The entire sector of “online fitness” has seen a huge increase in interest among consumers, thanks to COVID. We sit down in today’s podcast and talk about what that looks like, if it’s here to stay, or if this is just another passing fad.
In This Episode:
The entire sector of “online fitness” has seen a huge increase in interest among consumers, thanks to COVID. We sit down in today’s podcast and talk about what that looks like, if it’s here to stay, or if this is just another passing fad.
Key Takeaways:
Resources:
Chuck Murphy 00:00
Hi, everyone. I'm Chuck Murphy. I am joined by Maggie, as usual today and we have a new guest with us. Hi, Maggie.
Maggie Bright 00:07
Hi!
Chuck Murphy 00:09
Maggie and I are joined by Sarah Marion, who works with us at Murphy research. She's the head of our syndicated research division, and we are super excited to have her on the podcast.
Sarah Marion 00:19
Hello, it's nice to be here. As Chuck said, I am the director of syndicated research at Murphy research. And just to tee us up a little bit for today, one of the projects that we run is called the state of our health tracker and where we continuously collect data on consumers nutrition and fitness attitudes and behaviors. One of the things we've been very interested in watching recently is the rise of online fitness.
Chuck Murphy 00:48
Yeah, we're, you know, Sarah, Sarah, Maggie and I also spend a lot of time talking about health and fitness because we work on this state of our health tracker. And Sarah said something last week when we were talking that I thought was a fascinating analogy. And we said, let's do a podcast on that. So the three of us jumped on, and, you know, dropped all of our real responsibilities that we're supposed to working on right now to spend an hour debating this. I wonder if the best way to tee this up is Sarah, for you to just say what you said to us? And we could kind of start the discussion there. And we'll start attacking you! Exactly.
Maggie Bright 01:22
We'll let Sarah speak her opinion and then we'll attack her like we do in other meetings. A recipe for success.
Sarah Marion 01:37
All right. Okay, well, I'll take my stand then. So my opinion was we've been hearing a lot of talk in the news. And, you know, among industry pundits and journalists that online fitness, you know, it has been experiencing this big increase in interest among consumers, thanks to COVID. And it's not like it wasn't there before online fitness had been kind of steadily rising as a, as an industry in and of itself for a long time now, but all of a sudden, as gyms and studios shut down across the country, we saw this huge burst of interest. So people are googling and Google searches are up. So I read a headline that said they were at 500% for online fitness. And then all of these previously offline, real life, gyms, influencers and trainers were all rushing to create their own online solutions. And of course, that meant that online fitness must be this next new tech driven innovation that is going to change the way that we get in shape. And what's going to stick? And are people gonna go back to the gym, or are these online workouts going to be something that accelerates the demise of the gym industry. And my position is, I have a background in food and beverage research. And all this talk around online workouts really reminded me of meal kits. And if you recall, meal kits were all the rage. You know, five years ago, there was all of this investor money being poured into the space tech companies were getting involved. Companies were proliferating, like for every kind of weird diet you were on, you could find a meal kit for that. Grocery industry was terrified, all these retailers are trying to figure out their own competing solutions. But we don't hear a whole lot about meal kits now except more bad news sorry from Blue Apron, usually. They had their disastrous IPO. What happened? And this just reminds me of that, so my position is that online workouts are the meal kits of fitness.
Maggie Bright 03:48
I love it. It's well stated. I have to say I tried a lot of meal kits I don't know if everyone else jumped on that bandwagon too. But I think I probably tried three or four different companies during that during that you know peak of demand so yeah.
Chuck Murphy 04:05
By "tried" I assume that means you no longer subscribe?
Maggie Bright 04:08
I do not. I decided that it was better to get the food already cooked rather than having to cook it.
Chuck Murphy 04:15
Well first of all, I think we should step back here I think we should give Sarah props because I really love this analogy this this really like it totally caught my attention for like 24 hours like when you when Sarah said this because my first reaction is like no no that's 100% Wrong. But I love the analogy and I love I love the comparison to be Meal Kits and I think that meal kits are very specific and really interesting example of like a fad that you know to me meal kits never made sense like it I think Maggie particularly perfectly right if you're going to have something delivered why not have it already cooked? Like, you know it doesn't really, it didn't solve the problem I feel like enough. Were you gonna say something Maggie? Did I interrupt you?
Maggie Bright 04:59
I was just gonna say if you if you sort of, so I got to, to explore this thesis with Sarah a bit more. And if you, you know, I don't want to steal Sarah's genius. But that was the problem, right, Sarah that it didn't fundamentally solve the problem of like, we don't like to cook?
Sarah Marion 05:17
That's right. Meal kits did solve real problems, but not that one, which is just that people don't want to spend an hour in the kitchen learning a new recipe, and then another hour cleaning up afterwards. Now if you could solve the cleaning up afterwards problem, I think that you would be rich.
Chuck Murphy 05:35
Well it's funny, meal kits in the cleaning up problem, both to me have the same fundamental issue of like, it's just bad for the environment to get that much paper, right. Like it just, it just seems so wasteful, like I can eat paper plates every night that I have to clean up. And I can have a box with every dinner show up at my door.
Maggie Bright 05:52
If you ate paper plates every night you would have a lot of issues.
