%20(2000%20x%202000%20px)%20(2).png)
The Fitness Disruption Podcast with Dr. Ted Vickey
The Disruptive Fitness Podcast is a podcast for personal trainers who want to grow their business and work smarter, not harder, by using technology.
The guests will be my industry friends from my White House days, the people you need to know.
The Fitness Disruption Podcast with Dr. Ted Vickey
Reimagining Fitness: Inclusivity and Technology with JC Lippold
What does it really mean to believe in something, whether it's religion, sports, or even your fitness journey? Today, we sit down with the inspiring JC Lippold, a nationally renowned teacher of movement and mindset, to explore his fascinating transition from theology to fitness. JC shares his unique perspective on theology as an act of belief and how this shapes his holistic approach to wellness. We'll discuss the limitations of current fitness tech like Fitbit and Whoop and advocate for tools that truly embrace the individuality of each fitness journey. JC also shares his insights on setting personalized fitness goals and reflects on his experience with Fitbit’s social movement program, aimed at fostering community among fitness newcomers.
But that’s not all. We break down the barriers of inclusivity and representation in the fitness industry, challenging the misconception that one needs to be in peak physical condition to be a fitness professional. JC argues that true fitness is a mindset, not a look, and highlights how societal standards often create unnecessary barriers. We also redefine fitness as personal movement and discuss how technology can enhance human connection rather than replace it. Through JC's passion projects such as the 5K Everyday Conversations, discover how technology can foster supportive communities, especially during challenging times like COVID-19. Join us for a conversation that reimagines fitness as inclusive, personal, and deeply connected to our beliefs.
Welcome to the Fitness Disruption Podcast with Dr Ted Vicki. From presidential push-ups to wearable wonders and award-winning academics, he's been called the most connected man in fitness. We will explore the intersection of fitness and technology, from cutting-edge apps to the latest in powerful prompts. This is your go-to source for staying ahead of the fitness tech curve. Spend just 30 minutes with us and we guarantee you'll learn something new, no matter if you're a new personal trainer or an established fitness brand. Ted and his guests have insights and tips for you to use today. Ready to be disruptive, it's time for the Fitness Disruption Podcast. Here's your host, dr Ted Vicki.
Speaker 2:Thanks for joining this week's Disruptive Podcast. I am with my new friend, jc Lippold. Let me tell you a little bit about JC. He's been around for a while. I'm amazed we haven't met until now, but JC likes to think in his mother's footsteps as a professional homemaker holding space for others as a nationally renowned teacher of movement and mindset. Born in Brooklyn Center, minnesota, j Minnesota, jc entered the world as a highly emotional, unathletic child with little interest in competition. Through trials and tribulations, miles runs and middle school gym class, jc started to question the rationale behind our culture's use of physical experience that leaves most of us feeling less than enough. I think this is a great topic that we can talk about, especially now with a lot of things that are happening with technology. And, jason, you start off your college education with an undergraduate in theology, so tell us how you went from theology into the fitness wellness space.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, ted, great to be conversing with you today. You know, as I love to say, I have a sociologically lensed theology background. So what I mean when I say that is everybody believes in something. Now again, often we think about theology as religion, but I look at theology as the act of believing in stuff, whether that be sure, god or family or nation, but also the Minnesota Twins or fitness, or rest, or peace or nature. So I've always been someone who looks at what moves human beings and if we can focus and tap into that ability to believe in that thing that lights us up, that motivates us, all of a sudden we can embed our species, whether that be in a personal or a corporate way.
Speaker 2:My first question I ask everybody is in the fitness industry. If there's one piece of technology you wish you had today, wave your magic wand. Jc's new fitness technology of the month. What would it be?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and this is going to be a nuanced answer, ted. So you know I've been in the support world of the Fitbits and the whoops. Like I love information. Information is power, but the technology that I would love to see is technology that doesn't have the yellow, red, green responses to it. So again, we look at a whoop or we look at a 10,000 step goal and all of a sudden people go this is what is good and this is what is bad, this is what enough and this is what's not enough, and of course, we know that it's never that simple. So I would love technology that offers a little bit more messiness, a little bit more gray.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting that you brought up the 10,000 steps. You know there's no scientific basis around that 10,000 steps, which is always kind of interesting. I think about my dad, 89 years old. If a trainer told him to walk 10,000 steps as an 89er, he couldn't do it. So we're already putting barriers in front of people to reach their health and fitness goals by not taking the time to talk to them and understand.
