Functional Aging: ISSA teams up with The Functional Aging Institute | Trainers Talking Truths

Listen to this Podcast Episode

In this episode Jenny and Dan speak to the co-founders of the Functional Aging Institute (FAI) Cody Sipe and Dan Ritchie. They cover the importance of exercise as we age and some of the best practices for active aging.

Podcast Introduction:

Welcome the Trainers Talking Truths. This is an ISSA podcast dedicated to exploring the fitness industry and uncovering the whys and hows of personal training. To do that, we'll talk directly to the industry experts and certified trainers. We'll dig into fitness programming, business tactics, nutrition, and more. You'll even hear from current training clients who offer insight from the other side. We've got the fitness industry covered, so turn up the volume and enjoy the drive.

Jenny Scott:

Hello, world. Welcome back for another ISSA podcast, Trainers Talking Truths. It's your co-host, Jenny Scott here with Dan “the man” Duran. How are you, Dan?

Dan Duran:

I am doing great, Jenny. I'm looking forward, but not, to the topic that we're going to discuss today because it's resembling me more and more every year, which is aging, active aging, and basically what the Functional Aging Institute has brought to our industry. So yeah, I'm becoming a card member... What do you call it? A card-carrying member very slowly but surely.

Jenny Scott:

Yes. Ya know, Dan, it happens to all of us, unfortunately or fortunately. I guess it's a good thing. We're seasoned like-

Dan Duran:

That's right.

Jenny Scott:

... fine wine. And I think about this all the time. We're not the same age. I'm almost 40 now and John Bauer, my lovely co-host for about boot camps and stuff will tell you that I'm still not old. I get it. I'm as old as I have ever been.

Dan Duran:

That's right.

Jenny Scott:

It's still older to me and I now have gray hairs, Dan. The lady who did my hair a couple weeks ago, I know she was like, there's a couple back here. And I was like, but I feel so good. I move so well, I could touch almost 10 feet. I beat all my volleyball players. Why do I have gray hair? It's unfortunate, but I'm okay.

Dan Duran:

But Jenny…

Jenny Scott:

I'm going to wear them with a badge of honor.

Dan Duran:

But Jenny, you have all your hair, so there's that.

Jenny Scott:

As far as I know, there’s that. There is that.

How did you get started in the fitness industry and to where you are now?

Jenny Scott:

So let's talk about aging, Dan. Can you tell us a little bit about our guests and let them introduce themselves as well?

Dan Duran:

Yeah, for sure. And we definitely are going to want them to self-introduce because their resumes, backgrounds, and experience are extensive and long. But the two gentlemen, Dan Richy and Cody Sipe co-founded the Functional Aging Institute. I actually met Cody I think about 10 years ago at FitPro in London. We had dinner-

Cody Sipe:

That's right.

Dan Duran:

... together. Dan, I don't think I've met in person yet, but we've had the privilege of connecting with Functional Aging Institute and they are now a part of ISSA. So that's been a journey. We're going to talk a little bit about that today. So with that, I would love it if y'all could introduce yourselves and we'll start with Cody.

Cody Sipe:

Oh, yeah. Well, thanks. Well, I really appreciate you guys having us on. This is great, and always an awesome topic to talk about is aging, how to age well, how to age better, how to age optimally, which you guys are doing a great job of. So gray hairs, wrinkles, glasses, those things don't really matter that much, right? It's all the other stuff that's really important. Yeah. Well, I've been working with older adults my whole career since I started my master's program in '93. So it's been about 30 years that I've been working with older adults. Never thought I would, to be honest. I wasn't around many older adults. I wasn't around my grandparents much, and I just thought old was not good. That was my experience. Old was bad, it was negative. But actually when I started my master's program, I saw older adults that were really vibrant and functional and sharp and realized, “Oh, this is a possibility as well.”

And it really kind of put me on that journey of helping people live that way rather than some of the other experiences I had with other older adults who weren't living old age so well. So that's really what got me started, and 30 years later, been speaking in the industry, working with a lot of different organizations, had the fortune to meet Dan and kind of forge a business partnership with him, which we'll talk about later. So now I actually teach. For about the past 12 years, I've been a professor in a physical therapy program. So that's kind of my day job, and then I get to speak and write for the industry and talk about this topic. I love aging the rest of my time. That's really what I really love to do.

Dan Duran:

Excellent. Thank you. I just made some notes here. I didn't realize that you were a professor in a PT program and that's what my son, who's a junior now has decided he wants to do with his life. So I'm going to-

Cody Sipe:

Oh, excellent. That's great.

Dan Duran:

-ask if I can bend your ear one day and connect the two of you. So-

Cody Sipe:

Definitely.

