The Science of Fitness Podcast
Welcome to the Science Of Fitness podcast where we aim to inspire you to live a healthier and more fulfilling life as we share evidence and anecdotes on all things health, fitness, performance, wellness and business.
Hosted by Kieran Maguire, Co-Owner and Director of Science Of Fitness with an Undergraduate degree in Exercise Science and Masters degree in High Performance, the podcast includes guests and friends of SOF from all walks of life sharing their knowledge and stories within their field of expertise.
Join us as we provide listeners with digestible and relatable educational tools and entertaining stories to inspire a healthier and more fulfilling life.
The Science of Fitness Podcast
The SOF Monthly: Why Fitness Success Demands Consistency
We examine the crucial role of attendance in achieving fitness success and maintaining business sustainability, demonstrating how member attendance is directly linked to retention rates and health outcomes.
• Gym members typically see their trainers more frequently than any other professional service provider
• Analysis showing 39 of 40 cancelled memberships were attending less than twice weekly
• Reducing churn from 8% to 5% dramatically improves business sustainability
• Minimum effective exercise dose is 150-180 minutes weekly (three 60-minute sessions)
• Long-term client relationships require evolving goals and periodic introduction to fresh training approaches
• Integrated approach to rehabilitation combines physiotherapy expertise with strength training for better outcomes
• Relationship-building between practitioners and clients is often more important than technical expertise
• Attendance tracking provides critical insights for both business management and client outcomes
We encourage you to track your own attendance patterns and commit to at least three training sessions weekly to maximise both value and health outcomes.
Welcome to the Science of Fitness podcast, where we aim to inspire you to live a healthier and more fulfilling life, as we share evidence and anecdotes on all things relating to health, fitness, performance, business and wellness. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the Science of Fitness podcast, here with Joey, the co-owner, co-director, founder of Science of Fitness, for our monthly how are you, Joey?
Speaker 2:Mate, I feel like I was here three minutes ago.
Speaker 1:Sort of flies by Mate.
Speaker 1:Let's get straight into this one, because it's something we've sort of spoken about, I think, personally with each other, you know, and sort of been considering a little while now and working with the team in terms of understanding what it is.
Speaker 1:But essentially the main sort of topic I want to discuss today is, I guess, the mundanity of our job in the sense of our customers.
Speaker 1:Compared to probably anyone in terms of, you know, health and wellness and medicine and everything in between, they probably see us more than they'll see any other health practitioner that they might work with. Even further, they probably see us more or less their local barista maybe than they see any other person that they purchase things off in their life. No one's going to the grocery store every single day and spending an hour there interacting with the person at the checkout. No one's rolling around to their doctor and seeing them every single day or, you know, three times a week for six or 12 weeks, and no one goes to their physiotherapist and sees them multiple times per week. They might get an appointment every week for six weeks while they rehab whatever you know injury that they're working on. So when you really take a moment, step back and consider the role a gym, personal training, exercise, physiology, strength and conditioning rehab plays in someone's life from a consumer perspective and a consumer behavior. It's pretty intense.
Speaker 2:It's very intense. I think about this a lot. In terms of what does a gym provide? It provides community for people. It provides a training solution for a lot. In terms of what does a gym provide? It provides community for people. It provides a training solution for a lot of people. It's a home away from a home for a lot of people. You know there's a lot of good stuff behind a gym and in order to get the best result, you need attendance and you need to be training regularly, which just requires you to show up three, four, five, six plus times a week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's, you know it's something we've been really sort of honing in on from a management perspective of you know our members and the main number in our industry is, you know, considered as churn. How many people are leaving the facility and can you mitigate that? And you know what are the key metrics that certain businesses should look at or what's the main one. We found you sort of have gone pretty hard at this with Brandon and the other management team and the group fitness sense particularly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for a quick overview, there's new members coming in, there's members that are existing and then there's people who leave each month. So let's say you get five people in, you add five to your total and you get five people out. You're at the same amount of people at the end of the month. So that's the number. We're referring to churn.
Speaker 2:We found that over the last maybe 12 months so take it from December last year backwards particularly while we went through the business changes we did in the last, you know, previous nine months churn was sitting around seven, 8%. So if you have 300 members, you times that number by 0.08, gives you 8%, and that'll spit you out a number. So let's call it 25 or something like that. So basically, to keep the same level of membership, and that's per month, per month you need to add 25 new people in just to get to zero or net zero. So anything above that would be plus one. And so the first thing that we wanted to tackle as a group is let's make our product a lot better, and the key metric for that is, if the product is better, more people will stay because they're enjoying it and are attending more regularly.
