Squats & Séances

MetFix with Michele Mootz: The Evolution of Greg Glassman's Fitness Revolution

• Venessa Krentz • Season 1 • Episode 6

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The gap between fitness and medicine has long been a chasm filled with misunderstanding and missed opportunities. In this groundbreaking conversation with Michele Mootz, we explore how MetFix—Greg Glassman's newest venture alongside medical journalist Emily Kaplan—is bridging this divide with a revolutionary approach to health, nutrition, and exercise.

Mootz reveals how MetFix represents "the evolution of the revolution" that CrossFit started, but with a crucial difference: where CrossFit seminars might focus 95% on movement and 5% on nutrition, MetFix flips that ratio to address what many health professionals now recognize as the true proportions of health determinants. "Diet is 95% of your overall health," Mootz explains, detailing how the program eliminates sugar and seed oils while emphasizing metabolic flexibility—the ability to efficiently use both carbohydrates and fat as fuel sources.

What makes MetFix truly unique is its commitment to serving populations that traditional fitness has often neglected. While CrossFit revolutionized training for those already predisposed to exercise, MetFix targets the estimated 90% of people suffering from chronic disease or intimidated by gym environments. This approach requires coaches to develop new skills, from understanding medical terminology to communicating effectively with healthcare providers.

The program offers multiple touchpoints for engagement: a free Daily Fix program providing nutrition, workout, and educational content; a two-day foundations course open to anyone from fitness professionals to clinicians; a Medical Society facilitating communication between physicians and coaches; and specialty courses addressing conditions like Type 2 diabetes. With approximately 200 affiliates already and international expansion underway, MetFix represents a vision where fitness professionals and medical practitioners collaborate to reverse chronic disease through education and lifestyle modification.

For anyone interested in the future of health optimization or frustrated by the limitations of current approaches to chronic disease, this episode offers a compelling vision of what happens when we finally address the complete picture of human health.

https://brokenscience.org/metfix/

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Venessa:

Welcome to Episode 6 of Squats and Seances. Today's guest is Michele Mootz, and we're about to chat about all things Metfix, but first allow me to introduce Michele. Hi, Michele Mootz began her CrossFit journey in 2004 at the original CrossFit gym in Santa Cruz, california. She was quickly invited by CrossFit founder Greg Glassman to join the coaching staff. As a coach at the original gym, michelle played a role in conducting seminars and teaching clinics. She later co-founded CrossFit Santa Cruz Central alongside some of the original CrossFit legends in Santa Cruz, california. In that time, michelle took on a seminar staff position with CrossFit headquarters, facilitating training and CrossFit Level 1 and Level 2 seminars. She was promoted to seminar staff flowmaster, mentor and review and development team, taking on responsibilities of course, management, staff development, as well as running the CrossFit wellness program dedicated to training special populations, is a CrossFit Level 1 and Level 2 Flowmaster. Crossfit Seminar Head Staff Trainer. Crossfit Headquarters Research and Development Manager. Crossfit Health and Wellness Director. Crossfit Advisory Board, rec. Crossfit Scholarship Co-Director. She's a multiple affiliate owner, a CrossFit Games athlete and a CrossFit Games head judge. In March of 2025, michelle was invited to join the Metfix Academy staff. She is currently involved in both course and content creation, as well as acting as a development team manager and the Academy staff team lead.

Venessa:

That is an incredibly impressive CB. That is an incredibly impressive CB. Welcome, Michele. It is so good to see you again.

Venessa:

I always like to tie in for our listeners, the association I have to the individuals that come on the podcast. Michele is as OG as it gets when it comes to all things CrossFit and functional fitness. I was lucky enough to cross paths with Michele almost a decade ago. She was one of my very first CrossFit coaches and then later my mentor as I learned to coach. I will never forget having my L2 breakout group with you, Michele, on the deadlift and if you know Michele, the deadlift is kind of her jam and I don't think my palms ever sweated as much as they did at that moment trying to teach the deadlift to the deadlift master.

Venessa:

Oh good, I love it. Yeah, that takes me back, but it is so great to see you again. Thank you for coming on. I'm excited to talk about Greg Glassman's new brainchild, metfix. Before we get into all of the nitty gritty with that, I really enjoy asking every guest that comes on the podcast this first question and then I record all the answers and I'm hoping to create a collaboration of this in a few years. But could you describe what gritty means to you?

Michele:

Doing the hard things, knowing with a really clear intention of why you're doing them, with a goal, why you're getting through them. I think life in general, but specific to what we're talking about with CrossFit, it's the willingness to put yourself in the crosshairs.

Venessa:

I like that. That's a good one. I'm envisioning like I'm going to have this poster with everybody's definitions of gritting and I am going to be excited to add that one. Thank you. Okay, I do a lot of research before we have a guest on and I like to really understand what we're going to be chatting about. In researching this particular topic, there's not a lot out there yet. I think it's going to be interesting to see what you have to share. But in the opening I will share right from the website of Metfix. It opens there's Greg Glassman. There's his quote. He stated as saying that Metfix is exploring the etiology origins and the nature of cancer and chronic disease and Broken Science is exploring the resistance to that effort. And I'm like, oh, we're going to start right there. So the million dollar question is you know what everybody wants to know. What is MedFix?

