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Guest: Jason Sani

Release Date: 1/2/2023

Welcome to Trulyfit the online fitness marketplace connecting pros and clients through unique fitness business software.

Steve Washuta: Welcome to Trulyfit. Welcome to the Trulyfit podcast where we interview experts in fitness and health to expand our wisdom and wealth. I’m your host Steve Washuta. Co-Founder of Trulyfit and offer a Fitness Business 101.

In today’s episode, we talked about EMS technology. What is EMS technology? Well, it is an electromagnetic stimulation technology. How is it used in fitness? Well. Jason Sani of OHM fitness studios is going to discuss that with us. You can find them at OHM fitness studios on Instagram.

They give you a workout experience featuring this EMS technology inside of a suit. Yes, you will put a suit on to take this class. Jason’s gonna go into the science. He’s gonna go into what it’s like to take a class what it is like to teach a class. It was a great conversation.

I love doing these reveals talking to people who work at fitness studios who have new technology. And what is going on sort of zoom-out approach. Look at everything that’s going on in the industry. I also love talking to veteran fitness professionals and health professionals like Jason. And we sort of talk back and forth about our stories and growing and advancing in our careers. And some great little tidbits and info for people who are new to the industry.

With no further ado, here’s Jason and I talking about EMS technology and our own fitness studios. Jason, thank you so much for joining the Trulyfit podcast, why don’t you give my listeners in the audience a little background on you? And what do you do in the fitness industry?

Jason Sani:  Awesome. Yeah, Steve, it’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. I’ve been in the fitness and training world since 2005. I studied, you know, marketing and nutrition, and then further my education, you know, Certified Strength and Conditioning specialists, you know, a certification, Integrative Nutrition precision, you’re just trying to obtain as much knowledge and background so I could understand how to help myself, and you know, and also help the clients that I was working with, and just add extra value.

Jason Sani: So being an industry that long, I’ve, you know, jumped in out of training and into the corporate world back and forth, I’ve had my own training business, I’ve done the online training world, you know, ultimately, I’ve had the opportunity to work with, you know, 1000s of people on a one on one basis. And that’s really what how I’ve, you know, built my experience of really how to how to help people, I think, you know, and, you know, as of recently I’ve published a book on nutrition just said something that so many people were asking me to do and create a good visual guide, kind of recipe guidance to your point intimidation from cooking.

Jason Sani: And, and that’s actually what kept me in touch, you know, with my current partner, who I’m working on a really neat project right now. So my current role is director of wellness and director of training with home fitness studios. And so we specialize in EMS training. So for those of you who are not familiar, it’s electrical muscle stimulation. And I got back in touch with Douglas pain, as I was one of the first 10 original trainers with orange theory fitness. Oh, wow. So yeah, believe it or not, I was at the first franchise location.

Jason Sani: And Doug, the CEO of the company I work with now was the first franchisor and franchisee that took that model. You know, that was started out in Florida and turned it into, you know, the boutique fitness that’s blown up to 600 plus locations at this point. So, our relationship, we stayed in touch, I helped his family with nutrition.

Jason Sani: And it was one of these things where, you know, a couple years ago, some new concepts came on his radar. And he wanted my opinion, initially, I was a little skeptical. And, you know, as I looked more into this concept of what EMS training is, you know, it was enticing enough to jump all in as I saw a really unique opportunity to reach more people and, and here I am today.

Steve Washuta: Well, before we go into olm, and more on EMS, I’m gonna go back to your story a little bit because I wrote a book called fitness business one on one with the certifications don’t teach you. And part of that book describes a lot of your experience where people in the fitness industry, they get their first certification, they think they have an idea of like what they’ll do for their entire career as a fitness professional, but you have no idea.

Because you’re going to be jumping from job to job, you’re going to find out what your particular skill sets are in the industry, what your niche is, and more importantly, what people need. You just made a point to say, everyone was asking you to write these nutrition books, and I assume it was because that was like what your clients came to you for.

And they’re like, oh my gosh, you have better information than anyone else concerning these topics. You don’t know how needed this is. And that’s what I try to like, pass on to young fitness professionals is that just take it easy. Take your time you’re going to learn in the industry, you’re going to take tips from other people and you’re going to find your niche and your path eventually but there are you can do something in the fitness industry. There are a zillion different jobs.

Jason Sani: Guys, I love that you said that. I’m super passionate about this. It gets me fired up because it’s the truth. We need to get out there and have that apprenticeship and I’m so thankful for the opportunities that got me out of my comfort zone and you know that stuff Are with teaching classes and taking on clients, I can still remember my first training client that was out of a gym studio, and I took it to home training, and then it turned into more lifestyle training.

Jason Sani: And like you said, I got really passionate about this missing link that I thought was out there. It’s like you can get people to train and do all the physical, you know, checkmarks that they need to do. But there was a big thing missing from consistent consistency, adherence and getting those results was the nutrition side of things.

Jason Sani: And that was something I learned with one of the first training programs, I think, through precision nutrition, about what are people’s biggest limiting factor, a missing link. And so I got really excited about things like, Well, I have something I grew up with a family, the Italian family loves food. And so a big passion of, for me figuring out my own issues was, was learning to enjoy the nutrition element of it.

