no i don't opex is uh it's james fitzgerald's um company

james fitzgerald was the first crossFit Games champion. And they, you know, they're, it sounds like you basically have a hybrid system between what OPEX does and what CrossFit does. You know, CrossFit has kind of a typical CrossFit, you will have one program for the day and everyone who comes in and out will do some variation of that program in the class setting, scaling appropriately with the coach. The OPEX model is on the another end of the spectrum where if I was your client, you would provide me with a training protocol that's specific to my needs and capabilities and wants and desires. And then I would come in during sometime during the day

to get that programming done. There would be a coach there. It may or may not be my coach, but it'd be there to facilitate correct movement, et cetera. So it sounds like you have like a, some too. Yeah, I think the great thing about CrossFit is like the culture that it creates. Everybody is supporting each other. They're all working out together. And I think the only reason CrossFit gets a bad rep is just because there's a lot of gyms that aren't able or, or coaches that don't really look to modify workouts and personalize it to the person. But if you have a CrossFit gym and they, there's a great coach there that can modify the workout that everyone is doing and kind of tailor it to each individual, then that's going

to be a great workout for them. So when it comes to group training, that's really the number one thing that you have to be able to do is kind of give everybody what they need when they need it. That what you said is probably true for for any business. You have someone like Andre Kazirian at the gym and I'm just showing off for Brian. And if you have someone there who cares, they're the owner. They give a shit. You have someone there who's who they're the owner, they give a shit. You have someone there who's like, this is their life. There's no compartmentalization.

Then it's probably going to succeed. If you, yeah, that's, man, that's, that is one of the things. If you're going to open a gym, then you better be running it. Because if you leave it up to somebody else, then it's a, it's a toss up if it's going to succeed or not. That is one of the things that, you know, Greg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit, he would only allow each person to own one gym. And the point of that was that was sort of a self-regulating quality control.

So like if the owner's not there, then like, Hey, you don't get to have a gym um but it sounds like you like you really really care and and you walk the walk i mean it oh yeah that's huge to me like nothing frustrates me more than seeing a trainer or gym owner who doesn't walk the walk i actually wanted to ask you about that what's your like preferred uh I don't know if it's time of day or structure, or what's going on in the gym when you're working out? Are there other clients there? Are they maybe working with Brian while you're jumping in on a semi-personal class?

Or do you usually work out during that off time during the middle of the day? I usually work out during the off time just because it's easiest for me. My energy levels kind of go away later in the day. So I try to get it in, in the middle of the day when my energy is at its peak, but I definitely like an empty gym too, just because you guys kind of see how much I run around and I take up a lot of space. So that's just, that's my time. What, what don't you like about trainers who don't walk the walk? Talk to me about that. Why is that? I just feel like you can bring so much more to the profession when you're training someone and you're talking to them and you're doing that, you know, the passion for what I do is written all over me. You know, that's who I, who I am. I eat, sleep, breathe it. So when you

have that, it's, it's like, would you, would you go to a dentist with jacked up teeth? No, that's the expression I've heard. Are you going to go to a fashion stylist that's shopping at the Gap? Probably not. You want somebody who has that same passion that you're looking to obtain. Brian, do you shop at the Gap? I didn't want to offend anybody with that statement. He probably wears his gym apparel just like me I wear these Troy City shirts seven days a week

Brian wears shit from the lost and found box hey man no judgment two months Brian those shoes look a little big yeah that's what they had today it works it's what they had today. It works.

It's interesting. I'm torn. I'm torn on that subject. What do you think about this? I definitely think that we have a responsibility as all human beings, because I do believe we're just all mirrors reflecting each other here on the planet, that when you actually light up a cigarette in front of everyone what you're telling everyone around you a cigarette smoking is okay when you put a mask on you're telling the world that hey putting a mask on is okay you when you eat a donut in front of people you're telling them eating a donut's okay whether you want to or not be a role model we're all fucking role models for each other we're a hundred percent if you're if you hang out with a bunch of people who do bad habits you will get them yes drugs are

contagious just like a virus no no one i didn't smoke my first cigarette because i want like it was my idea it's because my fucking all my uncles smoked and i stole a cigarette from them and then later on in life my friend smoked it's like okay let's do this shit and say and same thing with fitness right i was around some people like you were saying like it was spring break and some of the other guys are working out. That shit's contagious. So in that respect, I mean, that's huge, right? You're in there with them and they can see, hey, this is the, Andre is the product.

