The Fitness Industry’s Hero Problem

The fitness industry doesn’t just have a programming problem, it has a hero problem. Too many gyms, coaches, and brands sell themselves as the solution that will “fix” you, using before-and-afters and short challenges to prove it. The catch is what happens when the program ends: if you’ve only learned how to comply, you’re left without the skills to self-regulate, adjust, and keep moving when life gets messy.

We dig into how the transformation model took hold, why it’s so sticky, and what the evidence keeps pointing to instead: sustainable health and fitness comes from education, confidence, and long-term behaviour change. We break down why eight-week challenges often spike motivation then fade, and why enjoyment is the real driver of exercise adherence. We also zoom out to the Australian gym landscape, the business fragility that shapes what gets marketed, and the career longevity issues that make it hard to find experienced practitioners over decades.

Then we get practical. We share simple consumer guide rails for choosing a program, plus a framework you can actually use: isolate, integrate, improvise. Whether you’re working on sleep with breathwork, rebuilding strength with back pain, or chasing performance goals, the aim is the same: become more independent in your body. We finish with the missing ingredient that makes everything easier to sustain, community and social connection.

If you want coaching that builds skills for life, not a quick fix that expires, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a mate who’s stuck in the challenge cycle, and leave a review so more people can find evidence-based training that lasts.

Transcript

Welcome And The Big Question

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Science of Fitness Podcast, where we aim to inspire you to live a more healthy and fulfilling life as we share evidence and anecdotes on all things relating to health, performance, business, and wellness. And this is another one of our solo series episodes. And in this episode, I want to dive into a couple of layers. First and foremost, where the health and fitness industry is, what I believe the health and fitness industry is getting wrong, and how you, the consumer, should actually lean in and utilize the health and fitness industry to take care of yourself and to actually live a healthier, more prosperous life.

The Hero Problem In Fitness

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Long story short, the fitness industry has a hero problem. Every gym, every coach, every program, every brand positions itself as the solution to transform you. They try and make you validate as if you're not good enough as you are. They show you a before and after of previous people. They say this was you and this could be you, and they fixed you. And at the end of the day, I've been guilty of it too. It is the system and the format that you get taught when you're going through, I guess, your development and learning in your career. And ultimately, in the last 12 years, I've learned that that actually isn't the solution and it isn't what the consumer needs. And so there's now this weird gap between what the consumer wants, which is often what's sold to us in the health and fit industry of you need to look a certain way, versus what the consumer needs. And ultimately, in this episode, I want to go through the layers and answer that question of what do you as the consumer actually need from us, the industry of health and

How Transformation Marketing Took Over

SPEAKER_00 1:37

fitness? So, first and foremost, let's go back into the history of where and why this break breakdown actually occurred. The transformational industry complex really came from the foundation, which started probably in the late 70s, early 80s, where people or the commercialization of health and fitness really began. And this was predominantly through the bodybuilding world, because you had these actual athletes that would get up on stages and be in photos and movies and adverts and they would look a certain way. And then that was, I guess, the definition of oh, that is healthy and that is fit if you look like that. What we now know, thanks to evidence, thanks to science, is that looking a certain way only means one part of or was one part of the puzzle when it comes to an overall holistic, healthy body or healthy um lifestyle. And so when with that, on that initial look this way, and you will be the definition of health and happiness. We then started as an industry to sell, leveraging off that, leveraging off the way you are or the way you look isn't good enough. And then we went into the before and afters, the eight-week shreds, and using dramatic language. Ultimately, it works. It pricks us in our conscience and it gets us motivated to go and take action from where we are to where we want to be. Um, but unfortunately, it sets up a relationship where the gym or the brand or the program or the person facilitating that is the hero, and you are just along for the journey to, you know, validate their heroism. And essentially, you as the consumer come in not good enough, this brand fixes you, and then you leave as a whole. And ultimately, that is a dependency model from an injury and a rehabilitative prospect. We kind of see the same thing. It's a little less commercialized, and the intention is probably a little less commercial. It's more, you know, you're unwell, you've got pain, you've got an injury, we need to fix you and put you back together, and then off you go. Um, and what we're understanding more and more, particularly when it comes to the evidence and seeing effective practice, be it I want to lose weight or be healthier, and I don't have anything entirely diagnostically wrong, I'm just conscious of it, or be it a rehabilitative I'm in pain, is that we're looking for much more longitudinal models.

