The Making of a Multi‑Trillion‑Dollar Wellness Industry

0:00Well, if you're looking for an industry that is growing at a very rapid clip, one industry in particular is the global health and wellness industry, with some estimates putting it at around $7 trillion. That's what we're going to discuss on today's lifetime planning edition of the Financial Sense News Hour with our host, Jim Poplava. So Jim, we attended the Consumer Electronic Show earlier this year, and we also just got back from the health and fitness convention in San Diego, been a lot of developments that are happening here. What are you seeing in terms of the major evolution for overall health and wellness? Well, there's a number of things that are taking place, and I was thinking back, Chris, when I was in sports, in high school and college, you know, it was basically dumbbells. You had dumbbells, and you had barbells, and then you had a company come along called Nautilus. They took the individual exercises that you were doing with free weights, and they turned them into machines.

1:00And then, of course, we saw companies like Peloton come out with a LED screen, with courses, and coaching, and things like that. Now what we're starting to see is AI is moving into the health space. So we're seeing it from sleep tracking, health monitoring, to actually analyzing your workouts, and measuring how well you're doing, and adjusting them based on how you are actually feeling that day. So we're seeing a number of machines, and even when we were at the health conference here, this last week, we were seeing that some of the equipment makers are now starting to put LED screens onto their pieces of equipment, so you can track your workout, you can track your sets, and many of them and some of the better machines will actually keep that data, so that the next time you do a workout, you can compare how well you're doing, how well you're progressing. And why don't you talk about, there was one company called Kaiser that has weight

2:03individual weight machines, not with weights, but with some kind of compression that they use. Why don't you talk about it? Because you were the one that actually worked out. Yeah, that was the most impressive to me, because I mean, as you and I were noticing, if you looked around at all of the different weight machines that were being offered, they all pretty much had the exact same thing that we're all used to, that we see in the gyms, which is free weights, with weight stacking on top of them, and they all pretty much look the same, they all had the same technology, there's not been any major developments there. But what Kaiser did, which to me seemed like this is clearly the future of where gyms are headed, was using pneumatics. So there's no weights at all that you had to use, you didn't have to take your weights off, you didn't have to stack them back on, you didn't have to have a a place that you could organize or put your weights when you're not using them. It was just using a pneumatic

3:04air compressed device. And the cool thing about it that I really like is the fact that you could just hit a button as you're working out on each bar, depending on which machine you're using, you hit a button for plus or minus to go up in weight or down in weight, and then add a digital display right there. And it would give you real time feedback about the pressure that you were exerting, and you could use pedals for adjusting the weight or you could use your thumbs. So extremely, extremely, I would say state of the art, and again, no weights required, which makes it just a lot easier to go up and down while you're doing your exercise. So that for me was pretty phenomenal. Yeah, I would say one of the bigger things that we're starting to see come in the healthcare space is what we call the rise of digital twins and predictive health. So it's not just tracking you, it's really predicting your health. So it's analyzing you,

4:04you have things that, you know, we have the wearables like aura or the whoop or the human band. So these devices were starting to say they just don't count steps anymore. They're looking at your HRV, which is your variable heart rate, to respiratory patterns, and rewriting your workout real time. And then you, depending on your score or how you're tracking, then you have what is called an AI coach, which automatically pivots your session and your workout, depending on your biometrics that are being fed into these machines. So it's not just tracking you, it's measuring you, and then performing analytics in adjusting your workout, which is just absolutely amazing. So really we're seeing this major evolution. And again, it's a multi trillion dollar industry that's growing rapidly because mostly the baby boomer generation driving a lot of this demand for these new types of products, which are not just about getting big muscles. Of course,

5:05it's about being healthy, making sure that you have good balance, making sure that you're eating correctly and tracking all those metrics. So there's a lot happening here. And you try to machine to Jim, I thought that this was pretty interesting because this is really good for people that might be in there. Let's say 60s, 70s, getting up into those. And that's with, you know, giving you some really specific pointers on balance and what you need to work on. Yeah, it actually measures your risk for falling. There's a series of tests. One with your eyes open, one with your eyes closed. I did above average with my eyes open and became average, with my eyes closed. But it can really assess your risk of falling. And as we know, as we get older, one of the big risks that people have fallen, breaking a hip, and it just kind of downhill with the health. But I would say one of the other things that we're moving into, Chris, it's not just gyms that are going in this direction, but we're actually seeing medical grade biohacking at home.

