The Everyday Millionaire Show
The Everyday Millionaire Show
Revolutionizing Fitness: Chris Howell on Creating Gym's Post-COVID
Uncover the secrets to creating bespoke gym experiences with Chris Howell, a former lacrosse player turned wellness innovator. Chris takes us through his transformative journey from Wall Street to founding SPX, a company that designs high-end fitness spaces. Learn how his collaborations ignited his passion, and discover his tailored approach to the future of gyms compared to other emerging trends like biohacking.
This insightful episode sheds light on the changing wellness landscape post-COVID, revealing how priorities are shifting towards health and community engagement. Chris Howell shares insights and tips for anyone looking to create a personal fitness haven, offering his expertise and contact information for bespoke home gym construction.
Welcome to the Everyday Millionaire Show with Ryan Greenberg and Nick Kalkis. Alright, guys, welcome back to another episode of the Everyday Millionaire Show. You are here with Chris Howell. Chris, coming from Jupiter, florida, how are you doing, man?
Speaker 2:I'm great man. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so we're coming from. I see your ex lacrosse player. Yeah, I'm sure you're familiar with where we're at we're. We're in maryland, right outside of annapolis, maryland. We're sort of a big deal in the in the lacrosse world. Uh, where are you originally from? I can't imagine you're a lacrosse player from Florida.
Speaker 2:No, I grew up in Pennsylvania, in Bethlehem, pennsylvania, okay, and then I ended up staying up northeast and obviously Long Island.
Speaker 1:I'm from Long Island.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah. So that was like a huge culture shock for me. When I got out there that was like, oh, lacrosse is king out there, so yeah. And then I ended up playing at Hofstra University and so, yeah, all the hotbeds and everything there, Nice yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:When people say they were like lacrosse players, I was like okay, so you're from Long Island.
Speaker 2:Did you play in Long Island or did you play in Maryland? Because those are the two places that matter in the lacrosse world Exactly. Now it's getting pretty big, though. I mean from California, I mean there's teams down in Florida here. It's good to see it growing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I imagine we're close to the same age, though when I was growing up it was not very big. You would go to Denver. You'd see lacrosse. They should see lacrosse taking anything like what the hell is this?
Speaker 2:exactly. You knew right where they're from, if they're going to be good or not. That was, that was uh, that was also indicative, but yeah, now you can't say the same.
Speaker 1:So yes, um, so tell us a little about where you you're now talking on a, on a business podcast. You started as lacrosse player where what, uh? What happened in between? There? I see you own some gyms. You built some gyms out yeah, um.
Speaker 2:So I graduated from hofstra, um, wolf of wall street just came out. So I was like you know what, let me go try wall street. Try Wall Street. I was a trader. I'd invested in bank for about three years, realized it really wasn't like the Wolf of Wall Street movie, that it kind of really wasn't for me. So I left that and became a personal trainer. And then I did some cold calling tech sales from like nine to five.
Speaker 2:I really didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to be involved in this. Like what I saw was like this, this like growing health and wellness category. So right after that I was just kind of hustling around and I had an opportunity to work on this like group fitness concept for this hospitality brand called Soho House. And they wanted to do a group fitness concept for all their houses, nationally, internationally, and so I was working on that.
Speaker 2:And as I was working on that I get a like a call from the architect and he's like hey, what are like the best treadmills out in the market? I go home and create a little PowerPoint slide and I'm like, oh, here you go. And he goes oh, this is great, can you do the same thing for dumbbells and I kind of fell in love with that process. So I worked with this architect on their gym designs and their wellness designs for everything from equipment concept to programming, how to run the space, for about three years, and during that time I created this company. I started now, or started then, called SPX, and we have been around for almost eight years now and we do gym and wellness designs for high-end residential and commercial spaces. So everything from high-end private homes to hotels, multifamilies, commercial gyms, things like that.
Speaker 1:Nice. That's interesting. It's funny because of our last episode. The guy was a franchisor. He buys franchises and he's into wellness but he's not long on gyms. He's big on. He's like you know, he's like a big on like the biohacking thing we talked about. Um, I go to a med spa, I get you know in nutrient injections and stuff like that and he's long on that kind of stuff but short on physical gym spaces.