Jason Sani: And I found that, wow, when I combined those two with training is so much more likely to increase the odds of clients getting better results. And I didn’t see it come in, I thought, you know, when I was younger, I wanted to own a big gym and train a bunch of people. And it ended up turning into something where I would go take people to these immersive, you know, experiences and just go through all their different habits and introduce some new things in and teach them consistency factors and how to enjoy the process.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, I mean, a lot of it is being introspective. And having people around you tell you what you’re good at, and you realizing what you’re good at. Because we all have an idea of what we want to do. It’s like, oh, I want to train athletes are I want to do this or that. But you’re best suited to do what you’re already really good at. Right? Whatever that is, right? You already have this sort of like passion for teaching people looks like, like healthier habits, and both eating and lifestyle and things of this nature.

So like, we have these skill sets that are already sort of cultivated, and we have to take advantage of whatever those skill sets are. For me, I was always better working one on one than I was in group fitness, I just connected better on a one on one basis. So I based my training, mostly around working one on one, I didn’t do a lot of group fitness. But for other people, I call them entra trainers. So they’re like an entertainer.

They can sit in front of the class they can they’re not that maybe what I would call like an anatomical Sleuth. So they can’t look at the body and say like, you have knee valgus and you have, you know, bad posture, we’re going to work on this cervical column issue. They’re more like, Hey, I’m gonna put on a show. Follow me. Okay, that’s great, right? You can do it in that you can, you can be any one you want to be in the fitness industry, you just have to find the right job that sort of like matches your skill set.

Jason Sani: Sure. I like that. I think that’s, I think that’s spot on. I mean, we have intentions of these different roles that we want to play and do and the world gives us feedback. And it’s up to us what we you know, what we actually do with that feedback. And, and it’s the truth. And I’m glad you touched on the whole entertaining concept.

Jason Sani:You know, although I take pride as getting to be a witness and experience, something like orange theory early on, I didn’t take me long, more than a few months to realize that that was missing a lot. It was a flawed model it you can give it credit for helping create this boutique model concept. But I realized that just heard, you know, hurting in 30 people at a time and get them to feel like they’re doing a hard workout and associated with the scientific flood background on this, this post-energy consumption issue, that there was something missing there.

Jason Sani: And it was something that I would I found myself, the clients I’m working with, I wouldn’t want them doing this four or five times a week. And so you realize those things as you go on, and especially when you have that integrity of working with people. And you know, we learn a lot by all those experiences.

Steve Washuta: So why don’t you elaborate on that for a second? Because I think I know what you’re talking about, but the audience by not? Yes. Are you saying it’s flawed, because it’s too high intensity, and there’s too much kind of wear and tear on joints and ligaments in the body in general? And there needs to focus more on let’s say, injury prevention and overall health and wellness or am I putting words in your mouth?

Jason Sani: No, absolutely. I think I think you’re accurate there. In the sense of what I see with those models is you have this field effect where you get everybody feeling and sweating like they’re working out very hard perceived by but it’s there’s so much more individual attention that is needed. You have people that come in and certainly have these there’s movement, pattern issues or instabilities, there’s going to create more, you know, more and more issues going on.

Jason Sani: And it’s this feel factor and I like to think that a lot of people that subscribe to this is this idea around cortisol junkies, where for a lot of people it’s the best they’re gonna feel they come in and they punish themselves, they sweat, they get this big energy rush. And then you know, it’s fleeting, they go away and they know that it’s there. And so I mean to break it down, like the science behind it is, you know, there’s this medium zone that people are hanging out you know, there’s some good stuff that happens if people know what they’re doing in there and they can train right but the rest comes Hone, it is so incredibly important.

Jason Sani: I feel like you’re in this just like gray zone a lot of the time that you’re in there. And it’s just the body I don’t think is designed for the average person, like it’s the most, the human body’s the greatest adaptation machine. But it’s not designed for the average person to push at that high level without more thoughtful and intentional rest. I know there’s a lot there, you know, that we can talk about the movement selection and the intensity that people bring. But I think you get the little you get the idea there. And we can expand on that more certainly,

Steve Washuta: yeah, no, and that was great. That was great information. And that’s what I kind of want you to talk about a little bit. So you hit on some of the micro things for me from just like a macro perspective, if there’s a quote-unquote, like utopian fix for all it run away from it, because it’s not, it’s not the case, right? So someone’s like, all you have to do is Orangetheory, and you’re gonna be in shape, and everything’s gonna be fine.

That’s not the case. A lot of these things are supplemental. And a lot of exercises supplemental, you don’t want to just run, you don’t want to just do arms theory, you don’t want to just do born last, right? Like, because you have this tendency to repeat these movement patterns and repeat these types of exercises and these type of these types of intensity.

It’s always good to be involved in multiple things, right? Sprinkling in orange theory on Monday and Friday, maybe Wednesday you do jujitsu, maybe on Saturdays, you go on a run. And maybe on Sunday, you do yoga, right? These are the are the better avenues for our body.

Jason Sani:Yep. Yeah, I don’t want to come off. Like I’m knocking on what Orangetheory has, they’ve expanded and evolved a ton. And they’ve obviously done some great things. And at the same time, it’s just like, spin classes. Like, it’s not my favorite thing. I’ve gotten into cycling in the past and things like that. I won’t knock on anything. If somebody enjoys what they’re doing. And they like to move, obviously, I think there’s a tremendous amount of health benefits.

Jason Sani: But I think you’re right; we want to be more harmonious and what we’re choosing to balance out. And I’m a big believer that we need to rest and recover just as hard as we’re training. I know there’s, that requires a lot of context. But I like what you’re saying. You’re just balancing those things out. And I think there’s a time and place for those types of workouts, working out with peers can help people push their limits, you know, and reach their capability a little bit better for sure.

