Welcome to EWM INSIGHTS where we celebrate on HUMAN CAPITAL!

In this episode, we explore the transformative world of fitness and community with Joe Palumbo and Jim Tinsley, founders of Vice Athletics.

Discover how their unique approach to health and fitness coaching empowers individuals of all ages to reach their goals, emphasizing personalized training in a supportive environment.

Join us as we discuss the importance of having a coach, the benefits of strength training, and how to foster a community spirit within the gym.

Above all, through EWM INSIGHTS we want to encourage you to:

INVEST IN WHAT YOU LOVE!®

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Vice Athletics

https://www.viceathletics.com

Joe Palumbo

https://www.viceathletics.com/team

Jim Tinsley

https://www.viceathletics.com/team

Links referenced in this episode:

• viceathletics.com
• instagram.com/viceathleticsnorth
• instagram.com/viceathletics

Well, all right!

What a great, great day it is in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

This is a great time of year.

Leaves are changing color a little bit.

It's a little brisk in the morning and a little.

A little brisk again in the evenings, but still a lot to do, a lot to see, lots of places to go.

You can still get to the beach.

You can still go for that jog.

You can go for the run.

This is a beautiful time of year.

Listen, I am so pleased today with.

We have with us Joe Palumbo, and he is the founder of Vice Athletics, and we also have Jim Tinsley.

Jim is a partner with Vice Athletics and Mukilteo as well.

So, gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us today.

It's great to be here.

We're glad to be here.

Well, listen, I've got a lot of questions.

I, I mentioned jogging.

I try not to do that on purpose, but I have coached.

I've coached basketball, football and rugby, and I know the value of being in shape, staying in shape.

And I was really, really pleased that you would join us today because I'd like to hear a little bit more about Vice Athletics.

Tell us what you do and how you.

What influenced you to get into this particular field.

And so, Joe, if you would welcome and please tell us and share with us, how did you get into this field?

And tell us a little bit about Vice and what you do.

I. I appreciate the opportunity here, Paul.

And, and, you know, it's.

I always think about this question because I feel like it's been steady for a long time.

So, you know, I feel like I'm doing pretty precisely what I am supposed to do with this life, and that's a pretty good feeling.

A lot of people that I graduated with are no longer using their degrees, so they're doing something else, and they have ventured into other territory, which is neither good nor bad.

But I always found coaching for me, and especially physical preparedness and research and things in that world have always been a really big passion of mine.

So I can relate to how you opened with.

You were a basketball coach.

You coached multiple sports.

I was just having this conversation this morning with one of our coaches here.

I personally believe, and this is kind of my mission statement here, personally, I think everybody should have a health and fitness coach.

I really do.

And I think what we really try to serve and do, number one, I know it's intimidating to walk into a gym.

I get it.

I want to take those hurdles out of the way.

But number two, I think I want to create A confidence in people that they know they're on the right path, they're moving towards a goal and a target, which is, you know, staying healthy, longevity, being strong.

And I think of living long as I want to go into the grave exhausted and tired, I want to be squatting on my last day on the planet.

Right.

So I try to think, not to be morbid about it, but I really think it's just a lifetime endeavor.

And so I think that's what motivates me.

That's what, you know, keeps me moving in the mornings.

I have kids now, so I know the whole story about keeping up with your kids, and I want to be able to run circles around those guys, for sure.

But I personally believe every single person should have a coach at some point in their life in some way, shape or form as it relates to their health and fitness.

I can believe that.

I know it does more for a person than just their muscular structure, their skeletal strength and stability.

It can really help with the mental aspects as well.

Is that.

Is that correct?

100%.

And I think, you know, I think when we're younger, I think we focus a little bit more on vanity, which is.

Which is great.

And I think it's a good motivator.

And I think, you know, we all want to be buff and lean and ripped and shredded, and I get that.

And as we get a little older, we have a little bit more perspective, a little more grays, maybe.

And I think, think it becomes a battle of how can I stay fit and how can I stay strong and how can I keep my bone density and how can I keep my metabolism high and how can I stay off of medication?

How can I prevent this surgery?

Right.

I really don't want to have a surgery on my shoulder or my knee or my spine.

Is there something that I can do proactively?

And so I'm a firm believer.

And strength training is a fountain of youth.

I think if done properly and done well, you can do it for a very long time.

And I think it's something that does become.

I often say.