6:11For example, hyperbaric chambers, soft hyperbaric chambers are now entering the home front. A lot of people are buying soft chambers, hard chambers for their home. We've talked on this program with the superhuman protocol with DaVinci, which uses an EWAP machine, which is an oxygen tent, where you were a mask when you're doing your cardio to clinical grade ECG and non-evasive glucose monitoring. So it's not just that you're going to see these gyms and wellness centers. Chris, it is invading the home space. And several companies are taking their devices, whether it's blood pressure, scale, analyzing your body metabolic rate. And they're weaving it into an overall ecosystem, kind of like what Apple did with all of its products. So withings has a blood pressure monitor. They have a watch. They have scales. And then they're coming out with the new scale that is going to be one of the top of the line for measuring heart health. And all of that is going to be

7:14fed into one center. So you can take all these devices that are measuring different aspects of your health and take a look. And it's painting a picture, a longevity and overall wellness for you going forward. So it's not, as you mentioned, it's not just about pumping iron and building muscles. It's about working out right, working out smart and working in a way that manages your wellness. They even have devices that you can use on your phone. And what you can do is like when you're at the grocery store and you're looking at a product to put in your grocery basket, you can scan it into your phone. It'll analyze its nutrition, its carbs, its protein, and tell you whether this is a good fit for what you're trying to achieve metabolically or, for example, weight. Yeah, and I think that's the important point here too, is that these are devices and things that people can use at their house. It's no longer just limited to a clinic or a hospital so that you can get this type of really critical information, whether or not it is the in-body balance test,

8:18like you took, or if it is certain types of monitoring devices for glucose for your heart, these are all things that you can do all the time at home now. You don't have to just go to a doctor. And of course, you're going to be utilizing and incorporating all of this with your doctor, but that's a nice thing. It's very much preventative. It's ongoing. It's real time. Yeah, one of the things I thought was rather interesting at this health conference. We saw hyperbaric chambers. We saw one of the most powerful infrared sonas I've ever seen. And what I would really surprise me, we all know that one of the things you're starting to see in health clubs is cold plunges with infrared sonas. And Chris, why don't you tell about it because you're the one that did it. They actually have a cold plunge chair that you sit in and it's equivalent to a cold plunge. Yeah, so that's called, I think it was polar dry. So it's a dry cold plunge chair. And yeah, so you basically you sit into this chair, you lay back in it and then it surrounds you

9:22with these bags of water is essentially what they are. And they fill up slowly and encompass you. It's kind of like almost you're sitting in jello and they wrap around your entire body, except for your face. And it's very, very cold water, extremely, extremely cold water. So it induces the shivering and all of the benefits that come from a cold plunge. But of course, without you having to get wet, to have to undress, to dry off. So it's making that type of technology, that health benefit, easily accessible. And it was very cold. I will say I could not, since I don't do cold plunges on a regular basis, I've only done it a couple times. I couldn't sit in the chair for more than probably three minutes. I'm sure other people that do cold plunges could be in there for much, much longer, but it was very cold. Yeah, I think he said that the chair actually went down to 28 degrees. So no wonder you were only in there three minutes. You know, the other thing that we're also starting to see is