Steve Washuta: And I think, you know, for the general population listening, Jason and I are being very nitpicky because we are like so like involved in the community. Right? This is stuff we see every day and stuff. We’re going through all exercises. Good, right? Jason is okay with you doing any sort of exercise class? So am I that’s all good. We are just saying optimal, right? If you were to actually talk about the optimal performance for someone and how you can better yourself once you’re into the exercise world, we want to give you little tidbits on how to optimize.

Jason Sani: Yes, spot on. Absolutely.

Steve Washuta: So let’s talk a little bit more about EMS and ohms. Go over a class right, so So walk me through I walk into the studio, and what is the first step talk about the suit just walk me through an entire sort of first class of this.

Jason Sani: Yeah, so the concept of own fitness is designed around using your EMS, the modality in a suit, so we like to think that you’re coming in and you’re putting on the gym. So the suit that you are putting on it your size, specifically, we have six different sizes. In the suit, when you put it on fits like a three-quarter wetsuit, so you can imagine like what a surfer would wear, maybe a diver would wear, and it’s got 30 electrodes placed all over the suit.

Jason Sani: So based on your size, you get a suit, you have expectations that the class is going to be only 25 minutes, which is surprising to a lot of people. And once you put the suit on, you are handed a battery pack, it’s a small battery pack that fits on the suit, you’re given a description of the class, prior to go into a class, you’re gonna get an introduction, you know, to make sure that you don’t have any significant limitations. And that, you know, you have the ability to do these types of movements.

Jason Sani: And, you know, understanding where your fitness level is. And then from there, you have, you know, an expert experienced trainer that’s going to guide you through these movements. Starting with this model, we call it the arc, it’s like climbing a mountain. So we spend five minutes to warm the body up from the inside out, that’s going to allow the suit to and the electrodes to be able to activate, you know, and I know electrode sounds a little, a little funny, like it’s gonna be uncomfortable, but it’s just like a muscle contraction.

Jason Sani: That’s what these electrodes are sending this signal, they’re sending these impulses. And so once you have the suit on, you warm up, and you’re just going over mobility patterns. So we’re trying to wake up those sleeping muscles, and the warm-ups are all different. They’re designed to get the body to just send better movement patterns and have more, you know, a better body awareness. And we believe that if those you know, muscles like your core muscles in your glutes and your traps and different shoulder muscles are more active, you’re more likely to just recruit the proper muscles and send better movement patterns.

Jason Sani: And then from there, we move into what we call the climb, it’s a seven-and-a-half period, where we start to, you know, elevate your heart rate a little bit more. And whether it’s one of our strength classes or one of our more muscle endurance types of classes or recovery class, that’s going to look a little bit different. But you’re in a small group setting, sometimes it’s one on one, and sometimes we have up to 12 people.

Jason Sani: And it’s a customized experience. So the suit then is turned up based on where you want to focus. For instance, you could target you know, just your glutes and your quads, or you could target you know, your core muscles and chest or your arms or all of the above. So there are electrodes all up your back muscles, you’re getting your traps your lats, everything, there’s all these pads. And it’s a unique experience.

Jason Sani: So some people are coming in because they have limitations. And you know, maybe just traditional workouts don’t appeal to them. But that’s, that’s a breakdown of the workouts for 25 minutes, we, we take you to a small period in the middle, what we call our peak. And that’s what we’re asking people to bring, it’s the closest thing that would mimic an anaerobic output.

Jason Sani: But you’re rarely feeling like your heart is beating out of your chest, you’re just feeling this sensation in the stimulation from having your muscles, you know, impacted, you know, at a more frequent and deeper level. And one way to think about it just quickly, you know, somebody who’s experienced it training has a strong, you know, muscle Mind Muscle awareness, whereas I said, yeah, if you flex your bicep, you could look down and you could create a flexion and extension in your arm and flex your bicep.

Jason Sani: Well, not everybody has the ability to do that with their abdominal muscles, or their glutes, or their hamstrings as a trainer that was a frustration is, you know, is getting people to learn how to utilize those, those proper muscles, the suit is going right in there and doing that, and you’re a lot you’re able to slow things down and, and help people feel and control those muscles a lot. A lot more efficient. I’d like to say,

Steve Washuta: Yeah, well, that’s great. And engagement is so important. And that’s why the reason people heard me talk before on this podcast, I don’t use the op te model, which is the NASAMS model, they have stabilization at the bottom for me, I don’t want my clients to focus on stabilization. I want them to first activate and engage and know where the muscles is. Even if they’re sitting down on the machine and they’re pressing out.

I want them to say, Do you feel like your pecs are tightening up? Do you feel your tricep until you can engage the muscle and know what’s muscles are working? It’s almost pointless to do some of the exercises, right? You have to be able to engage and like you said anyone can engage their bicep. But can you can you engage your pecs? Can you engage your lats? Can you engage your glutes this is this is much more difficult to start to build those neural pathways and connections.

Now, before we go into more of the class, I want to go to the feeling of the suit because I’m sure that’s the first question people ask us like, is it shocking? Me? Is it? Is it constant? Is it a grip? Is it a second long? Is it half a second long? Does it feel like a 10s? Unit? How do you describe it?