What's Troy Fitness selling? Well, this right here, me and that person to my right and left. But what about the football coach who's just a fat slob i was literally gonna tell you i will i will say like the exception is to me the only exception is if you're like in the sports world all right if you're a strength and conditioning specialist for a collegiate team or like you know your nfl coach it's different because there's so much more that goes into it and those guys they they don't gain their respect from walking the walk or being in shape or being some great athlete they gain those guys have literally been in that industry from like teenage years like most of those guys uh you know the reason why a lot of them are older is because they've been doing it for like 50 years.

And if you're in the sports world and you're a coach, it's not so much about how well do you know how to work out. It's how how how well is your IQ? How good is your football IQ? You know, they're looking for stuff like that. So I would say that that's the exception. But if you're a trainer and you have to take people from unfit people to fit then you got to walk the walk you know it's that simple and i i do when we have challenges like fitness challenges i always do it with my clients i'm like all right we have a 50-day challenge let's go let's let's all get in the best shape that we possibly can i write my food journal i i write down everything i eat and I show it to the clients

and I expect them to do the same. And I hope that me doing it will kind of hold them accountable that, okay, he's doing it with me. I want to do it with him too. So there's not like a 30-day no drinking challenge and you're at the bar every night being like, those dumbasses.

I didn't say no drinking. If you look at my food journal you will see maybe I had a couple shots at tequila the night before we had a special event but I write it down that's the key you have to be real I don't lie on my food journal

I write down everything even the bad stuff I had a doctor on the podcast and this is many years ago on a different podcast on the crossfit podcast and he told me that the reason why he was an anesthesiologist and he was kneeling down on like one knee talking to like a patient and when he stood up he realized he was having trouble standing up because he was so fat right his balance his weight all everything was less center of mass and he basically said he had this thought in his mind oh shit i'm my these patients are probably like

what the fuck this is the this is the blob that's taking care of me and it's funny because even more even more so than um people who are dealing with the public that you want to trust in, police officers, firefighters, school teachers, doctors, it is a huge disservice to their credibility when you can clearly tell that they're carbohydrate addicts. They're basically sugar addicts. They're basically heroin addicts, but their poison is sugar. And it's a ding on their credibility, whether you want it to or not. How safe do you feel if a police officer is 100 pounds overweight? How are you supposed to trust your cardiac surgeon when he's got three tires around his waist? So, man, it's really important.

What about your Instagram account? What about your Instagram account? How does a trainer in the middle of nowhere, how do you have this massive following? How did these people just trickle in? Your account's not even that old. How did that happen? I just constantly, constantly post stuff, and it really didn't take off for years.

You know, I was posting stuff 10 years ago. I was posting things when I first opened the gym. And the easiest way to gain following is to connect with other people that already have their own following. So once I started getting reposted by other accounts Pierce Elite Performance was one of the big ones he has a ton of followers and I kind of do workouts that mesh well with his Instagram account so once he started reposting me I started picking up from his following and then it kind of just spirals that way but But that would definitely be the quickest and easiest ways just to connect with other people who already have the following because it can be very tough.

That being said, no one would click on your account if you weren't doing all that cool stuff. Oh, yeah. I mean, you got to have the content to back it up. That's why I said you got to walk the walk, right? Yeah, you really do have to have the content. I've seen accounts get, you know, I've seen accounts get published on huge accounts with millions of followers like i've seen the rock like you know post like hey look at this person eat my ice cream and then i go check their account they have like 231 followers you know and like they didn't put on any you know so i mean it's frustrating sometimes you look at accounts they have millions of followers and you're like why why do so many people follow this account like Like, what are they getting from it? And then here you are, like, actually putting out really good content that people can use on a daily basis.