Michele:

Yeah, I think it's. We're gaining momentum. There is definitely a momentum shift but in true honesty, I think we are still evolving and figuring out a really effective, maybe efficient, way to answer that question To me. Greg has stated, and I would reiterate that the work that we started to do with CrossFit in specific to special populations working maybe outside the realm of the traditional athlete that we see in the gym, and they're incredibly valuable, they're just a very small percentage of the people who need help. Yes, and he's always been very clear that his vision was continuing that work with helping that population, not just with the fitness side of it, but really his idea and the drive behind Metfix is teaching people the why behind why we're doing all of this.

Michele:

So it is a much deeper dive into optimal health and nutrition and how food works in your body and how you keep yourself healthy long-term. The quality of life, I think, is pretty much at the forefront of this. That's the tip of the spear and we've been hyper-focused on the fitness side of things and I'm of the opinion if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and that is still the underlying fitness methodology. It's still Greg's on that side of it. We're just adding to it. So we've called it the evolution of the revolution, because I really do think that CrossFit was a revolutionary change in fitness and how people viewed it and describe it, and it is in every conversation in regards to fitness. Metfix is picking up that mantle and really diving into the other side of it.

Venessa:

Oh, fascinating. Okay, I'm really excited to get into this. Yeah, that you led into the next question, which was who is behind this. So we know Greg Glassman is obviously involved. Are there other parties that are the core founding group of this additional part of this movement?

Michele:

Greg Glassman and Emily Kaplan are the co-founders of Broken Science Initiative. Greg has always been very science-minded. Emily is a journalist. She was a medical research journalist.

Michele:

So, has been involved on that side of things for many years and their initial instinct was to try to uncover bad science and why we were being fed so many misinformed and misguided initiatives whether that was food or cancer or medical was irrelevant. It was more just really breaking that whole system open and shedding some light on it, and the evolution of that was that we need to teach people how to educate themselves in regards to this. So they're the two strongest voices obviously behind that and incredible. Emily Kaplan is you know Greg's very well known, obviously in our community, but Emily Kaplan is incredible. Very smart, very well spoken. Yeah, has earned everything she's gotten in her own right, highly respect everything she's done. She's incredible.

Venessa:

That's fantastic. As a woman, I just love hearing the other women succeed Like. That just makes me so happy she's a fierce one.

Michele:

I love it.

Venessa:

Okay, so we've got Greg and Emily and you actually, you totally touched on this as well but the populations that this particular type of I'm calling it a modality, for lack of a better word, but or specialty area or special population that we're working with, you know who are these individuals that it's really geared towards, because I would argue also right as a nutritionist that's for everybody. That is the foundation right of that theoretical hierarchy of an athlete, and we can come back to that. But what specifically did Emily and Greg have in mind when founding this?

Michele:

So it is. When we say special populations, the program that was started originally with CrossFit was called CrossFit Wellness and it was really dedicated towards seniors. So 65 and up, but not we hear 65 and up and we all have masters athletes in our gyms that are still throwing around weight and doing muscle ups. Yes, I'm talking about grandma and grandpa, right, that really have no previous exercise experience and are fed into that myth of slow down as you age. That was really where that population was and really on the other side of that is those people that are suffering from some form of chronic disease.

Michele:

We're now talking 60, I think that's a low number, but roughly 60% of our population that has some form of chronic disease. I'm going to pull it from the stats that we have readily available and I think they are low and I think it would depend on how you coin chronic disease, but we know that such a huge percent of our population is suffering from that. So when we're saying special populations, that is really what we're targeting and it makes up roughly 90% of the population right now. Yeah, in those categories, our drive has always been continue to help the people that are already in your affiliates and in outside, even outside of CrossFit, in any gym space that's already seeking that. But how about we open their doors to the other side of that, which is much harder to train and requires us to think outside the box a little bit?

Venessa:

Interesting. Okay, we're definitely going to come back to that because I have a couple more questions later on. Where did this call to action start? There's obviously there's been a need this whole time and, yes, we can definitely differentiate. They created this master's division within CrossFit and then now we have people that are in their mid-60s, that are just crushing it and are more fit than some of the younger populations are, and so we're really looking at are we looking at 65 and older? 70 and older? I think it depends. I think that would be. We're looking for people who need help, so it really could be anybody with that's in that chronic disease.

Michele:

I think there's a misconception that it has to be an either or and it does not.