Why Programs End And People Regress

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Ultimately, in that previous or that existing model, what happens when the program ends is the biggest issue that we need to address. Most people tend to regress because they're not following an instruction or a specific program anymore, and they're out in the wilderness on their own and don't actually know what to do. And so they tend to learn to comply and not necessarily self-regulate or self-manage. And then ultimately you build this dependence model. And we know life is variable. You might, you know, be able to train with a specific trainer or in a specific program for five years of your life, and then your job or your living circumstances might change, and you're no longer able to do that. And that's when the problem really occurs for a lot of people. And so ultimately, we want to look at what is the solution to avoid getting caught in this trap because the statistics actually match it. There was an eight-week challenge study done out of the University of Michigan in 2026. 91 participants tracked across 24 weeks. The average attendance went from 2.73 sessions before the challenge started to 3.61 sessions during the challenge, and then it dropped back down to 2.54 after the challenge, ultimately leaving participants below where they started in terms of their attendance. And for us as a brand, that's our essential metric. How often are the people in our business, are our members coming in training? Are our customers visiting the gym? The magic number is three. That's our bare minimum. Anything more than that, obviously going to be more effective. Anything less than that, they tend to drop off and don't get consistent results for whatever reason. Ultimately, the main factor that kept the participants exercising after that eight-week challenge was the enjoyment factor. It wasn't a goal, it wasn't a competition, it wasn't an outcome, it wasn't a financial incentive. It was, I just enjoy it, it makes me feel better. And so that's really an interesting insight and a pretty logical one for us, having seen it occur time and time again, that these simple challenges and a quick, intensive eight weeks is not a long-term solution. And a long-term solution is enjoyment. We'll get to what that looks like a little bit later.

The Fragile Business Of Gyms

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Second case, if you look at it from a business model perspective, the health and fitness industry is notoriously not that great at business. Sure, there's been a few brands that have reached mass scale and liquidated and people have made a lot of money. But at the end of the day, the actual structure of what a brand might do and its effectiveness as a business long term is really quite fragile. And we are yet to see, in my opinion, more than one or two brands really nailed us. At the end of the day, the baseline for Australian health and fitness businesses is over 50% of gyms and fitness centers close within the first five years of operating. That's a 50% chance of actually getting it right. And if anyone going into business knows that they're going to go into a business that has a 50% chance of not working or closing, you're probably not going to do it. And so when we sort of think about the classic brands, the biggest story is probably F-45 that comes to mind in recent time. It started with one small gym in Sydney and Paddington in 2012. And by March 2021, they had 2,000 odd franchises across 63 countries. They were valued at 1.4 billion when they IPO'd on the New York Stock Exchange, a small little Australian fitness business, got to the New York Stock Exchange, and it did that in nine years. The share price then collapsed from $16 down to 53 cents. And they declared a whole heap of net losses. COVID obviously affected the brand. And very quickly, a lot of these franchise type businesses that were F 45 closed or had to remodel themselves really quickly. And the biggest thing that I think limited them was a lot of the leverage in terms of what they were selling was a short-term solution to people's health. And so in hindsight, I'm sure that you know the original people involved in them in the company may have considered, okay, what is a long-term, more agile structure of our program rather than a simple regimented, this is what you do in the 45 minutes and then out you go. Again, just a classic story that I think a lot of consumers, a lot of people listening to this podcast will be aware of. And it's, you know, it's not to point a finger or say they got it horribly wrong. It's just to understand the business landscape of our industry is really quite difficult. And so then we unpack it a little bit deeper.

When Evidence Changes Faster Than Brands

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Why does this occur? Why does a brand come to fruition and then get moved on so quickly, even as effective in the size of F-45? Well, the biggest issue, I think, is the industry is moving at a rate of knots. Evidence and science within the industry is moving at a rate of knots. When I graduated, soft tissue work and triggering and doing foam rolling before you trained was all the rage. Now, yeah, the information is a bit questionable. The mechanism's a bit more complex than we think. The effectiveness is not as consistent as we think. And it's going to come down to subjective enjoyment and variability rather than sit in this cookie-cutter model that does work. And that's, I think, something that's really hard for brands when they get really big, is that they actually kind of struggle to have the agility and they tend to, you know, in a classic business, stick to a system and stick to a certain way, which yes, certs a portion of the population, but not a versatile enough portion of the population that then adjusts to how an individual's life changes as they get older or as as they change as an individual.

