Sports: the Self-Directed Health Stack — Where Healthcare Is Heading (#71)

Sport doesn't look like healthcare. That's exactly why it matters.

The running club. The HYROX race. The smart ring on your finger. The gym that now calls itself a “healthness” company. None of it looks like medicine — and yet, piece by piece, sport is quietly rehearsing what healthcare is about to become.

In this episode, Christophe Jauquet sits down with Berlin-based digital-health expert and Hyrox athlete Nia Escobar-Kölle to follow one thread running through everything happening in fitness today: measurement, coaching, recovery, community and prevention are all being built by people, for themselves, around exercise — long before the medical system delivers them.

They land on a name for it: the self-directed health stack. A world where people increasingly run their own health, instead of waiting to receive it from an institution. This is consumer-driven health in its purest form — health pulled by people, not pushed by the system. And sport is where it gets prototyped first, because the feedback loop is short, the motivation is real, and the community is already there.

What we get into

• How sport became part of identity — athleisure, Strava and a ~$2 trillion wellness economy driven by younger generations
• Belonging as medicine — running clubs, HYROX and why most people now move mainly for connection
• The GLP-1 economy — gyms adding prescriptions, nutrition and strength training to protect muscle
• From weight to function — grip strength as a new vital sign, and muscle as metabolic health (the PURE study, ~140,000 people)
• Medical gyms — Technogym, eGym and the shift from “fitness and wellness” to “healthness”
• Measurement that coaches — from BMI and steps to biological age, 60–80 biomarkers and AI coaches (Oura, Whoop, Garmin)
• The data gap — why there is far more health data outside the system than inside it
• Personal science and N=1 — sport as the testing ground for personalized medicine
• Health leaving the gym — into homes, hotels, retail and cities, from Barcelona’s sports prescription to the airport lounge

The bigger shift: the way sport is moving — measurement, management, building, recovery and belonging, all in one place — is a preview of where caring for your health is heading. Patient-centricity is becoming health-centricity. And the patient is becoming the architect.

Chapters
(03:00) Sport becomes identity
(12:00) Athleisure and the wellness economy
(15:30) Belonging, community and the blue zones
(26:00) The GLP-1 economy
(28:00) From weight to function: grip strength
(33:00) Longevity, healthy aging and medical gyms
(40:00) Biomarkers, wearables and AI coaching
(43:30) Closing the gap with healthcare data
(47:00) Personal science and N-of-1
(51:30) Sport leaves the gym
(54:30) The self-directed health stack

Guest: Nia Escobar-Kölle — digital-health expert for startups, based in Berlin, hybrid/HYROX athlete and creator of the “Nia does sports” community. (IG: @nia.does.sports )

Information is not the goal. Transformation is.

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Transcript

Speaker 0:00

The way that sports is moving is hopefully the way that healthcare or caring for your health will move as well. Having all these elements together, the measurement, the management, the building, the recovery, the belonging, all of that should be part of healthcare as well. So it's a very good example of where healthcare could be going. And let's hope that uh it will be going into that direction. Welcome to the Healthusiasm podcast, a panel discussion on innovations in health and self-care. My name is Christophe Jauquet. I'm a health business expert, author, and professional keynote speaker. And every month or so I discuss with a panel of experts the positive changes that are shaping our health and happiness. And like last time, for this discussion, we have one of your beloved experts in the panel, which is from Colombia but living in Berlin, digital health expert for startups, Nia Escobar Kuller.

Speaker 2 0:54

Guten Dias.

Speaker 0:56

Guten Dias. How are you doing?

Speaker 2 0:59

Very good, very good. Surviving the heat wave that is currently, I think, going all across Europe.

Speaker 4 1:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:08

Day six, day seven. Temperatures over 40. Uh yeah, I think it's like day six, day seven. Honestly, at this point we're not counting. This weekend we're gonna have temperatures over 40 in across Berlin, well, across Germany. So I am hiding in my kitchen in the dark.

Speaker 1:23

I was, I was it's funny because I was yesterday I was I was uh calling with a client from Dubai and I was like, I was asking how you're doing. I said, Yeah, it's hot in here, it's hot, it's really hot uh right now in Dubai, and I was like, Yeah, what what temperature do you have? And he was like, Yeah, 37, 38, 39. I was like, Yeah, it's exactly the same that we have right now in Belgium, and the humidity is exactly the same. So basically, right now we are having your temperature, but the difference is that he was sitting in an AC and I was sitting in a in a room that every day that we had this heat wave went from 24 to 25, and another the day after to 26. So right now I'm in a sitting in a room of 31 degrees and uh sauna. It's like a sauna. I mean it's probably healthy in some ways, but it's it's pretty amazing in the sense that it our houses here are built to you know get the cold out to make sure that the cold is not they're isolated really well. But once the heat is inside, you don't get it out. And so every day there's uh one temperature that it that uh that is added to the temperature of crazy. I like this. I mean, I prefer this than anything else anyway, but true, true.

Speaker 2 2:29

The last couple of winters of summer, sorry, it was rather cold here, at least in Berlin. That's all I can talk about. So we were complaining we did not have a summer the last two summers, and this summer we're getting summer uh compounds. So I'm just hoping that I can get like a little AC. Not now because prices also have increased due to demand. But I'll get it maybe in winter for next summer. This is my lesson.

Speaker 2:52

Yeah. Well, keep us informed. Before we get started, a shout out to our other panelists, um, Aline Wazet, Dr. Keith Grimes, and Mo Zuina, who could not be here, but who will be joining us for the next one. In this session, uh, we will be talking about sports. We were reflecting upon it up front, you and me. What could be an interesting topic that we both like, and I think sports kind of nailed it. You're a pretty sporty girl these days. What have you have you always been into sports?

Speaker 2 3:22

Not really. No, interestingly enough, I I moved to Berlin uh five years ago, five years and a half ago, and I started to do sports back then because I realized I couldn't move my boxes when I was moving. Yeah, I was living in Cologne before and and I didn't have the strength, especially upper body strength. And I thought the this is not good. I was early 30s back then, and I just said like oh come on, in my early 30s, this should be the peak of my health. I cannot do this. Like this makes no sense. And then I started to working out, and now I work out every day and I became uh a HYROX rockstar. But we'll talk about it.

