Automatically transcribed, so expect the odd wrong name or word.
Alrighty beautiful people, we are back on the Virtus Performance Podcast. Tyler, welcome. Splendid to be here, long time listener, first time co-host of the Virtus Podcast. Which we love. I've got a little bit of intro music for you. Thoughts? It's clean. It's cold. Love it. But I call high-quality H2O. More Adam Sandler. We need more Adam Sandler and more high-quality H2O. That's what we're talking about. But we are back in the podcast chairs. We started upgrading our setup a little bit so we got some fancy new signs, new buttons to press and we've got the solo camera at the moment.
We're going to eventually add a couple of cameras but we didn't want to let perfect get in the way of good so we're here. We're ready to do a quick, a bit of a recap over the last couple of years of Virtus, what we've been doing, what has transpired since we last did the podcast and to give you guys a bit of an insight into what the plan is for season three of the podcast. So season one was about 110 episodes long, season two was ten, there's been a couple of odd episodes since then but Tyler, tell the people what we can expect over the next couple of months full of the Virtus Podcast season three.
Essentially we just want to add value to the Virtus community so we're going to get as many members of our community that may have a story to tell and that may provide value to the wider community on the podcast as possible. If there's anyone in the community that you'd love to hear from or reckon might have a story to tell, let us know and we'll get them on. Which we love. So super excited to do that and a big part of the reason the Virtus Podcast existed in the first place was just to hear the extraordinary stories of what most people would consider ordinary people.
Like we don't need to get Elon Musk or Nathan Buckley or any of those big dogs on. Yet. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe as we go because they're just humans like the rest of us but I find it fascinating the quality of experience that just everyday person has and I think it allows us to actually get some insight into day to day problems that don't make the news or don't seemingly change the world but they make the world a better place and I guess that's what we're here for. That's it yeah every week I'm having a conversation with someone different on the gym floor and they tell me something and it's like shit everyone needs to hear that.
So this is what the podcast is for. 100% so Tyler let's do a quick little recap of you at Virtus. Tell us about your journey that got you into this seat with me right now. I won't deep dive too much because that'll be a story for a deeper interview on its own episode. We'll do a full podcast in a couple of weeks. Essentially as first bout of Covid was finishing up so late 2020 I did the internship. I loved it so much and I just thought shit I need to get a little bit more out of this.
I'm just always hungry for a bit of growth was finished my bachelor of exercise in sports science in Ballarat and was currently working there as well and I felt like I just levelled up as much as possible in Ballarat and it was time to step into a new environment and chase some more growth. Mitch Rowe credit to him he planted the seed in my head to go after him and politely ask for a job. I saw a gap in the market Virtus essentially they needed someone to reach out and facilitate with local sporting clubs schools
and businesses so I said to like hey here's your gap I can feel it and we started April 16 2021 started with real fire lit under me and then Covid bout two happened and that sort of just took all the air out of the tires. I think it was bout seven but yeah bout seven. There was a few bouts. So all the air was out of the tires and not a lot really got accomplished in 2021. Towards the mid to back end of 2021 we were able to do some outdoor sessions so I sort of facilitated that.
Lockie handed me the keys and gave me the reins while he was having child number two and sorting out a whole heap of other stuff. Think he had a surgery as well. Yep some renovations all the good stuff. So that was a good chance for me to connect with the Virtus family and get to know them on a deeper level and yeah sort of ever since then I've really felt like a part of the furniture. Would you say you fit like a glove? Go on then. Sorry I'll stop doing that. No I won't stop doing that ever.
Just tell us if it's getting too hot. We need some feedback. I'll probably take half of it on board. And then where are we? We had some renovations. New recovery space so Norma Tech's downstairs. Spa, ice bath, Tucum, sauna upstairs. It's all happening. New office. I mean safe to say like I don't want to I definitely don't want to spend this this 20 minutes isn't an opportunity to talk about all the shit that we went through with COVID and stuff but I think it's it's been an important really important kind of you know end of and beginning of new chapter.