Speaker 1:So it's interesting Like literally literally 30 minutes ago, we were talking about being. He was being short on gyms, and now you're building gyms.
Speaker 3:Uh, so it's, it's interesting You're, are you more so doing personalized gyms for for homeowners? Is that kind of more of where your business model falls into?
Speaker 2:more of where your business model falls into. Our business focuses on 60% being commercial spaces, 40% being residential, and we are taking clients from a concept being here's a gym amenity for a hotel, or here's my house I'm building and I want a gym and we help that concept the layoutd renderings, the equipment list, the budgeting, all that, the procurement and, uh, install um. And then for the commercial side, we have like additional services as far as like um, taking it steps further.
Speaker 1:But in general, yeah, we're doing both so like 100 unit, you know luxury apartment building, would call you and say, hey, we have this. You know 2 000 square foot space. What should we do with it?
Speaker 2:Exactly, and then it'll be like what's the demographic, um, even like, what floor is it going to be on, you know, if there's going to be residences around, we have to think about how we're going to do that, um, but yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:So yeah, that's uh, I mean that's a little different, because the guy in our previous episode he was more so against being long on gyms I guess just gyms in general, like owning gyms and having the membership because of how quick people will stop going, whereas what you're doing, people are going to always have that thought of fitness. So whenever someone builds a 100-unit apartment building, they're going to need a gym in it. They're going to want a gym in it, it and they're going to hire someone like you to uh fulfill that need yeah, yeah, super interesting about that last person.
Speaker 2:I would love to uh talk to them a little bit more, but on what their thoughts were and things like that, because uh, I'll connect you guys.
Speaker 1:Actually it's an interesting kind of interesting guys, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So so I'm a big fitness guy. I'm training for an Ironman right now. So that right, good, uh, good topic that we could talk about. And and and I guess I'm going to say the same thing that I said on the last episode, and and maybe you can give me a different answer, because Nick didn't, uh, nick didn't give me a better answer. Maybe it's my algorithm, but do you feel like people now more than ever, are getting into fitness or like trying to better themselves in that way? Now I just feel like I see it more. I see people like quit drinking, eating healthier, um, just in general, do you see, do you feel that way?
Speaker 2:And you, being in the space, yeah, what's funny is your algorithm is probably the same as my algorithm, so no, but in all seriousness, yeah, I think that during 2016 to pre-COVID, you found a huge rise in group fitness as far as SoulC, uh, barry's boot camp, f45, and there was a bit of a bubble there, like at least in the tier one cities, like there's not that much excitement or hype around um group fitness as there once was, where you're paying 50, 60, 70 dollars to go to a class, get a smoothie afterwards at various bootcamp, you know, or like renting gloves at rumble boxing and, and you know, you look at that customer and they're spending a lot of money. During COVID, um, I think there was two things that happened One, that that shift of discretionary income being spent on group fitness kind of started to have a little bit of reality check, and then this concern of health. I think nobody cares more about health than they do right now, especially having you know after COVID One, where if you were just extremely unhealthy then you know obviously that it doesn't have to be COVID Illnesses become very like more deadly and serious to you. So I think I think there that that kind of was a little bit of a catalyst for it.
Speaker 2:I also think that, moving from COVID, where you're not like engaging with people, you're seeing this like huge resurgence of retreats, wellness retreats, more participation in events like triathlons, marathons, high rocks. I think people are really after this communal effect and part of that is it's dictating how they're living the rest of their lives. As far as, like I'm not going to. You know, when we go meet up with a friend, it's going to be more for a lunch or a coffee versus the bar and for drinks, or maybe it's drinks but it's mocktails, or maybe it's like I'm not going to drink but like let's get a great steak right it starts to make more sense now, aligning with what people are finding a little bit more purpose in so um and along.