Michele:

I think that we have we've definitely done a very amazing job. We're incredible at working with people who would gravitate towards some form of fitness. Already, people that walk in the doors of your gym would have walked in whether or not you were coaching there, right? Those are the populations that are going to seek that lifestyle. Those are the populations that are going to seek that lifestyle. But we've isolated ourselves a little bit in regards to that and there's been a little bit of an unwillingness to go beyond that. So this started really many years ago, but there was a trend when Greg was still with CrossFit, that was very evident when he started with the CrossFit Health. That was the still with CrossFit. That was very evident when he started with the CrossFit Health. That was.

Michele:

The intent of CrossFit Health was to try to educate our coaching community and our community at large on how do we expand our reach not fine tune what we're already doing incredibly well, but how do we expand that? How do we put ourselves in a position where we're already doing incredibly well, but how do we expand that? How do we put ourselves in a position where we're going to have to learn to be better coaches? Frankly, we really would, and you do, and it requires some strategy. But that was always, I think, how he envisioned CrossFit and it ended, obviously, when he left the company, and then CrossFit Health has morphed into a little bit of a different direction. That was where Metfix stepped in, and for he and Emily, this was just picking up where it was left off and really continuing that message of how important this is, because people are dying. It's insane.

Venessa:

I think everything you're saying completely tracks. I think of how many conversations I've had with people that were interested in CrossFit, for example, and they have this misconception that they have to have a certain level of fitness before they can start, have a certain level of fitness before they can start and what they saw in the media, the CrossFit games and things like that, not understanding that's the top 1% of the people that do that Literally 90% of us are never, ever going to look like that, train like that. We're all just the same and you have to start somewhere. So I understand what you're saying when you're talking about creating this bubble, this isolation bubble that made it a little unattainable to somebody on the street that wasn't brave enough just to go in and be like this looks really intense. I'm not sure I can do it Right. So this is bridging that gap.

Michele:

Yeah, it is.

Venessa:

This is for everybody, absolutely.

Michele:

Absolutely, and I would say one of the things we do really well at the MedFix course is addressing that. Like, how do you start to break down those barriers? How do you find the people that wouldn't naturally come into your facility? How do you train someone who is 500 pounds or 95 years old or a cancer patient? And you know, I understand the discomfort with that. But we've got to be willing to have the hard conversations and to take steps towards really being more inclusive in regards to that. If we want any chance of reversing any of what's happening and frankly it's completely reversible then we've got to be willing to also take the steps towards being at the forefront of that.

Venessa:

Those are the people that need to come in. Those are the people that really need it, and no offense to the super strong athletes that are chasing their PRs.

Michele:

That's important too, and I think that goes back. It's not an either, or we need to just look at it as one large community versus the fit versus the non-fit community. I don't know if that's really going to get us where we want to go. I love that.

Venessa:

Okay, so when did this launch? I caught wind of it only a little bit before I actually connected with you, and I'm really curious as to how old is this Broken?

Michele:

Science has been around for a while and that was really more a virtual community, a lot of science-backed research and really dedicated to breaking down some of the misconceptions in regards to food and big pharma and the challenges that we all know within our community. The launch of Metfix is much more recent seminar in February to March I guess it was early March and listened to what was really a lot of raw material. It was a lot of what we are known to have now refined into our seminar, but it was the workings of Greg and Emily and the people that said here's the information we got to figure it out. How do we make this approachable? Because it's some of it's heady stuff. It's definitely more scientific.

Michele:

We're diving, taking a much deeper dive than we did in the credentialing side of CrossFit. For sure, it took some time and we launched it through a lot of time and energy with a small group. Pete Shaw is the head of education and he was also a Flowmaster with CrossFit Free. There was a small group of us that were affiliated with CrossFit originally and we honestly just hashed it out and it was a monumental non-thrug that happened.

Venessa:

I couldn't just imagine.

Michele:

Yeah, I mean it was very comfortable obviously speaking publicly and presenting information and I think that was really adamant on Greg's behalf that he wanted that group of people not specifically us people that were really comfortable taking very complex information and distilling it down into a way that people could understand it, because it's a necessity for this course. Yeah, so our first course launched May 31st, so at Rogue we did our first Metfix course at Rogue and we had a huge turnout and probably honestly too big, but it was good and it was a good media launch.

Michele:

But the intent of the course is that it's a little bit smaller and really individualizing it. So now we're targeting two courses a month. That's great.

Venessa:

Okay, we're going to come back to that one too, because I have more questions about the credentialing process. I know I've spent a lot of time in that myself with CrossFit, as have you. I know I've spent a lot of time in that myself with CrossFit, as have you. So, getting back to the core of what Metfix is for the end user health and fitness as an industry there's always something new, there's always something novel. What's the differentiator for Metfix in particular? And I think you've touched on that a little bit. But someone that was like why do I need Metfix? Why should I go to a Metfix affiliate? Right, the first thing you would tell an end user maybe not somebody that really understands the functional fitness industry the way say I would, or you do, obviously.