Dan Duran:

... awesome. Let's get to Dan Richy now, and I'm going to use last names a lot so that we all get in the habit of it because I'll tell you the emails when we send them and I'm on an email and Dan Richy's on an email, it gets really confusing. So let's have Dan R introduce himself now.

Dan Richy:

That is for sure. Yeah, thanks so much for having us on. As Cody mentioned, we met now 21 years ago at Purdue, and we both did our PhDs there in kinesiology, and I started out as a strength coach. I thought I wanted to coach athletes, and that just wasn't for me. Pretty quickly, I realized I don't know if I'm really going to change someone's life that's a division one athlete, even if I get them to the pros. And I kind of shifted my focus. I got really interested in training balance, and all of a sudden I had all these clients coming to me in their 40s and 50s who were baby boomers at the time, and they're like, you need to help me with my balance. I want to keep water-skiing and downhill skiing and doing some of these things, probably like Jenny in a few years is going to be like, I want to keep dominating on the whatever sport it is, volleyball or basketball or whatever.

And I realized there's a really interesting parallel to athletic performance and balance and athleticism and agility and all these things that people in their 40s and 50s. So that led me to Purdue University to get my PhD and really start to focus in on balance. And then I shifted even older. I said, well, hey, this is a massive issue for people over 65, falling. What can we do in terms of training? So I've really spent the last 20 years training clients, all ages from 50 to, I think 97's the oldest client I've ever had. We have had clients in their hundreds in our facility, and I've even trained NFL prospects at the same time. But really our passion I think over the last 20 years has been how do we help people age really, really well? And so whether you're 60, 70, 80, 90 years old, what is it you need to do so that you can live life to the fullest?

Jenny Scott:

That's awesome. Yeah, and I tell people all the time, it's a population that we don't want to, as people like to say these days, we don't want to sleep on them because first of all, did you guys see that report that came out a couple weeks ago? They said, in the next 10 years, over half the world's population is going to be considered seniors, 65 and up. They're here and they're not going anywhere. They're living longer.

But to your point, they want to live a better life. They want to live a healthy life, a fulfilled life where they can go do the things that they want to do when they're not just sitting at home in a chair or on the sofa. They want to stay active and do all the things that they want to do. So I personally, you guys, am super excited about our partnership with you guys. I personally looked through all the coursework that we've purchased from you guys, and it's amazing. It's so applicable. It's so simple to implement, but it's just ways of training and thinking about this older population that people don't usually think about them like that.

Dan Richy:

And I think you hit it, Jenny, that it's not a niche. I think for too long people are like, oh, that's nice you guys do senior fitness. I'm like, well, first of all, senior's not a great term, but it's not really a niche. You're talking about it becoming the most dominant population and it's continuing to grow. This isn't like a fad or a trend, it's here, and it's here to stay. For the average trainer listening right now who's 20, 22 years old, it's going to be a dominant consumer for your entire career. So it's not just a small little segment, it's a huge opportunity.

How did your partnership form?

Jenny Scott:

Absolutely. I'll have Cody talk to us about this. Can you tell us a little bit about how you guys came into the partnership? You connected with Dan, with ISSA and what that means for Functional Aging Institute?

Cody Sipe:

Yeah, absolutely. So after I got my master's in clinical exercise physiology, which was kind of preparing me to go into cardiac rehab, and I quickly realized there was no money in cardiac rehab for one and two, I really didn't want to go that clinical. So I got talked into just going to get a PhD. So I started at the University of Virginia and at the end of my coursework, I got hired by Purdue to run their health and fitness center that they run through their department called the Ishmail Center. So it wasn't their campus rec center, it was for primarily retirees and faculty and staff. So I started doing that while I finished my PhD, ended up transferring my PhD over to Purdue and finishing that. But that's where Dan and I met. Dan came to get his PhD, so at Purdue, so we were there right at the same time.

We realized very quickly that we had the same passion and interest in working with older adults and had this really hair-brain dumb idea to open a fitness center for older adults there in West Lafayette, Indiana. And so we did that in 2007 is when that opened. I actually left before that year was up, so I kind of helped Dan get it launched, Dan ran it ever since then while I was gone. And we just sold it last year, but it was a very successful studio. But along the way I was doing some speaking in the industry. So in 2005, I was the IDEA program director of the year, and that just opened up a lot more opportunities. I was really surprised I got selected because I work with older adults. I was like, I didn't think that it was really valued, honestly, at the time.

So when I won the award, I was actually really, really shocked. But that opened up a lot of opportunities for speaking and writing and doing things in the industry. And the more I spoke, the more I realized that trainers need education beyond what was currently out there with kind of the classic senior fitness certification, which basically just said, hey, if you're an older adult, we're going to do things really easy for you. Hey, do your dumbbell curl sitting down and use a pink dumbbell.