Speaker 2:That is uh the evolving uh uh of of wellness in general. As far as, like, recovery for those events and things like that, it's just it'd be. It's becoming a huge lifestyle change versus an hour at the gym.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally, I totally agree I. I'm all about the like. I have a red light room. I have all this stuff. Now that I that I do, I'll have to show you that, nick, I have a red light machine in my room, one of my extra rooms upstairs, and it you lay on it and it's just like it's for recovery and all this stuff. And the more you do all this stuff, the more you hear about all the benefits that you know that it gives. And I'm trying to do every little thing to get my recovery so I can keep up with the training that I'm doing and the more people that I talk to.
Speaker 1:Because I did stop drinking this year, not completely, like I tell people like it wasn't court ordered or anything, but I did it for my health and so I can't train when I'm hungover. And I got to run tomorrow, I got a bike today. You know you just the more people I talk to. Like we went down to Cabo, I maybe had like two or three drinks. You know the whole five or six, you know the whole time we were there, but normally I'd have five or six each night, you know.
Speaker 1:And yeah, and the more people that I talk to that are, you know, getting into their health? That's a very common thing, I think. You know people are doing like I have a Wednesday run club where people come and they run with us, you know, and that it's it's becoming a thing, and people are like, oh, can I come to run club? Like that was never a thing. It was always like let's go to happy hour, and that I think that has changed a little bit and behaviorally, I think COVID had a lot to do with it as well.
Speaker 2:How do you feel? How do you feel that you've significantly decreased your consumption?
Speaker 1:So much better and it wasn't like I said, like I wasn't a huge drinker, but, like you know, you go out for like a happy hour on a Thursday or and you wake up Friday and I'm not going to hit the same workout that I did if I wasn't drinking. And we run. We host these meetups, these networking meetups. We have a couple hundred people that come. We're real estate investors by trade. So that's what we do. We bring real estate investors together, people, listeners from the show. We rent down a you know a place, a restaurant, and we bring people together and I everybody just tries to buy me drinks the whole time.
Speaker 1:So I ended up getting like the last time I got a non-alcoholic beer just to have something in my hand to keep trying to buy me drinks. But the more people even there that I talked to that were like, yeah, I'm not, I'm trying not to drink or I'm only trying to have one or this, that I think that's a trend that is trending in in the right direction. Nick's not in the same algorithm. He may look great, but he nick's not in the same algorithm it may look great, but he, he's not in that same algorithm.
Speaker 1:So he doesn't feel the same way that I do about people getting in, more people getting into this, this fitness thing. But I'm pushing not only like friends but employees and and stuff, to go, go, get your levels checked, go to the go. You know the. They have these med spas now that are concierge doctors. They're not insurance-based. They will actually spend the time with you to go over really, really minute things that the insurance companies don't give the doctors time for.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a huge thing, like when I was just in Miami before the race I went to a med place and got like a b12 shot and when we typed it in, they're all over. You go to brickle, you could, you can't walk down. You know you can't walk a hundred yards without seeing a med spa or some sort of you know aesthetic type, uh type facility. I think that's a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:So when somebody calls you um, what are some of the questions you ask uh to before you're going to build a gym, like if I was going to build a personal gym at my house, what are some questions you're going to ask me?
Speaker 2:Definitely One would be uh, you know where is it going to be in your house? So typically it's either like a detached garage type thing, garage basement, an unused area of the house, and then, once we kind of figure out where that's going to be, then we'll talk about the ceiling height. Ceiling height dictates pretty much what you're trying to do in there. So you know, we've dealt with ceiling heights that are like below eight feet, which is everything ends up being super custom or very limited as far as like what they're able to do. Then, finally, then we start talking about like who are the users? And then how do they like to train users? And, uh, and then how do they like to train?
Speaker 2:Um, so I would say like, right now we're working with a client that's uh, uh, you know he has a professional football player and so he's got his mindset of where he's at. And then his girlfriend is kind of like, well, I just want my Peloton and I want this and that, and so we're kind of creating this uh scenario, this environment, that that this guy can come in and do his serious workouts but has everything that she wants there as well. Sometimes there's large families with sons our age where we're coming in, we're like, hey, we're trying to throw some weight around, do our thing, we have to design these gyms for, like, who those users are, um, and then finally, sometimes there's like trainers that are coming over to train that that homeowner, homeowners, or something like that. So that's kind of where we kick off our our discovery, before we start jumping into certain equipment and layout options what kind of marketing do you do to get those homeowners?