Speaker 1 4:01

Okay.

Speaker 4:04

I've been very much a sports guy my entire life, like but massively even. I've been a semi-pro in tennis and a semi-pro in basketball.

Speaker 4 4:14

Wow.

Speaker 4:14

But I got injured at the age of 13, and I was forced by the coach. I mean, my parents weren't there, it was at an exceptional tournament, and um it was a very important game, but I was injured and the coach forced me to play. The national team was also coming to scout me that at that moment. So I really needed to kind of like play, and I aggravated my knee. And ever since I've been really struggling heavily. I mean, since the age of 28, I've had to stop all sports that included jumping, running, cycling, even. So no more forcing my body, no more going the extra mile, no more um pushing myself, which has been very hard if you've been pushing yourself for pretty much 25 years, and then suddenly you can't do anything anymore. So I still do workouts pretty much every day, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, but they're pretty boring. They're like tai chi type of uh movements. And I try to run once in a while, I try to cycle, I try to, you know, swim, but I cannot, you know, force myself. If I if I run, it's it's really two minute two minutes running, two minutes walking, two minutes running, two minutes to not go into the overexhaustion or of the of the muscles to not, you know, because I'm I'm actually need I'm due a new knee since the age of 28, and actually now I'm due two knees, so I'm waiting for a knee replacement or postponing the knee replacement. So uh yeah, it's it's uh for a sports guy, it's pretty hard to then shift your mind from going the extra mile to um and pushing yourself to no longer ever pushing yourself. Uh pretty strange.

Speaker 2 5:47

Yeah, I think we we talk a lot about zone two because when you're working out, you basically have from zone zero, which is basically like sleeping, and zone one, which is like walking and light exercise, zone two is like pushing yourself, but just a little bit like you can still talk, you can you're comfortable all the way to zone five, which is like maximum exertion. And I think if if you do sports you're and you're used to like this maximum exertion or basically zone four, zone two sounds really boring. It is but uh it has actually the most impact for the cardiovascular system. So you're actually taking care of yourself because it doesn't feel like that.

Speaker 6:22

My cardio fitness is pretty bad. Or like really bad. So um it's it's I never go into the I don't I don't I don't build any cardio fitness anymore in the same way that I used to do. So but anyways, enough about my uh personal trend in sports, uh which is going down. But uh let's look at the trends that are going up in sports. We we were talking about how we could approach this because there's so much to be to be said. And we came up with the idea to uh to approaches us. I mean, if I could reach out to people to talk about a certain topic whatsoever, the last line that I send in the mail or the LinkedIn invite is do you want to share some notes about this? And I think what we will be doing here is maybe just exactly that share some notes about how we look at sports and what what has been changing, and we can, you know, you can start uh I'll follow up with maybe some other things that I've seen, or maybe I'll agree, maybe I I I don't agree. And we go we can go back and forth and try to have a bit of an overview of everything that we've seen happening in sports over the past years and where where this is all going.

Speaker 2 7:28

Absolutely. And I think what what's exciting a deal, and I think what's exciting also is that we see how sport is also blending into so many more aspects of our daily life. So it's it's reconfiguring the understanding of sports uh and health, which I like.

Speaker 7:44

Yeah, it's uh and it's driven by uh one particular, I think, generation, and it's your generation probably. Because in a sense, and maybe we're diving straight into the topic then, but in a sense, there was I think it was 10 years ago when I was analyzing, just before the my first book came out, I was analyzing how different generations deal with the health. Because there's there's always this thing that you know younger generations are focused on their health, the older ones are less. And it's not actually true, but that might you know deviate us from our path or discussion here. But what I've noticed really well is that one of the big differences from from if you compare millennials to any other generation older than them, is that like my generation, is that we needed to and we still need to integrate sports into our life. It's like or add sports to our lives. So it's like the one thing that we say, we we need to do this. Well, if you look at the millennials, they were one of the first ones to actually have that as a part of their identity and as a part of their life. Uh I mean this is part of the social media generation, right? So they the whole identity that they're building is with sports in it and with some healthiness in it. While my generation, I mean, I don't post about when I sport. This is not my natural instinct anyway. Um while I sport every day, right?

Speaker 2 9:04

So uh well for us it's completely the opposite, right? I I have my my own sports Instagram, which is Nia does it.

Speaker 3 9:13

Right, it's true, yeah.

Speaker 2 9:14

So I'm sharing everything that I'm doing, including when I'm injured. Like I have been injured since uh February this year, and I did two HYROX races, and I still do sports uh f very frequently, and this became sort of part of my life, exactly what you said. And and I think it's unfair to say that this is uh a generational thing because also some of my friends who are my age or fellow millennials or or Gen Z, they they look at me and they're like, You're crazy. Why are you doing all this? Uh it makes no sense. But at the same time, I look at them and they're also doing the same, they're just not posting.

Speaker 9:46

So do you post to get motivated as well? I mean, is it like the Strava thing? Because Strava kind of starts all of this, right? This the oversharing, if I may say so, of all your activities.

Speaker 2 9:58

Yeah. So so I think for me, and what what I see also from the people I follow is like no one wants to be an influencer, right? Like I I when people ask me about my account, I say I'm a fake fluencer. Because I I don't, I mean, if I get free stuff, uh I'm super happy. I have not received free stuff yet. But I think for me, what's important is that I don't think I'm I'm not a professional athlete. I'm never gonna be a professional athlete. I'm never going to have like I do HYROX, right? And I'm I'm never going to be like top elite 15, maybe, but this is also not my goal. But it's like anyone can do this. And just as I was inspired by some people around me that we're having this discipline and this motivation and that we're demystifying sports, I I want to do that for other people too. And it's funny because I started doing this almost a year ago, so and I have like 800 followers, which is like something, but at the same time nothing compared to like normal influencers and people that I know and people that I don't know approach me sometimes and say, Hey, it's really inspiring to see how how you're doing all this. And for me, it's just like it's my normal life, but it's like, hey, come do it with me. And I've managed to convince quite a few people to go around with me, to do some uh high intensity training, to do strength training, and to me, this is the most satisfying thing. Because you meet people get you meet people, but you also get to to bring them into this like sporty side. Uh, because that like I said, like no one wants to be this this uh super fit or no Schwarzenegger type of person. But it's like, hey, if you can move your your boxes when you're moving on your own, or if you can go for a run, or if you can like lift your knees when you're visiting uh and play with them a bit longer, that's actually the thing that matters, right? Yeah.

