Latest / Gladden Longevity Podcast / Run Without Impact: Discover ElliptiGO and the Joy of Purposeful Exercise - Episode 257

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Run Without Impact: Discover ElliptiGO and the Joy of Purposeful Exercise - Episode 257 · Gladden Longevity Podcast

• 0:01
  Welcome everybody to this edition of the Gladden Longevity Podcast.
• 0:04
  I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:06
  Jeffrey Gladden, and I'm joined today by Bryan Pate.
• 0:10
  Bryan is a very interesting character that I came across who has an inventor's mind and has developed some really interesting products that I found intriguing, one that I use on
• 0:21
  a regular basis, both that I use on a regular basis, quite honestly.
• 0:26
  So Bryan, welcome to Gladden Longevity Podcast.
• 0:29
  Yeah, happy to be here.
• 0:30
  I appreciate it.
• 0:30
  Yeah.
• 0:31
  So Bryan, you know, you've developed things like the ElliptiGO.
• 0:34
  You're involved with slackline development.
• 0:38
  Tell us a little bit about your background.
• 0:39
  How'd you get interested in all this?
• 0:42
  Ha, accidentally for sure.
• 0:44
  My family's a bunch of lawyers and judges.
• 0:48
  yeah, that takes a while to overcome that.
• 0:50
  Yeah, exactly.
• 0:52
  And so I went to law school and before that I worked at McKinsey, the consulting firm.
• 0:59
  And before that I was in the Marine Corps and had always had a real interest in endurance training, endurance athletics, done an Ironman triathlon, marathon, really long distance,
• 1:13
  one day hiking events, things like that.
• 1:22
  Yes, sir.
• 1:24
  do this?
• 1:24
  Can I accomplish it?
• 1:25
  Or was there a more physiologic interest in it or what actually drew you to it?
• 1:30
  Yeah, first, I think it was just the Iron Man, for example, was something I didn't think I was going to be able to do.
• 1:36
  So I think it was the attraction of achieving something that I would perceive to be really, really hard and perhaps outside of my capability.
• 1:44
  And I decided to do that when I was in the Marine Corps.
• 1:49
  Funny story on that, actually, I was in a room with three other Marine officers and it was when Into Thin Air came out, the book on climbing Everest.
• 1:57
  Yeah.
• 1:58
  we passed that book around the room and the first guy who read it was like, I'm going to climb Everest.
• 2:04
  And the second guy who read it was like, I'm going to climb Everest.
• 2:06
  And I was the third guy who read it and I read the book and I'm like, most of these people died.
• 2:10
  I'm not going to climb Everest.
• 2:12
  But I'll do an Iron Man.
• 2:14
  And so we kind of made this little pact and that's how that started.
• 2:20
  Nice, nice.
• 2:21
  So were these like Marine Corps people, buddies or something?
• 2:25
  Yeah, they were roommates on deployment in the Marines.
• 2:27
  So we were all Marine Corps infantry officers together on a ship going to and from the Middle East.
• 2:33
  Okay, interesting.
• 2:36
  Had you been involved with endurance sports as a, you know, in high school or junior high or college or any of that kind of stuff?
• 2:42
  No, much more on the contact sports side.
• 2:44
  So I played football and soccer throughout high school.
• 2:48
  Tried to play soccer in college, it didn't work out.
• 2:51
  But running obviously is an element of training for those sports.
• 2:55
  And so I got into running really around the Marine Corps because there's a physical fitness test that involves a three mile run.
• 3:02
  Right, right, right, right.
• 3:04
  Okay, good.
• 3:06
  So you had some interest in that.
• 3:08
  Okay, so you get your law degree.
• 3:11
  What drew you to law school?
• 3:12
  Was that following the family footsteps or what was that all about?
• 3:17
  My older brother had gone to law school.
• 3:19
  Both my parents were judges and my older brother had gone to law school and I was really impressed with the transformation he had intellectually from that experience.
• 3:27
  And I assumed I would be a lawyer.
• 3:29
  You know, my whole life I've assumed I'd be a lawyer.
• 3:31
  would you characterize that intellectual transformation?
• 3:34
  What did you notice?
• 3:36
  Well, I think it's the law school experience teaches critical thinking at a level, I think that's well above undergraduate.
• 3:44
  And they understand the ability to reason logically to persuade an audience to your point of view.
• 3:53
  Yeah.
• 3:54
  It seems like a very intellectual pursuit.
• 3:57
  It's kind of like debate on steroids a little bit in a way.
• 4:03
  So did your brother do debate at all?
• 4:06
  No, he didn't.
• 4:07
  He was an athlete.
• 4:08
  He played baseball in college and I think became a lawyer because that's what we all thought we would become.
• 4:13
  My third brother also started in law school and dropped out.
• 4:17
  So I think we were all on that trajectory.
• 4:19
  Just that's what the family did.