Chuck Murphy 05:55
Sorry, hey, it's good for your digestive tract. It's fiber!
Sarah Marion 06:04
Well, it's true, they were, there were other problems too. But people just people want to cook they aspire to cook. But the reality is that, you know, our lives are not arranged around cooking and mealtimes today and the way that they might have been, you know, 50 years ago.
Maggie Bright 06:22
I have to imagine that there is this sub segment of the population that is very, like culinarily, curious. So more of a foodie, much more so than I am, who does enjoy sort of like the experience of it and is fine with the dishes, you know, like we all know that person somewhere in our lives. So I do think for some niche population, it did meet a whole bunch of criteria and solve the problem of, you know, what's for dinner? And, you know, I don't have time to go find one ounce of fish sauce to make my perfect Pad Thai tonight. So I do like, I think that there's probably still a group of people that think this is a fantastic innovation, and we'll continue to use it right.
Chuck Murphy 07:07
But if you're, if you're part of that group, you're probably cooking more than once, or a few times a week and you're go to the grocery store, it's just more efficient.
Sarah Marion 07:16
That's exactly it. I think that the I, what you think of as the ideal consumer for a meal kit didn't actually turn out to be the ideal consumer. Because if you're that engaged with food, you also know how to plan a menu and go to the store you have fish sauce already on hand, you don't need it all to come in a box.
Chuck Murphy 07:33
Can I tell you guys a slightly tangential story that is another thing that kept that caught my attention when I first started, and I think about it for years? This is two or three years ago, but I was I was at a big tech company that's very interested in things like delivery and stuff like that. It was at this meeting, and we were talking about a very similar dynamic to this. And this woman that worked there said, you know, food in the future is going to be like sewing. We used to sell our own clothes. And it made sense at the time. But once manufacturing and you know, just distribution systems got sophisticated enough, it doesn't really make sense to sew your own clothes unless you do it as a hobby. And I always like remember when she said that it totally caught me off guard of like, like, wow, that is like a drastic vision that is very different than then we're currently at. And I was like, I had trouble getting my head around whether or not I believed her because part of it was very sensible. It's like, well, if you could just have like a drone up, drop off dinner, and it was done and made. That's pretty compelling for a lot of people.
Maggie Bright 08:40
I would do that. But yeah, maybe the drone can do the dishes too.
Chuck Murphy 08:46
There probably will be a drone that does the dishes.
Sarah Marion 08:48
Was it that food was a hobby because I do think that cooking has is becoming more of a hobby.
Chuck Murphy 08:55
That's kind of where she was going with it. She's like, Yeah, it sounds like it does make sense.
Sarah Marion 09:00
On the other hand, you still need to eat three times a day or more.
Chuck Murphy 09:06
Yeah, it's a lot of delivery. Did you guys see the thing on the news yesterday where the Boston Dynamics robots were doing the dancing at the Japanese baseball game.
Maggie Bright 09:15
There were so many strange words in that sentence.
Chuck Murphy 09:17
That was the most bizarre tangent I'm getting us way off track, but when you said the drone will do the dishes that made me think of it. Like, for those of you that don't know, Boston Dynamics is this company that creates these robots that are so lifelike, they'll freak you out. If you've never seen him just Google Boston Dynamics dog.
Maggie Bright 09:33
Is that the one that like jumps up on the crate?
Chuck Murphy 09:36
Yes. This dog is unbelievable. So obviously there's no crowds at sporting events now and so at this Japanese baseball game yesterday, they had like 50 of these dogs lined up as if they were like, the cheer squad on the sideline doing dances and it like it literally blew my mind. I showed my family I was like, this is like this has to be a sign of the apocalypse. Like this is like we're gonna have a dog, you're gonna have a robot dog do your dishes very soon, Maggie. That's what I'm trying to say.
Maggie Bright 10:05
I would take a robot dog, I mean, a lot more efficient than my real dog.
Chuck Murphy 10:08
I think after we're done with these podcasts, you should google that. Because by the way, I've taken us, this is 100% my fault but I've taken us way off topic. But let's go back to Sarah's thesis because I think there's so many businesses right now, because of COVID that people are debating, like, is this an acceleration of a trend that was already happening? Or is this just a fad that kind of is brought on by our response to current times. And I that's why I think I thought Sarah's analogy about the meal kit was so interesting, because it's a very compelling argument of like, Hey, listen, this is something that's interesting to people, they're going to try it. I could work out of my house, there's so many benefits, everybody gets them. But at the end of the day, like most people are driven by something that is, is not being satisfied by that.
Sarah Marion 10:52
Right, there's like a, there's a real need that is often on, you know, people don't even know that they have it, right. That it doesn't solve.
Chuck Murphy 11:04
Yeah.
Maggie Bright 11:05
So is the thing that it's not solving, in your opinion, Sarah, is that people hate to work out? And so it doesn't matter where it is? Or like, we are always trying to get closer to laziness. And so...
Sarah Marion 11:18
There's that issue, which is similar to cooking. Right?
Maggie Bright 11:21
Right. Yeah, that's where I thought you were headed.