Speaker 11:44

Yeah, yeah, probably. I I think there's a there's a there's a front part of it in it as well, of course. Uh but let's but let's f first stick to the identity because what it's it's something that we've seen coming up quite a bit with the the athleisure that suddenly became super popular. So the fact that everyone is now wearing all these. I mean, this is one example and a more recent example, but since about three, four years, everybody's wearing these new balances or these super sporty running shoes. It's been something that's going on in the States for a while, but that to me was mostly related to the fact that they didn't have any clothing style or taste. But right now it's it is like a thing where everybody's running around in sneakers and not just any you know low-key sneaker, but the top-notch, super, you know, athletic type of um shoes. And this the sports were which which is it's it's almost has it it's a it was a lifestyle marker already, so it kind of showed that you were sporty, but it really became more than that. It became it it it became into the high-end, well not high-end fashion, but the the more trendy type of fashion people started wearing it. Now everybody's wearing it as a part of the tribe that you were part of. So this this this sports athleisure really became part of fashion at the same time as well, which which is part of the identity.

Speaker 2 13:05

I was reading the uh a McKinsey report from last year that basically said that wellness and and health basically it's a two trillion dollar market and is mostly driven by Gen Z and millennials because of of discretionary wellness spending. And this includes products like uh appearance, of course, like physical products, but also fitness, sleep, mindfulness tools, recovery. And I think it's it's prioritizing comfort and and health and just feeling good versus I think I don't know, wearing heels. Of course, like heels can be look beautiful, but wearing a sneaker if you're gonna walk for hours is just so much better. So I think consumers, like younger consumers in general, have this trend to they're less willing to cut wellness spending than many other discretionary categories. And I think it's because health for us and for Gen Z perhaps is becoming, like you said, part of our identity and not just like a utilitarian aspect, right? So that's why you see the the Lululemons and the uh Alo Yogas and the New Balance pretty much everywhere, like at the airport, at the office, in conferences. Yeah, and I I I am a big fan of that because I prefer also comfort, but they can look cool.

Speaker 14:23

Yeah, but I think it's it's totally right. I think it's it's it's funny how people get accustomed to even wearing these comfortable shoes. I mean, if you if you go to weddings these days, I mean, women they only wear high heels for an hour and then it's over. It used to be three, four hours, it used to be all the way the night through, and it's it completely changed. Now even men don't even wear any decent shoes anymore. They they're all in in in some sneakers types of stuff, which is which is okay. But it's part of the identity that we're that we're seeing, and indeed a lot of these Nike Lululemon on is is one of the big ones as well right now. They're really playing into that. But I think on top of the just identity part, or maybe even part of that identity part, is the the way that they are, and you talked about it as well, is the the the clubs that are around that that arrive around it, you know, the the activation clubs, the running clubs, all these types of things that makes people, you know, want to be part of something. It's almost like a social currency, if you will, that is more and more part of it, you know, belonging to someone. I think there was a one quote that I've seen or a stat that says that almost 60% do sports primarily for social interaction and connection. And you see all of these brands, and it ties into the identity, of course, because if you're part of that group, you feel that identity and you feel that actually you you you you belong to something. And I think in our society where loneliness and social media and distance and the fake connections that we're having, I think sports is kind of one of the answers to that, you know, problem that we're seeing in in the world right now.

Speaker 2 16:03

Yeah, I think I think community is also part of medicine, right? And if you look into some research in terms of longevity, we see that community and belonging actually come really close to each other because people move actually when there is when the movement is like social, is visible, it's also identity-based. And we've seen this in communities like in in Italy, where you have uh like the blue zones that, or in Japan also in blue zones where the people that live the longest actually are the ones that are connected to people uh within their own communities and their own villages, but also doing uh physical activities together, right? I was reading this 2025 Strava report and it was emphasizing that, for example, for Gen Z, they're the ones that are driving like the racing, the walking, weight training, multi-sport variety sort of activities. Uh and events are actually the key motivation. So we don't only see people running for the sake of meeting each other, but also running with a purpose and or doing physical activity with a purpose. So it's it's it's making fitness increasingly social and goal-based and not just an individual discipline. And and I mean, running clubs, HYROX team, uh CrossFit boxes, cycling groups, padel leagues, you know, they all work because they solve the the most boring but important part of of healthcare and and you know activities, which is adherence and discipline. I am um a part of a running club I go run every Thursday, and just the fact that I feel like people are waiting for me and I'm waiting for people and I also get to catch up, or people I train HYROX with, you create the sense of like, okay, we have each other's backs. And it was very cool to see, I was judging also a HYROX competition here in Berlin a couple of weeks ago. So I was at the station looking and making sure that people that were competing were following the rules. And I found it extraordinary that I was like very emotionally invested in seeing the people that I trained with suffer through the race and come to my station because all I just kept telling them was like, You train for this, I've seen you. And that was very cool. And people were responding to that. Yeah, they were like, Yes, you're right, like I got this, it's I'm dying, it's station number eight, but I still I still move. So I think that the part of like communities, the accountability, the belonging, the shared progress, the emotional reward as well. Um, and it's yeah, it's basically engagement and adherences. We talk about this from a healthcare perspective. So it's giving people a reason to show up.