I probably say this at least once a week.

I probably was better served getting a psychology degree than a physiology degree, because I truly believe that this becomes.

What is your motivation?

What is your reason for being here?

Right.

And so I want to get to the bottom of that when somebody starts because it's important, and then that way people don't feel like they're just showing up blind.

Like, what am I doing today?

Like, I. I want you to know what you're doing today, why you're doing it.

Let me take it off your plate for an hour.

Let me take you through this workout and then go on with your day.

Well, I think that's important because understanding why you're doing what you're doing is going to keep a person engaged longer or they'll actually be able to know their goal and hit their goals.

Isn't that right?

I think it's the proverbial teach a man to fish, teach someone to fish.

And so it's one thing to check it off a box, it's one thing to get it in.

And I'm not saying don't do that, but I'm also saying I think on the other side, if we take just an extra bit of energy up front before we start this journey and really get to the bottom of why you're doing it, what's going on, how the muscles work.

I think there's so much more value in that and there's so much more potential in long term sustainability.

People tend not to burn out that like, oh, okay, now I understand why I'm doing this.

Oh, okay.

I used to hate these.

Right.

But now I kind of know why I can still hate them.

And that's okay.

You can hate them all day, but you kind of have a different embrace of it once, you know, hey, these are, this is kind of some foundational things that we need to do that are linked to longevity, that are linked to lean muscle, that are linked to postural health and things like that.

Yeah, the minute you say posture, we all straighten up.

I did the same thing.

I know.

Gut reaction there.

Yeah, my spine.

So you've, you've been in the field for a while, you've worked with personal trainers, and I believe you've worked with a number of PhDs and you also worked with the Cleveland Browns for a bit.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

I think they're what they in the NFL, they do have strength and position coaches.

Is.

Isn't that correct?

They do, yeah.

So they will generally have one strength coach for the entire team.

So you'll be your head strength coach.

We'll have three to four assistant coaches that will help implement the program.

And then basically they, they will boil it down into, in the NFL where it's a little bit more position specific training.

And so when you're in season, you go through a certain protocol programming.

Obviously the whole mission there is to stay healthy and to not be sore and to keep your mobility, to keep weight, to keep your lean muscle throughout the year.

And then a lot of times in the off season, the guys kind of have their own programming and their own rehabilitation protocols and stuff that they do on their own.

The NFL is a little different.

It's, you know, at the college level, everybody's in house, everybody stays put.

Everybody.

University of Washington, all those guys are on campus all year long during the summer, too.

And the pros, those guys, after the season there, you might have a guy that lives in San Francisco or a guy that lives in Tampa Bay.

So they will generally venture off and do their own thing.

But in season, the head coach, the head strength conditioning coach in the NFL writes the programming for the entire program.

And that may have changed since I've been in the league.

Generally, they kind of create the structure for the whole programming.

Okay.

Yeah.

So even at the very top professional level, you have brought your expertise and worked with all those who need to have their bodies fine tuned for their profession, and now you're bringing the same information and expertise to Vice athletics.

Yep, I have a great story about that.

So it's probably a couple years past, and I have a group of clients that I train at advice, you know, 40s, and they're in their 40s and 50s, and we're sitting there warming them up, and I'm taking them through this new rubber band stretching mobility protocol.

And one of the moms is like, joe, we were at the Seahawks game this last weekend, and before the game, they were doing this exact exercise.

And I'm like, yes, Connie, I treat you guys exactly like pro athletes.

And so that.

I think a lot of people love that, where they.

They do get that kind of feel where it's like, man, I'm being taught how to move like an athlete.

Like, I do some of the stuff that the pros do, and, you know, I firmly believe in that.

Like, there's a way to.

To bring that style.

It's not exclusive to NFL athletes.

It's not.

And so I try to bring that touch of creativity regardless of age, regardless of where you're coming from, and to everybody that kind of comes into the gym or it's like, hey, here's our expectations, and we want you to move like a pro.

And I think that kind of resonates with a lot of the adult and youth programs that are.

That are happening right now.

I like that.

Move like a pro.

That is.

I'm gonna write that.

I'm gonna write that down.

That's actually a really good marketing idea.

I did write it down.

Well, you have a real passion for this.

I Can tell it just comes across in how you're, you know, sharing what, what caused you to want to get into this field?

Well, I, you know, I have a degree in it.

I was in take you back to my college days.

