S1E01 · Intro to Virtus

Hey guys, welcome to the very first installment of the Virtus Performance Podcast. My name's Lockie and I want to spend a little bit of time talking to you guys about why I want to do a podcast, what the goals of the podcast are and I guess basically just to give you a little bit of insight as to what Virtus is and how we got started. I guess introduce you to the team and to the people that make up Team Virtus. Virtus Performance I guess officially opened in October of 2015 but the idea for it, I guess the passion behind it started a lot earlier than that.

A little bit of background into me and how I got into the industry, you know I finished high school in 2009 and didn't really want to go to uni straight away so I decided to do my Cert 3, 4 and Diploma of Fitness to get myself qualified and into the industry as a lot of people do. Finished that end of 2010 and then jumped straight into a job at Jets Fitness Lang Warren as a PT doing my coaching out of there and yeah that's kind of how it got started. I started my exercise science degree at Australian Catholic University in 2011 which took me through to 2013.

Whilst I was studying at ACU I decided that Jets wasn't where I wanted to be doing my coaching. I had always wanted to be my own boss and had always wanted to work for myself and I guess run my own business and I had a little bit of room at home to set up a bit of a gym and I kind of started coaching from there straight away. That was where I did the bulk of my coaching while I was at uni and then 2014 I decided to enrol in a Masters of Clinical Exercise Physiology at ACU and then to be brutally honest I didn't enjoy it very much.

It was probably not really I guess the stream within the industry that I wanted to be going in. My passion I guess lied in running a business and teaching people how to be happier, healthier, bigger, stronger and faster so you know after the first 12 months of that degree I decided that maybe it wasn't for me and I pulled the pin which although a very expensive lesson was probably the turning point and kind of got me onto the path that eventually started Virtus. Virtus itself was probably born from I guess all of the experiences and

all of the coaching that I'd done up until that point but it really kind of kick started back in 2014 when Jesse Bias and I caught up over a game of golf and spent you know four or five hours nutting out what we wanted to do I guess for the rest of our lives and Jesse is no longer with us as a director at Virtus Performance but played a massive, massive role in getting us to the point of actually starting the gym and creating the space and I guess you know the Virtus family and team

Virtus will always be indebted to Jesse for the time and effort he put in at the start and yeah we definitely wouldn't be where we are without him so if you're listening Bicep thank you very much. The initial plan for Virtus was I guess to create a gym but not in the conventional sense of the word we wanted to create a community first and foremost a facility where people could come no matter what they've got going on day to day people come and be comfortable and happy but also work really really hard to get themselves

where they want to get to I guess we've got a very diverse range of Virtus family humans that come in here and I guess utilise our gym for one of the many services we offer but we wanted to create a place where that diverse range could come in and be comfortable and be happy and really work towards their goals. For those of you who don't know our facility is in Mornington Victoria and I guess we created this facility as a holistic place of performance and health and wellbeing and I think that's pretty well reflected with

the team we've got our current team we've got myself I'm the head coach and director of Virtus we have five legendary performance coaches we've got Katie Dean who is studying her Masters of Clinical Exercise Physiology she is guaranteed to finish that degree unlike myself we have Cam who has I guess followed a little bit of a different path in terms of education he's done his cert 3 and 4 and for the last I guess 5 or 6 years has been very self taught in what he does has a bit of a degree in YouTube coaching

and learning which has put Cam in a really good spot to help a range of different people with his I guess knowledge and expertise he started his bachelor degree last year which he's slowly ticking along we've got Mitch Rowe who's one of our younger coaches he's almost finished his bachelor of exercise sports science degree at Deakin. Mitchie comes from an athletics background where he has learnt the invaluable skill I guess of being able to deal with large groups and deal with a number of different people at the same time. We also have our newest coach