Practitioner Burnout And Short Careers

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Which then brings us to the actual career longevity of practitioners in our industry. And if you look at both the exercise science, personal training, strength and conditioning, or physiotherapy worlds, there's a lot of, I guess, inconsistency in the longevity of the career. At the end of the day, the demand is really high. At least 15.4 million Australians have at least one chronic condition that they're dealing with as it uh as it stands. Healthcare is Australia's fastest growing sector. Half a million new jobs are projected to be entering the healthcare industry by 2034. And the demand for exercise physiology and physiotherapy is structural and decades long and is going to be in place and not affected entirely by technology compared to other industries. Yet, only 49% of exercise science graduates plan to stay engaged in the industry for longer than 10 years, or tend to stay engaged in the industry for longer than 10 years. The average length of a physiocareer is variable in the data, but anywhere from eight to sort of 12 years. Yet, you know, there's no professional long-term runways for these practitioners. It's taxing physically on your body. The hours are actually really quite challenging in the exercise world, particularly, early mornings, late evenings. And then most practitioners only really get to run for about a 10-year period through their early 20s. And then life gets really challenging in your mid-30s. You might have a home or a family or a lifestyle that changes, and all of a sudden you can't do 5 a.m. till 8 p.m. days or morning shifts and afternoon shifts. And so they pivot their career and they might move into a different industry. And at the end of the day, that makes life really hard for the consumer because you, as the consumer, want to be able to rely on a really experienced practitioner either taking care of you or supervising up-and-coming practitioners to take care of you. If we flip the role and compare this to medicine, compare this to accounting or law, those industries have centuries of history behind them. So not only are they really robust and have had, you know, good structured trials and errors gone through over hundreds of years through different businesses, but also the longevity, the career longevity of the practitioners in those industries is an entire lifetime. They enter it, you know, just after, say, a university degree, and they stay in that career until their late 60s, maybe even longer. And so when they get to turn around and supervise young individuals coming through in that industry, they really have a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge to share and improve the quality of the practitioner much faster that comes after them and therefore improve the consumer's experience and improve what they're delivering. The health and fitness industry needs that desperately. And we don't have that. And the reason being is it's naturally, first and foremost, an immature industry. But secondly, the career longevity does not exist as well compared to the other industries that we're technically competing with. And

Guide Rails For Smarter Fitness Choices

SPEAKER_00 12:21

so from there, what do you do as a consumer? Well, if you're willing to invest time and money into your health and into your fitness, we've got a set of guide rails that we recommend you consider so that you can make the most out of it. In doing so, you're going to be supporting really good, well-structured, effective fitness industry programs and businesses. And you're going to be getting the most out of it yourself as a consumer and as an individual. And so why I go with the term guide rails or frameworks is mainly because it can't be a rigid set of rules. You're going to be different to the next individual when it comes to the way you consume and what you need when it comes to health and fitness. And so, in terms of your framework and your approach, you need to consider it very selfishly. And that is going to set you up for success to long-term have a really good outcome. At the end of the day, a guide rail doesn't do the work for you. A framework doesn't do the work for you, it creates conditions of consideration for you to navigate and move safely and confidently in the right direction for yourself. And that is really important because at the end of the day, my greatest aim or big, hairy, audacious goal, is to have as many individuals competent and confident with training and moving their body and taking care of their body as possible. So, what are the guide rails we recommend at SOF? Be specific. The programming structure, the coaching cues, the education sessions, the breathing sessions, the biomechanics, and the movements that you're doing, are they specific and aligned with what you want, perhaps what you need and where you want to go to? And each one of those factors and tools will actually give you the the, I guess, uh capacity to really improve and consider where you are in that current state. For example, if you're struggling with sleep, you might need to lean on some breathing or breathwork, meditative, down regulatory techniques. And so turning your attention to a practitioner that can teach you the layers of complexity that go into it and then a structured, provide a structured sort of framework for you to lean on when you want to calm down your nervous system so you can have a better night's sleep, they're going to give you the tools to take care of yourself. If you develop those skills and you know lean on a series of tools that actually helps you, you then have the capacity to control how you actually manage your ability to downregulate and ultimately fall asleep. The same can apply for someone that has back pain. Finding a practitioner that can strip everything back in terms of the complexity of pain science, be able to educate you on how to move and build physical confidence and move safely whilst navigating the complexity of pain science, and then actually give you the capacity to get stronger and improve your ability to handle variabilities of loads and movements, that's essentially going to make you far more robust. And it's not to say you won't ever suffer back pain again, but it'll give you the confidence to navigate when that situation might arise, which in turn then complements itself. And so it sort of improves positively. And so inversely, if you're not getting or given that confidence or you know, being educated on what might be occurring in terms of the way you breathe and how it affects your nervous system, the way you load your spine when you've got back pain, the way you improve your tolerance to more running distance on your endurance-based running program, if you're not getting educated as to how these systems work, not at a very detailed level, but at a high, basic, understandable level for yourself. And if you're not getting given tools to be able to navigate the layers within each one of these systems, then you're just missing out on an opportunity to be able to further future-proof yourself of whatever might come your way, be it a training goal, be it an injury, be it a complexity, you know, change in your life situation. And so ultimately that's our suggestion is actually go and find people that are going to teach you, as opposed to just simply train you. And that's going to then set you up for success in the long term. In