• 4:21
  Got it.
• 4:22
  Okay.
• 4:23
  All right.
• 4:23
  So you're kind of cutting your own path.
• 4:25
  So after you left the whole law area, what, what did you go into next?
• 4:31
  I actually ended up going to McKinsey, the consulting company, and doing management consulting for large, mostly technology and health care companies.
• 4:42
  Okay, so what made you qualify to do that for McKenzie?
• 4:47
  I had a bunch of friends who worked at McKinsey and kind of recruited me over.
• 4:53
  I went to Stanford undergrad and Columbia Law School.
• 4:57
  And actually the guy who founded McKinsey was a lawyer.
• 5:01
  And so about 3 % of the firm are people with JDs.
• 5:06
  Okay.
• 5:08
  So you kind of came in with the law background, which gave you an angle on consulting that some of the other people might not have had.
• 5:16
  Is that, was that kind of the angle to some extent?
• 5:18
  Yeah, and I worked at a technology company before law school that was in the semiconductor industry.
• 5:24
  So I had a little bit of understanding of marketing and business and had done well in law school.
• 5:29
  I think that's what they were looking for.
• 5:31
  Great.
• 5:31
  Okay.
• 5:32
  Nice.
• 5:32
  And so what did you end up enjoying about that and why did you leave?
• 5:38
  It's a lot of work.
• 5:40
  I think what I ended up enjoying about it was it was very interesting work in the sense of the problems you were working on.
• 5:48
  And I left because I'd invented the ElliptiGO and it was starting to actually become a real thing.
• 5:54
  We were on our second prototype when I was at McKinsey and we were starting to show it to people in the public and it clearly had traction.
• 6:04
  got it no pun intended so what was the what was the impetus to to develop the ElliptiGO
• 6:13
  So I lost the ability to run for exercise because of overuse injuries and really related to playing soccer again in law school.
• 6:23
  So in law school, I started playing soccer again competitively with a bunch of kids who had been playing in college and were like five, six years younger than me.
• 6:32
  And I just, the wear and tear was too much on my knees and hips.
• 6:36
  Okay.
• 6:37
  So you started to kind of break down from the running.
• 6:41
  so you still wanted to be outside.
• 6:43
  You still wanted to move.
• 6:46
  so that was either bicycling or something that kind of mimicked running a little bit more, which would be on it being on an ElliptiGO.
• 6:54
  so was that, was that kind of the thought process is like, I want to be outside and want to be able to do something fun out here since I can't run.
• 7:01
  Exactly.
• 7:01
  It was, I'd done a lot of cycling.
• 7:04
  You know, I'd done Ironman triathlon by this point.
• 7:06
  I had a really nice road bike, a really nice tri bike, really nice mountain bike.
• 7:09
  I had a lot of nice bikes, but I was mentally, I'm a runner.
• 7:14
  That's just how I go through the world.
• 7:16
  And so to have that exercise taken away from me at a really young age, I was 30, 32 at the time.
• 7:24
  And I just wanted to run again.
• 7:26
  And I found myself getting in my car, driving to the gym.
• 7:30
  trying to find the ElliptiGO machine that I liked that hopefully wasn't occupied, hammering it as hard as I could, trying to break it for a half hour, and then driving
• 7:39
  home.
• 7:40
  And there was no purpose in it.
• 7:42
  So I missed the purpose of training for something, I think is at the core why the ElliptiGO was created.
• 7:49
  That's an interesting thing.
• 7:51
  You can sort of train for the purpose of doing something else, or you can train for the just the sheer joy of doing the activity, right?
• 7:59
  Those are kind of two potential ways to go into an exercise routine.
• 8:05
  Yeah, and I was used to having both of those things at the same time, like truly enjoying running and be training for something, either soccer or a marathon or whatever.
• 8:15
  And at the gym, at the gym, I just found myself doing neither.
• 8:19
  I was not training for something and I hated the ElliptiGO trainer.
• 8:23
  So it's like I was just doing it so I'd get less fat than I otherwise would.
• 8:27
  it.
• 8:27
  Okay.
• 8:28
  Yeah.
• 8:28
  So that's like the worst reason that exercise, there's no purpose and there's no joy.
• 8:33
  And I think this is why, a lot of people fail at exercise is that there's no joy in it.
• 8:41
  and so it's really hard to sustain something that you're just doing out of self -discipline, right?
• 8:45
  That's, that's never going to work.
• 8:47
  Like, I mean, I love to exercise every single day doing something, whether I'm in
• 8:52
  You know, well rested, whether I have an injury, whether I have, you know, whatever it is, I do something every day because for me, there's great joy in it.
• 8:59
  I just enjoy being in motion or feeling my body go through something or doing something.
• 9:06
  so for me, the exercising I do is really has a means to an end that I want to be able to go outside and mountain bike on the weekends or go for a run or, you know, snowboard or
• 9:17
  some of the things that I enjoy.