Sarah Marion 11:23
For many people, we just don't actually want to work out that much. But even if you do like to work out, I, you know, one of my thoughts was, you know, there's a lot of innovation and all of these the various types of online fitness apps and services. But you know, one of the things that we know qualitatively that people like about going to the gym is just having a space where you are able to put yourself in a place and a mindset and a social environment where you're, you focus on your fitness, you get your fitness done. And I think that that compartmentalization is probably more important than we think. So setting aside that time, and space to workout is easier when there's an actual time and space to utilize. And so one of the, you know, women tend to be more interested in fitness classes than men, for instance, we know this from the state of our health tracker, they pay more for them, they're they like to go to them a little bit more. They're also less willing to spend as much on fitness as men. And so it seems like online fitness would appeal to them, right? It's relatively cheap, and you get all of this variety of fitness classes. But women are also more likely to be responsible for more of the household labor. So leaving home and leaving your children or whatever is going on at home is often like a necessary condition for them to be able to focus on themselves. And so maybe working out at home is not going to appeal to them in that same way. That's just one of my lines of thought. And meal kits were similar, and that when they were most popular, they were busy families with children were way more likely than households without children to have bought them and tried them out. And so that seemed like the perfect market. But it's also exactly the type of household that has the most limited time to spend cooking and cleaning. And so all of that interest dropped off eventually.
Maggie Bright 13:16
Well, and we also discovered that three year olds don't like fish sauce.
Sarah Marion 13:19
Exactly. They don't want those fancy meals.
Maggie Bright 13:22
And it's even more demoralizing when they turn that down versus when you just heated up pasta.
Sarah Marion 13:28
Exactly. Yeah. Right.
Chuck Murphy 13:32
I will say though, as much as I like this thesis, and I thought about this a lot. I just I don't see this as being the case at all. Like, I think I was trying to think of an analogy that worked to counter this. And the best thing I could come up for was mobile entertainment. Whereas, you know, like, we used to think of entertainment as either a movie screen or you know, a big TV and a DVD and this more of an occasion, right? And then all of a sudden you have the ability to sit on a bus and stream a show for 10 minutes. And so mobile entertainment ate up a big chunk of your life. It didn't mean you stopped going to movies or stopped watching TV at home, but there were a lot of occasions that when that opened up is a result of having this quick and easy option. And I kind of think that's how I like fitness is I think it's actually going to grow the market. And it does open up so many opportunities that wouldn't have been possible before. And I think that's to me, that's the attraction. I know you know, Maggie and I talk a lot about this because we both have Pelotons but if you compare like Peloton to SoulCycle, there's so many more opportunities to ride that Peloton and like yes, you've got this sunk cost you had to pay two grand for the bike. But there were so many times when if you added in the half hour that it would take to get to and from the class before there would have been days or times when you couldn't have made that SoulCycle class and now all of a sudden you could make more classes because it's convenient. It's right in your house, it's so much easier.
Maggie Bright 15:04
I think it's fair to say too, that not all online fitness classes or platforms or you know, offerings are the same, right? So something like a Peloton to me feels a lot stickier, right? You do get, you join a class, it can be live or On Demand, there's sort of a community there, there's a competitive component to it. So it does sort of mimic some of the things that I would have gotten out of a gym, right. It's a little bit more appointment based, then, you know, popping in your Jane Fonda, you know, tape 20-30 years ago. To me, that feels a lot like something that will stick more than something that is just going to YouTube and watching a video of someone else working out. You know, on their own, they've posted this video type thing. So I think there's a big spectrum in terms of the content that's out there, that's classified as online fitness.
Chuck Murphy 16:07
Right.
Maggie Bright 16:07
Which is why I'm sort of in the middle of you two, I think I think some things will go the way of the meal kit and become you know, they don't solve the problem, whereas other things that probably have higher sunk costs and more sophisticated platforms and the more variety of offerings will continue to grow.
Sarah Marion 16:28
There have also been just decades of fitness trends, that you know, kind of grow and die and so what you were saying Chuck, you know, this could be one of those.
Chuck Murphy 16:42
Are you saying Peloton is the new Tai-Bow?
Sarah Marion 16:45
You never know.
Maggie Bright 16:47
Tai-Bow was good in its day.
Sarah Marion 16:48
There are things that we like and they partly because they slot in with whatever kind of cultural needs fitness is serving at that time. But people get bored, they move on to other things.
Chuck Murphy 17:05
I saw a tweet this morning where somebody said Peloton just dropped a new treadmill. It's called Get The Hell Outside. I thought that was really funny. There was, even though its not exactly safe for work things. One of the things that when we talk about like real life gyms and especially, you know, Sarah I thought this is where you're going a minute ago, there's obviously a huge social component, right? You meet up with your friends and you go on a hike or you meet up your friends, you take a class together, you get coffee afterwards. And that part I think, although some of the some of the digital offerings I mean, Nike Run Club, I feel like had this really early on like they formed these you know, it was it became social even when you were apart, right? We're going to do the same distance ride and race each other or we're going to text or we're going to cross post, right and Peloton has has done a really good job of that too. That's one of the things I love about it. But that's obviously a need that you know, it's harder for the digital products to do but but one of the things that I find fascinating about this category is like you know, I joked about Tai-Bow and you know, there's P90x there's a when you talk about fitness trends, there's always these things right but the thing that is so fascinating to me about the newer ones you know, if you did if you did like P90x or Tai-Bow those were great workouts that you could do in your house. It was still convenient. But it was also like kind of repetitive and stale. It wasn't interactive. And the thing that I think you know, some of these new digital products you know, I literally am in love with with Peloton's implementation of a lot of this stuff. It triggers you to keep doing better and different workouts. And so it's like you've got this history with the app and you know your performance and you know a lot about it and you know, people you race and you've got this community, but they're also like triggering you to try different things and do do it better and or try different training programs. It's very compelling to me. And I know that you have all these startups now that are trying to take that even farther and I know Maggie has a mirror and...