I was in business.

I was in small business management, believe it or not, and I hated it.

So I, I talked to my counselor at the time and I could bounce out to physiology because I was very interested in it.

And I was playing football at the time, University of Dayton.

And some of the classes that I had already taken and my undergrad were going to count for the physiology major as well.

So I was like, well, I could bounce out to this major, graduate with it and not have to stay here for another year.

So that was part of, but also in the same breath throughout that process, I got to be a part of some really amazing teams and not just teams of athletes, but teams of people.

So from there, with my graduation with physiology, I had internship with the Browns, which led into a longer term play.

Long story short, as is typical in Cleveland, every couple of years everybody gets fired.

So that is par for the course in Cleveland.

Although I don't know, this year they're looking pretty good.

But I ended up taking an internship post Cleveland Browns with Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

And that's where I got into ACL injury research.

Published author there through my certification program, National Strength Conditioning association and then started working with the Bengals as well.

So I was kind of a, a freelancer where I was working with the Bengals linebackers.

I was doing research.

So, you know, call it what you will, coincidence, providential luck.

I found myself in the right spot at the right time and I got a lot of good experience with a lot of different teams.

And I basically met the three of my mentors earlier in my career.

I met them back to back to back.

So I got all three of my mentors really early in my career, which I think was hugely advantageous to venturing off and doing my own thing.

And, and I wish I would have done it sooner.

And it's kind of one of the, the things I, you know, I, I answer with the questionnaire is I wish I'd have done it sooner, honestly take the leap.

But I was fortunate to be a part of those teams and you know, that.

Plus Covid.

This is what I found during COVID If Covid did not push me out of this business, nothing is going to push me out of this business.

And it was chaotic and it was a mess and no.

And we didn't know what we were doing, and we were just trying to get through it, looking at other jobs, and I was talking to my wife like, what should we do?

And it boiled down to, I just don't see myself doing anything else ever.

I don't think I'm employable right now by anybody else.

But also, like, I'm having fun, what I'm doing.

I really am.

And it's hard.

And there's days that suck and there's days that are awesome.

But I just think that's like any other thing, right?

It's not always going to be happy.

Hey, every day is awesome.

No, it's cool.

Every day is up and down, and that's okay.

So I think that kind of was the, you know, the proverbial honing in the steel there, where the steel had just been heated up enough times where I'm just like, man, I'm pretty.

I'm sharpened right now.

And I think this is something I need to keep pursuing and doing.

And that's kind of where we are today.

You know, one of those things that you mentioned, when there are certain events that take place and they don't have to be great events.

911 Wasn't a great event.

Covid wasn't a great event.

But one of the things it does is, I think you've mentioned this prior.

It really hones in the importance of connecting with your community.

It really does tie into how are you going to get through these things.

And if you have the mental fortitude and you have the physical ability and you have those connections, then you can really stay the course.

And in many cases, you can bloom.

I mean, for example, in 2007, 2008, we had the.

Was another one of those events.

We've had it.

We've.

We've had a series of them over the last, you know, 20, 25 years.

Yeah, but.

But with the crime crash.

Yeah.

With the mortgage situation and a lot of consolidation.

But if a person was able to stay connected within their community, if they were able to take care of themselves physically and mentally, they could get through.

I agree with you.

And I think.

What does that boil down to?

It boils down to being surrounded by other people.

And I think, you know, those events cause you to look internally like 911 and Covid, but then they also put you in the uncomfortable position that you are reliant upon the people around you and the people that you have surrounded yourself with.

And I think it is up to you.

You must keep going, you must keep persevering.

But I just think that the Message there is don't feel like you're doing it by yourself.

Like everybody else is in this boat, dude.

And, you know, some of us are rowing, some of us are not.

Some of us are taking time off, and that's okay, right?

As long as we're going in a general direction, I think I. I just kind of keep that mindset.

And so I think, you know, it's a powerful testament to community and even.

What is it, 26, 2026.

And Covid was 2020.

I will still have people come into the gym that say, this is my refuge.

This place saved me over Covid.

Just probably two months ago, I had a woman come in.

She's like, I just.

I just want to thank you guys for being here.

You saved me over Covid.

You saved me over Covid.

So we became a lifeline for most people, right?

There's days where I'm just like, man, am I going to keep doing this?

I don't want to keep doing this.

This sucks.