It's almost like the re you know in a way and I certainly feel it's almost like a rebirth of Virtus now that we've gone through that two years of COVID. You know the gym was closed over that over a two-year period the gym was closed for more than a year so it was a bit of a hectic hectic time both you know mentally physically socially for everyone who was cooped up at home in Melbourne so cheers to everyone that got through it. It's nice to be back out in the sunshine and to see all the
you know all the good stuff happening again you know local sport and and just community building which we all miss so much but you know that period of time allowed us to get really clear on what we wanted and what our values were and where we're headed and what we were actually trying to achieve. And you know we spent time during the lockdowns building building like an online university with courses and things like that and we were going to you know thinking about taking a deep dive into the into the online coaching space and a
few things like that that when we did open up for certain periods of time it really emphasised what was so special what was so important to us about the Virtus family and and what we kind of came back to with two words was people and place. We love spending time with people we love in places we love to be and for us we want this place 1/2 Torque Terrace Virtus Performance to be that place for a lot of people so so you know my decision making was all around doubling down on that it was you
know finding and or finding and building a team of professionals who could give the most value possible to the Virtus family and I think we've done that really well and it was doing it in a space where you know we could make the decision so fortunately we're able to purchase the the space at the factory we're able to do a bunch of renovations that built you know effectively purpose built it the way we wanted now we've got you know this nice office upstairs I've got my books on the wall we've got you know Greg's office
is next door for sports physio we've got Claire our nutritionist upstairs we've got a myotherapy space down downstairs we've got a movement prep area and and a recovery space out the back you know all which are just brilliant little add-ons to you know a gym space that I think is you know one of the one of the best facilities facilities around we're not a you know equipment machine after machine kind of gym where we're a space and movement and high quality high quality stuff gym and I think that's the that's the path we're gonna go
down yeah yeah absolutely it's a one-stop shop and like now when I'm taking people on first tours of the gym like they're just blown away at the value that we have to offer like it's a unreal selling point yeah and it's certainly you know to look back you definitely don't need any of those like don't need all the cool shit to to do what we've done like you know we started started this place in a shed and and you know built it into an empty factory with a few kettlebells and dumbbells and stuff but now
we've added the cool shit on top of a culture that you know hunts progress and and quality and excellence and yeah I couldn't be more excited for for the next chapter the rebirth I'm calling it the rebirth now let's get let's go with that the rebirth and ends and to you know finally start to look forward after a couple years looking back so mate welcome to the podcast you know it's nice to it's nice to have someone first of all someone that is super keen to grow and learn and expand expand these capacities it's it's
been a bit a bit refreshing for me and for us to have you come on board and just want to be better want to you know want to push content want to want to you know connect with new people want to connect with our members so yeah and I and the people out there before you interrupt because we need you in to interrupt to emphasize this point people are sick of hearing my voice I'm sick of hearing my voice I'm sick of hearing your voice lots has changed for me over the last couple years so
it's nice to be able to sit here you know be riding this this podcast train with you and to to look forward and to partly not have to do all the episodes but but also to be able to you know lean back a little bit and watch watch it grow external to me having to to talk rubbish all the time thank you very much for the kind words yeah that's that's sort of one of my values growth I think if you're not getting better or not trying to get better like what the fuck you doing
honestly like there's going to be days where you're not going to get better but you zoom out and the overall trends going upwards then generally you're doing good things yeah would you say you'd use certain parts of your brain for that here we go the medulla oblongata there's a finite amount of time so I'm gonna be able to do this what's the medulla oblongata it's the thing that makes the alligators angry you're absolutely welcome it's good for me good for me um so yeah this I believe yeah growth comes from being outside of your comfort
zone doing this podcast is pretty well outside my comfort zone I've never talked it's a skill to talk for a prolonged prolonged period of time yeah it is it takes some practice so bear with us and bear with us on the production front bear with us on the production front because you know for a long time I went you know intentionally low tech with the podcast I literally had a USB mic that sat between me and someone else and I was just all about the conversation so now we we want to get the videos out
we want to we want to be able to share the content in different ways to different different audiences and to do that there's going to be a few teething issues so you know if you hate the hate the single camera you know just deal with it we're going to get double camera and get that rolling very very soon if you're listening to it audio we apologise if there's any visual visual things we bring up but you can always you know jump on Spotify YouTube and watch it when we when we get them up there but
I guess one of the things we wanted to talk about today was kind of what's changed in terms of how Virtus runs what we've added what we do differently the different programs that we've run because you know we're the last time we did the podcast properly with regular interviews and regular episodes I think was 2018 2019 there were a few episodes 2020 Coop and I did like a podcast did a lockdown lockdown series of things that we thought were important but ultimately it's been four years which you know it's not a small period of time
I'm a dad now I'm 30 the world is a different place to what it was four years ago and Virtus is a very different place so I'm a different man I do not want to know what you were doing four years ago you don't want to know 2018 2022 Tyler is you know much much more progressive the growth is there yeah that value's been being lent on the last few years we're just getting started so to give everyone an insight you know whoever is listening I assume you've all been at Virtus or you're connected with