Maggie Bright 19:05
Yes, let's just get it out there. I have way over index on online fitness equipment.
Chuck Murphy 19:11
You're a believer. So I don't know that's the part of me that's like, this is a lot more than a new fad? I mean, it does. It reminds me a lot of like some of the, you know, remote work platforms and stuff is like, yeah, they were accelerated by COVID. But these are things that really do open up new opportunities. And while their growth may slow post COVID I don't know that they're gonna decline.
Sarah Marion 19:36
Yeah, they're, you know, I can't deny there's a lot of innovation that the workouts today are different than the video workouts or whatever, you know, all of the various fads and things that were available, you know, 15 years ago or 20 years ago. But, you know, one of the things I think the pandemic has done is really highlighted the places where you've got social interaction that you might not have thought about before, right? So if you just went to the gym, and did your workout and didn't even interact with anybody, you were still there with people. And that's one of the things that being at home alone all the time, really, you start to miss those, those kinds of in person interactions. And I think that that's a big part of going to the gym for many people is even if you're alone, you're with others, the same way that when you go out to eat, you're doing it with others, and that makes it feel different and more special than being at home.
Maggie Bright 20:34
I think there's merit to that. But we also know that most people do like a solo self directed in some cases workout. So it's like working out is, you know, currently pre COVID and now, something that most people do prefer to do alone. And you know, they may be doing it alone at a gym. And that kind of feeds into your thesis a little bit. But I think that there is some nice things that you know, let's say, Peloton has been able to develop all of these personalities, right? They have all of these people who I mean, you kind of feel like they're your friends by the end of a really hard ride. And I know that a lot of them have huge social media followings. And they've become these, you know, they've become a lot more than the spin instructor, right? They've become a lifestyle coach to some extent. So I think that they are doing a nice job of like letting me be alone in my house. But still feeling like I'm connected to something bigger. I will say that I was a big believer in, you know, online fitness prior to COVID. And Chuck, and I joke about this all the time, we started to see so many people on the platform, right? It's like, how are so many people taking this class. And then it kind of felt like it made it less special in some ways to me.
Chuck Murphy 21:52
It was crazy how fast it accelerated.
Maggie Bright 21:54
Yeah and so I the other thing that, you know, I know from doing research around fitness is that if someone is an, you know, an athlete or an exerciser, they're going to find a way to work out, right, whether the gym is close or not, whether that means going outside or going online, or, you know, using their soup cans to do their bicep curls, whatever it is, like, they find a way to work out. And I think one of the things that probably has been a challenge for a lot of people being at home is finding the same intensity that you might get at a gym. And that's the one thing that I think some online fitness platforms do better than others is sort of replicating the intensity that you would get if you were outside or in a gym and you know, some do it better than others.
Sarah Marion 22:42
Yeah.
Chuck Murphy 22:43
No, go ahead, Sarah. Go ahead.
Sarah Marion 22:44
I was gonna say to take that data that you just cited around people preferring self directed workouts. That's true. And but you know, what we see in the tracker is that in terms of who directs the workout, where are you during your workout and as you mentioned, even what kind of workout you're doing all of those things are very, very stable. And so that's just to me that says that while there's a lot of people are kind of in limbo right now and trying to figure things out, but those preferences weren't going away before and I don't think that COVID is going to make them go away. So if you like to work out at the gym before you're gonna like to work out at the gym once it opens again.
Maggie Bright 23:26
Even if there's like a sneeze guard around your your treadmill?
Chuck Murphy 23:33
It's funny, if I didn't have such a bad memory I'd be able to recall this better but we did this segmentation on people's workout motivations and there clearly are very different types, like I actually laugh with my wife about this all the time you know my wife working out is social like it's she literally 90 plus percent of her workouts involve another person that she's meeting to go hiking with or meeting to go running with or going to swim with like, whereas I am the polar opposite like if I am like oh today's run day or today's like Peloton day or whatever, if someone's like could I go with you? Like that actively bothers me, I'm like "no" this is like my time to not be bothered to not have to make conversation like I am like and I'm also kind of like slightly Maggie and I are very similar, I have a feeling on, this like we're very goal oriented very like slightly like neurotic about this kind of stuff so like I don't want somebody to slow me down or speed, ridiculous I know, it's like my some of my friends that like our friends would be at Peloton are like, should we ride together? And I'm like, No, like no I have I have a time I need to beat and I can't be focused on talking to you. This is you know, even though...
Maggie Bright 24:44
I would never talk to someone during my Peloton ride but my brother and I actually get on at the same time but we don't speak to each other.