And I kept showing up and somebody else noticed, and five years later, she's like, thank you for going through it.

So you just don't know.

You don't.

Well, gyms are communities in and of themselves as well, for sure.

You know, you.

You walk in and you see the same people.

You meet new people, and you don't have to have long conversations.

Sometimes it's just the nod.

I see you working out over there.

You know, Jim sees me working out over here, and it's like, yep, yep, same time, same same place, same channel.

Right.

He's working on his Superman.

I'm working on my Batman.

And, And.

And.

But.

But that's.

That's an Also another type of support.

Correct.

I think it's a sticky part of vice, for sure, because I think, for the most part, you know, we don't turn this into a rah rah competition type of thing.

We don't turn this into a how fast, how many, how much.

I think we turn it more into, how can we help you get better today?

How can we help you focus on what you need to focus on?

And I think that's a lot of, like, I just don't give that lip service right where I don't think it's cookie cutter.

I don't think I can create a program, and I can create, like, the best plan.

Like, dude, this is awesome.

This is a 10 out of a 10 plan.

And in fact, when I implement it, it's a one out of ten.

Like, oh, man, I probably messed that one up.

But the ish, the, not the issue, but the way that I try to formulate it is how can I have a positive impact on the most people and then how can I reach them where they are on that given day?

So they're not as much concerned about, oh, Joe over here is deadlifting xy or he's doing X wires.

It doesn't matter what Joe is doing actually.

It just, it matters what you're doing.

So focus on yourself and then we can all work on this together.

And I think that's a big part of the, the community appeal of vice, where it's, it's more supportive than it is competitive.

It's a little more, man, I don't, I don't want to be uptight.

I don't want to run the gym.

Like, who are these people walking into my space?

I want anybody to walk into the gym.

I want everybody to feel welcome and invited in this gym.

I already know it's hard enough to walk into a gym.

I get it, I totally get it.

My 10, I'm working on my 10 year old daughter right now getting into the gym.

You gotta go.

So I, I know some of those hurdles and, but again, I don't, I don't want to make it easy for her to commit to it.

It's like if you commit to it, like say it out loud, write it down and go, and, and we got your back.

And I think that's kind of a lot of the psychology part of it too, where it comes into play.

So what were some of the biggest challenges for you when you started the endeavor?

Oh, man.

Making money, finding, finding leads, competing with bigger gyms and franchises, staying true to your first principles.

There's, there's a lot of different ways to make money in this field.

And I think health and fitness is, is a growing field and, and it's, it's very, you know, opportunistic if you can be smart and have a good plan.

I think the biggest hurdles for me were just being confident with, with what I was doing and what I believed in and then how I could bring other people into that system, if you want to call it that, and get them the results that they were hoping to achieve.

So, you know, a little bit of humility, a little bit of lack of self confidence and a lot of bit of worry about, like, is, is this gonna make enough money to pay the rent?

Those were, those were big hurdles and you know, you're, when you're kind of doing it solo by yourself, you're, you're Just wearing a lot of hats.

So thankfully that time it was just me and my dog, so I didn't have a family.

Now the stakes are a little bit higher.

So what gives me a.

So, so what you mentioned that, you know, there, there is competition because there's Planet Fitness over here.

There's.

There used to be a Gold's Gym.

I don't know if they still have.

They used to be one in Mukilteo.

They're not around anymore.

There's 24 Hour Fitness and there's CrossFit.

I mean, so there's competition, but there's also the value add.

How do you add additional value or make a distinction between some of the other competitors?

They're all good at what they do.

That.

That's fine.

Every.

There's.

There's a niche for everyone that, that's great.

But what does Vice specialize in?

Give me a little bit of leeway here because I think it's easier to answer this on two fronts.

I think you've got the, you got the big box gyms, right?

Like LA and golds and, and that model, 24 hour, their model is actually based on how many people don't use the gym.

You can look this up, you can find it out.

It's on the URSA website.

And it will tell you, If I have 10,000 square feet of space, I can sell X number of memberships because I know only 10% of the people are going to use the membership.

So they're basing their model on a negative, which is a little bit of human nature on one side, but they're literally selling memberships knowing that only 10% or whatever the number is.

I don't know precisely.

Somebody's going to fact check me and that's fine.

So that's one side of the equation.

We are basing our model on how many people are continuously coming to the gym and are utilizing our space.

So we put a premium on the space.