Michele:

I think for us, the intent is balancing that teeter-totter out a little bit and understanding, and this isn't just open for CrossFit affiliates. I think one of the beautiful things about this course is that we are reaching clinicians, physicians, nursing nutritionists, dietitians, all of it, all of it. Greg once said this course is appropriate for anyone who has mitochondria. I'm like. Greg once said this course is appropriate for anyone who has mitochondria. I'm like, but I would say for the end user, and if it is a coaching community because we do have a lot of coaches going through this it's how to address the pieces of overall fitness that we haven't addressed.

Michele:

Yeah, out exercise, a bad diet, and I would argue that diet is 95% of your overall health. I absolutely agree with that. So if that's our percentage, we have maybe gone about this. We maybe put the cart before the horse a little bit In regards to what we're teaching. They are both incredibly valuable. You need both, and if you're wanting to optimize health and really give people the long-term quality of life that we've always taught, we need to balance that a little bit and we're trying to create more balance. So, yes, they're still at the seminar. We're still diving into exercise and movement and how important that is, but it would be where I think the CrossFit seminar is probably 95% movement and 5% nutrition, and I'm being generous. We flip-flop that and it really is with the intention of we aren't teaching our patients or the members of our facilities why they're doing what they're doing in regards to diet or nutrition and food. It's going to be very hard to get them to buy into that long term.

Venessa:

Yes, I've experienced that as well in my coaching. 100% yeah.

Michele:

It's like when they get stuck.

Venessa:

then they want to talk about nutrition versus understanding from the beginning. You can't lift your way into the type of body recomposition that you're looking for. I'm talking about the athletes, not even those with metabolic things going on. You can't get there without that foundation component. It's almost like that pyramid needs to be inversed where nutrition's at the top. Yeah, I totally understand that.

Michele:

So that's what we're addressing.

Venessa:

Okay, you've touched on the medical society and the fact that we're bringing in medical practitioners into the fold here and training them, and that this is really the intended offshoot of the CrossFit CrossFit health. Crossfit Health. Thank you, yeah, yeah. And so now this medical society. Can you explain what that is and how that's tying into MedFix?

Michele:

Yeah, so we actually have a. There's really two branches. Medfix is encompassing the seminars and really trying to reach all of those populations. In regards to bridging the gap between what I think has always been a hurdle between our two industries the fitness industry and the medical industry is that they just don't necessarily speak the same language. You have trainers who are seeing people in their gym pretty much five days a week and trying to track things from that perspective. You have physicians that don't understand what the goals are that are trying to be accomplished and definitely have very little nutrition education. They would be the first ones to tell you that they have little to no nutrition in med school.

Michele:

The medical society that we have created outside of MedFix because we do have a specific medical society is dedicated towards that. We have roundtables where physicians, nurse practitioners, clinicians in different industries can actually communicate, talk to one another, connect and create their own really information network Practicing this, and that are wanting to create change in that community. That also leads us into this Again this is very science based, and so we're speaking a similar language to a lot of the physicians and clinicians that we're seeing, because it isn't. Greg has always said that we need to professionalize the trainer, and I wholeheartedly agree with that.

Michele:

If we're trying to change someone's health, we need to be able to pick up the phone and call a physician and have a very in-depth, honest conversation that they will deem valuable. And if we're going to do that, we have to educate ourselves and be able to talk that talk. So the medical society that we have is very much created on that. There's a lot of webinars and speakers that are on that platform to try to educate in regards to that, the MedFix seminar, for sure. We're getting again a ton of clinicians and physicians going to that and just trying to understand what the coaches are hearing and what we're trying to teach, and that's the information that they're bringing back to their gym. So it really is trying to bridge all the gaps in regards to this.

Venessa:

Interesting, so it's more like a networking platform for practitioners Medical society for sure For the medical society. Okay, and I definitely understand what you're talking about. I spent about 10 years in medicine myself, and so it's a different vernacular. Oh my gosh, my husband's in medicine as well, and sometimes we don't think about it and we'll slip back into talking like we're in the hospital. And if there's people with an ear shake, what are you even saying? I don't understand how you're talking to each other.

Venessa:

Exactly. Okay, I love that and I also did a little snooping. What is the Educational Society? When is that?

Michele:

coming. Yeah, yeah, so same thing. I think this is all because there's such a lack of information in regards to educating our medical community. This was really dedicated towards that, towards bringing that up to speed. For sure, there's a huge drive right now to try to get more nutrition education within the medical schools, that we're training physicians and nurse practitioners and anyone who's going through those programs with a little bit more intention. That was really the drive behind that. It's all like a interconnecting world, for sure, in regards to this, but very, again, very science-based, so that it's met with less resistance other than lift heavy things and run a lot.

Venessa:

I think sometimes in our world it makes sense.

Michele:

We know we need both, but we have to be able to speak a common language here.

Venessa:

Yeah, now will the Educational Society be like a database of articles, like a place to go and get this education. It's going to be accessible resource for that.

Michele:

Yeah, Both on the resource side and in regards to research. We're also working on having a video platform for scaling and working with populations outside of what we traditionally see. So it's going to be an ongoing platform that we are always adding to.