Chuck Murphy 24:51
Right, right. I have a lot of friends that do that. Like let's ride at this time and that and I am like obviously like there's something wrong with me because I'm much more like, I would rather be in a class where I chose the music and the instructor. I don't really care if I know someone, it doesn't, I'm not focused on that at all, which I know makes me kind of weird. But I know a lot of other people are. And I think that that's there's different, there's people that work out differently.
Sarah Marion 25:14
Yeah, I'm in between there. I like classes. And I especially like, I like spin. I like Zumba and dance classes and bar. I like things where I bounce around with a lot of other people. And the music is fun. And I like yoga. And I don't have part, you know, a big part of it is I am having fun. And it is just not fun to do that at home. I do it every once in a while. I'll put on even my preferred yoga instructor. But it's just not the same.
Chuck Murphy 25:46
Yeah, I think yoga and dance classes are not.
Maggie Bright 25:49
I do my yoga at home and I like the the yoga instructor literally calls me out on Zoom, which, you know, is somewhat terrifying.
Chuck Murphy 25:58
Seriously?
Maggie Bright 25:59
Yeah.
Chuck Murphy 26:00
Oh, see, that would freak me out.
Maggie Bright 26:01
See we don't mess around.
Chuck Murphy 26:02
See I had actually never done yoga before this whole COVID thing, which I actually tried it during COVID I don't like it.
Sarah Marion 26:08
Well, you, you and many other people actually.
Chuck Murphy 26:10
I know. I know. That's, that's Sarah's point, she's like, see, it's a fad.
Maggie Bright 26:15
So I think though that some of these higher end, I don't want to say higher end more expensive solutions, right. So if you have dropped two grand on your Peloton, you are probably not going to walk away from that easily when you can go back to your spinning class, right? I mean, it's an investment,
Sarah Marion 26:35
People used to drop two grand on their ellipticals.
Maggie Bright 26:38
But see, I just feel like it's a little bit different because you have this there's more of like an accountability associated with the Peloton, right? Because you get these, unless you turn all of the notifications off, it tells you like, hey, you know, you're going to lose your 15 week streak of working out. I mean, I went away for a few weeks recently and like it kind of tore me apart that I couldn't get on my bike right. I was sort of like angry that I couldn't do it.
Chuck Murphy 27:06
I get very upset now when we go when we're away and I'm like I miss I miss my Peloton.
Sarah Marion 27:11
You're gonna start traveling with your Peloton?
Chuck Murphy 27:13
This is like a free advertisement podcast for Peloton. One thing you made me think about it is Fitbit. Right? So Fitbit gave you this feedback. And the problem is like once you absorbed and understood that feedback, the device started to lose utility I feel like. You basically you can learn when you've had to do. But I think the thing that is interesting about a lot of these platforms not to overemphasize Peloton because I think there are other people doing it too. And I think in a lot of ways Nike Run Club really was one of the first major players in this space to integrate the social aspects well, and the goals well, and I could be missing some, but there is an element here that is like I've always had a treadmill and I've always liked Stairmasters and I had one of those before. And those were great options for rainy mornings or busy days, but they never replaced the gym. Right? Whereas like, I feel like, like, it's you know, we still have these new products these days. I don't know that I need a gym membership anymore. I think they were encroaching to me they're encroaching on what the gym provided more, although I do agree with you that dance classes and live yoga are still they're still much better in person.
Sarah Marion 28:28
Oh, what about like a weight set?
Chuck Murphy 28:32
You know, I always hated that. So I'm probably the wrong person to ask that. But it's but it's funny. That's another thing that's very goal directed, very individual, very easily replicable at home, right? I mean, I have a set of weights in my house. And they do it every couple of days.
Sarah Marion 28:43
Well it depends on your space and how much money you have and the type of lifting you like to do.
Chuck Murphy 28:48
But at the end of the day, like even like, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger is still just lifting like barbells that don't cost that much money and they can do it in the garage. Right?
Sarah Marion 28:59
If you have a garage, that's my point.
Chuck Murphy 29:02
Okay, for the for the, for the urbanites in San Francisco, and Manhattan, this probably doesn't apply.
Sarah Marion 29:07
A lot of these things are aimed squarely at millennials and they, you know, they're less likely to own a home, they're less likely to have space, they're less likely to have as much disposable income as it might take to build your weightlifting system.
Maggie Bright 29:21
I feel like the mirror kind of attacked some of those things, right? It looks like a full length mirror. It's actually it's attractive, right? It's not this ugly piece of equipment that sits in the middle of your basement and, you know, takes over the space. And so I think and the other thing that it's really interesting about the Mirror is it makes personal training really accessible too so it's bringing some of those elements of the things that I can get in the gym, the personal trainer, and it can blend into my space really well if there's not a lot of things. And I think there's a lot of you know, a lot of the cool things about these platforms is you can, the filters are pretty good, right? You can go in there and say, I have this equipment at my disposal, and this much time, what classes should I take? And it you know, it pops up, like, hey, you've got resistance bands and a chair, you know, and soup cans or whatever. And here's what you should be doing. And so I think a lot of them are actively going after the need for, you know, the traditional set of weights and things like that. And I think that instructors get really creative with how to use your own bodyweight to do things like that, and sort of the benefits of plyometrics. So I think they're being innovative with the way they tee up some of the exercises to get the same benefits.