Jason Sani: Yeah, so you mentioned 10s unit, which it’s more likely that somebody is going to be familiar with, you know, with a 10s unit compared to what EMS is intense. You know, on a basic level EMS intents are similar. Whereas a 10s unit is going to be targeting more of the nerves. And it’s specifically going to be a lighter movement to help promote circulation or healing from you know, a damaged muscle or trying to target more inflammation, whereas the EMS is sending a stronger signal.

Jason Sani: So it’s based on different wavelengths and the amount of hertz that we’re sending to the impulses and those impulses are going to create muscle contractions. So how it feels is, I mean, imagine, if you just tensed up your body, I mean, that’s one way to think about it, if you just like that, they got a reaction type of feeling, you know, like my little baby girl, when she was, you know, a few weeks old would kind of clench and have this like a reaction to that period. And it’s, it’s, it’s like that it’s like, more of, I don’t even like to use the word like electric, or we’re really worried about using all those types of words. But it’s like ease.

Steve Washuta: It’s like an internal thing. So you feel your muscle inside twitching, but you don’t feel pressure from the outside. You don’t even you don’t know that there’s something causing this. It’s not like the thing is moving and clamping on you because it’s a signal. It’s only happening on the inside.

Jason Sani: Yep. And then to add how long you feel it, we typically will have a ratio of you know, four to four. So four-second impulse before for a second rest, or we have some of our strength workouts where we’re, it’s a 10-second squeeze verse, you’ll have a five-second recovery. Now we can change the level of how much power we’re sending in there based on you know where your experience is, but that impulse, although it feels like an engagement like you’re just flexing for three or four seconds, you’re actually getting, you know 80 to 100 of these mini impulses that are going through.

Jason Sani: And so instead of just 10 reps that you would do in 15 seconds, or 20 seconds, now you’re getting, you know, 80, or 100, or 200 reps in that same period of time. And it’s happening simultaneously throughout the whole body. So there’s pros and cons to that, you know, for somebody who wants to specifically target that. But we’d like to think there’s a lot more pros when we are using it correctly.

Steve Washuta: Well, let’s go to the class. And obviously, us being in the fitness industry and people listening in from the fitness industry, I want to talk to you about teaching these classes. Is it choreographed? Do you have to follow up? Like a script of exercises? Do you have a little bit of like, wiggle room into what you can do in the class, assuming that you do teach these?

Jason Sani: Yeah, so good question. We started out just, you know, one on one. And our goal was to scale and reach more people, this is something that’s been around for, I mean, really, since the 60s and has come a long way in evolution. Up until recently, you know, five or six years ago, all of these suits had cords on so it’s really hard to reach multiple people.

Jason Sani: And so our classes are designed to have videos that are playing demonstrations, in addition to a coach that is going and coming at you, if we have classes that have more than 10, people will have two trainers in there helping but the trainer is walking around taking inventory, making sure people are moving correctly, and that they feel good. And then we have the demonstrations.

Jason Sani: And we have hundreds of classes coming in, you know, based on strength, and they move in different phases, phases where we are targeting, you know, different isometric phases, we have more, you know, East centric types of phases, we have more unilateral focus types of phases that go through the training, but you’re watching the program so that if you ever get lost, you have a guide to follow the average exercises are anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute at a time.

Jason Sani: And they’re not the typical circuit training and things that you’d see there’s not a lot of jumping, it’s lower impact. So we like to call it low-intensity training, that is more focused on, like I said, these specific movements that we’re doing, the more you know, we might do a squat. So you’ll see a demonstration of a squat.

Jason Sani: And then we can take it at whatever pace you want to go, it might be going slow, where we might have a hold at the bottom or some sort of, you know, isometric type of, you know, goal at this at this point. But yeah, you have a trainer that’s walking through and catching any sort of, you know, potential issues or poor movement patterns and trying to be corrective as possible in that as well.

Steve Washuta: Sure, yeah. But from a scalability standpoint, that makes sense, to have the exercises up on the screen to have whatever 1000s of exercises recorded, be able to kind of interchange them and build programs, because ultimately, as you know, and, you know, let’s Jason’s down somewhere in Florida and orange theory in the second orange theory ever made.

And then he decides to leave and everyone was going to the class because Jason was there. And now that class isn’t going to do as well. So right, the bigger businesses have to think, how do I scale? How do I not be so employee dependent, because if they’re only going for the employee, and that employee leaves, then that could hurt my business model.

Jason Sani: Yeah, that’s certainly true from a business aspect, we want to be able to scale it and grow it. At the same time, like myself having a lot of integrity in the training world, I wanted to respect the process that we still, we don’t want it to be all automated. And I’ve seen some studios that rely on that, but we want the trainer to be there.

Jason Sani: And I’m having conversations with all of our trainers on a daily basis to make sure we’re delivering the best experience when people come in here our goal is that they’re going to move and feel better than before they came in and so that you might see a demonstration of a move, but our trainers there to help modify, make sure that you’ve you feel and understand that move properly. So the trainer and there’s holding a device that is able to customize your specific movements like you might be at 25% or 30%.

Jason Sani: You know, Karen, whose first time might be a little bit lower. Eric, who’s been coming for, you know, two months might be at a higher level. So the trainer’s doing a combination of delivering that dosage. We have a system that we do to deliver that minimum effective dose, and then we scale it up. And so people have a couple of ways of getting more out of it. They can move with more thought and intention. They can add in some plyometric options where we have options to choose a more advanced movement, or they can ask for that and a combination of turning up the intensity for some of our slower movements.