And then on the other side of the equation, I think of the CrossFit world, the orange Theory world, things like that.

I'm trying to.

It's a little bit easier to prove a negative.

And we have a sign out front of our gym and it's ruffled a little feathers and I don't care.

That's fine.

It says not a crossfit, and that's it.

And it just has a Vice athletics logo and says not a crossfit.

And I started that because most people walk into my gym, our gym, and they say, do you guys do Crossfit here and I'm like, no, we're not a CrossFit.

Now what does CrossFit do?

Well, they have brought deadlifts, hang cleans, power cleans, snatches to the masses and they have done a fantastic job of creating a community and a culture.

Now from my perspective, again, I played college football, I'm a dad of two, I don't personally need to train to become better at doing a thousand snatches.

I really just need to train for my muscle, my mobility and my fitness.

And so I think our value add is we still operate in a group structure.

I have a program that our focus program basically is a personal training program in a semi private training environment.

So it is price pointed at a point that's accessible to a lot more people.

Personal training is very expensive right now in the state of Washington.

So what we're trying to do is we are trying to create a program that's accessible and personalized within that structure, which is fantastic.

And so from my perspective, I'm putting the value on who's showing up and can I create a program for them within that structure that they can get what they need and continue to progress.

Not how many, how much and how fast, but how well can we do this today, how much better can we get through the course of a month?

And so we're, we're somewhere in between those two models, right where it's like LA and 24 and people want to come in and open gym this place and it's like go to LA Fitness.

That's not our model.

On the other side I see the CrossFit model and in my head look for the average 35 to 45 year old human.

This might be too much.

This might not be the best way to progress for you.

From my perspective, I want to try to create a model that is based on a collegiate strength program.

Let's get better at X, Y and Z this month.

Let's set progressions in place, let's challenge you for sure.

And then from there we can overlay nutrition and the other things and components that go with health and fitness.

And that's part of our focus program in general.

But hopefully that's not too long winded of an answer.

No, I think it's a great answer.

I mean we try to find ourselves right in the middle.

I'm a middle ground where it's like nothing is ever fully right, nothing's ever fully wrong.

Let's find where the, where the moderate principle is here and figure out the best way to square that Circle.

Yeah, What I'm hearing you say is, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you're looking to have a relationship with the participant where you are actually mapping out goals and working with them one on one in a semi private environment.

So it's the benefits of having an individual trainer at a price point that is accessible for somebody who needs that or wants that type of attention.

If they want to go run on a treadmill for 30 minutes, and I'm, I'm exaggerating, you know, someone may.

Yeah, right.

Or if they already know what they want to do and they want to, you know, come in and come out, then, then that's fine.

But for somebody who wants that individual attention, that guidance, that nutrition information, have that in a package where they can know and be known, that's the value right there, 100%.

I think I have heard it described this way before and because I think the, the programming that we do in the gym is one of the harder things.

And look, I don't have a PR team and we don't have a sales and marketing team.

I'd love to pay, you know, somebody to come in and no, I would not love to pay.

I'd love to get it for free actually, but I would love to have somebody come in and say, this is how you should position yourself in the market.

But the way that I've had it described is the programming is such that you can get a personalized experience in a group environment like that.

And so you, you kind of get away from that cookie cutter, you kind of get into the, you, you hit the nail on the head.

It is about the individual coming in the door.

The other side of that equation, we will get people from all walks of life, from post physical therapy, from the couch, from anywhere.

Right?

So you've got to kind of be not dogmatic in your system, you've got to be pliable in your system.

But there is a system right there.

Like you got to learn how to squat, you got to learn how to push, you have to learn how to pull.

And there are infinite ways to do that.

But the other side of that equation is maybe that person had a long weekend, maybe that person had too much to drink on Sunday night, maybe that person dislocated their shoulder, slight sublux in their shoulder, skiing on the weekend.

Right.

So are you going to have them come in and do push ups and pull ups the next day?

Absolutely not.

You know, and, but the other side of that is I don't want you to take a day off I don't want you to take the week off.

If you can move and the shoulder feels good, let's come in and work on some mobility and we'll modify our way through it.

So I try to impress that upon our coaches as we bring new coaches into the environment.

Like, hey, here's the template.

We've got to.

But we've got to be scalable within that structure.

So there's got to be a scaffold within that structure.