Speaker 18:32

Yeah, I mean, and as I said, I mean, when I first was a tennis player, I moved into basketball, and the reason why I stick to basketball more, it was because you have a team. You have a role in the team, you're part of a team, and you show up for each other, right? And when I had to stop playing at 28, first I was very relieved because I was sick and tired of training once or twice a day and not having any weekends. Not I've I've never done anything in my whole life than just training for basketball. And so I was super happy to not have to have my weekends and to be able to go out and to be able to do to do lots of stuff. But after one year, it really hit me how much I missed that team and how much I missed being part of something. I needed to find new people almost, like literally. I needed to go out, and then and it was never really like you're you're you were part of something as big as as a team. And you mentioned the word belonging, and I always talk about aspirations, which is the the layer that is just beneath wanting to be healthy and happy. If you translate healthy and happiness into something more concrete, then you come with these aspirations. And one of those is definitely belonging. If you feel part of a group, you feel healthier, or if you want to feel healthier, you want to be part of a group. So those are the aspirations, and belonging is definitely a very important one. And one of the things that we see more and more is we all we we both go to a lot of events, and in the recent two, three years, what you see more and more is these gatherings just outside the events in the morning or in the evening where people get together just to go running together. So sometimes it's an official part of the program, sometimes it's not an official part of the program, people just meet up. Sometimes I once had it was I think somewhere in the Saudi Arabia, where there was somebody on stage saying, like, you know what? Um tonight I'll be running, I'll do a quick run in this area. It's if anybody wants to join me, please join. And there were 200 people that showed up. 200 people, it was crazy. I mean, people wanted to, I mean, almost nobody came to the official events, or at least they were ha half of the people there, specifically because they all wanted to go hang out. Running in Saudi Arabia is is, I mean, when it's 40 degrees outside, it's uh it's kind of a crazy idea.

Speaker 4 20:44

Yeah.

Speaker 20:45

But still almost 200 people went there just to run with him because it was a great keynote speaker. The the guy the guy is amazing. But doing that and having such attraction is it tells you something about people wanting to belong, and sports is a great mean of doing that.

Speaker 2 20:59

Yeah. And I think this really matters because loneliness and social isolation, I mean, are now recognized as major public health issues, right? So if we can create those communities and those those spaces as informal, let's say prevention and socialization and and and this is really prevention because this this this is a healthcare problem. So if we can create those uh spin space this prevention communities or infrastructure, I mean, I welcome this more than anything.

Speaker 21:27

Yeah, definitely. And I think we need to learn from that and maybe copy some things when we when we want to do you know stuff related to health. If we're working in healthcare, I think we need to find some inspiration from that and try to apply it. Let's let's see how it goes because we we always make things too a little bit too serious in healthcare and and sports is it's not always that serious. I mean, and one of one of the things that we saw in in recent two years as well is the sports festivals. It's almost like a HYROX is that as well. But I mean a sports festival is like it is not a festival with sports activities because that is what you've seen as well. So the the coach. Chillas have fitness centers, and the Tomorrowland has a fitness center, and all more and more fitness and meditation activities are present at these festivals. But I'm really talking about festivals that are dedicated, like you have a lineup of musicians here, you have a lineup of sports classes and sports sessions. This is one of the things that we've seen happening in the past two years that probably will grow a little bit more as well, because it's an extension of the running clubs, as you say, but a bit more broader and cooler, and you travel to a place to actually uh to actually do that.

Speaker 2 22:32

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we we we see, sorry, just to add into this, because you see, like right now, HYROX is what everyone has been talking about, but it it has also happened with Peloton, that is like this this bike that the static bike that you have at home, and then it also becomes a community because you you follow your trainers. You also have this with marathons, with ultras, uh with Ironman's. Um I mean some it I know you're you're moving more into like the race and the community or the the experience around it.

Speaker 4 23:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 23:02

And and I think it's slowly moving there uh with HYROX coming into the picture. Yeah.

unknown 23:08

Yeah.

Speaker 23:08

Well, this this hierarchies run clubs, there's trail crews, there's rocket sports, there's surf groups that uh I mean we have here in Belgium, even if it's not really surf type of weather, but we have a group of women, 40 women, that uh meet every time the wind the winter to surf. And so you have all these things. Um thermal baiting has become a social you know activity, social.

Speaker 2 23:29

And then ice bathing as well. Yeah.

Speaker 23:31

Ice baiting as well. Um so everything it's it's it's packaged as something uh social. And even the the the gyms in general who you know you go to a gym and you you do it, you do exercises by yourself. There's some groups classes, right? That that's been around for for quite a while. But I've what I've noticed and what I've read left and right is that more and more fitness centers and gyms, they are thinking about how can we turn this into something more of a social ritual. It it sounds philosophical, but in instead of just going there by yourself when it suits you and just take some weights and do some exercise or sit on a treadmill or whatever, it's really how can we change it, not just with a groups class, but really thinking about how can we change it into something more of a social ritual, not just a training, which I think is an interesting challenge. But it's also the reason why we see social clubs linked to gyms, why we see gyms linked to social clips, or even co-working places have gyms now. Well, my co-working place has a gym, and in that gym there are people that are organizing stuff for each other. I was even thinking about, you know, having this Healthusiasm workout or whatever, uh the one that I'm always doing. But it's it's it has really this this this ritual, social ritual in the gym itself to make it less uh individual.

Speaker 2 24:47

I I love that we're seeing this trend because to me what it sounds like is how can we make this inclusive, safe in a way and sustainable, right? And community driven. Um, especially if if you look at spaces like gyms. I I even though I do a lot of sports, I I'm still intimidated by the gym because I see these people that know how to use all these crazy machines, and I'm like, oh, I don't know how this works. And and maybe I just like stick to what I know. But it's also demystifying a little bit the the spaces and trying to make people feel more comfortable from an inclusion perspective. And I think this is really important as you know, well, we see an aging population, and I hate to bring this back into what we always talk about, but we see an aging population, we see uh conversations on menopause and perimenopause, we see, you know, GLP people being GLP1s coming into picture, absolutely. So I think people are developing this consciousness and this awareness of like, okay, sports need it needs to come. The question is how does does it happen? And this festival, this social approach, it just makes it a lot more accessible. And I see that also at the gym, but the cat the kind of people that are now showing up, and even in classes and in the communities, are a lot of people that are like, Oh, it's my first run, or I just started running a couple of weeks ago, or it's I'm going to do my first HYROX or my first half marathon. And I'm like, wow, this is it's really impressive and really inspiring.