• 9:19
  Right.
• 9:19
  So that's kind of how I put it together for me.
• 9:22
  Were you also, did you find yourself training when you got the ElliptiGO for something else or was this the joy of doing it kind of the end?
• 9:32
  No, we created a race.
• 9:34
  So I had something to train for.
• 9:36
  So there's an ElliptiGO world championships.
• 9:38
  We'll do our 15th in October.
• 9:42
  It's a real race.
• 9:44
  It's a hardcore thing.
• 9:45
  Yeah, that's interesting.
• 9:47
  So how far do you go?
• 9:48
  It's 11 .7 miles up Mount Palomar.
• 9:51
  So it's a 4 ,200 foot climb.
• 9:54
  Yeah, it's almost an 8 % grade.
• 9:56
  It's very similar to Alpe d 'Huez in terms of its profile.
• 10:01
  Wow.
• 10:01
  That's tough.
• 10:02
  I mean, just so people know, well, let's talk about ElliptiGO.
• 10:06
  I don't know if a lot of people know what that is.
• 10:08
  Every time I ride it down the Katy trail or wherever around White Rock Lake here in Dallas, you know, we always get a lot of people looking at us like it's the first time
• 10:18
  they've ever seen it.
• 10:19
  So tell us a little bit about ElliptiGO.
• 10:22
  What is that device actually?
• 10:24
  so ElliptiGO came from this desire for me to run again without impact.
• 10:27
  And it blended together the elliptical trainer motion, which we tweaked to feel more like running, but it's fundamentally the elliptical trainer motion onto a bicycle -like
• 10:37
  platform that you can go 20 miles an hour down the road.
• 10:42
  So you're standing the whole time, so you're in a running position.
• 10:46
  You're going through the world as a runner in terms of being upright, but you're going the speeds of cycling.
• 10:53
  Nice.
• 10:54
  So you get up to 20 miles an hour on yours on the flat.
• 10:57
  Yeah, if I'm pushing it, I can get definitely over 20 miles an hour on the flats.
• 11:02
  Okay, interesting.
• 11:03
  I think I'd sort of tap out at about 16 somehow.
• 11:09
  I don't know why that is exactly, but it just seems like the mechanics of it for me, that's about all the leverage I can get on it.
• 11:17
  So that's interesting, you can get up to 20 or 22 on the flat.
• 11:22
  Certainly I can get up to 20 with a little downhill.
• 11:24
  It doesn't take much grade to get a bit faster, but the other interesting thing about the ElliptiGO is that it's,
• 11:32
  You know, because you're upright, your whole body's upright on a bicycle, you can kind of tuck in.
• 11:37
  You're a little more aerodynamic.
• 11:38
  So there's a little more wind resistance or air resistance when you're on the ElliptiGO.
• 11:43
  I think is a piece of it too, but it's it's really, really pleasant.
• 11:48
  I like the motion of it.
• 11:49
  So, you know.
• 11:50
  there's about, we have some engineers here, so we do calculate exactly things like that.
• 11:56
  You have about 55 % more surface area when you're riding the ElliptiGO frontal surface area compared to being on a traditional road bike.
• 12:03
  And that drag really is the foundational difference between high end speed on an ElliptiGO versus a bike.
• 12:12
  Right.
• 12:13
  You know what always amazes me is that when I'm out there, let's say I'm going 15 miles an hour, there was a radar gun on one of the paths that I go on for a while.
• 12:23
  It's not there now, but I would just keep track of my speed based on the radar gun.
• 12:27
  So I kind of knew I was going 15 or 16 miles an hour.
• 12:33
  What's interesting is that, what was I going to say here?
• 12:38
  When you're
• 12:43
  going to say something about the speed of it.
• 12:47
  Maybe your heart rate.
• 12:49
  No, it wasn't hard.
• 12:50
  Right?
• 12:50
  No, here's what it is.
• 12:52
  We'll, we'll edit that out.
• 12:53
  So when I'm, when I'm riding that thing and I've, and I've measured myself and going at 15 miles an hour, one of the things that I find really interesting is that I feel like I'm
• 13:03
  going, I'm passing all the runners, right?
• 13:06
  And yet when you think about what it takes to run a four minute mile, you're running 15 miles an hour.
• 13:14
  Right.
• 13:14
  And then you think about sub four minute miles, you're running 16, 16 and a half.
• 13:19
  I don't know if they get up to 17, but it's like, holy cow, those guys are flying for a mile.
• 13:25
  I mean, they are literally flying.
• 13:27
  And when you watch it on TV, like at the Olympics or the trials or whatever, and I tend to follow some of that just because I find it really interesting.
• 13:37
  my gosh.
• 13:37
  It's unbelievable how fast they're running.
• 13:39
  They're just kind of gliding like that.