Sarah Marion 30:43
Yeah, there's, I think the adaptability is one benefit of the variety. But I wanted to say we, you know, we keep talking about Peloton and these, these systems that, you know, have gone further than others and solving that social component. But they do require a pretty hefty investment, when most of the online fitness world is videos on YouTube, and people on Instagram Live like it's much more basic than that.
Chuck Murphy 31:17
Yeah, you're totally right, you're 100%, right.
Maggie Bright 31:19
That's where I fall out. I think if you've done, if you've invested in one of these more evolved, or advanced platforms and the associated equipment, you're more likely to stick with it. Because it fulfilled more than in need of just like, you know, give me something to do while I can't go to the gym.
Sarah Marion 31:38
Yeah, and I think like your highly engaged with fitness.
Maggie Bright 31:43
I do think that, again, I over index on this category. But yet, I still do have a membership to my local yoga studio. So there are ways in which I still go out into the world and see people, surprisingly.
Chuck Murphy 31:59
But I think it's also fair to say that, like well you know, especially in new categories, we always look at early adopters. And the early adopters are willing to pay more, and they're willing to kind of try new things. But oftentimes those ideas do become mainstream. I thought was interesting that Maggie brought up Mirror and the instructor because I think if you talk to a lot of the tech folks like a lot of the people that are trying to kind of innovate in this area. And I think that the next generation of companies we're going to see over the next decade is it's going to be a little bit like, I don't know how you say it, but n o o m, that Noom company, where you have a human who's kind of guiding you through the plan and who's your entry point. But really what they're doing is they're kind of training AI models in the background. But it's adaptability and personalization thing that I do think when people get it right, it does really help, especially if you're a goal directed person, but it really kind of helps you show progress, right? I mean, that's what the role of a personal trainer would have been all along, and if you can scale these platforms, you can push that down to a fairly cheap offering. Right? And we're already starting to see that in some other areas.
Maggie Bright 33:13
I do think so I agree with you to some extent, but I do think there's something about the equipment to being sort of high end or very functional, because I've also tried Future right? Where you get a personal trainer assigned to you and they set up workouts for you. And, you know, like, they send you the workouts each week, and then you do those workouts and it is not as, you know, it is extremely personalized, right? And for some reason, like that didn't stick for me, like I was like, Nope, don't like this. And it, you know, again, it was it was a sophisticated app. And it solved this idea of sort of, you know, it's a monthly fee, you know, it solved a lot of the issues that people might have, but for some reason, like I just wasn't nearly as engaged in it.
Sarah Marion 34:04
Well you need to opt out of that if you're not. Would you have booked a meeting with a person? A personal trainer, for instance, at your gym? There is I think more guilt.
Maggie Bright 34:15
No, this guy called me if I didn't get my workout in. Was all over what I was doing
Chuck Murphy 34:22
By the way that guy still calls me because you referred me. That guy calls me all the time. He's aggressive.
Maggie Bright 34:30
You know, and I did it for three months. And I you know, and I did it like, faithfully. It's not like I was cheating on the plan or anything like that, but it just wasn't, there was something about it that just wasn't as compelling to me and I don't know if that's me or the platform or...
Chuck Murphy 34:45
This is like your Starbucks argument, right? Where like setting and environment, like I love gyms like I've always had. I'm the type person that has, especially the best multiple gym memberships. So there is something about like I'm going to this place where everybody's focused on working out at the same time. and the equipment's nice. There is definitely I mean it's like eating at a restaurant right or something. It's like it's setting and the environment and up...
Sarah Marion 35:07
And you don't have any distractions, you're there for a purpose.
Chuck Murphy 35:13
Yeah, why I'm here don't bother be at the gym. No, I totally get that and I think that that is that is definitely not going away, but to go back to that's why I kind of landed on the I kinda like the entertainment analogy and that what's happened with iPhones and iPads and all these other like lap entertainment options is the movie theaters that are surviving are actually going more upscale right? They're like they made movie theater, it's kind of like it pulled the two categories apart so now you're able to get a glass of wine in the theater and it's like plus your seats and you know so maybe what we'll see are gyms become more high end but perhaps the 24 Hour Fitnesses of the world, this might be a problem.
Sarah Marion 36:04
Yeah, I could see that, I could see that same, sorry, I could also see that same phenomena happening within online fitness right? Where these high end more expensive options those grow but the rest of it kind of languishes.
Maggie Bright 36:24
So if high end fancy gyms grow and high end fancy online fitness grows. Doesn't that create a lot of financial barriers for people who can't afford either? I mean...is that problematic?
Chuck Murphy 36:38
I think online is going to be the cheap value solution.
Sarah Marion 36:41
Yeah, I think the cheap ones grow and this has happened in grocery too. So as there are more options both the high end and the low end are growing but the middle the middle bit where you would just offer a little bit of everything has stayed very stagnant. I bet this that a similar thing happens with gyms.
Chuck Murphy 37:05
Yeah, that makes sense actually.
Maggie Bright 37:07
Are you guys agreeing?
Chuck Murphy 37:09
No, no. Absolutely never!
Maggie Bright 37:13
I'm more confused than ever. I feel like I should get a gym membership and more online fitness. Before we did this call I actually or this this discussion, I looked at my phone apps and it's sort of embarrassing how many online fitness platforms I engage with. What
Sarah Marion 37:32
What do you have?