Speaker 1:Yep, so they're attending more because they're enjoying it more Essentially.
Speaker 2:Essentially, you know the product's better when the product's better, they like it. When they like it, they show up more, all those things, and we'll get into that. And the number that we were looking for is going from 8% to under 5%. So if you have 300 members times 0.05, that'll spit you out 15. So instead of going from 25 a month, it goes to 15 a month. So now you only need to add 15 new members rather than 25 new members and it's a much more achievable target. So that's the you know understanding of churn. Basically, because I really like digging into our attendance metrics, we're going to step further and I said, okay, what correlation does attendance have with churn? Why are people canceling? What are the main reasons? And the main reasons on our pie charts were change in location from a moving interstate, moving overseas, job relocation, whatever Other side of Brisbane, yeah, yeah, whatever. Only a small percentage, whether true or false, said because I don't like the gym. So I thought okay interesting.
Speaker 2:So I ran a report from January to March and we had 40 cancellations over that time. So the number that we were referring to initially was 25. So technically, over three months it should be 75. So we'd already made a little improvement there from going from 75 down to 40. And the number I used before was 15. So we're already below that sort of 45 mark. So I'm like okay, our churn metric is going down. Therefore, people are enjoying the sessions more because more people are staying happy.
Speaker 2:Of the people who are canceling, of those 40 who are canceling, why are they canceling? What trends can I figure out? And of the 40, 39 of them were attending less than two times a week, which goes to show for me, one person might not have enjoyed the product anymore, whereas the other 39 were simply not showing up to the gym. So when you're looking at your weekly bank statement, your monthly bank statement, you're going why am I paying for something I'm not using? And that was a really big light bulb moment for me, being like okay, attendance is the thing we need to solve for, to make our churn lower, to keep our membership base where it needs to be, so it becomes a more sustainable business going forward to keep our membership base where it needs to be, so it becomes a more sustainable business going forward instead of adding 25 each month.
Speaker 1:Just to get to net zero. Yeah, exactly, you do so much work at the front end. Meanwhile you've got a leak hole in the bucket at the back end and you sort of just you know, running on the spot. It's interesting how you know. I guess the hat that we're wearing in this sense is a business hat, but from a consumer perspective it sits in the same motive.
Speaker 1:Why would you attend a gym for 75 bucks a week that you're only going to maybe twice, maybe even less a bad week? You're sick, busy with work. You went to one session. It was a group fitness session. You spent 75 bucks on that. You could get a PT session for that somewhere. Like what am I doing? And all those factors sort of come in.
Speaker 1:And it's one of those weird products that anyone in the health and fitness space is selling, be it personal training or a gym membership. You're not selling something that's really oh, I can't wait to go. It's hard For majority of people. You get the odd sicko. That's like. This is my identity and I can't wait to go and wake up at 5am, and sure they're great, but at the end of the day there are so many easier options and some people really need the financial commitment to go that holds me accountable to making sure I turn up and get the value for money.
Speaker 1:And it's sort of the main thing we say to people is that our membership fees is the number you know. Financially is not the concern. The number you need to worry about is your time, because if you can come in here and do upwards of seven to ten sessions a week, be it, you know, some conditioning and strength work you know, five or six times a week and then maybe doing some yoga and some breathing and some down regulatory stuff, you, you're spending seven dollars, fifty a session. It is a steal. It's almost cheaper than a modern day coffee. Um, particularly if you're drinking alternate milk, like. It makes a ton of sense to to you know, spend that money on a membership you are utilizing and it's something we encourage to to our members. But yeah, it's, it's, it's really know something that I think having you know had that metric brought to light to our team. It's something they've really taken quite personally and you know, both in the way they deliver the sessions and then, more importantly, the outside of session relationship management.
Speaker 2:And I think what's really important in this is we're speaking in a business lens right now. If you shift to the consumer side and go, how do I get the best outcome? We'd want them to do minimum 150 to 180 minutes of exercise a week. So, very simply, three 60 minute sessions ticks that box. So, as a you know starting position for a lot of people returning to exercise in whatever way, shape or form, we want to build them up to 150 to 180 minutes of exercise, and that just happens to be showing up to the gym exactly.