Steve Washuta: That’s great. Yeah, both, and yeah, obviously, from a business standpoint, you need the scalability but in order for your business to grow, you need that personalized touch you need to know that people care about you when you go in and obviously you have integrity in the industry and have been there done that

That and all that and seeing everything from an orange theory to individual personal training know that when people come in, they want to connect with their coach, part of exercising is knowing that you can trust the people who are guiding you, you have an expert guide leading the way because if you trust your coach, you’re not only more likely to go back to the class, but you’re more likely to be successful in getting to your goal.

Jason Sani: Yep. And then I will add, absolutely. And then I will add that we also have our our flow style classes. So we have our stretch and flow classes, which you know, are similar long, more and more of the mobility focus, I know, that’s a word that gets thrown out so much, but, you know, we have yoga style classes that we’re doing, and those are taught, you know, hands-on, you know, so we have different props that we use.

Jason Sani: So more of our relaxation mode, that kind of creates the effect that your body’s getting a massage just focused on its circulation flow throughout the body. And those classes are taught by certified yoga instructors or people with a Pilates background. And we have some that are focused specifically on, you know, pelvic floor issues. So those ones are more of the one on one, you know, teaching basis.

Steve Washuta: You might not know the answer to this, but I have to ask, yeah, you have this, I guess you would call a wireless EMS suit. And you run these classes? Is there a patent on this? Are you the only person in the industry? Are there people who are copying you? Can there be people who copy you? What is sort of your analysis of what you have created? Or what has been created?

Jason Sani: Yes. So we certainly aren’t the pioneers specifically in the EMS game, we like to think that we’ve progressed and moved forward, the ability to scale this up reach more people, we have patents, pending patent patents pending, specific on specific modalities of what we’re doing with our home program and our training. You know, there are other people or they’re using suits like this, we have our own suit that we’ve created.

Jason Sani: And, you know, we’re working on different elements there. But there are other studios that are using this, and it’s been growing a lot more, we just took our expertise from growing these different models and creating something that works and has, and we sample that out. I mean, we’ve been run this, we’ve we were working this out on people for you know, more than a year before we were fine-tuning the programming of it and ready to scale it up. So I hope I answered your questions there. But we do not have a specific pattern of suit.

Jason Sani: There are other people that have suits like this, we do you have some on different like specifics that we’re working on with the HOME program. And for, you know, for specific conditions, I guess that’s the most I can say, for instance, like motion sensors that are going to allow a lot more gamification for this. And that’s where we get really excited about that the growth and outlook of this, you know, some people like you and I, I’m always gonna like to pick up weights and then go go, you push my body get outside, move around, you know, without a suit.

Jason Sani: At the same time, I see, you know, I understand that there’s a large population of people that don’t get as excited about training, and maybe don’t have that same type of ability. So I see a really unique opportunity to reach more people that are limited. And then you have the gamification people who are sitting around a lot more that could get into this, if they’re working out as an avatar, or, you know, now they can, you know, participate in more of a game type of setting and get those results that they weren’t as likely to do at a typical gym, you know, scenario.

Steve Washuta: And I don’t think we hit on it exactly. So I’ll throw this to you here as a softball, because I know this is part of what you guys do, and you want to sort of talk about this ensures that the because of the suit, you don’t need to train as long, right? That’s, that’s a that’s another thing that’s going to help the general population ultimately, instead of doing an hour or 90 minutes of exercise, hypothetically, due to you know, looking at the science, you can train for 25 or 30 minutes in the suit. Is that correct?

Jason Sani: Yeah, that’s correct. That’s something I’ve probably missed hitting on the very beginning. So one of the most exciting things about this is that you know, our average person is working out two to three times per week. And so, you know, 325-minute sessions, is what we recommend, what we’ve seen a lot the results, and again, that can be a little bit subjective based on the input and output. But I can say, you know, I was extremely skeptical.

Jason Sani: What made me more of a believer in this idea and technology have I used a form of EMS. You know, in college, I tore my pec trying to put on some exercise. And I saw a surgeon who, you know, a couple different people recommended surgery, I had one who said, Hey, this is something you’re going to be dealing with the recovery of this. It’s like a rotator cuff injury if you can find some alternative methods and I was referred to as black magic guys that were working with a lot of pro athletes out in Phoenix, Arizona, and they took me through this program that was about six months.

Jason Sani: And the whole idea was there’s going to redesign my body and heal this injury which I didn’t think tendons and joints could be, you know, healed but using this device called an ARP Advanced Recovery Program. And it was it’s using your EMS type of technology. And this was, well, gosh, no, it was like 413 years ago, a long time ago, it was enough to where I was a believer and I was open to it that this technology was special. But even when I saw people using these suits, I still, you know, I thought it was just people taking shortcuts.

Jason Sani: When I tried to work out for the first time I was a believer, I brought my wife with me, and she was sore for, you know, four to five days, and I was sore, too bad. Like, as you know, I’ve been in his training game a long time. And just because I’m sore doesn’t mean that I’m getting results. And so I had to dive really deep to understand like, the specifics, and what are the correlations to me being sore? And is this just a shotgun approach? Or am I able to work on specific things? And diving through the numerous studies got me really excited about where this is going. And I know I went on a little rant there, but we can no we can cover any of that.