Virtus in one way shape or another but to give you an insight into what's changed at Virtus late 2020 oh sorry early 29 scratch that late 2019 early 2020 we introduced the the VGT VAD model so VGT is our group training it's a big part of what we do in terms of community and in terms of bringing high quality strength and conditioning to to the general population to everyone and Virtus athletic development is strength conditioning for the athlete or the individual who wants or needs a program specifically designed for their goals so so we split
you know we it was a bit of the wild west up until that point in terms of our coaching we had a thousand different programs running and 400 different membership options we simplified it to the two which I think is has been brilliant to give people two clear pathways in terms of what they're doing at Virtus obviously COVID hit and that impacted our ability to get that rolling and get that running but you know did a bunch of home programs and online stuff during that but when we reopened we rent we lent into to those
two programs and we've seen them grow over the last couple of years towards the end of 2021 apologize I apologize for the my incapacity to tell you timelines over the last couple of years it's a blur it's just a big whole lot of mush so when we reopened at the end of last year which is 2021 our focus was bringing consistency back to everyone's training and bringing accessible access accessibility back to the gym so we changed our VGT time slots from three or three day to ten a day we opened up the some shifts a
little bit more and we basically went how can we make this a space where people one want to be and people can spend more time and the renovations are a big part of that the way the gym set up is a big part of that you know having things like food and drinks and you know the recovery gear and and you know the different spaces like I'm really super excited to do different things up here like you know book club and and all of those little things that help us foster foster our values of education
and performance and community and and now we've been able to integrate our coaching back into our sports physio and nutrition and myotherapy as well which allows us to you know effectively be like a one-stop shop for athletes for for anyone who's who's training and wants a space where they can come and express themselves come and feel comfortable and come and get you know the best quality service yeah that I believe is available yeah it's been awesome to have an athlete come to me with a query or something wrong that's sort of beyond my capacities and
I can just forward them on declare forward them up to phys send them to see um re like whatever yeah it's it's phenomenal and and now our um you know our team's you know expanded and contracted a few times over the years but we're at this point now where I think we're pretty pretty set on you know how many coaches we need four or five is probably about a number so so jazz is relatively fresh you guys will meet her we'll get her on the podcast um she'll love that we'll have to uh tie to
the chair I reckon but she'll she's brilliant she's a you know incredibly intelligent and and just lovely to be around she gave me covid when when I first met her um and I still kept her around so you know that that says a little bit I think um Mitch you know he's part of the furniture now but he's still doing a brilliant job um obviously we spoke about Tyler um I'm coaching a little bit um mum when she's not babysitting my kids she's um she's still around so you know all of those guys that come
into the gym because she's so wonderful keep coming because she'll be here um and Greg Greg's part of the furniture um you know doing his physio and making people better and and doing some assaults and all the good stuff which we love we'll get him on soon so yeah I guess the you know like like Tyler said before the plan for the podcast is to to just add value is to have conversations with people who are you know going through or gone through things that we all go through um it's to give you guys little
tidbits of information that will help you live a life that is aligned with the person you want to be and the values that you have um and we want to you know we'll jump on a few times and just do kind of like the let's just shoot the shit talk about whatever yeah talk about whatever whatever we feel is always important um you know middle of winter now um yeah things are cold it's everyone kind of feels that desire to hibernate um seasonal affective disorder yeah exactly good for you um that's a middle of one
got a button I reckon um and and I guess the you know we want to help identify the problems that most people are dealing with um and and work on solutions to to to improve that like you know what everyone's been through the last couple of years is certainly different um and it's been a been a massive challenge in many different ways and you know we're kind of past all of the all of the the hard stuff but I feel as though collectively everyone's still struggling a fair bit because we've just had you know stress
stressor after stressor after stressor after stressor for so long everyone's playing catch up yeah everyone's playing catch up and I think everyone's mentally fried a little bit so so we'll come to you with tips and and and ideas and things that you can do to start to identify what those stresses are and then you know what are the things you know five or six things you can do every day every day to start to mitigate some of those things and rather than going oh fuck I need a holiday and just you know spending one of
your 52 weeks of the year you know lying on a beach getting pissed we want to find the the little things you can do day to day like you know that in a nutshell is what Virtus is built on the little things you guys can do day to day to improve your health improve your performance um and improve your capacities that's what we're here for so yeah that'll be a big part of the podcast going forward is how we can help you guys grow um like Tyler Tyler wants us all to and how we can
do it in a way that we do it together and we do it connected um and we can just keep doing good things with good people because ultimately that's why we're here good from you fuck thanks man I love talking so so nice to talk and not have Lucy ask why a thousand times why I said it or let's get Lucy on we will get Lucy actually that would be pretty funny we'll get Lucy on we'll we'll chuck a headphones headset on her and see what she thinks but um yeah and and uh yeah I
look forward to to sharing some of our challenges that we're going through at the gym and we're going through at home and things like that because I think there's nothing more impactful um from a from a problem overcoming perspectives and then seeing what other people are doing and seeing how they're dealing with stuff so yeah that's us I reckon for for the quick little recap um we'll see you next week yeah we'll see you next week for episode one we're super excited um any more for any more nah I'm pumped beautiful get into it outro
music what do you think do it good song sunshine