Speaker 1:And then that's the literature.
Speaker 1:You know, if you go back to our episode with sean gomisal and she's a researcher in physical activity and that's what they're deeming as the required amount, and say if you're going to not wake up and go for that walk and get that exposure where you're huffing and puffing for those 180 minutes in a week, commit to a membership and then go and use it.
Speaker 1:Go and do it and you know, then off we go, the science checks out and here we are, the science and the business are actually landing and matching, which is really interesting. Then you know, in terms of managing that commitment, because at the end of the day, if you do something all the time, one you know it becomes a little bit mundane and not too exciting. Adhering to a strength program, say I do a six 12-month period where I get really strong, those returns are going to be diminishing. How would you say? You know we mitigate for the lack of excitement that comes with doing something really regularly, the mundanity that is essentially doing something really regularly, the mundanity that is essentially required for a successful outcome from a training and gym perspective.
Speaker 2:One of the key things, I think, is understanding what they're striving for in the first place. So what's their goal? And then within that goal there's all these sub goals or mini goals. So let's use someone from a strength perspective. They might say I want to get stronger, put on some muscle mass, those things. In this first phase they might really think of the big key movements, chin ups, squats, those sorts of things, and so that's sort of first priority there is.
Speaker 1:You break it down into a phase. How many phases?
Speaker 2:So let's say, you know I always like speaking in 12 months. So over the 12 months we want to get you a little bit stronger. And here's, you know, 12 one-month programs that we can go through and the goal is to just simply build up your squat, build up your chin up, build up your deadlift, build up whatever it might be, and then, within each mini phase or micro phase referring to the macro being 12, they might have a theme for that first phase. So the first phase theme might be getting five pushups or 10 pushups, which is still an increase in strength, which, over the course of a year, obviously links up with the bigger goal of getting stronger. That second phase they might go.
Speaker 2:Hey, joe Kieran, I am actually really keen on some running at the moment. I didn't think I might go. Hey, joe Kieran, I I'm actually really keen on some running at the moment. I didn't think I would be. But you know, hey, here I am, here I am and we go great, the deadlift's not really important right now. We'll come back to that in six months. Let's get some single leg strength up and then you, you know, you might do a single leg, sit the box or a lunge or whatever you do.
Speaker 1:Yep, and then slowly sort of tear it out of there. And it is interesting because that is generally what we see what happens, the amount of times we sit with someone and you go, and I'm at the point now, professionally, where I just don't even ask the question because I can't be bothered hearing the same answer which is oh man, I just want to get a bit stronger, I want to feel a bit better, get out a bit of back pain, and you're like oh, come on, you did smart goals in year eight at school. Like, what's smart about that? Like, oh, I don't know how to put my finger on. And you get the odd type A who's like I want this, this, this, this, this, and sometimes it's a bit unrealistic, but at least you've got a bit of a framework to go. Great, this is actually going to be a little bit harder. What are you going to commit? Here's the mathematics. Oh man, I just know I should. Like, I just want to be stronger, I want to feel better. And it's like okay, we have to put a metric in front of them.
Speaker 1:And that's where writing a program, recording a way, it's having a tangible. You've gone from zero pushups on your toes to five. Great, you've gone from zero chin-ups to one. You've gone from oh, I'm scared to back squat because of my knees and back to I've got my body weight on my shoulders, I'm actually back squatting. There's a genuine observation of improvement and then off we go Slowly, drips the dopamine little. I'm adhering more because I'm seeing improvement. And then, you know, second to that and this is the modern day sort of technology side of the vulve tech and the way it's sneaking into adherence from a clinical perspective and then, more so, the recreational gym guy. It's going to be the norm where people are jumping on force plates, doing grip strength tests and getting metrics that actually determine oh, this is good, I'm improving.
Speaker 1:And you know, back to your running analogy. If someone then after three months has made a mate that's doing a run and said, oh, I want to join them on the running, we can get them to jump and hop on the force plate and go. You've got a 30% strength deficit and right now you're in the you know 20th percentile for a person your age Maybe. Just don't run that hard and fast yet. Let's be educated about how we approach that. Here's your next six-week phase to get you into a position where you can and all of a sudden, a structured program falls into place For the person that's, you know, been training here for three, four, five years and all those structures have come and gone and been in place and they've maybe had a baby and then come back and been engaged.