Steve Washuta: We had Dr. Judson Brandeis on the podcast who is a like a neurologist. And he works with, like the 40, Niners and a bunch of athletes. And like I think like Bruce Springsteen, and he has, like, he has like the who’s who of celebrities that he works with. And he said that M sculpt, which I also believe uses EMS technology is really big in you know, out there in California with many celebrities and that it’s you know, the science has proven that this has worked. It’s just how do you package it? How do you make it fun? How do you make it worthwhile?

And then what you guys are doing is, how do you make sure that there are professionals that are guiding you in the process of doing it, because that’s ultimately the most important part is that you’re not just sending someone on the suit and say, have fun? You’re saying, Well, we’re gonna guide you along this fitness journey. This isn’t a, this is a tool that’s going to help you but ultimately, you still need fitness and guidance.

Jason Sani: Yeah, you’re spot on. I think there’s constantly there’s always gonna be people searching for that, that magic pill or the get skinny, quick pill and all that. And there’s, there are aspects about this, they’re gonna grab people’s attention, because it’s like, well, shoot, can I just sit down and put the suit on? It would do work is the joke that you want? I’m explaining it to people all the time.

Jason Sani: Yeah. And it’s like, yeah, you probably would, I mean, I know, you certainly would get some results. But we took it quite a few steps further, by taking a lot of pride in the type of intentional training that we’re doing. So, you know, combining it with, like I said, really intentional functional movements. Another word that gets overplayed there, but like, designing it to take inventories of people’s bodies.

Jason Sani: So as you come in, we take people through, you know, a digital scan of their body, we use a styku machine is one of the tools that we use, and then we take people through different inventory, like reaching lists, and we’re able to use that in identifying a plan to focus on increasing your range of motion for people and strengthen weak, you know, instability, muscles, where people have instabilities.

Jason Sani: And so I think people are gonna get tremendous results, just from working with the specialist in the people that we have on you combine that with the suit, and the moves, end up being, you know, kind of extra credit. You know, however, whether it’s the chicken becomes for the human becomes for the egg, we like to say that you all those are extra credit, if you’re gonna get results no matter what. But, you know, I’m always going to be a big fan of, of movement and teaching people how to do that movement, themselves.

Jason Sani: And so it’s just, it’s really exciting, all the things you can do from it. And we’re still just scratching the surface at where this is going. Like, for instance, people that have, you know, we’ve seen people that have had, you know, diastasis recti, die or, or issues, you know, different issues where they can’t feel their abdominal muscles, they come in and wear the suit, and like, wow, I felt these muscles engaged that I’d have not in 10 years or 12 years, or you have people that just can’t be as weight bearing or move around as much weight able to feel this invigoration from, you know, from activating all their muscles. So there’s a lot of excitement and new development constantly.

Steve Washuta: Yeah. I would push against anyone who says, you can just use the suit or you can just use something like M sculpt or the technology to get in shape. Because ultimately, there’s a difference between vanity and health. Right. So yeah, of course, you can wake these muscles up and they can become firmer and look nicer.

That’s all great. And will you be burning calories? Doing it? Yeah, you will. But, you know, we’re meant to move in different planes of motion, right? My spine and my shoulders and hips are built-in ball and socket. Right? I need to move them and all the full ranges of motion and and and there’s no unit that’s doing that for you.

Right? We’re so it’s it you have to combine it with what you guys do. I saw a lot of your workouts. You do things like floor Pilates-based movements and yoga-based movements and traditional exercise. So it seems like you are actually moving in all planes of motion. And really doing traditional sort of overall health and wellness combined with a suit.

Jason Sani: Absolutely. Yeah, I appreciate that. There’s been it’s constantly growing and evolving and you know. The goal is gay teaching people to increase their range of motion use their bodies better. With the movements, one thing that people don’t see from afar. It’s just the cues, that’s another thing that’s really important is that the trainers that we have. They are trained to teach people to use the proper cues.

Jason Sani: Because if I tell you to squat, you know. You can bend your knees and crease your hips and sit down. But when we have a trainer. that’s, you know, talking about keeping your chest up. Right and sitting back over your heels, and, you know, closing your hips at the top and working on your mobility, when you squat down, if you can’t go, you know, all the way down is there are some ankle stability issues that we need to address. And so from that, we look at opportunities of how we can make that improvement.

Jason Sani: And, I think that we may, I wouldn’t say we’ll pivot. But I think there is going to be other areas that we really use this as a tool to address all these issues. And I get excited about it because I see. Mobility is more than a trend. Like people are realizing that they want to be able to move and use this. This adventure suit that we have, you know, for as long as they can. And if we don’t address these different instabilities, and with how much people are sitting. You know that people are going to continue to be limited for longer. So I think tools like this will make it fun for people. And it will be a tool that people can use to just get more out of their training.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, I can see it used in almost also one on one settings. And more of a corrective exercise, if you will. Where you have clients that come in, I’m 63 years old. I’ve worked my whole life. I’ve been sitting down in a chair sitting down and airplanes flying all over the place. Basically, their glutes just don’t fire and they have low back issues. They associate it with whatever just old age and disc degeneration. But really the issue is that your butt muscles underneath have not been firing for 35 years.

Now you’re back is taking the brunt of all the force when you walk in you do things how do we wake those muscles up? For me, I knew I could sit here and engage my glutes all day long. Actually, I’m doing it right now. I can’t see it on camera, thankfully. But the average person, they can’t do that. Right? They can’t just use their mind to fire their glutes. So you give them a little help. And you put on the suit and you show them how it’s done. You walk through the squat and you work with them in a corrective exercise fashion. So I could see it working in that in that realm as well.