Speaker 2:So you know, with fitbit, one of the things I love to do was I would do a one week baseline and find out that my dad took 2500 steps a week. Well, now I have that information that I can use to go up just five percent, ten percent, yes, and that was a little bit about what it was like working with Fitbit and Whoop. You know those are the two big ones we hear in the industry and everyone thinks, oh, that must have been a great job. But you know, like me, everyone says, oh, working at the White House must have been great. Yeah, it was great, but there were also stresses. It wasn't always as great as it sounds. So share some information about that and what really motivates you today? What's your passion?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that. So, Ted, I can answer both those questions in the same breath. What motivates me is getting people to a place where they go. Ah, I now understanding my metrics. Back to my theology days. I always talk about cultural linguistic interpretation or cultural linguistic communication, which means we are always communicating to a specific group of people at a specific time to accomplish a specific goal. I would say the goal of fitness and wellness should be to empower people to live a better life. And most of the time, right now, what do we do? We set bars so high we put fitness and wellness on the high shelf. That keeps people away from going. Well, it'd be great to be in that world, but I'm not good enough to even be fit or well, so I'm not going to even start the game. So to your question about Fitbit.
Speaker 3:Fitbit reached out to me in 2006. They were starting this social movement program called Fitbit Local. In essence, what they were doing was they were looking at their big markets across the United States and saying, wow, people are buying our product, the physical Fitbit product, and they are going. I have a conversation internally that I've never had before. These were people who were never welcomed outwardly within the fitness conversation before, but they bought a Fitbit. They're like, wow, I just moved a thousand steps for the first time. I, just to your point, I just increased my step output by 5%, 10%, and they were wanting to have conversations with other people. So Fitbit said what if we connect people who are having these conversations independently to be able to be in space with each other? And all of a sudden it was a new vibration of a quote, quote fitness class.
Speaker 3:Now, I'll tell you, they launched this program in 12 cities Minneapolis, st Paul, where I'm located, was the smallest population-wise, but I'll tell you, we became the most successful, meaning we had the most attendance, most consistent community that would show up at these monthly events that I would lead.
Speaker 3:Because what we were doing was we were creating a space where the prerequisite was not a certain level of fitness or a certain desire to do a certain modality of movement, but what we were creating was a space where people would encounter people that they did not know yet, in a space where they could stir up connection through movement. And literally, fitbit Local. They ended the program once Google acquired them, but we kept going for years past because these people wanted to be in a space where movement was conducive with connection and connection was conducive with movement and the prerequisite was, I mean, that first event we had people who had Olympic medals and people who were homeless, people who had walkers and people who had strollers. People of all demographics were showing up, because the prerequisite wasn't any line of fitness metric, but was a metric of humanity. If I was human and I desired connection, I was welcome at this event and the event was conducive for them to be there.
Speaker 2:So the event was more of bringing people together, which I think we lost during the pandemic and we're seeing some of the after effects of that now. And the exercise the movement, was a secondary feature.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, and to the point. Like if we think pre-COVID, who felt safe walking into a gym, the answer isn't everybody. And if we go well, who's responsible for that and I always go well, it's, it's all systems, right. No one, no one person is responsible, but everybody has an impact. Ted, I'll tell you, I always use this image about what you know when, when, when I hold community movement events, I always compare it to to a wedding and I say nobody goes to the wedding for the meal. Like, no one gets invited to a wedding and they go well, are you going to have chicken or are you going to have fish? But again, the meal is the nourishment in the event. The event is showing up for the people. Does that mean we don't enjoy the meal? No, the meal is great, the dancing is great, but the reason we are there is not for the meal or for the dance or the DJ. And that's exactly what these events were. The community is the reason. The movement is the thing that makes it into an event.
