Matthew Januszek and Mohammed Iqbal sit down with Edward Hertzman, founder of Athletech News, to unpack what emerged from the Athletech Innovation Summit in New York — a gathering that put the fitness industry's most pressing questions about identity, disruption, and billion-dollar bets in the same room.

The conversation moves from the dangers of unregulated biohacking practices to the question of whether the fitness industry even has the right name for what it is trying to be, with Hertzman offering the perspective of someone who spends his days at the intersection of media, events, and industry intelligence.

What This Episode Covers

Edward Hertzman founded Athletech News to fill a gap in the fitness industry's media landscape — a publication built specifically for operators, investors, and executives who needed more than trend pieces and needed less than academic research. The publication has grown into one of the go-to sources for fitness trade intelligence.

His Athletech Innovation Summit in New York has become a gathering point for the industry's most forward-thinking operators and investors, creating the kind of in-person dialogue that generates insights that don't surface in surveys or earnings calls.

Hertzman brings a media founder's perspective to the fitness industry's structural questions — he is close enough to the operators to understand their problems and far enough outside any single company to speak candidly about the forces reshaping the landscape.

Key Moments from the Conversation

• The fitness industry may need to reconsider what it calls itself — the current framing does not fully capture what operators are actually trying to deliver in terms of health outcomes, longevity, and behavioral change.
• Unregulated TRT use and peptide clinics represent a genuine risk to consumers and to the industry's credibility, and Hertzman is direct about the dangers of a market that has moved faster than the regulatory framework around it.
• Tracking actual health outcomes rather than gym check-ins is the measurement shift the industry needs to make if it wants to be taken seriously as a front-line healthcare intervention.
• Wearables are reshaping accountability and personalization in ways that give operators new tools for member engagement — but only if operators are willing to build systems that use the data meaningfully.
• HVLP models like EOS and Crunch are growing strongly, suggesting that value and scale continue to be powerful competitive positions even as the boutique sector draws attention.
• The fitness industry's tendency to work in silos rather than collaborate is one of its most persistent structural weaknesses, and Hertzman sees the Innovation Summit as a deliberate attempt to break that pattern.
• Disruption in fitness is most likely to come from outside the industry — from adjacent categories in hospitality, tech, and healthcare — making cross-sector awareness an increasingly important skill for fitness operators.
• Fashion and discipline in health branding carry more persuasive power than many operators realize, and Hertzman connects this to the broader conversation about how the industry presents itself culturally.

Why This Conversation Matters

The LIFTS Podcast exists because Matthew Januszek and Mo Iqbal believe the fitness industry thinks more clearly when it is challenged to examine its own assumptions. Edward Hertzman's work at Athletech News is motivated by a similar belief — that the industry benefits from better journalism, sharper events, and more honest conversation about where the money is going and why.

For Escape Fitness USA, the questions Hertzman raises about health outcomes, identity, and disruption are directly relevant to how equipment brands position themselves in a market that is being redefined by technology and consumer behavior simultaneously.

▶  Watch the full episode on YouTube

Related Episodes & Interviews

• Brian von Ancken →
• Emma Barry →
• The Performance Medicine Era →