Isolate Integrate Improvise For Progress

SPEAKER_00 16:34

terms of a framework that I like to consider, if you're struggling to comprehend and understand the complexities of these ideas, is lean back on the isolate, integrate, improvise model. Now, I've talked about this a lot. It's just a fancy set of words that alliterate so that it's easy for you, the listener, to remember. But at the end of the day, if you think of these factors as a skill, the skill of being able to manage pain, pain-like symptoms, the skill of being able to improve your running load, the skill of being able to down-regulate your nervous system, you need to go back to the very basics of what are the factors of that skill that I can then stack on top of each other that then allow me to enjoy or adhere or use that skill on demand when I want and when I need to. And so if I reverse engineer something complex like being able to play the guitar or a musical instrument, high-level musicians don't actually think about what they're playing when they're playing. They're just improvising and enjoying the actual skill or the act of playing music. Reverse engineer that back at some point in their life, they had to integrate the layers and the different chords that might have stacked up to give them a song or the principles that might have actually stacked up to give them an understanding of what it means. And so they're going through that integration phase and then go back even further to the very first music lesson. They might have to have learned how to hold a C chord and strum that on the guitar as an example. So it's a very isolated action. The same rules apply for the way you move and train. The same rules apply for the way you manage your nervous system and learn about the way you breathe. As you can go back to the very beginning of the way you move and isolate it in how is my rib cage position when I do take a big inhale? Where am I inhaling? What muscles am I using to breathe? And learning all those factors in isolation, then stacking them into a breathing type practice, integration, and then being able to just to leverage them whenever you need to at the end of the day and you want to calm down your nervous system or before you give a presentation to calm down your nervous system. Just another example. The same thing would happen for an athlete that's playing high-level sport. If they require to be really strong, run, jump, and absorb forces on a footy field, for example, they're going to need to be able to be able to present that in the gym. And so in a controlled environment where they might practice some plyometrics, they might practice some heavy-loaded squats, they might practice some heavy-loaded single-leg exercises, a good practitioner will teach them the technical integrative elements involved in that. And if we take it a step further back, we can go to the very basics of movement. How does it feel to contract your abs? How does it feel to squeeze your glute? And how does it feel to then integrate those back into a more complex movement like a squat or a lunge to ultimately enjoy the freedom of your improvised movement when you're performing, playing, etc.? And so if I think of a specific client's story, I've got one that comes to mind particularly. And she started at the very beginning of the journey and the process within with in our actual group fitness program. And it was simply just a Pilates session, regular attendance of a couple of Pilates sessions. She then joined our Move class, which is essentially a hybrid of Pilates and strength training where we get to focus on the mechanical detail. It's a lower intensity, lower pace, and it's much more about getting that integrative feel your glute. And then how does that work with the way you lunge or squat? And ultimately, now this client of ours, this member, actually attends about seven to ten sessions a week. Some of them are upregulatory and really challenging conditioning sessions. Some of them are a little bit more focused, complex movement, gymnastics style sessions, and some of them are really downregulatory yoga breathing class type sessions. And the capacity of this individual's movement is beyond what 99% of people can ever achieve. From a bodyweight back squat to multiple chin-ups to muscle ups and handstands. Being able to move in such a wonderful way that a lot of people are envious of has come from going and starting at the very beginning. This person's been a member for seven years and slowly chipping away at building capacity and complexity. And as a result, now has this capacity that is envious of a lot of people. And so it's really that simple. I think the biggest thing is it's been a seven-year journey, not a seven-week shred challenge. And that's something that everybody I wish would understand about their training and their exercise and approach it with that attitude of this is not a start and finish process. This is a journey. And it starts and then finishes when your life does. And so, what does this mean for you as a consumer? Well, think about it for yourself, honestly. How long have you been training or attempting to improve your health and fitness? And what do you actually know about your body as a result? If you have a good understanding of squeezing your glutes or stretching your hips or organizing your abs or your thoracic spine, fantastic. You're heading in the right direction. If you're not sure what that actually means or how that works with the way you squat or do a lunge, maybe you need to go and consider investing in someone or a program that's a little bit more educational than simply mindlessly going and exercising to switch off. At the end of the day, you have one body, you have one system that you need to be able to work with and take care of. An effective program should give you the tools to do that. And so as you start to Consider your training, maybe you have a bit more of an ambitious goal. Can you identify when you're fatigued? Can you identify when maybe you're just being a little bit lazy because you've had a busy work day or you've um you know not eaten as much food? Understanding these nuances of your body come with continued practice and continued exposure and asking good questions. And so, as an individual and a consumer, I encourage you to lean on people that you can rely on to answer those questions effectively and guide you appropriately. And so ultimately you should consider are you being coached and educated or are you simply being serviced and then pushed out the door onto the next sort of person? And so if I were to encourage individuals working in our industry, it's really important that you get a comprehensive as best as possible, a comprehensive understanding of the nuances available within exercise and movement and health and even pain and injury science. If you can get a comprehensive understanding and you can then educate your clients and/or patients and help them be, you know, proactive about the way they take care of themselves and the way they actually train and take care of their body, they can then become advocates for their own health. And that ultimately I see is our responsibility as practitioners. And so if I were to sort of think about you as a consumer, my suggestion is really get a good understanding of where you're at and what you need. If you haven't exercised for a long time, don't expect yourself to go and execute something really complex. If you are suffering with pain and injury and niggles, go and find a practitioner that can really help you and guide you in terms of how to navigate the complexities of pain science and maybe build a system that is able to handle the loads that you might want to put through your body a little bit more. And as a result, once you start doing these behaviors and actually leaning on professionals within the industry that do understand this, you're going to become more independent. And then what's the most important factor up once you've really achieved a good understanding of your movement, your training, and your independence?