It's just all sorts of… Take it easy. We don't want to break you or kill you. And what of course Dan and I saw in the literature and working with some really top-notch academicians and professionals and researchers, we're like, no, there's a whole other world of training that's going to be way more beneficial for older adults. And we wanted to get that information out. And so we were really encouraged to go ahead and start our own organization. I was being courted to write a few certifications for some other companies, and we just realized we wanted to control it, the content, we wanted to own the content. And that's where FAI was launched and we launched our functional aging specialist in 2014, and that's what got the whole thing going.

What does your partnership with ISSA mean for the future of FAI?

Jenny Scott:

Nice. I love that. And you're absolutely right, and that's important that you said that, that there is more to training the senior adult than just taking it easy on them. And that's something that we saw at ISSA, which is why we've now incorporated your guys' content into what we offer to our students because there is so much more than, oh, their mindset is different, their physiology is slightly different because they've aged and take it easy on them, don’t hurt them. So I love that you said that. So what does this mean for FAI? Can you tell us a little bit about how we've incorporated, what does that mean for you two, basically? You guys were running this on your own and you had all your own content and everything. What happens now?

Cody Sipe:

Dan, you want to take that one?

Dan Richy:

Yeah, I'll take that. Well, the big opportunity, I think Jenny is just to introduce the functional aging training model and the six domains of human function to a broader range of trainers. The ISSA trainer who's thinking I'm already getting clients in their 50s and 60s and I wasn't expecting this, which is a common thing we hear, well, I already have seniors. I already have 60- and 70-year-olds, and honestly, I need better skills to train them better. The Functional Agent Institute is going to be right there to help that ISSA trainer, we're going to say, hey, take the group exercise specialist or the functional aging specialist if you're a one-on-one trainer or take the complete balance guide, it's going to give you the tools you need now to be more successful with that population.

Because I think the typical trainer makes one of two mistakes. They say, well, I'm not going to see them as an older person. I'm just going to treat them like they're a 75-year-old version and they wind up training them too hard. They say, well, I'm just going to treat them like I train a 30-year-old. And then they train them too hard or not quite appropriately, or they do the opposite end. They do the pink dumbbells and the sit down and let's do everything nice and easy because I don't want to break or hurt you or even worse kill you. And so then we give them a workout that's not effective either. Well, now with the Functional Aging Training Model, I think it's going to empower trainers to be like, no, it's not based upon age. It's functional ability. It's what does this client need?

And now I have the skills to really design a program that's going to give them great results. And the beautiful thing about that is when you start getting a couple of clients in their 60s and 70s, amazing results, they start to tell their friends. They're like, how is it you're moving better on the pickleball court? How is it you're hitting the golf ball 20 yards farther?

I got legendary Purdue coach Gene Katie to come in because his golfing buddy was now out-driving him. And he was like, what is going on? How is this happening? So I think that aspect, adding that sort of ability for trainers to get their clients great results is just going to give them even more confidence. And then all of a sudden they're going to go, I'm not accidentally getting these clients in their 50s and 60s, now I'm looking for them. I'm getting referrals. I'm building relationships with physical therapists because I have the credential that says I know what I'm doing to train people in this age range.

Jenny Scott:

Yeah.

Cody Sipe:

I think ultimately we want to help people. That's kind of what we do. We all want to help people. And the way we're helping people is through the trainers, and we just see so many trainers that are very well-intentioned, they have great hearts, but they're not really doing the most effective things for their older adults because older adults are varied. You've got kind of the more frail and then you have the fit. So how do you handle this spectrum of function? What is going to work best for them?

And that's where we kind of come into play. There's a lot of people out there that are naturally doing the right things, but they don't have a structure or process or an order to it or know when to do it for one person and not to do it for another. And so that's what the functional aging specialist really sets people up to do, is to be able to be more effective and be that expert in their local community that older adults will then realize, oh, this person knows what they're talking about. They understand me, and they can improve the things that are important to me, which are of course, the functional activities of our daily life.

Jenny Scott:

Yeah, I think you make a great point there, Cody, that like I said, I've looked at a lot of the course materials, and I like that you said that it's from frail to functional. Every population is like that. It doesn't matter how old you are, there are children who are frail. There's 20-year-olds who are frail. It's not necessarily something that's unique to seniors. And I think you are on the right page. There's a lot of people out there who are kind of doing it right, but maybe they don't understand or they can't teach the client why they're doing this. But anybody who's deconditioned or not in the best shape or not in the best physical condition, you just don't start them off with crazy stuff. There's stuff that they can do that's actually pretty fun and enjoyable and a little bit challenging, but it doesn't have to be for that frail individual all the time, especially if they are more functional. So I think that's a great point.