Speaker 3:I know you said you do about 40 homeowner. Uh, gym builds. What kind of marketing do you do to get those homeowners? I know you said you do about 40% homeowner gym builds.
Speaker 2:What kind of marketing do you do to get those customers and clients? Yeah, good, question this. In the past six months so it was all referrals I kind of just sat on my heels and just kind of like waited for people to text me or email and then about six months ago, I just got so frustrated that I was relying on this referral network. So I just started marketing across Instagram and LinkedIn and then like um as well, once a week. But I really started to post on Instagram like daily um, post on LinkedIn pretty much daily or every other day. Um, I would say the engagement.
Speaker 2:That was probably the most traumatizing thing, Cause I would wait for the you know the design shot, the aesthetic. I'm like that's going to hit. And then you're telling yourself, oh, it's going to go viral and this and that, and then it doesn't. Uh, where? There were days where I would like post an instagram picture or something and I would get like one comment and that was like, oh man, I'm not doing this anymore.
Speaker 2:But I really had a mindset shift, whereas I'm just going to post every single day for 90 days and see what happens. And then I added LinkedIn to that and then I added this newsletter. Then I created a little bit of a flywheel with case studies that I was making for my website as well. So I created this funnel that I was every single day that I was doing and, even though I wasn't getting direct engagement, I was seeing things happening around my orbit where people were referring me more. I would get more inquiries. I would be doing way more sales calls whether they were qualified or not, they were still sales calls. But yeah, in general that's been a bigger shift. But up until then it's all been referral like a referral network and how you mentioned qualify.
Speaker 3:How do you qualify them when they reach out to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we are a very niche firm. So not only are we doing gym designs, we're really doing higher end gym designs. So qualifying would be someone that's probably going to for a home is probably going to spend anywhere $40,000 plus on a 20 by 20 a garage, a two car garage would be something like that. So they're really not in that that ballpark. They're probably not going to be the best fit for us because we are looking to do interior design as well.
Speaker 3:You can do everything virtually right, so you can have customers all across the United States, or anywhere, I guess, for that matter.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. Yeah, we're doing a project in Italy right now for a hotel which would be pretty amazing, but yeah, so that one we fly out, because it's like a three-year project.
Speaker 3:We'll fly it out twice a year, but do you guys do the build too, or just the design, and they order the equipment needed to put it in there uh, we're going to be doing very turnkey.
Speaker 2:So, um, we're going to go in like from the ground floor when they are building uh, mainly to help um with the technical specifications for needed, and we'll kind of talk well, this is fair for residential too.
Speaker 2:So if they want a certain you know, if they're a triathlete or some type of ultra marathoner, they might want a treadmill. That uh has more power output. So that's going to need to be on a dedicated circuit, um on 15 amps, so like that needs to be either trenched to a certain location. So we we need to get in there and do the layout uh from a technical perspective, um to get those power pole uh for saunas and things like that, ventilation um, things like that. And then we'll do all the design portion, the equipment, we'll do the procurement and then we'll warehouse it and then, whenever the rest of the FF&E or the interior design people are that we're collaborating with or we're doing it, whenever that install happens, we'll deliver all the equipment as well and install it, and that'll be like a one to three day process, depending on the square footage.
Speaker 3:So where most of the commercial gym equipment? Where do they come from? Is that like a specific place in the US that has to be shipped to any destination that somebody is looking to have a gym built?
Speaker 2:You're saying the actual equipment.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It varies on the vendor that will select. It would be similar to you know, a lot of people make couchesches but some people want restoration hardware couches and some people want bob's discount furniture type of couches. So we try to figure out. You know, there might be a designer that's like hey, we want um, you know we want this like wood, uh, natural tans, all this stuff, the wool we actually found we have a um a group we work with in the uk named watson, and they, uh, we have them make um italian bentley stitched leather benches and upholstery for their gym equipment, uh. So it's like pretty amazing stuff, uh. So it just depends on where we're selecting the equipment. What's the best fit for that client?