• 13:41
  It's, it's really almost superhuman.
• 13:44
  Were you a strong runner like that?
• 13:46
  Could you run really fast like that or?
• 13:48
  I was a competitive recreational type runner, like a six minute mile average for a 5k kind of guy.
• 13:56
  So finish OK, but not.
• 13:58
  But I have had the privilege of pacing races where guys are running sub five minute miles, over six miles or 10 miles.
• 14:09
  And just it's unbelievable to your point to watch how fluidly these people are able to move through space.
• 14:17
  Yeah.
• 14:18
  you get to be right next to them on the ElliptiGO and it's great.
• 14:21
  That's a really neat, if you're ever able to pace a runner that's doing something like that, it's really, really extraordinary.
• 14:26
  It's, it's ridiculous.
• 14:28
  It's really, really cool.
• 14:29
  And then when you think about Eli Kipchoge, right, even in the stage face in Austria, right, where he had some people in front of him and special shoes and the whole nine
• 14:36
  yards.
• 14:37
  I mean, still he's running like 435 miles or something crazy, right.
• 14:42
  For an American.
• 14:43
  It's unbelievable.
• 14:45
  It's really amazing.
• 14:47
  So yeah, super interesting stuff.
• 14:50
  So yeah, it is a very fun device.
• 14:52
  So.
• 14:53
  Tell us a little bit about the evolution of the device.
• 14:57
  And I know you have different models, you have different number of gears, you've got something else you're working on, prototypes or whatever, but tell us kind of where you
• 15:04
  are with that.
• 15:05
  we've had a lot of success with it.
• 15:07
  We thought of it, or I thought of it in 2005, partnered with a good friend of mine, Brent Teal, later that year.
• 15:13
  And we worked on, we went through five different generations of prototypes, really trying to figure out was this even a doable thing.
• 15:20
  And then we sold our first bike in 2010.
• 15:23
  And since then, we've sold about 40 ,000.
• 15:26
  Our original design, what we call the long stride bikes, which is the one you have and the one I ride, is still our most popular system.
• 15:36
  -huh.
• 15:36
  since then, we've launched what we call the compact stride, which was still ElliptiGO but much shorter and lighter.
• 15:45
  And then we went to what we call the stand -up bikes.
• 15:47
  And we've had two generations of stand -up bikes.
• 15:50
  And stand -up bikes have a circular pedaling motion, but they're ergonomically optimized for always being in a standing position.
• 15:57
  So they don't have a seat.
• 15:59
  The handlebars are adjustable in the height dimension.
• 16:13
  Yeah.
• 16:14
  the best?
• 16:16
  stand -up bike is the fastest model.
• 16:18
  It's our lightest model.
• 16:20
  But I still find the long stride ElliptiGO, the original system we developed, and we branched it into three different product lines.
• 16:28
  But it's still the fundamental core mechanism.
• 16:31
  The pedaling motion is the same across those three products.
• 16:35
  I still find that one to be the most enjoyable.
• 16:38
  The gentlest on the body, it's amazing how little
• 16:44
  adverse consequences there are to the body for doing the ElliptiGO for extended periods of time.
• 16:49
  Right.
• 16:50
  I agree.
• 16:50
  I agree.
• 16:51
  Even if I'm injured from something else or whatever, I can get on the ElliptiGO and kind of go out and ride and feel like I get a pretty good workout in.
• 17:00
  and I'll actually combine it sometimes with an elevation training mask, right?
• 17:04
  So that you're, yeah.
• 17:06
  Right.
• 17:06
  Which is great.
• 17:07
  Like you're outside and you know, you're the thing I like is being outside.
• 17:12
  I just love being outside.
• 17:13
  I've go to the gym because they have stuff that I want to do there, but you know,
• 17:17
  hands down, 10 to one, I'm an outside person.
• 17:20
  So if I can put on something like an elevation training mask and switch the exercise around to where now it's really a respiratory instead of a cardio exercise in a way, I
• 17:31
  find that super fun too.
• 17:32
  the benefit of that?
• 17:33
  I've never done that before.
• 17:34
  Does that help improve your ability to breathe?
• 17:36
  What does that do?
• 17:37
  Yeah.
• 17:38
  Well, the elevation training mask, it essentially adds dead space, right?
• 17:42
  So you've got to basically move air.
• 17:45
  You know, dead space is basically the air in your mouth, your, your pharynx, your, your trachea, bronchi, all the sub bronchi all the way down to the alveoli.
• 17:54
  It's like a tree, an inverted tree, right?
• 17:56
  You have a trunk and then all the action takes place at the leaves, right?
• 18:00
  In the alveoli.
• 18:01
  That's where the gas exchange is.
• 18:03
  So when you put a mask on like that,
• 18:05
  you've added additional dead space.
• 18:07
  So you've got to move air through that mask both directions in order to get it down to the leaves of the tree.