And it just doesn't pick up. But that's the Internet. I had one of my best friends. He went viral last week. He went from zero to over 100,000 followers on TikTok just off of one video. One video. And that's how quickly the Internet can change your video. And that's, that's how quickly the internet can change your life. Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. It's crazy. Or TikTok can kick you off the

platform and you can go from 500,000 followers to, or they can kick you off. Yeah. If that ever happened, oh man, it took so long to get, get to this point. I would, I would be pretty pissed. It took so long to get to this point. I would be pretty pissed. I have three little boys, and they would always work out with their shirts off. And then I started getting just shitloads of pornography. Someone was obviously trying to fuck with me. And people started, I think it's one person, started reporting my account every day.

And my boys had really long hair. They never had haircuts. So the hair was down to their back. And I just got so many reports that finally I did. And then someone from someone, one of my followers who works, um, in at Instagram, who I don't even know said, Hey, you know what they're doing? I said, no. He said, they're going to keep reporting these until the police come to your house. And they were getting reported because I'm assuming because they were getting pulled down because I'm assuming they thought they were girls, right? Even though they're only three years old, but they were working out with their shirts off

and people probably thought they were girls. So I finally went through my account and erased all those, any video with one of my boys with the shirt off, I erased. But the irony is, is like, we see all the crazy shit, people barely clothed, fucking dancing upside down on poles. But I'm getting reported for pornography because my boy's getting his swole on with his shirt off there's a lot of trolls

on instagram it's really unavoidable yeah um do you come up with these workouts are they do you make them impromptu are you uh are you part artist is this like where do you get all these things at yeah i mean i i pretty much wing a lot of my workouts i definitely have like a template when i when i go into the gym for the day i kind of have like a rough idea of what i'm trying to accomplish um like yesterday was like, I want to work on a lot of lateral movement. I didn't know what workouts I was going to do, but I knew I was going to be doing a lot of side to side. And then from there, it's like you said, you kind of just got to be an artist and paint your own portrait with the workouts. So once you have like the basics down,

you know, you, you know how to do different type of ladder drills and hurdle drills, you can start combining things and get really creative with it. And that's how I keep it fun for myself. You have a ton of toys. Definitely. Sticks and sandals. Aqua bags. Aqua bags. Bikers and hurdles and things so so yeah tons of different hurdles sticks uh

first of all do people reach out to you because i'm sure there's at least a couple things that i saw you use that like i'm like okay can i go over to my computer and i go on amazon and order it yeah do people come up to you i mean and it doesn't look like you're advertising these things i mean you're legitimately using them i never see over, um, you're never overtly selling anything, but do a lot of people contact you and they're like, Hey, will you please use my gloves? Or, Hey, will you jump on my sand dune stepper? By the way, I love the sand dune stepper. I love it. I use it all the time. Yeah. Huge advocate. So you do get reached out by people who say hey will you give

this a whirl yeah all the time i mean like on a daily basis i think everybody's like trying to make a quick dollar especially in the fitness industry um the massage guns have been like overwhelming the amount of massage guns that have been uh set my way and people are like use my massage gun use this one but i i like to use like the top brands you know i don't there's a lot of knockoff stuff but um i mean you don't have to get crazy with workout equipment in our gym we have like three machines you know we have our kaiser and um i guess our kaiser would really be like the only machine that we have. What's a Kaiser? What's a Kaiser?

It's a cable machine, air compressed cable machine. Everything else that we have is just functional equipment. And the best part about it is you could take one hurdle and do 200 exercises with it. So that's kind of how I like to do my training is just find basic equipment and get creative with it. Air compressed cable machine. I don't think I've ever seen one of those. You mean as opposed to the ones that… We have the same one at the gym.