Speaker 2:You said something earlier and I thought of the imposter syndrome. I think a lot of us in the fitness industry suffer from the imposter syndrome. I think a lot. Some might even suffer from body dysmorphia and things like that, Not thinking that they're enough. So what would you tell your earlier self getting into this industry, or even somebody listening now when they say I'm not enough, I can't be a fitness professional because I don't look the part? What's?
Speaker 3:your answer. Oh, ted, I will tell you, I've spent my whole life attempting to be the antithesis to the. What is the prerequisite for being in the fitness industry? And I will tell you, I still have people who will walk up to me when I'm managing a fitness space or being an ambassador for a brand and they will say wow, I would love to do what you do, but I have to get in shape first. I have to lose the baby weight first. I have to X, y, z.
Speaker 3:And I always say this you know what, if I needed heart surgery, I would not ask my heart surgeon to see their heart records before they cut me open, because I don't care if they have a healthy heart, I care if they're good at doing heart surgery. And in the same way, we have limited like if we look at 90, I'm making up a number here, I would say at least 90%, and it's a lot higher than that probably of people who teach or hold space in facilitation of caring for people in the fitness space, all look relatively the same. And what does that mean, then, for who people think belongs in the space? I mean we could go ahead and say a fitness space that everybody's welcome. But if the people who are the stakeholders and the holders of the space don't look like me, don't relate to me, don't have a similar story to me, it's going to be harder for me to walk in. The amount of courage I'm going to need is going to be higher. So to walk in, the amount of courage I'm going to need is going to be higher. So, to the point, when people be like I don't feel enough in this space, I go. That makes a lot of sense Because at the end of the day, if we open up that conversation, very few people actually feel ever enough in this space. But the last thing I'll say ever enough in this space.
Speaker 3:But the last thing I'll say sports psychology 101, how do we be good at sports? It's getting to ready position first, which doesn't mean get better first, which doesn't mean get stronger first or get faster first. It means acknowledge what is available to you in this moment. Use that for the game you're trying to play. The Michael Jordans, the Serena Williams, the best athletes. Very rarely are they ever the strongest, fastest, hardest, deepest in the moment, but they are the most present present with their successes and their failures. You know, djokovic, I'm a high school tennis coach by trade. You know Djokovic just won the Olympics. Why Wasn't because he was the youngest fittest, fastest person. Because he was the youngest fittest, fastest person. He actually beat the youngest fittest fastest person in the gold medal match. Why Ready position? So that's what I would say. People's lack of enoughness is not born of themselves, but it's born of the society and the culture they live in.
Speaker 2:I wish I had met you before I moved to ireland. Uh, jc, because you know, there I'm the size of a linebacker and I like it. I mean, I don't want to be. My clothes are double x. I'm fine with that. Got on stage in ireland, I was given a talk and the irish as they as they are guy in the back room stood up and said why should I listen to you? You're not fit. Yeah, I thought I've got a chance here to really put a stake in the ground. I said well, you know, to me fitness is a mindset, it's not a look. And I said I guarantee you that people that have gone through treatments I was just put on medication. I gained 20 pounds, but I have an understanding that other people don't, and you know what I said that I got a standing ovation and the guy in the back room left and and it was so empowering and I don't wish that upon anybody because I think that's a lot of biggest fears. But we gotta get out of our own way sometimes, don't we?
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean, you just said it. Ted like people are hungry to have people like you stand on stage and, with love, with acknowledgement of the world in which we live, say what you said, because, at the end of the day, the answer isn't get rid of everybody who's teaching fitness and start over no, no, no, no, no. The answer is acknowledge why we are where we are and what we can do. I always joke whenever I'm on stage giving a keynote. You know, I always joke that Nike is going to sue me someday because I think they would make a ton more money if, rather than their slogan being just do it, if their slogan was do it, because that word just is spoken from an elite athlete mindset.