Venessa:

And I guess the big question for both of those is do you need to have a doctorate or anything to access them, or could somebody that's going through an alternative route, someone like me? If I were to go and become a credentialed Metfix coach, could I access that as well in the future?

Michele:

Yeah, we'll have access for all of our coaching community and any Metfix affiliate for sure is going to have access to all of those things, because that those resources are invaluable to everybody. Yeah, it's, you start going down rabbit holes with this stuff and you're going to want more and more articles, so we're constantly dumping stuff into it. It's pretty amazing already what's in there, but it'll be ever growing, I suspect so yeah, that is fantastic.

Venessa:

I love data and research. I oh, then this is the. Yeah, I definitely, definitely. I get I rabbit hole myself.

Michele:

Oh, I do too.

Venessa:

Every time I'm researching something, I'm just fascinated with how the exercise, physiology and the psychology and the non-material play in. That's why I started this podcast was because there's so much science out there and I've been very science-minded for a long time but it is so interconnected. You don't build up one without also needing to stabilize the others. Okay, talk to me please about the daily fix. What is that? Because I saw that on the website too, and I saw some recipes and I got real hungry looking at it and I was like, what's this all about?

Venessa:

Oh?

Michele:

it's so good. It's so good. So we are doing a little bit of a revamp so it will be a little bit easier to find Again. It started this whole platform started as Broken Science and then Metfix was kind of added. Because of the momentum of Metfix that's going to flip-flop, flip-flop, yeah, so it will be easier to find.

Michele:

But the intention behind the daily fix was to address exactly what you were just speaking to, that we are not one dimensional and we need to be able to address all of those. So we've broken it down into belly, body and brain and each day you get an avenue for each one of those. So it's a daily recipe and the recipes are incredible. That is focused on no sugar, no seed oils. The macronutrients of those are broken out so that the user can understand what it is they're eating. There's also a video on how to make it. It's very well done. The photos are stunningly beautiful.

Michele:

Body is the workout of the day. Again, it is still focused on the methodology of Greg Constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity. It's veering away from the two-a-day workout, which I think is far more common in the CrossFit space now, and focused again on one workout that is done with intention and with really understanding of the metabolic pathway that you're working in, the fuels that you're burning in that workout. It's far a much deeper dive, the energy pathways, than we've seen in the past. And then brain is exactly what we were talking about with the resource center in education. It's pulling from a reading that is of interest to the community. Some of it's more science-y, some of it might be more food-based, it's all over the board. But they're meant to be like a 15 or so minute read, short, something to fuel your brain a little bit, get you thinking, and that happens every single day, wow, okay.

Venessa:

Is it on the website and free right now it is, you can go onto Broken Science or Metfix.

Michele:

Metfix will just redirect you if you type in Metfix. And yes, you can access it every day.

Venessa:

That's fantastic. Oh, I love that. I was just chatting with somebody the other day about programming and trying to hit all those different pathways. I love that tie in that synchronicity. It's really cool. So, for the recipes because the nutritionist in me wants to know this is there a specific nutrition protocol that's being followed? I know that you mentioned there's certain food additives that are intentionally going to be withheld or avoided, certain food additives that are intentionally going to be withheld or avoided. Is it essentially the fitness, in a hundred words, a very famous quote by Greg Glassman distilled down into actionable recipes.

Michele:

Similar, not the same. It would still encompass much of what we've already known. So eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds. There's some changes, though. We would say some starch, little fruit, no sugar, no seed oils. Okay, that was switched because of the impact that fructose has on your system and on insulin levels.

Michele:

So that was always. Actually, if you go back and look, that was Greg's original prescription and it got switched. So since, done a little bit more digging and switched it back Nope, I was right the first time. And we've added in the seed oils. Really, it's something we do a deep dive into at the course. The impact that seed oils have on chronic disease and cellular health and the health of your mitochondria is huge. It's significant Teaching not just coaches but again clinicians, members, what that looks like, what to look for on a label in regards to that. So the recipes are all focused on that. There's no sugar there's no seed oils.

Michele:

They're all very straightforward. As far as the ingredients, it's whole unprocessed foods. The new feature that's coming out with this revamp is that it will also download a shopping list. Oh, yeah, yeah. So with the recipe, it will just tell you here's what you need to buy for this recipe, and the ease of that. To have a recipe sent to me every day.

Venessa:

I'm like I'm in it takes all the brain work out of it. If you've ever really paid attention to the nutrition of what the average person eats in a day as obviously you have and I have, but I imagine there's a large amount of the population that does not and also knowing how to shop for those items and reading labels, that's a huge part of it. I love that, okay, and it's interesting. And also knowing how to shop for those items and reading labels that's a huge part of it. I love that, okay, and it's interesting. You're bringing up the seed oils. I think it's a really tangible example of how science just continues to grow. And you think back in the nineties, even with trans fats and what we were consuming then, that was permissible, and now we understand the lasting repercussions that a lot of those things have. So I think it's very interesting. I'm really love that it's free too. Oh, it's not monetized. Yeah, okay, listeners, you guys need to go check this out. This is a huge event.