What is happening at the FAI Summit?

Dan Duran:

Love it. So something else that now we get to be a part of more here at ISSA than in the past is a summit that's coming up. And depending on when this podcast comes down, and I assume we're going to try to get it out fairly quickly, June in Salt Lake City of 2023, and it'll repeat again next year. So these podcasts are in perpetuity, so I think it's worth mentioning. Can you tell us a little bit about that summit?

Cody Sipe:

Yeah, absolutely. So we typically hold our summit in June. Every year we move the location around a little bit, and we invite in several really top-notch keynote speakers. Usually three or four of those speakers, then have breakout sessions with, again, lots of great presenters that really hone in on very specific aspects of training older adults and have some sort of expertise in an area. Could be balanced training, strength and power training, cognitive training, some aspect.

We try to provide kind of a well-rounded panel of presenters, but then also on the business aspects as well. We realized long ago that if you can't get clients, you can't help clients and people need to make a living. We have so many people in the industry that are just barely stringing it together because they love fitness and can't make a living really. And this is a population which I think we'll get to in a little while, where you can make a good living training older adults for a lot of reasons. So we cover some of the business aspects of it as well. Typically offering some pre-con workshops that go along with the summit.

Jenny Scott:

Awesome. So people can earn CEUs at the FAI Summit, right?

Cody Sipe:

Yes, sure do.

Dan Richy:

Yes. Usually about 15, 16 depending on the organization. But yeah, absolutely. It's June 16th and 17th in 2023. We don't know the dates yet for 2024, but it's usually second weekend of June.

Jenny Scott:

Perfect. Well, like Dan said, hopefully this podcast comes out before then. We'll put the link in the description, so even if it passes though, they can at least check it out, see who was there, and then plan for next year because people are asking for live events. We're so glad that live events-

Cody Sipe:

Yes. Hallelujah.

Jenny Scott:

Yes.

Dan Richy:

They're back. They're back.

What does it mean to be a functional aging specialist?

Jenny Scott:

Yes. So guys, one of the courses that we have now from you guys is the functional aging specialist. What does it mean to be a functional aging specialist, Dan?

Dan Richy:

Well, honestly, I think it gives people an approach, a theoretical model. Cody and I are PhDs, so we put some academic work into that, but I always like to tell people, you're not going to have to read the 200 research studies that we did, but we will synthesize that for you into a model that then you can use for how you train your clients. So we have seven principles that we think about, things like, should I train someone sitting down? Should I train someone standing up? Should I train someone on the floor? When do we use machines? How do we make all of these decisions so that we design our programs so we're not just saying, oh, well I have to make this work out a little bit easier than Jenny's was because Jenny's only 38 or 39. It's not based on age, it's based on principles and fundamentals.

And so we give people, again, what we call the Functional Aging Training Model, so that then they can design programs. There are no special exercises. People are like, well, what's the magical exercise? We didn't invent any new exercises. They've all been around forever. So we might say, hey, here's a couple exercises you might think about avoiding or modifying, which probably we should do for everyone. Cut out some of the really nonsense stuff. Let's use safe, appropriate. But there's a continuum of functional exercises. So our belief is it's going to give someone the tools to train someone to be highly functional as they age, whether they're 70, 80, or 90, and that might change as you get into your 90s, what's the most important thing you need to be able to do? Right? Well, it might be carry your groceries in. Well then let's train for that.

What does that look like? Why am I putting you on a barbell bench press? Doesn't make sense for what you told me you need to do. And so we believe the functional aging specialist gives people the ability then to say, how am I going to train someone for the functional tasks they have to do to live the life they want to live? And one of our core principles is need to do, like to do, and want to do stuff. And so you start to design your training programs around function in life, less so about, well, I need to somehow get the chest press in today. It's not about that. It's about they want to take walks on the beach. What's the function for that? So it becomes very much about function.

Advertisement:

It's time for another ISSA Rapid Review. Richard had this to say about our strength and conditioning certification. I loved this course. It was very well laid out, challenging, and I'm ready to begin my next chapter of life as an ISSA certified professional. Thanks, Richard.

Is there anything fitness professionals don't recognize about the process of aging?

Jenny Scott:

Love that. So you're listening to the client, which is nice for everyone, but plan your training around that. I love that. And we actually had another guest on our podcast a couple weeks back, Robert Winkle, and he has a whole studio designed for training the older adult, and this is exactly what he talks about. So it all makes sense. It all ties together. That's amazing.

Sorry, Dan, I'm just going to take this one. Is there one thing or a couple things that you think fitness professionals don't recognize about the process of aging? And I guess to preface that, Cody, I'll have you do this for us. Can you tell us some of the things that happen as we age? What are the physiological changes or things that we should consider as we age to better understand the things that people are missing?