10:28as we shift from just weights, you know, as I mentioned, we start out, barbells, dumbbells, we shifted to individual machines. Now they're having LED screens, you know, Peloton started this with coaching. We're seeing it in Pilates. We'll be talking about the RX Reformer, with our friend Yvette McGavin, who's company was bought out by Nordic Track. And she was there with the new Pilates. I'm anxious to get her on the program and describe on this. If you are into Pilates, you are going to want to take a look at this machine and it's built strictly for the home. Probably this is kind of, it's going to become like the Rolls Royce of Pilates, because Pilates, you know, I've been in and out of Pilates for probably three decades. And if you look at all the Pilates Reformers, they're pretty much the same. They all look the same, work the same. Well, not Nordic Track's new one that Yvette has been putting into place for them. And we hope to have her on the show as well. But the other thing I think that all of this is doing

11:31is it's really moving from just muscles to health and longevity. And we're starting to see in the fitness space, a lot of the newer health clubs I know here in town, silver or employees go to a particular gem. They have an infrared sauna, they have a cold plunge, and there's a club. I think it's an orange county that has hyperbaric chambers, which, you know, you're going to have to have people that are medically qualified to monitor people like that. But even these kind of things, you're going to start to see move in the wellness center. But I think more importantly, we're starting to go from iron to what I call digital weights. Tonal was the first, I remember having the founder of Tonal on the program. And I have a tonal, I use it for yoga mainly. You have the amp, which is a single arm. And so you're seeing digital weights, you're seeing ARX, which I'm really

12:32excited about. It uses a electronic motor. And they're claimed to fame. They have six exercises that you do on this machine. And it's not just the weight that like when you're pushing forward in a chest press, the weight pulling back is equally is great, if not greater. And there's only six exercises. Chris, and you you do it nine minutes once a week. And you'll have a better workout. And you will develop bone growth and muscles much faster than just regular weights. So we're seeing this transition from iron to digital, which is all part of this technology in AI. Yeah, it's becoming more adaptive so that your muscles are getting the max benefit for all the work that you're putting in. And then again, providing that real time feedback to you about where you were applying the greatest amount of pressure along the cycle from the lift to the lowering or the concentric to the eccentric. And where you may be weaker in one limb or another

13:36limb. And then scientifically trying to provide you the data and the places where you need to work on. And this isn't just good for weightlifters. Of course, you know, if you are a weightlifter and you're trying to build muscle, this is going to provide you extremely valuable feedback and help you to build muscle, of course. But it's really important to four people that are on the older spectrum. And that's again, where we're seeing this evolution within the health and wellness industry on providing this type of data and the exercises that are necessary, not just for building muscle and looking good, but for your overall health and wellness when it comes to very practical use cases. And a lot of the equipment like Woodweigh, which is really the Rolls-Royce of treadmills, are now moving AI into their new machines and syncing with a lot of the tracking devices we have, whether it's an aura ring, it's an apple watch, a whoop band, or a hum band. So they're weaving that into their machines because they're aware out there.

14:41It's not just the polar heart band anymore. It's all kinds of devices that we use to monitor what we're doing when we're working out. Jim, one of the biggest themes that we've been discussing on our health segment of lifetime planning over the past few years or more has been the increasing accessibility of these technologies in such a way that complement what you're doing with your personal doctor in providing really important data. But most importantly, doing so in a way that's preventative, where you're not finding out after the fact, once a certain symptom or development occurs, going to your doctor to get a diagnosis, but you're doing ongoing tests, getting that data on a weekly basis or a daily basis so that you aren't getting hit by surprise all of a sudden by something. Tell us a little bit about what you have found to be the most effective and that you think is the most exciting for our listeners that they'll

15:45be able to eventually have in their own home along the lines of preventative medicine. Yeah, I would say probably the most exciting thing is the anura magic mirror. Now this was announced in CES 2025 and I remember reading about it and I thought, oh my god, I have to get something like this, but it was more for doctor clinics, wellness, you know, more for the medical establishment, it was 10, I think it was like $10,000 or something like that in a couple thousand a month. Well, they have come out with that same mirror and it's going to be released in the second quarter here. It's going to be $895 and that will include one year's membership of $200 in that price and this is a device every single family is going to want to have in their home. Let me just give you an idea what this thing tracks. Pulse rate, heart rate, breathing rate, body temperature, blood pressure, vascular capacity, type 2 diabetes, stroke risk, hypertension, cholesterol risk,