Speaker 1:And yeah, we'll source from all over the place. It's funny you said about the posting thing because when I started training for my triathlons I own a home remodeling construction company, real estate investing, you know all those kind of vertically integrated businesses I started posting my trainings, just like my Strava workouts me, just like being in, like dying after running a couple of miles or whatever you know, posting what I was doing, and I I never had more engagement and I would post. So before that let me pre predate that I would post like a kitchen I just did and I'd have like an X engagement right. And then I posted a video, like a selfie video of me like sweating after a five mile run or something and basically, like you know, just get after it kind of thing, like a Nick Bear, kind of like motivational thing, and I would get 10X what I would get for that stupid fucking kitchen that I just built, that I was like that's where I make all my money and like I want people to see. But I then I posted a video of me just talking and then my my strava screenshot of the run that I just did and people are hitting me up like, hey, man, love seeing you getting after it. I've been trying to get started on my health, blah, blah, blah. Oh, and my uncle needs a kitchen, or I just did a debt, or I'm in the process of building a big deck for somebody he probably listens to the show.
Speaker 1:Um, a big time, a real estate investor from our network. He hit me up because he saw I was training for Ironmans, he's doing, or just did, an ultra marathon and now I'm doing, probably this month I'll probably do $100,000 for him and just in his revenue. And that came from a conversation that we had about fitness. But we happen to be in the same network and the only reason he hit me up not because I was a, I own a construction company is because I posted about my fitness journey, about my triathlons, about my ultra endurance stuff, and now I'm doing six figures for him, probably this month. I got all of that through a post of me just talking about running or biking or swimming or whatever I was doing, lifting, whatever I was doing at that time. So the posting it definitely, it definitely helps.
Speaker 1:But it's so funny how it worked that that I was posting business stuff and the whole time I was getting barely any engagement and then I start posting about something that's nothing to do with my business at all and I'm getting hundreds and thousands. Some some of them get. Like one of them like went and had like 600 000 views and I was like, holy crap, like I'm not even I'm not a fitness guy, like I'm a fitness guy for myself, but it's I'm not in the fitness business business. But now I post, 90 of my posts are all fitness posts and it basically feeds me more business, my other businesses, and I'm not even posting about it. It's it's a funny, uh dichotomy of like I was just posting the wrong thing. I was posting what I thought was important. The stuff that I'm actually doing is not important, it's the, it's the fitness stuff. So it's funny how that that works. So you definitely saw an increase in your you know, business and engagement from your posting every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. I also think it's, um, like, I'm super passionate about what I do, Like I would be. I do this, you know, even if I like won the lottery or something where I don't need to do it. I love, I love what I do. So I hope and I maybe I think it translates the way I talk about projects or clients or things. It's it's easy for me to creatively think about it versus using the finance that I came from.
Speaker 2:I wasn't on Saturday reading a P&L report of a stock or I wasn't interested on the interest rates or things like that that other people that were great traders that would want to do.
Speaker 2:But what I will do on Saturday is consider the grip on a dumbbell and if that's efficient or if it could be better. So I do think, I hope that and I think it does translate a little bit more than if someone kind of just posting to post but maybe that's that was my first thought is that you know people like you know they're seeing you film yourself and you're talking to the camera about a workout you just accomplished, Like people, people want to be a part of that positive journey, right? So, um, whether it's enthusiasm or passion for your work or your hobbies. I think it's a great way to first. First step in building an audience is to, um, just double down on what you like and then, like you said, like you, the market told you what they wanted. They wanted more of the fitness content. So, uh, it's good on you for for noticing that yeah, that's funny, um, are you?
Speaker 1:are you a fan of nick barr? Do you know him at all?
Speaker 2:the bpn guy yeah, yeah, I've connected with him on about, uh, possibly um, um, I think when, before he moved back to aust, we, um, we connected about doing the gym in Nashville, but I don't know if it happened like that, but yeah, uh, he's a beast yeah, he's a beast.