Cody Sipe:

Yeah, I think that's kind of the crux of the whole approach that we take is that there's a lot of misconceptions about what it means to grow old, to age, and what that process looks like because what we see as the typical process does not mean that should be the normal process because the normal process should be that we're active individuals, we are active, and we're moving all throughout our life from childhood on. And the fact that we have so many people that are really sedentary, what happens is that accelerates that biological process of aging. So we kind of have that primary biological process, but we have the secondary process that's lifestyle driven. And we know lifestyle is really the key to the aging process. You're either speeding it up or you're slowing it down. And so there's a lot of misconceptions I think, about what is possible and what the potential is for people in their 70s, 80s, or 90s because we don't see enough people that are living their potential.

So we assume it means that you're going to struggle and you're going to have problems and whatnot. I had a lady in church just the other day, she was trying to remember, is this your kid that was in the class? I can't remember. She was like, oh, I'm getting old. I think she might have been like 58. And she's like, oh no, I'm getting old. And that's the excuse that people have all the time. So we blame a lot of things on the aging process that aren't aging. And so what we think that this process of decline that occurs, the thing is we can rapidly turn a lot of that around if, and that's the key, if we are going to overload those systems appropriately, just like any other age group. That's why the easy stuff doesn't really work. You've got to challenge yourself in these different areas.

But the thing that's different about an older adult is that those six domains that Dan is talking about, so the neuromuscular domain, the cardio, the balance, the neuromuscular, the musculoskeletal, the cognition, the mobility, all these are feeding together. And the thing is that they're all declining a little bit. So what happens is a lot of trainers will say, well, I know how to strength train, that's what I know. And strength is an important component. We can't get around that, strength's an important component. But what we don't realize is that well, that doesn't mean that your balance and your coordination and your motor control and your cognition, all that is going to also improve just because your strength training. And so people have very different needs when they're in their 60s, 70s, and 80s than other people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s.

So I think that's probably the most important thing for trainers to understand is if you've seen one 75-year-old, you've seen one 75-year-old. They're not all the same. And so unfortunately, we get kind of these, oh, I'm training seniors, I'm training older adults, so this is what we do with them. Well, that's going to benefit some of them. But until you really individualize for that person in front of you, you're not going to maximally benefit them.

And that's really what we're trying to take this approach that says, how do I maximize that person's function? Exercise is powerful. No matter what you do as an older adult, it's probably going to be good for you. It doesn't matter what you're doing, it's going to help you somewhat. Question is, how do we really maximize that for the person? So in five years, 10 years, or 20 years, they're still doing the stuff they like to do really well and enjoying life and just loving it. And I think that's really important about the aging process.

Dan Richy:

Jenny, you have to know, in fairness to that lady at Cody's church, he has eight children, so I can't keep track of them either. She should have just said, I get a pass. But I do think what Cody said, the reality is we don't talk about this enough because I don't think it's about sports. And so you get confused, but you hear about sports-specific training. You got to have specificity of training. The reality is, like Cody said, one 75-year-old is totally... My dad has just turned 75. I can't get the guy to stop playing different sports, which is great. I want him to keep doing that. In fact, he's been training. Last year he signed up for five different state senior games for track and field the 100, the 200 and he didn't make it to one of them. He didn't make it to any of them, but he said, “You know what it did do is it kept me training because I was like, oh, well, I'll make the one in Oregon. Oh, well, I'll make the one in Arkansas. I'll make the one in Missouri.” In fact, he starts mapping them out based on where his grandkids live. His new granddaughter lives in Kansas City. He's like, well, I'll sign up for the Missouri one because it's an hour and a half from her and I'll do the Kansas one because it's an hour and a half. And he didn't make either of them, but he's still out on the track running 100s, 200s, and 400s training because he is planning to do the Oregon one this year with some of his high school buddies.

He's like, “I'm going to do the Oregon State Games with an old high school friend of mine.” And so I realized I can't train my dad, the track athlete, the same as I would train another 75-year-old who's like, track? I don't want to run track. Don't make me run 100s and 400s. So you have to have a specificity of training based on the sport, and we can call it life if you want, for a lot of people, what they want to do. Joanne came to me at 80. She didn't want to do track and field. She wanted to go to the Galapagos Islands. So we have to specify our training for what those clients really want and need.

Dan Duran:

And putting a number on it, to your point, if you've seen one 75-year-old, you've seen one. I have a neighbor right up the road, he's 70 who's always out gardening in the summer and working on his property in the winter. And I saw him working with another guy a few houses down one day, and my wife made a connection. She's like, I think, and then I confirmed that's his dad. So his dad is out pruning trees, hauling hay around because he has a whole bunch of animals. And the two of them are working side by side and the son is 70.