Speaker 26:13

Yeah. Talking about the GLP ones, because I I mean there's there's a lot of things happening in in the gyms and around sports in general as well. I read an article that that that was called a bit cheesy, but GLP economy. But it was more related to the fact that I mean, we all know that if you take GLP ones, if if if you don't work out enough, if you don't eat enough uh proteins, you might lose your muscle, you might lose your uh your body composure uh in in general, even. And so we see more and more in the states, well, first gyms that add physicians who pro who provide GLP1 or couldn't prescribe uh GLP ones. Uh but then the gym offers an entire package, nutrition and exercise to make sure that people are uh you know aware of what they should be doing when uh taking GLP one. And in the States we're talking 12 to 13 percent of the population, which is gigantic, right? In in Europe it's four to five at this point, it will grow massively. But if all these people need to go to a gym or at least do some exercise, uh there is some very huge change and potential that we will probably see inside of gyms or inside of groups or in running classes or whatever you might have. Maybe we'll have GLP1 groups or GLP1 type of um you know, gatherings, whatever it may be, but because we're at the very beginning of that, right? I mean Europe it's four or five percent, states twelve percent, and it will probably go up to twenty-thirty percent, maybe. Uh because that is what they expect in the foods. If you look at the I I saw a trend report by Food Dive that said they expect that one in three food products that will be sold will be dedicated to you to GLP1 or people that are on a GLP one at some point in their life. So so if we're talking that, if if this is the trend for food, you can expect something similar for Jim as well, because you know, moving and working on your muscle maintenance is uh as important, probably or definitely, I suppose. So I see a lot of things in sports probably changing in that regard as well.

Speaker 2 28:16

Yeah, I always I I I realize, especially with the conversation around GLP, GLP1s and and critical weight loss, is that we're actually actually having this conversation of uh shifting from weight to function, right? Because for for many decades, obesity management was really focused on body mass index, on body weight, on calorie counting. And now that GLPM, GLP1 is coming into the picture, the conversation is increasingly moving towards muscle mass, muscle quality, strength, physical function, metabolic health. So the question is really becoming it's not about like how much do you weight or how much weight have you lost, but it's how strong and how healthy are you? And we know that muscle is actually a key predictive of longevity. There is a landmark study, it's called Pure, that followed roughly 140,000 adults across 17 countries. And researchers found that the grip strength actually predicted an all-cause mortality better than blood pressure. And this really surprised a lot of doctors because for every five kilo decrease in grip strength, it was associated with 16% higher risk of death. And by the way, when I say this grip strength, it's really like strength of holding things, right? 17% higher cardiovascular mortality, 70% non-cardiovascular mortality, 9% risk higher of stroke. So for some doctors, grip strength is actually becoming a new vital sign.

Speaker 1 29:43

Yeah. Have you done it?

Speaker 2 29:44

And that's why we No, I haven't done it. But but I mean for for HIROX, and I'm sorry to keep coming back to this. One of the stations is walking, holding weights. And I usually do this with two 24 kettlebells in well, one in each hand, right? And you have to 24 kilos? Yeah. And I walk with two of them. Yeah, and the idea is that you're not going to be able to do that. So that's probably your own body weight that you're weighing. Yeah, it it's exactly my body weight. What? And I do it with gloves because I have princess hands, but but uh this is the thing that is you know functional fitness that that I always think like when will I use this? And then if I go to the grocery shopping, to the groceries and I am shopping, I can carry all my groceries. And I always think like, yeah, HYROX is giving me this, HYROX training. So the muscle is not just for the movement, but it's it's it's healthy muscle because it also it's helping me function every day, but is improving my insulin resistance and sensitivity, is storing glucose, is regulating my inflammation, protecting bone density is also super important. It really supports my immune function. So it's really becoming it's really for me, and and when we look into muscle as metabolic tissue and as kind of health, is is that losing most muscle doesn't simply mean becoming weaker, but it's also it's improving and sorry, it's it's meaning that it you become less metabolically healthy if you have less muscle. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 31:11

It's funny how you started the podcast by saying I couldn't carry my own boxes and now you casually slipped in, like very casually. 224s.

Speaker 1 31:19

I walk around with 224s, so like like you you didn't even add the kilograms, not to brag, it just like it's it's casual for me. It's like 224s, you know, whatever.

Speaker 2 31:29

It's uh it's very interesting because I'm I'm quite petite, like I'm 160 and I'm weight I'm weighed 50 kilo. And all my life I had this this story of oh, she's so frail, she's so petite, she cannot carry all this. And then I see myself competing and carrying this, and you know, doing lunges with like 20 kilo on my back, and I can do it. And mentally that has also brought a lot of positive impact into my life. And I see this also with people around me who are doing sports, that it changes the way you see yourself and how you also show up in the world in a way. So, yeah, and I want to move into 32 so 32 uh kilo kettlebells. I think I can do it, but I need proper shoes that do not sink, and I need to train a bit more. But it's it's progress, you know.

Speaker 32:18

Yeah, I never I never worked with heavy weights, even I think the the heaviest kettlebell that I work with is I think it's 12, and I hardly ever use it because I I've always worked on explosivity, so it like the very quick movements and a very slow uh going back. But I never worked with heavy. It was always pretty strange in the in the gym when I was standing next to these big muscle, you know, muscled up guys, and I was pretty sporty, so I was I mean, I you could see my muscles pretty easily. And I was worried I I was working out with you know these these weights that was one fourth or one-fifth of what they were using, and I was all looking at me, how would you do this? But I it's it's not always about the weight, it's about how you use the weight as well and what you want to achieve with it, right?

Speaker 4 33:01

So Absolutely.

Speaker 33:02

Anyways, from from GLP1, we can go two ways, I think. We could we can go more into the medical and longevity, or we could stay with the vanity metrics uh 202 times 24 as you wish. So where do you want to go?

Speaker 2 33:17

Let's go into longevity. I I I I like the longevity take a lot more.

Speaker 33:22

Okay, okay, we'll come back to the to the metrics then. Any particular thing you've seen in longevity or uh in that regard?