Speaker 1:How you know, we've got clients. I mean, I recognize that on Monday night you've got two of your original clients that still train here. You started training them. What 2012? 13, yeah, 2013. And they're still members here 11 years. What are we 12 years later? So you know what is it. Do you think that most exercise professionals need to be truly aware of in terms of having a client? You know that they see every single week for 12 years. Sure, there's holidays and days where they don't train on, months where they might have a bit of time off because you're gonna have the bad mood day where they just get you at that bad time. Over 12 years, you're gonna you're not going to be on for a few months and you know. Whatever else, what are sort of the key things that both the practitioner has to be aware of and the client?
Speaker 2:I'll start with the practitioner and this is from my own understanding of the past 12, 13 years is the trainer or the coach, is aspirational and inspirational for a lot of people. So how you show up, how you present yourself, how you look everything, what your exercise routine is like, is super important because for a lot of the time and for a lot of clients you're going to be that you know person that they look to for guidance. So if I'm always talking about training and I'm always talking about showing up, that sets the precedent for it and you know I'm quite active so I'm always posting or talking about my schedule. So I think that's one. Two, I really think holding people accountable to showing up and not necessarily showing up and crushing every session, but showing up to the schedule is super important. And how you communicate that varies with each client, whether it's a soft message or a hard message or a phone call or, you know, determine that yourself.
Speaker 1:The power in the text message is. It's pretty special, as silly as it sounds.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and holding them accountable to showing up, not showing up to go hard, just showing up is really important. And more recently, especially with longer term people, I think influence sorry, not influencing introducing them to fresh faces is really important. If I think about one of the clients that you're referring to, she was introduced to a new trainer of ours about two years ago, got a really good kick out of trying some weightlifting stuff, which was perfect because we spent nine, 10 years doing fundamental weights and cardio, did a bit of weightlifting, found something new, got really excited about that. Great Does a bit of yoga now on a Saturday. Great Does zone two on the bike, two three times a week Great. And you know, I'd like to think that I helped with the fundamentals. And then when she found that next thing, she was sweet. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And in fact she's nailing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and had that really solid foundation to then go and specialize in a certain context from a training perspective, to keep it interesting, exactly.
Speaker 2:And one coach is, and can be, always there and available for someone, but they might not be the specialist coach right now. And if you think about this in terms of like rugby, your head coach is the head coach. He's the tactician, the strategist, the gameplay, but he might not be the best about set piece for the forwards or goal kicking and they usually will always come back to that person for reference. But don't have to spend, you know Every single rep and set in front of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a really interesting point. I think it speaks to the strength of the boutique model for lack of a better term in the industry because of exactly that In the smaller model, in the smaller framework, you are not necessarily coached by your trainer, you are coached by a team or you're training under a team, and so you know when people come to us and do their classes and there's four or five different people doing, you know that customer's going to touch or that member's going to touch during their training week. It's not the same voice and that mundanity then isn't as much of an issue and it really goes a long way, you know. So, yeah, and then you know from a client perspective, in that same context, is that something you'd suggest in terms of sticking at it for 12 years? You've got to reinvent the wheel to a certain degree. You can't just, you know, have the same goal you had 12 years ago but an extra five percent, because it does get pretty mundane it's interesting.
Speaker 2:I'm working with a client in burley at the moment and I feel like on session one, her and I got on like a house on fire. He started in september, it's now june, so what's that? Nine-ish months? And I feel like we've just got to the point. We've got a really good relationship and it's that coaching aspect, that head coach coaching aspect, right now, um, and we got along really well from the start. So what I'm saying there is it might take 6-12 months for you to feel out the client and the client to feel you out in terms of how hard to push, how hard to pull back, how much volume. You know, what can they handle and all those little things. So I would say 12 months, one-on-one is a minimum, yeah right, and if you don't like them after three months, sweet. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But if you, if you interested, it's like it's going to take you 12 months to figure that out. You know, for context, two months ago we ramped up for what? I think we ramped up too much and then on the back end of that, about three weeks ago, four weeks ago, she goes. I feel like fucking dog shit and I was like interesting, okay. So I kept the intensity and I actually made the intensity way harder, but I 50% to the volume and she's just been texting me the last week, being like I feel amazing, I'm back, I'm ready to go and I'm like, okay, interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's sort of. There is a degree of trial and error. You know, certain people respond to certain ways from an intensity perspective which is I just want to take their time.