Speaker 3:It's like, you know, I was the kid who was standing on the three meter diving board as a little kid, deathly afraid to jump. But I looked down in the water and I saw all of the athletic, masculine, male, identifying humans who were already there saying hey, just jump, just jump. And I'm thinking this is not a just act. For me, this is a life or death, a validation or non-validation act. So again, we live in this world where it's just do it, where most people are like do, it is the invitation they need. And, ted, people like you standing on stage and saying, hey, what if we all did it in the way that we can do it? First of all, how much happier and more well would the world be. But also, how much more money would the fitness nutrition? Like would those worlds be? They would be sustainable because all of a sudden, people would see that fitness isn't for the few, but fitness is like bottled water, like we all need it. What's our access point?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I've often thought and I love your thoughts on this we're not very successful in the fitness industry if you look at numbers. We're in a time where we have to change the definition of fitness. Fitness is not going to a gym, fitness is taking that walk around the block. That's all you can do, and I think that you know. Going back to what we were talking about, the look of a fitness professional kind of does damage in some respects and it's people like you that are coming out and talking about it and making people feel comfortable being. Come as you are, come join the movement of just moving, whatever you can do. If you're an Olympic athlete, great, go out and run your personal best, but if you can only walk around the block, and that's your personal best good on you.
Speaker 3:It retrains the brain Like it's amazing. If we think that the movement, if we think that the way that we are being a human is not nourishing, guess what the body's not going to let it be nourished. But if all of a sudden, we start going again. We look at blue zones on this planet. The blue zones don't have the highest per capita gyms. What they have is they have people who are honoring their humanity, their movement, their nourishment, their cravings, and they're saying here's what's going to make me happy and whole and full in this moment.
Speaker 3:Because you just said it, I mean again, and I often get some raised shoulders when I say things like this, but whenever people are opening their gyms or whenever people are talking about the best practice in the fitness industry, I always go.
Speaker 3:Maybe we shouldn't be talking about best practices in an industry that isn't very successful because our best practices aren't getting us places.
Speaker 3:And again, another thing I say, like we look at COVID, when so many gyms were saying, hey, you need to let us open because people need us for their mental health. And I would lovingly say to my gym owner friends, I'm like I'm sorry, but people don't need your gym for their mental health. What they need is, they need community and movement, which they can get anywhere. What you're really saying is I'm going to go out of business if you don't let me open my doors, and that scares me because I care about my business, I care about my passion, and just think if, all of a sudden, we created a world where fitness and wellness professionals were supported for being experts and supporters and galvanizers of people's passion to be incredibly successfully human. All of a sudden, we would never have to worry about making our making our mortgage payment or, you know, replacing equipment in a gym, like we wouldn't be duct taping our trx straps. We'd be buying new ones yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Um, I I'm thinking it, yeah, and we're talking about this and talk about community and and there's this movement now to cat gbt and all these technologies. These technologies aren't going to replace the human side of what we need, but can it improve it? Can we get community on a Facebook group? Can we get community on a text thread? Is there a way that we can take what you do and adding a little technology to it, without not replacing the human at all, but adding technology to it? What do you think?
Speaker 3:1,000%. I mean, ted, we often think that simple sounding solutions to complex problems are the way to go, but in reality the world is complex, so trying to make it sound simple isn't the solution. I mean, technology is a tool. Right, a hammer, which is a tool, can build a house or can knock down a wall. It's what we do with the tool that shows its power. So again, I mean, I think we'll bring it up again. We think of the shutdowns and COVID.
Speaker 3:There are people who used technology to go oh my gosh. I mean, I'll tell you like I started a social movement group called 5K, everyday Conversations, where, again, the modality for, like the prerequisite to show up for all of these daily 5Ks, which we did over 1,000 days in a row, was you need to show up, willing to be in conversation with people you don't know yet. That's what I call strangers people you don't know yet. It wasn't a certain pace, so people would still say it's like oh, but I don't want to slow anybody down, I go. You can't slow anybody down because you're moving at the pace that allows the conversation to be the most valuable thing. Well, I'll tell you, ted, all of a sudden we couldn't even do in-person walks or runs anymore. So we went onto Facebook and we did a 50 hour conversation.