Yeah, once you go Kaiser, you can't go back. So all the gyms I've been in, like if I go to a hotel, the cable goes up over a pulley and then hangs onto a big stack of weights. You're saying yours isn't like that. Yeah. So the major difference with the Kaiser is that there's with any plate plate loaded machine, if you yank it hard, then it's going to kind of jerk the cable and you, you really can't do explosive movements with your traditional plate loaded cableed cable machine. With the Kaiser, it's air compression. So you can do your chops or whatever your rows is explosive as you want. And it's not going to cause any damage to you or that machine. And then the cool thing about the Kaiser,

especially once you start getting the athletes in here or just regular people that want to be competitive, it'll actually give you a specific power output so if you're doing like a basic row you could get your power to let's say 500 and then on the next set you kind of motivate your clients that way and say okay let's get you to 600 on this next set and it still moves smoothly you know what i mean like oh yeah it still feels good like that like that it's does it feel like the cable going over the pulley once you're pulling? Like it's a nice, steady, consistent?

It feels a lot better, actually. It's consistent throughout the whole thing. I mean, with the cable, there's always going to be like that dead point at the top. So this doesn't have that. It's just smooth throughout the entire range of motion. Sounds expensive. It was expensive definitely is there an air compressor that you hear turn on yeah yeah everybody asks us that question

when they first start coming here they're like what is that thing i'm like that's the machine you were just using have you have you been to armenia time. The best time of my life. It was the best time of your life? Yeah, definitely. Oh, you went with some sporting program then? No. It was a family trip. It was actually our last family trip.

We weren't able to all get together like that in a long time. But it's just like when you go to your homeland you just have like a different type of feeling i can't explain it i don't know if you've ever been to armenia but you you step foot on that land and you just feel like your home yeah it's unexplainable yeah i get that so i i've been there a couple times and my dad spends six months a year there so he bought some property out in the country and you know plants apricot trees and cherry trees and does he's playing he's playing mr armenian but it was uh i i had a i had a love hate with it to be honest but but i did definitely it was definitely very nice to be around my people

like everywhere i went i was like holy shit everyone's armenian yeah this this is home have you ever been to beirut no i heard i heard beirut was a good time though yeah it's pretty cool it's a trip um it was it was nothing what what i thought it would be like you know you always hear things about the middle east and they always seem so scary but everywhere i've been in the middle east and i haven't been in a long time but damascus beirut everywhere in turkey that i had been man it felt so safe so safe compared to the united states felt just amazing yeah i think every country has its areas i mean if you go like the heart of yerevan it's obviously a lot more um i don't want to say americanized but uh just more modernized maybe is

a better word but if you go to the outskirts the actual villages you know it can still feel like it's kind of third world oh yeah yeah yeah my dad definitely yeah yeah yeah yeah 20 minute drive you go from a lamborghini dealership to uh to cement absolutely yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Detroit can be like that too, actually. So it's like, you know, every, every state has its areas, I guess. Is a second gym on the horizon? Is there any desire to expand what you have going? Yes. I've been on my mind a lot lately, actually. You know, I've been thinking about, I pretty much have an idea of different areas where I think I know it would work. The hardest part for any gym owner is just cloning yourself. So it's just like you said,

you know, having one owner for one gym and you're kind of held accountable for that space. And the hardest, the hardest thing about expanding is just leaving your, your gym, your baby in someone else's hands. So I think I'm on the right track with a couple of trainers that I do have, you know, I've seen them progress so much in the past year.

So I'm really hoping that in the next year or two, that will on the horizon for sure and that's and that's got to be stressful it is stressful but i i'm kind of craving that feeling of excitement i had when i opened the first gym you know there's nothing more exciting than starting a new project like that and i miss it do you envision it also being in Michigan or would you try to? I've thought about LA. I've thought about Florida. You know, it's cold in Michigan. I don't know if you guys know this is freezing over here. So I've definitely thought about it. But I think most likely it would be in Michigan just because we already have a name for ourself here. We've branded ourself very well. And I just I can envision it.

You know, once you have that vision and it's crystal clear, you feel confident going into a new endeavor. I mean, your reputation for your gym is either. And correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not saying it like I know it, but it's either growing. It's either getting better or getting worse. There's no like. So someone either leaves your gym and goes home and tells their husband, holy shit,

I just had another amazing great workout with Andre or they tell their spouse that, or they went home and was like, Hey, Andre was rude to me today. Right. Or Hey, there was no parking again at Troy fitness or whatever the fuck kind of shit that they want to talk.