Speaker 2:Going through a really, you know, transitionary period in life.
Speaker 1:So, you know, stripping back the volume allows more hours in the week to do life but still gets the satisfaction of, you know, doing a hard session. Yeah, and I've ticked the training box as well. Yeah, and that's the nuance of it. And you know, for people out there that are training or trying to get into it, trying to get momentum, it's sort of learning that about yourself. You're not going to nail everything. You know, I spent a year, 2023, just trying to get a double body, double body weight back squat and my body just hated it. You know, I tried and tried and tried and got there Great, went away from it doing higher volume, whatever else, and just way happier from a training perspective. I don't dread or feel stressed about the bad sleep I had. It's going to affect my training. It's like I can go and do it, but I'm glad I asked that question of myself versus other people. Do you know, low load, high sorry, low volume high load stuff and they love it. So it's always going to be a nuanced thing and that's for the individual to understand about themselves as well as the practitioner to ask the questions but be open to feedback and, more importantly, you've got to be able to adjust things. As you said, you know, going this isn't working out if I keep walking down the same path because the literature says so, but the person in front of me is not happy. At the end of the day, they're a customer, it's their time, it's their money and it's their health that you're taking care of. So sometimes you might need to step away from the perfect plan and adjust to the individual, which is, you know.
Speaker 1:It takes us to the next point that I really want to speak to today, on today's episode, is the evolution of physiotherapy. You know we've been having physio involved in the business for, you know, quite a while now, and it was something we've always considered in terms of dealing with was the traditional model of I'm going to treat you after your knee surgery for one session, I'm going to treat your back pain for one session. Here's your list of exercises Go do them, I'll see you in a week. Or here's some bands, or you can go downstairs to the Pilates session and do that, and then I'll see you next week for that consultation.
Speaker 1:That really was the model that physio has been built on since, you know, mid eighties, from a particularly private, paying perspective. So in that evolution and this sort of symbiotic connection of S&C exercise physiology and its place within a rehab perspective. You know to zoom out and look at how we are working with people and how our members fit into the physio side. What are kind of the main things that stand out in reference to the like? It's more about better training rather than rehab, particularly.
Speaker 2:The number one thing is attendance. And if you look at any rehab, any return to play, and if you use the gold standard being, you know, a pro athlete, they're in the gym morning, arvo, they're doing rehab intermittently throughout that day and they're working with a series of coaches S&C physio, maybe massage therapist, maybe psych, maybe nutritionist to get back to playing. Now, we can't expect that from every you know mom and dad facility around the corner, but what we can have is a place where both the physio and the SNC and even the EP all speak the same language, saying we want you to be the healthiest version of you, we want you to be the fittest version of you. So if this person comes in and let's say, for example, they just had a knee replacement, they're 50, 60 years old, they want to get back to riding their bike with their mates three times a week and they need to do strength training because they should and they think it's good for them, then you know where do you start.
Speaker 2:You come in, you see the physio, you do your acute management stuff, you do your upper body stuff. You might eventually start to move that knee on the bike. You get your end range going. Okay, what's next? Now we're going to integrate squats. Who's going to be the best person to do that? How can we do that? Two, three times a week, and so it goes. So we need to really consider again that head coach thing is. One person will be responsible for their major outcome, which is feeling better, or post knee yeah. Return to play, return to play yeah. And then everyone else plays a really pivotal role in helping them get there, depending on the phase, depending on the phase that they're in, yep, yep.
Speaker 1:It makes a ton of sense and it's. It's so funny you know we've got a handful right now that that come to to mind that are in that kind of acute phase. They've just had surgery, they're at their two to four weeks post and they've got that. What am I going to do? And it's like here's your plan Next four weeks. We're ready to go.