Michele:

Yeah, it should be free. It really should be. Create a healthier population yeah.

Venessa:

I just I also can honor. I know it takes time to create that content and to get it out there. So whoever's behind that at Metfix, big heart for me.

Michele:

Thank you very much. Pretty amazing, pretty amazing.

Venessa:

Okay, so let's say, let's pretend that I don't know anything about fitness. I just hear this advertised and I'm maybe somebody that is struggling with my metabolic health. My physical health is suffering, my mental health is suffering. I'm not in a good space. I know I need to do something. I'm like here's my Hail, mary, I'm going to try this Metfix and I walk in. What does that look like?

Michele:

It would look very similar to what our community knows in regards to an affiliate. You're going to see the majority of your Metfix affiliates are also CrossFit or were previously CrossFit affiliates. So, in regards to the fitness piece of it, very similar, piece of it, very similar. Okay, the Metfix affiliation is one that will also be much more take a much deeper dive and a much more consistent messaging in regards to nutrition. So you'll find at the whiteboard brief, when you're talking about the workout, you're also going to have maybe a question of the day hey, what is a complete protein Normal, like a slow drip of nutrition that you're always talking about, because it's a different approach rather than the floodgate of, say, a nutrition challenge where you might inundate your members for a six-week span of time and that's not wrong.

Michele:

It's just that on the day after the nutrition challenge, notoriously everyone throws it out the window and you're right back to doing what you were doing before. This is really about a much longer duration and deeper education for your members, and so that would feel a little different. I don't think there's necessarily a cookie cutter way to do it, much like there is for programming, but it really is with the intention of educating on food and how that impacts your body and your overall health on a much more consistent basis.

Venessa:

That makes a lot of sense, right? One of the things I do with nutrition clients is we set one small actionable goal right, because if they walk in and they're like I'm going to stop drinking and I'm never going to eat carbs and I'm just like slow down, we're going to make small changes that you can sustain for the rest of your life, because that is going to equate to long-term health. And I love that slow drip. You think of an IV infusion? Right, we set our drip rate and we walk away for a while because it's going to take time for that to dissolve into the body. So that's a really powerful analogy. Okay, little tidbits of nutrition focus every day. The programming let's talk about what the Glassman methodology is. I'm guessing that is part of the programming piece, the physical movement piece.

Michele:

Yeah, it will look much more. One workout a day and really emphasis on hitting specific pathways. Again, I think in the past we've always dealt with power output over time. Right, that we want to hit a certain time domain to make sure that we're hitting a glycolytic, a phosphocreatine and an oxidative pathway. That's still yes. I would wholeheartedly say please do that and it should be continued. But this is really taking it to another level where we're saying, OK, great, Do you understand where you're drawing the fuel to create ATP for each one of those workouts? And are you being intentional about saying, okay, we are promoting what we call metabolic flexibility and that's the ability for you, me, everyone, to be able to draw from multiple sources of energy. We should be able to draw from carbohydrates for your short, fast workout energy that you might need, but long-term we want to draw from predominantly fat for our energy sources.

Michele:

If we're not feeding ourselves in a way to make that happen, then we rely almost solely on carbs, because that's where most people live right now. They have such a high carbohydrate diet. So the programming is really focused on being intentional about drawing from specific pathways in order to utilize those energy sources. That is a big change of understanding. Okay, if I'm working out for less than two minutes, where does that fuel come from? How is it being created? Where am I drawing it from? Versus, if I'm working out for 20 minutes and that doesn't necessarily mean I need to breathe heavy. It means I'm now drawing from fat versus carbohydrate and having a better understanding, from a coaching perspective, on why you're putting a program together that you're asking your members to do.

Venessa:

Oh, yes, that's a huge component, right, because you're going to get pushback. Especially if you're preaching this in an existing community that's used to a certain type of programming. There's going to be individuals we all know that are going to say, but no, I want to do a long chipper every day, why am I not working? For what? Would it be 59 minutes of my 60 minutes that I'm here? That's so important and I don't think people really understand enough, especially within the coaching community and then for any of our listeners. I really went into an in-depth dive on the different pathways that Michelle's referring to in the episode called Flexing the Truth. So if you want to listen to me, just talk about that for 30 minutes there. Yeah, I love that. I love it. You're speaking to my heart right now. Okay, so we outlined what the training would look like. Are there any specific movements that are going to be for this? Okay, no.

Michele:

So it's going to look and feel very similar because, again, I think we're going back to the roots of what was created right, which was CrossFit. Greg created it. That's still his methodology. We would lean heavily into that. We've never shied away from the fact that's hands down the best fitness program out there. It's just incomplete. Yeah, that would be the argument we're just trying to make up the other side of it.

Venessa:

Are there any populations that this would not be suitable for? And I feel like that's a redundant question. My intuitive answer would be no. Okay, good, you're shaking your head.