Um, and so you've clearly built an incredible brand for yourself people are definitely talking and want to be in your facility um if you build another one i you you it's basically you you just make yourself more vulnerable to that right oh definitely i mean you make yourself vulnerable to more unhappy customers. You make yourself vulnerable to disappointing previous customers that maybe they've been used to you always being around and being there 24-7 and now you're not there all the time. But anybody that that knows a business owner, like all the hats that you have to wear on a daily basis, like they kind of give you some leeway. And we actually have a ton of entrepreneurs at our gym. That's what I that's one thing I love about our facility is this is like a great place to network. Like we have so many awesome clients in so many different industries.

Like they understand they're all rooting for us. They want us to expand. They understand they're all rooting for us. They want us to expand. Yeah. And another thing I was thinking is if it's too far away, you're going to spend half your life in your car. Oh, yeah. I'm not going back to that because that's like early life of a trainer.

You're like living out of your car. Actually, when we had the whole COVID thing, I literally felt like I went back 10 years and I have like all this equipment in my trunk and hurdles and bands and agility ladders in my trunk. And I'm pulling it out and doing workouts at the park. I was like, man, this is like, this is what my life was like 10 years ago before I had my own space. So yeah, we don't want to go back to that. My, my wife, um, had like, and you know, this is 20 years ago, but she had like seven different yoga jobs, right? One at this studio, one at this studio, one at a prison, one with these kids, high school. And I just remember thinking, so she had to drive from yoga job to yoga job. And it's like not sustainable.

It's like. No, it'll exhaust you. Yeah, it's like not sustainable. It's like, no, it'll exhaust you. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a miserable existence. When, when you have clients come in, what is the, what is the order? And you talk to them about things and when does nutrition come in? So it kind of depends on the client. Some clients come in and they're just like, they already know everything about me. They already know everything about the gym. They've been referred. They did their research and they know exactly what they're getting into. So those clients, I kind of just bring them in for their initial assessment. We'll do like an in-body assessment just so we have a good baseline

of where their body fat is, where their muscle mass is. And then I'll get them in their first workout and we'll just go from there. But clients that maybe they've been referred or maybe they looked us up online, they don't know too much about our gym. The first thing I do is I explain our semi-private training model so that they feel comfortable that they're still going to get that one-on-one style of attention in a semi-private setting. And then I explain to them our process with nutrition assistance. I'm a strong believer in writing a food journal because that's the only way I can really see what you're eating on a daily basis. So I always stress that that's one of the most important things that they can do in the gym to see success.

And then if everything sounds okay to them, we'll sign them up. We'll get them in for their first workout. Definitely give a little bit more attention to clients in the first month of their training just because they're new to it. They don't know. But my goal is that within a month of of training they're just going to walk into the gym and feel totally comfortable uh in a gym setting because a lot of people don't feel comfortable when they first come to the gym what um i know that that's it's funny because i for so many i i don't remember what that feels like because it was so long ago it's a trip it's hard

for me to even fathom that but you probably you see it every day right oh yeah people like i've literally had clients pull up to the gym park their cars i'll see them and then they'll drive back off and i'll text them i'm like where are you going they're like i can't do this today i'm like come on get your ass back here we're gonna make this work so like my my true goal with everyone sorry about about that, guys. That's okay. I want to hear how you answer the phone. Oh, damn. We got it. My true goal with everybody is that like they feel like they're one of us, you know, and that's why I'm a little bit harder on people because I'm like, all right, you know, you're going to make it through this, but it's going to pay off in the long haul because you're going to walk in here and you'll feel that confidence.