Speaker 1:And they come in and they're off and they are. You know, they've done a knee or an ankle or whatever it might be and they're doing chin-ups and they're doing, you know, some dumbbell work with bench press and they're doing some core and some scap stuff and this upper body, rib cage stuff. They're super focused and training really hard. And then, yeah, they take their boot off and they put a band around their foot and do their ankle stuff and great, that's part of the process. But they come in and it feels much more purposeful than I've got to come all the way to the gym to put a band around my foot, wriggle my foot around and then go home and it. You know, we've seen it in the elite sport model. It's exactly how it is there, um, and you know, being able to integrate that into into what we do it. It changes the whole psychological dynamic of the individual and I think that's the most exciting part is that chin-ups get stronger. They get that stimulus and that sense of anyone feels that when you do a decent strength training or cardio, whatever type session, when you make the time to train your body, you walk away from that moment and that time you've made and just the sense of self-worth is so much better. And so when you feel like, oh yep, I'm getting better, I'm getting stronger, even though I'm rehabbing amazing. And then as those stages of rehab move on, it sort of seamlessly integrates to are you doing a box squat? So it's a high box, there's a bit of weight, but you're squatting Amazing. Suddenly the two weeks has gone and you're squatting normally, or you know whatever stage you are in your rehab and it goes a long way.
Speaker 1:And then there's plenty of evidence that point towards the bodies that train regularly and the people that move. It stimulates, you know, the entire rehabilitative response from a musculoskeletal perspective, psychological perspective and just the return to play in general enjoyment and that's sort of such an important part that shouldn't be exclusive to elite athlete. It should be something that everyone does and you know it's really interesting where musculoskeletal physiotherapy particularly, but I think any form of rehab needs to move in this direction. You know someone we've got people downstairs that have had, you know, double bypass sort of surgery. They've had triple bypass surgery and they are rehabbing their body out of it because it's part of the same system. So, yeah, it's going to be really interesting change in the next sort of 10 years and I think from this whole longevity perspective, it's probably going to be the major thing that we see a change from you know drinking a little Alexa and you know doing an ice bath. It's like a small low percentage, but when you have to have that major surgery and having a really constructive return to play, return to life protocol is going to be what's really important, and there's plenty of evidence pointing towards people that have major surgery never returning to their life.
Speaker 1:Normally, in that 50, 60-year bracket that you said, they don't get to ride that bike or jump on that surfboard anymore. So you know, that's where the practitioners have to work really hard in terms of integrating each other and leaning on each other. Who would you say is sort of from a head coach, as you said role, you know, in terms of authority, a head coach, as you said, role, you know, in terms of authority in that space. When does it get handed back? Someone's just had a little meniscus repair in their knee. They're seeing, you know. They know they need to do physio rehab. They've had a you know good physiologist doing all their training pre-surgery. How does that sort of process get? Should that process get navigated?
Speaker 2:It's whoever has the best relationship with the client. Okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:So Because traditional models will go.
Speaker 2:The highest qualified individual yeah depends what your school of thought is. You know, for me it's whoever I have the best relationship with. If I have my trust in someone and I'm speaking to them and I've been working with them for a long time, I know that the person they're referring me to is, of their opinion, the best person for the job at that time. And very, very rarely will the person that I trust refer me to someone that isn't qualified to make the decision. And now you know I want to put a little asterisk there it might be the best person that's available at the time. It might not be the best person in the world, yeah, but you know, given regional areas, given context given accessibility Accessibility time frames, yep At that time.
Speaker 2:So for me it's relationship first, and if you're working with the local physio and the local physio is like, this is the best that I got right now, that level of trust and the buy-in is still, in my opinion, going to offset maybe a 5% or 10% drop in quality, just by way of them maybe not being the best physio, but if they're buying in and they're understanding, they're on board, that is a greater win for me than a 5% lack in technical skill.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, for sure, and it makes sense. It's really interesting that you say that now that I think about it, because you're sure, on paper this person sets the rules. But if you're any decent practitioner, you know as the ex-phys in this situation, you know with this person practitioner, you know as the ex-phys in this situation, you know with this person you're going to go physio, the do's and don'ts. And then what does the physio do? Rings, the surgeon do's and don'ts, and they make the call on the do's and don'ts and if you're all on the same page reinforcing the same message to that patient, it's going to work out really well. But yeah, if you've got that relationship, the patient will go.
Speaker 1:Surgeon said this, physio said this, it's the same thing. What do you say? You say, well, do what they said. Great, I think.