• 18:15
  And that extra dead space, now you add onto that resistance to where you close the aperture so that you're moving the air through a smaller and smaller aperture.
• 18:24
  Now you're trying to move extra air with every breath through a smaller aperture.
• 18:30
  So what it does is you have to pull in harder with your
• 18:33
  intercostal, the muscles between your ribs and your diaphragm to get that air down.
• 18:40
  And then you've got to blow out with a lot more force to get the air back out.
• 18:45
  Otherwise, if you don't blow out all the way, you start getting dirty air, so to speak, right?
• 18:51
  Contaminated with the air that's got more CO2.
• 18:57
  So the net effect of that is that you do two things.
• 19:02
  You increase your intercostal and diaphragmatic strength.
• 19:06
  You also change your breathing pattern.
• 19:09
  We tend to breathe too shallow, even when we're exercising.
• 19:14
  And you learn that there's another gear to breathing when you breathe deeper.
• 19:19
  And the beauty of it is that when you train with that and you get that extra
• 19:24
  10 % of air into the lungs, it all falls to the bottom line, right?
• 19:29
  It all falls into gas exchange.
• 19:32
  And so if you're breathing that way and you're on your mountain bike and you get to the top of a hill, instead of being, you know, out of breath for the next whatever, 15, 20
• 19:41
  seconds, you may be out of breath for the next three or four seconds, right?
• 19:45
  Because the breathing enables you to get dumped that CO2 so quickly that you're, you know, you get back on your regular breathing pattern.
• 19:52
  So.
• 19:53
  I find it super helpful.
• 19:55
  It's really interesting.
• 19:56
  Yeah.
• 19:57
  yeah, it's interesting.
• 19:59
  I'm involved in some breath holding efforts now.
• 20:04
  And I'm trying to figure out how to increase my total oxygen capacity throughout my lung system, as well as
• 20:14
  use this.
• 20:14
  If you're going to do that, if you're going to have your race in October, you should use the elevation training mass two to three times a week between now and then.
• 20:22
  I think you may surprise yourself at how well you do.
• 20:25
  No, I'm very curious about that.
• 20:27
  That's a super good tidbit.
• 20:28
  Thank you.
• 20:29
  yeah, absolutely.
• 20:31
  So, so how do people get an ElliptiGO?
• 20:34
  Are there other dealers?
• 20:35
  Do they buy it online or what's the deal?
• 20:37
  so we have a website, obviously, elliptico .com.
• 20:39
  And on there is a dealer locator.
• 20:42
  And really now, we work with our customer base.
• 20:45
  So we have enthusiasts who are individual customers spread around the country, really around the world.
• 20:51
  And they give people test rides of their bikes.
• 20:54
  A lot of our customers have every model bike that we sell.
• 20:58
  So a lot of our customers have a, you know, we have bike customers that, we actually have some customers that have over 10 of our bikes.
• 21:06
  We have a significant number that will have three or four.
• 21:09
  And those people are real enthusiasts.
• 21:11
  And we think 15 years later, after having built out a normal brick and mortar retail effort of 400 plus locations through bike shops, we've just concluded that our customers
• 21:24
  do a way better job of explaining the ElliptiGO than a sales associate at a bike shop.
• 21:30
  Yeah, I would agree with you because the guys in the bike shop, they're really bike biased, right?
• 21:34
  I mean, they're there for the bikes.
• 21:36
  And so for them, it's kind of an oddity.
• 21:39
  I've noticed that there are there there have been a few places.
• 21:43
  The first place I tried it was at a bike shop.
• 21:45
  This was a long time ago.
• 21:46
  I'm going to say was gosh, it was probably right when it came out.
• 21:51
  Quite honestly, I don't know when your first one came out 2010.
• 21:53
  2010.
• 21:55
  Yeah, I probably tried it right about that time, 2010 to 11.
• 21:58
  Yeah.
• 21:59
  And, and the guy that was a bike shop in California, Southern California, and the guy was very enthusiastic about it.
• 22:06
  And I saw some people riding.
• 22:07
  I was like, I want to try that.
• 22:09
  So went ahead and tried it.
• 22:11
  He let us take it around the block or whatever.
• 22:14
  and I thought, wow, I can see how this could be really fun.
• 22:16
  So ended up getting a couple of bikes.
• 22:21
  and, kind of ridden them ever since, but,
• 22:24
  Yeah, it is interesting.
• 22:26
  If the salesperson knows the product and is enthusiastic, as opposed to when I've taken it in for service, they look at it like it's an ugly duckling or something, right?
• 22:35
  So that's interesting.
• 22:37
  So that kind of energy probably decreases people's ability to actually appreciate just how good it is.
• 22:44
  So yeah.
• 22:45
  Cool.
• 22:46
  keeping the tires inflated and the track system clean.
• 22:50
  And they just sales associates to your point are bike people.