Maddie who is fresh off finishing her bachelor of exercise sports science degree and I guess she's very fresh as a coach but I'm really looking forward to seeing her development over the next you know 6-12 months and onwards and I have no doubt she'll be an exceptional performance coach as she continues to improve and learn and we use the term holistic at Virtus and I guess as performance coaches our scope is fairly narrow we get people in here and I guess our goal is to make them better whether it's to make them stronger and fitter

or work them towards a specific event or to improve them for their sport or purely just to make them happier and healthier and more functional so that they can I guess do everything they need to do at work or playing with kids or whatever it may be day to day I guess we use the term holistic a lot but that really comes from us identifying the areas in which we're not good at performance coaches and getting in professionals who are really good in those areas and at the moment we have a sports physio named Greg

Day who has been here for almost on 12 months now and Greg I guess is the most experienced of all of us by a long way he has I guess coached and treated all over the world and I'll delve a little bit further into what he's done and where he's been on this podcast at some point hopefully he'll be on sooner rather than later we also have Ash Law who is our myotherapist but currently studying her Masters of Physiotherapy so she'll have a lot to bring to the table once she's finished being excellent at manual

therapy but also really knowledgeable when it comes to strength training as well so I'm really excited to see where Ash takes her career as a physio we also have Maddie Borg who is our dietitian here at Virtus I hired Maddie because our I guess scope of practice as performance coaches is not to give a lot of advice when it comes to food and nutrition and we needed someone who could understand the needs of the Virtus family and the needs of our athletes and humans as a whole to I guess help them find balance with their

diet and with what they're putting in their body and you know Maddie certainly fits that bill last but certainly not least is our Pilates instructor Brooke Johnson who comes from a dancing background she actually used to run her own studio and has been kicking goals with Pilates and looking after her legendary family for the last couple of years so we're very excited to have Brooke running her Mac groups and one-on-one Pilates sessions and that basically rounds out team Virtus and I guess I'll try and get everyone on this podcast at some point to talk about

their journey from how they got into the industry to where they are now and I guess a little bit about their philosophies and why they do what they do because you know for me especially it's very important to understand everyone's why because I guess that really helps you learn what makes people tick and what you know causes them to do what they do and to me that's really really important when I guess you're getting to know somebody so yeah I'm really looking forward to getting everyone on now there's a lot of different reasons why Virtus

started but I guess reason number one is purely because we wanted to help make people better I guess we got a range as I've said we've got a range of different different goals and objectives and things like that but if we could create an environment where people could come in and we have a little bit of a melting pot of personalities and groups and ideas and we can all I guess strive to help each other improve the meaning of Virtus is actually excellence so it's a it's a Latin Latin word that we've that really I

guess struck a chord straight away and I guess when we were looking at what to name the gym excellence is something that we want everyone who comes in to epitomize and I guess to strive for we've got a few little quotes and words on the walls which really help to remind us and nail down I guess why we do what we do first quote is we are what we repeatedly do excellence then is not an act but a habit that was from Aristotle and the second quote is the standards you walk past are the standards

you accept by David Hurley and I guess they're two quotes that we try and live by and try to epitomize every time we're in the gym because I guess being excellent isn't about being perfect it's about slowly improving all of the little things that you do every day so you know I'm big on the one percenters and the small things and then if we can improve a couple of little things every day just by one percent then you know over a long period of time we're going to be infinitely better for it so yeah that's

a little bit about the gym and the team and why we do what we do I'm sure we'll go into much much greater detail as we go and as we start to nail down some episodes but I'm really looking forward to discussing this with the Virtus family and with all of the different people and professionals that hopefully will be able to get on and really delve deep into why people do what they do and I guess what makes people tick and how we can improve ourselves each other society the fitness industry which I guess is

a big part of why we do what we do we want to see vast improvements in the standards of coaching and and personal training and performance coaching and everything that that goes with being a coach I guess you know the hour or two or three that people spend here a week we want it to be the best hour of their week and we want it to be the highlight so that they really look forward to it and that all of the other things they do in their in their time away from the gym is efficient

and is working towards their goals I think that'll do it for our first episode thank you for spending the last 10 minutes of your life listening to me talk rubbish I'm really excited to have a range of different people on with a range of different viewpoints and experiences and hopefully you guys get a lot out of it so you know feel free to leave some comments or some suggestions as to what you want to hear and who you want to hear from and I'm really excited to get this started thanks for listening be excellent