Cody Sipe:

That's awesome.

Dan Duran:

And I would not want to go out and throw hay with these guys. So you just-

Cody Sipe:

That's great.

Dan Duran:

You just never know. Yeah.

What business opportunities are available to those who want to train the aging population?

Dan Duran:

So, question for you both, and actually we'll start with Cody, what business opportunities... Now, I know you said let's not call it a niche, and I can appreciate that because it's certainly going to be more the norm based on what Jenny was just sharing with us at the beginning, but what business opportunities are available to those who want to train the aging population?

Cody Sipe:

Yep. So when we talk about the aging population or seniors, older adults, whatever term you want to use, we're really talking about the opportunity that starts as young as 55. 55 and up, because we do see a lot of premature aging or accelerated aging going on. So there are people in their late 50s that are, man, they're struggling already. And so these principles, everything we're doing really applies to them, but most of the time we're thinking 60 to 70 is really a good range to focus on. But here are just some facts. They are now the largest age group population that is going to keep growing. If you track the stats out to the year 2100, older adults are still the largest population, and they're making much larger percentages of every state. We think about Florida, gosh, they got so many older adults. Well, every state is becoming Florida.

Over 20-25% of everybody's going to be older adult. They have money. They hold the most sway, the most financial capabilities than any other population, which is also something that a lot of trainers fight with when they're working with younger populations that are looking for deals. And they're a little cheap and their jobs aren't secure, and they've got kids to raise. So they've got the assets. Their health, again, tends to go down. And a lot of them realize the importance of movement, even if they never done it, they know it. There's nobody you talk to that doesn't know, yes, I should be doing something. But that sets them up to be really open to the right type of marketing message. And the thing is that one of the opportunities is that there aren't a lot of trainers, gyms, or programs that are honestly doing a really good job marketing, speaking with targeting this clientele.

Most clubs turn them off. And so you can go into the most meathead gym you could think of, it's in a dungeon basement and it's gloomy and there's rock music playing. Guess what? There's probably an older adult couple somewhere in the facility. Why? Not because they're so open to older adults, but because they're just going places. And so Dan mentioned, I never wanted to work with older adults, but they kind of keep coming because the population is so large and they're looking for something. So they're going places, but when they see a program and they hear a message that they resonate with, then they're really drawn to that.

I think one thing that we were really proud of with our facility, Miracles, for so many years, so many of our clients were brand new to exercise in their 60s and 70s. Never been to a gym, never worked with a trainer, never done anything, but because of the message and they knew who we were and we had this specialization, they're like, if I'm going to go somewhere, okay, that's the place for me. So the opportunity is huge. And going back to the financial side of it is we recommend a lot of small group personal training for clubs because of the sociability, but also you can charge more than your regular membership, but it's not as expensive as one-on-one training. And so it's more accessible for people. And so they are willing to pay a much higher cost for a program that is specifically meeting their needs that they feel really comfortable with, and they know they're being taken care of.

Dan Duran:

Excellent.

Dan Richy:

The other piece, Dan, that I think Cody didn't mention is what we call the customer lifetime value, which I really haven't looked at the numbers of a 20, 30, and even 40-year-old personal training client. They would probably stress me out and make me nervous and wonder why I'm in the fitness industry because I think, if I remember most of those clients last six to 12 months, their lifetime value is not five to seven years like most of these clients. And so that's a big shift because if a trainer says, I'm going to get good at marketing to 60-year-old women, they're going to keep them as clients for five, seven, maybe even 10 years. In fact, we still have clients here at Miracles Fitness that I started training at Purdue in 2002. That's 21 years ago. We can't get them to quit.

We can't get them to leave. And I think part of that shift is because it's not weight loss focused, it's not appearance focused, it's not, oh, I need to lose 20 pounds for this event. It's my life. I can't quit. So when Joanne at 80 started training with us for the Galapagos Islands, we could not get her to quit. And she trained with us till she was 87 years old. So that I think is also a big piece of the business opportunity. Now, you don't have to constantly have clients leaving every year. You have clients for year, after year, after year, five years, six years, seven years. That makes it a whole lot easier to build a business, makes it a whole lot easier to not have to worry about where your next client's coming from. The other piece, the reason I think this is the best business opportunity is a large percentage of them are flexible with their time, and they don't want to train at 5:00 AM or 7:00 PM.

Jenny Scott:

Yes!

Dan Duran:

Yeah.