16:49triglyceride risk, fatty liver disease, heart rate variability, cardiac workload, mental stress, elevated H1C risk, blood glucose risk, body mass, facial skin. Not only that, it assesses cardiovascular disease risk for a 10-year period, heart attack risk for a 10-year period, and stroke risk for a 10-year period. And then an overall wellness score to measure your physiological health based on your combined calculation of all those essential vitals. And the neat thing about it is you'll be able to send it to your doctor and then you can also monitor your progress. So this is going to be released in the second quarter. I mean, it won incredible awards in CES 2025 and again in CES 2026. And finally, I think they woke up to the fact and say, well, how many of these can we sell at that price if we're just selling to doctors? But how many could we sell if we sell it to the home? And this is going to be a must device just like blood pressure or a thermometer

17:55in your home to, let's say, monitor your wellness. And in body has got this incredible blood pressure monitoring testing system as probably the most accurate device in the world. And that's integrated with the new device, which they're going to come out, which will measure your risk for balance and the risk of falling. And then it tells you, basically, it coaches you with AI. These are the things you need to do to improve whatever your readings are. Whittings is doing the same thing. They're coming out with a scale body scale. I think it's body scale number two for measuring the health of your heart. And that should be out in the second quarter as well. The other thing that they're moving on, as we know, with medicine 3.0, one of the most important things is exercise number one, diet number two, sleep number three, as well as these alternative therapies and the sleep devices that they're coming out. There's sleep hell, which is a lamp that kind of uses kind

18:56of a radar thing. It will track you all night long. Then there's a couple other things that one, I'm trying to think of the name of the company, you attach it to your neck to your vagus nerve. And then there's another device. It's almost like a headband with headphones. And it will monitor your particular sleep pattern at night. You individually, because I know like new comm is out there, but they're pretty much their program is the same for everybody. But this other device will measure you specifically. So let's say you get up in the middle of the night and you have a hard time getting back to sleep. You just press a button and it walks you right back into sleep. So we're working on the things that help people live longer. As we mentioned, we're talking about exercise number one, number two, diet and number three, you're sleep. And then the devices that can enhance that, whether it's cold plunge, whether it's infrared sauna, I could say Chris out of all the biohacking

19:57devices that I'm doing, I would say probably the two biggest things that I've seen, well actually probably three is a hyperbaric chamber, infrared sauna, and then probably red light. And those things are just working amazingly. There's a company called Lightstem. And we saw them. I have a Lightstem bed myself. And they had these two devices. They're kind of like handheld light devices. And the what you do is you use them for like, let's say you got an ache in your back, a friend of mine, wife has bad knees because of injury. And I had her use them and she is just raving about these devices. So rather than standing in front of a panel or something like that, you hold the devices and you just put them where you need them, where you have pain. She even used it on her back because she pulled it working out and it got rid of it. So a lot of these things, I would say red

20:58light, oxygen, and sauna are probably at the top of the list of wellness devices that you can add to the other three metrics that we talked about, sleep, diet, and exercise. So if any of you are interested in looking at some of these new developments that we're seeing in the health and wellness industry, again, it's a multi trillion dollar industry. It's growing very fast because of some of the things that we highlighted today. But if you'd like to look at some of the developments, some of the companies that we discussed, their various products, we will have a list of links where this interview is located at financialsense.com. If any of you listening have a product or advice that you would like to make us aware of that you are using or perhaps a company that you have created, a product that you are selling, please let us know. We're always on the lookout for new products, new devices, new trends, feel free to email me directly at CRIS. That's Chris with no H at financialsense.com or you can also hit where it says contact us on financialsense.com.

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