You'll feel like you belong. Are your parents putting pressure on you to have kids? All the time. Oh, wow. You know how it is. And what does that look like? You know, mainly at family gatherings. You know, both my sisters have kids and they have families now. So I get a little bit more pressure because of that. But they also see like the path that I'm on. They see how

motivated I am with my business and they understand. Like I had a talk with my mom the other day and I was telling her, you know, I'm planning online training and I want to potentially open another gym and do this, this and that. And then I ended that with mom, like, please, please don't ask me about kids or anything anytime soon because like I got my hands full and I'm also a strong believer in like, if you want something, you can't just constantly go out looking for it. Especially something like love, family, kids, like stuff like that is just going to happen as it should. I will say this to you for someone who obviously grinds. Yeah.

Your 30s, that's your prime grinding, and you haven't hit 30 yet. So I didn't have my first kid until I was 43. I wouldn't have it any other way. And I didn't have my first kid till i was 43 i wouldn't have it in yeah i wouldn't have it any other way and i didn't know that in hindsight but man because if you get all your shit in order like all my shit's in order i can spend all day every day with my kids that's all i do all day and then and then fool around with this podcast shit so it's funny to say that because like i was literally talking to one of my friends yesterday and i was telling him like yeah you know he's 32 and i was like you got plenty of time you know you could you could meet someone when you're

35 36 he's like i don't want to be old playing with my kids and you know i can't i can't run around with them and i'm like why do you have to be old when you're 36 i was like take care of yourself now and you'll be in better shape than some of these guys that are in their late 20s i mean i mean there's definitely things i i you know at 49 i i can't go to the beach and play frisbee for six hours like i used to right i can't just fucking let the wheels fall off the bus but i can go out there and play for 30 minutes or and then rest and then play for another 30 minutes or i can you know but but here's the thing and i and i'm and i'm probably i would have to guess for people my age in this country i've got to be in the top one percent even though i'm not that

fit but i just work out every single day right yeah but when you also when you reach this age your desire of what you want to do with your kid changes too so like i'm not like i'm not 30 anymore so i don't want to play frisbee for six hours do you know what i mean or like i don't i actually enjoy going in and we do one workout together and then my kids who's six years old does another three workouts without me and i just chill and watch them you know you're kind of your priorities change but coach yeah i'm more cheerleader but um or the band-aid man but what's really great what's really cool about your 30s is is just i mean you're a fucking workhorse and so your kids lives will flash they'll go

so many of my friends don't get to spend the time with their kids that I get to spend and most of my friends are younger than me because they're working they're working 9 to 5's but like a passion project like you have you found what you really want to do fuck man there's no reason to let anything interfere with that I don't think

I think your 30's are just made for I mean I did film work and I think your thirties are just made for, I mean, I did film work and I worked at CrossFit and I started there. Basically I was homeless. And when I, when I left there as the executive director of media and had, you know, 70 to a hundred employees and had enough money that I'm good. Yeah. And then, then, you know, 15 years later, the business sold, I got fired and I have three kids, you know, it's like, I'm living the dream. So, um, but, but my, you know, it's funny how parents' priorities change. I'm sure my, like my wife is Jewish and her parents wanted her to marry a Jewish man.

And my wife wanted, my parents wanted me to marry an Armenian woman, I'm sure. And they want you to have kids, but as you get older and older, they're kind of, they'll lower the requirements on you. Okay. She doesn't have to be armenian just how about a one kid you know i've definitely seen that happen down the line maybe not so much with my mom she's still like dead set on uh you know being with an armenian woman nice armenian girl for you definitely by the time you turn 40 they're like all right just give us a kid why did they name you andre

oh man there's a story behind this i have to try to remember um i think there was like some french singer or something that my mom really liked and then there was uh my my dad liked the name too and they were just they went with it i don't mind i like my name it's cool yeah i like your name too i'm i'm a dog and it's just i'm trying to think if i've ever met any other armenians named andre so my middle name is ada oh so yeah i know so i i have a kid named um adi and avi and i wanted to name the other one ada or anu my wife's like hey you can't have three kids with three letter a names like are you out of your fucking mind that's like a very um traditional type thing like so many uh so many armenian people i know it's like zavin and they all z

z names yeah so i really wanted to do that, all three letter A names, but my wife's like, nah. So we named one of my boys Joseph after my dad. And then how did you get this last name, Kazirian? What's the story behind that? Does that mean something in Armenian? I think it means chief.