Jason Sani: Absolutely. I think that’s spot on. And it’s something we take a lot of pride in. And yeah, like I said. I think that we take so much pride in when people come in that they’re going to be able to feel better and move better for the long term. That’s our goal for people and so far people have responded to it. You know, really well. Gosh, what it was I was going to touch on with.

Steve Washuta: What while I was going to ask you first, yeah, about some of your nutrition stuff? Because I am interested in that. Yeah, so what exactly I know, you told us what drove you into it. But what exactly do you do on a regular basis? Are you working one on one with clients now? Or are you just kind of like, you know, your book? Is there for anyone to go after? What are you doing day to day in the nutrition realm? Yeah, the

Jason Sani: nutrition realm. It’s come a long way, in the last five years. I transitioned a lot more to consulting in what I like to think. You know, as the people I worked with the right apprenticeship. I still have a huge passion for it. I don’t work with people one on one as much anymore, especially now that I’ve taken on this role. But I had a huge passion that helped people, you know, everything with from food intolerance tolerance. To stripping away the intimidation, that it came with eating more nourishing foods, you know, so I did a lot of one on one I did a lot of.

Jason Sani: I don’t like to throw the blanket statement of like food and nutrition challenges. Because I use them more as like experiences to educate people and immerse themselves in you know, in ways to. To learn how to be more resourceful using fun terms is you know, flavor insurance and creating awareness, you know, you know, getting people to track as a tool to, you know, to have a better understanding of what they do.

You know, so where that turned into more of consulting was when I would work with gyms and I bring in a nutrition model to follow working with some different nutrition companies for Formula formulating. You know, products that that that are on Amazon and direct to consumer and sell in a different you know, stores and that model.

Jason Sani: So I am just very passionate about the culinary nutrition aspect is what got me the most excited. I grew up a really picky kid. And so it really resonated with me when people say they don’t like specific foods. I’ve I learned to be really creative and learn how to eat to help fuel performance and overall health. You know, gut health has been a big topic. I’ve worked a lot of people with autoimmune conditions and so helping people to hold people’s hand through that process.

Jason Sani: What is really challenging about nutrition is it’s becoming more individualized ever now with data. And it’s something that there are so many people When you see on social media like. Oh, try this diet, do the do this elimination. This, you know, Paleo keto, carnivore, blah, blah, blah. It There are so many methods that might work short term as a Band-Aid. Because it’s eliminating the symptom that people were feeling.

Jason Sani: But you know, it’s something that is very challenging to really teach people how to get more interested. And take inventory of their body of what they’re doing. So I still will always write and love and talk about food and nutrition. I’m working on revising my book.

Jason Sani: Now I published it back in, I think, the end of 2017. And, you know, maybe there’ll be a follow-up to it. But it’s, it’s something if you’re in the nutrition world, you realize. I realized early on, the more that I knew. the more I didn’t know, and to give people these blank and so many people are like, what do you eat?

You know, what’s, what’s the diet, what, you know. What are the best foods to eat, and there’s so much context based on you know. People’s stress and overall health level of how they’re going to respond to different foods and

Steve Washuta: their age, their body, their hormones are doing today. Don’t like you’re a client. And you’re I’m not saying anything bad. But you’re a 47-year-old woman who’s deconditioned and you’re asking me what I eat? Well, I work out three times a day, and I’m on my feet all day long, right? I’m so like that we you shouldn’t eat the same things that I like. I don’t want to give you recommendations based upon me. I’m eating. I’m eating different foods than you should probably eat.

Also, like you said, I don’t know all the intricacies and the nuances that are going on with your body. Maybe you do have some sort of intolerance going on. I can’t make those. Those recommendations. Exactly. So yeah, you’re right. It is it is tough. And I wanted to just also touch on the book. That was funny. You said that with you you’re touching up the book, anyone who’s ever written a book knows that.

You never feel like your book is done. Right? You always feel like, Oh, I could have did this. I could have written this. I could have done this. So I’ve always thought like, do I come out with a fitness business? 102 or 201? Or do I just make edits to my first one? Because you just you always learn? Like we always do we learn more on the path. And we think like, oh, I should have put this, and or I learned this afterward.

Jason Sani: Yeah, this, that’s so true. You know. I mean, in the world that we’re in, and people’s short attention spans. It’s like, you have to sensationalize all these different ideas. And, it’s like you do have to adapt and evolve to keep people’s attention. It’s like, my message truly is getting people to be more interested in investing more, you know. In their health. So that they enjoy this whole process and learn, really learn to enjoy it.

Jason Sani: And it’s not everybody wants that some people want things fed to him, you know, in a spoon. And I can relate more than ever to what you’re saying with a book. Like you. you know, is a never-ending project of, oh, I need to add this or update this.

I am very proud that it would improve people’s lives there are some amazing aha moments in my book. As far as just descriptions and demonstrations that will least impact people’s points of view and their framework when it comes to nutrition as well. But that’s cool about your book. I’m excited to check it out. I’ll pick it up.

Steve Washuta :Yeah, as I will yours. And you know, there’s nothing I’m sure you would agree with this. Consistency beats everything. Absolutely. So it doesn’t matter what you know what I tell people like, Oh, you’re in shape, what do you eat? What do you do?