Speaker 1:My uh, my buddy's doing high rocks this weekend down there and that, uh, you know they're. They're all about that high rock stuff. They're trying to get me to do this dc high rocks that's coming up this way next year. But I've never been into the uh crossfit type stuff. I like lifting and then I like endurance stuff and I I haven't I haven't mixed them together. Um that, it's an interesting. Have you heard about this? High rocks?
Speaker 3:no, no, I, I haven't.
Speaker 1:So it's basically and, chris, maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's like a mix of lifting and cardio, so you run like a kilometer and then you do a certain workout, and then you run another kilometer and you do a certain workout. I don't really know how they score it. Is it a race? I guess it's a race, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's pretty much a race and time-based, and you're doing like sled pushes rope, pulls wall balls, like that, and then, yeah, you're running basically. So the idea is that it's like a little bit more I have to be careful, these people are crazy about it, but uh, it's, I feel like it's. You know, if you're gonna go do crossfit, there's olympic lifts that are involved, which are more, way more technical. It takes more time, I. I think there's a little bit lower barrier to entry to high rocks, not to say it's easier by any means. It's definitely hard, um, and people grind it out, but I think that, um, it's a little bit, um, more community, community driven.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it's, it's on fire that that event right now yeah, I think it started in the uk or somewhere over there in europe and now it's slowly leaking, leaking over here.
Speaker 2:But yeah, and yeah, you have everybody's getting involved, uh, involved in it. Um. So I saw I saw nick nick bear was he's gonna do it right, so yeah yeah, yeah, that's why that's why I?
Speaker 1:brought it up when you said hyrox and I'm a fan of his stuff.
Speaker 1:I actually use bpn um a lot of their pre-workout, post-workout, that kind of stuff oh awesome, so yeah yes, that, um, that world, that like ultra endurance world, is something that I never really thought of until I started training. I was like who? Like when I first started, my buddy, like sign, basically made me sign up for a triathlon and I was like who the fuck does triathlons? Like I couldn't name anybody that did them. And then I went to my first race and there's 3000 people there doing this race and I'm like, holy shit, this is like a real. It was actually in saint pete.
Speaker 1:I have a place in tampa that I stay. I do a lot of uh, my winter's down there and and uh, he was like you're gonna be down here for the winter. Like, train with you know, train with us, we'll do this triathlon. Now thousands of people are doing it. Now all I see is triathlon stuff, obviously because of the algorithms, the way that they are, but there are there's so much in that world of like fitness, endurance and and stuff that that people don't even realize like it. There's millions of people that do this stuff. There's an iron man race almost every single weekend of the year somewhere in the world.
Speaker 2:Really, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1:If you go to yeah, if you go to iron man like the website and you look at there, there's one or two races a weekend every single year somewhere in this in the world. Um, I'm going to a wedding in the philippines in um in july and somehow and I was just looking there's a there's an iron man race a shorter distance, like half iron man race in the philippines. The weekend that I'm there and I I'm like with my wife like trying to figure out. She's like absolutely not, we're not carrying your bike across the Philippines. I have an assistant in the Philippines and I'm like please figure out if I can rent a bike in the Philippines. And he's like there are no high-end road bikes in the Philippines. Like that's like three years salary for us is like one of your bikes. So, um, yeah, yeah, but it is a uh infectious sport and I do think that I disagree with our last guest that I am long on fitness.
Speaker 1:I'm long on just gyms in general. I think, um, we were talking about like the planet fitness model of being, uh, a gym for people that don't go to the gym. Um, they have all these gyms that are filled with members that don't actually go. Um, I think gyms are are a great business to be in. I think the only issue with it is like what happened with COVID they shut down and I hope that that doesn't. I hope we learned something from that that the gyms were probably the most important places to be open.