Speaker 2 33:29

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think uh maybe to to connect it nicely is that healthcare and fitness they're they're catching up with each other, right? Because fitness has always talked about like strength and how much can you lift, and it became more of like may perhaps what you mentioned briefly earlier is that um a bit more into the the vanity side, not the functional side. But we see the the functional fitness now coming together and bringing these two concepts. So it's really treating strength and endurance in the long term as as preventative medicine. So we see that now the doctors are prescribing sports and and I like it that it's not go on run or go and lift weights, but go and do yoga for flexibility, go and do bar to really absolutely. So it is increasingly being recommended for healthy aging, diabetes prevention, osteoporosis, cancer recovery, reducing falls. I think this is a case that I see very often, even on social media, which is really interesting. And overall, what we see on on the aging population is just preserving independence.

unknown 34:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2 34:38

I don't know if you know, but like World Health Organization and general most clinical guidelines now recommend at least to have two muscle strengthening sessions per week alongside with aerobic activities. And this wasn't always the case.

Speaker 1 34:52

And it kind of makes sense.

Speaker 2 34:54

I think I think we're we're really focusing more on the on preventative medicine, on on strengths specifically.

Speaker 35:01

Yeah. I I wrote the first, so I have two articles on on my website and in my book as well. I I speak about it. Medical gyms, I call them. The first one I did in 2022, I think, or something. But it's really the gym as a clinic, it's about fitness as medicine, it's about you know health support hubs that basically become um the gyms. Because if you look at in the 80s, you know, it was about fitness in a sense, you know, the Jane Fonda and so forth. It was really about fitness building muscle. And then it kind of moved more into the wellness type of space, where it was it was about mental, but it was about you know feeling good. It was about you know those kind of words that were thrown around. Right now we see more and more healthness. I mean, this funnily enough, there's a a gym in Belgium which is called Gyms, but it written by the Jay, and they actually promote everything. They say we moved away from wellness and fitness, we are actually focused on healthness. This is the era of healthness. Uh funnily enough, Techno Gym last year as well did a launch of we are moving away from fitness and wellness, we are becoming a healthness company with AI assessment, with precision training, really to make sure that we have this, what they call in the future clinicalized personalization for training. And so really moving into that space where it is about diagnostics, it's about coaching, it's about recovery, which it's another topic we can talk about. It's about nutrition, and often it's even about you know care pathways, saying like where do we fit the gym and working out and sports into it? And I was at WHX Tech in September last year in Dubai, and also I think in the Global Health Week in Abu Dhabi, there was Technogym was present in a purely healthcare-oriented event. And they were one of the first ones to be there ever. And I think what they really sold was the impact of working out on healthcare. And I think that's a very good idea and good evolution to see finally Technogym, who's who's, if you're not familiar with Techno Gym, is it's the one that sells the you know, the treadmills and so forth to gyms. Or you could buy them yourself in your home, but they're pretty expensive. And they're really moving into the healthcare space, like not just a small bit, but heavily.

Speaker 2 37:18

Yeah, I think this this really we see we see health and fitness as not longer like an anti-niche, an anti-aging niche, right? We start to see, I mean, then the new goal is not to live up to 100 because I think most of us will reach quite an advanced age, but it's actually reaching 80, 90, or 100 while remaining functional and independent, right? In a McKinsey report, 60% of consumers actually say that healthy aging is a top priority for them. And we see this also from the awareness of younger generations adopting longevity habits much more earlier than previous generations. So we're no longer, let's say, preparing for retirement, but we're really preparing for for healthy aging. And I liked it that that you also mentioned e uh technog because I see this with e-Gym, which is also smart training and prevention, or Hinge Health, uh, which is a digital MSK care. And they're building this concept around maintaining muscle, uh, but also preventative health interventions and following of everything is is based on data, right? And biomarkers and how much weight you're lifting and the quality of the movement and so on. So I I think that longevity is really one of the strongest trends that we see that people are very quickly adopting. And we're moving personally that I like. Longevity, perhaps a couple of years ago was really about supplements and cryotherapy and biohacking and this crazy billionaires putting a lot of money, uh, like Brian Johnson, into staying healthy. And right now it actually means prevention, doing the right movement, stress management, metabolic health, sleeping, muscle building. So it's it's things that it simplifies it, but it's really moving consumers into remaining healthy, energetic, and and independent.

Speaker 39:05

So yeah. And I think it it it's a good way to move forward. And you see, it's what you you mentioned a couple of them, but there's more this Equinox, this Love.Life, this Monarch Athletic Club, and like any decent fitness or gym uh company is moving into that direction. And it will probably move even more into the medical side of things. We've seen it in the past. I think CrossFit was one of the first ones with precision care, which is uh it was a link with physicians. They also still have the CrossFit Medical Society that explains how CrossFit has an impact on health. The ex-founder of CrossFit has started MetFix, it's actually a way where you can, through exercise, have an impact on your on your metabolic health. It's also very, very much tied to the medical uh community. So I think they were a little bit early in the stage. I think right now we see focus on longevity, which is a bit softer than medical, but we probably will move into that medical sphere sooner or later or later. But in any way. I was about to go say the exact same thing.

Speaker 2 40:06

Yeah, okay, okay, then then you go, you go.

Speaker 40:08

No, no, no. I was I was trying to make it rich even because what it's it's not just aura and and whoop and so forth, because what we've seen is that in gyms the the metrics that are being measured are evolving. It's no longer just you know your BMI, you mentioned it already before. It's not body composition. It it really moves into what is your wellness age, or what is your your real age, or what is your biological age, or what is your cardio age, and all these things are really replacing the usual suspects that we used to have in uh and and and gyms. And exactly as you said, this trend is not only in the gyms, but it's also present with the whoops, the auras, the garments, the ultra humans that are coming up and so forth.