Dan Richy:

They want to train at 8:00 AM, 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM. Part of our Functional Aging Summit is hosted at Age Performance. And I remember when Cody and I first took Paul out to dinner, we were like, you mean you don't train clients after 4:00? He's like, no, why would we want to do that? We close at four o'clock. A world class personal training facility doing over a half million dollars a year, and he is like, we don't even want to mess with people after four o'clock.

We train from 6:00 AM to 3:00. That's it. We'll take a few people maybe at 3:00 and 3:30. So it's a totally different business model too. The trainer can be busy from 8:00 to noon and not have to come back at six o'clock at night, which I think has been one of the biggest challenges in our industry is that the work model is so tough. Who wants to work at 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM? And so that I think is a big piece of the business opportunity. Your clients want to train at 11:00 AM, noon, 1:00, two o'clock. Our facility is packed at one o'clock and 1:30 because people want to come in after lunch. So that I think is a piece that sometimes trainers miss. It's like, wait a minute, I can have a full-time training job from 8:00 to 2:00? That's a pretty nice career.

What attributes does the ideal person have to become a functional aging specialist?

Jenny Scott:

Yeah, it's a thing. I love that. So Dan, you're doing a great job of laying out all the benefits and there are many, and it's not just about the financial side, which of course that's great, and this is just proof that you can make money in this industry. There's so many people out there who say you cannot, and that is not the case, but what attributes does the ideal person have to become a functional aging specialist? Cody, what would you say for that?

Cody Sipe:

Well, I think there's a lot of qualities that are important. I think just having, I would say a heart for working with older adults certainly and wanting to change lives, wanting to improve lives. We have trainers that will come to our summit even and they'll hear all this great information about the opportunity and whatnot, and they'll say, yeah, I know this is such a big opportunity, and they'll go on and on. He goes, but I just really don't like training older adults. And we said, well, then definitely you should not train older adults. This is not all about the money for sure. It's a great opportunity, but you just need to have a passion for working with this population. And it does come back to you in droves because it is so meaningful. The feedback you get on the impact you're making in people's lives is just tremendous.

It's way more than I cut my 40 time or improve my vertical. It's people are coming back talking about things that they haven't been able to do in years and experiences they're having with their spouses or their grandkids or whatnot. And so those stories really bolster you up and make you feel so good. But I think that's really the important thing is just having a heart for people and a good personality for it. We've had a lot of people ask, I'm in my twenties, don't older adults want other older trainers to train them?

And that's not necessarily the case. If you have some valid expertise and experience and you what you're doing and you're just a professional person with a good personality, boom, you're off to the races. You don't have to. And a lot of them don't even want a 40 or a 50-year-old. They actually want the 20 some year old to work with. One of our most popular trainers that we had was one of our youngest trainers. And everybody loved her because she knew what she was talking about and she had a great personality. And ultimately, that's what it boils down to really lead this group.

Dan Richy:

I think people make the mistake of thinking, oh, I must have to be in my 50s or 60s to be a functional aging specialist. And no, that's not it at all. I think you're missing the whole point. In fact, like Cody said, some of our most successful trainers, in fact, Johnny started here when he was 22, quickly became our most popular trainer, and then he bought the whole business from us. Now here he is in his early thirties running the studio.

So I say, if you're compassionate and you'll listen to people, then you definitely can do this. But there is sort of an old soul mentality. If you're 22 and you can't carry on a conversation with your grandparents, you might struggle at first. You have to be able to not always be looking at your phone, and you got to be able to look people in the eye, and you got to be friendly and relational because that stuff's really important.

And if you get that look out, because that means they're going to be bringing you chocolate chip cookies and brownies literally every week.

Dan Duran:

Yeah.

Dan Richy:

In fact, one of our Ageless Fitness studios, he's like, I don't think this is a fitness competition, but for March Madness, we had a cookie contest. They literally had a cookie bracket from their Ageless Fitness clients. He's like, I don't know how this happened, but the trainers are loving it.

Dan Duran:

I bet.

Jenny Scott:

That's a good idea. I like that.

How can listeners connect with you to learn more?

Dan Duran:

So Cody and Dan, how can our listeners best connect with you, find you, learn more about the Functional Aging Institute and the Functional Aging Specialist certification, and kind of a reminder again about the summit. Let's go with Dan.

Dan Richy:

Well, functionalagingsummit.com, which I assume you guys will put in the show notes-

Jenny Scott:

We sure will.

Dan Richy:

... is where you can find everything about the summit. There's still time to get tickets. We do have a couple of pre-conference events if you can only attend on Thursday. So functionalagingsummit.com. We've got the full speaker lineup. In fact, Dan Duran cracked the speaking lineup this year for the first time.

Dan Duran:

I had to pay somebody off.

