Bringing the Exercise as Medicine Movement to Life - Orangetheory Fitness [Podcast Series]

“Innovation has really been part of Orangetheory’s DNA since the beginning. Our co-founder, Ellen Latham, she created probably the single most efficient, best workout on the planet, at least in my mind and many of our members’ minds. And she was constantly tinkering to create that, we've been constantly tinkering to improve it over time. So it's really been who we are.”

“So yes, we're science-backed in our algorithms and all of the wonderful technology we use, but at the end of the day, coaching is a human connection business, and we are able to do that through our incredible coach inspired workout. And you know that starts with them connecting, empathizing, really understanding who the member in front of them is to give them the workout that their body needs.”

“The Innovation team was really born at the same time that COVID was born, like pretty much probably the same date. And so the horizon that we had to innovate was super short, and it forced us to do things and do things quick based upon what we already knew. And one of the many things we did was create a digital product called Orangetheory Live. All of our studios shut down for a period, and many of them were shut down for quite some time. And it was really impactful to keep at least over 500 of our studios open and serving the members and continue to deliver what we've promised to them.”

“And so we serve an extremely broad demographic because of the way we deliver the workout, and we're really proud of that, and we can go into the details later, but some of the Healthcare Advantage stuff is really extending it to a more aging population that really needs it, and we're seeing a lot of success, and that's growing in what we're doing.”

“And one thing that I think really differentiates this program from other things in the industry is we want to work with providers very actively and understand they have their lanes and they're so focused on their patients as well. And how can we work with them to be complementary and work in their workflow, to be a comprehensive care team?”

“With your work and with the resources you've helped us create, we're able to then help educate those providers who are already in our studios of hey, like, if you love this and you're helping treat someone and you think this might be a good solution for them, too, or you have other healthcare provider friends that are looking for that movement solution that they love, like we would love to be something that they consider for that.”
“There was no lack of care across the people that we talked to and an interest in helping their patients. What we found was there was a lack of tools and support for them to do that, a lack of understanding of how to do it, and the goal would be to help support them there and create quite a frictionless process for them to just integrate it, because there's no lack of a desire to do it, which is really, really helpful to bring this movement to life.”

“One that really stands out is there was a woman from South Carolina, and I believe she's in her 60s or 70s, and she started coming to Orangetheory, and she had never, never really done a lot of organized exercise before, and she was able to drop her A1C to the point where she was able to reduce and then get off a lot of her medication. And so it's just, so it's always great to hear these little stories of these people who've taken these leaps...”

“I'm really excited that it's a topic of the industry that it is a medical expense. Maybe not a preventative medical expense of this moment, but fitness is a modality that can help people that have certain conditions and that in itself, is is big overall, to be in that topic of conversation and how it ladders up to what we do as an industry, and how we can connect to healthcare and pre tax savings is really important to the users themselves. It puts also fitness in their minds as something that they do for their health and medicine beyond what they might think of being medicine at the moment. So that's just like an avenue to cement that exercise as medicine across different channels.”

“But then taking that a step further and really understanding we saw great changes and statistically significant changes in body composition, statistically significant changes in blood pressure, statistically significant changes in VO2 max and maximal intensity. And what we've been able to kind of learn and understand from that, with some of the more recent literature that's been coming out is the health cost savings or health cost changes that those changes in VO2 max and maximal intensity are bringing is more than the person's membership costs.”

“And so I think we're happy to be able to connect that silo and that feedback with the provider of what, what their patient’s doing to give them that cycle they want makes them want to refer more and more. And you know, vision wise this, this needs to be part of people's medical records. And so what we envision is getting our progress reports in there so it can translate from provider to provider, and the different people that are part of a patient's journey of care throughout their life.”

“Well, one thing is, is like, I'm blessed that we're in a position where we're suited to do this. In some ways, maybe we're uniquely suited to do it, but I'm not sure. I think many more of us can line up and start marching toward bringing this movement to life. So we do our part as Orangetheory, we recently merged with Self Esteem Brands, the parent company of Anytime Fitness, and so get a chance within a broader set of the industry to bring this to life as well.”

“I hope the message that they walk away from is that they have this amazing opportunity to be a part of a spectrum and continuum of healthcare for our members, whether they're patients or providers or patient providers themselves. And it's, we really have an opportunity to be a little bit more on the tip of the spear, and it's a great chance to really make more impact for more people.”

Training the Next Generation of Healthcare Providers in Lifestyle Medicine[Podcast Series]