• 22:53
  They look at it like this isn't really a bike and we kind of agree it's for runners.
• 22:58
  It's not, it's not a cookie cutter bike and that's what it's just, it was a hard fit.
• 23:04
  here's a personal technical question.
• 23:07
  What kind of PSI do you run on those tires?
• 23:09
  We have two different tires that we sell, so it depends on which model you have.
• 23:13
  The 11R comes with Schwalbe's.
• 23:15
  They have a top PSI of 85.
• 23:17
  And I run those.
• 23:18
  That's what I actually have on my bike.
• 23:20
  I run those right around 80 to 85.
• 23:23
  And then the 8C comes with a Kenda tire that has 100 PSI.
• 23:29
  But we recommend running those at about 90.
• 23:32
  Okay, interesting.
• 23:33
  I run mine about 60.
• 23:34
  So maybe that's where those extra miles per hour are going to come from.
• 23:41
  Yeah, it is a big deal.
• 23:44
  I've got some tires on one that's a little smoother and one that's got more tread.
• 23:49
  And I usually ride the one with tread and let my partner ride the one with that smoother tires just to make it a little easier for her.
• 23:56
  But yeah, I can push the pressure up.
• 23:58
  So interesting.
• 23:59
  On the mountain bike version, do you actually have a suspension on it?
• 24:02
  we do.
• 24:03
  We have a front suspension fork.
• 24:05
  So it's not full suspension, but it's front suspension.
• 24:08
  It's a 27 .5 inch wheel set.
• 24:12
  Yeah.
• 24:14
  Okay, I'll have to check that on your website.
• 24:17
  Very fun.
• 24:18
  So then, you know, you've moved beyond the ElliptiGO now too, not beyond it.
• 24:22
  I mean, you're still in your life, of course, but in addition to it, you've added something else.
• 24:28
  Talk to us a little bit about slack lines and kind of what your thoughts are there.
• 24:33
  as the longevity industry has really taken shape, I'd say, over the last decade, I've become more and more intrigued by longevity.
• 24:43
  And back in 2022, I set out to find another device that we could market in the United States that perhaps wasn't well known in the United States yet that was tied to healthy
• 24:58
  aging.
• 24:59
  And we felt like, or we still feel like the Elliptico is the best cardiovascular training tool.
• 25:04
  And cardiovascular training, as every one of your listeners knows, is a critical element of successful aging.
• 25:11
  Right?
• 25:12
  And so I had this hypothesis of, hey, there's probably some other really innovative tools out there that will help our customer base age as best as they can.
• 25:22
  And I went over to Fibo.
• 25:24
  I don't know if you've been to Fibo in Germany.
• 25:27
  It's a great show.
• 25:28
  there?
• 25:28
  It's enormous.
• 25:30
  It's definitely the largest fitness equipment.
• 25:34
  For lack of a better term, it's super broad.
• 25:36
  So it's more than just fitness equipment.
• 25:37
  But it's the largest fitness show in Europe.
• 25:40
  It might be the largest in the world.
• 25:41
  It dwarfs anything in the United States.
• 25:44
  I think it's 11 halls compared to an Ursa or Fit Expo here in the US, which is maybe one or two halls.
• 25:53
  It's an enormous show.
• 25:55
  And it's in the spring.
• 25:57
  It's in April.
• 25:58
  And I went over there with just a blank slate of, hey, I'm just going to see.
• 26:02
  My hypothesis was, I bet there's two guys in Sweden who have invented something really, really cool and have no idea how to get it to America.
• 26:10
  And we would be a great fit for them.
• 26:13
  That was the hypothesis.
• 26:14
  And I went over and spent four days walking every single hall.
• 26:18
  And I found two really interesting products, one of which is a hand -built $6 ,000, perfectly silent
• 26:28
  walking treadmill desk, where it's human powered and really, really top of the line wood based hand built in Germany.
• 26:39
  And then the other was the Giboard, which is basically the marrying of a slack line onto a snowboard deck.
• 26:50
  And I thought both products were really intriguing.
• 26:54
  I had been looking for a balance trainer for years.
• 26:57
  because balance obviously is an element of successful aging.
• 27:02
  Falls are a huge, huge part of what causes many people to end up not being able to live as long as I think they otherwise could.
• 27:14
  And for me, I grew up skateboarding.
• 27:17
  I'm a Southern California kid and snowboarding and all that.
• 27:22
  But at the age of 50, I'm not going to get on one of the rollerboards.
• 27:28
  I think I would now actually, but before I trained my balance to where it is now, those were just intimidating to me.
• 27:35
  I felt like I was going to go down hard several times because the kinetic energy, I mean, they're just working off kinetic energy, right?
• 27:43
  And if you lose to the kinetic energy, there's a lot of energy that needs to get dissipated.
• 27:48
  And what I really saw that immediately lit my eyes up about the Gibbord was it creates no energy.