Speaker 2 40:49

Yeah, the Eight Sleeps, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 40:51

Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 2 40:53

No, I just I I wanted to say, I mean, it also it it's like integrating this into our our daily lives and also connecting into into other ecosystems. So, or for example, I recently got the Gen Gen 4, and now of course I have access to a couple of new features. And with the Gen 4, it's it's asking me if I can if I want to connect uh my EH so I can get personalized support from a physician. And I had read about this feature, but having the opportunity to do it, of course, I can do it. Was it in Europe you can do this? No, no, no, no, because it's uh I live in Germany. So but it's the the app itself, yeah, yeah. The app itself is allowing me, it's offering me the option to do this. And honestly, if I if I could, I would I would give it a shot just out of curiosity to see what happened. But yeah, I mean that what we see is that we're having coaching behavior pretty much in every single sphere on the wearable side. So on Aura is mostly sleep and readiness, and the whoop is recovery and strain. On Garmin is performance, VO2 max. The Apple Watch is mostly health monitoring. We also have levels uh with the continuous glucose monitoring for glucose, and we have Eight Sleep that is also doing sleep optimization. So I I think technology is also making longevity measurable rather than theoretical, and also optimizing fitness into small stackable habits that people can can quickly or easily change, right?

Speaker 42:22

Yeah, and I think it's we went from you know one biomarker, the number of steps that we put that we take every day, to right now, I mean, every new, you know, device that comes onto the market has between 60 to 80 different biomarkers that are measured. But what do you do with these biomarkers, of course? And and what we see more and more is that these biomarkers are being translated into tangible, sometimes scores, because like the energy score and the recovery score, like you mentioned. But more and more it is it is turning into, with AI, of course, into a coach where you get very concrete advice to related to you know what you should be doing with that. If you view two max is too low, or if you see that you slept uh in in a certain way, then it will adapt your training or your advice for that specific day. It really becomes less and less about the biomarkers. I mean, it's it's fancy to say we have 60, 80, 100 biomarkers, but it really becomes about you know the relationship that you have with that AI coach or that advice piece that that is in inside these whoops, these auras, these garments, ultra humans, and so forth. I think that is a big change that we are seeing, and it will resonate throughout every sport, pretty much, pretty sure.

Speaker 2 43:30

Yeah. And what I'm really looking forward to is as the next challenge for wearables is integration. Because we're trusting the wearables. We trust the data that that we receive and the insights that we have. But healthcare, I think, still doesn't do it yet quite well. I mean, doctors still struggle to use the wearable data because data qualities is very it's varies. Systems don't integrate well with AHRs. Let's see how this integration with Aura would work. Uh, I will do a little bit. Of research into that. But in general, clinical validation to a certain extent is inconsistent or is perceived inconsistent as inconsistent by the medical community. So I think in the next couple of years we'll be, will not be about collecting more data because the data is there, but it's about making wearable data actually clinically actionable on how they can really have an impact within the official healthcare system and not this meta layer that we're creating with wearables and with fitness and with longevity that sometimes is not directly tied into our healthcare systems, unfortunately.

Speaker 44:35

Yeah, and I think the good thing is that in the States we've seen quite some integrations right now. So Validic is an aggregator and they're integrating in, I think, Oracle Health or the other big one, Epic. But more and more Aura Whoop have announced integrations into medical dossiers or making sure that the data is integrated. Now, it kind of makes sense. I've been saying this for years, because there's more health data outside of the healthcare system that there is actually inside of the healthcare system. And I'm not talking about a slightly more, but like tenfold or thousandfold more, probably. And obviously, the the the the remark we always hear then is yeah, it's not labeled, it's not, we're not sure about the quality, we're not sure about when it is captured, we're not sure about the device, whether it was wearing correctly, and so forth. And that's totally true in many ways. But those things are one, definitely improving. It's a they're evolving. So the quality of the data is definitely gonna be growing and better in the next coming years more and more. And the fact that there's already tenfold, a thousandfold, probably maybe a millionfold uh type of number of data outside of the healthcare system, the real question for healthcare really becomes what do you do with it? And the biggest issue is definitely physicians right now have not been trained on these longitudinal data and this mass of data. They have this one particular measurement that they're doing, and they every decision is based on that one particular measurement. So, what do you do with all these longitudinal data then? Which is pretty, pretty difficult. But at the same time, it it is probably the biggest opportunity as well if you have that much data and people that actually want to do something with it and they are looking for answers about it, because you and me, we've probably been gathering data for 10 10 years. In the beginning was like fun, and then it becomes like very confusing because you want to know more about it. And we're we're entering in that stage, definitely with with AI, where we expect answers and insights real quick. And this AI health coaching thing is is gonna be so very much important and so very much impactful, not just on humans, but on the healthcare sector as well. Because the main question is not how can a physician deal with these longitudinal data, the question is how can you even be part of the discussion that is happening or that will be happening between an AI coach and that person that has all these 60, 80, 100 biomarkers that are evaluated every day. So it there's a lot of things happening, and it's driven by sports and gyms and fitness and so forth, because people are in that space quite a bit. And there's a lot of things that are technologies that are being uh being shaped right there.

Speaker 2 47:07

I I love that you say this because what makes me what I start to think then is like sports is ultimately also enabling personalized medicine, right? Because we're moving from very generic training plans to data-driven adaptation. And I say this not just from the sports perspective, but also from a care perspective, because this mirrors exactly what healthcare wants to go, and I think where we all want it to go, which is personalized, continuous monitoring, predictive with earlier intervention. Um, and we see that in in the fitness landscape, it's often implemented faster because it's the consumer feedback loop is just shorter. And I love AI, AI coaching, it has its pros and cons. I know this, but it's becoming a major category, right? Like Strava is offering Aruna. I don't know if you've heard about this, but Runa is like a running app AI powered that is providing large social fitness platform with personalized AI generated running plans and coaching for people that want to learn how to run their first 5k in a couple of weeks, or people that want to prepare for a half marathon or 10k or a full marathon. All AI driven, all with the data from the wearables. So, and I mean Whoop is doing the same with selling recovery strength coaching through the subscription, or I selling readiness, sleep and stress management through the subscription as well with the insights. And I think that the big opportunity that I see for healthcare is that using this fourth stack behavior to support chronic disease prevention, rehab adherence, mental health monitoring, cardiometabolic risk reduction, and in general aging, because yeah, the despite the consumer fitness data is not always clinically validated, the boundary between wellness claims and medical claims is being contested very often. Especially if we have our data. I mean, I I was recently reading an article of a of a journalist that exported other data. I cannot remember which wearable it was, but I think it was Garmin or or Aura and took all the data and then fed it to Claude and then asked Claude to analyze all the trends of like the last year, and then got really, really comprehensive feedback completely personalized based on the biomarkers and the data. So it it's it's really interesting to see how people are taking into their own hands, but also how there is already a visible um point in regulatory scrutiny around some of the the wearable features. But yeah, let's see. Is sports tech becoming the testing ground for personalized healthcare?