Okay. The translation. So that's just my dad's last name. And did he get, is your dad, are you first generation here? Yeah. And how did your parents get here? I don't even know the answer to that, to be honest. I've never asked them, but I would assume by plane.

I don't think they came by boat. But yeah, I think by plane. I don't think they were, I don't think they came by boat, but yeah, they came by plane. I know. So my, my dad and my dad has five sisters and, um, he came here with one of my, his younger sisters first. And then once they kind of built a footprint, they started bringing over the rest of the family. And then my mom's side of the family, they all moved to LA, which, you know, like a lot of the Armenians,

when they come from Armenia, they moved to LA. So she had family here already. And then they just slowly started coming. How old was your dad when he came? I want to say early twenties. And how old is he now? 56.

Oh shit. Your dad is young. Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, he, he works works out he keeps himself active okay well my dad's 80 but he came over the exact same way he came over first and yeah 20 in his 20s and then and then brings the family over one by one save money save save money my dad was always a hustler too like he he grinded and he's had that from the day i was born like i saw that in him and that's why i always knew i i didn't know what type of business i wanted to open but i just always knew i wanted to open my own business because i saw him do it and that's what he always taught me so i just i always had that

kind of hustlers mentality in the back of my mind. Even all my aunts, they all own their own businesses, like different industries. What, what, what business did your dad own? Did he start? So my dad, he originally opened a mechanic shop. He was really good with cars, great handyman. He opened his own place. Um, that, that went really well, like back in the 80s. That was like a booming time for business. And then kind of started like building an empire with that. And then he had some bad luck with different type of investments, stock market bubble of 2000. Things got really hard. And I watched him like struggle during those years a lot.

You know, it was kind of hard for my family, but I literally watched him like just get back to the basics, back to his own grind. He started working for GM. So like imagine, you know, you own your own mechanic shop, you're making all this money and now you're working for scraps at GM, like at the bottom of the totem pole. And I just watched him do that for like so many years until he could finally get himself to a place where he could start a new venture. And then my aunt owned a jewelry store at the time, of course. So he ended up getting into that industry and hasn't looked back since. So I went from mechanic shop to jewelry store in a span of 10 years. So Brian, those are three things. The only thing he didn't have in there is carpets. Our minions, well, my dad owned a wine and cheese store. Your dad owned a mechanic

shop and now he's in the jewelry. We just need someone who sells carpets. And we pretty much summed up the jobs that our minions do. It is really remarkable the lineage of people we come from. These fuckers work hard. Man, it's crazy. I can, my dad owned a wine and cheese store and he worked, yeah, 365 days a year. Like, it didn't matter. And he would take me to work with him. Hey, it's Christmas.

Come on, let's go. Hey, it's Easter. Come on, let's go.'s go and i'll be like all right let's roll oh yeah christmas was our busiest time yes jewelry business it was like yeah christmas you're gonna get gifts but first we're gonna work 80 hours this week and i'll never forget i'll never forget the christmas uh my it was it was christmas morning and my dad and i went to his store and he was just going to go in for to his store and he was just going to go in for like 20 minutes and I was just going to be there with them. And then we were the only store open on the street. And one customer comes in, another customer comes in. And I remember,

and I was, I don't know how old I was seven or eight. And he's like, Oh, just a few more minutes. And I'm like, no, Heidi, I love this. Let's stay here. Let's stay here all day. I can't believe seven or eight. I knew I'm like, look how much money my dad's making. Like we stayed here for like six hours selling wine. That's the crazy thing. Like I see so many young kids now, like they don't want to work, you know, they, it doesn't excite them. But for me, like when I used to see my dad grinding and like, you know, customers coming in, like I fell in love with it. I, I was obsessed with the business as much as he was like, I was, I was going to open my own jewelry store. I was going to be in that industry because

I did enjoy it. I just, I like business. I like being an entrepreneur and kind of being in charge of your own destiny. And it's cool. It's cool working with people. Yeah. And you get to meet a lot of new people that way too. And you build close relationships. That's why I said one of the greatest things I love about my job is the network of people that we've created. You have brothers and sisters? Two sisters. And your parents are still together? Yeah. And are you the oldest?

