Matthew Januszek, co-founder of Escape Fitness and co-host of LIFTS, and Mo Iqbal, Founder and CEO of SweatWorks, wrapped up their live recording run at the Connected Health and Fitness Summit in Los Angeles with a second episode that went considerably deeper than equipment and tech demos — into leadership psychology, women in fitness, and what the mental health crisis means for the CEOs trying to build the industry's future.

This Part 2 episode brings together leaders from connected strength, music-and-health technology, and fitness personalization. The conversations range from the intimidation factor in strength training to the role of music in digital healthcare — making it one of the more wide-ranging LIFTS episodes from the LA summit series.

What This Episode Covers

Tonal is a connected strength training platform whose leadership brought a candid perspective on women in fitness and the cultural shift now underway as more women and older adults embrace strength training as a primary fitness modality.

Feed.fm operates at the intersection of music licensing and digital health — making the case that music is far more than background noise in a workout, and may have a meaningful role to play as software and health systems converge.

FORME is a fitness technology company focused on personalization and the consumer experience — and its leadership explored what it means to pivot as a business and why the fear of changing direction keeps so many fitness companies stuck.

Key Moments from the Conversation

• Mental health among CEOs and founders is at a concerning low, and the fitness industry — which markets wellbeing to others — is not immune to the pressures that drive leadership burnout and poor decision-making.
• Women and older generations pushing into strength training represent one of the most significant demographic shifts in fitness right now, with implications for how studios, equipment brands, and connected platforms design their products and messaging.
• Combating the intimidation factor around strength training — particularly for women — requires deliberate design choices in both physical space and digital experience, not just marketing.
• Music's role in the digital healthcare world is expanding: the idea of software as a prescribed healthcare tool opens new questions about how audio environments affect health outcomes.
• A Women in Fitness forum surfaced at the summit produced meaningful learnings about how women in leadership model healthy, active lifestyles to the next generation.
• Pivoting as a business is a necessary skill in fitness technology, but fear of changing course remains one of the biggest constraints holding operators and founders back from necessary adaptation.
• Personalization of the consumer fitness experience is the expectation, not the differentiator — and the companies winning are those who have operationalized it at scale rather than treating it as a premium add-on.

Why This Conversation Matters

Matthew Januszek has navigated the intersection of hardware, software, and consumer behavior throughout his career building Escape Fitness, and the questions raised in this episode — about leadership mental health, demographic shifts, and the tension between digital and physical fitness — are ones he is living through in building Escape Fitness USA.

LIFTS is at its most valuable when it surfaces the conversations that don't make it into press releases: the honest accounting of what it costs to lead a fitness company, who the industry is actually serving, and where the gaps are. This episode delivers exactly that.

▶  Watch the full episode on YouTube

Related Episodes & Interviews

• Connected Health & Fitness Summit 2024 →
• Connected Health Summit 2024 (Part 1) →
• Troy Taylor →