Knowing on any given Monday, I might have a tweak in a shoulder, a tweak in a knee, a tweak in a hip, that is not a good reason to shut it down for a month.

Right.

And I always think motion will.

Movement will heal a lot of soreness and a lot of aches and pains.

Now, if it's an acute injury that's really challenging and hard and difficult, obviously we need to take time off.

But I think, look, we're adults, we're human, we're middle aged, so things are going to happen, but what's the solution to it?

The solution is to move.

And so then our time is.

That's where our rubber meets the road.

That's where our problem solving skills come into play as coaches, where it's just like, okay, how can I get you in the right position today to.

To succeed and to get something out of this hour?

Yeah, I like that.

I used to say motion is lotion.

Right?

100.

Right.

And so the older we get, it's important to be mobile because it helps everything else.

Yep.

Yeah, absolutely.

So who are some of the biggest influences in your life?

I think I've had three really big mentors in my life.

The first one, and again, they all came in the same spot, and they're all kind of right at the start of my career.

So Louis Simmons, he's no longer with us, but he was one of the more influential power lifters of his day.

And so I feel like I've got this really unique, weird background of, like, these big power lifters, the meatheads over here, and then you've got the really smart PhDs and over here.

So I've kind of got this weird mixture of physical things, therapy and PhD and just the anecdotal.

Like, I'm carrying around my gallon of water and my Tupperware and I'm eating my chicken breast all day.

Right.

So it's like that group, too.

So Louis Simmons was a big mentor for me just as it related to athletic development.

How do you get people stronger?

How do you get athletes to lift more weight.

How do you get athletes to tinker with this or that to get the most out of their bodies?

Huge influence.

Number two is Dr. Hewitt, and he was the lead PhD at Cincinnati Children's when I was there.

He's now at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

But, you know, he was a huge influence on.

On me finding my way to the Pacific Northwest.

And he was a great coach.

He was brilliant, but also, in the same breath, completely accessible and completely like a dude you want to have a beer with.

Like, that was Dr. Hewitt.

And he probably.

He is still that dude, I can guarantee you.

But he let you, for lack of a better term, experiment with your thoughts and think through possible scenarios.

And he probably honed in my thought process on programming more than any other influence.

Just, here's how you would do it, here's why you would do it.

Why would you do it this way instead of this way?

Why would you progress this to this and then think through every person is like a case study.

So that was number two.

And then, you know, Jim Riggs, who is my third influence, he's in Cincinnati.

I just saw him two weeks ago.

He was just the right guy at the right time.

He helped me hone in my own confidence and ability.

Kind of gave me the nudge to go do this on your own, but also ran his own business.

So, like, I saw the stress.

I saw wife and kids come through his life.

And again, I was single at the time, so it's like, I can kind of watch all this stuff happen.

So I learned a lot from him.

And even going home two weeks ago, I'm still continuing like, dude, why didn't I think of this?

And so he's just.

He's got that kind of brain where he's just always turning it over, right?

So I appreciate.

And so, like, those three guys were.

Were huge influences on.

I'd say one side.

It's intensity.

It's that, grr.

It's that how much?

How many?

And then the other side was the temperament, where it's, why are we doing it?

Why would you do it this way?

And then the other side is, could we do it slightly differently?

Could we make a better model?

So I kind of have those three guys swimming in my head at any particular time.

And so it's just kind of helped shift shape the future of what vice is and what vice will become.

And I just try to stick true to those principles because they're.

They're.

They're three good dudes again.

And I feel fortunate to continue to have two of them in my life.

You know, the third one we lost.

But Louie had a good life.

Louis Simmons, dude, if anybody's out there and wants to look him up and go down the rabbit hole, go for it.

He is an exceptional coach.

Excellent.

Well, now you have a vise available.

It's open in Mukilteo and Jim Tinsley is your partner.

And Jim is.

He's been really managing that location.

Yes.

So Jim, why did you choose Mukilteo and what are you finding in regards to the opportunities and the response in Mukilteo?

So for me, this came about as a part of my passion for youth sports.

I've coached youth softball for decade now.

I was talking with another local coach, our third business partner, coach Ivan McLennan who played with the Atlanta Falcons.

He was a Washington, Washington State cougar.

Even though I'm a dog.

Go dogs.

Go dogs.

And so he and I were talking about we need to get something going for youth sports.

And in an incredibly provincial happening, we met Joe at the Little League complex.