Chuck Murphy 37:34
Oooh, Maggies diary, fitness diary.
Maggie Bright 37:37
Okay, so we've already established that I use Peloton and Mirror and those are like my go to's right now. But I am also quite devoted to the Nike, I've had Nike Run Club for a really long time. Love the guided runs. do them quite regularly. I also have the Nike Training Club app on here because, you know, I like to do those two but that one when it went to a premium offering I did not go with it. Because I had you know the Peloton and all that kind of stuff. I have a yoga app on here in addition to having a membership to a local yoga studio that I can stream their content. I have a Mind Body on here just for booking things. I have Headspace. I have my local Pilates place on here but I don't actually use that one anymore. Um, what else do I have in here? I've got Mirror has its app Peloton has its app, I'm sure there are others but like those are my - in addition I also still run outside - so yeah, like I got a lot going on here.
Chuck Murphy 38:53
Yeah, You are really you're a heavy user.
Maggie Bright 38:55
I did the future for a long time. But I did get rid of my traditional gym membership and I was very happy to do it. Like I found I didn't find a lot of value from that membership and I think part of it is because I travel a lot for work I have two kids. Yeah, like time is really crunched for me and so being able to and I work from home right so being able to run downstairs jump on my peloton at any you know anytime that I have a little bit of a break otherwise I wouldn't do anything.
Chuck Murphy 39:30
Yeah, Peloton killed my gym membership for me too. I've been really impressed with it. I've had the Nike Run Club for a while and I have other things I do but I really if we're being honest it was it was Peloton that kind of took over a lot of those occasions.
Maggie Bright 39:47
I feel like you were a pretty early adopter on Peloton as well. I feel like you had yours maybe like a solid year before I had mine.
Chuck Murphy 39:53
I mean, I live in LA so like you know, this is like the fitness Mecca and everybody's trying every thing all the time and I, I actually have never been someone that likes spin. I always just like SoulCycle. From a branding perspective, I always admired how well they branded it. But the experience was to me just not that interesting. I always preferred running and like Stairmasters over cycling. So a lot of our friends got Peloton, and everybody's like, you got to do this. It's so good. And I was like, No, I don't like I don't like spin. I don't like spin. And, and my wife was kind of intrigued. And so I was like, alright, if you want to try it, we'll get one. But I was fully pessimistic. I was like, I do not like spin. And to be honest with you, I still think I don't like spin, I just, I love the network and the tools and the I'm fully like addicted to it now.
Maggie Bright 40:51
I always preferred Flywheel over SoulCycle. And I believe that Flywheel has now pretty much gone belly up. But it pulled in a lot of the competition, you know, in the metrics and that kind of stuff. Whereas SoulCycle, to me was, you know, a little bit too much a bunch of people jammed in a room. Like, I want to know how far I rode, you know, like, I don't just want to spin for the joy of spinning. Kind of a thing. So I hear you on on that front. I don't know, I think that's the other thing about online fitness that I like so much is that. And you mentioned this earlier, it's so metric driven. Like you can track it, you can tell if you beat yourself, you can tell if you're beating other people. I mean, there are times when I actually am like, I'm just gonna get on here and do a leisurely ride. And the next thing you know, I'm like, I must beat all of these people. And it's, you know, I don't know any of them.
Chuck Murphy 41:43
Well, I laugh at myself at that all the time. I can't do a leisurely ride. Now they have integrated like little psychological triggers in there so well that I have to, I actively talk myself into, like, today's a recovery day, just go easy. And then I find myself like racing again. And I'm like, this is they are just - I mean, I keep going back to this triggered word. But they have they have done that so well.
Maggie Bright 42:05
Well the other thing too, I've noticed with and that this is true of Mirror too, like I can't quit a workout either. Like, I feel like it's such a fail, you know, like there's no option to stop halfway through. Because I'm like, well, I need it to be recorded. Like I need it to count.
Chuck Murphy 42:20
Yeah, you don't want to mess up your stats.
Maggie Bright 42:22
Totally.
Chuck Murphy 42:22
Exactly. Exactly. 100%. That's the way they're built. And that's the part of me that kind of sees, or thinks that this is like a step forward, we're not going to go back from this. Like once you're used to having those metrics and that feedback. As long as they could keep evolving and keep pushing you like I think that's the one area that Fitbit couldn't do. But interestingly enough, in a very quiet way I think Apple is doing it. We don't have time to talk about this today. But I'm also fascinated by Whoop, which is another one of these, these combination, like feedback and suggestions. And it's really, I think there's a lot to do in this space, that it's going to be very interesting. And a lot of it may be complimentary, right? It's not going to necessarily take away what she used to do. But I think the the benefit comes when it can motivate you to do more, motivates you to be more successful or more effective or more, you know, engaged whatever it is that's the part that is very interesting to me is they're starting to figure out how that feedback loop of like monitoring your performance and giving you information back and there's...
Maggie Bright 43:34
Do you think they'll start mixing it in with with nutrition too? This is what I'm waiting to see if any platofrm can figure out how to do like all of it.
Chuck Murphy 43:42
I think the nutrition innovation is really going to I think that the big changes are going to be around the integration with like genetics and your body.