Speaker 49:39

It is it is. I mean, I have a I have a keynote that I've uh I th I think I brought it the first time on stage and it's called in two to 2021, 22 as well. It's called personal science. And it's exactly the story that you just brought. And I use the running the people that run marathons and so forth as the example or the the like really the the best example for that. Because and I do this during my keynotes, my general keynotes as well, is that I always ask people who runs a marathon, and then I'm pretty sure that every single person in the room does it entirely or exactly differently. Because the the way that they train, the way that they sleep, the way that they eat, the shoes that they're wearing, the clothing that they're wearing, the timing of their training, what they eat before, what they eat during the race, how much they lose salt or sure or sugar, whatever during the race, whatsoever, running has become such a personal science, thanks to all of these devices, thanks to all of these AI coaches in the meantime, that it is it has really changed the expectation of people in such a way that even if healthcare doesn't evolve the way that you you say it should be or could be, people will demand it because the entire life is will be personal science. We we no longer will accept, if you will, the average study says that on 50,000 people, the average patient does this and this and that. No. We really want to have as as much as possible data and insights into our own personal health. And N-of-1, we always say personalized medication, personalized health treatments, or health management, even will have to become the norm because the the whole world will become N-of-1. So I've I fully I'm f I am fully in line with you in in that regard, and personal science will be the the the core behind it. And I think there's one more trend uh before we close out the session that I want to share. Maybe you have one more two one one more two. Do you still have one?

Speaker 2 51:31

No, I'm I'm good with my trends, so all yours.

Speaker 51:35

Okay. Because I think we kind of touched upon it, and you probably will say, ah, yeah. It's uh it's the fact that sports, fitness, exercising is moving away from the gym itself, and it's moving into the homes, the hotels, the retail, basically the daily life infrastructure is um the cities. I mean, more and more what we see is that being able to exercise while traveling, being able to being able to exercise in the city if you live in a city, being able to exercise at home. You see, Lululemon, their flagship store, has a possibility to exercise in their in their store. Airports, you have enough more and more gyms that are moving into airports while the lounge is done. So we see exercising as being part of daily life infrastructure more and more, where it really is becoming part of life more than more than ever. I think that was the one trend that I that we still needed to uh touch upon.

Speaker 2 52:30

I love it. I love it. And I I I I don't know if you've seen it, but Strava is uh releasing um like a year in sport and they have it as studies and and basically share all the information. And for 2025, they actually saw a spike in running, like running outdoors, because you can also check indoor running or outdoor running, and they saw a significant increase in, I don't remember the number, but they saw significant screen is increase in running outdoors. Um and we also see that race participation also reached record levels with one in three Gen Z signing up in 2025 for their first race ever. So it's I think yeah, being outdoors and traveling and and taking part of sports outside the gym. Like the gym is not necessary. You can also exercise at home, you can just go out and run and you can find the community.

Speaker 53:20

Yeah. Yeah, but I think and Alin Aline mentioned it last time that Barcelona now has this sports prescription with 814 different uh or 800 about uh activities. So it's it's it's part of the medical, it's part of daily life. They they they really want it to be uh to to to have it integrated in uh in your life, whether it's at your home, even cars. I mean, Jaguar has this fun feature now that if in some cars that it uh tricks your brain into moving your your butt, if you will. Um so you actually do some exercises while you're sitting in in in in the in in the car. So it's it's basically pretty much everywhere. There's tourism, there's uh there's there's a lot of uh green spaces, workout spaces, ergonomic design at work, in co-working spaces, um social clips, whatever. It's really becoming part of daily.

Speaker 2 54:09

I'm a big fan of that, of of sports becoming social medicine in a way, or like part of our social life.

Speaker 54:16

Well, we kind of have to because we we otherwise we won't be moving anything in anything anymore, and never anymore, right? Because we used to hunt for food. Right now, food is delivered to our door. We used to go to work, right now we work from home. So we kind of need to do a lot of stuff to get back a little bit. Uh very good. Thank you for this discussion. I think I I still had this one kind of wrap-up because I I felt where this was going to. Um and when I asked AI on how to how to kind of summarize where sports is going, what I really liked it is that it came up with the word self-directed health stack. So it's basically what it says is that we are going to a place where people are more and more running their own health. Instead of just receiving it from an institution or a provider, we can do it ourselves. And I think the way that we go about sports and the way that it is, I mean, everything that we talked about, let me really grab my my list of trends here. The Federal, it's GLP1 is becoming a full echo care ecosystem. Gyms are evolving into medical gyms. Measurements is moving from pure vanitary metrics to really clinical proof and coaching. We're talking about community, we're talking about personalized, maybe more gentle approaches of sports where it's not only about performance, but also about, you know, just exercising, exercising and being together. It's moving into the homes, the hotel, the retail, daily life infrastructure. It's part of your identity, it's uh part of all the tools that we're using every day. And it's becoming more and more medicalized. Well, all of that kind of hints to the fact that the way that health sports is moving is hopefully the way that healthcare or caring for your health will move as well. Having all these elements together the measurement, the management, the building, the recovery, the belonging, all of that should be part of healthcare as well. So it's a very good example of where healthcare could be going. And let's hope that it will be going into that direction.

Speaker 2 56:21

Absolutely. It's on us also to push this as a part of the industry, as active people, and also as fellow sports lovers.

Speaker 56:29

Indeed. Well, thank you, and for this discussion. Time to wrap up the podcast. And thank you for listening. If you like the show, hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform and do give them some like. I've noticed that we have only five stars out of five on every platform, so that's a good thing, but keep them coming because it helps the algorithm, of course. My name is Christophe Jauquet. I work here together with Nia Escobar Kuller, and we are part of the Healthusiasm panel. I would love to see you again very soon for some more Healthusiasm Ciao.