• 27:56
  just reflecting back to the user where they're out of balance.
• 28:00
  That's right.
• 28:01
  Yep.
• 28:02
  So just to explain to the audience, maybe not everybody's familiar even with a slack line.
• 28:07
  You know, a slack line is, what is it, about two inches wide?
• 28:11
  Yeah.
• 28:12
  Yeah, it's two inches wide and it's a very sturdy kind of, I don't know if it's nylon or what it's made out of, but it's a very non -stretchy material.
• 28:22
  And you'll see people that are, a lot of like mountain climbers and
• 28:28
  tree climbers and things like that.
• 28:29
  You see them practicing on slackline.
• 28:31
  So basically you can buy them and put them between two trees and then you walk on it in your backyard.
• 28:37
  The idea is to walk on it like you would a basically a tightrope.
• 28:42
  But then if you get really serious about it, if you go on YouTube and look at like the world championship slackline people doing stuff, it's unbelievable.
• 28:50
  They treat the whole thing like trampling, right?
• 28:52
  Double backflips and
• 28:54
  I mean, it's just crazy what's being done on just this two inch wide line that has some, some elasticity to it.
• 29:02
  and, so really what you're doing is kind of regressing that exercise back to something that's really accessible for people.
• 29:10
  Cause that is like super intimidating.
• 29:13
  and now it's, it's on a skateboard deck and it's, you know, it's what two and a half or three feet long.
• 29:19
  And so you get on it.
• 29:21
  And if you're hesitant, you can just stand next to something that like a, you know, a countertop or something, just to make sure you don't go off of it in a way you don't want
• 29:30
  to not, but it's really so low to the ground that if something happens, you just literally step off of it.
• 29:35
  It's not like you're going to fly off of it.
• 29:37
  Not like an endo board or something like that.
• 29:40
  Right.
• 29:41
  So anyway, I find it to be really, really cool and also challenging because I do a lot of balance training on many different boards.
• 29:48
  And I find that.
• 29:50
  any balance training device is actually a new challenge for your nervous system.
• 29:56
  Just because you can do an endo board and an extreme balance board and rocker boards and whatever else you can do, you know, easily or with your eyes closed, you get on the slack
• 30:06
  line all of a sudden, it's a new challenge.
• 30:07
  And that's a beautiful thing.
• 30:09
  Your nervous system loves to be challenged.
• 30:11
  And in fact, I think, I think it's one of the keys to
• 30:15
  to living young for a lifetime is to continue to challenge your nervous system in new ways, right?
• 30:20
  So yeah, that's very cool.
• 30:22
  absolutely.
• 30:22
  It's funny.
• 30:23
  I'd never been on a slackline before because I found them intimidating.
• 30:29
  But I was super comfortable getting on a give board because what your foot is literally like an inch, inch and a half off the ground.
• 30:37
  And your other foot is free in space.
• 30:39
  And the two advantages of it, I think, relative to a slackline are, number one, you really can't fall off the give board because you're so low to the ground and it doesn't.
• 30:51
  That's right.
• 30:52
  you can get the training reps in so quickly because when you fail, you just tap your other toe to the ground and then reset and you're back up on it.
• 31:03
  So it's a second and a half, two seconds between tries.
• 31:08
  Whereas on a slack line, when you fall, because I have done slacklining now, when you fall off a slack line, it's a process to get back up on it.
• 31:14
  It's a 10 second, 15 second process.
• 31:17
  yeah, for sure.
• 31:18
  You got to get the iconic, push back up onto it, try to regain your balance.
• 31:22
  The thing wobbles back and forth a lot more.
• 31:24
  I think the other thing about the keyboard is that the line is short enough that the lateral motion is not much at all.
• 31:31
  It's mostly just an up and down motion.
• 31:33
  There's a little bit of lateral play, but nothing like a slack line where it's, you know, it can move back and forth eight or 10 inches.
• 31:40
  It feels like.
• 31:41
  Yeah.
• 31:41
  So, yeah.
• 31:44
  Very cool.
• 31:45
  So,
• 31:46
  Yeah, I love the fact that you brought this forward.
• 31:49
  So you found these guys and you, were they from Sweden or were they from someplace else?
• 31:55
  Germany.
• 31:55
  Okay.
• 31:56
  Gibbon is the creator of the slackline industry.
• 31:59
  They launched really the first commercially available slacklines in 2007.
• 32:03
  They've sold over a million slacklines.
• 32:06
  What you were describing with the tricklining competition where they use it like a trampoline, Gibbon created that whole sport.
• 32:14
  They run the world championships.
• 32:15
  In fact, the world championships were just in May, and I went over for them in Stuttgart.
• 32:22
  And what those people do, I met a lot of the athletes and I think it is the most remarkable demonstration of balance that there is, that humans do.
• 32:32
  agree.