Dan Richy:

Yeah, it's our ninth annual. So yeah, we've got a tremendous lineup of speakers. So functionalagingsummit.com, and then functionalaginginstitute.com is where you can learn more about really all the different courses we offer, live workshops that are coming up near you. We do offer live workshops. Sometimes people are like, well, I really want someone to come out and train my whole team of trainers. If you've got 20 trainers, we can come out and do a functional aging specialist workshop for the whole crew. This podcast is going to come out after we've just done live workshops in Phoenix and Houston, but we do them all around the country. So that's an option too. So functionalaginginstitute.com, and I'm guessing by the time this podcast lands, they'll be able to find the functional aging specialists, and so many of our courses on the ISSA website-

Jenny Scott:

Yes.

Dan Duran:

Yes.

Dan Richy:

I'm sure you guys will put those links in the show notes. But the other thing I will just mention, Dan, is that we like to do a lot of free content. So I do tell people, come back to our site because we offer two to three webinars a week on different topics. This week, you can get the recording, so people are like, oh, I missed it. This week, I interviewed Tim Minnick. I'm guessing nobody here has ever heard of Tim Minnick. He's the Guinness World record holder, oldest personal trainer in the world. And he's only 80 years young.

So I sort of joke, I'm like, you know we actually have a functional aging specialist in Tucson, Tim, who's 90, so she's coming for your record. So things like that we do almost on a weekly basis. So come to our website, check those things out. I'm actually going to get to interview Elaine LaLanne, Jack LaLanne's widow. I'll be interviewing her in the coming months. So we do a lot of free content where people can get exposed to this. They can learn a little bit about balance, a little bit about power training, a little bit about group exercise, and maybe that will encourage them then to say, okay, I'm going to dive in and become a functional aging specialist.

Jenny Scott:

I love it. Yes, definitely check it out. And we'll absolutely be providing the links for the courses because they are almost done. Our content team has been hard at work getting those put into our system so our students can enjoy that coursework as well. So it's coming soon. Very much so. And guess what, we here at ISSA, we believe in you guys. We believe in what you guys are doing. We love you so much that we absorbed you. We're like an amoeba, and we just… So we're now all one. And I love it. So we're so excited to have you guys on board. It's super nice to meet you. This is actually my first time seeing you guys and meeting you guys and getting to speak with you. So very excited to see the people that I see in the videos of the courses that you guys will soon see. So very, very fun. Thank you so much for joining us today, guys.

Cody Sipe:

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Dan Richy:

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Jenny Scott:

Yes, Dan, any last words as you age? You're the oldest you’ve ever been, right now.

Dan Duran:

Right now, yes. Life is good though. Life is good. I do, I do, I did not connect some dots that Dan mentioned, and so I'm going to give just a personal reference to it. When he talked about lifetime value of a client, I have never connected these dots. And I'm actually embarrassed that I haven't, because I spent a lot of time sharing with trainers the importance of renewals and long-term clients.

And when I was a fitness director at a large club in California, we had a lot of clients that were 5, 10... It was a 35-year-old club. So 5, 10, 15, 20, 20-year clients, including myself, they were all over 50 years old. I never connected those dots. So that's huge, folks, if you're trying to build a business, because it takes, they say seven times more money to acquire a new client as it does to retain a current one. So, food for thought.

Dan Richy:

It really, really is huge. And one of the things I say, look, the downside to being a great trainer for fat loss, weight loss, aesthetics, if you're really good at your job, you're putting yourself out of a job. If you come to me to lose 20 pounds and I help you lose 20 pounds, and you're like, I feel really good about this, I really don't need you anymore. Well, that's a good thing, but it's sort of a career problem, whereas if you're training a 60-year-old, then they turn 61, they still need you.

And then they turn 62, they still need you. I still want to get better. I still want to keep doing things. So there is an advantage. And I think that's part of why you probably would've seen that, Dan, that the people over 50, they realize this is the best thing I'm doing for my health. This is the best investment I'm making, so I have to keep doing it. So that is, I think, a huge advantage over people who are training for weight loss. Not that we shouldn't do that, and I'm not saying to a trainer who's doing that, you shouldn't do that, but that's the one downside. If you're really good at that, you will lose your clients.

Jenny Scott:

Yeah, I love it.

Dan Duran:

Well said.

Jenny Scott:

And there you go, you guys. We're giving you guys all the opportunities in the world. We're giving you all the pieces that you need to build your business and make it sustainable. That's the key. Do less work, make more money. And we are so excited to be bringing the Functional Aging Institute to you guys. Thank you again for being with us guys, and welcome aboard the ISSA choo-choo train. We're taking over the world. But thank you guys for listening so much. Go out there, do all the things, learn all the things. Hopefully you guys enjoy these new courses. We look forward to your feedback on them. But of course, make good choices. We'll be talking to you soon.