Enjoyment And Community Drive Adherence

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Adherence. And the most effective way, proven by science, anecdotally for us here, is being able to enjoy the process of doing the work. And it's something that guests on this podcast have spoken about a lot, from elite athletes to everyday people. If you can enjoy the process of doing the work necessary to take care of yourself or move the needle forward in terms of your health, you're going to continue to stick at that process. And one of the key factors to enjoyment is social connection. And that's where the community factor really becomes important and really valuable. And it doesn't need to be I do this with a hundred people. It's actually being able to rely on two or three really valuable individuals within your life that you can then lean on to actually drive your adherence, to drive your enjoyment and ultimately to drive a healthier, a healthier and happier and more prosperous life. And so it's a really simple set of rules or considerations. Obviously, the nuance is actually in the finding the right person to take care of you, asking the right questions, and really being proactive about advocating for your health to ultimately set you up for success, no matter what phase of life or pain or movement or goal that you have, so that you can really, I guess, enjoy the most of what being healthy really feels like.

Where To Find Science Of Fitness

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Thanks for tuning in to the Science of Fitness podcast. Be sure to check us out across all forms of social media and subscribe to this channel if you want to stay up to date to the latest episodes and any other anecdotes with which we might share across these video platforms. If you ever find yourself locally in Brisbane, be sure to drop into one of our facilities or down on the Gold Coast in Burley. You can also check us out at scienceoffitness.com.au and see all things relating to what we offer in programming and performance, whether it's online or in person.