I was actually coaching a game and Coach Mack came bounding down to the field, jumping up and down excitedly.

I just met this guy.

He's we're going to do something.

We're going to open this facility.

And Coach Mac and Joe and myself met later that week.

And Joe had all of the energy, all of the plan, all of the everything set for what I've been saying for well over a decade, we need in this area specifically for the youth.

Joe talked a lot about our programs that we have available for adults.

For me, I have just seen this almost, but not quite in youth athletes around the Mukilteo area.

And myself and countless coaches have said we need something in the North Sound that is going to build elite athletes.

And so in walks this guy with a decade of NFL strength conditioning who did his, who's a published author, who did his research at Cincinnati Children's, who's got mountains of knowledge and plans.

It was just a perfect meeting of the three.

And to be able to come together and have somebody as brilliant as Joe Palumbo who already had a vice location open, it was a no brainer to can we do a vice athletics North?

Yes, let's find a location and let's get into it.

And within what, three or four months of us meeting, we had found a location and were in the process of the remodel and getting it ready.

Once the three of us came together in one room and shook hands, we started an all out sprint to bring this to the people of Mukilteo.

Excellent.

Excellent.

And youth is really important.

We have lots of programs, but we don't have a lot of organized strength programming.

And so that this is.

This is very helpful.

You did mention Coach Mac.

And just for those who don't know, Coach Mac is the coach of Kamiak Football, is he not?

Correct.

He's the head coach of Kamiak Football.

Spent some time with the Atlanta Falcons, spent some time in the Canadian Football League.

He's an accomplished athlete, to be sure.

But he is an amazing coach.

The way he gets down on the athletes level and teaches people things in the way they learn.

So if I was to work with Coach Mac, he would train me in a different way than he would train you, Paul.

In a different way than he would train you, Joe.

But we would all get the same content.

He is just very dynamic.

Watching him, particularly with his D line sessions, is fantastic.

I've seen him train kids as young as 8 or 9 up to current Washington, Washington Husky athletes.

Excellent.

So if someone is interested in looking at a program for their youth team and there's different levels, it doesn't have to be just Kamiak Football.

It could be a soccer team or it could be something else, or it could be a group that want to improve themselves that.

That would be available to have that discussion with Vice.

Is that correct?

Absolutely.

We have something for everybody.

We have a local softball team.

And one of my favorite stories is one of the girls on that softball team.

She's a 16U athlete and she has been training at Vice and just working her tail off.

This girl works so hard and I'm not gonna say her name.

She is just an absolute gamer.

And for the first time in her eight, nine years of playing softball, she hit an out of the park home run.

Wow.

And that is part of what we're seeing out of the athletes who are training.

Advice.

But we.

So we train softball.

We have a couple of basketball programs, some high school basketball programs, some AAU programs.

We have club volleyball training, a number of football programs from Pop Warner level up through high schools, as well as a professional football team that trains with us, the Washington Wolf Pack.

We provide their training.

They are the arena football team up in Everett.

Ah.

Okay.

So really for people of all ages.

But what's great is, and that Joe was talking a lot about, it's not necessarily just teams.

If you work at Boeing and you want to put together a group of Boeing engineers to come in and you guys want to work together, we'll put together a class for your Boeing engineer group.

And of course, their needs would be different as well.

So, you know, I really appreciate the forethought of those at different ages and what they may need.

I was signing up for a course one time, and this person, this young person said, well, I want to run you through these paces to see where you are and would you be willing to, you know, do X, Y and Z?

So I said, sure.

There were a couple of things that she asked me to do.

Put your back up against the wall, go down into a squat position and hold it.

And I said, no, I'm not doing that.

Then she asked me to do something else and.

And I said, no, I'm not doing that either.

And she was offended.

And she said, well, okay.

Well, then I can't help you.

And I said, well, what you should have done is ask why.

So for someone with patella tendonitis.

Yeah.

That is not a good position to be in, and I never want to be in that position.

Yep.

For someone who's had, you know, shoulder surgeries.

No, I'm not doing this.

Why?

Because I'm not doing this in my real life.

And I don't want to have to necessarily have another one of those proceedings.

So taking the time to ask the questions are important.

Being able to tailor a program for different sports and different needs at different ages is also important.

Now, there are people who are centurions that ski.

I get that people over 100 do ski.

There are people who are in their 70s and 80s that run marathons, and I get that.