It’s like, well, I’ve, this is what I’ve been focusing on for the last 20 years of my life. I’ve dedicated the time to this. So you can’t just do what I do now. And all of those decisions I’ve made leading up to this point. Allow me to do what I’m doing now.

So to unpack that, it’s like, yeah. I can go drink six ciders and have a burger and do what I want on a Saturday. Because, you know. My way my body functions and my metabolism and the good decisions and my sleep and my water intake, all of these things are different than yours.

They and they have sort of compounded over time almost like the I always compare fitness to finances where. It’s like so it’s like my 401 K or something has been like you know,

If I’ve if I’ve been putting money into this for 20 years like you can’t compare what I’m doing with my money. And your what you’re doing with your money. Because I’ve had this like compounding effect of like, what it is now is based upon all the decisions I’ve made, you’re just starting your journey.

Jason Sani: Yeah, I love that. Yeah, allows you to be more risk-averse and all that is, as well I think about the same thing. And a lot of what I found myself transitioning to is like the behavioral side of nutrition and the same thing with fitness like you’re spot on. It really comes down to consistency. People can beat themselves up are so hard on this a lot of times. People have this all-or-nothing mentality of going from one challenging diet to another.

Jason Sani: Whereas like you said. I have the confidence knowing that I can go enjoy myself and go on vacation. And let myself enjoy the moment and that gives you peace of mind and that’s what I wish so much for people. Is that they weren’t battling going from this all or nothing mentality that they could you know. Because I went through the same stages were just being super extreme and judging everybody around me and I realized that you know. that’s that was that’s not the way to go.

Jason Sani: You’re not going to make a lot of friends going through you’re going through your friends and families. Cover Isn’t throwing stuff away and judging them. And so that’s it’s the time and interest in it. I just wish people would get more excited about this instrument that we have. You know that it is the one body that we get. And we need to maintain it the best that we can. So we can, you know, enjoy the adventures, you know, as much as possible.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, well said. And I think a lot of fitness professionals try to change clients quickly. Or they try to pretend they have all the answers instead of just saying. Hey, we got to make some small changes one at a time here, right? If you’re somebody who’s eating like crap, and not exercising, and maybe you drink too much, and you’re overweight,

You’re deconditioned all these things can’t, you can’t be like. We’re gonna go to orange Orangetheory, seven days a week. You’re gonna cut out all alcohol, you’re gonna drop your calories to 1300 a day, they’re gonna fail, right? That’s just not it’s not possible. No one can do that. It’s not, it’s not sustainable. We have to make small sustainable changes in order to make sure that our clients can actually build that momentum. And be consistent like we oh,

Jason Sani: man, I’m glad you said that. It’s, it’s true. I think that it’s not sexy to hear, it’s not the information that people want to hear. I have had to. I’ve had the opportunity to help fix a lot of people that have gone from one person to another. gone from short-term results. The stress epidemic is such a real thing. I think we talked about it a lot.

Jason Sani: There are so many people that just have this overstressed system that they’re constantly in this. This sympathetic fight or flight or freeze type of mentality constantly. I mentioned it with a lot of people that are addicted to exercising these cortisol junkies.

And I was one of those, you know, I was, it was something that I could always rely on. And a lot of people I think, in the health and fitness industry are in it, because, you know. They help fix themselves and found that that light and resolution and they want to share it with other people. But that’s the truth.

Jason Sani: And it’s if people realize that you have to start off slower. And the answer, even though it’s it confuses people is not just move more and eat less, you know. You have to be more methodical and think about our energy balance, and, you know. and build things up. I think people are catching on.

I mean, maybe I’m just optimistic. But I like to think that with this information age that we’re in that the good information rises to the top as much as it definitely gets. It can get lost in in the crowd with this Tiktok generation for sure.

Steve Washuta: Well, I hope you’re right, I’m not as optimistic as you. This is why we do podcasts, why you and I talk because we hope that people do get good information. Even if we can sway one person away from thinking that they can just eat. You know, the testicles of bowls all day long and. and put on 26 pounds of muscle and have 2% body fat they know that this is impossible. There are no shortcuts, it’s just about enjoying the journey and making small, small strides.

Jason Sani: And yeah, respecting the process. I think it’s something that the more people that when you put in that much work. You make those long-term investments with anything. I think you value it so much more. And I think that that’s a message that needs to be put out there more.

Jason Sani: Yes, it’s a crowded area where people are getting paid to endorse all kinds of things. And it’s, you know, compromising their integrity. So, it’s, we’re out here doing our work and I certainly appreciate everything you’re doing I’ve you know. I’ve listened to you know. A handful of your interviews. I think you’re putting out good stuff there if we can just get it get in front of more people.

Steve Washuta: Well, I appreciate that. Jason, Why don’t you tell my audience where they can find more about own. Where they can find more about you personally and anywhere else you want to direct the stores?

Jason Sani: Yeah, so um, fitness is everything own fitness studios. We are franchisees and if you’re in the Arizona area. You can check out our first studios on social media I own fitness studios, and it’s own like electricity. Oh H M. fitness studios and my name is Jason Sahni. My book called Making healthy tastes good. I am happy to be a resource for anybody. If anybody has any questions or any way that I can be a resource. Don’t hesitate.

Steve Washuta: My guest today has been Jason Sani. Jason, thanks for the buckets.

Jason Sani: It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Steve Washuta: Thanks for joining us on the Trulyfit podcast. Please subscribe, rate, and review on your listening platform. Feel free to email us as we’d love to hear from you.

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Thanks again!

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