Speaker 3:I had people go onto Facebook, live on our Facebook group for a half an hour at a time. We had a hundred people. We had over 15,000 people viewing that 50 hour conversation because people would wake up at 2 AM and crave connection and conversation. We had people who would stay on for hours. We had people who would stay on for hours. We had people who would come on for a couple of minutes.
Speaker 3:We had people from all over the world who were holding space and that connection was all around the idea of movement. People talked about what it felt like to move in a time when they couldn't move in the way that they could move in the way they could move normally. And I'll tell you, people are like this is the most connected I've ever felt to people before. So again to the point like this idea of technology bad, like like it's going to replace us, or like no technology good, it should replace us. It's like no. Or if we realize technology is something that we've created, that when we use it with great intention, again it's ready position, work all over again, how do we use what we have to perform most highly. It's a beautiful thing about humanity.
Speaker 2:You're always involved with a lot of fun stuff and things that are forward looking. What are you working on now? That is your passion project, now that?
Speaker 3:is your passion project? Yeah, so over the last couple of years, I've been a part of a conversation around the idea of shame whether it be body or food or fitness shaming, and how it's used as a selling point, a motivator, and this comes back to my idea of enoughness, which is the book that I'm currently working on. It's called Enoughness the practice of affirming that you are already indeed enough. Now again, enoughness doesn't mean complacency. Enoughness means right now, we are capable of doing something that is valued. Out of all of this research that I've been able to be a part of, the number one thing that we've seen is that shame is used to go ahead and motivate people into going wow, I'm not enough, but if I do this thing, I will be. And once I'm enough, then all of a sudden, life will get easier or life will make more sense. And as we know I've never.
Speaker 3:You know like I've never gotten used like. Life has never gotten easier for me as I've gotten stronger or faster or less strong and slower. Life has always had its challenges. So this idea of enoughness has really been my life's work, along with looking at shame as a mechanism within our culture and society, because, again, the intention I don't think is bad. It's like well, if we simply make people feel that if they have what we have, that they'll be better, then they'll buy it and I go yeah, but what if, all of a sudden? Again, I always come back to bottled water. This is where I'd normally pick up my water bottle and shake it and I would go.
Speaker 3:50 years ago not everybody drank water and then all of a sudden we started a reusable water bottle. You look at every, every business. What's their giveaway? Tchotchke, it's a branded water bottle. We educated people that drinking water to any degree is good for you and no matter who the person is, because we've created access. Now, again, there's people on this planet who do not have water and that's so hard for a lot of people to understand because we go if we have a water faucet, we can drink water. Our brain says hungry, thirsty. We eat food, we drink water. So getting people to a place where they go. If I listen to myself, I'm probably going to be pretty okay because we are innately on our side. So that's my daily work right now, ted.
Speaker 2:JC, we're happy to have you back. I'd love to talk a little bit more deeply and help you with the book promotion. If anyone wants to connect with you, how do they do that Website? What's your social channels these days?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. I'm one of those people. It's in my Minnesota blood. I love connecting with anybody and everybody, so you can find me jclippoldcom that's my website or jclippold on LinkedIn or Instagram or Facebook If you're like gosh, I can't connect to people. I'm one of those people that you can reach out to and I'll message you back right away.
Speaker 2:Fantastic, JC. You hit out of the ballpark. Even for a Minnesota kid, Grand slam. Herbert Kilbrewer would be proud of you.
Speaker 3:Let's go.
Speaker 2:Herbert, you made it harder for the next person because I don't know how they're going to match this one, but thanks for taking time chatting with us. Thanks for being part of the podcast.
Speaker 1:Thanks, dan. Thank you, and tech, as much as we do. Make sure to subscribe, write us a review and spread the word. Got a topic you want us to cover or a guest you'd love to hear? Let us know. Stay tuned for our next podcast for more tips, tricks and trends. Be disruptive, stay innovative and, most importantly, keep making waves.