I'm the youngest. You're the youngest, so two older sisters. I had one older sister. So how old were you guys when you're the youngest so two older sisters i had one older sister and um so how how old were you how old were you guys when you left the house i like moved out yeah my sisters they had to get married of course that was like kind of the armenian traditional way so once they got married like mid-20s they were able to move out but um i i moved out when i was uh maybe 19 i wasn't like fully moved out but i had a i kind of split a space with some friends on campus where when i had like classes back to

back i would stay there for a couple days go back and forth and then when i was 22 that's when i moved to la and ever since then i've been on my Wow. So you never ended up going back home? When I moved back from LA, I was at home maybe for like six, seven months. And then I was like, okay, I miss living by myself. So as soon as the business was well enough where I could do something, I was out again. How happy were your parents to have you back? They still tell me. Every time I go over there for dinner, they're like, why don't you just sleep over i'm like guys i'm going home i like my own bed have another drink stay the night oh yeah that's how they try to get you in there i keep drinking armenian

households they love to drink it's it's um is i the first time i went away from home i went i was I was, I was going to city college and then I did, uh, and then I went to the university of London for a semester. So that was like my first time. Well, I was kicked out of the house at 16, but, but I just went and lived with my dad instead of my mom. But, uh, but what's interesting is, is that back and forth, I was in and out of my house from 16 all the way to 34. In and out, in and out, in and out. My mom and dad were always so welcoming. And I know that some people thought that that was weird or that I might not, you know, sometimes you have to kick a bird out of the nest and you have to teach it hard lessons. But what they don't realize is like working hard is not, not an issue like for my

culture. And so obviously, and, and family's really, really important. But I remember at 34, um, living with my mom, it was probably the last time I lived with her, but I remember saying, mom, can we start telling people that you live with me? I mean, for the first 33 years, we've always said, I live with you. Let's just flip the script on that shit. She's like, nah, I paid a mortgage. But now that I've had, you know, all the hard work paid off, I'm always looking, she just lives down the road from me, but I'm always looking for a place where my mom can move back in, you know, a property that has a house on the, you know, in the backyard has a, has a house on the, uh,

you know, in the backyard or a house that's big enough that everyone can live in. It's just, man, there's nothing better than family. And it's a shame that, um, there's this cultural myth that you, everyone has to go. I mean, I know, I know it's important to go and fly on your own, but it's also, man, your, your, your family's just incredible, especially if it's a healthy family. Yeah. My, uh, my godmother and godfather, like they had a house literally in the same neighborhood, like the next street down. And I just remember, like, I always loved the fact that they were so close. And like, anytime we had family gathered, like we would, we would see them multiple times a week. And it, that's the, that's the best way to like, keep the family closes by literally keeping them in close proximity

and it's hard right now because both my sisters live in chicago but we're always like throwing around uh ideas and and you know different ways that maybe in the future we can all relocate to the same space so i hope it works out because you know i want my family to have that too one day yeah even do you ever visit them in chicago all the time well that's where i'm at let me know next time you're here oh what's oh you guys are you guys are in chicago aren't you i'm in california he's in chicago all right how about we both go to california no i'm just kidding we'll definitely visit uh both both spots awesome well andre thanks for coming on it was a pleasure to meet you um you've truly inspired um you know for someone i've been in the in this world with some of the best trainers and best athletes um in the world and

yet when i want to train people train my kids kids and look for really cool, explosive stuff that I think is insanely functional for all the activities they do. I go to your Instagram. I'll have it tagged on the screen. I really appreciate everything you're contributing to humanity. And the icing on the cake is that you're a beautiful Armenian man. Thank you, guys. And your kids are awesome, by the way. Cool.

Thanks, man. Yeah. All right.