Matthew Januszek, co-founder of Escape Fitness and partner in Escape Fitness USA, and Mo Iqbal, founder and CEO of SweatWorks, brought Brandon Cullen — former pro athlete, serial entrepreneur, and Chief Concept Officer at MADabolic — onto the LIFTS Podcast to examine how entertainment, pharmaceuticals, and technology are reshaping who walks through the gym door.
The conversation ranges from a musician's new fitness soundtrack designed to engage casual exercisers, to the ripple effects of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs on gym membership and protein product development, to a multi-million-dollar investment in a preventative healthcare platform built to deliver bespoke health services at scale.
What This Episode Covers
Brandon Cullen's career spans professional athletics and fitness entrepreneurship, giving him a grounded perspective on both elite performance and the consumer behaviors that drive mass-market gym engagement.
As Chief Concept Officer at MADabolic, Cullen works at the intersection of structured training methodology and franchise growth, applying his experience as a former pro athlete to build a concept that serves a broad population of exercisers who want intensity with intelligent programming.
His entrepreneurial background and industry network position him to offer perspective on how external forces — from celebrity-driven fitness campaigns to pharmaceutical breakthroughs — intersect with the practical realities of running and growing fitness businesses.
Key Moments from the Conversation
- A new fitness soundtrack from a well-known DJ was developed specifically to engage the segment of the population beyond the roughly 15 percent who already exercise regularly, illustrating how entertainment crossovers can lower the activation barrier for new gym-goers.
- GLP-1 medications are not just influencing individual weight-loss journeys — they are actively reshaping the product landscape, with protein brands launching GLP-1-complementary products to capture consumers whose dietary needs are changing alongside their medication use.
- The key question for operators is whether GLP-1 adoption ultimately drives more people into gyms or simply reduces the urgency of gym membership, a nuanced distinction with major implications for long-term sector growth.
- A preventative healthcare platform raised significant funding to deliver bespoke, individualized health services to a wider population — a signal that personalized wellness is attracting serious investment beyond the traditional fitness channel.
- AI-driven connected equipment represents a new category of smart strength tools asking the industry to consider whether intelligence embedded in equipment can meaningfully change training outcomes.
- The concept of creating a ripple effect — where innovations in entertainment, pharma, and tech nudge more people toward sustained fitness engagement — frames the episode's broader thesis about behavioral change at population scale.
- Balancing parenting, fitness, and entrepreneurship is a recurring theme in Brandon Cullen's story, grounding a high-level industry conversation in the human realities that shape consumer behavior.
Why This Conversation Matters
Matthew Januszek's work building global fitness environments means he is constantly tracking the forces that change who shows up to train and what they expect from the facility — making GLP-1 trends and consumer engagement innovations directly relevant to Escape Fitness USA's North American strategy.
The LIFTS Podcast exists precisely to examine these intersecting currents — pharmaceutical, technological, and cultural — and Brandon Cullen's dual background as an athlete and entrepreneur gives this episode an unusually practical vantage point on what the shifts actually mean for people running fitness businesses.
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube
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About Matthew Januszek
Matthew Januszek is the co-founder of Escape Fitness, the functional-training equipment brand he built from a UK startup into a global name supplying many of the world’s leading gyms, studios, and hotel fitness spaces. Following the separation of the UK and US businesses, Matthew’s focus today is Escape Fitness USA and the next chapter of the brand in North America. He hosted more than 300 episodes of the Escape Your Limits podcast and now co-hosts the LIFTS Podcast with SweatWorks founder Mohammed Iqbal, covering the business, science, and technology shaping the fitness industry. Explore more interviews and episodes on MatthewJanuszek.com.
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