Speaker 1:But I do think that, um, that I think fitness is a thing that's here to stay and I think people are getting healthier. And even another reason that the other guy, cliff, who's really nice guy, we connected um really great interview that you know, with all the glp1 stuff that's out there, that people are starting to just take the biohacking route rather than the the true fitness route. But I I almost feel that that's like the kickstarter that is getting a lot of people started on their journey and they're seeing results faster, so they they're sticking with it more. Do you feel the same way?
Speaker 2:Man. So much to unpack on what you said too. Um, a lot of it, um, I agree with too. I think just in the front end of it is I don't know if you noticed this or um, but as marathon running, half marathons, become more saturated high rocks, I'm finding that there's this upper echelon that's still pushing the boundaries. There's more and more people that are like trying to separate themselves from like what's normal, like I find it's like marathon is becoming so normal for people, or that, like you're finding way more people going into ultra marathons that otherwise would never be doing it. Um, and I'm perplexed by that, because one it's, you're finding these people going out and doing these uh harder and harder things, which is pretty amazing.
Speaker 2:My friend just did uh, about a year ago he did this marathon is in the sahara desert. It was like a 150 mile ultra and you're like self-sustained. So you have everything. Yeah, for like it's like a, it was insane. But if you told him you know three, four years ago he'd be doing that. He'd be like get out of here, I'm not doing that right but it's weird.
Speaker 2:And then you never hear of anyone doing it. Now I hear all these people doing it. So I find this like, uh, people are electing to do harder things within around fitness and I think it's pretty interesting. But, um, as far as, like the gym concept, yeah, the, the big chain commercial gyms, planet fitness is business-wise an incredible model. Um, if you think about how they cycle through these towns, right, and they like bank on life events. So you break up with your girlfriend, you're probably going to go back to the gym and re-sign up.
Speaker 2:You move into a town and you need friends, you're probably going to sign up for a local gym and if you're not a fitness person, planet Fitness might be that place. So it's like they're not in this, like year one, year two, they're like in a 10-year game. Uh, in this, like year one, year two, they're like in a 10-year game. Um, this community, and how many times can they cycle through this community? It's kind of interesting. But uh, I think for other folks, um, like a lifetime in equinox, they're constantly pushing what's the next luxury experience that they can do? Um, and then you have boutique kind of competing in the same same avenue as well. Um, I think the next thing that you're going to see is a little bit more of um, uh, kind of like a 24 at 7 open gym type of membership club where you kind of you can he, fob in low overhead, low people management and like, very, like, nice, decent, good equipment, maybe there's a sauna and cold punch and they have 500 members, and I think you're going to attract that high rocks group, you're going to attract these people and have events and it's going to be a more profitable gym than it was five years ago. Um, being a gym owner is tough. Being a gym owner is very hard. So if you can manage costs in that way, it opens up the doors to being a little bit more lucrative of a model as well.
Speaker 2:But as far as IGF-1, I agree, I think starting a diet is hard, even as a well-conditioned person or a healthy person. Uh, seeing results is even harder when on a diet, if you're 350 pounds and you're on the verge of where you are diabetic. At that point, like, and someone says, hey, you could take this to get you kick, get you off the couch so you can move to me, why not? Yeah, that gives them a chance to go to the gym. You know they're not going to go to the gym without it or change any lifestyle change. Even not even going to the gym, just walking 5 000 steps instead of 3 000 steps would make a huge difference. So I think it gets demonized mainly for the main usage of like beauty and aesthetics. But I think overall, I think could be super helpful for people looking to improve their health and, like you said, to get get started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's the hardest thing in the beginning. Not seeing results is really demotivating. So when you can, when you take something that you see results quicker, you're going to lean more into that thing and I was reading some studies recently not reading, that's a lie, I don't really read that much, I was watching a YouTube video rather.
Speaker 3:There you go yeah.
Speaker 1:And they were analyzing an article that was written by like somebody that was studying these GLP-1 things and they were saying that not only are they seeing it increase, you know, people's fitness but they're and decrease their fat, but they're actually seeing behavioral changes. So people that are on it for like a year, they did like a year study, I think. They did a six-month study and you know different time trials basically, and they were saying that they're seeing true behavioral changes and they were doing it with placebos. So basically, so basically, they would give one person that was like overweight and sanitary the actual GLP-1 drug and then they would give the other person the placebo. So nothing they would change. They would actually change their behavior, thinking that they were on that drug or that receptor. So that's just, like you know, kind of a mind boggling thing.