• 32:33
  I agree.
• 32:33
  It's like, it's like doing gymnastics on a two inch wide strip.
• 32:36
  I mean, it makes a balance beam look like a super highway, right?
• 32:42
  Yeah.
• 32:43
  Yeah.
• 32:43
  No, it's, it's really, really wild.
• 32:45
  If you haven't seen it, I would just encourage you to just YouTube, you know, slackline competition, whatever.
• 32:51
  And I've seen people do stuff over swimming pools also where they
• 32:55
  or walking above the water and then they'll do flips and their dismount will be like a double back flip into the water or something like that, right?
• 33:01
  So it's, there's lots of different variations on it, but it's super fun to watch and it's amazing, really amazing.
• 33:08
  So, yeah.
• 33:08
  a really neat sport.
• 33:09
  It's got a true heritage to it and given is the leading brand in the entire industry.
• 33:14
  And we were fortunate enough to negotiate to become the exclusive partners for North America.
• 33:21
  great.
• 33:21
  Nice.
• 33:22
  Good for you.
• 33:23
  So yeah, so we have one in our, in our gym here and then, you guys were kind enough to send over a longer slack line that we're playing with also.
• 33:30
  I've been playing with that.
• 33:32
  and that's fun too.
• 33:34
  And that's another challenge.
• 33:35
  It's just, you know, I've, I've kind of come down to this idea and I've shared it with the audience before, but for me, life has really come down to one thing and that's training
• 33:44
  your nervous system, right?
• 33:46
  How you think, how you feel, how you learn, how you respond.
• 33:50
  how you connect, how you move, how you balance.
• 33:53
  It really, the whole thing comes down to how you manage stress.
• 33:57
  It all comes down to the nervous system and everything sort of flows out of that.
• 34:00
  So I think one of the very overlooked areas of training the nervous system is exposing it to these balance challenges.
• 34:08
  Because if you want to stay youthful, it's an absolute must.
• 34:12
  So that's my take on it.
• 34:15
  I agree 100%.
• 34:16
  Yeah, the other product is called the Slack Rack.
• 34:19
  It's in between a Slack line that you would hang between two trees and the Gibboard.
• 34:24
  So the Gibboard's 42 inches.
• 34:26
  The Slack Rack is 10 feet.
• 34:29
  And then a Slack line would typically be, anywhere from 10 feet to 100 feet would be kind of your tip.
• 34:36
  have the slack rack here and I can tell you that it's a definitely a major step up over the given also.
• 34:41
  I mean, it's a, it's tricky.
• 34:43
  I've been, I've been able to walk it with one touchdown so far.
• 34:47
  That's my best.
• 34:48
  I haven't been able to walk the whole thing without a touch.
• 34:51
  but, yeah, no growth mindset.
• 34:56
  No, I keep working on it.
• 34:57
  It's, it's fun because you play with it.
• 34:59
  Right.
• 34:59
  The fact that you.
• 35:00
  There is no failure in my world.
• 35:02
  There's only learning.
• 35:03
  And really just exposing your nervous system to something over and over again is how it actually figures it out.
• 35:09
  So it's super fun in that regard.
• 35:11
  and I think fun is a critical factor.
• 35:12
  It's funny.
• 35:13
  I came from a very hardcore Marine Corps mentality.
• 35:17
  When we launched the elliptico, I wanted it to be this very hardcore training tool.
• 35:22
  But we would get feedback from our customers who kept saying it's so fun.
• 35:26
  It's so fun.
• 35:27
  And now 15 years later, I'm starting to learn that fun is important.
• 35:31
  And that's one thing the give board brings to the table is it's just fun.
• 35:36
  It's like a little board sport.
• 35:37
  You can do little tricks with it.
• 35:39
  Mm -hmm.
• 35:40
  slacklining is fun.
• 35:42
  And yes, it's super beneficial, but it is also fun.
• 35:45
  I look forward to the five minutes a day I spend on the keyboard.
• 35:49
  Yep, yep, exactly.
• 35:51
  it is.
• 35:52
  It's super fun.
• 35:52
  So if you're interested in this, is that being sold through the Elliptico website or does it have its own website?
• 36:00
  Okay.
• 36:00
  is gibboardus .com, all one word.
• 36:04
  Yeah, G -I -B -O -A -R -D U -S dot com.
• 36:10
  So gibboard is named after Gibbon.
• 36:13
  So G -I -B -O -A -R -D.
• 36:15
  And then U -S is the designator because we're North America.
• 36:33
  -
• 36:33
  I've I really enjoyed reading your book.
• 36:34
  It's it's very comprehensive and I appreciate you having me on the podcast.
• 36:40
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 36:41
  No, I enjoyed it.
• 36:42
  All right.
• 36:43
  Well, enjoy the rest of your day.
• 36:45
  All right.
• 36:46
  Bye.