So I'm not saying that things can't be done at different ages.

You just have to be aware so that you can work on and in some cases work around some things that I do know.

And I'm glad to really hear that you take the time to really tailor that, because the big box stores are not going to do that.

I do think you hit the nail on the head with the value add.

And I think it is.

It's that differential experience that matters.

And then you distill it down to the person that's in front of you, not to just the program that's written on the board.

And I think that that's important.

And I think that it's important to know that information beforehand.

It's why we like to meet everybody as they come in and take them through an assessment and an intro.

It's why we have the two adult programs that kind of run concurrently, but can specialize in different areas more.

One's more personal training.

One's more personalized within the group.

And then it's why we have the kids programs as well.

I would not train a 10 year old as I would a 42.

And so they're not just little adults.

You know, there is a progressive way to get them from A to B.

And, you know, that's part of our velocity program where it's, it depends on age bracket.

Like, I'm gonna write a program.

Okay, give me, give me the demo.

Who is it?

What do we got?

Let me watch a move.

And you can more readily create a program built for that, for that cohort.

So that's a lot of how we differentiate between the, the things that are happening in the gym.

The beauty of it is they all operate under the same umbrella within the same structure.

And that takes a little longer to kind of grow and spread that message, you know.

And so we're still honing those, those ideas in and those concepts in because we don't want to be a one trick pony.

We don't.

You know, family is our goal.

I want this place to be familial in nature.

I want mom and dad to be able to come in and train and then their kids to be able to come in and train as well.

And from a business model, that's great, but also from just a community setting, I think you can start to define culture and you get into much bigger, you know, much bigger principles that way when you can start to hone in and have a net positive impact on a wide variety of people.

I agree.

I agree.

And at every level, you want to be able to move like a pro.

At every level, like a pro.

I love it.

I love it.

I want to.

Don't be surprised if you see that in a Google Ad here really soon.

I, I think it's a fantastic idea.

Yeah.

Just give me credit.

That's all I ask.

I will give you some credit for sure.

Well, listen, gentlemen, I really appreciate the time.

If someone wants to get in touch with you, what's.

What are your coordinates?

What's the best number?

What's your Twitter X go to Vice Athletics North.

So Vice Athletics is our south facility.

Vice Athletics north is our Mukilteo facility.

Easiest way.

Submit, submit your name and number.

We will get in touch with you asap.

We're actively getting people landing on our website right now and interested phone numbers on the website as well.

But we're located right on the speedway in Mukilteo, right behind Azteca restaurant.

9,000 Square feet of turf.

It's a great indoor facility.

We have complete, completely, man.

We put some elbow, elbow grease into this space, Paul.

It was a, it was a diamond in the rough, man.

We did.

Jim can attest.

We, we had some sledgehammers out and.

Geez, I've seen it.

I've seen the location.

It's, it's beautiful.

It is beautiful.

Jim, I need you to give the phone number, share the phone numbers for someone who is listening.

If, if you have that and do you have Twitter or Instagram people can follow as well?

Yeah, Instagram is Vice Athletics North.

They should also follow Vice Athletics, which is the south location.

I am not an owner of that one.

That, that is Joe's baby.

But Vice Athletics and Vice Athletics north and they can reach us via email [email protected] and they can reach out to me and get me directly at 425-418-0582.

Excellent.

And we would, we would love to just host anybody come out see it.

We'll give you free assessment.

As an aside, we do have an on site sports physical therapist with their own private office with you.

Close the doors, have your privacy.

SPT Sports Physical therapy has an office inside of Vice Athletics and we also have a wrestling academy for those that want to wrestle.

Rise Wrestling has a location within our.

Facility that is, that is excellent.

Where's the south location located?

That's in essentially in Interbay, but it's technically Magnolia, so it's right off of The Dravis and 15th street intersection down in Magnolia, Seattle.

Okay, so they could go to Vice, they could get stronger than they could go to Interbay and work on driving that golf ball a few yards, a few yards further.

At every age, at every many meetings.

We have had at that driving range.

For sure.

Excellent.

So easy to access and fun.

Excellent.

Well, gentlemen, I want to thank you for your time.

This is absolutely terrific.

And again, if you're interested in enjoying life, if you're interested in participating in life and want to participate like a pro, reach out to Jim and Joe at Vice Athletics.

As always, we encourage you to invest in what you love.