Michele:

Absolutely not. I think that's exactly what scared people off and you mentioned this earlier was, I think, when CrossFit really veered more towards the elite piece of it and the competitive side of it. It did ostracize a lot of people that said I can't do that, that's crazy, and we didn't help ourselves at the time with the games, athletes on all of the marketing. It was just. It was what it was. And don't hear me wrong, there's some incredibly fit athletes out there that it's amazing what they're doing, but that is not necessarily the largest percent of the population that we need to be addressing. So, yes, this is open to absolutely everyone and really should be embraced that way.

Venessa:

Great, and so, even for those that do have extreme metabolic disease or under the close watch of an MD, these are the people that should be getting access to this. That's what I'm hearing, absolutely. Is there any sort of? Do you guys do any diagnostic testing or any biofeedback obtained, like at the start, pre-enrollment, maybe intra or post? I'm such a sucker for that kind of data, so I'm curious is that any of that integrated with MedFix? I love that.

Michele:

I think that is a program by program basis. One of the things that we are encouraging people to integrate into it is a little bit more data collection than you might be accustomed to. With. Again, a quote, unquote traditional athlete, and it was something that we started when Greg and I were working together at CrossFit and that was having a little bit deeper dive on the intake, getting medications, dosages of those medications, frequency of when they're seeing their doctor, reading blood panels for people to their comfort level. It's really gaining trust in regards to that.

Michele:

Some coaches will lean into that and be a little bit more comfortable with that and some are going to be a little bit more hesitant. So I think it's really hard to say we would mandate something like that, but I would encourage any coach that's working with a population that is a little bit higher risk whether that's age or illness that they're getting medical clearance, obviously, that these people are okay to exercise and get comfortable with reading a blood panel, get comfortable with asking, hey, what are the meds you're on, how often are these being revisited as far as your dosages? And, again, I think, picking up the phone and having a conversation maybe with their medical care team and introduce yourself. Hey, I'm working with this patient. Can we have a conversation about these things we need?

Michele:

to normalize that stuff.

Venessa:

Yeah, so let's get ourselves as health care providers, because that's really what we are. Yeah, and I liked that you pointed out earlier in the conversation. The patient client facing is primarily happening every day in these spaces. They're not going to their doctor every day, they're maybe checking in with their doctor, let's say, at best once a week if they're really chronically ill. Little bit of rudimentary medical training for the coach at the gym to have these conversations with the doctor to come together as part of an overarching clinical team, yeah Well, it does make you wonder why has that never happened before?

Michele:

And again, that's really one of the things that we are addressing head on with this seminar is just normalizing those conversations. So yeah, I agree, I don't know why it hasn't happened. It's just been resistance on both sides.

Venessa:

But yes, my little bit to break down those hurdles. People are afraid of what they don't understand. It can be scary to have a bunch of medical terminology thrown at you or to be looking at a CBC or Kim sheet and not know what C-reactive proteins are or how to read what's a white blood cell and what are these. If you didn't go through med school it could be very overwhelming.

Michele:

Yeah, but I would argue that they're overwhelmed if we picked up the phone and said hey, I'd like to have a conversation with you about systemic insulin resistance and why this patient is not seeing the results that I'm going for. I think we need to meet each other in the middle and understand that there's learning that has to be done on both sides.

Venessa:

This is very exciting. So let's get into what types of trainings or certifications are needed for somebody to offer this the two parts, I guess, to this. I would also like to talk about what it means to affiliate. But first let's just look at the individual, because it doesn't just have to be through CrossFit or you don't have to own a fitness establishment right to go through this. It could just be me party one. I'm interested in this. I'm going to attend this coaching seminar. I know we talked about that. There's movement involved. Deep dive into the science behind why this works and what we need to do to help the people that we're going to be coaching. What else is involved in becoming a coach?

Michele:

So it's rather than a credentialing system. This is a one-time course and it again is open to anybody who has an interest in this. So we've tried to approach it through the lens of anyone who's forward-facing to either patients, members, you name it nutritionists, dieticians, nurses, doctors, coaches yes, all the, yes, all the health forward-facing field. This would be a very appropriate course for any of them to take. It is a one-time, two-day course, so it's the foundations course in and of itself is more based on gaining information, knowledge about what we're trying to achieve and giving you access to all of the stuff. On the other side of that, for sure, there's an extension course. There's other courses outside of that, but getting ourselves out of that, you need a level one, level two, level three, credentialing.

Michele:

This was we should be willing to just educate ourselves and start down that journey. There will be add-on courses. We just launched a type two diabetes course, right? So for people who want to take a deeper dive into certain things, that will be very accessible. But then you could tailor it towards whatever your specialty was. Scaling for special populations might be more appropriate for a coach, and a type two diabetes course might be more appropriate for a nurse, practitioner or physician. I think there's going to be a lot of crossover, which is the beautiful thing about it, but this is not something that's meant to be an ongoing thing, because it's so widespread that population of people that this is appropriate for is never ending.