Speaker 1:But I think I personally think that I'm pro anything that helps somebody get off that couch and get to work and start doing hard things, whether it's a water injection or an actual drug or whatever it is, it's something that's going to help. You know, fitness is, if you don't have your health, you don't have anything. So I think that's, that's a huge piece and I'm I'm going to say I'm long on fitness and and gyms in general, but I do think that that that gym model is is tough because of the churn. I guess people churn through memberships a lot. Yes, in the long run I feel like there's enough people that are trying to make change that I think it'll keep that industry going pretty strong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the high member low use model is tough If you're like, if you're a mom and pop shop, right, Because funding becomes more of a factor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the pricing piece. That's their strategic $10 a month pricing. Yeah, it's the pricing piece. That's their strategic $10 a month pricing. Yeah, it's just cheap enough.
Speaker 2:So much money behind it that they're just. Yeah, to compete in that same realm is very challenging. You have to have a serious value prop.
Speaker 1:I did recently see actually it's on the way to my gym there's a house that has a van outside and it's a mobile gym that they come and they do like mobile fitness classes at like the local park, or they'll come to your driveway and they'll are attached to the van Very cool, and it's literally like I think they call it the gym guys or something, and they're mobile. They'll call like if Nick and I wanted to do a workout right now, we'd call them, they'd come to the driveway and they'd pop open their Sprinter van and they'd have all the equipment right there and we would get to each pay a little bit of money and they'd do a workout with you. Little bit of money and they do a workout with you. So that's, that's another cool, uh little model. Maybe you could implement that into your design for uh for businesses like hey, let's build down a. I've done your basement, your garage, now let's do your sprint.
Speaker 2:Let's see your truck. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Interesting model. Um, nick, you got anything else for Chris man?
Speaker 3:Um, Chris, I appreciate you coming on. Are you also still a personal trainer now, or did you kind of phase out of that when you started to do the designs?
Speaker 2:Shoot. You're coming in with all the good questions that nobody asked. But I am not a personal trainer. I would say that when I played lacrosse at Hofstra, that was my first experience, exposure to a proper strength conditioning program. So that really was inspiring to me, especially to what I'm doing now. So I had a great four years of someone being that's not correct. This is the right way to do it. So I took that and kind of built on it as a trainer when I left Wall Street and then as I came into this business. Today I still lean on that experience and obviously the college experience. And I have four other guys that work with me and they all have some type of athletic background, because I believe that in order to do this, you should have know what it's like to train somebody or train yourself for something. Otherwise I don't know how you would recommend equipment Otherwise if you're just a representative for a certain manufacturer. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:We don't, we don't represent.
Speaker 2:we don't represent like one manufacturer. We're representing the correct selection for that client. So we need to know exactly what we're talking about, how it's going to be used, the most efficient way to be using it, and if someone wants to train to get bigger, stronger, faster, skinnier, how can we do that? So everyone on our team has some type of certification, but it's just the experience that really matters to me. I don't really care about the certifications cool.
Speaker 1:So how can, uh, if? If somebody wants to build out their home gym, no matter where they are where, how can they get in touch with you? What's your contact website? That kind of thing?
Speaker 2:yeah, our website is spxfitcom and you can see our work there. You can contact us there, uh, or you can just um. If you're more privy to Instagram, it's uh my name, uh, chris Howell. H O W E L, l, uh, one six the numbers, and uh, that's that's me on Instagram. You can see our work there or reach out.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, chris, we appreciate your time. I got to get my wife to dinner, or I'll get in trouble here in a little bit. I've been on podcasts the last couple of hours, so we appreciate your time and if anybody's looking to build out their gym, or we have listeners that are building out multifamily buildings right now if you're looking to put one in the multifamily space, contact Chris and get working and do some hard shit. Do some hard stuff out there.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Thank you guys.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thanks, chris.