Speaker 1:When the problem comes in, and contextually with that is when you know people put the wrong hat on and they're the physiologist that goes oh no, fuck what they said, and you just do what I say and it's like hang on a second. The surgeon a second. The surgeons are not going to prescribe their mesocycle to get their, you know, 5k down to sub four minutes a day. They're not going to do that. So you probably shouldn't be prescribing the weight bearing protocol. They know better. You know and it's and that's where you know it's really important for both ends of the spectrum to really understand. You know you don't go to a physio for a strength program and vice versa. You don't go to the S&C guy for your knee rehab sort of structured program. How do they integrate together? And I think the more we look into it and the more we see it they're actually one in the same and I believe, hopefully one day and put this out there I've said this before on this podcast it needs to be one in the same.
Speaker 1:I would love it if more exercise physiologists, strength and conditioning coaches had better understandings of return to play and acute rehab sort of protocol and, more importantly, the injury themselves, so that you can respect it a little bit more. Because I know myself I've had my ass handed to me by good physios when I've pushed in an area that I shouldn't have in a rehab sense and aggravated or made something worse and then inversely, when the physio's role ends like physios can spend another you know, month, 12 months rather learning more about the strength training protocol. So that late stage exit criteria is really exciting but also emphasises a really important phase for someone when they're rehabbing, no matter what age or you know sort of return that they want to have. If it's recreationally riding your bike as a 65 year old, great. There are key criteria in the late stage rehab that must be met and they can't be dismissed because getting your vmo was really important at the start and now you've got that. It doesn't matter if you're in balances, I don't care like we need to.
Speaker 2:We need to be onto the same page with that and that transition is really important, I think definitely, and you know, for me, if you did someone's rehab and we're talking rehab in this context and you got them straight out of surgery and you did them right to the running phase or right to the playing phase, that's a lot for one person to manage and unless your spreadsheet is just all time. But even then You're going to miss something.
Speaker 1:Because the spreadsheet could be. But what about the individual? There's a psychological element, there's the availability element.
Speaker 2:Seeing them on the field availability, you know.
Speaker 1:You're coaching, cuing empathy levels. Do I need to push? There's so much variability in that process. Yeah, yeah, and there's no one personality. In hindsight, looking at it as you say that no one personality suits it, I know for me.
Speaker 1:Not really good at the boring early stage. Put the band and do the like. I'm like, let's just so, don't include me in the first couple of weeks on that side. Really good at that mid-phase. No, mate, you're not running yet. Why? Well, look at this and this and this movement mechanic-wise, let's go up to the field and run. I'm like, yeah, you can get me out of it.
Speaker 1:It's just knowing your place, I think, as a practitioner. Yeah, really interesting, cool. Well, joey, I think that's enough for today, mate, but yeah, it's really interesting, it's exciting and being able to, you know, be on the ground, on the coalface, and sort of share these experiences and stories. You know, hopefully, you know customers and people out there, the consumer is listening to this stuff and learning and, you know, take away from it and take for lack of a better term responsibility and ownership of it and demand it, because if you're not getting be it in a rehab or a training sense certain outcomes and sort of met to a certain standard.
Speaker 1:You know, particularly in Australia at least, the market has high quality practitioners available everywhere. You just got to go and ask and look and demand it, because it's a really important part of life, and then you know, from a business perspective, I think, the lessons we've learned in so many different ways, but in particular on this customer service side of things, there's so much value to add to them. So yeah, you know. Once again, thank you very much for your time, man, there's a big take home message for anyone out there. What would you say in this?
Speaker 2:context. My big take home for this context is for every practitioner or gym or facility to go and write down or get your spreadsheet and go write down every single member name in alphabetical order, pull an attendance report over the last 12 weeks and then write in how many sessions they did each week for the last period of weeks and figure out who's three or greater and figure out who's two or less. Color code them three plus is green, two is yellow, one or less is is red, and then do your homework from there. Call the red ones, call the yellow ones?
Speaker 1:yep, for sure. And then my message is to those you know, companies out there that are not tracking attendance start with that, because it took us far too long to to do that, and now we can actually manage the facility, the experience and the outcomes way better as a result. Yep, beauty. Thanks again, joey Cool mate, see you soon. Thanks for listening to today's episode. For more regular insights into SOF, be sure to check us out on Instagram or Facebook, or visit our website at scienceoffitnesscomau. Once again, we thank you for tuning in to the Science of Fitness podcast.