Michele:

So you just do it one time and it's good for life, essentially, and then you could take these additional like supplemental classes to learn more after the fact, and I would tell anyone who's coming to it from a coaching perspective, like yourself think about this as an advanced coaching class.

Venessa:

That was one of my questions. For those that have followed Glassman through all of this for forever, climb that coaching ladder with CrossFit, does embracing this Netflix modality require an overhaul of what we know and currently practice? It's more of a is it a lateral pivot? And what I'm really hearing is that they can play very nicely in the sandbox together, and they should. Yes, is really the key.

Michele:

Yes, okay, the long-term hope for sure, which is why you're seeing a lot of people that are, or a lot of facilities that are, both Metfix and CrossFit affiliations. You can be both.

Venessa:

Okay, perfect, you just segued right into. My next question was how do I affiliate and if I am already an affiliate for CrossFit, is that okay? Do they come together? What I'm hearing is that's no problem at all. All right, just a few more questions for you. So we answered the question that you can be duly affiliated as CrossFit and Metfix. How many Metfix affiliates are there right now?

Michele:

There are. The application process is still in going through, but we have a little over. I think we're pushing 200 now. Wow, yeah, but the initial outreach, when they put this out, they got 3,000 applications. So I think they're sifting through all of those, yeah, so there's a huge momentum shift on this, which has been incredible.

Venessa:

We're starting.

Michele:

We have our first affiliates now in the UK.

Venessa:

Oh, that was my next question Any international presence Going?

Michele:

international. Oh yeah, we have our first course in China in November and London in December.

Venessa:

Yeah, congratulations. That just shows that this is really needed, yeah, and people are ready to bring it on. Are there any other considerations for athletes, coaches, gym owners, medical practitioners who might be on the fence? I'm going to try to be empathetic and pretend that I would understand why you wouldn't jump on board with this. Let's say they're still hesitant. Is there any kind of last words, anything you'd say to them to be like? Here's really what this is.

Michele:

Yeah, I think we're at a point where and I mentioned this earlier we're getting sicker and sicker Right. So if we aren't willing to take the next steps towards educating ourselves, towards what's becoming the majority of our population sadly but true then you can. You can look at this and this is a terrible way to look at it, but if you looked at it just through the lens of a business, you're expanding your market tremendously by educating yourself that way. I don't think that's necessarily the best reason to do it, but if really that was going to bring someone to the course, great, I'll take it.

Michele:

I would tell you that every time I teach one of these, one of the first questions we ask is who here knows someone, or maybe is someone who's suffering from a chronic disease? And quite literally, every hand goes up. It's pretty telling teaching people how to improve their health, how to reverse some of this, really how they go about making change in their life. Then you got to be willing to take a dive in and educate yourself on those things. So that's that, to me, would be all I would need to hear. We are in a healthcare profession From a coaching perspective, from any of those perspectives that's take that role seriously.

Venessa:

Oh my gosh. Yes, absolutely so. If someone wants to find out more, what's the place for them to go?

Michele:

BrokenScienceorg or MetFixorg. It'll lead you to the same place. That will direct you on anything from the schedule for seminars Again, we're running one to two a month depending on where we're at on that schedule. But we're running one to two a month depending on where we're at on that schedule. But we're covering kind of East Coast, west Coast, all over the board. It will also give you any instructions on becoming an affiliate and the process for affiliating a gym. Yeah, any information you would need is on there, so it's a great resource of information. So, yeah, check that out.

Venessa:

Okay, and I'll provide links in my show notes as well, so people can go and check it out. There's going to be a lot of people that are going to be very excited to hear all this. Thank you so much, michelle. This was incredibly informative. It's applicable, I think, not just CrossFitters that are hungry to understand more about Glassman's new program, but also just fitness enthusiasts or, like you said, medical professionals anybody. Yeah, whether you're, we all have the mitochondria.

Michele:

We probably all be, he's not wrong.

Venessa:

Exactly, and I like the idea that this could be a path to take to advocate real change over keeping blinders on or prescribing Band-Aids. That's going to save a lot of lives if it reaches enough people. So thank you, thank you for sharing your time and energy today.

Venessa:

That was amazing. Yeah, thank you. If you are enjoying this podcast content, please subscribe and leave me a review on your listening or viewing platform of choice. Your feedback will help us grow, share more remarkable stories and present new information to an ever-expanding like-minded community. I want to offer a reminder that your voice matters and I would love to connect with you. If you feel called to contribute, please reach out. You can email topic ideas, suggestions for interviews and feedback to Vanessa at squatsandsayancescom. That's Vanessa with an E. You can find new episodes of Squats and Sayances on all major podcast platforms and the adjacent vlog cast on my YouTube channel. Find and follow me on social media at Squats and Seances on Instagram, facebook and TikTok. Until next time, may you continue to live well, embrace authenticity, question everything and, of course course, stay gritty.