Maggie Bright 43:54
I've tried that one too. Don't worry. I've tried to bio one.
Chuck Murphy 43:57
That part is gonna be fascinating, too. But I think that they, and some of that will be holistic too, I think but...
Maggie Bright 44:04
I bet they're gonna do online fitness apps where they send you a meal kit like that's where I see
Chuck Murphy 44:09
Oh, they're gonna emerge!
Sarah Marion 44:12
I think those already exist.
Chuck Murphy 44:14
That's the Maggie synthesis right there. She was just holding on to that!
Maggie Bright 44:17
I actually had not thought about that. But actually, I think that would make me quit an app if they sent me a meal kit.
Sarah Marion 44:27
Like right to workout and cook? No.
Maggie Bright 44:31
And also people eating is eating is different from exercise you do it a lot more often people a lot a lot more personal control over what they put in their mouth.
Chuck Murphy 44:41
I still think that might be the perfect place to end this podcast though. This fitness food kid combo pack!
Sarah Marion 44:48
They send you barbells and bokchoy. I want to get into last word.
Chuck Murphy 44:58
Oh okay.
Sarah Marion 45:01
Here you guys talking about what motivates you, you know, to do these different types of workouts? I, I think that I suspect that online fitness and there's many varieties, as we have mentioned, but I think that it probably appeals most to a certain type of person. And not everybody works out with goals in mind, right? Everybody likes to track their progress and no matter what those different segments are, yeah, we're insane.
Maggie Bright 45:30
I was gonna say we're so were hyperactive.
Chuck Murphy 45:33
We were not a good good pair to be talking about this with because we are so insane. We're both researchers, we're metrics drivable type A. Yeah, you're 100% right, Sarah.
Sarah Marion 45:43
See I like to go to spin but I don't care what my numbers are when I get to class.
Maggie Bright 45:50
What!? Oh, my goodness
Sarah Marion 45:51
I went and I had a good time, and the music was fun and I burned a bunch of calories. And I did my job. And so that's like, all of that measuring and the social, you know, integration features are just not very motivating for a person like me. And what I'm looking for in, it's not that I'm not competitive because I used to play competitive sports and I really wanted to win, but fitness isn't - That's not what drives me to work out.
Chuck Murphy 46:24
Well, it's working on serving a different purpose, right? That's the thing. I think everybody's doing different things. Maggie will appreciate this because not only am I like insane, but I also just have like, I'll just tell you what I'm thinking which gets me in a lot of trouble. But a lot of people have adopted Peloton, lately, and I know, you know, where you used to have like six friends on it. I now have like, 30. And, you know, I'll be with people and I'll be like, "Well, you're not really trying." Like, and they'll be like, "What are you talking about it?" I'm like, "I can tell by your metrics, you're not really trying" and they're like, they'll get so offended. I'm like, Look, I mean, you know? It's really funny. Like you got to it is a little dangerous having all those stats up there. Just being able to talk about with people.
Maggie Bright 47:12
I don't think that's the way to win friends and influence people.
Chuck Murphy 47:16
That's why I have no friends, Maggie. I mean, you know, you seem surprised.
Maggie Bright 47:22
Wait, is this your roundabout way of telling me that I'm not really trying on Peloton because they think we're friends? On Peloton?
Chuck Murphy 47:29
No, you're amazing, by the way, Sarah, can I tell you this story? The like, this is one of my favorite Maggie's story. She probably doesn't really tell. And I don't think I've giving away anything here, Maggie. But Maggie was pregnant. This is like, I don't know, seven years ago or something.
Maggie Bright 47:47
Probably Mac. So like 10 years ago.
Sarah Marion 47:52
I'm impressed with both of you.
Chuck Murphy 47:52
She and I were we were traveling. I don't even know what city we're in. But let's just say Chicago where we had focus groups the night before then we had like a 9am flight. And I went down to the gym at like, five in the morning or something ridiculous. And Maggie was like seven or eight months pregnant and she ran so much faster than me. First of all, the fact that we were both at the gym in the middle of this trip is already kind of insane. Like right, like, you probably wouldn't find us.... And she was like, you know, pregnant and just like we were next to each other on the treadmill and I'm like, you know, it'd be running all slow and huffy, puffy, fat person jog and Maggie just like seven months pregnant and just like flying by me. It was insane.
Maggie Bright 48:35
If it makes you feel better, I was probably running faster than, than I could run now. Not pregnant.
Chuck Murphy 48:42
So after you turn 40 this stuff gets a lot harder.
Maggie Bright 48:46
It does.
Chuck Murphy 48:47
It's a lot harder. I'm just like, man.
Maggie Bright 48:50
We gotta leave it with that. Like it all goes downhill after 40.
Chuck Murphy 48:56
And then you die in the end!
Maggie Bright 48:59
It doesn't matter if online fitness is right, because we're dead.
Chuck Murphy 49:04
Well, that's a happy note to end this on.
Sarah Marion 49:06
Yeah well isn't that what they're selling us right?
Chuck Murphy 49:12
All right. Well, thanks everyone for joining. This was fun.
Sarah Marion 49:15
Yeah, indeed. All right.
Maggie Bright 49:17
I'm gonna go workout now.
Chuck Murphy 49:19
Do it!